*Barry sat motionless as he watched her leave the bar. Being stuck with the bill was better then being stuck with a knife in his chest. The thought made him smile, but his moment of relief was abruptly halted by the sharp look coming from Rick, who by this time was staring down at Barry from the edge of the table.*
"Right, of course, here you go," Barry said, handing Rick the required dues. "This should cover it"
*Barry collected his knife off the table and put it back in his sheath. Invisible again, but obvious now to a select few who had been staring over at his table since the moment he first brought it out. One of the men, an older corsair pilot still in his flight suit was giving Barry a death stare of sorts.*
I wonder who spat in his breakfast, thought Barry as he looked back down at the empty table in front of him.
"And so it begins," whispered Barry to the empty chair opposite him.
A seemingly young girl appeared on the entry of the cafe.
It looked like she was ensure of what direction she should take.
She passed cross the entry... Came back walking to the other direction...
Several minutes passed and she came back, eventually stopping to glance at the sign on top of the entry.
"Reeek... Cafe... Amerikain..." The girl tilted her head. "What does that mean... Rmm.."
Shrugging, she pushed the door to enter."Must be there though!"
She was wearing an aged zoner flysuit, that made the folks having some drinks there observe her with curiosity.
She didn't seem to mind, however. Smiling, she glanced back to them, sometimes waving at them.
Finally reaching the counter, she sat and started to search in her pockets...
After an exhaustive search, she was able to find a few credit chips and patiently began to count how many flax she had.
Raising her head and smiling mischievously, she asked to the bartender : "Can i have a vodka with... Rmm... Twenty Three credits..?"
Cesar Milan was a wiry man of Hispanic disposition, an orphan from the dark reaches of the borderworlds.
He never knew no parents, never felt no closer relation than a brother he never met and never loved a woman like a true Hispanic el macho. He landed his ship and disembarked, stretching from being cramped up in the cockpit of the Speedy Gonzalez, a Gladiator given to him by a mentor a few years prior, that brought him an edge in bounty hunting with-in the regions of the Omegas.
He asks a dock worker the location of the bar, and after simple instructions he heads toward it. He edges his way into a stale but welcoming environment, with an array of liquor he hadn't seen since a brief stay at a not so friendly Freeport. "Shot of your finest vodka, please. If you have the Coalition crap, I'll take two of those..." he requested of the bar tender as he approached the counter. Milan throws several chips down in front of him and notices the bar tender paying him no mind, instead listening to a young woman bargain for a drink. "Miss, allow me" he eagerly interrupted, "Two of what the lady ordered please, sir" he ordered, then turning to the young lady "The name is Milan, Cesar Milan. I'm new about these parts. And your name is?"
*Bernardo sat at the far end of the bar. Again. Every time he went to Rick's Cafe, he sat at the exact same barstool. Unofficially he owned it, and the other Corsair pilots knew it. Bernardo was no elder, nor was he some ace pilot or warrior. He was simply Bernardo Rivera, artifact collecter and smuggler by trade, who found his way pirating in the omegas. Yet the other pilots had respect for him, if for no other reason then him being the oldest pilot at the bar. 61 years of life in the outer rim had taken its toll on the mans face and body, whilst looking into his eyes could tell you the rest of the story.*
*Any other time, Bernardo was there trying very hard to die from alcohol poisioning, but this time he was on a mission. He has been staring at the new gringo from across the bar, watching him talk to Miss Brotherhood herself.*
what in god's name does Mia see in that moron? Here he is tossing a knife at Baila Morena of the Brotherhood. Its like he wants to die. Damn gringos.
*After seeing Baila leave, and Barry shortly afterwards, Bernardo then finished his drink and stared across to the other end of the bar. There he saw a young zoner girl being approached by a corsair pilot he'd never seen at the bar before.*
"damned gringos," muttered Bernardo to himself, just loud enough for the waiter to hear him and provoke a smirk. Noticing the waiter looking at him, Bernardo continued.
"What the hell is happening to this place? Back in my day..." And so began his usual inarticulate complaining about life.
She raised her head to glance at the man now sitting near her. She didn't notice him, busy trying to convince the bartender to serve her while asking him various -sometimes silly- questions...
She studied Cesar quickly and smiled. "Milie? Nice to meet you, honey. My name is... Rmm..." The girl paused, smirking quite comically.
One knowing her would bet she was tempted to dare him to guess what her name was..
But instead she turned around and, oddly, proceeded to hug him. She then finally replied. "My name is Concordia!"
Holding her head on her hand, she studied him again, smiling softly. "First time you come here? Me too! A sweetheart told me i could dance here... So... I wanted to check if cute boys often spent time in this place..."
Now smirking teasingly, she then asked. "If you pay me that drink, does it mean i will have to dance for you, love?"
Cesar was taken aback by the woman he never met giving him a hug. From where he was from, the females were far more restrained by tradition. Awkwardly, he reciprocates with an arm around the shoulders and a shy smile edging at the side of his lips. "Err... a pleasure to meet you.... Concordia?"
The young girl appeared to study him over in a gaze, something unfamiliar as not many people took that much notice of him. He wasn't ugly, but he wasn't particularly attractive neither. His eyes locked with hers a moment and his heart skipped a beat, something in those eyes captured him. A pair of eyes like no other. His mind wandered briefly in a day dream when reality crashed home."So... I wanted to check if cute boys often spent time in this place..." She smirked at him and made a subtle pass about her owing a dance for a drink. He blushed, no girl ever asked a dance, let alone insinuate owing one. "N-n-no Concordoah" he mumbled, going a brighter shade of red as he realised he mispronounced the womans name. "Dia I meant.... Concordia, you owe me nothing for the pleasure. It's a p-pleasure in its own to meet you."
