Faction The City on the Edge of Forever

[Myk Venture]

1313
GALACTIC CITY
CORUSCANT

"Stars are better off without us. I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings. The good and the just, they're like gold dust in this city. I have no illusions. I'm not one of them. I'm no hero. Just me and the gun, and the crook. Everything is subjective. There are only personal apocalypses. Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you."​

Detective Mykas Venture Memlogs, 865 ABY​

Coruscant's undercity reminded Myk of Old Town or the Bottoms back on Corellia. At least Coronet was a familiar kind of grime. The bright center of the universe collected all kinds of trash. He was following up another lead outside his own jurisdiction. Burning through the favors CSF owed him wasn't wise but Detective Venture had never exactly been known for his political cunning. A growing sense of unease permeated 1313 since his last visit planetside. Rumors swirled of underworld security raids less than a dozen levels up. Soon there would be a gang war for control. Maybe worse. After all darker things than street cartels still lurked in the deep places of this world.

"Space yourself, badge. Before someone around here does it for ya."

"Who says I'm a badge?" he cocked his head at the street urchin.

"I can smell it on ya."

Myk shrugged and flashed his CorSec branded chain code.

"Corellian?" she asked and when he nodded he also tossed her a credit chit.

"Don't suppose you've seen-"

But the gutter rat had already gone, her wheezing laughter echoing off the Wharf. There was an underground lake here which probably would have been beautiful if Venture could appreciate that kind of thing. Instead he examined the missing persons report filed away inside his cogwork neural net. Young and beautiful and heiress to a small fortune. Also probably dead by now but here he was anyway tracing her last steps. A cantina within microjump distance, the Quasar Fire might help him connect the navpoints.

 

[Leo Hawkes]

The cantina is dimly lit like most are this far down. His eyes are half-closed and heavy, a testament to the lack of sleep he suffers every night that makes his migrain scream in spittle-ridden agony. That adds to the dimness surrounding him. He looks to his right from the dark-steel and grime-stained bartop and remembers that he has a friend with him. A bottle of bourbon reflects the low glare of the dying light bulbs above in the ceiling, and the shot glasses filled with the bottle's increasingly draining brown liquid absorb it.

He reaches for one with a bruised hand, purple-yellow marks covering scars from too many fights, and grips it with stiff fingers. Numbness sparks in his aged crinkled digits, but he tries to pay it no mind. He tells himself to remember, remember that he is used to the deadened aching by now. Has been for a while, and besides, he had to be if he kept wanting to earn credits. Coruscant does that to you after some time. Either you learned to live with the pain for not being one blessed with political heritage or a Jedi, or you vanished.

Vanished. Never died. No one really dies in Coruscant, unless a body is found and even then, it's difficult to know. A city this big in a Galaxy that was bigger. No way to ever really find out the truth. Hawkes got smartened up to that the day he lost a girl to some spice ring five-hundred levels above where he sat now. Level 1813 - the Runner's Track. The same place he lost Viktor Hackman. The mere name stirs something like sadness in his mind and he grunts indistinctly. It isn't sadness that he feels, not entirely. He really can't feel that now, just like he really can't feel the numbed pain in his fingers. But it is a miserable thing that sits in his stomach like an iron ball, and it drives him to drink what was in his hands. He lifts the glass up and brings it to his cracked lips. There's a slight hesitation to his last act. He knows he shouldn't and it would only worsen his capabilities for the job.

Viktor Hackman.

He gulps it down in one go, quick, and slams the glass down. It tastes bitter - and somewhat warm, like refrigerated butter under a hot sun - and goes down sharply. He coughs. Some spit and a bit of blood - is that lung? - comes up into his hand and onto the bartop. An unhealthy symptom of how much he drinks, which doesn't stop him from looking to the other filled shot glasses and the half-empty bottle of bourbon. He grimaces as he reaches for another and holds it in front of his face, almost disgusted. He's never gotten used to the taste, even when it's almost the only thing that he drinks aside from black coffee in the morning and fluoride-filled water at night for his pills. His liver hates him, but it refuses to die and it refuses to kill him. He could say that this was the benefit of the pills that he purchased from the black market some three years ago.

Keeps him running. Keeps him working. Keeps him alive so that he never dies, although he will never die. He will only go missing and be labeled as having vanished. Just like the target of the job he was on now.

