[sup][h1][b][INDENT][color=black] A B B Y + C U P I D[/color] [color=F8EF00]A B B Y + C U P I D[/color][/INDENT] [/b][/h1][/sup] [img]https://i.imgur.com/7Cb1ywk.png[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/033/013/238/4k/imanol-delgado-salazar-afterlife-28.jpg?1608138661[/img] [right][img]https://i.imgur.com/wgYH2dA.png[/img][/right] [img]https://i.imgur.com/7Cb1ywk.png[/img] Abby used to gamble in here. She used to shop, braindance, chat with friends - but she'd withdrawn from all of that in her paranoia. It contented her enough to wander through the digital streets in her most perfect and complete form. Bereft of pain, bodily function and ageing. Ripped from mortality yet tethered to the meat and cybernetics by a plastic umbilical. She'd begrudgingly accepted that Transcendence wasn't ready for her yet and the technology hadn't advanced far enough to keep her here but even a little while each day to skirt around in paradise was enough - for now. For the time being. Oftentimes in her reflection of what life was like, she considered severing the cord. Plunging off the edge and getting stretched into binary. The thoughts haunted her still, the eternal question; if she could choose where and when to die, shouldn't it be in here? She could pretend to have transcended. There was always a glimmer of hope that she would, if she were only brave enough to make the leap. Dead in the Data Pool. The only place she felt at peace. Her five minute warning alarm went off. Abby grimaced. She rarely, if ever, wanted to leave at the right time. She didn't like the re-entry into her corpse. She thought of other methods too, things like loosening her headrest so that body would slip under the ice water (would it hurt, to drown in the Data Pool? Would it scare her? Would she even notice - would she even know she died?) but her parole officer and guardian angel wouldn't allow it. Unspoken agreement. He started checking her apparatus diligently each time she bought bags of ice. In the same way that she wouldn't let him slip out of her nasty metal fingers, Abby owed it to Valentine to try and keep herself in the real world for a while longer. Even if it hurt and it was exhausting. She sat down in some small alcove and brought up a text document titled 'GoBackReasons.txt'. She had the same list on paper in her book. Valentine's name was at the top but she needed more than obligation to drag her out of the aether this time. Her fingers slipped between lines of cold, plucking the threads of data until she found the feed she wanted and flickered on the security footage for their apartment. Valentine - for once - seemed sober. He was standing in the living room, looking at some nonsense on their holo TV setup, and occasionally checking his watch. The man who she’d entered a reverse-suicide-pact with was in a grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans - so normal, so bland, so utterly and reprehensibly generic that it actually made him stand out. Like a signature, but written in Calibri, using white ink - only on a world of colour. He was a smudge on a broken mirror in an art gallery - something grey, worn, unintentional, but in that very same way unique too. He glanced towards the bathroom, then up at the camera. There was no way he’d know she was watching him - but he tapped his watch all the same. [color=ff5294][i]420Cupid>//: I’m gonna order from the fucking noodle place, i forget the name idk where it is, you can only have some of my weed if you’re out on time[/i][/color] [color=ff5294][i]420Cupid>//: and you know the munchies make those dumplings worth it [/i][/color] Abby chuffed amusedly. She didn't need to type, the words flitted down the little box in her periphery unfettered by human effort. [color=C9ABAB][i]DefaultUser>//: You look like a bracket[/i][/color] [color=C9ABAB][i]DefaultUser>//: You look like you're tryin to audition for the caucasian man in a couch commercial[/i][/color] [color=C9ABAB][i]DefaultUser>//: Want some royalty free music to leisurely put your feet up on the cushions too?[/i][/color] [color=C9ABAB][i]DefaultUser>//: Are you cosplaying whoever u think John is[/i][/color] [color=C9ABAB][i]DefaultUser>//: Is that what this is[/i][/color] [color=C9ABAB][i]DefaultUser>//: This is your whitesona[/i][/color] [color=C9ABAB][i]DefaultUser>//: Low key scared I'm gonna come out n you're gonna lift your hand up and smile at me[/i][/color] Valentine scowled up at the camera. [color=ff5294][i]420Cupid>>//: Fuck you I'm comfy[/i][/color] [color=ff5294][i]420Cupid>>//: If you want dumplings you gotta be out on time today, and you always make me get you dumplings so I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's worth it for you[/i][/color] Abby checked her list. 