The girl glanced at him, pouting softly.
Why did that boy suddenly looked embarrassed?
She didn't even grope him or anything while hugging him !
Eventually, she smiled softly. She came to the conclusion he was a bit shy. She liked shy boys.
It was so funny to make them blush!
The bartender put a bottle of that ignominious and deadly Coalition vodka on the counter.
The girl shouted of contentment and waited him to fill the two glasses.
She then grabbed it bottomed it up in a blink and raised her glass, shouting a soundful "Whooooo!"
One would wonder why steam wasn't getting out of her ears right now.
She turned around and looked at him with that mischievous smile she seemed to be used to do.
Every now and then something momentous comes up and knocks you right in the teeth.
Sometimes it will sucker punch you with the power of a freight train and the speed of a whistling bullet, but even worse is when it sulks in slow and mean like an after-hours headache. A bear that wants to creep up and kill you, all before you even know what cracked you in the skull.
Funny thing: Afterwards you shake your head and think: I should'a seen it coming. Writing was right there on the wall: Avoid the bear.
Casablanca was now a military zone like nothing Rick had ever seen - but he had had every opportunity to see it coming, and was kicking himself for ignoring the writing on the wall: Hell. All the blood on the wall.
A full scale escalation was happening on every front. In every lined face.
In every crate of bullets perched on a stairwell still waiting for the guns to shoot 'em.
Why did that little bum visit him? Put this trinket in his hands?
Too late to complain now. Complaints could stack up like a hill of beans and still not grow the beanstalk.
Fact: Rick was hemmed in at all sides by soldiers and police and traders and security of every kind.
Worse: this little cargo in his pocket could put him in a very bad way.
A VERY bad way.
He sighed. He shrugged. The cigarette went under his shoe and he ducked back into the doorway, already lighting another. He found the trinket alongside his lighter and clenched it tightly as smoke wreathed around him.
Clenched it to break it, but it resisted stubbornly and grew warm in his palm.
The sirens whistled distantly as another heavy convoy executed its graceful docking pattern overhead. As he ground out the ash he could feel cannons firing through the sole of his shoe, trembling through the hulking metal of the floor beneath him. Millions of tons of steel trembling with the joy of war.
A posse of scruffy pilots saluted cheerily as they passed, and Rick nodded to the boys: Frequent patrons, now heading off back into harms way.
Some of them he wouldn't see again.
It was just another busy day in the war-zone Casablanca.
His Place: Rick surveyed the half filled venue with a sudden sense of relief, and then sauntered on inside.
Rick's Cafe Americaine, so long a refuge for the war torn and world weary, now his only real sanctuary.
But even then...
He turned his collar like the wind had blown through.
With roaming sentinel bots everywhere, he couldn't really be sure that he wasn't already ratted out - but he knew he had to sweat it and see, wait and watch and deliver this nugget to the right person.
The right person.
He'd been looking out for her a while, but she was probably tearing up the jackboot brigade on the other side of the pond. Hadn't been in recently.
He liked a lady with a straight back ,and the times he'd seen the Brotherhood broad in and out had wised him up to the fact that she had the clout to see things done. The dame had metal in her spine, for sure.
He spun the token on his thumb, like a tarnished coin.
Gold hidden in plain sight.
It's been a while since she visited Rick's Cafe.
She moved to the usual table in the far back corner.
From there she had a good vantage point over the place.
The usual whispers and finger pointing faded quickly when she put her gun on the table.
Rumours were that she wasn't afraid of using it on anyone that got in her way.
She blinked to Rick who quickly walked up to her.
''The usual for me Rick'' she said in a friendly tone.
''I am here on business so I do not wish to be disturbed understood?"
She smiled and checked the time.
A quarter past six , ''I hope he didn't get into trouble'' a little voice in her head said.
[font=Arial Narrow]At twenty five minutes past six a cloaked man entered the cafe... The hood turned as he surveyed the room, what met him, as he looked through the gloom and into one of the corners, were the eyes that he had first noticed in a hail of gunfire. From that moment he knew that they belonged to the person who held his heart. He locked onto them and stared for a moment before limping through the maze of tables. Rick, who was now staring at the cloaked figure, quickly shifted his sight when the hood turned in his direction.
As the man neared the table from where the eyes were situated, he pulled down his hood to reveal a blood stained bandage covering half of his face. The eyes turned from ones of curiosity to those of worry. He broke eye contact and softly said to the beautiful face from whom the eyes belonged too, "My love, I am so very sorry I am late. As you can see it was something that could not be helped. A slight Armed Forces problem..."
With that he slid down into the seat opposite her, he groaned as his knee clicked and locked into a position that would allow him to sit. His heart fluttered as he realised this was not a dream. They may not have met, only in the dark vacuum of space, but he knew he was in love. His heart was hers to command, he couldn't stop thinking about her after they had first met.
He avoided her gaze as he thought of the next thing to say, he had no idea what he was doing. He had not been on a date since he had been in flight school. And that was many moons ago by now. [color=#FFFFFF]"So.. Ummm... I'm Peaches. No umm hey call me Pinata. No wait. Please... Please call me Jack." He nervously looked up at the gaze that he had fallen in love with and smiled to the extent that his bandage would allow.
As he looked down again to avoid those eyes, he saw the gun in which everyone feared sitting on the table across from him. He was shocked, "Only the one?" he thought to himself. With that he opened his cloak and started unholstering all manner of weaponry from his body until the table looked more like an arms room than a cafe. He looked back up at her gaze and gave a cheeky smile,"Well you did say no weaponry..." He winked at her and gazed into her eyes, waiting for her to speak.