I adored this game when I was younger.
NOTES:
This was uploaded months ago on my Archive of our own months ago, and yes, 'gaol' is the Australian/some European spelling of 'jail'.
Simple beats
Agora Tchotchke sat staring at the wall in the small waiting room of the Rainelle Gray hospital of Four Corners, listening to the clock tick away, indicating the passage of time. She had been sitting in the waiting room for a few hours now, the nurse at the front desk casting her worried glances every ten minutes or so, concern evident in her eyes.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
'Where had it all gone wrong?' the young woman thought bitterly, closing her eyes tight as she bent her head, trying to backtrack and go over what had happened in her life. What had lead up to this point of horror and self-hate.
000
Agora had a pleasant life when she lived in SimCity, admired for skill as a DJ and had more fans than she could count. She had skills to keep her fed, clothed, a place to sleep and her equipment topnotch and reliable for any gigs she was contracted and hired for. Even SimCity records wanted to take her on- she had everything she wanted, but no, she needed a challenge.
For the better part of a month she searched for a town, city, something new not too far away to try out her talents, her abilities on Sims that didn't know her, know her music. With luck, she found a town about a day's travel from SimCity, (if you sped like a maniac along the highways at 90 miles per hour that is) and chose it to be her new challenge in life.
Challenges and obstacles, Agora both abhorred and adored them. As an only child, her parents had pushed her over and over to succeed, she was viciously intelligent due her parents overbearing and critical nature. Her parents had expected to ride their daughter's academic success, grooming and sculpting her to be what they wanted, nothing more than a ticket to higher society. Yet, by the age of seven, she figured their plans out and stopped trying to be what they wanted. At age of eleven, when she rebelled by cutting of her three feet long hair, she had been thrown out of home and her younger sibling at the tender age of five was being groomed to take her place.
Agora was street smart and a grouchy young girl, she had been fostered by a couple who wanted nothing but to care for and nurture her talents. Agora was always ashamed to admit she was a right bitch to the couple that took her in- she spent years being a horror to them until she changed at fourteen, realizing she could be better.
That was why she moved to Four Corners at the age of twenty-two, to prove herself, to make her foster parents proud of her. Though she was alone, her legion of fans could still catch her music online and through her pod-casts every week, Agora was just 'finding' her new muse and obstacles in life, she could take anything on.
Buying a house, decking it out in her 'style' with all the accoutrements she could need, Agora was pleased, happy as anything that she had found a new place to be. Even if For Corners didn't seem to have much in the way of fashion or culture. She did admit, it had a charm that her home of SimCity didn't and couldn't match.
Perhaps it was the homey feeling of town, that neighbor knew neighbor and everyone wasn't rushing around all the time that drew her in. Either way, it didn't matter to her.
000
Agora had been in For Corners for not even a week when she had met a fellow disc-jockey Mikey Smith. They had hit it off wonderfully, comparing music and whether or not old style analogue decks were better than the new digital creations being churned out by younger DJ's. The pair grew closer and closer as Agora started to get a following in Four Corners, pleased at the whole feel of the neighborhood, she felt as if she belonged.
For the next year, she and Mickey became accompanying DJ's- never unusual to see one at another's event, party or public affair. They became friends, swapping advice, music, decks, hanging out at the Starlight café or Lead's gym. However, in the spring of the New Year, Agora got her hopes up in asking Mickey out on a date. Of course she knew the rumors, she knew that people thought Mickey was a notorious ladies man- she knew the truth, he was a hopeless romantic and was just too popular for his own good.
Agora, being the good friend that she was, had agreed to meet some relative of her bespectacled neighbor, maybe it would be a woman with good taste and could hang out together sometime.
000
How could she be so wrong?
For one moment, it had seemed that she had it all, a job she loved, recognition from the public and even her younger sibling had run from their toxic birth family and found a place of their own at the tender age of seventeen. She was living the highlife and was exuberant with what she had, blessing everything that her life didn't fall apart like it had more than a decade ago.
Yet, she had learned that life was never kind, nor fair to those it repeatedly beat down.
The problem of the matter had been that harlot, Riley Harlow. Mickey was openly showing her attention, affection after months of awkward flirting with Agora and that damned Harlow had to vie for his attention, taking Mickey away from her.
It wasn't fair.
She would have to fight for Mickey, fight for him and show that Riley that Agora Tchotchke wouldn't take this insult lying down.
Even the kind words of Fiona Fortuna couldn't halt the icy rejection she felt when Mickey let her down softly, telling her that Riley was 'Something special.' and he hoped Agora 'understood that they were just friends now. If Riley hadn't come to Four Corner's, they could have had something.' Agora had nodded with a smirk, unable to even say a word as Mickey gave her a hug, the sly, soft smile that she so desperately loved and walked away.
