Michiko shivered and drew the ragged coat tighter about herself. It wasn't so much that it was cold, as she was always cold. This place had never suited her well, though it was the only place she had ever known. The city oozed with a sense of smug superiority, a pretentiousness that went against everything she stood for. Of course, she would probably have thought about existence a little differently had circumstance raised her in a more sheltered manner... she shivered again, cursed. It was midday. It would only get colder from here. At least at night she could find somewhere sheltered, and perhaps sing for her supper, and later sneak away to find a merchant to aid her in replenishing her stash...
It was about an hour to mid-day, with a cloudy sky above Michiko's head. The orderly rows of curvy white shops and gray stones around her stood like the artistic expressions they were designed to be; The walls were without graffiti, and the streets were devoid of a single piece of litter. Of course, it drew sharp contrast to the black-robed security patrols that moved about the city like Tolkien's wraiths, looking for any disruption to this man-made utopia.
The damned security. Michiko hated them. Conform, or be 'conformed'. Stay in line, don't speak up, don't think for yourself. Of course, they weren't particularly fond of her either - at least not the ones she had conflicted with in the past. She spat. "Pyongna..." She muttered the phrase, an accusation of fascism, and, all at once, felt a lightheadedness come over her, swayed in step, and dropped to her knees to compose herself better. It happened periodically after the influence of certain illicit substances wore off...
Passersby shot Michiko strange looks, her jeans looking entirely out of place to them in a city full of hakama and kimonos. Many pretended not to stare, but it wasn't hard to tell who the ladies where whispering about from beneath floral parasols. Eventually, a young man in a business suit approached Michiko and asked, "Are you alright?"
She took some time to balance herself, breathing deeply. It took a few seconds for it to sink in that, not only had someone spoken to her, she had been asked a question that wasn't a barbed assault. She filtered her mind, and after a long pause, nodded slowly. "I'm... fine, dehydrated. Had a head rush." She spoke rather inelegantly and didn't care, the flowery speech of proper Japanese irritated her to no end with its double meanings and indirectness. She made an attempt to rise, but the lightheadedness still loomed, and she resolved to sit it off.
"Anoo," the dark-haired man looked apologetic. "Would you like to sit down for a drink?" He was, of course, formal in his words. The gray suit had a blue circular logo made of the English letters P and G on it. There was an Italian-style restaurant nearby that would do nicely with its outdoor tables.
Michiko smiled cynically, and her words were perhaps too harsh. But, it was fairly rare for anyone to offer her help, and she had learned through experience that trust in people was often misplaced trust. "Alright. So long as you aren't speaking with..." she paused, and spoke in very formal words. "...ulterior motives." There was a dry sarcasm latent in all her words, but it truly laced every fiber of her speech here...
The man frowned, "That is not the case." He led her towards the nearby tables, wondering to himself what age the young woman was and what her ailment could be. After sitting down, he directed the waiter to bring them glasses of sparkling water, and then looked to her, as if waiting for her to speak.
A bit regretful at just how assailing she had been, Michiko quickly murmured an apology, though she still wasn't entirely convinced at his sincerity. She still swayed as she walked a little - though it was not nearly so bad as it could have been. She was quite grateful to be off her feet once more as she sat, she was unsure as to how much longer her balance would have held out. But, she remained mostly silent, weighing in her mind the possibility that he might actually have acted altruistically against the likelihood that he was one more polite-to-a-fault-but-very-hormonal member of that species called "males".
"My name is Miyabi Futa," he said, interrupting her thoughts.
She blinked, sorted out what he had said from the conflicting parts of her mind (the philosophical that was active and the drug addict vying for control), and ultimately responded in kind. "...Michiko." She paused, delving back into the scales for a moment, decided they tipped even and she could at least converse with him for a time. Tick away at the moments that make up a dull day...
The waiter dropped off the seltzer and a round loaf of bread fresh out of a wood-burning oven. Futa sliced it across with a large serrated knife, revealing the big bubbles inside, and letting loose a wonderful aroma of fresh-baked, natural bread. Sliding a slab of butter across it, he gave the first slice to Michiko, along with the water. "You don't," he observed, "look as if you're from Kyoto."
Michiko quickly drained the glass of seltzer. "I was born here, and lived my whole life here. Doesn't make me fit in though." There was no remorse in those words, she had no desire to fit in. Being with the in-crowd wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The bread smelled good... she took a small bite to sample it, though she wasnt particularly hungry.
Mr. Miyabi seemed surprised. "Your way of dress gave me the impression you might be from Nepleslia," he commented, before starting on his own slice of the bread. It was very tasty. The timeless recipe never failed. There was a bottle of olive oil on the table, too, and the man added a bit to his bread before continuing. "Plus, you seemed somewhat...especially thin."
