Dawn Station, Sector Nine - Ted's Pub, Late night cycle
Desmond casually stubbed out the butt off the cigarette in the ever-increasing pile of the ashtray. He pushed the small object away from him with an unpleasant sound of metal screeching against metal, which went almost unnoticed by the other patrons due to the loud sound of a vidscreen nearby. The insides of the pub were spartan in their decoration, almost barren with only the bare minimum. Everything was made of metal which was slowly corroding with rust on its border, but at least, no one would give him bad looks for smoking in such a place, provided he kept paying. At least no one that mattered; the yammies were hellbent on a sacred crusade to ban all smoking and bubble-gum chewing in their territory, in the most heavy-handed worlds.
His usual and battered attire was replaced by new, although still utilitarian clothing. The gray jacket was replaced by a desaturated blue, with leather patches covering the areas prone to extra friction like the elbows, sides of his torso and shoulders, under it, he wore a simple white T-shirt, sporting a few dark spots from grease and lubricating oils used to maintain a ship. A dark rigger belt pressed against his waist, keeping the dark grey cargo pants from falling down too much like the punks in Nepleslia liked to wear them, and those were tucked under sturdy work-boots.
The bounty hunter pointed to his empty glass once the bartender walked past, and idly scratched the stubble on his cheeks, paying attention not to scratch on the sensitive and bruised skin. A face that would have been less amicable at most times was rendered even less friendly after the violent climax of his last job in Delsauria, and sported its mosaic of fresh cuts and bruises; even his nose had a bandaid laid horizontally across it because it had been split in the crazy melee in the factory.
He watched the orange, slightly pinkish liquid being poured into his glass again before taking it and turning his attention back to the news being displayed on the vid-screen.
Behind him, with her tongue pinched lightly between her front teeth, a pretty, brunette woman with an all-business face and intimidating metallic eyes stood watching him hesitantly while he took his next drink in hand. She was dressed almost entirely in snug-fitting black clothing, a short-sleeved, mildly low-cut T-shirt tucked beneath a steel-colored belt encircling her little waist, her lower body covered in black leather pants and sturdy-looking dark boots. A very modest amount of makeup was applied to her face, accenting her eyes, lashes, and lips, but not so much as to be ostentatious. In her hand, she held a nondescript Datajockey, which she lifted up to look at, comparing something on the display to the rugged-looking man she saw sitting at the bar several paces in front of her. Ignoring a cat-call from a nearby patron, she drew a deep breath and pushed her shoulders back, clearing her throat, and idly rubbed a spot at the base of her skull, beneath her full head of long hair falling over her shoulders. When the insistent patron whistled at her, she turned her steely-gray eyes towards him, a smarmy-looking, rail-thin rat of a man with a wispy, boyish beard despite his older, grizzled features, and gave him a withering glare. Her striking eyes and upswept eyebrows, coupled with the disapproving scowl on her face, caused the chauvinistic pig to pause momentarily, unable to hide his reaction to her unspoken but very clear demand to leave her alone. She held her piercing glare on him for a second before turning to purposefully head for the bar, paying no mind to the grumbled speculations as to her sexual preference.
Walking up behind Desmond, the young woman cleared her throat softly to get his attention, and stopped just shy of the seat next to him. "Mister Stroud?" she asked, trying to sound resolute and confident, but the hesitation in her voice still peeked through slightly, and the query had already shown that it had a visible effect.
Desmond turned his head around to regard who had called him, one hand reflexively reaching inside his jacket. Realizing that a crowded bar in a very secure station might have been one of the last choices to ambush him made his hand quickly withdraw from the holstered pistol. "What?" He grunted, setting the glass down on the metal table.
The woman didn't flinch as Desmond reached for his gun, but her eyes followed his hand very carefully with practiced attention. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized with a disarming smile, folding both of her hands across the Datajockey she held in front of her, just below her belt buckle. "I found you in the public dock registry. I understand you own and operate a privateer ship," she explained, and eyed the seat next to him. "Do you mind if I sit?"
The bounty hunter gestured towards the empty seat. "As far as I know," he started to say, scanning the woman as she sat down, "I don't own it. I am the proud mechanic of the Iron Ferret, a cargo ship." He glanced around the bar, looking to see if anyone had heard what she had said, but ultimately turning back when he assumed no one had.