She didn't cry as she watched him go.
Not one tear as she walked from the café to her home at 25 Hyacinth Circle.
No tears as she threw herself into her work, churning out music everyday, her popularity skyrocketing past the local fame of Fore Corners, past SimCity and even getting acclaim by those out in Bitville on the west coast and the far reaches of Strange Town on the eastern desert.
She truly loved Mickey, more than life itself and had to try with all her heart to let him go before her love became a twisted obsession.
It was in a moment of weakness that she listened to Dylan Kincaid, went along with his lies, his plan to 'get back' at Riley Harlow for some reason or another. Agora hadn't been concerned of the 'why' at the time, just that he could and would help her get back at the blasted man-stealer. She was compliant, cunning and helpful, Agora knew she was just another piece, another pawn in a game. Yet when she discovered just what Dylan had been doing, the monstrosity of kidnapping Riley's aunt, she had put her foot down, she would never imprison anyone, not with how she was mistreated as a child.
Dylan had been less than enthused, claiming that Agora was in as deep as he was, that she was an accomplice and would go to gaol with him. Agora hadn't cried then either, but felt a cold weight settle in her, she had nothing to lose anymore, nothing to gain either when she knew Mickey wouldn't be hers as long as Riley was around.
000
It had been orchestrated beautifully.
Agora did feel a sense of bitter glee when Mickey called her, telling her of Riley's affair with another man, that Agora had been right all along. She felt guilt that Mickey trusted her, trusted her when it had been her partner in crime that had created the whole situation. Crushing the guilt down, she had replied with humor and a spark of creativity, 'Let's hold a party Mickey, like old times, we can play some classics and throw out some new beats I am working on.' She had offered, hoping Mickey would be her friend again.
Silence had met Agora, then a chuckle, 'Of course, we'll blow them away.'
They kept their promise and threw one of the best parties the town had ever seen, lasting until dawn with beats so loud that half the patrons had been admitted to the Rainelle Gray hospital with 'base-affected' bones. It was a common affliction for all rave and party goers who listened to too much bass music and earth rumbling beats.
Many were thankful that the DJ pair didn't bring out their newly made bass-cannons, courtesy of an innovative tech company that decided putting speakers on wheels with enough power to blow someone back with one note was an excellent idea. They would either have been sued or the company approached by the military weaponize the speakers.
Days turned in weeks, in that time, Mickey and Agora became closer than ever before, Mickey having seen how much Agora cared for him, asked her to marry him. The brunette was overjoyed and asked him if he truly wanted her. Mickey had been adamant, he wasn't going to lose her again because of some folly.
Everything had been smooth sailing and beyond wonderful- that was until the day of the wedding. The love of her life had been ready to say 'I do' at the altar. Yet, because of that little upstart, that- that woman had ruined everything and taken her happily ever after away. She had shown Sharon kindness and because of her, Riley Harlow got her happy ending.
She had avoided gaol time by Sharon Foss's confession that the 'horse faced woman' hadn't hurt her and didn't seem to be involved until three weeks ago. When Agora had been questioned as to why she didn't go to the police, she had brought up the case of her parents abusing her and her sibling for years, that her families reputation as 'good people' overruled a problem child's lies and hysteria.
It was even worse that she had out rightly screamed in frustration when she was sentenced to two months in prison when Dylan openly tried to frame her and deny that he had anything to do with the case at all. He somehow scammed his way into a three year plea bargain with a fancy lawyer whom wouldn't give Agora the time of day.
Agora had to pay Sharon Foss a settlement, even though she hadn't really done anything to the woman, aside from being an accessory to the kidnapping and con. Sharon pitied the younger woman, settling that she could pay her a few grand per the weeks she knew of the kidnapping, which turned out to be three weeks- or seventeen days exact. Which the courts settled for $25,000 Simoleons.
Agora agreed it was a fair price and set about exhausting her savings, sold the majority of her furniture and begged that not to have her DJ booth sold, as it was her prized possession from her foster family. In the end, Agora had no technology beyond her DJ booth and phone in her house and all of her living room sold, as well as her brand new hot tub, which Sharon took eagerly.
Prison time passed quickly for Agora, her hatred for Riley Harlow dissipating as she thought over her lot in life. She still hated that Riley seemed get all the breaks in life, sure, she had said she was fired from her job in SimCity, but the lucky bitch still got her aunt's house, a man who loved her and adoration of the town for 'stopping' a kidnapper and con artist.
