Dimi follows the small brook that flows downhill from the Erinloch cavern, & into Dis.
Accually, the tourist was right... he thinks to himself as the temerature drops further & the walls begin to re-freeze for the night.
He dips his neck & sqares his shoulders against the cold as he gets closer to Colin Tower. As his boots continue to again click on the cobblestones, he looks up to see the building. An impressive creation to say the least. Thanks in equal parts to the finest Dublin rubble, & some not-too-shabby Gaian masonry, the tower at first glance, appears to have grown out of the walls of Islay itself.
He enters Colin tower to the far end of the lobby, & climbs the stairs to the tenth floor.
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Damien enters his office that overlooks the Green Hell from a very large panoramic window on the out-facing wall.
He goes straight to the kitchen area & fills his new mug with a fresh cuppa joe, then plopping heavily behind his desk & propping up his boots.
Dimi takes a moment to relax. So far, it's been another long night & he is really not looking forward to dawn.
He sips his coffee, & allows himself another chuckle...'Mayor of Crazytown huh?'
Steeling his nerves, he shuts his eyes & activates his neural net.
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Dimi McEwan does, has, & always will hate his neural net.
To this Gaian, simply having it is beyond insulting. He's had it for twenty of his thirty-five years, but out of a combination of stubborness, & mild tissue rejection, has never truly learned to use it to it's full capacity.
Twenty years ago, Dimi stole Caulobacter Phage's VHF, & slipped into Leeds for a midnight joyride.
Long story short: he was arrested by the authorities for simply being Gaian. It was argued at the time that the reason for arrest was the hundreds of pounds of synthetic marijuana meant for distribution on the planet...
The day he was convicted to life, the Bretonian supreme court had yet to present anything more than circumstantial evidence.
He was immediately proccessed, & sent kicking & screaming to the nueral install clinic before his transfer to prison.
Two weeks later, sitting in his cage & plotting a way to escape, he hears a sickening 'squish' just outside his cell door.
Phage & two other Gaians rush the freshly killed guard into the cell with him.
Both suprised & 'not at all' at the same time, he flashes a quiet smile as Phage tosses him a gun.
"If these Teabags can throw you in a cage like an adult," he proudly begins to whisper, 'then you can fight your way out of it like one!"
Dimi, filled with given pride, felt invincible. "Wait!" he loudly whispers as the four Gaians begin to exit the cell & prepare to blast Damien out of Jail.
He lunges forward & snatches a large bowie knife sheathed on Caul's hip, & quickly uses it to seperate a hand from the dead guards' wrist.
"We don't have time for this!!" Caul quietly & impatiently barks.
"There's ALWAYS time for a last word!" he quickly barks back, & Phage can do nothing but roll his eyes & wait, as Damien takes the severed hand & arranges the five fingers into one vulgar expression & gently places it on the pillow of his cot.
Exiting the cage & grouping up with the four other Gaians standing watch outside the cell, Caul looks Damien in the eye & says:
"If we live through this, when we get home... your grounded!"
"I'll live with it"
"We'll see..."
At fifteen, with the help of seven other Gaians, Dimi recieved his very first Royal warrant by busting out of prison like a force of Nature.
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'Checkerboard,' Damien sent through his neural net, 'want a job tonight?'
'Sure' came the reply.
'Locate Yersinia Pestis, & bring her to me'
'Yeah, ok, why?'
'You beat me in that race we had a few weeks ago, & I need someone quicker than me to go get her.'
'...Oh!' Dimi continued, 'take about eight guys with ya...she's gonna put up a fight.'
'.........UNDERSTOOD.' came the next reply after a thoughtful pause.
'I've uploaded a waypoint to your navmap...You have untill dawn.'
