A War Unending

She should believe him. She does. So she nods and smiles, “I’ll keep my ears open and eyes wide.” The last is just meant as some kind of innocent joke. She hopes he doesn’t mind. She has all the time to wait for his ideas and thoughts. That is if this place doesn’t send her back home like Hive did that one time. 

“I’d offer you a job if you needed, while we waited for your business,  but I don’t think working at a cafe would be your style, mm?” There’s plenty of positions, but none of them seems right.

“Oh, I’m uh…Practicing.” Okay, be honest. He’ll probably know if she was hiding something. “I wanna get in touch with a bit of my Gumiho side. Except for the deadly parts, of course. Just….okay—don’t laugh, please, but it’d be nice to be able to flirt and just….you know…have that love life. I saw on TV that a wink goes a long way.” wow. She didn’t mean to share all of that.

“Glad to hear it.” So far, so good. Not that he really got what the hell was up with her little quips, but whatever. probably some cultural thing he’d missed out on. With everyone coming from different planets and galaxies, there wasn’t really a ‘local’ culture for him to absorb like he normally would; it’d driven him to distraction for the first couple of weeks.

In any case, a cafe certainly wouldn’t work out for him. In point of fact, he would... well, probably better not to get into that. Certainly no need to tell Hansol that if she tried putting Kovacs behind a counter, somebody would end up with a knife in them by the end of the day.

So she was... trying to learn how to flirt, was she? Now that was a rabbit hole far, far too deep for either of them to go into. Not that he wouldn’t... no, never mind that.

This guy. Already getting on her nerves. She sighs through nostrils, rolls her eyes and with her free hand she has to move a strand of hair from over her shoulder. What is he supposed to be? A mind reader or some shit? Damn. She wonders what he’s thinking. USUALLY she could read people, but….And perhaps that’s why she’s even more annoyed. She can’t tell what this guy is thinking, what his motivation is. Maybe later on. If there’s that chance. 

“Uh…..Yeah?” She gestures to her skateboard. “The sonuvabitches took the wheels. WHY would they want to take wheels? LIKE what are they going to use skateboard wheels for? AND I can’t find any right sizes for this stupid thing.” 

She brought up a pretty good question, actually. Who would bother to take the wheels off a skateboard? Probably just to mess with her; he couldn’t think of any other reason, unless it was to replace wheels on some other skateboard.

Eyes slightly widen. Wait, he’s coming to her about discussion of a new business and he sees her a good fit? Hold on. “Ah, I’m grateful you think that way, but….May I ask what kind of business this is?” She’s seen what Kovavcs can do, seen what he is capable of. Is she nervous and worried to find out what this business can possibly be? Maybe. 

But….

“Mr. Kovacs, I hope I can be of some kind of assistance to you.” Genuinely, from the bottom of her heart, she just hopes she can do that much for him.

“Don’t worry. it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m looking into a completely legitimate business.” No lie there, in point of fact. Whether or not anything else that might go on was a different story; but the business itself would be completely legal.

“Nothing you can do right now, in any case. But keep your ears open. I’ll let you know.” 

“Don’t you want to explore the island? It’s new - I’d rather know what’s here than not but ah, you do you.” What a strange normie. Each their own, but she had to explore. Meet new people, see new things. It was in her blood.

Her head tilted as she glanced around the area first, before turning her attention back to the man. She hardly knew him, and already he was offering her work? Suppose she could help, in some way. After all, she did help that Farnum guy, though he turned out to be bad, in the end. “I wouldn’t mind that at all, actually. What exactly do you want me to look for?”

“At the moment, no.” More to the point, exploring would come later, if he could be bothered to do it at all. Right now, he needed a few other things, like other types of information. The rest, including the city’s layout, could easily come to him as his plan progressed.

Simon had thought it impossible he could get more tense but as Takeshi began his brain began to run wild with possible responsible to an imagined “So you’re a dead woman under that suit piloted by a Canadian from the 21st century” that never came. It was too specific for anyone to guess at, Simon reassured himself while he nodded along to the explanation offered up.

“You’re spot on.”  Simon tried to sound amazed rather than relieved even though the more specific details did stick out as way too close to lucky guesses. But maybe from where, when Takeshi was from technology had hit Blade Runner levels and it was either getting uploaded into a machine or another person. “It was pretty disorienting but once I got over the uh, differences, it was, is, a pretty good simulacra. Of being human.” He laughed nervously, flexing his fingers. “I guess that makes me post-human? Transhuman?”

