"You are a difficult creature to understand, Miss T'aemin."
Confusion traced lines on her face as the teen opened her eyes. Her world was blurry, and it hurt so much. Why did it hurt? Memories flooded back into Daiya's mind, the uncoordinated wielding of a knife, the blow straight to her gut, the cut-off locks of her hair. She groaned from the pain, both physical and not, presenting a miserable figure before the DireX.
"What do you want?"
"A little gratitude perhaps? Maybe a smile? You can manage a smile, can't you, to the woman who saved your life?"
Daiya greeted the request with another groan. She groped in the blinding light for a chair and eased herself down, gingerly, carefully as her side and belly strained against the rough maneuvers from her CorpSec escorts. She looked into the Corpo's painted eyes, dazzled with glitter and gold. On anyone else, it was a look to make the teen jealous.
On Luminous Sun, it just caused her lips to draw back in a line.
"Not your best, Daiya, but I'll take it." The woman's lips were painted as equally outrageous. They pursed at the teen, a stage that the entertainment mogul played out to its full effect. It was lost on the wounded teenager, whose dull expression only caused the woman to laugh. "You're a funny girl."
"I'm soooo glad I amuse you," the teen drawled, her eyelids still heavy. This must be some new level of Corpo torture, or had the DireX just come to gloat at her capture? Daiya was too tired and too sore to decide.
"You confound me, girl." The woman paced, long legs beneath her pencil skirt shifting back and forth, her steps tracing a weaving pattern across the floor. The bright room was no catwalk, but to Sun every moment was a performance. "I thought you were smarter than this. All you had to do was keep your head down and your hands clean. Sure, I could stomach a few antics, a few small-time capers are easily overlooked."
The woman stopped, fixing her eyes deep onto Daiya's. "But you've stooped to levels far too dumb for someone as pretty as you."
"Not so pretty now, I bet." The glum retort came faster than the teen expected. The numbness from the welt on her face slurred her speech, while the messy state of her curly hair hid the forceful removal of her pink highlights. Two minor blemishes on a body bruised and beaten by Seccer boots. Her chin rose above it all, a daring pose from a captured shadowrunner.
Luminous was her name, and the way her eyes flared at the teen. Typically so calm and collected, the DireX radiated with fury now. Daiya was finally awake enough to feel it, really feel it, coming off the woman. Sun need no touch or word to make her hurt, but the teen's defiance cut enough to bait a response. "No. You've given me a lot of work to do, and I take pride in working as little as possible, Daiya. I've done my best to keep the heat off your band of miscreants, maybe that was my mistake. I'm told I have a 'soft spot' for Darkwire. Hmm. I used to disagree."
"Assassination, even of a DireX, we can handle. That was quiet-like, out of the way, very professional. That was the level of work we used to expect of Darkwire, before some of my fellow board members got it in their heads that we didn't need you anymore. They just don't understand it like you and I do, Daiya. They don't understand the vital relationship between corporation and crime. Neither exists without the other, we cannot survive in a law-abiding society any more than Darkwire can exist in utopia. The way we worked together, each kept in check by the other, it was beautiful for a time."
"I'm not a sentimental type, Daiya. I know when the curtains have closed, when the lights have gone down. This show is over." The woman's theatrical background wove its way into her speech, and Daiya almost giggled at the wordplay. An instant before she did, Sun rounded on the teen, placing her arms on both sides of the chair. "Really, my dear? Do you see the kind of beings you've gotten in bed with? Freeing indentured workers, even if they were bound for Belazura, but right under our noses? Blowing up a building? Rioting right on my front doorstep? These are the marks of a poorly-written script. There's no happy ending here, Daiya, only more pain and ugliness in store. You must know how much I despise both of those."
"And I despise Corpos." Daiya folded her arms across her chest, feeling quite contrarian after the woman's luxurious spiel. Maybe Sun had the privilege of abandoning her friends and allies. To even consider that made the teen's stomach churn. "We're fighting back, and you're losing face. You wouldn't be here otherwise."
As the teen wormed her way into the woman's game, a grin appeared on Sun's face. Daiya felt her stomach lurch, watching as the DireX rose to her full height again. The young shadowrunner had stumbled into the waiting trap, finding no wiggle room inside of it. Sun had complete control here. "I am here because of a mess you made. On Belazura, or don't you remember? When you and Zenie put together your holo-vid, fantastically made by the way, you put a stain on our reputation. Do you realize just how many contractors we lost, how many partners pulled out after your little stunt? How many eyes turned to Denon after that? It's no wonder the other DireX decided to take extreme measures. They were doing what they needed to protect their reputations."
