I See the Noire

[Chairdor]

Music poured sleepily into the room from an old fashioned transmitter. Old fashioned matched the room quite astutely as most descriptions went, from the old wooden chairs to the lightly smoking cigarettes resting in a slowly filling ashtray. It was a slow night for Fara Wei as she heard the pitter patter of rain sidle down her window. Getting up from her list of cold cases she began to pace around the room retracing old steps, trying to get a new spin on things that had long since spun away from her. So many killers, so many deaths, so few answers.

Thoughtlessly waltzing got Fara nowhere as she perused dusty volumes of evidence and a few romance holos here and there. Not hers of course, but her father's. It was his only vice besides tobacco, alcohol, loose women, gambling, and Parcheesi. Sighing as memories attempted to pull her away from so many vital bits of work, the investigator took a moment to look outside. Flying past were hundreds of speeders all heading somewhere. Moving and shaking up the world all with there own little vibrations like a school of children throwing rocks in a pond. Water muddied was easy to hide in and that was where her killers hid.

Always just out of reach, far enough to evade her but close enough to mock her. Fara would hate these masked fiends, but not as much as she hated herself for not catching them. Especially one, the one who killed her father. Turning to that old bored she saw the lines of logic, fuzzy pictures, time tables, stacks of records and testimony. All the edges were worn from handling again and again and again. It had been over a decade and Fara was no closer to finding her father's killer than when she began. In fact she may be farther still than that.

Turning away from past failures the private investigator sought something to take her mind off the case, like perhaps a new case. Unfortunately even fishermen with the best placed lines have dry days and today was such a day. Perhaps it was simply there were less unsolved murder cases to go around, but Fara wasn't allowing such baseless optimism to linger long in her thoughts. With trillions of lives in the galaxy you could take any seconds of your existence and find a hundred or so murders. Killings so brutal and horrid you'd think you'd seen all the evil in the universe. You'd be wrong of course.

Taking a seat back at her desk Fara tapped the stone slab and looked at the nameplate sitting upon it. Wei, Private Investigator it read, it was her fathers and she inherited it like she inherited so many of his habits and obsessions. She wasn't deeply into booze or gambling thank god, but she smoked and studied enough to make up time for the other too. No loose women either come to think of it. Lost in though and the pitter patter of rain, Fara sat back and took a lingering drag on yet another cigarette. I wonder if this was what my father would have wanted for me she thought. Yet another question with no easy answer.

 

[Jabonicus]

Wei, Private Investigator​

Clara held the scrap of paper in her cybernetic hand. Written by a mercenary she had talked to, the handwriting was sloppy, tinted with alcohol and still stank of the rough odor that often trailed after inhabitants of cantinas. Whether it was written by a drunkard with a gun or not, it was information she could use.

The streets were barren, the once deafening sound of footsteps was replaced with the sound of rain hitting the ground, before sliding to the gutters on each side of the barely slanted walkways. The rain splashed down onto Clara, sliding across both metal and flesh, making a mix ambient sound that filled her ears. The rain wasn't too bad, to be honest. It wasn't a drizzle, but it certainly wasn't a full on storm.

Just around the block.

The woman turned her head, her glowing yellow eyes adjusting distance with a click. Beside her was a restaurant, a sparse population inside. At most, six people, two of which no doubt worked the lazy establishment. A Devaronian nodded at her from a seat stationed next to a window. She simply nodded back continuing down the empty street.

Last shot.

Two kids suddenly rounded the corner, wearing ponchos too big for them as they rushed through the streets. They avoided the dry, slanted land, instead parading in the streams and puddles that collected the water that had fallen from above. They ignored Clara, and if they weren't the only thing out besides her, she would probably ignore them too.

Republic won't help.

Then she saw it, the entrance tucked at a corner of the street, she stopped in the rain, practically dripping wet as she stared at the tinted windows. Wei, Private Investigator. This was who she needed to find, this was who she had found. The lights on the sign were on, so she believed the building to be open. She approached with cautious steps, raising her mechanical knuckles, she rapped them against the door in rapid succession. Then, after waiting for an answer, or none at all, she pushed open the door, stepping inside and out of the rain.

By the force, I hope she will.

 

[Chairdor]

Lost in thought and smoke, Fara nearly missed the furious tapping of knocks coming to her door assuming the rain had simply increased. What the investigator had mistook for a storm turned out to be far more disruptive. A case she thought as she saw the Zabrak enter. The woman was young, though parts of her seemed older than others, she had a tired look the detective was all too familiar with. Something had happened in her life beyond her control and no one seemed to care.