"My clothes didn't cost me anything, that's what mattered." She found the bread to be quite good, and ate a little more. "That probably tells more about me than anything else I can say, yes? And perhaps explains my being..." she mimicked his word choice as well as she could, though the language was a bit more elegant than she was used to speaking, and it showed. "Especially thin."
"You're looking for a job?" the man in the suit asked. "I can see why, with all the automation available these days." The waiter returned and the man briefly ordered something in Italian before returning his full attention to Michiko.
Michiko shook her head. "No, I haven't been searching for a job..." she yawned, took another bite of the bread. It was the best food she'd tasted in some time. Maybe part of that was because she wasn't completely stoned at that particular moment. "I've been making money recently... performing in bars, mostly." She spoke so very nonchalantly, so different from the biting sarcasm of mere moments ago.
"I see," the man nodded, imagining that she was probably a stripper in some low-class bars somewhere outside the city limits. He politely chose not to ask about the (probably embarrassing) details of her sundry work. "That's good," he observed. "You seem a bit distracted," he commented, but what he really meant was "you look trashed."
"Distracted?" She was not entirely sure what he meant, as she had been at least attempting to focus on what was real. Had she dazed away? It wouldn't help her conceal her addictions... "...what you mean by that?" She finished the slice of bread with a mock flourish.
While Mr. Miyabi searched for a way to politely explain it, the waiter showed up and delivered two plates and two bowls of pasta, one penne all'ariabiato (spicy red sauce) and one with bow-tie noodles in white sauce with bits of bacon in it. Seizing the opportunity to change the subject, Futa graciously offered to transfer some pasta of either type from a bowl onto Michiko's plate.
A little curiously, Michiko sniffed at the pasta. She had never eaten anything quite like that, and wasn't quite sure what to make of it. It smelled good, though. Ponderously, she looked over the white sauce. "What is that there?" She referred to the bacon. All of this was entirely new to her. A strange day it was proving to be.
"It's prosciutto," the man explained. "Or, something like it. It's like bacon, sort of."
She tilted her head. "That doesn't help me very much." She didn't know what either prosciutto or bacon was.
"It's meat," he elaborated, dipping some of each pasta onto his own plate.
Michiko blanched slightly, her skin going even paler than normal for a brief time, though she composed herself, and spoke blandly. "I think then, I can pass on that particular one."
"You're a vegetarian?" Mr. Miyabi asked.
"Is that what they call it now, to oppose vicious exploitation?" She bit down on her tongue. She had not meant to be quite so aggressive... "I'm sorry, I'm not reacting well today... my heads a little off."
"Vicious exploitation?" the man gave her a strange look. "Sorry," he apologized, and dipped her some of the spicy red-sauce pasta.
Michiko nodded slightly. "Thank you." She sampled the pasta questioningly, chewed thoughtfully, looking up towards the sky. And, she shivered. There was just something about this planet that made it bitterly cold year round!
"I hope this will help," Futa commented, watching her eat the hot pasta. He was not just referring to her coldness, but to her condition as a whole. After all, he'd taken her to lunch because she'd been pale, skinny, and staggering down the street.
She found the pasta to her liking, and ate more of it. It also did help to stave off the cold. "Help what?" She sounded a little curious, and a lot more involved in devouring the food placed before her.
"Your health seems questionable," he explained between bites. "It appears you do not eat as much as you should."
Michiko couldn't help but laugh, a little hollowly. "That has nothing to do with it." She stopped herself, noting that this was a public place and probably not a good locale for her to admit to her addictions. She quickly buried her face in the food once again.
"I see. You know, if you have an illness, PNUgen Corporation should be able to help you," he told her.
"I don't trust PNUgen." Her response was very blatant. "They play god, and we will end up worse off for it... beyond that, I get enough judging without putting myself up for display like a circus animal."
"But, the opposite is true. Look around at the wonderful things the Corporation has done for people."
"Yes, yes... murdering billions of Geshrin... creating obedient lapdogs... instruments of genocide... I'm quite thrilled by the track record." She spoke quite like a conspiracy theorist. Not surprising. She was a conspiracy theorist.
"Murdering billions? What are you talking about?"
She looked about a bit nervously, checking for any security personnel in the area. "Twenty billion, to go into exact numbers." She spoke very quietly. A long history of enmity with security patrols, and such radical theories as she possessed were part of the problem.
"But where do you get that from?" he asked.
