As the rain slowly slid down the glass of my window, the light pouring in from the city’s streets illuminated Luna’s face with a soft glow, and as I watched her slowly turn to me, peering through the strands of dark hair that cascaded over her face, I noticed something. She had freckles. This realization filled me with a strange warm feeling. Noticing an imperfection made me feel a bit better about everything that had transpired, but as she faced me and our eyes met, my mind was quickly reminded of the conversation at hand.
“Why are the Seekers hunting you?” As the question left my mouth, I realized what I was even asking. The NGO had technology far better than anything I could even imagine, and the fear of them hunting me sent a shiver to my spine. I stood from my chair, slowly approaching Luna “Are they tracking you?
“They can’t. At least, I don’t think so.” as she spoke, she seemed unsure as to what she was saying. I didn’t think she was lying, but there was an eerie feeling in the way she explained her knowledge of the Seekers. Her story was mainly focused on how escaped from the NeurCorp center she was planning on bringing me back to. It made sense, at least to the best of my knowledge about NeuroCorp and the Seekers, which wasn’t much. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t telling me everything, but that was a feeling I was used to in my line of work. Sooner or later, I find the truth, weather my client wants me to or not. Her plan on returning to the labs hinged on one item, a keycard that grants us access to the facility.
“The keycard would usually be extremely hard to come by, but this is why I hired you. We need to steal it from a scientist stationed at the Cloning facility. Lucky for us, I know where to get one. One of the lead researchers in the facilities team has a luxury apartment right on the edge of Van Soren. We’re gonna break in there and steal his keycard, then use it to sneak into the facility.”
“Is the apartment guarded? Any idea where the Keycard is kept?”
“It is guarded. Not heavily, but Seekers are stationed around the complex. The Keycard’s location however, is a bit more tricky.” Luna paused, then looked at the city below. The silence lasted only a second before she looked at me again. “The lead researcher has a cybernetic eye, created and developed by him and his old team at NueroCorp. It’s a rather impressive piece of technology, he loved to talk about it to his colleagues while they had us confined, waiting to be tested on and…” As Luna went on, her gaze shifted from me, and she fell silent. “The eye is the keycard.”
I looked into Luna’s eyes once more, then to the floor. “His fucking eye. I have to steal his eye. How in the world do you expect me to steal someone's eye out of their skull without being caught? I’m good, but I’m not a ghost. When that bastard catches me, He’ll alert the entire sector and the NGO will have us disintegrated by a gunship in minutes, Rethink your plan, and come back when you’re serious.”
“I am serious.” Luna snapped at me, forcing my attention back to her disgruntled stare. “He’s a cyborg. He still has some human parts, but he had most of his body enhanced by cybernetics. He’s a machine. Machines can be switched off. If we can get to the panel on the back of his head, we can shut down his cybernetics and force him into a form of paralysis. Then you can unplug his eye without him alerting anyone. All you have to do is sneak up on him. That shouldn’t be too hard for someone who does what you do. You know, like, crime and everything”
“And you think we can make it to his apartment without Seeker interference?” I asked, looking to the window beside me.
“If we take a shuttle to the east wall of Van Soren, all we’ll have to worry about is avoiding the guards at the shuttle station. If we go during the morning rush period, it should be easy to pull off.”
“How do you know where this guy even lives?”
Luna smirked and looked to my eyes “Do you always ask your clients this many questions? Some kind of pre-crime questionnaire?”
I shook my head and a light chuckle escaped me. “No, but clients don’t usually come to my apartment and ask that I steal someone's eye and help rescue a lady from some kind of science jail, and you’re not telling me everything. But, that’s fine, clients don’t usually do that either, so you got that one right. Want a coffee?”
“Sure.” Luna answered, as I turned towards the kitchen. “And I’m telling you everything you need to know, at least right now. I know that’s not the most comforting answer, but you’re not somebody to turn down a good chunk of money so quickly, are you?” she said, sitting softly on the couch.
“Speaking of money, what are you offering for such an interesting job? Surely enough to make all your secrecy worthwhile” I asked as I activated the coffee maker in the kitchen. The machine beeped as a holographic menu fizzled into existence before me. I selected my usual coffee combination, plus a second for Luna, and the contraption whirred into action, pouring two hot cups of coffee from the spouts hanging over the counter space.
“Enough, I assure you.” she replied, her soft tone and short answer confusing me. As I approached with the beverages in hand, I rested them onto the table in front of the couch, and sat next to Luna.
“So even your offer is a secret? Well that one might be a bit of an issue. I’m gonna need at least 12,000 Units for stealing the key, and other 28,000 for breaking into a NeuroCorp facility.”
Luna looked into my eyes, seemingly to gauge my sincerity, then began to giggle softly. “You aren’t actually worried about the Units, are you Merrick?”
Her question baffled me. I had trouble trying to think about what she could possibly mean. Of course I was worried about the Units! I took the alert to get paid for a job, and with a job this intense and dangerous, she’s crazy to think I don’t expect payment. As I recapped her question, searching for some underlying message, I realized that I hadn’t even thought about payment until she brought it up only seconds before. She was right.
“Of course I expect payment.” I said, sternly
“And you’ll receive it once my associate and I return to Van Soren, you have my word.” she said, sipping her coffee. I followed her lead, sipping the hot beverage I had brought for us. It was warm and sweet, but as the liquid flowed to my stomach and left my taste buds, a faint bitter taste coated my tongue. I gently rested the cup on the table, and I turned my attention to the window, where the sky was beginning to lighten from the sun creeping into view somewhere far away from Van Soren. The rain had slowed to a sprinkle, and the whirring from the machines that echoed from the Industrial Quarter had fallen silent. Luna peered around my apartment, and I felt a bit of shame for the mess she was observing. I wasn’t a slob, at least I didn’t think so, but the apartment itself was a bit dirty, and the age of the building showed through the cracks in the walls and the squeaky floorboards.
As I peered through the dirty window at the beautiful night sky, Luna’s plan ran through my mind over and over again. If she was telling the truth, I could do it. I was confident in my own abilities, but I wasn’t sure how confident I was in hers, or how much I could trust her. She seemed to know the intensity of the situation ahead, but one thing left a weird taste in my mouth, like the coffee I had sipped moments ago. One question that burned since I met Luna under that streetlight.
“When we first met and you explained your crazy scheme, you said I was the only person you could trust. Why?”
My question seemed to catch Luna off guard. She rested her cup on the table before us, and corrected her posture to speak clearly. “I wasn’t looking to hire just anybody for this. I was told specifically to find you.”
“By who?”
Luna looked conflicted, as if she couldn’t decide how to respond. She was hiding something else from me, and I wasn’t letting this one wait. She wasn’t going to let me go into this totally blind. I stood from the couch, and looked at the girl before me, seemingly startled by my sudden decision to stand.
“Tell me who sent you to find me.”
A long pause filled the room, looming over us as I began to anxiously question who she could possibly be talking about. I grew increasingly impatient, turning to face the door before Luna finally broke the silence like a glass window, sending a shard of it directly into my stomach with her answer.
“Your father told me to find you.”