Fara took in the young woman noting the weather had not been kind to her. She had interesting eyes, the young detective didn't put much stock in the whole 'look me in the eyes' nonsense that some law enforcement put so much faith into, but there was something about these eyes that the investigator couldn't quite detect.

Gesturing to a chair she said, "Please sit, feel free to hang up your coat and dry off for a bit." with those instructions given the young woman ducked into her desk for a moment moving wanted posters and case files to their appropriate drawers and corners. When everything was set and her desk was relatively clear, Fara produced a data pad and readied her hand to take down any details her new client could give her,

"I'm Fara Wei as you probably know and I'm a private investigator who specializes in murder. Usually my initial interviews with clients go into great detail so at any point you wish you can take a step back to get some coffee or think on what you know."

Fara always emphasized that last word. People often didn't know what they knew, but more often simply believed. Faith wasn't something the private investigator could afford. Faith in the goodness of men, faith in justice, faith in the government, these were usually the things that led her clients to such desperation and by extension to her.

"Let's start with the simple questions of who you are, what has happened, and why you require my services."

Those queries floated with smoke slowly dragged from Fara's cigarette. Smooth Jazz still entered the room softly as Fara prepared to recall each and every detail of the case and put it in her datapad for good measure.

 

[Jabonicus]

The Zabrak woman seemed average at first, cultural dark markings across her face and throat. However, at closer inspection, it was all a facade. The entirety of her face was a mechanical construct, a mimickry of her real face. Her eyes, glowing faintly, were the most noticeable and obvious part of her face. The orbs were a dull white, schismed like a camera lens, with her sclera burning a yellow color.

Something had happened to this poor woman. Something horrible.

She sat down in the chair available, bringing her metal left hand and organic right hand together. A shocking amount of the woman was cybernetic, and that was only considering what was visible. "My name is Clara Nasume." She spoke, her voice coming from some device lodged just above her throat. Her voice was mechanical, and just a tad bit feminine.

"I'm looking for a man who orchestrated my disfigurement. He has taken every opportunity to use me for medical experiments, protected by a contract I signed when I was drunk and desperate. His name is Ladius Carver, he's a human cybernetics expert, and he's vanished from all my sources."

Finishing her opening statement, she waited for a response, a request for more information, anything.

 

[Chairdor]

Clara Nasume

Fara wrote the name as the title to yet another case file. While many lay in the completed section of her logs there were more than a few lingering in dead space unsolved and untouched. Fara never extracted a single cent of payment from such cases as the injustice of allowing one more killer to roam free was payment enough. Trying not to linger too long on the negative, the detective wrote down the grisly details her mind not resisting images of carved flesh and grisly machinations. She noted that this Carver was a cybernetics expert, this was a good lead and followup questions would limit the scope of her search.

Looking upon the woman, Fara Wei noted a history in each replaced part. There was a stillness in the air as silence lingered, held at bay only by the softening sounds of a woman singing. As the lamenting woman came to the end of her aria the detective had crystallized her next thoughts and prepared to speak. Before she did she thought to offer food or drink, but looking upon the sad state of mish-mashed half finished affairs that littered this Zabrak's body, the private eye thought she may simply offend the woman as she wasn't even sure what she ate if she ate at all.

Finishing her initial notation she looked at the Zabrak and said,

"Poor sources to lose a rare individual like that..." she tapped on her desk wondering if rare was the right word, it was the correct word, but perhaps not the right word to use. Sighing she continued, "Describe this man to me, on what world did you meet him, where was the last place you saw him?"

Fara Wei understood these were questions no doubt laced with painful memory, but that couldn't be avoided. In order to find monsters one must go into the dark, one of the many things her father taught her. Giving Clara whatever time she needed the investigator waited to patiently take all the information down before beginning her meticulous work.

 

[Jabonicus]

Clara took a deep breath as she recalled the man. He didn't stand out in a crowd, but she could always pick him out. His face was stuck in her mind, she couldn't forget that face, that smug, rich grin. "Human. Tan skin, bald. He's about middle age, has a few wrinkles. Green eyes. His left leg is cybernetic, hydraulic, best money can buy."

Then, once she had properly filled out his description, she moved on to the more recent, and in this case, more important matter. His location. "Last time I saw him? Bimmisaari. He still ran the clenic there, but last time I went there, he was gone and the place was sold."

Taking a deep, shaky breath, she looked down, thinking as the Jazz filled her ears. "My left arm was salvageable. I just know it. Bacta could have fixed it, to a large degree, if not totally. He removed the whole thing, bone and all, just so he could test out a prototype like I was some... lab rat to him."

