I’m sure I can find Miri at the Horizon. We usually meet at the club. A shared love for Industrial Post-Scene-core music is one of the reasons we keep pumping into each other.
On the way I get flowers at the Kombini. A nice bouquet. As far as Kombini flowers go.
The club is quite packed for a Sunday night. Loud beats and distorted vocals mix with blue and purple lights and the smell of way too many people and way too much alcohol.
Miri is easy enough to find, exuding confidence and a don’t-fuck-with-me attitude even while chilling out with some guys on a black leather couch in the corner. She gets up as soon as she sees me. I suspect rather to avoid me showing up in front of her friends, than to greet me.
As she reaches me I give her a theatrical bow, left hand behind my back, and hand her the flowers with an extensive gesture of my right arm, “Miri! The most beautiful Donna-to-be! Please take these as an apology…” She takes the flowers out of my hand and hits me over the head with them, “Douchebag!”
She was way more fun when we were younger. Used to call me Joking Hazard. Now it’s usually just Douchebag, so I guess she is over the warehouse thing.
She gestures me to follow her over to the bar, were the music is a little less booming, as she walks over my flowers that landed on the floor after her blow. I do think she appreciated them!
“Next time, wait for my reply!”
“Sorry, it was kind of time sensitive… And I have my own stuff to think about now. I can’t always wait for you to come and hold my hand.”
“Oh, you would like me to do that.”, she shoots back at me.
I actually would have, when I was 17. I had such a bad crush on her. She used to come to the Pup every weekend to see her grandma and hang out with the guys. She was sarcastic, funny, and beautiful, with a smile in her eyes and that long red hair of hers… But since she put it into her head to become a Made Man she’s become quite tense. She thinks she has to be tougher than all the guys in the Mafia put together. She might make it far, though, if she makes good use of this unbelievable stubbornness of hers.
“At least be more careful next time and check first who you are stealing from. You are lucky you only killed the hired help and there wasn’t a Made Man among them. Otherwise you know you would be dead! We would have come for you.” I know… But somehow the “we” in the last sentence is what bothers me the most.
I want to change the topic and ask her how she’s doing, but Miri suddenly puts on a sweet smile, taps on the shoulder of the Goth girl sitting next to her at the bar, and, as the girl turns around, coquettes her: “Hey, do you know my friend Jace here?”
As I am suddenly left with a cute girl smiling into my face and “Hi!”-ing at me, Miri disappears back into the crowd. I could follow her, but I assume our conversation has been deemed over.
So instead I talk to Blue Goth Babe for a while. I am sure she has told me her name, but it went in through one ear, and out through the other, as Mrs McCoy used to phrase my inability to listen to what people say to me.
And don’t get me wrong, the girl is hot. Blue eyes, blue hair, and a quite revealing black dress, that doesn’t leave much to my imagination. I normally wouldn’t pass on that, but my shoulder hurts, and it keeps me thinking about Nathaniel.
Last time I saw him he was weirdly quiet and cold while stitching the cut in the back of my head, until, cutting the thread and starting to pack up his med kit, he proclaimed to me: “I’m seeing someone.”
“Oh.” What can I say to that? “Does he treat you well?”
“He is quite lovely. Likes to take me out for breakfast.” Au, that one hurt. But: “That’s… nice.” I replied. And then, looking into his eyes: “I want you to be happy!”
Maybe I should have stopped him then, gently pushed him away and reminded him that he was, in fact, seeing someone. But I am not that good. As soon as he started to kiss me I couldn’t hold myself back anymore either.
I wonder if he is still seeing that guy. If he gets to hear Nathaniel sigh when he kisses his neck, gets to… I have to stop thinking about it, or I’ll go nuts!
So I take my leave of Blue Goth Babe, who insists on giving me her comm number, and tell myself I am only going there to make sure my shoulder gets checked out. I wouldn’t swear on it, though, if someone asked me whether I believed myself.
Actually, I think I haven’t really told you about Nathaniel yet, and how I ended up with my own personal nurse with benefits. So let’s go back to the beginning. And really, it starts with a Run.
June 5th 2070, Seattle
The job’s not a big deal. We just have to send a message to some company CEO. Apparently from another corporate guy that he has fucked over. So three of us should be more than enough.
And the dwarfish hacker girl is great. But the newbie they sent in with me has probably played too many games about shadow runners, and now thinks he can do it for real.
As we arrive Hacker Girl immediately loops the surveillance, takes over the elevators and brings us in looking unsuspicious, while drawing the security guards away from the CEO’s floor. Once we are up there she kills the lights and the whole communication within the building! The other guy and I are going to solely rely on low light vision. He’s got glasses for it, and I can see well enough in the almost-dark of the emergency exit lights.
So we walk silently along the corridor towards the CEO’s office. The door is open. We don’t hear a lot of noises coming from the room, just some paper rustling. The CEO must be in there, probably scared to death and blind in the sudden dark. At least that’s what we think until we walk in, and he jumps out at us from behind the door.
