Ace and Block:
Up on the roof, Leeson sits on the edge of an upraised air handler box, it being the exact right height for a nice resting spot. For a dwarf. He pauses, then closes his eyes. The air off to his left (right in front of Block) shimmers and morphs into an image of a *beautiful* elven maiden dressed in a green high-collared button-down blouse and a darker green knee-length skirt. Ace pays rapt attention to the magical version of a hologram floating above Leeson's palm with an awed whisper of "Cooooollll..." He leans forward to get a better look at Miss Garcia & gives a low appreciative whistle, somewhere between honest appreciation for her beauty and perhaps a lecherous desire to get a gander at the real thing. "No audio," the dwarf apologizes, "never could do her justice anyway. Probably has to do with my emotional attachment. His eyes slowly open, and there before you is what looks to be a higher-definition image of Ms. Juillian Garcia. She has a fairly relaxed demeanor - at least in this image - and from what you can see every inch of her demands attention!
Sitting back against the wall Ace smiles and nods, brushing away Leeson's quip about the lack of audio with a wave of a hand. "Not a problem, the image is good enough to give me enough to identify her if I see her."
Block, also "seeing" things on the Astral, notes that his aura brightens a bit as he pours a tighly-controlled measure of energy to the illusion. His astral image tends to settle a small bit, taking on some fairly rodent-like features, albeit cute/friendly ones. His ability to channel the astral around him is impressively neat, pleasant, harmonious even. Must be his intonation with his totem, best that he can figure. Of course, it really could be his emotional attachment to her - she looks better in his illusion than the pics you saw earlier in the dossier.
Grumbling, Lesson continues "She was mostly a home-body, heading out to the market on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, but never staying there for long. Stayed longer in the park, sometimes even after dark!" He allows himself a little, wry laugh. "Not sure what happened, or why. She got into a fight with some thugs," he adds, looking as if he were in deep thought, recollecting. "Two big guys, orcs I think, were trying to corner her. Carrying narc-pistols," he recollects. "I think they were trying to threaten her." He frowns, a display that his face seems familiar with. "They got loud, and as she slipped into her front door, the two goons started firing into her flat." He grimaces, "She slammed the door - I don't think they hit her - and Choppy arrived with five other Warlords in tow..." A grin returns to Leeson's lined face. "You know the Warlords, right?" he gestures in a flat triangle, parallel with the rooftop. "They pretty much run this neighborhood."
Ace sighs, nodding as if weary. "It's part of my notes on the MapSoft I offered you. You can't eat in peace where a gang controls the turf, and I tried to find out such things to make sure my meals weren't interrupted by a shake down. I know OF them but not much ABOUT them. Mostly that they're in this area and the eateries or night clubs they might extract protection money from."
"Well," Leeson contionues, "They're not all bad, and better than the police sometimes for keeping the peace. More attentive, anyway. Well, they disarmed the big guys and 'Let 'em out' of the neighborhood without killin' em, so I figured everything was gonna' go back to normal. Only it didn't." His features draw up, looking a little worried. "I never figured her for mob trouble," he adds, "but sure as rain those idiots were back, slinkin' around, lookin' for trouble but keeping it on the QT. By that time, she had shifted her market times to later in the evening, and was sometimes spending whole NIGHTS in the park!" Leeson looks back and forth between Ace, Block. "Guys, she must be one of the baddest a3es I've never met, because she looks like she'd be too frail to do it. I dunno..." In the pause the city keeps moving, breathing. The night breeze begins to kick up, drawing a cool eddy across the summit. Reflectively Leeson adds, "Her patterns changed - I'm not a stalker or anything, but you look out after your neighbors - even out here - and when she stopped coming out except at night, we figured she'd become a vampire. But no," he adds, "not a vampire, but something along those lines. Like a ghoul..."
Ace raises an eyebrow at the bit about Miss Garcia staying in the park, asking hopefully: "Did you ever see what she did in the park? Did she meet with anyone? I mean, if all she did was sit on a bench & fling breadcrumbs to the birds then that's one thing, but if she kept meeting the same someone or someones then that's quite another." |