"YE 8. I was four at the time. I don't remember it, personally. I believed it was Elysian doing, until I got such... aggressive... reactions at the rhetorical possibility that it was not." She yawned, and did her best to emulate the flowery speech of a politician. "Perhaps it is conjecture on my part, but it is no more so than to believe the official statements of our government agencies."
"If that were true, I wouldn't be working for PNUgen. Why blame such a terrible incident on us? It there something you have against the PNUgen Corporation? Really, the whole purpose of such an organization is to help people through medicine and biotechnology."
"...I'm sure near every employee would agree with you. Which doesn't, ah, exonerate, the people on top. What the workers do doesn't have much bearing on what the higher-ups do with it." She finished the pasta. "And for that matter, why blame such a terrible incident on Elysia? Simply because it was politically convenient?"
"Are you forgetting that Yamatai and Elysia were at war at the time?" the man asked. "It wasn't the first time they'd used biological weapons."
"I'm aware enough of the warfare. A fascinating thing, that. We developed some wonderful tools for committing genocide." She closed her eyes, laughed darkly. "When Pagoda stops pretending to be god, maybe Ill see if they can cure the uncurable."
The man frowned, and stood from his chair. "Have a good day, miss," he said.
She nodded slowly. "Thank you, Futa." She remained seated where she was.
After the gentleman left, the waiter returned and took away the man's plate. Michiko was alone again.
Michiko sighed softly, and rose to her feet. She had a talent for driving people away, it seemed. It didn't matter much now, her lightheadedness was more than gone. She wandered back into the cobbled streets, arbitrarily deciding to travel to the north.
The next group of people she encountered were a bunch of young women in the familiar black military uniforms. Since they were wearing tri-corner hats and not the berets that planetary forces wore, she could tell they we're part of the city's security force, and were probably not looking to bother her. As they walked closer, Michiko could hear them talking about whether it was better to be part of an expeditionary fleet or a standard fleet. Most of them seemed to prefer being in an Expeditionary fleet because of the death toll in the regular ones. Then, more random people walked by going the opposite direction: A Japanese woman in a dark blue yukata, with a baby in a basket on her back; some blond girls in short pleated leather skirts, boots, and tops made out of what appeared to be wolf pelts; a few more businessmen in suits, and a towering troll that was carrying a vacuum-sealed brand-new Nekovalkyrja in a bag over his shoulder.
The compulsory murmur of "Pyongna..." expulsed from her lips as she passed the soldiers, though somewhat more darkly than usual. That it would be heard was unlikely, something unusual for her insults... She rarely cared who heard or understood her. Now, she was a little too preoccupied to care to be heard. Still northward, ever northward.
It was about an hour to mid-day, with a cloudy sky above Michiko's head. The orderly rows of curvy white shops and gray stones around her stood like the artistic expressions they were designed to be; The walls were without graffiti, and the streets were devoid of a single piece of litter. Of course, it drew sharp contrast to the black-robed security patrols that moved about the city like Tolkien's wraiths, looking for any disruption to this man-made utopia.
The damned security. Michiko hated them. Conform, or be 'conformed'. Stay in line, don't speak up, don't think for yourself. Of course, they weren't particularly fond of her either - at least not the ones she had conflicted with in the past. She spat. "Pyongna..." She muttered the phrase, an accusation of fascism, and, all at once, felt a lightheadedness come over her, swayed in step, and dropped to her knees to compose herself better. It happened periodically after the influence of certain illicit substances wore off...
Passersby shot Michiko strange looks, her jeans looking entirely out of place to them in a city full of hakama and kimonos. Many pretended not to stare, but it wasn't hard to tell who the ladies where whispering about from beneath floral parasols. Eventually, a young man in a business suit approached Michiko and asked, "Are you alright?"
She took some time to balance herself, breathing deeply. It took a few seconds for it to sink in that, not only had someone spoken to her, she had been asked a question that wasn't a barbed assault. She filtered her mind, and after a long pause, nodded slowly. "I'm... fine, dehydrated. Had a head rush." She spoke rather inelegantly and didn't care, the flowery speech of proper Japanese irritated her to no end with its double meanings and indirectness. She made an attempt to rise, but the lightheadedness still loomed, and she resolved to sit it off.
"Anoo," the dark-haired man looked apologetic. "Would you like to sit down for a drink?" He was, of course, formal in his words. The gray suit had a blue circular logo made of the English letters P and G on it. There was an Italian-style restaurant nearby that would do nicely with its outdoor tables.
Michiko smiled cynically, and her words were perhaps too harsh. But, it was fairly rare for anyone to offer her help, and she had learned through experience that trust in people was often misplaced trust. "Alright. So long as you aren't speaking with..." she paused, and spoke in very formal words. "...ulterior motives." There was a dry sarcasm latent in all her words, but it truly laced every fiber of her speech here...