A brief look of confusion crossed the woman's face as she tilted her head slightly, and she looked around the bar as well, trying to see what he was intent on finding. When he didn't press the matter further, she eyed him again for a second before tucking a bit of hair behind her ear with her fingertips, and nodded imperceptibly to herself. As if reassuring herself, she softly cleared her throat again and stepped around the stool at his side, gracefully lowering herself into it as she placed her Datajockey on the bar. "Kira Denere," she introduced herself with renewed confidence, offering her hand in greeting.
Desmond slowly returned the handshake. "And what would you want with a ship mechanic?" He asked, his voice in the same, casual tone but with the addition of an edge of caution behind it.
"Well--" Kira began, swallowing as if something were caught in her throat that cut her word off near the end of the single syllable. Glancing around the bar quickly again, she looked back at him with a faint hint of uncertainty, and leaned in a touch. "I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to unnerve you," she said, lowering her voice, "but isn't the Iron Ferret a bounty hunter ship?"
'You already have, the bounty hunter thought. "Bounty hunting is a strong word," he commented, taking another sip of the strong drink. "What would someone like you want with such a job?" he asked, half joking.
Taken aback a bit, Kira's eyebrows raised and she leaned back in her seat slightly. "Someone like me?" she repeated with a downward inflection, halfway as confirmation, and halfway as subtle, hesitant defensiveness.
"You heard me," Desmond said, staring transfixed at the woman.
Kira swallowed again, licking her lips for a brief second before clearing her throat yet again. "Well, as a matter of fact," she replied with barely palpable indignance, "I served with the Nepleslian NPF for seven years, for starters." She turned slightly in her seat, leaning her elbow on the bar and tucking her Datajockey beneath it as she continued. "I was first in my class on the rifle and handgun range, and a member of a crisis response team for more than half of my time there. I'm no stranger to scumbags, I have a strong back, and I can handle a rough situation. And I need to pay the bills like anyone else," she concluded a bit more resolutely, holding her gunmetal-colored eyes on Desmond's.
"And what's a cop doing looking for a shady job like this?" He asked her, somewhat amused at the story. Whether the veracity of it was true or not didn't bother him.
Kira opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated for a second before closing it again, and slightly drew her lips in between her teeth in thought. Finally, she sighed and glanced to the side in slight submission. "Okay," she started to explain, shaking her head at the bartender when he motioned towards her with raised eyebrows, politely rejecting the offer of something to drink with a gentle wave of her hand. "You're obviously smart enough to put two and two together, so--"
"Wait," Desmond interrupted, raising one hand and finishing his drink. He slid a generous DA bill on top of the bar before jumping off his stool. "I need to stretch my legs outside," he added, feeling every muscle in his body protesting in a dull ache once he stood up again, then began to walk towards the exit, motioning for the woman to follow him.
For a moment, Kira wasn't sure how to react to the rather sudden (and more than a little rude) interjection, and sat there frozen in her seat as Desmond got up suddenly, watching him in slight confusion. As he motioned for her to follow, she didn't move for a second, her eyebrows raised, but finally she shrugged to herself. Standing up, she picked up her Datajockey and hurried to catch up to him. The bounty hunter was waiting for her outside of the pub, right next to the entrance.
"That is a wretched place, I couldn't stand being in there," Desmond confessed, and started walking down the street next to the many stores and residences. "So, you were saying?" He asked.
Moving up to walk alongside him, clasping her tablet in both hands folded in front of her again, she looked over, not saying anything at first as if she expected him to interrupt her again. A number of thoughts were going through her mind, not the least of which was whether or not she was doing the right thing approaching this rather brusque, although admittedly not unattractive, man. She cleared her throat again and continued. "Well, I had a bit of a... 'misunderstanding'... with my superiors earlier this year," she explained, sidestepping a rather obese pair of men walking the other direction who were too busy chortling between themselves to watch where they were going. "Long story short, there was a scandal involving a few other officers in my unit. I don't know any specifics of how, but somehow I ended up taking the fall for them. Nobody could prove anything, so I didn't get in any legal trouble, but to save face, the chiefs ended up dismissing me anyway." She tucked some hair behind her ear again, turning her shoulders to squeeze between a small crowd idly chatting in the middle of the walkway. "So now I have that blotch on my record, and no legitimate law enforcement agency will touch me. And now here I am." She looked up at Desmond, nibbling her lower lip in slight apprehension. "Sorry," she offered after a beat.