His hair is wet from the rain outside the cantina - he arrived just as began to fall, and thirty minutes too early as well. He runs his free hand through it, tracing the roughness of his scalp. A slick substance from his hair sticks to his old palm. It looks greenish like seaweed when he examines it. Is it rain or just sewer drainings from the levels above? It's hard to tell sometimes, given that 1313 is far down. Far, far down to where the only lights that allow you to see are fixtures and speeders. No sun and no moon to tell time with. Only temporary dimness and a thousand million things in the shadows waiting to take your earnings and your belongings.

Just his luck, he thinks as he downs another bitter drink, to be sent here. Ironically, the job is simple-sounding: find some rich kid who got involved with the wrong people after running away from daddy. But, there's nothing simple about 1313 and there's no chance it could even show some signs of being simple.

This was a helkaaj - the term here meaning "very unlucky assignment." He has been on many helkaajs before, so he was used to them unlike the taste of bourbon - yet another shot glass, of which, he chokes down. Funny enough, this may be the worst one yet, he thinks to himself as he slides the third empty glass away from him. There is something else to this helkaaj aside from the particular unfortunates of 1313: his partner. The 1313th level and the job could have been bearable in a horrible, manic sort of way had he not been partnered with Vince Sharpe, a youngling in the world of crime and law. A boy who has only been his assigned partner for all of six months, barely out of his diapers from school.

"Feth me," Hawkes whispers as he slams his head down into the bartop, awaiting the arrival of his partner and the inevitability of facing the difficulty - if not impossibility - of the job ahead.

Vince Sharpe ​

 

[Zavvo the Hutt]

G.A. Noire​

A black raincoat slipped from the shoulders of a well-suited man as he stepped under the awning of the bar. The "rain" down here wasn't one you wanted to get on your skin, let alone an outfit that cost your first two months of pay. The man was beginning to regret that purchase as he folded his coat over his arm and stamped out his cigarette on the wet duracrete beneath him. But damn it looked good. It felt good. It was like a shining light in the darkness of Coruscant, and by god this planet was dark.

Six months ago Vince Sharpe had arrived from Chandrila, a degree in one hand and a brand new pistol in the other. A parting gift from his father. He was gonna make it big in Galactic City. Little did he know he was in for a culture shock the moment he descended past the first level. He'd come for crime of course... well at least the promise of work for private detectives. He just hadn't realized the scope of the situation. Everywhere he turned folks had the same mentality: if you weren't in the business of crime, you weren't in business. He'd be lying if he said it didn't get to him, and in that case he lied all the time. The general atmosphere of the Hackman & Hawkes office the first time he'd entered was... bad. It had a pungent smell of self-loathing and despair. By now that smell which had once stunned him was stuck in his nose. It was the smell of the whole damn planet. This bar was no different, but unlike the H&H office it took more than one person to drink enough alcohol so that a single whiff of air burnt your nose hairs.

Vince had no doubt he stuck out like a sore thumb as he entered the establishment. He lit another cigarette instinctively, keeping his cool. Cool was really all he had, and even then it became more superficial with every case, especially the ones that had led them straight into a wall. Those were getting more common.

Leo Hawkes was face down in a mystery liquid, no doubt some combination of liquor and whatever bodily fluids managed to attain freedom from the senior detective's ailing body. State of consciousness: undetermined. Vince took a long drag, letting a calm wash over him, then exhaling into a sense of momentary euphoria. Even if that sweet feeling lasting a second, it was enough time to begin the walk of shame over to Hawkes. The illusion of mystery surrounding the well dressed man dissipated from the bar's patrons when they realized who he was here for. They wanted nothing to do with that drunk.

Still the bartender greeted Vince with the offer of a drink.

"No thanks, I'm only here for him."

Sharpe waved him off casually.

"'Bout damn time. I ain't servin' him another."

The bartender grumbled and turned back to cleaning the countertop, carefully avoiding the drunken detective like his life depended on it. Everyone gets a kick out of something, and Vince reckoned the bar staff would be filled with ecstasy the moment the PIs were back on the streets.

Vince rested a hand on Leo's back and shook him. Not too hard, but enough that he'd feel it through his thick stupor. He still couldn't tell if the man was passed out, or simply wallowing in self-pity.

"C'mon pal. They don't take too kindly to dicks sleeping on the job around here."

