The night time neon glow reflects off stray puddles... casting a thick shadow in an undisclosed, darkened, narrow alleyway. A small pair of glowing orange eyes pace about within it with a jet-black Chevillon Emperor parked at it's stretched entrance. Manny patiently waiting at the driver side of the Emperor people watches the streets as stray cars and pedestrians pass by. Even as well traveled as he is... the people... the energy of this place keeps him uncomfortably on his toes... exhausting. Molly is nearing the end of an extensive meeting with the board... he occasionally hears her off in the distance trying to drive the meeting to its end with the proverbial: "Yes sir. uh huh. Ok. No problem. Alright. Yes ma'am. Understood. Alright. Ok now." This causes Manny to chuckle to himself.
She finally arrives at the end of the long conference call and immediately lights a smoke with agitated exhale. She makes her way back up the alley toward a waiting Manny while taking deep puffs.
"So? How'd it go?"
"Good! Yeah.. squared away." She responds matter of factly.
Manny pauses briefly before responding doubtful. "They were uh.. alright with the call you made on the op?"
"What do you think." She says flatly before taking another drag.
Manny smirks... Confirming his intuition.
"The uneasy, tight leash again huh... couldn't be from us playing out in the sand of the Badlands now could it?"
"Tch... i'm sure that didn't help. Regardless. You know I work best when the spotlights on."
"You know I've got your back." He responds.
The two smirk at each other with confidence.
"What've you got so far." She asks, taking another drag.
"Got in touch with one of my POCs earlier about that access card. Said he got lucky on pulling the geo-sat tracking data which was kind of a miracle in itself... apparently temp access card activity isn't stored in a database for too long. Although the logs were pretty sparse, he did scrape together enough of it to paint a picture. Looks like the card was klepped from somewhere in-house before that chase began. Geo-sat pings dropped off somewhere on the border of Arroyo and Rancho Coronado... in some little neighborhood apparently. Should probably start there."
"Tomorrow maybe... its late and I need a drink."
"Hey, nothin' compares to your pace in my opinion. You know that." Manny concludes with a smirk as he promptly opens the door to the Emperor for her. She glances at him with a light hearted giggle as she flicks her smoke and hops in.
Later that night, BugBear is seen at the ho-oh in Kabuki; a neon lit bar sitting alone to the sounds of mellow house music. She takes a swig of her drink and finishes it before lighting a smoke and glancing out the window. She notices the rain begin to pick back up as it mercilessly taps on the windows trying to get in... drowning out the sounds of any street activity. She puts her cigarette hand on her forehead... thinking deeply as the smoke calmy wafts upward through her fingers. Various thoughts about her current situation flow through her mind. Although someone very acquainted with her type of Night City lifestyle, this is different... the constantly varying factors involving some of the closest people in her life weigh heavy on her. She hasn't had much time to process some of the events that've gone down but she understands the stakes. This clearly isn't some run of the mill gig spoon fed by some fixer with neat, organized processes and clearly understood players... a job you can just fail and move on to the next. None of this is a gig at all... the amount of x factors involved in her situation presents it as a very all or nothing endeavor... where eddies and fame have fuck all to do with it. A deadlock between life and death uninterested in hanging in the balance.
As her anxiety... her stress begins to peak... she instinctually thinks back to time's past involving Netty... offering some much needed levity and relief. Him trying his first smoke... her teaching him how to use the DR5 Nova she gave him.. but mainly... she thinks back to when she was at his house. The warmth of being in his arms... the eyes closed smile she had as they slowly swayed to the music together. The purity of this moment... in a city bereft of such things... grabs ahold of her and doesn't let go... an impossible moment...
Her deep thoughts are abruptly interrupted by the sound of liquor pouring into her glass. She glances up to see the bartender stood behind the counter.
"Thanks Eric." She says in monotone, grabbing the glass and taking a swig.
"Everything alright?" He asks with slightly lowered eyebrows, picking up on her energy.
"Yeah... just uh.. got a lot goin' on y'know."
"Anything ya wanna talk about?" He asks.. his curious tone.
"Ohh.. not tonight" She assures in a light chuckle, raising her eyebrows at him. "Just trying to... get away from it all y'know."
A brief pause sit between them as the various sounds of a packed, lively and active bar take over. The bartender breaks the silence while cleaning a glass.