The bounty hunter considered what the woman said, twisting his head around and making the tired bones in his neck crack. That wasn't too uncommon in Nepleslia, and from what she was telling him she too had had a similar outcome as he had before he took on bounty hunter. He saw the brief link of kinship in that, saw the opportunity to use that common ground, saw how the same feeling of being wronged and having a career destroyed was all too similar to what he had gone through. He could have said that it had been his greatest idea so far, a freedom of sorts, but instead, he just grunted. "I see," he simply said, swallowing the blood that he tasted in his mouth.
Kira watched Desmond's reaction for a moment, still with her lip between her teeth as she waited for his response. When two noncommital words were all the answer he mustered, she waited another several seconds to see if he would say anything further, her lips slowly parting as if she were trying to hold back the desire to speak for him. When nothing further came, she knitted her brow. "So..." she said in a questioning, leading tone. "What does that mean?" she asked.
"It means," Desmond started to say, turning his head to face the woman, "That I am willing to give you a chance."
The brunette exhaled in relief, as if a huge weight had just been lifted off of her shoulders. "Oh, good," she replied, a bright smile spreading across her face. "I promise you won't--"
In the middle of her sentence, Kira walked squarely into the back of an ID-SOL that had abruptly stopped in front of her bouncing off of the hulking giant as if she'd just walked into a light post. With a soft "oof," she stumbled backwards and fell onto her rear end, her Datajockey landing with a clatter on the ground between her legs. The ID-SOL turned around and looked at what had happened, regarding the incident with aboutas much concern as one would think of an insect flying past, then looked at the bounty hunter. Desmond simply stopped next to her, both hands inside the jacket's pocket, and watched.
Her cheeks flushed bright red, Kira kept her eyes on the ground for a second, too embarrassed to think of anything to say, and knowing she was far beyond the point of pretending it didn't happen. Clearing her throat softly, she picked up her tablet and tucked one knee beneath her, pushing herself back up to her feet as she brushed her knees off with her palms. Giving the back of the now-walking-away ID-SOL's head a venomous look, she turned her head back towards Desmond, but kept her eyes pretty much anywhere but on him. "Um, ahem," she continued hesitantly. "I was saying, 'I promise you won't regret it.'"
"I would hope not," Desmond answered. "I would show you the way to the ship but I guess you already know where it is," he added, fishing out the pack of cigarettes from his jacket. He gave the pack a small tap from below with a closed fist before realizing that he wasn't inside the pub anymore, and promptly put it back in his jacket's pocket again. "You can show up there whenever, just tell them I sent you," the bounty hunter said.
Kira appeared at least somewhat relieved that either Desmond wasn't bothered by her little mishap, or he was kind enough not to call any further attention to it. She nodded and started tapping away on her tablet with one hand, cradling it in the other, in part taking notes, and also to keep her furious blush at least partially hidden. "Well, I do know where it is, but I'm not sure--" she began, then paused in thought, her finger hovering above the tablet's surface for a second before she shook her head and resumed. "No, never mind. I can find it," she said, changing course. Finishing tapping out her memos, she looked up at him, obviously trying to force an expression of complete control of herself, and lifted her chin, smiling reassuringly. "What do you like to be called?" she asked.
"Just my name," Desmond said, starting to walk away. Kira was left awkwardly wondering just which name Desmond was referring to, unable to form words before he walked away, so she just pressed her mouth closed after a nod.
The bounty hunter paused for a second, as if struck by an afterthought, and turned to face the woman. "And Kira," he started to say, waiting for compliance.
Kira jumped almost imperceptibly, lifting her chin again. "Hm?" she asked quickly.
"If I find out that you're lying, I'm not gonna be only problem you'll have," Desmond said casually, as if the phrase was something uttered like it was the most normal thing, but not curbing the seriousness of it. After it was said, the bounty hunter simply started walking down the street, mingling with the moving crowd.
The ex-cop's eyebrows raised a little more, and after another brief pause, she nodded again, watching the scruffy-looking man vanish into the masses. While she did understand the man's caution, she couldn't help feeling just a little slighted by what he might have been implying. Deflating a little once he was out of sight, she sighed and rubbed the side of her neck, rotating her head as if trying to work a kink out of her spine. "Sure," she said quietly, mostly to no one. "Sure thing."