The man frowned, "That is not the case." He led her towards the nearby tables, wondering to himself what age the young woman was and what her ailment could be. After sitting down, he directed the waiter to bring them glasses of sparkling water, and then looked to her, as if waiting for her to speak.
A bit regretful at just how assailing she had been, Michiko quickly murmured an apology, though she still wasn't entirely convinced at his sincerity. She still swayed as she walked a little - though it was not nearly so bad as it could have been. She was quite grateful to be off her feet once more as she sat, she was unsure as to how much longer her balance would have held out. But, she remained mostly silent, weighing in her mind the possibility that he might actually have acted altruistically against the likelihood that he was one more polite-to-a-fault-but-very-hormonal member of that species called "males".
"My name is Miyabi Futa," he said, interrupting her thoughts.
She blinked, sorted out what he had said from the conflicting parts of her mind (the philosophical that was active and the drug addict vying for control), and ultimately responded in kind. "...Michiko." She paused, delving back into the scales for a moment, decided they tipped even and she could at least converse with him for a time. Tick away at the moments that make up a dull day...
The waiter dropped off the seltzer and a round loaf of bread fresh out of a wood-burning oven. Futa sliced it across with a large serrated knife, revealing the big bubbles inside, and letting loose a wonderful aroma of fresh-baked, natural bread. Sliding a slab of butter across it, he gave the first slice to Michiko, along with the water. "You don't," he observed, "look as if you're from Kyoto."
Michiko quickly drained the glass of seltzer. "I was born here, and lived my whole life here. Doesn't make me fit in though." There was no remorse in those words, she had no desire to fit in. Being with the in-crowd wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The bread smelled good... she took a small bite to sample it, though she wasnt particularly hungry.
Mr. Miyabi seemed surprised. "Your way of dress gave me the impression you might be from Nepleslia," he commented, before starting on his own slice of the bread. It was very tasty. The timeless recipe never failed. There was a bottle of olive oil on the table, too, and the man added a bit to his bread before continuing. "Plus, you seemed somewhat...especially thin."
"My clothes didn't cost me anything, that's what mattered." She found the bread to be quite good, and ate a little more. "That probably tells more about me than anything else I can say, yes? And perhaps explains my being..." she mimicked his word choice as well as she could, though the language was a bit more elegant than she was used to speaking, and it showed. "Especially thin."
"You're looking for a job?" the man in the suit asked. "I can see why, with all the automation available these days." The waiter returned and the man briefly ordered something in Italian before returning his full attention to Michiko.
Michiko shook her head. "No, I haven't been searching for a job..." she yawned, took another bite of the bread. It was the best food she'd tasted in some time. Maybe part of that was because she wasn't completely stoned at that particular moment. "I've been making money recently... performing in bars, mostly." She spoke so very nonchalantly, so different from the biting sarcasm of mere moments ago.
"I see," the man nodded, imagining that she was probably a stripper in some low-class bars somewhere outside the city limits. He politely chose not to ask about the (probably embarrassing) details of her sundry work. "That's good," he observed. "You seem a bit distracted," he commented, but what he really meant was "you look trashed."
"Distracted?" She was not entirely sure what he meant, as she had been at least attempting to focus on what was real. Had she dazed away? It wouldn't help her conceal her addictions... "...what you mean by that?" She finished the slice of bread with a mock flourish.
While Mr. Miyabi searched for a way to politely explain it, the waiter showed up and delivered two plates and two bowls of pasta, one penne all'ariabiato (spicy red sauce) and one with bow-tie noodles in white sauce with bits of bacon in it. Seizing the opportunity to change the subject, Futa graciously offered to transfer some pasta of either type from a bowl onto Michiko's plate.
A little curiously, Michiko sniffed at the pasta. She had never eaten anything quite like that, and wasn't quite sure what to make of it. It smelled good, though. Ponderously, she looked over the white sauce. "What is that there?" She referred to the bacon. All of this was entirely new to her. A strange day it was proving to be.
"It's prosciutto," the man explained. "Or, something like it. It's like bacon, sort of."
She tilted her head. "That doesn't help me very much." She didn't know what either prosciutto or bacon was.
"It's meat," he elaborated, dipping some of each pasta onto his own plate.
Michiko blanched slightly, her skin going even paler than normal for a brief time, though she composed herself, and spoke blandly. "I think then, I can pass on that particular one."
"You're a vegetarian?" Mr. Miyabi asked.
