[@Letter Bee][@Deide]


The night before, Hallelujah had been at Riot. She’d told herself it was to get her face out there(there are better clubs for it, but not [i]nice[/i] ones), that people would see her checking her steel at the door, and wonder who she was. Important people go to bars, if they know her face, that can help, right? Maybe she would get into a little scrap, ask the poor gonk if they wanna take it outside?

That hadn’t happened. She had danced, drank a little, chatted some folks up, and just generally went through the motions of a night at the club. She didn’t even [i]really[/i] enjoy herself. Instead of having fun memories with friends afterward(what she imagined the goal of a night out was), she woke up just before noon feeling vaguely silly. Pushing away both silk covers and nagging doubts, Hally got up out of bed and looked around at her spare studio apartment. She told herself she would use daddy’s credit only for emergencies and necessities(like going to the club to get your name out) and the studio’s emptiness made her feel like she was accomplishing that, if nothing else. 

Her mattress is a nice memory foam one, but it is also on the floor. There’s a small closet on the other side of the room, which she is paying separate rent for. If her rent falls behind, they’ll lock it remotely, automatically dump the contents into a shoot down to the laundry facility, and sell it at a consignment shop. If her repoed possessions fetch enough to cover her rent and all applicable late fees, she can apply again to lease the closet, provided her credit has not been too badly affected by the eviction now on her record. The closet could only fit half of her wardrobe, the rest were presently still in shopping bags, neatly arrayed to the left of the closet door. 

The bathroom was a kind of pod. Big enough to stand in, with a little alcove that the toilet sat in. Toilet tissue could be dispensed from a vending machine that sold it to her by the sheet, tallied up and added to her rent. Moreover, the paper was always water damaged from the shower, so she had just bought a pack and kept it nearby. No sucker, Hallelujah Pritchard(or so she thought, until her rent came due two weeks later, and she discovered that they’d charged her for the water damage to the rolls of paper in the machine anyway). 

She stood in the pod, in nothing but the loose shirt she slept in, and looked at herself in the mirror built into the sidewall, just below the shower faucet, and just above the sink faucet. She still had her faux-makeup on from last night, and with a quick mental command to her integrated Agent, her chem-skin cleared immediately to the artfully freckled default she had set. She was just starting to wonder what she was going to even bother getting dressed for today when her holo rang. She answered it with another little mental “flick,” and Wakako Okada appeared in her vision, just up and to the left of centered. On the other end, Hally knew an equally false version of herself would appear for Wakako, stylishly dressed and carefully curated. 

“Miss Pritchard, I hope that I am not interrupting important business.”

Hally Grimaced, and hoped that nothing of it showed on the holo, or in her voice, “Just finished brunch,” she answered, as brightly as she could. “Free now, h-how can I help you?” A bit of a lame finish, but how do you talk to a fixer? Wakako is a powerful woman, and one who might actually offer [i]work[/i], of the kind Hally wanted. She wanted to sound willing and ready, but was afraid she had already been too eager when asking after a job before. 

“Good, I am hoping there is something you [i]can[/i] help with. If, that is, you are still serious about doing merc work…” 

Hally almost just shouted “Yes!” but kept her cool a moment longer. Don’t seem too eager, remember. “Might be, what’s the gig?” 

“The new management for Arasaka Academy is having trouble with some Tyger Claws.”

“I went there,” Hally bleated stupidly, and thumped her fist against the sink, frustrated at her own slip. It turned out not to matter, as Wakako continued. 

“I know this. I might have chosen you for the job for that reason, except the client already gave you the nod. Strange, do you know this Ken Illustrious Ikari?” 

“Never heard of him,” Hally answered honestly, and the bare bewilderment in her voice made Wakako believe her. “He knows me, how?”

“Information is valuable,” she almost sounded like she was scolding a child with his hand in the cookie jar, and Hally sure felt like it, “You have no credit with me. Not yet. If you are [i]truly[/i] set on this path, you must earn it.”

“I will,” she said in a voice both small and somber. 

“We will see. Coordinates incoming.” The call disconnected.

~~~

Despite staring in the mirror for the entire conversation, Hally forgot to set her makeup, and ended up leaving her apartment with her hair in a messy bun. She threw on a crop top, black syn-leather jeans, some high-top sneakers, and a magenta pozer-jacket. She had a 2068 Archer Quartz, bought quietly with her secret credit line. She also owned a much newer Mizutani Shion, but was worried her father could track it. The yellow paint on the older car was faded, but she actually thought it was kind of cute. It certainly got her from A to B, anyway, and did so today. 

Arasaka Academy was… not how she remembered. Of course, it wasn’t [i]really[/i] the same school she had attended. It was just kind of wearing its namesakes’ clothes. The uniforms were a different color, but otherwise identical. Which was good in Hally’s mind, as the red and black motif had been an eyesore. She had expected a cold corpo secretary of a type she was fairly familiar with, but was instead greeted at the desk by a pleasant woman not much older than herself. 

Hally was directed to the big boss’s office, and sat in a chair in the waiting area just outside. She unbuckled her sword, and held it in both hands between her knees, her chin resting on the pommel and its sheathed tip on the floor.