Desmond casually stubbed out the butt off the cigarette in the ever-increasing pile of the ashtray. He pushed the small object away from him with an unpleasant sound of metal screeching against metal, which went almost unnoticed by the other patrons due to the loud sound of a vidscreen nearby. The insides of the pub were spartan in their decoration, almost barren with only the bare minimum. Everything was made of metal which was slowly corroding with rust on its border, but at least, no one would give him bad looks for smoking in such a place, provided he kept paying. At least no one that mattered; the yammies were hellbent on a sacred crusade to ban all smoking and bubble-gum chewing in their territory, in the most heavy-handed worlds.
His usual and battered attire was replaced by new, although still utilitarian clothing. The gray jacket was replaced by a desaturated blue, with leather patches covering the areas prone to extra friction like the elbows, sides of his torso and shoulders, under it, he wore a simple white T-shirt, sporting a few dark spots from grease and lubricating oils used to maintain a ship. A dark rigger belt pressed against his waist, keeping the dark grey cargo pants from falling down too much like the punks in Nepleslia liked to wear them, and those were tucked under sturdy work-boots.
The bounty hunter pointed to his empty glass once the bartender walked past, and idly scratched the stubble on his cheeks, paying attention not to scratch on the sensitive and bruised skin. A face that would have been less amicable at most times was rendered even less friendly after the violent climax of his last job in Delsauria, and sported its mosaic of fresh cuts and bruises; even his nose had a bandaid laid horizontally across it because it had been split in the crazy melee in the factory.
He watched the orange, slightly pinkish liquid being poured into his glass again before taking it and turning his attention back to the news being displayed on the vid-screen.
Behind him, with her tongue pinched lightly between her front teeth, a pretty, brunette woman with an all-business face and intimidating metallic eyes stood watching him hesitantly while he took his next drink in hand. She was dressed almost entirely in snug-fitting black clothing, a short-sleeved, mildly low-cut T-shirt tucked beneath a steel-colored belt encircling her little waist, her lower body covered in black leather pants and sturdy-looking dark boots. A very modest amount of makeup was applied to her face, accenting her eyes, lashes, and lips, but not so much as to be ostentatious. In her hand, she held a nondescript Datajockey, which she lifted up to look at, comparing something on the display to the rugged-looking man she saw sitting at the bar several paces in front of her. Ignoring a cat-call from a nearby patron, she drew a deep breath and pushed her shoulders back, clearing her throat, and idly rubbed a spot at the base of her skull, beneath her full head of long hair falling over her shoulders. When the insistent patron whistled at her, she turned her steely-gray eyes towards him, a smarmy-looking, rail-thin rat of a man with a wispy, boyish beard despite his older, grizzled features, and gave him a withering glare. Her striking eyes and upswept eyebrows, coupled with the disapproving scowl on her face, caused the chauvinistic pig to pause momentarily, unable to hide his reaction to her unspoken but very clear demand to leave her alone. She held her piercing glare on him for a second before turning to purposefully head for the bar, paying no mind to the grumbled speculations as to her sexual preference.
Walking up behind Desmond, the young woman cleared her throat softly to get his attention, and stopped just shy of the seat next to him. "Mister Stroud?" she asked, trying to sound resolute and confident, but the hesitation in her voice still peeked through slightly, and the query had already shown that it had a visible effect.
Desmond turned his head around to regard who had called him, one hand reflexively reaching inside his jacket. Realizing that a crowded bar in a very secure station might have been one of the last choices to ambush him made his hand quickly withdraw from the holstered pistol. "What?" He grunted, setting the glass down on the metal table.
The woman didn't flinch as Desmond reached for his gun, but her eyes followed his hand very carefully with practiced attention. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized with a disarming smile, folding both of her hands across the Datajockey she held in front of her, just below her belt buckle. "I found you in the public dock registry. I understand you own and operate a privateer ship," she explained, and eyed the seat next to him. "Do you mind if I sit?"
The bounty hunter gestured towards the empty seat. "As far as I know," he started to say, scanning the woman as she sat down, "I don't own it. I am the proud mechanic of the Iron Ferret, a cargo ship." He glanced around the bar, looking to see if anyone had heard what she had said, but ultimately turning back when he assumed no one had.