"Is that what they call it now, to oppose vicious exploitation?" She bit down on her tongue. She had not meant to be quite so aggressive... "I'm sorry, I'm not reacting well today... my heads a little off."
"Vicious exploitation?" the man gave her a strange look. "Sorry," he apologized, and dipped her some of the spicy red-sauce pasta.
Michiko nodded slightly. "Thank you." She sampled the pasta questioningly, chewed thoughtfully, looking up towards the sky. And, she shivered. There was just something about this planet that made it bitterly cold year round!
"I hope this will help," Futa commented, watching her eat the hot pasta. He was not just referring to her coldness, but to her condition as a whole. After all, he'd taken her to lunch because she'd been pale, skinny, and staggering down the street.
She found the pasta to her liking, and ate more of it. It also did help to stave off the cold. "Help what?" She sounded a little curious, and a lot more involved in devouring the food placed before her.
"Your health seems questionable," he explained between bites. "It appears you do not eat as much as you should."
Michiko couldn't help but laugh, a little hollowly. "That has nothing to do with it." She stopped herself, noting that this was a public place and probably not a good locale for her to admit to her addictions. She quickly buried her face in the food once again.
"I see. You know, if you have an illness, PNUgen Corporation should be able to help you," he told her.
"I don't trust PNUgen." Her response was very blatant. "They play god, and we will end up worse off for it... beyond that, I get enough judging without putting myself up for display like a circus animal."
"But, the opposite is true. Look around at the wonderful things the Corporation has done for people."
"Yes, yes... murdering billions of Geshrin... creating obedient lapdogs... instruments of genocide... I'm quite thrilled by the track record." She spoke quite like a conspiracy theorist. Not surprising. She was a conspiracy theorist.
"Murdering billions? What are you talking about?"
She looked about a bit nervously, checking for any security personnel in the area. "Twenty billion, to go into exact numbers." She spoke very quietly. A long history of enmity with security patrols, and such radical theories as she possessed were part of the problem.
"But where do you get that from?" he asked.
"YE 8. I was four at the time. I don't remember it, personally. I believed it was Elysian doing, until I got such... aggressive... reactions at the rhetorical possibility that it was not." She yawned, and did her best to emulate the flowery speech of a politician. "Perhaps it is conjecture on my part, but it is no more so than to believe the official statements of our government agencies."
"If that were true, I wouldn't be working for PNUgen. Why blame such a terrible incident on us? It there something you have against the PNUgen Corporation? Really, the whole purpose of such an organization is to help people through medicine and biotechnology."
"...I'm sure near every employee would agree with you. Which doesn't, ah, exonerate, the people on top. What the workers do doesn't have much bearing on what the higher-ups do with it." She finished the pasta. "And for that matter, why blame such a terrible incident on Elysia? Simply because it was politically convenient?"
"Are you forgetting that Yamatai and Elysia were at war at the time?" the man asked. "It wasn't the first time they'd used biological weapons."
"I'm aware enough of the warfare. A fascinating thing, that. We developed some wonderful tools for committing genocide." She closed her eyes, laughed darkly. "When Pagoda stops pretending to be god, maybe Ill see if they can cure the uncurable."
The man frowned, and stood from his chair. "Have a good day, miss," he said.
She nodded slowly. "Thank you, Futa." She remained seated where she was.
After the gentleman left, the waiter returned and took away the man's plate. Michiko was alone again.
Michiko sighed softly, and rose to her feet. She had a talent for driving people away, it seemed. It didn't matter much now, her lightheadedness was more than gone. She wandered back into the cobbled streets, arbitrarily deciding to travel to the north.
The next group of people she encountered were a bunch of young women in the familiar black military uniforms. Since they were wearing tri-corner hats and not the berets that planetary forces wore, she could tell they we're part of the city's security force, and were probably not looking to bother her. As they walked closer, Michiko could hear them talking about whether it was better to be part of an expeditionary fleet or a standard fleet. Most of them seemed to prefer being in an Expeditionary fleet because of the death toll in the regular ones. Then, more random people walked by going the opposite direction: A Japanese woman in a dark blue yukata, with a baby in a basket on her back; some blond girls in short pleated leather skirts, boots, and tops made out of what appeared to be wolf pelts; a few more businessmen in suits, and a towering troll that was carrying a vacuum-sealed brand-new Nekovalkyrja in a bag over his shoulder.
The compulsory murmur of "Pyongna..." expulsed from her lips as she passed the soldiers, though somewhat more darkly than usual. That it would be heard was unlikely, something unusual for her insults... She rarely cared who heard or understood her. Now, she was a little too preoccupied to care to be heard. Still northward, ever northward.
