The young woman was woken that morning by the noises two guards made while opening the door of her cell and stepping in.
They gestured her to get on her feet and quickly handcuffed her.
She got tempted to try something silly, but a single gaze at the outside corridor, where several others men were waiting, discouraged her.
Discouraged... Only for a momentum!
She would just wait for the right time...
The woman let them do their job and followed them to wherever they were supposed to bring her...
As they walked through countless corridors Amber barely noticed where they where going, guided by the guards her mind quickly wandered off. It's been almost two weeks since she got arrested and brought to Fuchu prison, she can remember one of them, a young female who listens to the name Ishikawa... or something like that, she was quite good looking for someone who steered her ship through a sun corona. But the other one, a male... She's definetly sure about that, someone she had an argument with before, that's probably why he was after her this time...
Maybe that's why her legal council still hasn't shown up, he probably tries to break her spirit! Locking her in a cell, taking her clothes, her make-up, her lollipops... No phone calls, no cellmates and awful Kusari food... All this time she hasn't heard anything from Blondie and sometimes she even wonders if John would be worried about her... Her pondering is suddenly interrupted when one of the guards opens a door and she's roughly being sat on a chair, two of the guards take post next to the door and close it. She stares around the room, there's a table with a chair on opposite sides, an interrogation room, maybe?
Several minutes passed and she began to be quite bored.
To entertain herself, she tried to have some talks with the guards but they didn't reply.
Even more boring than her cell that place was.
-IF- that was possible.
She allowed herself a quick sigh and waited.
Took a while until the door behind her eventually made some noise.
She assumed a "More innocent you die!" expression, and waited for them to enter in range of vision.
Oh hell... That was that boring boy...
She then raised an eyebrow. The woman with the nice buttocks was there too.
The woman almost grinned but assumed back her initial expression.
The boring boy was busy bowing while asking the woman with the nice buttocks to sit.
Meh... She thought.
As if it would help him in any way.
Amber looks from one to the other and smirks "Are we going to play good cop, bad cop again? Or is this about those so called crimes I supposedly would have commited?" She turns to the boring man "Because, you know... if being boring would be a crime, you'd definetly get the maximum sentence... And what's with that uniform? You look like you escaped from a love parade or something!" The man barely flinches.
She now turns to the girl with the nice buttocks "I thought you where going to visit me... It's been so lonely here" she makes a sad face but it quickly turns into a smirk "Maybe you should make it up to me? There ought to be a room somewhere on this station where we can have some one on one time, no?" Amber winks at the girl and sits back, curious about the responses she'll get.
'Matte! What are they feeding you in here: more libido?!' Takahashi smirked at the womans frivolous demeanour before she resumed her usual, flat countenance.
'I will bet you have suffered isolation here Amber, though I may help you change that: I will not be engaging in any intimate contact with you.' She reached within her uniform, withdrew a slim packet of barley sweets, and placed them on the table: meeting Ambers gaze as if in challenge.
'These...' she patted the packet with a gloved hand. '...are the luxury of the free and useful, Amber. If this were even a year ago I would not be here: but the current government have seen fit to give you another chance and prove your worth to society. To first stage involves moving you to a less secure testing facility, if you pass there they will employ you as an agent of the republic. Does that not sound good? A new life with all the varieties of sweets you could desire.'
She looks at the sweets for a while and then blinks as if she gets out of some sort of trance, she looks Takahashi in the eyes "Isolation... hmm I wouldn't say that, gave me alot of time to think about things..." She leans back on her chair and gazes at her handcuffs "I guess you won't take these off even if I asked nicely, right?" She leans further back on the 2 rear legs of her chair "Besides, what's an agent of the republic? If I wouldn't know any better i'd say it's a cop... I believe I already told you that I can't go back to that life, the pay is bad and there is barely any satisfaction in it." She suddenly puts her chair back on 4 legs and leans forward, over the table "I mean... will you be satisfied when I just walk out of this prison? After all the hard work you did to get me in here? I bet you won't." As she leans back again she arrogantly smirks at Takahashi.
Leaning against the wall, he simply stared at her, ignoring her laborious attempts to insult them.
He wasn't quite tempted to participate in the conversation.
That woman tried to kill him by destroying his ship, after all. Twice.
And this after he proposed her to end her sinful life and start fresh.
She was just spoiled and immature, unable to realize the bad she was doing to others and herself.
If it was only up to him, he wouldn't mind to let her rot here for a year or two.
It would teach her a bit what the concept behind the word "Consequences" meant.
But alas... Not like it was his call.
For now he would just patiently put up with that woman's behavior.
She would be transferred soon enough anyway.
At the last remark of the woman, he simply replied : "We will consider ourselves satisfied if we succeed to make you work for Kusari people and not against them."
Staring at an Amber who was now giving him a calculating glance, he added : "Think about it twice. You have the opportunity to let the misery and the sins that were part of your identity behind you. It's not a chance you will encounter often."
She let's out a mockingly laugh "So you're telling me, that if I accept I won't get prosecuted and that I can just go on, be it as a law enforcer or whatever?" She suddenly kicks the bottom of the table really hard which makes the sweets Takahashi put there hop into Ambers cuffed hands "I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself thank you very much." She leans back again and gives the man a look "Besides, why don't you let the women do the talking huh?"
Mikako raised an eyebrow in consternation and looked to her Kaishō-ho to check she wasn't going insane, satisfied: she refocused on the saucy woman. The female across the table looked barely a woman, like some kind of model or idol: she would not do well in prison, and Mikako could not easily imagine her thriving in a violent environment.
'You are doubtless a strong woman Amber, though terribly smooth and unblemished, and I am sure that you need to maintain that hard attitude out amongst the criminal classes. But there are moments when you should relax and listen to a man, regardless of gender. This man is wise beyond his years and he does not speak falsely and I am not sure he can: you do not get chances like this every day.' Takahashi forced a smile in an effort to appear sincere.
'The republic will not actually prosecute you if you prove yourself to be an asset: I believe they call it 'provisionally suspending your sentence' or some similar technicality of legal esoterica. By 'agent' I do not refer to the police, I mean something more...subtle.' Mikako briefly recalled the new republic rhetoric that had been spewed at her by suits: of second and third chances and how she should reign in her thoughts of casual execution.
"Oh I see... you're talking about a hired gun... Someone who has no actual ties with your house and who won't be missed in case something goes wrong." She pretends to think about it and shrugs "Alright, under 3 conditions, one: you get me out of here today. Two: You'll take this piece of jewelery off, it's just not my style" She shakes the handcuffs "And three: You owe me a new ship... And it better be a nice one." She looks Makiko into the eyes and adds "And nothing fancy like tracers or remote killswitches, if you want me to work for you, you'd better trust me"