Daiya scoffed at the colorful interpretation of the story. As if Sun wasn't just as culpable, not just a Corpo through and through but a DireX as well! The young shadowrunner would be more surprised to see a rat turn its nose up at rotting meat. "And so did you, you're no less self-serving. Don't tell me you took in Zenie to protect her!"
"I take measures to protect myself. As do we all, Daiya. I give Zenie guidance, you run with Darkwire. I organize a rally, you sit-in with a protest. We're not so different, at some level. Except I'm not dumb enough to parade right in front of my enemies unarmed and dare them to shoot."
"I wasn't unarmed." Daiya grinned at her own cheek.
"Every time you open that insipid mouth, something stupid falls out of it!" The woman let silence fall between them for a few minutes. When she opened her mouth again, her voice was even once more. "You think those are wise moves? Vandalism? Assault? Murder? You're not as smart as you think you are, Daiya, your face is on a dozen files in Corporate Security system."
Daiya swallowed over the hard lump in her throat. So that was it then? Sun was just here to gloat before the teen found herself shipped off to Altier or someplace worse? She swallowed again, pushing back the fear and sorrow that threatened to edge out her anger. "So why are you even talking to me? Why aren't I in some Corpo labor camp right now?"
Ever the actor, the woman made her eyes dance as her long mouth played a lamentation for her. "Those cases went cold. Sadly, no leads were ever found, and other crimes took priority. You know how it goes, Denon is a 'lively' world. It exists in a delicate balance." Her vaunted tone turned low, each of her next words deliberately enunciated. "That's a dance where Darkwire keeps forgetting the steps."
"Or we just have better dance moves." Daiya wasn't done with her remarks, emboldened by the woman's reluctance to discard her. The DireX had every upper hand here, but the truth whispered softer than her quiet threats. If she listened, the teen could hear its wisdom: Sun needed her.
The DireX hadn't figured out what she had yet, or was trying to keep it from the teen. "Every step forward Darkwire thinks it takes, it slides two steps back! Open your eyes, Daiya. How long will you ride a doomed train? We are the Corporate Authorities, do you really think us forgiving?"
"Is that why you're here, then? Am I supposed to beg for it?"
"You haven't figured it out by now? I'm your last chance. You think me a heartless manipulator, a chessmaster playing Zenie like a pawn to get what I want?" A voiceless laugh came from the woman's lips, then coming together in the moment after that. As if she had just figured out some part of her own psyche. "You're may not be wrong, but I thought you were smart enough to see it. We don't have to be on the same side to work together, Daiya. You have your goals, I have mine, and on this we align: rip Belazura from Manfloon's grimy hands. Oh, you can play the vengeful criminal here if you want, Daiya. Serve your time, be on CorpSec's watchlist, see your every move scrutinized by eyes and ears you don't even know we have."
"Or?"
Long-nailed hands came up, the scene of resounding success from the luminous woman. "Finally, she gets it. Maybe there's hope for you after all, Miss Shadowrunner." Sun's hands clasped together, tilting down towards the teen. "Or you can come with me. Zenie and her Z-Runners are waiting for you on Belazura. We have a job for you. You remember how that works, right? You play, she pays."
Even with her escape hatch before her, Daiya couldn't resist having the last word on a judgement long rendered. "You keep calling me stupid. I'm not."
"Good. Then use that brain of yours and make the right choice here. Changes are coming, Daiya, changes I can't stop. Changes that are going to hurt Darkwire, and you if you stay. Choose, Miss T'aemin, and choose wisely." Sun turned, and for the first time Daiya finally noticed the window behind the woman. The sun, Denon's real sun and not her thespian cosplayer, was peaking out over the horizon to dawn inside the highest office in Sakedo Tower.
It had been ages since Daiya had seen a real sunrise on her homeworld.
She frowned at it, squinting again as the unfiltered light hit her pupils. It forced her head away, and the teen couldn't watch the expression on the face of the woman as she held her cuffed, orange-clad arms out to her. "I would, but I'm not exactly dressed for traveling."
Daiya didn't need to see Sun's face to feel the carefully constructed expression of delight creep over her enemy's face. For despite the candied words, the DireX was still her enemy. Whatever the teen had to do, whatever corrupt bargain she was entering, she did it for Zenie.
That was the real truth of their meeting, the one thing neither of them would say. Sun didn't just need Daiya, she needed Zenie. And Zenie needed both of them.
If Sun realized what she did, the woman didn't show it as she sauntered behind the voluminous desk of hers to press a button. Presumably to summon whoever it was that could unlock the stun-cuffs binding Daiya's hands, or whatever else was needed to secure the teen's early release.
"A wise choice, Daiya. I look forward to resuming our working relationship."