A brief look of confusion crossed the woman's face as she tilted her head slightly, and she looked around the bar as well, trying to see what he was intent on finding. When he didn't press the matter further, she eyed him again for a second before tucking a bit of hair behind her ear with her fingertips, and nodded imperceptibly to herself. As if reassuring herself, she softly cleared her throat again and stepped around the stool at his side, gracefully lowering herself into it as she placed her Datajockey on the bar. "Kira Denere," she introduced herself with renewed confidence, offering her hand in greeting.
Desmond slowly returned the handshake. "And what would you want with a ship mechanic?" He asked, his voice in the same, casual tone but with the addition of an edge of caution behind it.
"Well--" Kira began, swallowing as if something were caught in her throat that cut her word off near the end of the single syllable. Glancing around the bar quickly again, she looked back at him with a faint hint of uncertainty, and leaned in a touch. "I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to unnerve you," she said, lowering her voice, "but isn't the Iron Ferret a bounty hunter ship?"
'You already have, the bounty hunter thought. "Bounty hunting is a strong word," he commented, taking another sip of the strong drink. "What would someone like you want with such a job?" he asked, half joking.
Taken aback a bit, Kira's eyebrows raised and she leaned back in her seat slightly. "Someone like me?" she repeated with a downward inflection, halfway as confirmation, and halfway as subtle, hesitant defensiveness.
"You heard me," Desmond said, staring transfixed at the woman.
Kira swallowed again, licking her lips for a brief second before clearing her throat yet again. "Well, as a matter of fact," she replied with barely palpable indignance, "I served with the Nepleslian NPF for seven years, for starters." She turned slightly in her seat, leaning her elbow on the bar and tucking her Datajockey beneath it as she continued. "I was first in my class on the rifle and handgun range, and a member of a crisis response team for more than half of my time there. I'm no stranger to scumbags, I have a strong back, and I can handle a rough situation. And I need to pay the bills like anyone else," she concluded a bit more resolutely, holding her gunmetal-colored eyes on Desmond's.
"And what's a cop doing looking for a shady job like this?" He asked her, somewhat amused at the story. Whether the veracity of it was true or not didn't bother him.
Kira opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated for a second before closing it again, and slightly drew her lips in between her teeth in thought. Finally, she sighed and glanced to the side in slight submission. "Okay," she started to explain, shaking her head at the bartender when he motioned towards her with raised eyebrows, politely rejecting the offer of something to drink with a gentle wave of her hand. "You're obviously smart enough to put two and two together, so--"
"Wait," Desmond interrupted, raising one hand and finishing his drink. He slid a generous DA bill on top of the bar before jumping off his stool. "I need to stretch my legs outside," he added, feeling every muscle in his body protesting in a dull ache once he stood up again, then began to walk towards the exit, motioning for the woman to follow him.
For a moment, Kira wasn't sure how to react to the rather sudden (and more than a little rude) interjection, and sat there frozen in her seat as Desmond got up suddenly, watching him in slight confusion. As he motioned for her to follow, she didn't move for a second, her eyebrows raised, but finally she shrugged to herself. Standing up, she picked up her Datajockey and hurried to catch up to him. The bounty hunter was waiting for her outside of the pub, right next to the entrance.
"That is a wretched place, I couldn't stand being in there," Desmond confessed, and started walking down the street next to the many stores and residences. "So, you were saying?" He asked.
Moving up to walk alongside him, clasping her tablet in both hands folded in front of her again, she looked over, not saying anything at first as if she expected him to interrupt her again. A number of thoughts were going through her mind, not the least of which was whether or not she was doing the right thing approaching this rather brusque, although admittedly not unattractive, man. She cleared her throat again and continued. "Well, I had a bit of a... 'misunderstanding'... with my superiors earlier this year," she explained, sidestepping a rather obese pair of men walking the other direction who were too busy chortling between themselves to watch where they were going. "Long story short, there was a scandal involving a few other officers in my unit. I don't know any specifics of how, but somehow I ended up taking the fall for them. Nobody could prove anything, so I didn't get in any legal trouble, but to save face, the chiefs ended up dismissing me anyway." She tucked some hair behind her ear again, turning her shoulders to squeeze between a small crowd idly chatting in the middle of the walkway. "So now I have that blotch on my record, and no legitimate law enforcement agency will touch me. And now here I am." She looked up at Desmond, nibbling her lower lip in slight apprehension. "Sorry," she offered after a beat.