Her heartbeat increased in frequency, and her fists clenched. "Then my face. He did this to me, I don't know how, I just know he did. There's no way his people would have found me before I bled out, not unless they were waiting for that turret to hit me."

 

[Chairdor]

Each word of description formed an elegant picture in Fara's head, then another and another until at last she came to focus on the leg, that which set it apart. With only the reshaped Clara and a physical picture in her head, the detective pondered for a moment how such a simple concept can be hated, a person unseen who had done nothing to her. Yet the burning was there, the same burning she felt when one particular killer escaped. Still it was important to quiet her thoughts and reflections lest the echoes of her own experience muddy the already opaque waters of facts.

It was a hard road, justice. Often what seemed right didn't follow the letter of the law, but to bypass it with convenient interpretation would eventually make it meaningless. Blinking the detective again turned to her client to find the woman describing more important facts. Bimmisaari, pulling up data on it, Fara noted it was a non-human world and as he ran a business there he would have tax records and a bill of sale.

Fara listened as Clara described certain crimes performed by the not so good doctor. Grim as the tales were the detective could hardly stoop her mind in simple sympathy when the gears of her brain were all required for the first essential steps into the void of criminal possibility. First she would make a profile of this man, who he was, what he wanted, what kind of music he enjoyed. Every scrap of information was like a cup of water in the desert, it sustained but it did not save, only with the truth would she find her fountain.

"I worked with a Biim once, I'll make inquiries if he knows anyone in high process manufacturing. A lot of work this man did was probably custom jobs so if we can track down his financial records we might find a clue as to where he is hiding now."

Nodding as she stood with hand extended, the detective spoke the words she always did before fully accepting a case,

"Miss Nasume, I cannot promise you that justice will be swift or if it will be delivered at all through my doing, but I can tell you that you have all of me, my time, my strength, and my skill. I will not stop until the job is done or I come to a wall unscalable and I'll tell you I'm one hell of a climber. Together we can find this man and bring him the justice he certainly deserves."

Sitting back down to light another cigarette the young woman added, "Any other information you'd like to share?"

 

[Jabonicus]

As the private investigator stood up and extended her hand, so did Clara. Her one normal hand shook that of Miss Wei. "Then I believe we have a partnership." She responded to her statement. She would be a valuable ally, in one form or another.

"Anything else?" She echoed, thinking on the subject. "Yes. He's actively tried to do more replacements on me. He sent mercenaries on several occasions, trying to subdue me so he can operate on me once again. I'm not sure of the reasons, but I know one time, it was to replace my hearts." She explained, her non-facial body expressions seeming angry.

 

[Chairdor]

The taste the cigarette applied to her mouth was not one she enjoyed, in truth the investigator was not swayed in the slightest by its addictive properties. Fara Wei smoked not to experience a rush of nicotine or delight in some ashy ambrosia, she smoked to suppress. Taste was an unnecesary sense, once used primally to detect poisons it was now a mere uneccesary additive like the twelve grams of sugar in children's cereal. Filling her mouth with ashen nothing, the detective was able to focus more wholly on the matter at hand and arm and leg and face and that matter happened to be cybernetic.

"A serial surgeon," she mused, reflecting on the quirk of this doctor that could be the key to this case. For a moment this thought threatened to flow away like a clump of dirt in the river, never to be found whole again, but instead it stuck with Fara. At first the investigator couldn't figure out why it seemed so important, it simply grew and grew in her mind like a tumor. Pulsating with self rigteous import the idea grew and grew threatening to burst until at last it did in a sputtering of words suppresed by rought couching,

"Th- *hack* that's it!"

Placing her finger on the table looking at the meagre data collected on her pad, Fara Wei slowly formed her words making sure they were placed properly and wouldn't be suddenly stopped by smoking or lack of forethought. At last coming to her conclusions in full verbosity the detective looked upon Clara and saw her quiet rage, a face of emotion muted by mechanical dismemberment. It was a tragic beauty Fara thought was found only in holovids, but here it was sitting in her office wet and alone hounded by menacing demons that slowly wished to cut away everything that made her whole. Tapping the datapad again the investigator began,

"I can tell you I have contacts on Bimmisari, I do. I can look through thousands of transactions to track down the bill of sale on that clinic, and I certainly will. I have friends who have logs and logs of information on black market buyers and I can tell you cybernetic tech like that will certainly have an illegal source somewhere in the chain..."

Fara paused looking upon the woman wondering how she would react to the radical counter-proposal she was about to spin,

"But these would take a tremendous amount of time and success would hardly be guranteed in the endeavor. I say this not to discredit the case, but to provide a different approach."