___________________________________
Leo Hawkes | Myk Venture ​

 

[Myk Venture]

1313
GALACTIC CITY
CORUSCANT
Leo Hawkes Vince Sharpe

"Go into a room too fast, the room eats you. There was a blind spot in my head, a slug-shaped hole where the answers should be. Call it denial. I wanted to dig inside my skull and scrape out the pain. A funhouse is a linear sequence of scares. Take it or leave it is the only choice given. Makes you think about free will: have our choices been made for us because of who we are? A bad caricature of a better man."​

Detective Mykas Venture Memlogs, 865 ABY​

Acid rain scored and pitted crumbling duracrete. Coruscant's underworld was vast enough to maintain its own weather patterns choked by heavy industrialism. Synthflesh sizzled when Myk covered his igniter stick to light a thin cigarra. A pair of drunken twi'leks staggered out of a smokey establishment and the corellian heard muffled wreckpunk until the blast door slammed shut behind them. They both slurred obscenities thick with local street slang before one hurled an empty bottle at his feet which shattered in a resounding echo.

Venture ignored them and they quickly lost interest. More figures emerged from shadows ahead blocking his way across the cantina threshold. Twin nikto who looked so similar they must have been clanmates and a sneering rattataki. Swoop thugs by the look of their tattoos although Myk didn't recognize any of the local markings.

"Well look here, boys. We got a real live tourist."

"Something like that," Myk tossed the cigarra aside and ground it under his heel.

"Hey sleemo! You look lost. Hand over your credits and maybe we help with some directions."

Both lumbering nikto chuckled savagely while their boss flashed a rusted vibroknife.

"Put that away kid before you hurt yourself."

He tried to shove his way past but the rattataki snarled and stabbed Myk in his side. Black oil leaked from the replica's smoking wound. His assailant barely had time to look confused before Detective Venture rearranged his features with a right hook powerful enough to remove both knife and wielder from the equation. He sent an elbow sailing into one snarling nikto sending the creature reeling aside.

Myk's remaining obstacle crashed through the cantina in a pile of broken bones. He stepped over the groaning muscle on his way to order a strong drink. With a bellow of rage the first wounded nikto plunged another blade into his back. Instead of slumping over dead or crying out in agony, Venture tossed a few credit chits down on the bar in payment. More sparks coursed through the vibroweapon still embedded between his shoulder blades.

"Sorry about the mess. How about that drink? Tell you what, let me buy the next round."

 

[Leo Hawkes]

The sharpness of the bartender's voice is not lost on him, even as the rare slumber begins to overtake him as his face drowns in hard steel and drooling bourbon. Daggers in deadened nerves twist with each word, spoken in harsh tones like that of a widow screaming for the loss of her husband in the night. Was it her husband? Or was it a lover? Coruscant made monogamy a rare luxury, and infidelity a common currency.

He knew it well and spent it often, once upon a time. Months worth of it, earned through the contacts that came to him with each new job - men, women, handsome, sensual, ugly, vile. He had someone - a name that he has now forgotten that used to be the one word he would never stop uttering. That's what the bartender's voice is like. That's a subtle pain he could actually feel. The voice of his partner, young and youthful like a sprite, only makes that pain worsen and a wet, throaty grumble of discomfort and annoyance crawls out of his gullet.

"C'mon pal. They don't take too kindly to dicks sleeping on the job around here."

Hawkes raises his head slowly, cobra-like and stiff to avoid cramping his muscles and spine. He slides his elbows forward to prop himself up and spies the bartender watching him as if wondering when he's going to collapse again. He can't blame the man, knowing that the brown liquid of bourbon is stuck to his cracked lips and slightly drips from his graying mustache like a leaky ceiling. This becomes a more glaring visual when he looks at his partner with his tired, blank stare. His eyes are red with exhaustion and likely narcotics. His mouth curls into a sneer as he looks over the young man with visible disdain, like this is the first time he has ever seen him and he's some bigshot gangster being asked questions about the boss.

"The hell do you know about "here," kid?" he asks with a slurred voice as rough as hot asphalt, almost spitting on his partner's expensive suit. His accent and dialect are clearly Coruscanti, but dragged through so much mud and grime that it's almost a challenge to understand what he is saying - the drunkenness doesn't help matters either. The bourbon finishes dripping from his mustache, although he still wipes away any remnants with the sleeve of his green jacket. "You ain't been down here long enough to talk like you know. So don't. Folks down 'ere don't take too kindly to youths talkin' s'it 'bout s'it they don't know s'it 'bout."

