Lev poured the man another shot and one for himself.
"Core...Some Freeport in the Omegas, or Omicrons... Corsairs....Order.....Hessians.....Outcasts.... It jus keeps goin round an round. I been around a long time, and I wasn't always sittin behind a bar. I seen years pass in the zoner world, an I'll tell ya what, don't nothin change, just a big frackin game of musical chairs. Next thing yu'll tell me they dun like forigners in Kusair."
He pushed the shot over to the other man and drank his own.
"What of da ever continuing advance of da frogs?"
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, a man with a shaved head and scraggly two-foot long beard sits across the table from another man and holds up a Jack of Spades.
"Is this your card?" he asks.
"Nope" replied the other.
"Ah. my mistake then. It must be this card" he said as he drew the Two of Clubs.
"Again. Nope." said the other.
"Hmmm...I must've screwed up the trick somewhere"
The bearded man slid his chair next to the other and started rifling through the deck
"Is this it?"
"Nope"
"This one?'
"No!"
"Then it's absolutely this one, no doubt about it!" the disheveled Gaian said with absolute confidence as he once again exposed the wrong card.
"Again. No!!"
"Well Goddamnit!!" said the the Gaian as he stood and walked back to his side of the table, slamming the cards on the table in complete frustration.
"Just give me one more chance!" he requested to the other, after taking a calming breath.
He reaches into his coat pocket & pulled out its contents.
"Is this your wallet?"
The other man contorts into an expression of angry recognition.
"Go ahead. Check & make sure it's yours." the Gaian said, as he tossed it over to the other man.
"It's empty!" roared the man.
The Gaian flashed a warm smile and a sing-song voice:
"Ta-Daaa!"
It was pretty much at that moment that things went abit south on that side of the room.
Sunny rolled his joint and took a lighter from under his jacket.
"I suppose you are right... <flick>... though I have not followed up a lot on Zoners and their history... <Lights joint while in mouth on the side> ... I guess it's something like air... hot rises and other air's gotta take its place <takes joint out and expells smoke> ."
"Ah the frogs? Well..."
He then looked back at the commotion towards the south side of the room; more out of curiosity.
From across the room, Sunny looked back for a moment, rolled his eyes & took another hit off his joint as he turned back & did his best to mind his own business.
He heard voices being raised. All manner of accusations being thrown about: of thievery, of parentage, dress sense...you name it.
Soon after, there was a sound of glass breaking, of wood breaking, of what sounded like bone...& of wind as well. it was all quite chaotic to the ear overall, but it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility given the context of the moment, so who knows?
The Gaian limped over to the bar, offered an apology to the bartender, paid for the damages and ordered two shots of alcohol. He poured the first one over his bloodied knuckles & sank the other past his bloodied lips. After a couple of moments, he turned to his side & offered his hand to Sunny in introduction: 'Ello my son. Would you like to see a card trick?"
Sunny turned back to watch the apparent now injured Gaian limp over to the bar. He ignored him and tried to focus on the joint he hand and to relax as he could only focus on hearing the grunting and squirming as if of the Gaian. He looked back at him as he had offered his hand to him and he looked down to see it wet and still bloody. He looked at the man and back at the hand with his joint between his lips and leaned with his arm on the table as he turned his stool slightly to face him while sitting.
"Oh you like tricks?..." Sunny says unamusingly and with a hint of attitude likely from him feeling pissed off. He reached halfway to the man's hand and then backtracked to putting his hand under his jacket. When the hand came out it was flipping the bird.
"Ta-daa".
"Fair enough. Sir" replied the Gaian. I admire your economy of expression. "No cards then."
"Allow me the next round, yeah?"
He raises his index & middle finger showing the back of his hand to the man beside him, indicating an economical vulgar expression of his own in return, and asks sincerely: "Two shots of top shelf alright with you?"
Lev watched the exchange with amusement.
"Why dun ya let da house get dose two drinks." Lev said to the Gaian.
"I'd be up for n'other..." Sunny says back and puffs a cloud of smoke while taking the joint from his mouth and between his fingers. He takes his shot of vodka and downs it. He slaps it back on the table with a grunt and wipes his mouth with his arm and then puts the joint back in for a puff again.
Otis Jethro stowed his sidearm and walked into the Bear's Cave. The sounds and smells reminded him of his younger days. Finding a quiet booth in the corner, Otis sat down. He was tired of being aimless, yes, he had money, but money had never been the goal. Even back in the good old days, money had just been a way to keep score. It was the constant challenge that Jethro had loved, and he missed it sorely in his life. The routine was getting boring, check in at Wall Street, make sure all of IND's secrets were remaining secret, and maybe fly a couple of loads inside Kusari or to the Sigmas. Otis thought with a laugh, after everything was gone and IND but a memory, its secrets were still powerful enough to bring down houses. That was the legacy of IND, an intricate web of secrets and deceptions.
The server came over and Jethro ordered a drink and some food. He placed a small golden statuette of a lotus at the edge of the table and waited.
Otis got offered some tuna flavored Synth paste by the server but, of course, that generous present was rejected with a swing of his hand. Today was the 'Scrubbie soup' day. Certainly those Zoners wouldn't use real scrubbies to make that soup... At least that's what Otis hoped. He was considering the bowl with moderate trust, but eventually took the grave decision to risk a spoonful when he noticed someone was now standing right near the booth he occupied.
Now that was quite an oddity he was looking at. The woman facing him looked spectacularly ordinary. Her cheap clothes stained with dirt, her bearing and general attitude, along with that stunned expression screamed to whoever would have been bothered to study that specimen that she wasn't in her place. To Otis at least, she looked like one of those destitute squatting the rough-areas in various notorious stations. But Sedona had no such population for all he knew.
Dropping his spoon, Otis cleared his throat as a prelude to an inquiry, but before he could speak, the woman made it inside the booth, ending sat in front of him.
No. That could just not be the person he was waiting for. He was about to express his displeasure to be bothered by a stranger, and that this booth was actually occupied, when the woman extended her arms and pulled the scrubbies soup towards her.
Such an outrage could not be tolerated and Otis felt the need to vigorously express his displeasure about such a despicable act.
But the woman appeared to be too busy enjoying the soup to care about anything else. Otis sighed and made a movement to leave the booth. He'd just find another one. Cursed destitute...
But the woman took the golden statuette and said, with a phrasing in break with the character :
- "Oddly, I was expecting a real flower, whose reason to die would have been this very meeting. Good evening, Mr. ..?"
Quite surprised, Otis leaned back, taking the time to study this person carefully, this time.