Unable to say the final words and uncover her proposal quite yet, the young woman took a long drag on her cigarette then drank from a nearby glass of water. After doing so she pressed her hands on the table and let loose the idea,

"I believe it would be simpler for you to be captured." not allowing response just yet Fara followed up saying, "You said it yourself that Carver is seeking you. If you allow his agents to take you, I can track them back to his lair. I can then free you and together we can capture him. All we have to do to spring this trap is set the proper bait."

Fara clasped her hands and awaited Clara's response to her modest proposal.

 

[Jabonicus]

Fara's proposal was met with a string of silence, before Clara's cybernetic eyes slowly blinked. It was if she were looking for some kind of sarcasm in her words. Finding none, her prosthetic hand reached towards the back of her head, idling scratching as her voicebox made an odd sound. "Uhh..." She seemed conflicted with the idea in and of itself. "You're... Serious?" She questioned after another pause, as her glowing eyes slowly glanced about the room. She seemed obviously uncertain about the plan.

Without giving Fara a chance to answer, she shook her head. "No, it'll work." She responded. "I won't like it, but I'll do it. Thing is, I don't exactly know when Carver is going to send someone else after me. He never does it in a pattern of time, it's complete random, because he wants to catch me off guard." She continues. "You'd have to... Inform him of my location, but that requires actually finding a way to contact him. I don't see how we could grab his attention."

She tapped her metal chin idly, thinking about how it could be done. "Do you have any ideas?" She questioned in her monotone, feminine voice. She was holding back a shudder. Allowing herself to be caught by Carver? It was a horrifying thought. After all she had done to oppose him, what would he do to her? She couldn't bare the thought of it.

 

[Chairdor]

Knowing Clara would need to take time to digest this nearly unpalatable idea, Fara arose and reached for some Scotch. It was a harsh drink full of life and sadness, but one whose bitterness brought forth small happy truths on dingy days. She held it aloft and produced two crystaline glasses from a set of four. All handmade originals passed down generation after generation from her father's father's father to her. Filling them gingerly and carrying them over with great care she placed a drink before her client before letting her own come to rest. Just as she finished this ceremony, Clara finished her thought and as Fara came to rest she listened to her questions and fears and though the words were monotonous and the face hardly moved, the detective sensed an undercurrent of unease far greater than any emotional tick could let on. This dance of half-subtleties and mixed emotions was more intoxcicating to Fara than any drink could ever be. When the final question for ideas came, the detective blinked and and understood the full meaning of what she was asking Clara,

"I know this is asking a lot," Fara looked to her drink, the clear ice drifting over the brown liquour, "And I know how much I don't know about your situation. It must be hard to trust after such...treatment, but I'm glad you can trust me in this."

Tapping her datapad and syncing it to a screen the investigator brought up Bimmisaari and started listing major metropolitan areas,

"I had my datapad crossreferencing firms dealing with cybernetics and listing them with closures. We have more than a few matches, but if you look over the timeline I'm guessing you can thin the list."

Taking another drink the detective continued to think on her plan, her words, this unfortunate almalgamation of flesh and metal rought together by a twisted psychopath. All of these things were connected as tenously as Clara's facial attachments. Swallowing, Fara Wei turned to a woman whose strength and courage were as clear as the shimmering image coming from her projector.

"My idea is simple. Act as if you are investigating Carver. Go site by site and start talking to people. Ask questions, be open about your intentions. Make enough noise and you'll be sure to force his hand." Fara looked away for a moment betraying only slightly that not all the steps of her plan were entirely solid, "I'll have to be hidden during that time, I'll be collecting data and making contact with my friends on the planet."

Nodding as if silently agreeing with herself Fara added one last addendum, "This may seem obvious, but when the thugs do come you must be convincing. You must seem as if you are fighting for your very life," after saying this Fara noted Clara held misgivings and lingering apprehension and the detective couldn't fault her for having them.

"For a time it will seem your life is in his hands, but they aren't. They're in mine."

 

[Jabonicus]

After a moment, Clara looked down again, her eyes making infrequent, quiet clicking noises as she glanced back and forth. It was a plan, a dangerous one, but a plan nonetheless. She just had to hope that Fara would come and pull her out of the situation before Carver could do anything.... Unspeakable to her. If things like this were easier said than done, this would be nearly impossible for her to will herself into doing. Still.... If it meant catching Carver?

....Then Carver had to catch her.