Hawkes laughs at his own words and turns back to his empty glasses - noticing that the bourbon had been taken away by the bartender. He laughs more, but it's clear that he finds no amusement in anything going on. Even in his drunken stupor, there is nothing to be found as "funny." His laughter ends with an abrupt snort and a hacking noise and he spits something into one of his empty glasses - it clinks and looks solid black. Corruption of his body that adamantly refuses to shut down no matter how much it truly wants to, no matter how much he wants it to. Hawkes grunts at the sight of the solid black thing in the glass and ignores the disgusted look by the bartender. It is a look of: "you are never coming back in here again."

Hawkes stands up from his stool and weakly adjusts the collar and shoulders of his suit jacket. He looks around the cantina as he does so, taking in the details that he has either forgotten or missed the first time he came in here. There are no windows to let in the lights from outside, and the lights that are shining in the room are dim and blinking. The furniture is scattered, old, rusted or splintered. What looks to be rats skitter across the floor from one corner to another, a sign of the decrepitness of this place. What really makes the weathered detective wary and interested, however, are the patrons. Some are the standard fare one would see this far down, beaten or diseased or destitute, holding back tears or giving off low painful chuckles.

But, others are hard timers by the looks of it. Muscled to the nines and battle-scarred. Some were even likely just released from the prison a couple of levels up judging by the freshness of the tattoos and barcodes dotting their very prominently sized arms - although the term "prison" is used here very lightly. 1315's prison is a joke that turned sour before it was even thought up, and was rampant with corruption on multiple fronts. Prisoners ruling entire blocks, getting released early, remaining in control of their empires as if they were never even in cells. It was all too common for that so-called prison, and its former inmates did not look too keen on just letting this fancy-looking youngster stroll in and then stroll out.

Turning his attention once more to his youthful partner, Hawkes sighed heavily and said: "You look like a high roller in that suit and jacket. Shoulda worn somethin' else. See the big fellas? That may get you in trouble, kid. More than you're already gonna get. Anyways, how was your descent? Enjoying the locale of the esteemed 1313 thus far?"

Myk Venture | Vince Sharpe ​

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[Zavvo the Hutt]

G.A. Noire
​

The older detective reared his head like a narcoleptic dragon, with vapours of fiery bourbon expelling out of his haggard breaths. Soulless eyes looked Sharpe up and down. He couldn't tell what thoughts were behind them until Hawkes made them abundantly clear. Anyone with half a mind would have expected a brusque response, or even a grunt, from the man, but his words came out in a colourful if albeit stumbled through reprimanding.

"The hell do you know about "here," kid? You ain't been down here long enough to talk like you know. So don't. Folks down 'ere don't take too kindly to youths talkin' s'it 'bout s'it they don't know s'it 'bout."

Vince remained quiet as Leo laughed depressingly at his "wit". He'd learned by now to just give the man his small victories. A stubborn mule for sure, but one who could pull his weight. You don't get very far in life acting like Hawkes unless you're damn good at whatever it is you do, and Vince knew he had a lot more to learn from his senior.

An exchange of looks bounced around the room as Leo stood up. Vince leaned against the bar and observed his disheveled partner, who studied the room, all while the room looked back in quiet shock. No one wanted to look at the detectives, but it was hard for them to peel their eyes from a dead man walking. It was like a miracle to see the hungover beast finally awake from its slumber.

As Hawkes began to stumble off, Vince mashed his cigarette into the nearby ashtray and pushed himself up casually. He pulled his suit jacket down taught and followed.

"You look like a high roller in that suit and jacket. Shoulda worn somethin' else. See the big fellas? That may get you in trouble, kid. More than you're already gonna get. Anyways, how was your descent? Enjoying the locale of the esteemed 1313 thus far?"

"I'll keep that in mind." Vince began to feel the weight of his blaster pistol tucked inside his jacket as Leo warned him. He hoped they would have to resort to that, but down on 1313 it seemed almost inevitable.

"Journey wasn't too bad. But talk about those security cats bringing the hammer down. They get suspicious of anybody comin' down here. Probably for a good reason. You catch anything good yet?" he spoke softly to avoid any more unwanted attention.

The question was obligatory, but Vince still felt out of place asking it considering how he'd found the other man just moments ago. With any luck, they had a lead to go off of. Without one... well... they were just drops of rain falling free into the abyssal reaches of the galaxy's largest city. To call it daunting would be a massive understatement...

