Public Fear and Loathing in New Vertica

[Arris Windrun]

Arris was surprised to get that call from Mauve du Vain .

The boss demanded an outing, just the two of 'em, to go live it up for a night. And who was Arris to refuse? The Talusian spent all of her free time doing just that.

She threw on her usual digs, a leather jacket with the sleeves rolled up to show off those arms, and leather pants which ended above the knees to give her cyber legs the impression of thigh-high boots, and picked up the Zeltron in a stolen fire-red M-31 airspeeder.

Despite boosting the ride, Arris followed all traffic laws and even maintained the speed limit without margin for error as they took off across town.

Arris popped out the lighter to ignite a deathstick hanging from her lip, took a drag, then offered it to the boss.

"You get out of En-Vee much?"

Yeah... She was making small talk.

 

[Mauve du Vain]

"What?"

Mauve sat in the airspeeder in the folds of a gigantic fur coat that hid a red cocktail dress underneath. She already had a bottle of wine in hand and was halfway through it.

"Sometimes," she said defensively. "when I want to get shot at. I went to Rodia last month. Met a Sith there. She had a helmet with six eyes."

The Zeltron frowned at the ride. Huh. Not something she had given Arris. Not something she'd seen the woman flying around either.

"You ever meet a six-eyed Sith?"

Mauve didn't often go to the lower districts. Most were just a planet-bound high rise version of New Vertica, but... worse. Besides, she'd grown up there, down in the gutter. She didn't often want to go back.

Maybe tonight though...

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

"You ever meet a six-eyed Sith?"

"No, but then again, I didn't really know what a Sith was until after I left the Kaggath... So, maybe?"

She tried to recall anyone she met with six eyes, and came up empty.

Arris turned to look at her. "So what do you want? Clubbing, loitering? I know a place where you can-" She proceeded to explain something that was equal parts disgusting, confusing, and enticing. At least that's how she originally felt when it was described to her.

"Wait, is there something you don't like about the speeder?"

Mauve du Vain

 

[Mauve du Vain]

"No, it's just-" There was something sticky in the drink holder. Mauve made a face. She thought about asking where the woman got it, then realized that for once she did not want to know the answer.

"Nothing."

Tilting the bottle up to her lips, Mauve gulped once, twice, then her lips came un-suctioned from the bottle with pop.

"You know somewhere good? Take me there. I don't care, as long as the drinks are to die for."

Which, given the price on her head, just might be the case.

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

The cyborg raised a synthetic brow at Mauve's reaction.

She also wondered if that bottle was to share, but guessed not at the Zeltron's drinking pace. Clearly, she needed it more.

"Oh, I know a place." She replied.

Arris proceeded to show off her artificial lungs as she always did and dragged the deathstick down to the filter in one breath. The airspeeder began to slow down, to the point that speeders started to go around them. An angry Ithorian even shouted profanity at her.

Then she looked over to Mauve with a grin. "You ever played Angel?"

Mauve du Vain

 

[Mauve du Vain]

The bottle was indeed not for sharing, as Mauve drained the last of it when Arris brought the airspeeder to a practical standstill amid traffic. Mauve lobbed the bottle out the window and watched it fall, giggling to herself as it spun round and round and round.

Another angry driver laid on the horn, jerking her attention back to the traffic.

Mauve would have asked for a hit of the deathstick now, but Windrun smoked it down in a single breath.

"Wow."

Mauve sighed, putting an elbow on the center console and melting into her hand.

All she saw everywhere she looked was blues and darker blues. Arris seemed to beam with reds and yellows. Good for her. Maybe if Mauve went to the place with the activities the enforcer had so painstakingly described she would feel better. Or maybe worse.

"No, what's that?"

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris kept the recording on. Though Mauve could easily disconnect it, if she wanted, from a button on the center console.

See, Angel was a game she grew up playing. You boosted a high-end airspeeder, then broadcast a live recording of you breaking every law you could in it to get the cops on your ass.

In this case, she figured bounty hunters would be more interested.

Arris tipped the vehicle forward, in what began as a slow nose dive, though when they were nearly 90 degrees straight down, she pushed the accelerator to max and began to play chicken with the many rows of traffic on the way down.

Mauve du Vain

 

[Daiga]

Daiga​

---

LOCATION: New Vertica
OBJECTIVE: Watch Some Shows
TAGS:

---

Daiga sat in the seat of her airspeeder, parked off the side as she watched some nonsensical opera on her datapad, with her legs up on the front of the dash. New Vertica had turned out to be pretty much a bust on the kind of jobs she preferred to do. Maybe she could afford one last little look across the net...Wait a minute...

She squinted to herself as news flashed over the screen about some kind of live-recording going over the net. Might as well see what the fuss was about it. If it was some kind of virus or somethin', she could just toss the datapad off to the side.

"Hey! This is Arris Windrun with Mauve--you know everyone's favorite Zeltron and the galaxy's baddest, most [x] wanted [x] woman [x]."

"I'm lucky to have her all to myself this evening. We're gonna party hard and get trashed in New Vertica!"