With a deep breath, she stood up, a rebirthed confidence filling her with a light, cool feeling. "I'll do it. I'll keep in contact Fara, just promise me one thing." Then, with a swift hand, she scooped up the alcoholic beverage that had been poured for her, holding it towards her face. A plate of her face opened up, and something resembling a small, metallic, multi-hinged arm moved out, a wide syringe and a clear vial attached to it. It dipped itself into her drink, quickly sucking up every drop that the glass had to offer, before retracting behind the closing plate.

Placing the glass back down, she continued speaking. "Don't let him do anything to me."

 

[Chairdor]

It was a tremendous weight filling the air. Dread and responsibility intermingled in a mix nearly toxic to most normal people. Neither Fara nor Clara was the type to shy from such an atmosphere, but that did little to stymie the shortness in the detectives breath. While the investigator would never betray this fact to her client, she had never done anything like this before. Field work, investigation, talking to witnesses, she was a master at all, but she never had even suggested putting a client in a direct line of harm. Now Fara had and as the words leaped between the chasm seperating them she saw an idea leaving that she could never take back. She was responsible now, an accomplice to a future destiny. It was in a word, intimidating. In another word, invigorating.

Sheep, sheepdog, wolf. These were the three types of people in the universe, according to her father at least. While the roles of the wolf and the sheepdog were obvious it was equally obvious that a wolfdog could never be a sheep. It was painfully obvious what a sheepdog could become, if they crossed that line one too many times. Setting bait, stalking, springing a trap, these weren't marks of a defender, but of a hunter. Fara knew her cause was just and her actions righteous, but intent is lightly weighed by courts against the action. Fara knew that better than most.

As Clara stood, Fara stood with her. She looked into her eyes and only lightly jolted as the syringes came out. Truly the more unsettling idea were the words she spoke, the fear she betrayed, the nerves disconnected and replaced by metal plates and cheap lights. Her client was awaiting a gurantee, but this wasn't a matter of a warranty or a deal on a price, this was her very life and Fara could not take hold of such a responsibility lightly. Grabbing too objects she thrust them into Clara's hand,

"A tracker and communicator hardwired to my number, I will always pickup for you that is one gurantee. As for the promise, I swear on my father's grave you are under my full watch and protection, so long as I breath no harm will come to you from that butcher."

Eyes shimmering with excitment and stimulation, the investigator set to work. As she made ready a new casefile, soon to be filled to the brim and placed precariously in some helter-skelter filing system, was set aside as she was doing this she spoke,

"It would be best if we didn't meet again until this business is done, we want the element of surprise with Carver after all. I'll make my travel arrangements and you'll make yours. Once we set in motion, we simply have to wait."

Fara would see her client to the door and out into the cold and the wet of a bleak world. To descend into the darkness so that she might find some small undying sun. Sighing, the detective returned to her files. She was used to playing it close to the chest, it was what made the job the job. Now another chest was in jeopardy and if she didn't protect it it would be torn assunder so its heart could be ripped out and replaced with some twisted machination of a brilliant degenerate mind. Looking over her meagre information, Fara filled her glass and prepared to make some calls. It was going to be a long night.

 

[Jabonicus]

Clara strode back out into the pouring rain, soaking into her well maintained hair, and between the artificial cracks in her faceplates. She stood outside in the middle of the barren street for a moment, thinking deeply to herself. She was so close to catching Carver.

He had torn her apart, and she had every intention of doing the same to him, regardless of whether or not the private detective understood or approved.

Then, as the renewed thirst for revenge filled her lungs with something lighter than air, she began to walk once more, back the way she had come from. After a short walk through the drenched streets, she climbed aboard her ship, tossing off her wet jacket as the door slid shut behind her.

Climbing into the wide, comfortable cockpit, she took her place in the single pilots chair. After a few minutes, her ship took off, and she vanished into the clouds.

 

[Chairdor]

Three Weeks Later
Bimmisari
​

Smoke drifted swiftly matching the beats and harsh rhythms of the club. Nude and near-nude females of varying conciousness and concience flitted about looking for dances, tips, the bathroom. Usually Fara wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this, but it's history demmanded her attention. This unruly brothel was once a cybernetics institute of some repute and while that was a point of interest for the investigator, what really drew Fara's eye were the string of dissaperences.

Homeless people, drifters, young women, the type expected to vanish in the big city. All they shared was a common geography and if Fara was right, a common demise. Seated in the back looking out upon the crowd, the investigator casually grazed her fingers across the holdout blaster she slipped through security. The detective didn't intend to kill anyone at this establishment and very rarely if ever premeditated any fatal encounter she was a part of. Still Fara knew better than to go anywhere with deathstick specials without packing heat.