'Noodles with the big dumplings' was written fairly high up. With one last, wistful look across the pixelated horizon, the netrunner began to log off from the Data Pool. Sensation came back in increments. As soon as she disconnected from the digital realm, Abby was flooded with the cold of her ice bath - one wet shuddering gasp followed by multiple loud sloshes. An electrical impulse rattled down her left arm, sparked through the circuitry and pulled the silicone fibres taut. Numb, artificial fingers dragged at the plugs and tore out the wires. Pistons in her legs pulled at metal cables and pushed the body upward, rightward and out of the tub. She landed on the dusty, hair speckled bathmat with a wet thump. There weren't enough muscles in Abby to shiver anymore so she had to get herself warm and dry as quickly as possible. Cyber was cold; all plastic and pieces with very little in the way of heating elements. Even after she'd wiped off the water with a deliberately placed bath towel on top of the toilet seat, peeled off the swimming costume and wrapped herself in a luridly coloured bath robe she still felt the deep, boneshaking chill in her chest and her stomach. Familiar wretched thoughts about how there was no cold in the Data Pool reared their ugly heads. Abby was quick to stifle them. Being cold was just as human of an experience as hunger and sweating and having indigestion. It all needed to be honoured as such. She strolled into the living room and curled up in front of an old space heater, turning it on. She had a particular habit of lying face first, as the weight and protrusion of the Pifner surpassed the tip of her surgically altered nose. The lights from the television lit up her exposed cyber in eerie, uncertain patterns. Even with her camera flush against the floorboards she could still see a series of different feeds from different angles; she was still watching Valentine without looking. She smiled wearily. [color=C9ABAB]"It's still pretty hard. Getting out's…still pretty hard,"[/color] Abby acknowledged. [color=ff5294]“Yeah, I know it is.”[/color] Valentine reached down to offer her a hot chocolate - or the synthetic, thrice reprocessed, artificially constituted version of a hot chocolate, at least. Abby made the effort. She scraped her metal face to the side, grabbing the mug, sitting upright to take careful sips. It wasn't the flavour she craved, but the warmth; and had she been more endowed with cybernetics she would have burnt her gums, tongue and throat to guzzle the entire mug. [color=ff5294]“But, you know, I’ve been in a bit of a sentimental mood all day, and I think that’s why it occurred to me that… if… well, if I were still a doctor, and you were one of my patients, I think I would be so…”[/color] He paused, turning the volume down on the television as he sat on the sofa next-to-and-above Abby, and gently flopped the blanket she’d left for him down onto her. She bent slightly on impact, then dragged it over her shoulders. [color=ff5294]“... I would tell all the nurses about how well you were doing. I’d make remarks on it every day, I really would. In the doctors’ mess, getting the free mess coffee - free-ish at least, still need to pay twenty quid a month for membership believe it or not - I’d tell my mates all about the next big step you’d taken, in as much as I could and still keep confidentiality. Every time you get out of the bath at all I’m proud.”[/color] He took a sip of his coffee - not the real stuff, but for his purposes close enough. [color=ff5294]“Every time. I know it just sounds like platitudes, but I’m not even exaggerating. I really am proud of you.”[/color] [color=C9ABAB]"For you. Every time."[/color] Abby set the mug aside, sat leaning against the sofa. [color=C9ABAB]"Well-not just you. But if you weren't there, then I'd…dumplings alone does not a good reason make,"[/color] she skirted around the truth because it didn't need to be said, there was no need to manifest it by speaking it out loud. They both knew. Again loosely masking her words in light-hearted humour, Abby leant back against the sofa cushions. [color=C9ABAB]"You've tricked me again into believing something I'm not sure is real, which makes me the fool here…but I've always been a sucker for a happy fantasy."[/color] She tilted her head towards him. It's a sheer metal brick stuck to her skull, and it's only when she's tired that he could almost feel the weight of it dragging down on her neck. The headaches. [color=C9ABAB]"Sobriety's one hell of a drug, huh? I'm glad you're…here. Fully. It's even harder when you're not."[/color] Valentine swallowed, and nodded. [color=ff5294]"Me too. I think I'm gonna… sort of, keep my head on a bit straighter for a bit. You're right, it's a good night to be sober."[/color] Abby pulled the blanket around her, focusing in particular with her legs. Machinery took a while to heat up, so retaining as much of that heat as she could was essential to re-equilibrate her body temperature. [color=C9ABAB]"Did you order the food?"[/color] She asked after some silence. Valentine smiled and nodded, flicking the channel on the holo idly, moving from scene to scene. Abby felt it - if she hadn't been in the Pool she probably would've even felt it before he did himself. The restlessness. But he knew that she knew. [color=ff5294]"One of them died, I'm afraid."