Silverwit

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

Titan laughed a little bitterly at his drink.

"That's a complicated question."

He looked at her thoughtfully for a minute. For whatever reason, he felt like he could trust her.

"As you know, I'm a cyborg. People like me are pretty rare, especially because of...You know, Earth."

He paused and stirred his water with a straw. The ice had begun to melt in the glass, certainly helped along by his increased body temperature.

"Tiger and Thrush aren't really my siblings, by blood anyway. They're my coworkers. We don't share parents, but we do share a creator."

His expression and body language completely changed, and he worked his hands at the air aimlessly.

"I don't have a lot of memories of him. The time we spent in his care is very blurry to me. He was eventually killed by our current employer."

The ice was melting much faster now. He took another quick drink of the water before it completely lost its cool.

"He wasn't a good man. But yeah. Tiger and Thrush are cyborgs, like I am. Unfortunately for us, a lot of nasty sorts of people tend to take a pretty intense interest in us."

He was silent then for a time. The water was now merely lukewarm rather than ice cold.

The day he was taken from his family by the Creator tended to replay itself over and over in his memories as though it were a song stuck in his head. Even the name he wore, 'the Creator', was perfectly indicative of the kind of man he had been.

He looked up at Tau again finally, and forced a smile.

"Sorry, Thrush did say I was always too eager to dump my tragic history on random people."

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

He nodded, and listened while she spoke.

"We don't ever get assassination jobs, but I understand what you mean. I also want to re-elaborate. You get to pick and choose what jobs you take, and it doesn't affect your allowance in any way."

He smiled and thought about Tiger. His brother had always liked the big dangerous gang-busting missions. Titan went with him occasionally but always preferred quieter things.

"I understand if you're not interested. It's a lot to take in all at once from a stranger."

The first of their food finally arrived, and Titan happily grabbed for a napkin.

"By the way, since we're talking about missing siblings, you haven't heard about anyone named Thrush have you?"

He grabbed a small fried something or other from her side of the table.

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

Titan took another sip of ice water, enjoying the cold liquid.

He thought for a moment before answering her question. "Well, it varies a lot. Sometimes we're asked to retrieve something,
or find someone, or transport something or someone." He paused, looking a bit grim. "Occasionally we're asked to do things a bit more dangerous. Cop-type stuff."

We watched her reaction carefully.

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

Titan nodded at her as she spoke, swishing some ice water in his mouth.

"I know what you mean. When I was young money was pretty tight, so we kind of had to make do. Don't get me wrong," he added, looking at her, "it was a more well-off place than the Debris, but for the area we were definitely not in the upper echelons of wealth. Regardless, please do eat as much as you want. My allowance is pretty good today."

He allowed himself to get lost in the memory for a moment. Before his job, before the cybernetics, and all that stuff. He shook his head to clear it, and smiled.

"Anyways. I wanted to keep talking to you about this job."

He paused for a moment to make sure she was paying attention.

"So like I said, the jobs vary a lot, and so does the pay for each. But the real kicker is, each of us gets an allowance."

He did some quick math in his head, then continued, "The allowance varies as well, but it tends to average at about 20 thousand a day."

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

"It's no Neptune Walk, but it's not too bad either."

He beckoned her, and walked down a couple buildings to the restaurant, 'Fruits of Labour'. As they walked inside, he stepped up to the counter and had a short but animated conversation with the hostess. She laughed, and retrieved two thin menus before leading them to a quiet table on the other side of the restaurant. The other tables were very sparsely populated, there were perhaps 6 other people in total. Most of them seemed to be businessmen, furiously browsing things on their Bulletins.

As they sat, Titan smiled at the hostess.

"You know what I want, and I'm buying so don't give my friend here a rough time, Margaret."

He gave Tau a conspiratorial wink.

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

He grimaced a bit at her jokes.

"I mean we're not technically-It's complicated."

He was silent for a minute or so.

"I don't know if it was him. I hadn't heard from him in a really long time beforehand, but he knew exactly how to contact me. But when I got here, nothing."

He threw his hands up in a sort of shrug.

"I didn't really have anything better to do, so I've kind of just been waiting around in case it really was him."

He put his hands back in his pockets, and found himself lost in thought again. He didn't know much of anything about life in a place like this, but Tiger was different. He didn't think it was likely that he'd been kidnapped or something silly like that. But Tiger wouldn't leave him out to dry like this, and he had no idea who even knew enough about them to impersonate Tiger to get him to come here. And even if so, why?

He swore at the ground, "Where the fuck are you, Thrush?"

He looked up, and saw that they'd arrived in front of his hotel. He sighed, and then gave Tau another warm smile.

"Here we are. The restaurant I was talking about is only a couple doors down. It's about as touristy as it gets around here so the food is pretty good. I like the fish."

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

Titan stood thoughtfully as Tau talked about Kaufmann. As she asked him about siblings, he visibly winced and looked away for a moment.

"Yeah, I have a few. I mentioned one of them, Tiger."

He kept walking in the direction of the hotel, slowing his pace so that she could keep up with him.

"He's the reason I'm in the Debris. I'm looking for him. I got a message from someone claiming to be him telling me to come here, but well..."

He trailed off. He rested his hands in his pockets.

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

Titan said nothing as he followed her outside, and looked back at her as she looked up at him. His left eye was still closed tightly.

"If you're interested in what we were discussing earlier, we can go somewhere to talk about it. Um..."

He paused awkwardly for a moment.

"I'm staying at a hotel on the other side of town, there's a pretty nice little restaurant over there if you're hungry.
My buy."

He thumbed the chipper again, then gave her a conspiratorial grin.

"By the way, our good friend Kaufmann probably isn't going to be in business much longer. My boss takes record of wherever I use this thing, and the Bureau of Enforcement loves to investigate how we use our funds, so he's probably gonna get some cops knocking on his door in a few days."

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

He nodded at her retreating back, and followed her to the door. He stood in front of the staircase, arms crossed, facing out. As he heard her footsteps stop, he spoke without turning.

"I'll make sure no one follows you. Like I said, I'll get lost if you like but I want to make sure you get out of here safely."

He crossed his arms, and watched Kaufmann.

Tau & Titan (Sevinya & Silverwit)

Titan waited until the man was out of earshot, then narrowed his open eye. He spoke to Tau relatively softly.

"Not completely sure what he means, but you're free to leave here now if you like."

He turned to her, and gave her another warm smile.

"If you want to come with me, I can talk to you in a bit more detail about that job offer. But if you're not interested,
that's okay. I didn't buy you, I bought your freedom. You can do whatever you like now."

He crossed his arms, and took another glance around the room.

"I understand if you want me to get lost, but I'd be most comfortable sticking with you until we're out of sight of this place so no one tries anything."