Adventurine Awaits - Nightcafe
Implacable dark had her and nothing more; until this moment. A cool rush of knowing from nowhere. A heartbeat, then the pain of waking life, if not yet breath.
Geana wretched the ectoplasm from her lungs as she lurched to a seated position without hindrance of canopy. This is not right, this process was nothing like any of the pods she had emerged from before.
“Take your time. There is no rush.” A woman’s voice, not unpleasant but with an underlying tone of boredom.
“Who are you?” She asked with vocal chords and muscles that had evidently not been in use for some time.
“An opportunity.” Came the reply. “You may call me Adventurine, Snowflake does.”
It clicked into place. This was the Gallente elite that somehow denied her right to reclaim her own jump-clones. The pang of rage towards her was short-lived, yesterdays ectoplasm, thinking of which the stuff she was sat in was rank with poorly reprocessed proteins and acids, she felt suddenly and irrationally ashamed.
“How did you find me?” She asked asked before she recalled her previous waking moments. “That ■■■■■!” she exclaimed as she recalled her fade to black at the navcon with Winter in the back. “Winter, not you.” she explained after a breath.
Adventurine head tilted towards a previously unseen intelligence uniformed figure in the shadowy far corner.
“Winter believes she is getting into the good Graces of the MegaCorps, as she should be.”
This answer raised more questions than her fast paced mind cared to articulate.
She settled for, “Why, did you find me?”
“Oh, just to administer your injector.” She gestured to an empty skill injector vial laying neatly on the antique pod coffin Geana remained in. “Must not let all that valuable education go to waste now must we.”
Advenutine leans forward conspiratorially, “I miss playing with my favourite.”
Geana must have confessed her confusion on her face. “Did you know that River purchased every available social training algorithm available for Snowflake to swim at the highest circles to ensure her safety from you?” Adventurine waited fro a response from Geana, but none was forthcoming.
“Then when I had you at the cusp of catastrophe, she did the most extraordinary thing, she invited you into her family fold, putting you under the protection of our agreement. I am rarely taken by surprise, but that was unexpected.” She seemed oddly pleased by that.
“What do you want from me?” Geana growled.
“From you? Nothing dear.” Adventurine rose gracefully from her seat on the coffin.
Blind rage returned in a rush as Adventurine turned her back on her to leave. Geana made to lurch from her confinement, snag a wrist or something, but in that moment the figure in the corner stepped into the light, eyes glinting hard, mouth a mean minus demanding her attention… and silence. Navy Commander Ortagan, in the wrong uniform. Total fatigue, she slumped back into her slim bath.
