Rave and Harkness

[girl_upgraded]

Captain Jack Harkness. Source of steady work. He always feeds me, pays me, and doesn't touch. This girl can't quite figure out the man, even though she has the data. He has data Inside that goes back years and spans the planet and moons. He confuses things, but he's reliable. He's worth working for. He's symmetrical, too. That makes him easier to

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[makes_a_law]

It wasn't the kind of place that Hobbes was comfortable in. So often that was true, recently. Siam was a string of whorehouses and illegal tenements and so many black market deals that it took effort to find a business transaction that wasn't skating the thin line of the law. Looking at it through the window in the room that Harkness had set him up with made it easy to understand why Siam worked the way it did. It wasn't that these were all bad people, it wasn't that immorality was running loose. It was just that it had been so long since anyone had seen something sure and something certain and people had forgotten how to believeThere weren't many churches on this side of town

[more_flexible]

"When I need to," Jack replied, drinking a glass of water that looked polluted. "It's her favorite spot."

He gestured to Rave as she sat comfortably, weaving back and forth, her lips moving as she whispered softly, reciting data, speaking to Nodes, speaking to Constructs.

"You're late and you look like shit, Hobbes. Something wrong? I can't use you if you're not a hundred percent."

[makes_a_law]

Hobbes watched her for a moment, a faint smile curving his lips. Was someone telling her binary jokes? He hoped so. Maybe someone else could make her smile.

"Sorry," he muttered, wincing slightly at the reprimand. He couldn't mess up this job, not after everything else. He prodded his black eye with the tip of his fingers and shrugged, stealing a glance up at Jack.

"I'm a hundred percent. I'm fine," he said quickly, eyes going to a girl that had laid down in the filth of a far corner. He swallowed, shaking himself. "What's the job?"

[more_flexible]

"Rave needs an escort. You did a good job with Phedre, so I'm going to give this one to you too. She's going to Nashi for a data dump and it's too sensitive to keep outside of her head," he said, looking at the girl Hobbes ha keyed in on. "That one's been jacked in for days. If you want to fuck her, she won't even notice," he said, then got back to the business at hand.

"Rave is special. She's my Runner, see. She's free-lance, but she's mine, so there's some ground rules. One. Don't touch her. Two. Not a lot of questions. Three. If she freaks out, use this," he said, passing Hobbes a slim case with a syringe inside.

[makes_a_law]

Hobbes mouth falls open and he stares at him, disgusted. "Are you....what the hell's the matter with you? That's a fucking person over there, you know that? No one gives a fuck about her now, but someone might have once and now...she's..."

He shook his head dumbly, looking down at the case blankly. "...sedative?" he guessed. He's not sure he would be surprised if it was arsenic.

[girl_upgraded]

"It was a test," says the girl, still jacked in, more aware than anyone can guess. "See what you'd do to me if you give me that. Told him you were decent meat. Told you, Captain."

Jack just sat there, smiling. "It's a neurochemical inhibitor. It'd turn you into a vegetable. Rave...it stops the storms."

Rave closed her eyes, still swaying softly. "Alice isn't getting home eating mushrooms. White Rabbit is a bad, bad ICE. Leads her into holes. She's almost gone, Captain. A little tea, a little smoke. She's almost lost."

[makes_a_law]

Hobbes made an astonished noise and sat back in his chair, shaking his head. He felt like a fool, still naive and fumbling even after years of living in a shithole world. It should have gotten easier with time, but he was still an outsider and he was still just barely scraping by. He caught himself looking over at Harkness to see if he could read anything in his expression, but that was all closed doors and dead ends. Big surprised. With a sigh, he leaned his elbows forward on the table and watched Rave.

"What's she working on?" he asked quietly, a note of gentleness entering his voice.

[girl_upgraded]

The girl opened her eyes again and smiled at him. "No Tom in Wonderland. Safer that way, you know. Off with her head goes the Red Queen and Alice runs. It's my world though. The Red Queen eats Alice's footprints and soon the only place left will be home."

Jack looked bored. He'd been listening to Rave's goings on about the stupid stories for the better part of a week. He didn't care about her Construct or how the Inside functioned. He just wanted the job done.