Leo Hawkes | Myk Venture ​

 

[Leo Hawkes]

Almost Blue​

"You catch anything good yet?"

The detective exhales the bitter stench of alcohol out of his throat - it is miasmic - and shrugs in a way that speaks more than his silence. It is a pained motion, a sensation that he can feel as opposed to his hands, as the joints in his shoulders crack back to life from his slumped stiff posture at the bar. He wills it away just as quickly as it creeps up on him, reminding himself of living with the pain.

Maintaining his muteness, he reaches into the interior pocket of his worn green jacket, gripping something metallic. He begins to pull it out, slowly like had lifted his head a few moments ago, although he doesn't pull it out entirely. He stops and thinks for a moment, face contorted in struggling thought, his mind and stomach contesting with one another. He wants to ingest it - needs to ingest it - but not here. Not now. It would be bad for business and the boy is too young to see it. A second later, he drops whatever the metallic thing in his grasp and returns his hand to his side, empty. His expression softens as best it can, and his hardened eyes look to his partner, although his face stays facing the old rusted door of the cantina.

Part of him wants to say that he had managed to solve the case before the young boy even arrived, that he cleaned up his act and become the superstar cop that he once was and had trained to be. That they can both go back to the office, shape it up to a proper establishment of respect, and get to work fighting crime as the veteran gunner and the young snoop.

What he has to say, and what the majority of him wants to say...is that there is little in the way of information on the person besides their name and appearance - Sandim Raldrak, aged 19, with a thin build, blonde hair, brown eyes, and likely wearing something far too expensive for this area. Typical Corellian nonsense. As for leads, well that's a bit better. It is nothing substantial compared to what they could have, and certainly should have been something the old man told his partner before traipsing off into hell, but it was something the two of them can ground their feet into.

Before his arrival - and the very reason why they were even on 1313 specifically - Hawkes had managed to forge a mental list of locations known to have reported the little s'it running around with a wide-eyed expression of fear and awe. How he obtained said locations he will never say, but the list existed and it was the best thing they had. His bruised hands grip reflexively, and the numbed stabbing returns for a second before fading once more. The cantina, unfortunately, proved absolutely useless in the preliminary search and the old detective decided it would at least serve as the rendevous point for him and his partner. From then on...just follow the list.

"Yeah, I got somethin'. Before you got here, I managed to get some real honest policin' done for once. Talked to a few folks in the street out there, takin' notes, learnin' what I could. Make it easy on you, ya know? You were takin' so long, decided to get me a drink," he lies through his teeth. It has to be noted that even when blackout drunk - and that means completely and utterly lushed - Leo Hawkes is a very, very good liar. As in: absurdly and mystifyingly good at lying. It's part of what makes him so good at his job and why he was once one of Coruscant's top thirty detectives, on par with even their own official police system in the senate district. This was such a badly attempted lie - nay, such a horrifically bad lie that even a blind, semi-deaf Ewok could see through it. And then he says the truth, which is as sad as one could expect: "Guess I overdid it...I do that a lot, don't I...yeah, I do. Sorry, kid."

The words fall from his cracked lips in a tone like piano keys from a song meant to make an audience weep at an orchestra performance. There is genuine remorse in them, and for the length of time that it takes for the brain to send electrical signals to the body for it to move, the emotional wall that Leo Hawkes has long put up...cracks. The ex-prisoners who could bodyslam wampas through the tables half-filling this cantina cringe at the awkwardness of Leo Hawkes' spiel. The bartender covertly hides all bottles of bourbon he has on stock, and his face turns from sour to sad and it looks as if he is trying to come up with words to comfort the same man he was about to physically kick out. A woman dressed in soaked rags enters through the rusted doors, stops, stares at the limp-armed middle-aged man with a beer gut constrained tightly by a black belt, and turns around to leave. Detective Leo Hawkes has effectively made the mood of a Level 1313 cantina utterly wretched.

There are no tears in his eyes when he shrugs once more and turns fully to his partner, a forced grin on his face that looks almost agonizing to maintain. "Anyway, the rich kid came trollin' through here a few days ago, but no one knows who he was with. Rough sort, probably. Said they were uh...goin' to the Wharf? Is that right? Yeah, the Wharf. Underground lake a few miles from here. We're gonna have to walk it, just so you know. No speeders down here. People'll kill ya just for a chance to ride one."

Myk Venture | Vince Sharpe​