Checking the local time on her datapad, Fara sifted through the information she had gathered so far on Carver. It wasn't much, but it was just enough scent to pick up a faint trail. Following the will-o-wisp of intuition was what the young detective lived for, every minute detail could be the deciding factor in a caught villain or a cold case. Fara knew she couldn't fail at this task, far too much was at stake this time around.

A series of clanks alerted Fara that her contact was punctual for once. Due to this rarity, Fara hadn't already ordered their preffered drink, but the detective was bemused to see the dashing mechanical man drinking an oiltini as always, little umbrella twisting with his sips. Watching the metal man walk past, Fara stood up and walked the opposite way. While the early morning drunks seeding this already seedy establishment didn't seem to be the surveillance types, Fara knew to use every precaution in her dealings for information on this planet. In order for the queen's gambit to work on Carver, the mad man had to assume the only piece in play was Clara.

Approaching a bench looking up at a particularly nimble Twi'lek, Fara soon found her contact sitting next to her. Without looking she began to speak,

"What did you find out?"

"Straight to the point eh? I was hoping we could find reason to linger."

Fara shook her head, pretending the reaction was a negative response to one of the girls asking her to come on stage. Allowing moments to slip by so the conversation wouldn't be seen as such by any careless observer Fara at last commented,

"Do you think my ass could ever look like that?"

"If you painted it blue perhaps,"

Fara held in her chuckle with great effort as she at last got to the business at hand,

"Where is the package?"

"Where I left it"

"Is that right?"

"No"

And with that the robotic man stood twirling his ridiculous silver moustache. Fara waited a few more minutes then got up herself and headed to the area they had just spoken about in code. Sure enough a disk was found in the bushes casually wrapped in dirty cloth. Retrieving the disk Fara spirited off and inserted it. Hordes of metadata emerged as the code was read and the detective settled in to another day sifting for needles in a sea of hay.

​

 

[Jabonicus]

Crack.

The Kaleesh stumbled backwards, hitting a brick wall as he slumped to the ground.Clara cleared the bone fragments that had fallen from the orange skinned creatures mask off of her robotic hand. "I made a simple demand." She spoke, striding forward with open hands. "Where's Carver?" She could feel the eyes on her back. They weren't civilians, she could tell that much. Too well equipped. One of them held some form of holo-communicator, pointing it at her. She pretended that she didn't see as she reeled back her foot.

Whack.

Her foot slammed into the gut of the unfortunate Kaleesh. The alien, ValeesiXonTariff, was one of Carver's top men. He ran several 'clinics' nearby. It was hell and a half tracking him down, and catching him off guard was pure luck. If this wouldn't catch Carver's attention, nothing would. The Kaleesh said nothing, only exhaling loudly each time she hit him. He was just plain tough, as he could certainly take a beating without saying a word.

The eyes burning into her back persisted, and she kept kicking and hitting ValeesiXonTariff. An anger dwelled in her eyes, one of unfinished business, one of revenge. With each hit she felt as if she was getting closer to Carver. It was a dark, warm feeling that flooded her with an uneasy boldness. Carver couldn't deny this, he couldn't ignore it. He couldn't afford to. He'd have to send someone, and when he did?

He was in for a shock.

 

[Chairdor]

MEANWHILE SOMEWHERE ELSE​

Mercy was having an average day with an average pile of corpses at her feet. Aimlessly she shifted through their pockets freeing them of loose change and pocket lint. Once the dead were properly looted she stepped back hands on her hips then snapping her wrist upward she shook it at the deceased and declared, "That's what you get for pirating Freddie Jupiter's latest album."

Working for the music industry as a copyright enforcer had it's perks, license to maim, license to kill, license to operate a doughnut stand on labor day. All good things. However, the mercenary felt she was getting away from her roots. Working to protect creative endeavors, no matter how violent she did so, still at the end of the day could be seen by some as a necessary evil or worse, good. Slowly Mercy Hellfire realized she needed to go back to how she began, soullessly killing random strangers for money. She was just in the middle of looking up the closest girl scout troop when she got the call. Answering it by asking the caller's favorite dessert, Mercy was bombarded with a cacophony of random sounds. Blinking in confusion, Mercy was about to shoot her communicator out of frustration when she saw her datapad acting up.

Looking down and picking up the two pieces of tech, Mercy was surprised to see her shrieking phone was somehow affecting her datapad, filling it with text block by block until at last a job was revealed.

"Bimmisari, Clara Nasume, 500k alive....mmm that's no fun, I guess I could use the 500k to teach orphans how to build pipebombs...okay I'll do it!"