Wary as he’d been about the not-answer given before, Simon smartly shelved that distrust for a more, if forced, optimistic approach that Takeshi wouldn’t fuck him over. Now he could never turn his flashlight on around Takeshi for fear of illuminating what was within but hey, he didn’t exactly intend to run into the guy down a dark alleyway anytime soon.

“Do you know which way the Cotes ward is? I, I got off before my stop.”

Unless he was lying - which seemed unlikely, all things considered - the way Simon had ended up in a mobile suit without a body was Kovacs had expected. More to the point, it worked pretty closely to how altered carbon stacks and resleeving worked. Not exactly surprising, as long as you weren’t an idiot; but it was good to have the confirmation. 

Being stuck without a real body was a bit of a new one for him, though. It’d probably have its advantages and disadvantages, some of which Simon probably hadn’t even figured out yet. In fact, depending on just what the suit was originally intended for, it might well have safety limitations set in place that Simon didn’t even know about. Limitations that Kovacs could probably work out how to disable.

Assuming that he cared to.

If only the other knew they were completely real. It could be discussed later, if it came to it, since the information wasn’t needed at the moment. Besides, she was trying to decipher is the man human or not. Nothing wrong if he was, but the only times older human males came into contact with her, they weren’t very nice. At all.

“You want to start a company?” Laura echoed, instantly filled with curiosity. “What kind of business? Don’t you need, like, a degree in that?” There was a course at school for that, wasn’t there? She vaguely recalled the class but she never took it. She didn’t understood the business side of the world since it didn’t include her in any situation before. Unless she got the entirety of the idea wrong. Which is probably what is happening here.

“But why are you just sitting there? Don’t you want to look around?”

“The kind of business I want to start... no. Or at least, not here. All I’m going to need is some of the right kinds of people. As to looking around, what would I look for? I’ve got a rough idea of where my business is going to be. If I do too much poking around, myself... things will actually get a little harder for me.”

Not that it would be anything he could handle. In fact, if he’d wanted to start the real work right now, he could be in business by the time the sun went down. But that would cause too many other ripples, other problems. First, he needed two things: information, and people.

Ah, of course he wouldn’t just pretend he didn’t see her struggling over something that looked so simple. Probably was, but for her….It was difficult. “Which is odd, because my kind…we’re, you know, very…” She should stop right there, because she was nothing like any Gumiho. “Never mind. I just thought I’d try in case I needed to use it for…..something.” She sighs, almost defeatedly. “How may I help you Mr. Kovacs?” 

What had she been about to say? Probably a question for another time. Right now didn’t quite feel like the right time to push her on it. Not yet.

As it happened, he’d bumped into Hansol entirely on accident. Not like there was anything he’d needed her for. On the other hand, now that they’d run across each other again...

     “You think so? I don’t see it! But I guess that’s because I just don’t look      at myself that way, wondering if I have some kind of darkness in me. I      would think my friend Yuri is a little more darker than me, but she’s kinda      into some spooky stuff so she gives off that energy.”

In reality, Yuri was rather nice… for the most part. You know, when she wasn’t telling Monika she was better off dead ( and whether that was Monika’s doing or the game using Yuri as a mouthpiece… well, that was still up for debate ). But that was neither here nor there; no, they were talking about Monika and for the most part, she wasn’t interested in killing people. She would only do so if they stepped in her way of something she wanted and right now, that wasn’t the case.

For now, at least.

     “Offering to give people lessons in killing… Geez, you really are the      kind of people parents warn their kids about! Ahaha, I’ll keep that in      mind though. Self defense is never a bad thing to have, after all! My      name is Monika, by the way!”

“You have... no idea.” Not that anyone had likely warned their kids about Kovacs, specifically. Envoys as a whole, on the other hand... no, kids didn’t fear Envoy Corps; they wanted to join up. That fear was reserved for people much, much higher up the food chain. Anyone from slum crime lords to Protectorate planetary governors.

They all feared the Corps the way that parents on Harlan’s World who told tales of the Patchwork Man could only dream of.

     “Hm, more riddles for me to solve! You sure are an interesting man,      aren’t you?”

His words cause her to pause for a mere moment, but there was no other fault in her movements. No, Monika still kept the same smile on her face before she gave a soft tilt of her head. She seemed… amused, for the lack of a better word, at his choice of words. A darkness in her… She didn’t particularly see herself as harboring such a thing. Well, no, that’s a lie - she knew she’s done awful things, no matter how hard she tried to justify it. She just didn’t mean for it to escalate that far.