[/color] He said at last, still flicking through. [color=ff5294]"Our mates from the chop shop job - the small guy. When we handed them over they were still cold, so I figure he was probably just colder than she was, and then developed a fatal arrhythmia when we weren't around to fix it."[/color] Valentine closed his eyes, and sighed. [color=ff5294]"The way I hear it they had someone watching them - like we told them to - and were giving CPR within a minute. Defib and everything."[/color] A pause. Abby ruminated on a cold so fierce it can cause the heart to shiver. [color=ff5294]"Quite proud of them actually. It's just that it didn't matter. He just died."[/color] [color=C9ABAB]"He was alive when we handed them in. That's on them, not you."[/color] Abby pulled the blankets tighter, wrapped herself up in them and rested some under her head like a cushion. [color=C9ABAB]"They wouldn't have even had a chance if we weren't there, and the lady still survived - hell, that other lady survived too. Went out of your way to ensure that. What else were you meant to do? Preheated the van and everything…You said it yourself, he just died. Believe it this time."[/color] She didn't look his way because she didn't have to, and the hot air against her Pifner was keeping the brainfreeze at bay. Instead she frowned and replayed the last few seconds of audio again, listening carefully this time. [color=ff5294]"Yeah, I know. I don't blame us whatsoever. It's just…"[/color] He grimaced. [color=ff5294]"It's a shame. Life is fragile."[/color] [color=C9ABAB]"I have a pacemaker in my heart. Any wobble and it goes zzzZZAP. Back in business."[/color] She rolled onto her back with a clunk and a grin. [color=C9ABAB]"I've got those…subdermal injectors…I've got emergency fuel supplies, I've got my own technically not trauma team doc. I've probably got some other shit in there too. Woe upon whoever tries to put me in the ground for good." [/color] Valentine grinned down at her. [color=ff5294]"You're goddamn right. Fucking invincible, we are. More you than me."[/color] He shrugged, standing to get the food as the doorbell rang. [color=ff5294]"The whole thing just has me in a sentimental sort of mood, I think. Nothing ever goes properly, not a single day without some sort of hitch or complication."[/color] Valentine smiled wistfully, pausing at the door. [color=ff5294]"Which is, of course, what I like about it."[/color] [color=C9ABAB]"Acquired taste,"[/color] Abby ruefully retorted. [color=C9ABAB]"Where my dumplings at?"[/color] After getting the takeout microwaved until it was blisteringly hot Abby ate her way through the noodles at speed, primarily to get at the greasy broth and limp, soggy vegetables stuck in the bottom of the carton. She ate her dumplings in two bites each. She practically wolfed down the meal, barely taking any time to appreciate it in her desire to warm up. They watched television for a while in silence because Valentine was still working his way through his own order. It didn't take long for the fatigue, full stomach, space heater and blanket to get to her and her breathing steadied into a gentle snore before Valentine could finish up his pack of pork gyozas. There was a faint but familiar click as the light on the Pifner switched off, turning to standby mode. As she fell asleep, Valentine let out a sigh of relief. If she slept, she was alright - that's how it always was with her. His mind wandered. He found himself remembering the skinny young man they'd pulled out of the ice - how Abby had neglected the looting entirely, in the interest of saving the pair they'd been sent for. He sighed again, not quite in relief, and his mind wandered further. He remembered his studies, the constant strive to learn it all and the equally constant failure to do so - he remembered finally learning that such a failure was natural, that nobody could be expected to know so much all at once. He saw images in his mind's eye - books, papers, essays, interspersed with memorising Surahs that were long, long lost to him now. More and more often as he grew older, Valentine remembered what it had been like to be young. After another moment lost in reverie, Valentine put his hands on his knees and hefted himself up from the couch, taking another place at the sleeping form on the floor below him, setting his dumplings down on the ground next to her - knowing full well that they'd likely be eaten before she was even fully awake - and he made a move for his bedroom. Yahyā Al-Hakim had been careful when choosing a place to live. He wanted somewhere he could at least pretend was spacious enough for two, he wanted somewhere where the hot water and the internet worked properly, and most importantly he had wanted a bedroom without a carpet. Without even humming to himself, he picked up the broom he always kept behind his bedroom door, and he started sweeping. A vacuum would wake Abby, which wasn't fair, but on a smooth floor the brush would work well