"You gonna take me home, Tom? Keep me safe from the PK and the Naga? No cheshire smiles there."

[makes_a_law]

For the first time, Hobbes' expression softened into something much less tired and alone. He nodded but had the good sense not to reach out to her.

"Yeah, girl. All that and more. Maybe even an omelet." A grin briefly flashed. "God knows you need it."

[girl_upgraded]

"I like cheeseburgers now," she grinned. "Meat and cheese and fries. Good shit. You eat? You look like bad shit. Bad eyes. You'll go blind," she continued, her voice a little hollow as she swayed gently.

"She'll eat you out of cred if you let her," came Jack's vice from behind him. "But I get the feeling you know that already."

[makes_a_law]

"Thanks. Walked into a doorframe," he said, an ironic twist to his mouth. She must have seen worse, he knows that, and he's not even sure if she'd worry if he told the truth. But telling her white lies...it kinda made him feel like there was still something innocent here that was worth protecting.

He tossed a look to Harkness, almost a smile. "All those circuits must burn her through calories quick, right?" He leaned back into the chair, hands folded over his stomach. He shrugged.

"It's not a big deal. Besides, figure I owe her after that de-bugging she gave the Sarajevo." He gave her a smile. "Fixed the glitch in the forward, pre-flight thrusters. No more taking off down a hill." He laughed quietly to himself, looking over at jack. "Which is nice. A first."

[girl_upgraded]

"She debugged your ship?" Jack asked, looking sceptical, and then a flash of anger was there and gone. The kid was doing okay so he couldn't have touched her. Or touched her much.

"Sarajevo. Sweet girl, but she's no Rose. Rose is my friend," she interjected. "You guys don't understand the girls you've got. They'll sing for you if White Queen! White Queen!" She was siff in the chair, hands holding the edges, eyes rolled back. No one could sneak up on her. How had that happened?

Jack didn't move. He didn't even seem like he'd noticed. Maybe, just maybe, he'd seen it too many times to bother to worry.

[makes_a_law]

"She flies sweet and easy now," Hobbes said, nodding his head. He'd been impressed and not too little surprised. It was easy to underestimate her when she was twitching in an alley and begging creds.

When she seized, he made a move as if to go after her, side crying out in protest at the sudden movement, stretching scar tissue and bruised ribs. But he stopped himself before he touched her, dropping back down into his seat.

"...shit," he muttered, licking his lips. He glanced quickly at Harkness, flushing slightly. He stared at her for a long moment, but when he spoke, his voice was thick and he was talking to Jack.

"...how do you do this?" He looked around the small, musty room. "Everyday...how do you watch shit like this? Doesn't it just...get inside your head and stay there?"

[more_flexible]

He looked up from his PDA and watched Rave, listened to her, then shrugged. "You just get used to it after a while," he said casually. He neglected to mention that 'after a while' had taken about two centuries.

"Curiouser and curiouser, you can't do that, bitch," Rave laughed, relaxing into her seat once again. She had a small child's glee in her laughter as she tipped her head back and worked her magic Inside.

"What do you really want to know, Hobbes? Howyou put up with this side of town? How you can walk around Arakkis and still feel good about yourself?" he smirked. He had his ways. "RAVE!" he called. "Drop the Hookah. We need the Orphans and Meds."

[makes_a_law]

"I want to know how to wake up without wondering if anything I'm doing gives me the right to be alive," he said, his voice kind of low, all the fight gone out. When Jack shouted, he pressed back into his seat and stared, watching them warily.

"...what the hell was that about?"

[girl_upgraded]

Rave's posture had changed and her glee was gone. He head was cocked to the side and whatever she was doing Inside, she was doing it fast and sneaky.

"You do the right thing," Jack said, leaning closer to Hobbes and dropping his voice. "Even if it makes you a very bad man. That? There? I had to get her attention enough so she'd get back to work. That whole Alice bullshit is her Construct. As long as it doesn't interfere with work, I don't care if she plays. But right now I need to know how many kids are being smuggled off Nanashi to work in the mines on Oublie, and she's going to change a few manifests so when I steal from Medicorp, they don't notice. We hate when they notice."

"Hate Medicorp," Rave parroted. "They went blind."