     “Ahaha, you think? I think everyone has a little darkness in them,      but some people can easily act on it. And anyone can kill, if they      really wanted to. I’m no different than any other person here. No      person is good or evil… we just decide what we are.”

And what did Monika decide? Well, she just saw herself as a person who was tired of staying in her role, that’s all.

“You’re quite right, of course. But you’ve got a bit more to that side of you than ‘any other person’. What you do with it...”

Kovacs shrugged. At the end of the day, it wasn’t really his business, unless she chose to make it such. She seemed smart enough not to go about that the wrong way. All the better for both of them. He didn’t want to have to kill somebody so young.

Besides, she had her act down pretty good. Might’ve even made a fine Envoy, in another life.

     “Coincidence, as in an actual coincidence or they just so happened      to have died after meeting them, ahaha!”

     “Anything I want, hm… I’m fine with anything, really. I mean, aside      from being a murderer or something like that! I just want to make      sure I exist, that something is left to tell the world that I was here,      you know? Really I… would like to be special in someone’s eyes.      A certain someone, at least!”

“Coincidence in that the fact that they behaved that way isn’t the reason they died.”

Well, there was probably a few who died for that reason. But while he could remember, he chose not to. Not now, at least.

Kovacs was about to say something else, but instead he paused for a few moments. His Envoy intuition, always at work, was ticking away in the back of his mind. Analyzing every moment, every choice of words, every hint of change in facial expression and body language.

No answers, not yet. But a question.

“Creative solution?”

That was…really shady language like something straight out of a Bond James movie. He didn’t have eyebrows but he tried to convey the gesture through voice, tipping his head at Takeshi. “What exactly do you do for a living?”

“Nothing yet. Which is what I’m trying to solve.”

A little bit of a shame, that Simon didn’t seem terrible interested in Kovac’s plans. Not that it mattered too much, but still. There might have been a something workable.

“Uh…” Simon hadn’t considered the suit to be anything other than his body. “I… I guess I don’t need to breath…?” He ran a mental heck before continuing and came back with an affirmative. “Yeah, my O2 hasn’t gone down since I woke up.” He chuckled, rapping the top of his helmet with his knuckles.

The structure gel was probably also a selling point but he didn’t know enough about it, not really, to go bragging about it. “And I’m pretty hardy compared to before.” A bit of an inside joke as he rapped the top of his helmet with his knuckles. Couldn’t get brain damage if you didn’t have a brain.

Well, that was such a relief. In fact, since Simon - as far as Kovacs understood - was the suit, he probably didn’t need any biological functions. So if he ended up, say, trapped in a cave, Kovacs could leave Simon there for all of eternity and still feel guilt-free.

Actually, he wouldn’t feel guilty either way, but that was beside the point.

“Oh, hey Takeshi.”

“Well… I’m a decent writer and researcher. I’ve got a BA and everything. Plus I’ve done tons of inventory, cashier work, stuff like that. It’s not on my resume but I’ve done, um, construction stuff. Small scale.” That was a nice way of putting it.

Oh, good. For just a second there, Kovacs had been afraid that Simon was going to prove completely and utterly useless. What a relief to find he wasn’t. By a tiny half-step.

“I should probably get a job.” He does not sound optimistic about his changes.

“What skills do you have?”

     “Ahaha, well, at least you’re honest with yourself! That’s more than      what most people can say. Some people don’t really want to face the      music of the kind of people they are.”

     "What do I want to be? Aah, that’s quite the question! I’m not really      sure what I want to be, to be honest. I guess I just kinda want to…      exist? Make my mark on the world somehow. Have my own happy      ending - stuff like that! Rather boring, don’t you think?”

“Exactly. I’ve met a lot of people who can’t face what they really were. Coincidentally, a lot of those people are now dead.”

That actually was a coincidence, as it happened. Most of the time.

     “Well, I think the term ‘hero’ has been changed over the years, don’t      you think? Anyone can be a hero in their own mind! I’m sure some      villains think they’re heroes themselves. Characters like that make      for an interesting story.”

     “Proving yourself… I guess something like that depends on the world      you come from. I don’t really get to prove myself in a way like that. It’s      mostly just doing college entrance exams for me! I mean, I guess I’m      proving myself academically, but it’s kinda not much compared to what      some people have to go through.”

“I’m not here for stories. Nor am I going to delude myself into thinking I’m anything more than I am. I know exactly what I am: a murderous sociopath.”