Well, here you go.
Music for this chapter conveniently provided by James, the song is "Waltzing Along".
Waltzing Along, chapter 3
It's just an ordinary pub. It has bar stools, a dirty old red carpet on the floor, a not particularly unusual suspicious smell that is the mixture of stale beer and more unhygienic substances. It has a few resident drunks, propped against the bar, a couple in the corner who appear to be debating leaving and going out to find a hotel, a few more underage drinkers lurking in the darkest part of the room, trying not to be noticed. A fairly average looking generic bartender is standing at the bar, polishing glasses with a greasy cloth.
The door opens and a young woman stumbles in, bringing with her several gallons worth of driving rain and a whole load of wind to boot. A few people look up but she is ignored for the most part as she walks in and sits down at the bar.
She is skinny, her clothes soaking wet and muddy, her face mostly covered by a hood that looks like it offers very little protection against the elements.
The bartender wordlessly looks her up and down and smiles thinly. "Nasty weather we've bin 'avin', in't it? What'll it be?"
She shrugs. She's not looking for a drink, she says. Is there someone here called-she checks a small piece of soggy paper from her pocket- Greggy Philips?
The bartender looks at her for a few moments, then nods slowly. "'Round the back." he gestures towards a small door which leads into the kitchens behind the bar. Nat hesitates slightly before shrugging and stepping through. The kitchen is admirably clean, all the surfaces stainless steel and grease free. She looks around. To her left a small winding staircase leads up, next to the stairs is a small sign. Nat reads it, smiles vaguely, and quickly climbs the stairs.
A door at the top, and it's locked. Nat knocks on it a few times and it opens to reveal a tall string bean of a lad. He's wearing a t-shirt which reads "Weird Rules" and a baggy pair jeans.
"Hello Natalie." He says, as he stands aside to let her through.
*********************************************
Help comes when you need it most,
*********************************************
Nat sits in the offered chair and looks from the lad to the computer screen, as it flickers through illegally accessed government records. She's staring because, although the computer is flicking through records and codes at breakneck speed, the lad hasn't touched it. She waits for him to say something.
She isn't disappointed.
"Oh no. I'm so sorry." To his credit, he does sound genuinely sorry for whatever it is. Nat frowns at him, she want's to know what it is. "I found your match, it was easy once I finished the new algorithms for the -anyway. I found your match. It's quite a way aways from here. In America, to be exact. Northwest. A prison...." Nat listens with a sort of bewildered expression. She can't believe it. Finally she found a match, someone else who's like her, and they have to be in godamned America. Sixty thousand pissing miles of sea! The first, and so far only country to introduce mandatory registration of mutants and the electronic tagging of visiting mutants from other countries. And her match is in a prison, no less!
"Relax." the lad tells her. Relax? RELAX?!
********************************************
Mood swings,
not sure I can cope
********************************************
She sits and stares gobsmacked for a little while before coming to a decision. It is, in a way, a decision which she already made when she came here, a decision she made even before she left home so many weeks ago. A discussion which steered her life from that point, gave her focus and a purpose so that even when she was wandering through the suburbs she still knew, in a way, where she was going. Occasionally she nods to the guy in the chair as he outlines a plan, arranges tickets, a temporary passport which she will need to walk around in the States without getting shot. A superstitious person would call it fate or possibly destiny, in a dramatic tone of voice, but to her it seems somehow more than that, as if she were being drawn towards some invisible goal on the horizon.
******************************************
May your mind be wide open,
May your heart be strong,
May your mind set you free
May your heart lead you on.
******************************************
Six thousand miles away a man awakes and stares out into the black space beyond the bars which keep him away from the general population and their delicate sensibilities. It would be, he reflect bitterly, a fair trade, after all he doesn't much like people in general, if it weren't for the other problems with being imprisoned.
******************************************
All roads lead onto Death Row,
******************************************
The food is bad, the company worse, and then there's the little matter of having a life expectancy of less than six months. That's the time it takes for them to get all the paperwork sorted out for his execution.
The man sighs and stretches out on the hard metal bench. Scrubby dark green hair caps a lighter muddy green face, set off by deep brown/black eyes, and his unusually long legs push slightly against the opposite wall of the cell as he stretches. It's not difficult to see why he doesn't like being out in public much, the tendency of people to stop and stare must become annoying and embarrassing nafter a while.
He frowns as he remembers the reason why he awoke. A strange dream, wasn't it? About a girl, and - it was blurry in his mind, as such things often are, but he struggled to hold on to the details. A girl, and a pub, and a lot of rain. He sniggers slightly to himself. He heh. He could almost be back home, what with the rain and everything.
A second thought strikes him, and he leans over to try and find a window, a skylight or something. No, not a sausage. Not surprising really, he's made the same search every day for the past three months, ever since he was caught. Certain bad experiences with weather in general and lightening in particular had left him with a certain nervous approach to weather. A bit like being in the room with a wasp; as long as he knows where it is and what it's doing he's if a little nervous.
A shrug. It feels early to him, although there are no clocks or watches, so he settles down to sleep again. Maybe he thinks, maybe I can catch that dream again.
*****************************************
Who knows what's after.
*****************************************
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, of course I do, I was just wondering if anyone else does. Heheh. Anyway, there you are, an entire chapter and thank you very much for reviewing.
Oh, uhm, sorry about that Noah, I kind of updated without reading reviews first. Oops.
Sorry again, but thank you sooo much for reviewing and reading and stuff. Yay!
P.S.
Wench? WENCH?! I'll give you wench you acid crazed mongoose!
Ahem. I think I'll just be going now...