000
What broke Agora was when she saw Mickey and Harlow walking into the hospital the very morning as Agora admitted herself for a checkup across the whole board; blood works, physical, psych evaluation, everything she could get to see how much had changed since the one in the previous year. It wasn't that Riley was laughing or smiling, or that Mickey was so happy- more than he had ever been with her. It was that Mickey gently rubbed Riley's belly, low at the belly button.
She couldn't help but break apart as she watched the couple walk together, hand-in-hand into the pediatrics wing, no doubt going to get a checkup for Riley so they could see their options for parenthood. Hot angry tears had run down her face, a shuddering gasp as the pair left the hospital, laughing and looking at each other with adoration in their eyes.
Agora was a broken woman, even more so with what she now had to face alone.
She could grit her teeth, and damn Riley Harlow for taking everything she had ever wanted. But she couldn't, it didn't matter to her anymore. She only felt could and numb as she buried her face in her hands and cried for what felt like hours.
"Geez, is it really that bad?" a bubbly voice asked Agora.
The crying woman scowled, her face hardening as she glanced upwards as her brows etched deep into her brow, "How isn't it bad?" she seethed, her dark ochre eyes meeting green, close to the colour of grass in a summer's day.
The woman before her was a dark skinned woman with a soft smile, her hoodie dress seemed out of place in the place as sterile as a hospital. She smiled, sitting on the coffee table before Agora and looked her in her eyes, "You have been staring at that clock for the past hour, then you started crying like there is no tomorrow, does it annoy you that much?" she asked with a curious glance.
Agora shook her head, the woman was either mocking her or was just so… pleasant for no reason. "What d-do you want?" she croaked out, scrubbing her cheeks, wiping away the evidence of her pain and anguish.
The black haired woman held out a handkerchief in one hand, to which Agora snatched it away with a muttered 'Thank you.' As she dabbed her eyes. Standing up, the unnamed woman stood up and returned a few minutes later with a hum as she sat down.
"Here." She said softly, holding out a plastic cup of water to Agora, a newspaper tucked under her arm. Taking the cup, Agora took a sip from the cup and coughed, bitterly thanking the woman before her.
A few minutes passed as Agora sniffed, "What do you want?" she asked, her voice raspy and rough with crying and disuse.
Holding out the newspaper, the woman nodded at the circled advert. Taking the offered paper, Agora read the column, it was vacancies, people looking for roommates; her sad eyes passed over her own advertisement, the one circled in red pen. "You want to rent a room at my house?" she asked, surprised, how she knew her name.
"I ah… heard about your court case, and kind of connected who was who when I was looking for a new place to rent." The black haired woman shrugged, a sheepish smile on her face.
Agora's nose wrinkled, her anger rose and crested, she was going to scream at this woman, the lynchpin in her hatred and despair. Her eyes narrowed, Agora opened her mouth and sobbed, her shoulders hunched, her hand came up to her forehead. There was a series of steps that filled Agora's ears, as she looked back up, a plastic cup full of water was in front of her, taking the cup, she murmured a 'thank you'.
The nameless woman smiled softly, sitting beside Agora's she fanned the slight woman's face, sitting with Agora until her sniffles died down and her cheeks dried of tears. She couldn't believe how broken this woman was, she had heard the gossip that she was hard, mean and sharp- she didn't expect her to cry, or be so distraught over what she could have avoided. Biting her cheek, the dark skinned woman shook her head, she shouldn't be so grouchy and judgemental, it wasn't good to rely on baseless gossip, and it never brought all the facts forward anyway.
"My names Agora… Agora Tchotchke." Agora said quietly beside the nameless woman.
The black haired woman smiled, turning slightly in the hard plastic chair, she held out her hand as a shy smile crept onto her face. Agora hesitantly took her hand, her dark eyes looking into the kind woman's green eyes, "Suzie GilsCarbo."
Suzie's name flicked a sense of recognition in Agora's mind, where did she know the name? She frowned, watching Suzie, who seemed to have an expectant smile, as if she expected Agora's line of thought. Flashing lights, dub rumbles of music, writhing bodies and the thudding roar of vibrations in the air- a sly smile came to Agora's face, Suzie GilsCarbo was a local DJ. How hadn't she recognised her? She was DJ Sue-Z, as mundane that was something that filled a niche market that Suzie seemed to capitalize in.
The pair talked for a fair while until shadows reached across the floor from the setting sun, the white sterile room was bathed in a golden glow, every pale surface alight with warmth. Rubbing her head, Agora stood and as she scribbled her phone number down on a newspaper and tore it off. Handing it to the shorter woman, Agora said goodbye and left in an embarrassed huff.
Suzie blinked as she held the small scrap of grey paper, it was Agora's address, with five words scribble hastily below;
'Rent is due every Wednesday'
A small smile crept onto Suzie's face, Agora's was a hard-headed woman indeed.