"Huh. New Vertica. Who'd have guessed. Hey. That looks near her-"

The mercenary's thoughts were cut off as a fire-red airspeeder seemed to come out of nowhere, descending from above like some kind of fiery meteorite sent down from the heavens...or more likely in her mind, sending it back down to Hell. Daiga glanced from her datapad and then shrugged her shoulders, tossing the datapad off to the side to let it fall.

"Not my problem. I'll let the actual Hunters deal with this mess..."

And with that, she headed off to her hotel room for the night. She couldn't wait to get out of this place and somewhere more hospitable. With less Zeltrons.

---

Gear: N/A​

 

[Mauve du Vain]

Arris tipped the vehicle forward, in what began as a slow nose dive, though when they were nearly 90 degrees straight down, she pushed the accelerator to max and began to play chicken with the many rows of traffic on the way down.

Mauve screamed as her stomach leaped into her throat and she felt a sudden dump of adrenaline. Hands clutched at the dash as they speared straight downward. At any moment, Mauve thought theyd' hit another airspeeder and blow up. When they didn't die immediately, Mauve's scream turned to peals of ecstatic laughter.

"Faster!" she yelled over the blare of the engine and the screaming of fading horns.

She didn't want to die. Not really. But humming this close to danger, she felt alive.

"Look out!" she screamed, pointing at an oncoming multi-passenger speeder trucking through the air, right on a collision course for where they would be.

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris kept the accelerator down; she kept the airspeeder down. They dove, and she did not deviate. She didn't change where her eyes were focused. Even as the oncoming speeder put all of this fun in jeopardy. Their lives on the line in an all-or-nothing bet at the pazaak table.

It was a near miss--they soared inches from their own deaths and the multi-passenger speeder honked repeatedly at Arris's reckless flying.

Though this was absolutely the activity of an adrenaline-junkie, there was a certain beauty to it as well. It put the massive, planet-wide city into perspective. All those streets and buildings that carried millions of souls, some of whom spent their whole lives in their tiny little slice of it, all went by in a heartbeat.

Their descent took them well out of the boundaries of New Vertica and towards the heart of Nar Shaddaa. At some point, the lines of traffic died, and their flightpath was hit with smog and other industrial fumes as their dive seemed destined for a dead-end on one massive slab of structure below.

Yet, Arris didn't pull up. Right there, surrounded by a sudden stop, was an open pore hardly larger than the airspeeder itself. Like a thread through the eye of a needle, they disappeared inside of it. For a second or two, absolute darkness, a passage between worlds. When they came out on the other end, Arris began to level off the speeder and disconnected the live feed, and flew gently through the Undercity.

"Grab a smoke from my pocket."

Mauve du Vain

 

[Mauve du Vain]

Lavender fingers reached, fumbling around in Arris' pocket, before pulling out the pack. Mauve pulled one out with her teeth, still a bit jittery even after Arris leveled off and flew easy. The excitement of a few seconds before hardly seemed real, except for the lingering exhilaration still making her heart thud in her chest and her breath come too quick.

"You learn to fly like that," Mauve said around the smoke as she lit it, "Or is that all the..." she took a long drag, then another, and blew the smoke out through her nose - a fun trick she'd learned when she'd been much younger. She pulled the smoke from her lips and gestured up and down Arris indicating all of her. "... the cybernetics."

After the Kaggath, there hardly seemed to be much human left of the woman. But Arris didn't seem to mind.

Arris Windrun

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

NAR SHADDAA UNDERCITY

Down here the rain had grit to it, a scratchy visual grain in the monochrome streetlights. Three-clawed hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat, brimmed hat pulled down low, Velok Brokentusk moved between overhangs and shadows. Bad night for introspection.

He passed a dull canteen called Greedo's populated by nighthawks — a cyborg server in white hat and coat, a Rodian in a red dress, two businessbeings, Chiss and Ithorian.

A red speeder zipped past ( Arris Windrun and Mauve du Vain ) and was gone. Its repulsor wake surged fallen rain across the whole side of Velok's coat. He sighed and went inside for a cup of caf, eager to be done with the night so far as he was eager for anything.

 

[Arris Windrun]

"A bit of both," Arris replied.

The airspeeder soared gently through the rain. "I've been in speeders all my life. Why, the only thing I've never flown was a starship."

She came close once, but she bit hard on that memory and swallowed.

Its repulsor wake surged fallen rain across the whole side of Velok's coat.

For a second, the cyborg swore she spotted... Oh, never mind.

"The cybernetics help. A lot."

Mauve grabbed her attention with one plucked smoke. Arris took hold of the woman's blush fingers and guided the smoke back to her lips, then reached down to pop out the lighter again.

"I hope you're not out of breath," she chuckled, then looked ahead. Though she offered one quick glance to say, "There's a place I know around the corner," and took them there.

It was at the heart of an abandoned fuel refinery district. Once upon a time, the wealth of Sleheyron flowed into this very spot. Now, it was a club and cantina visited only by the gutter rats. Not even in the Black Sun's purview -- owned by some local. In fact, there was plenty of graffiti that showed how the people here felt about the Syndicate.

Including one massive mural of Tharn losing his head with peggats erupting from his neck.

Mauve du Vain