"Hm. y'know... I know you're in the business of running and everything Bear... but sometimes in life... although you easily can... there's just some things you oughta not run from." He concludes causing her to look up at him.
"Thanks Eric-" She says genuinely with a warm smile.
"-HEY! DRINK SLINGER!! I NEED TWO OVER HERE!!" The sound of a woman shouting causes BugBear and the bartender to look over. They see Molly Seeker with a big smile on her face along with Manny.. causing BugBear's heart to sink. She quickly turns her body away from the pair in a subtle fashion... however Molly's intuition instinctually catches this subtlety after taking the time to watch BugBear and the bartender speaking before she interrupted.. Molly makes a mental note of her reaction.
"Shit..!" She thinks to herself. Her snap thought is to call Brian... but abruptly stops herself before doing so. Her heart rate increases as she falls back onto her instincts... she faces forward and looks down while calmly taking another sip of her drink while her eyes begin to glow red. She spots a camera up in the corner through the mirror reflection on the bar counter and quickhacks it. Without looking, she listens to the pair over the chaos of the bar after Eric finishes serving them.
"So what do you think we're gonna find with this access card?" Manny asks before swigging his beer.
"Well, its tied directly to the warehouse, but we're probably in for another fucking breadcrumb trail if you ask me." She responds before swigging her drink
"Sounds like a lot of leg work. Kinda got the best of both worlds working for us though... a full team's worth of intel for just the 2 of us to sift through. Traveling light tends to always be more effective with so many different factors at play." Manny replies
"Yeah... to be honest with you i'm not really in any rush to get started either... can't you tell?" She says before they both chuckle together and clink glasses.
They then go on to start scanning the room and people watching... laughing the night away and gossiping about various people one after the other. Having a few drinks together and really enjoying the atmosphere of a new and unique place. Something the pair have found few pockets of during their tenure.
BugBear glances at the pool table through the camera and sees a game between several people going on. She notices one of the players with a pool cue in one hand and a drink in his other, held by his prosthetic cyberarm. She quickhacks the man's arm causing it to malfunction and splash his drink on another guy trying to sink the 8 ball.
"YO!! WHAT THE FUCK GONK!!" The shooter says as he gets in the drink spiller's face. Before the guy can even say anything he's quickly yanked by the collar.. causing a shoving match to begin which quickly turns into an all out brawl. The shooter gets hit in the back of the head with a pool cue by a 3rd person cracking it in half as the spiller gets tackled from behind by someone else. Most of the bar erupts into a full blown melee as various cyberware engages and the bartender shouts while hopping over the counter to assist security. BugBear takes the distracted opportunity to casually get off her barstool and walk out of the exit.
As Manny attentively watches to protect Molly, she looks on with hyper excitement... ecstatic joy as she laughs loudly at the situation.
"OH MY god!-... AAHAHAHAHA!" She cackles out loud, fully taking in the experience.
She takes a deep breath while shaking her head lightly... "Can't stop diggin' Night City..." She mutters under her breath with a smile on her face.
As the brawl continues to erupt, she takes a look back at where BugBear was sitting and sees nothing but a half filled glass of liquor.
This gives her pause as her intuition is again triggered... causing her to wrinkle her eyebrows slightly...
As soon as she begins to think about it, she hears her text notification tone.. snatching her attention away. She glances at her messages and sees a new single text message from a contact name that simply reads: ' Her '
She gasps deeply to herself with excitement as her body begins to tingle. She opens the text message... It reads:
= Milaya? =
Molly immediately closes the interface and takes a quick glance at Manny who's fully focused on the bar brawl being broken up. She swigs the last of her drink and plants it on the bar counter while taking a final hard look at BugBear's abandoned glass.
"Hey. I'm gonna take off. I'll give you a call tomorrow" Molly says into Manny's ear struggling to speak past the racket. He then leans back over to her ear.
"Sure you're gonna be ok? Don't need me to give ya a ride?"
"I'll be fine. Go ahead and take the night... Maybe taste the night even. Redhead at your six has been checking you out since we got here." Molly says subtly gesturing over to the hot, long legged redhead causing Manny to look back at her. Molly gathers her stuff and makes for the exit.
BugBear is next seen fast walking down a dark alleyway toward her parked bike occasionally looking back over her shoulder. Her eyes begin to glow orange.
= Brian... Its Bear. =