BACK ON BIMMISARI
​

Fara had kept as close an eye on Clara as she could. Going through friends and friends of friends, she had gathered quite a bit of intel on her very active partner and more importantly she had transmitted it. Clara was smart and intuitive this much was true, but that didn't mean a little help wasn't warranted here and again. Fara had given that indirectly making sure no direct contact could be traced between the two. Fara was a ghost as far as Clara was concerned, however that didn't mean she couldn't be a friendly ghost.

Now as she sat in a park fragrant and lively, the investigator thought only of death and it's coming. Her gambit was accelerating the confrontation between Clara and Carver, but Fara couldn't know if this was the right call. In truth, even if this all went well and justice was done, she'd never truly be sure. Lost in the simple act of tossing out breadcrumbs, Fara hardly noticed the approach of her metallic informant. He had no name, that he'd ever given at least, but Fara had started to call him Stache. Stache was a gentlemen if there ever was one in this rough and tumble galaxy, a true Renaissance Bot. As he drank unnecessarily from an incredibly gaudy golden flask, he poured into his mouth three times then stopped. Fara showed no outside sign of acknowledgement, but simply got up and headed to get a cab.

Three drinks was bad. Fara knew that pushing Clara into this confrontation would bring dangerous characters into the scene, Stache had kept his ear to the ground on black market contracts and was instructed to inform Fara how many had been put out for this particular sector. Bimmisari was a bustling area, but the sector Fara and Clara were operation in was hardly criminal territory. To have three hit men hired here meant only one thing, their move had been successful. Too successful.

Fara had to warn Clara of what was coming. Signing to Stache, she saw the bot rush off to make the necessary communications. Surely the message would get to Clara, the question was would it arrive on time. Getting into her cab she shouted directions to the startled driver which soon led to quite a bit of speeding. Fara tried to control her breathing, her heart rate, she tried to control a lot in her life. She seldom succeeded. In this thing, in this one thing. She must.

 

[Jabonicus]

The Rodian collapsed into a pile of trash, which make loud, crunching sounds as weeks of rubbish were smushed underneath the body of the squirming creature. He made a brief cry of pain, before he tried to pull himself out of the rubbish that seemed to mold itself around him.

A metal foot hit his chest, pushing him back down into the moldy pile. A gun was leveled at his head, and he froze, not making a sound. "You. You know where Carver was last month. You were in pictures with him, tell me where they were taken." She demanded, pushing the pistol against his forehead.

"Naboo!" The Rodian cried out in response, struggling once more under Clara's boot. Her face plates shook and vibrated angrily, before she pulled the trigger.

Bang.

"Naboo doesn't have red grass." She spoke to the corpse, before she holstered her pistol and began to walk away. What a waste, all that and he still had the guts to lie to her.

Clara rubbed the back of her neck as she leaned against the wall of a Diner. She sighed, thinking about Fara. Come to think about it, she hadn't heard from her in quite a while. No doubt she would contact her again soon.

 

[Chairdor]

Mercy Hellfire arrived in Bimmisari in style. Having never been to this particular world before the mercenary was quite glad to swiftly game a reputation as a cheat, an extortionist, and an unlicensed contortionist. Stretching the truth, her own body, and the body of others until they paid her was tough work, but Mercy would do literally anything illegal for no reason other than to have a record. Millions of criminals would do anything to have a clean slate, but Mercy would just as easily take that slate to beat a puppy to death. After burning a volunteer fireman alive the mercenary finally remembered why she had come to the world originally. Sighing the merc cracked her knuckles and prepared for the mundane work of kidnapping.

As Mercy prepared another person arrived for the same reason she did, however this worker was a bit more...not completely insane. With wink and a smile they slipped through customs and with a quick trip to the recording room to corrupt some camera data no one would ever know they had ever been to the system. Being a changeling of course made this exercise more than a little unnecessary, but it wasn't about that. This particular individual was a good person, truly, they just needed to kidnap this one person, this Clara, and give her to a deranged madman for money. Believe them or not there was much good to be done with that 500k, your belief is irrelevant either way, this individual was of course, never here.

Caught between the two extremes making their was conspicuously and invisibly across the world to their shared target was a small creature with big dreams. Bidok was an Ewok, he had been taken by slavers long ago and shown the wonders of the greater galaxy. While he ended up killing his cruel masters, he always thanked them for opening his eyes to the possibilities for his people. He didn't know how, but this little tribal bear person was going to capture this 'Clara' person and drag her to his adorably small ship. Then with his 500k reward he was going to return to his people and make some serious changes. His people couldn't stay in their primitive state forever right? Right?