The guy’s a fucking Troll! Of course he has seen us coming with his infrared vision!
Hacker Girl swears she read up on him, but there was no picture, or any information at all that suggested the guy would be anything but human. I guess being a Troll is a fact you better keep low-key if you do not want to scare away potential business partners.
So the newbie next to me draws his gun and tries to shoot the Troll in close combat. I guess I am lucky Mr. CEO just takes the weapon and breaks it with his bare hands, while I draw my sword. The newbie screams and runs as I stand my ground to back his retreat. Trolls are not known for their ability to move quickly, and I seem to catch the upper hand, until he suddenly grabs something from his desk and stabs me with his fucking letter opener! I am glad he did not go for the heart or the lungs. I would have been dead on the spot.
He draws the thing out of my side and seems a bit shocked himself that he was just capable of doing that, so I get a chance and I am not wasting it. I stumble back to the elevator, and Hacker Girl makes sure I get out of there.
I make it back to the car. The newbie is already in there, hyperventilating. Hacker Girl asks me if I am hurt. I draw back my coat, showing the bleeding wound, and the guy passes out.
She asks me if I want her to call an Ambulance?! Do I want to get taken by the cops? - I don’t think so!
Is there anywhere she can bring me? I think for a moment… I don’t think I can rely any longer on the Mafia Doc to take care of me. Anyways I don’t know how to contact the guy. And I also don’t know any other street docs who could stitch me together.
Then I remember this cute guy who I spent an amazing night with just last week. I met him at a club, where he was bored to death and mostly ignored by his straight coworkers. Their bad, my luck. I let him take me home.
But more important now, as I was sneaking out the next morning, trying not to wake him up, I noticed a hospital uniform and ID. I had forgotten what he said his name was, so I read it and found out that he was Nathanial Cho, ER Nurse.
Someone with ER experience might just be able to stop that damn bleeding. Of course, he might call the cops on me. But then he really seemed to like me, so maybe not. I decided to take my chances with Pretty Nurse rather than bleeding out in my apartment, and told Hacker Girl to drop me off at a Kombini I remembered nearby his place.
When I was getting out of the car I already felt the blood running down the inside of my pants. The initial shock seemed to wear off and I got nauseous and dizzy. And it hurt like hell. The Troll must have managed to hit something vital after all…
I can’t fully remember how I made it all the way to Nathaniels door. Vaguely I remember voices, telling each other to stay away from this bleeding shit dragging himself along the side of a wall. And there was someone walking out of a door, who’s too disgusted by me to stop me from walking in.
So I make it there! I knock at the door, ring the bell. And no one is home…
Too exhausted to do anything more I just let myself sack down on the doormat. I look at my hand that’s pressed on the wound. Dark red blood keeps on coming up from between my fingers… I can’t go on, so I just curl up here where I am.
I don’t know exactly how much time has passed, but it is still early morning as I wake from a weird dream. Someone pulls me up on my good sides arm, talks to me. I don’t understand… but I notice the accent. Very posh, very British. I remember the voice making jokes, whispering things into my ear. Nathaniel. He is home.
He had a night shift, he told me later. Came home tired and exhausted to find a bloody mess outside his door.
Wiping the hair out of the face to see if the person was conscious, he recognised me: “Jace?” He remembered my name.
I was lucky twice. He actually was able to treat my wound, even with the bit of medical stuff that he kept at home for emergencies. Though he must have gone back to the hospital to steal a blood pack… I have to admit that he didn’t tell me, and I never asked.
Also, he did not call the cops. He didn’t even question me about anything other than how I felt, as I finally woke up. He just said that I would have to stay for a few days. Not that I would have been able to leave on my own. I felt like crap. I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom by myself in the beginning. And yet still, I have quite some fond memories of these days.
Nathaniel is kind and funny,… And interesting. He can talk about pretty much anything. He is probably the most intelligent person I know! And he seems to be great with people. At least he is great with me…
I still decided somehow, that the best thing I could do for him after a week of nursing me back on my feet, was to leave as soon as I could drag my sorry ass out of his place. And I did, one early morning while he was still asleep, but… I keep going back whenever I get injured! And not always for something life-threatening. I mean, yeah, over the past two years he has treated the occasional bad gun shot wound, but the last thing I went to see him for even I knew to be just a scratch. Maybe five stitches or so.
And yet I also keep disappearing on him the first morning I am able to get out of his bed, where I inevitably end up one way or the other.
I mean, shit, I can’t tell him what it is that I do! He heals people for a living, and I kill them. I should really get myself together and stop seeing him. But here I am in his apartment again. Gosh, I don’t even know why he keeps letting me back in! But he does. Tonight he even seemed quite happy to see me and was acting all like himself again, only scolding me a little for going out with an injury from a gunshot instead of coming to him right away.
It is actually really nice to be here, next to him, hearing him softly breath in his sleep.
I could get used to it, I’m afraid.