enough. Diligently he cleaned. Dust, a few loose hairs, loose dross from his habits - but never very much. Yahyā understood that this was not a requirement for him. He knew it was something he was - at least in the words of the others, the majority - considered 'exempt' from, even if that was a disingenuous way to put it, but it wouldn't feel right if he didn't do it at least occasionally. After sweeping, Yahyā took a good look at the floor - checking for spillages or stains that would require mopping. He smiled and was satisfied that there were none. Unrolling his mat and kneeling down on it, he remembered when his mother had taught him how to pray, out on the courtyard square in the middle of summer, just after his tenth birthday. [Color=cd8fff][I]"Yahyā, remember, nobody can force you to do this. There is no obligation in our faith, no compulsion - we do it because it feels right. We do it because we feel we need to, because we want to, to be closer with our creator - not because a man or a woman made us do it."[/I][/color] He leaned down and held his face to the floor, bowing before a creator he didn't always think was listening, and didn't always even believe in. He opened his mouth and began to speak the words he had clung to in his heart the day he'd lost his arm. He said, in a whisper so loud that it echoed so every star in the sky could hear it, the names of his mother and father, the names of his wife and his son, and the word he had been taught meant God. He made a measured, delicate plea - a statement of his hope. He said the name of the young man who had succumbed to his injuries and his hypothermia not so long ago - and he asked his creator to look after him, to be merciful and kind to him. He did all of this under his breath. Quietly, [color=ff5294]he began to pray.[/color] It took a little while, but not very long, and when he was done he rolled up his prayer mat and put it back in its usual spot in the corner. In the living room he heard his phone go off. A text from Eddie. Valentine re-entered the living room to answer it, taking one more dumpling from the tray he'd left for Abby as he typed out his reply. [color=ff5294][i]420Cupid>//: Always a pleasure, Eddie. We'll be there. Looking forward to it.[/i][/color] [color=ff5294]"Hey."[/color] He said out loud, nudging the sleeping woman with his foot. [color=ff5294]"Look alive, there's work going. Eddie wants us to meet her in the crypt."[/color] [right][img]https://i.imgur.com/wgYH2dA.png[/img][/right] [img]https://i.imgur.com/7Cb1ywk.png[/img] Poised, bedecked in a padded bodysuit complete with a motorcycle helmet and utterly silent. Abby was a different beast entirely when she needed to resurface into Night City, and it had everything to do with her paranoia. She let Valentine order the drinks but wouldn't touch her own. The loud music drowned out conversation but she wasn't in the mood for talking. After a few minutes she pinged Valentine's phone with a notification. It was a gaudy screenshot of one of those cheap mobile app games. Abby had taken a picture of her latest high score. In her mind's eye, the UI of the Pifner, she was watching the little tower defense sprites play out the feverish commands she input. They were frantically trying to pop balloons. Abby's been playing this game for months, trying to get the best score online and failing to even get close because she wouldn't hack it. Valentine sighed, loudly, and turned back towards the petulant hacker with a bottle of beer for her. He was dressed up too - but with a decidedly different aesthetic, sporting a thick grey cotton overshirt and white tee combo, paired up with a pair of near-black chinos and the one pair of boots he actually bothered to polish. Somewhere under there a trained eye could spot a concealed vest - the sort of insurance that those in the know knew intimately. [color=ff5294]“You haven’t even beat [i]me[/i] yet.”[/color] He frowned, taking a sip of his own drink - a gin and tonic with a dash of lime cordial. [color=C9ABAB]"Not everything can be perfect in the real world,"[/color] Abby's voice crackled through the microphone in her helmet.[color=C9ABAB] "At least I'm doing it the hard way. When are they expecting us?" [/color] [color=ff5294]“Very shortly, should probably make our way through in fact.”[/color] Claire - the bartender - nodded conspicuously as he said it, and gestured in the direction of the crypt itself. [color=ff5294]“Right. Cheers Claire.”[/color] Valentine replied nonchalantly, turning to head towards it. [color=ff5294]“What do you reckon we’re really here for, anyway? Eddie asked for both of us - which, far as I know, she doesn’t always do.”[/color] [color=C9ABAB]"Maybe it'll have something to do with…popping balloons-fuckdamnit,"[/color] Abby hissed as she failed the level. [color=C9ABAB]"Either way. We're going to find out, so finish your drink and let's get on with it." [/color] [color=ff5294]“Fuck sake. I was trying to make it last.”[/color] [right][img]https://i.imgur.com/wgYH2dA.png[/img][/right]