As these vexing villains closed in on Clara, Stache crossed street after street. Foot traffic stubbornly stemmed the flow of his desperate steps. In truth he should have made the call himself to warn Clara, but Fara had been insistent, everything must go through her. It was odd how controlling the investigator had been with her Zabrak client. Stache might have identified it as oddly maternal, but as he was a machine he had never had a mother. He had had a motherboard, but that was neither here nor there. Speaking of neither here nor there that was exactly where Clara was.

Meticulous tracking of the young woman's every move had dipped in its quality in the past week as Clara had taken to attacking more and more of Carver's contacts. Stache knew Clara was merely fulfilling her part of this dangerous plan, but by the maker did it make his work all the more difficult. Fortune favored the bold however as Stache heard the distinctive gunshot and was able to catch a quick flash of the Zabrak as she headed into a nearby diner. Content he was about to complete his task, the automaton entertained hope just long enough to see Clara would be entertaining some unexpected guests for dinner.

Table for four.

Fara was on her third cigar when the beeping came. No direct communication, no consistent indirect communication, no traceable electronic device and yet now Stache was contact her directly. Her worst fears had been confirmed, Fara only hoped she wasn't too late. Snapping the communicator to her ear instantly she heard on the briefest description of place when she leaped into her speeder and gunned three red lights. As she smashed through the streets she continued to hear Stache's reports. Gunfire, screaming, the distinctive crash of a car, until at last she heard the own roar of her engines and gunned through a public park to come upon the seen. Stepping out of her vehicle the inspector held up her gun preparing to fight, then lowered her weapon to match her draw.

She was gone, as was the diner, as was most of Stache's body. Left behind was only a head and that ridiculous silver mustache. Picking him up gingerly seeing the last visions the bot would ever comprehend fade, Fara brushed her hands over his sensors. Having little time she produced her datapad and stabbed an interface into his open port. Downloading the data compiling his final moments, Fara watched as the scene before her came to life. Within a few moments, Fara couldn't help but to drop the datapad, her hand shivering in horror. Among shouted words, gunfire, and screaming there lay three words. One held hope to cling to, but the other two dragged it down into the pits of hell Carver belonged in.

A man's voice: Charros

A woman's voice: She's dead

And then a laugh

a haunting laugh

 

[Jabonicus]

The plan had worked quite well at first.

At first.

In short, the three had a simple, if not slightly silly plan. The changeling would pose as the waitress, after knocking her out back in the kitchen. She would distract Clara, and Mercy would come up with a fire extinguisher and bash her in the head however many times it would take to knock her out cold for a few hours. The Ewoks job was simple, just keep watch, prevent people from interfering at all costs. Whether that be threatening them, or just straight out shooting them. It didn't matter, as long as no one stopped the trio.

So the Changeling did her job quite well, accompanied by the Ewok. The Changeling choked out the waitress, while the Ewok knocked out the chefs who were too busy at first frying some foreign meat to notice or intervene with the Changeling. The only issue with them was that they would, at some point, turn around and notice the body of their coworker, lying on the cold tile floor. Considering their job, that would probably happen to be sooner than later. After the job in the kitchen was done, the Ewok wandered back out to the not-so crowded dining area.

Then, after adorning herself in the waitress' clothing, the Changeling strode out to the table of the one person who hadn't been served; the target, Clara Nasume. Clara pushed a credit chit forward, making a person request that whatever food she ordered be put in a blender, due to her disability. The credit chit was to ensure that she wasn't just kicked out for her no doubt odd, and sometimes gross request. As the Changeling took her order, Mercy walked up behind her, the large, metal fire extinguisher in hand.

CLANK.

Clara hit the floor, and many people stood up, some just standard citizens, others well equipped mercenaries. The mercenaries were shot, and the three who stood up fell to the ground, dead and gone before their corpses landed on the cold tile floor alongside Clara's still living form. Mercy looked around, watching as the remaining people either leaped out partly open windows, or cowered under cheap tables, barricading themselves with factory grade chairs.

BANG.

Everything went to shit. The Changeling hit the floor, a gaping, burned hole in her forehead. Her skin flashed and bubbled, before turning a sickening green as she let loose a final breath. Clara was on her back, propped up by her elbow, gun in her mechanical hand. Then, before she could make a second shot, the fire extinguisher smashed into her face.

"You know what happens when you play stupid games, Clara?"

SMASH.

SMASH.

SMASH.

"You win stupid prizes. Here's your kriffing prize."

CRUNCH.

The ground was covered in bits of metal, splats of blood and chunks of cybernetic components. A metal arm lay on the ground, bits of flesh still embedded in it as it twitched and writhed without its host.

Within minutes, Clara was gone, as was Mercy and the Ewok, leaving a trail of death in their wake, before vanishing into seemingly thin air.