The bounty hunter considered what the woman said, twisting his head around and making the tired bones in his neck crack. That wasn't too uncommon in Nepleslia, and from what she was telling him she too had had a similar outcome as he had before he took on bounty hunter. He saw the brief link of kinship in that, saw the opportunity to use that common ground, saw how the same feeling of being wronged and having a career destroyed was all too similar to what he had gone through. He could have said that it had been his greatest idea so far, a freedom of sorts, but instead, he just grunted. "I see," he simply said, swallowing the blood that he tasted in his mouth.
Kira watched Desmond's reaction for a moment, still with her lip between her teeth as she waited for his response. When two noncommital words were all the answer he mustered, she waited another several seconds to see if he would say anything further, her lips slowly parting as if she were trying to hold back the desire to speak for him. When nothing further came, she knitted her brow. "So..." she said in a questioning, leading tone. "What does that mean?" she asked.
"It means," Desmond started to say, turning his head to face the woman, "That I am willing to give you a chance."
The brunette exhaled in relief, as if a huge weight had just been lifted off of her shoulders. "Oh, good," she replied, a bright smile spreading across her face. "I promise you won't--"
In the middle of her sentence, Kira walked squarely into the back of an ID-SOL that had abruptly stopped in front of her bouncing off of the hulking giant as if she'd just walked into a light post. With a soft "oof," she stumbled backwards and fell onto her rear end, her Datajockey landing with a clatter on the ground between her legs. The ID-SOL turned around and looked at what had happened, regarding the incident with aboutas much concern as one would think of an insect flying past, then looked at the bounty hunter. Desmond simply stopped next to her, both hands inside the jacket's pocket, and watched.
Her cheeks flushed bright red, Kira kept her eyes on the ground for a second, too embarrassed to think of anything to say, and knowing she was far beyond the point of pretending it didn't happen. Clearing her throat softly, she picked up her tablet and tucked one knee beneath her, pushing herself back up to her feet as she brushed her knees off with her palms. Giving the back of the now-walking-away ID-SOL's head a venomous look, she turned her head back towards Desmond, but kept her eyes pretty much anywhere but on him. "Um, ahem," she continued hesitantly. "I was saying, 'I promise you won't regret it.'"
"I would hope not," Desmond answered. "I would show you the way to the ship but I guess you already know where it is," he added, fishing out the pack of cigarettes from his jacket. He gave the pack a small tap from below with a closed fist before realizing that he wasn't inside the pub anymore, and promptly put it back in his jacket's pocket again. "You can show up there whenever, just tell them I sent you," the bounty hunter said.
Kira appeared at least somewhat relieved that either Desmond wasn't bothered by her little mishap, or he was kind enough not to call any further attention to it. She nodded and started tapping away on her tablet with one hand, cradling it in the other, in part taking notes, and also to keep her furious blush at least partially hidden. "Well, I do know where it is, but I'm not sure--" she began, then paused in thought, her finger hovering above the tablet's surface for a second before she shook her head and resumed. "No, never mind. I can find it," she said, changing course. Finishing tapping out her memos, she looked up at him, obviously trying to force an expression of complete control of herself, and lifted her chin, smiling reassuringly. "What do you like to be called?" she asked.
"Just my name," Desmond said, starting to walk away. Kira was left awkwardly wondering just which name Desmond was referring to, unable to form words before he walked away, so she just pressed her mouth closed after a nod.
The bounty hunter paused for a second, as if struck by an afterthought, and turned to face the woman. "And Kira," he started to say, waiting for compliance.
Kira jumped almost imperceptibly, lifting her chin again. "Hm?" she asked quickly.
"If I find out that you're lying, I'm not gonna be only problem you'll have," Desmond said casually, as if the phrase was something uttered like it was the most normal thing, but not curbing the seriousness of it. After it was said, the bounty hunter simply started walking down the street, mingling with the moving crowd.
The ex-cop's eyebrows raised a little more, and after another brief pause, she nodded again, watching the scruffy-looking man vanish into the masses. While she did understand the man's caution, she couldn't help feeling just a little slighted by what he might have been implying. Deflating a little once he was out of sight, she sighed and rubbed the side of her neck, rotating her head as if trying to work a kink out of her spine. "Sure," she said quietly, mostly to no one. "Sure thing."
