Neon Dreams

[Rakaan Horne]

You never got out, not forever. If Arekk had been entirely determined on retiring he'd need to close of all those loose ends. And, for a moment, Kole felt suspicious as if that were the very thing he'd been intending on dragging the HRD into. He remained rather silent for a brief few moments, thinking, of course. It was certainly be expected. It were a dangerous offer, and both Arekk and Kole knew that far too well. But, the Droid's apathetic indifference towards the majority of the things he ran himself into happened to prevent any real care for self-preservation. He didn't die no matter the cause, for his internal pieces kept on ticking, grinding together as those gears - or what have you - continued to rotate. He didn't fear death, instead he would greet it as a friend. Knowing that it had finally come. Although, he often queried as to whether he'd truly believe that once the time had truly come.

"I'll do it." He replied, his tone firm and filled with conviction. He'd kept both hands planted within his coat pockets, slightly hunched in an attempt to maintain the warmth he could. Lithios had been a city of dreams, but more often than not it were one of nightmares. Fortunately for Arekk, however, he'd been a big dreamer.

[member="Arekk"]

 

[Arekk]

Lithios, Ethos City, The Meissa System​

"Your past has a way of sneaking up on you. You'll hear broken echoes of it everywhere, like a bad replay. You'll get mad at everyone for reminding you about it, even if it's all in your head."
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[member="Kole Harper"] ​

"I already told you, Kole. Once you're in, you're in. I don't want to see you dead."

The perks of being a netrunner was the anonymity on the DarkNet when being offered and accepting said less-than-legal jobs, nobody really knew a thing about Arekk except a handful of people he considered "trustable" within the scene and some others that had taken a likability on the slicer, more older mobsters who seemed him more like a son of theirs that would prefer him to "go to study" instead of playing with the big fishes.

"Then I'll make the necessary introductions." His nickelplated wristwatch shined greatly as he consulted the time. "Meet me at the Afterlife tonight, around ten."

The decision was made and it got sealed on the spot, when the meeting was scheduled all the books were off. Kole would be entering a life not many have the pleasure to part ways with amicably, even though it paid handsomely and you could enjoy the fast reckless life. It was his choice and nothing more.

"Get some rest."

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[Rakaan Horne]

"Right." The Droid responded, then moving his head so slightly in an awfully brief nod of acknowledgement after a period of momentary fixation on an irrelevant detail: zoned out. Physically, at least. Internally, however, forever 'switched-on'.

Kole could only ever make these responses that utilised the simplest of phrases, or singular choice words. It certainly seemed that way. It did created a sense of easiness to each interaction, and it suited the Human Replicant Droid perfectly fine. Although, it might've proven irritating to others that preferred to be more detailed in their conversations. Yet, his regularly aloof disposition avoided any realisation of that very fact, and it preventing the moust sound-inner reflections from truthfully engaging the reality. They were left to the void, and kept in the shadows. Forever swirling in an ill-gotten place.

He pressed against the round-ish table, and it allowed the Droid to stand entirely upright. Kole began to move away without so much as a passing glance or a departing farewell. He began to shift throughout the vast and thick crowds of Ethos City, and right before his departure from beneath the transparent awning, a hand had raised itself in a successful attempt to raise his collar to protect his neck and wrap it's useful feature around the lower portion of his face. It left it concealed, leaving his expressed emotions to be found in the eyes. Kole had given frivolous glances towards each detail that brought itself before him, both above and below. Be it flickering eyes or the shifting of a frame. He'd become bathed in the neon light that Lithios had been so drenched in, then lost to the crowd as another meaningless face.

Intermission.

Harper spent several hours within his temporary 'home', if it could even be designated such a title. It were a room that he lay, and nothing more. He undertook several mundane tasks that kept him merely occupied in their brief moments of existence. He tinkered with electronics and mechanics, picking things apart only to put them back together. Of course, he ate again. Browsed television stations and the holonet with everlasting boredom, and inevitably settled on mindless roaming. Kole entered his speeder and soared around Ethos City for several hours without any particular goal in mind.

Then, as it always would, the time had come. He arrived at the 'Afterlife' at Ten, as instructed, and began his entry. He began his surveying glances several steps after making his entrance, peering around for the Netrunner. It would seem that the only person who kept dragging Kole in was Kole.

[member="Arekk"]

 

[Arekk]

Lithios, Ethos City, The Meissa System​

"Your past has a way of sneaking up on you. You'll hear broken echoes of it everywhere, like a bad replay. You'll get mad at everyone for reminding you about it, even if it's all in your head."
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[member="Kole Harper"] ​

The club was already pulsating as the nightlife began to take over Ethos City's entertainment district, an ocean of patrons coming and going from the establishment either drugged, drunk or all of that in one. Neon lights shun through the massive metallic doors that paved the entrance to the nightclu with two massive towers standing in front as bouncers, one of them with a mean scar that went across his entire face and the other with a seemingly feth-resting face.

Arekk was already inside drinking, of course, and mingling with the vile of the city for who knows how many hours now. The fallen Jedi truly had expanded his connections on Lithios that you could palpate that he was capable of owning a part of it but all in all he wasn't about that life anymore, not after what happened to Jyn. Arriving home late wasn't a preoccupation anymore since he had broken up with Athena because of a love affair of his.

"Then he told me that he wouldn't pay me. What do you think I did, huh?" A small crowd laughed before Arekk finished his rather amusing story. "The poor man was already on his knees begging for me not to kill him. You should've seen his face when I walked away."

This was his home, no doubt about it. It doesn't matter if it had brought him despair, pain, suffering or worse... Arekk grew up with and in the underworld all the way back on Coruscant, it was in his DNA. This was his persona, his soul. Everything.

"Feth, I gotta meet someone. This round's on me."

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