A/N: bear with me, this is chapter is one I have up for rewriting once the whole fic is done, but I swear it's well worth it 3
Koller wished that he could feel the spines of the books nestled sweetly on shelves.
He traced the raised names - almost mesmerized by the foil lettering; it was one of his favorites. Something old. Ancient. Shakespeare. Heavy hands and heavy words. Thick on his tongue. Clattered behind his teeth whenever he tried to read it outloud but-
He had been getting better; something to focus on.
He walked past Othello and thought of morality.
He walked past Macbeth and thought about domination. Denomination.
He walked past Romeo and Juliet and thought about how men used to play every single part in old plays.
- laughed to himself, ghosting out of the aisle and stalking back to the front desk when he heard the bell of the door.
...and when he peered over the railing,
there was nobody.
Tension crawled up his spine for a moment and he had to force himself to relax; if there was somebody in his store, he doubts they mean any ill will. Most people wandered in to touch history. Papers. Pages. To bitch about how everything was online and off paper. Vaclav Koller didn't have many visitors; many genuine ones to be more specific.
There's almost a burning wish for more customers that just wanted to appreciate good literature. Good fiction. Nonfiction. Poetry. The art of words tangled together to catch. Capture. Weave. Wind. Koller had the uncanny habit of picking something off the shelf and reading for hours on end when not working.
This was his world; he rarely left.
He taps metal fingers on wood; it's loud in the silence.
The soft music playing from the computer is hardly a disturbance; swallowed up by the prickling, muted smothering of the pages. Papers. Publishers.
Koller strolls to the other aisles after no initial movement presents itself and attempts to figure out the source of the bell. He smoothes out his flannel - huffing in a momentary annoyance with a sharp edge of his finger snags on the material. He'd have to file it down later.
Faridah Malik was in Prague for a short visit, an errand. She had a stop in the Prekazka district, and decided to take a stroll while she was there - see just how bad it was getting. She was lucky enough that she could pass for a natural at first glance - it would take a police drone scanner to identify her neural chip, and various other upgrades.
The amount of checkpoints she passed was bordering insane - perhaps just for emergencies? There were a lot of roadblocks set up, though none in use, and an even more ridiculous amount of police guarding them. They let her go without trouble - the beanie pulled over her ears and the scarf around her throat were appropriate for the weather and drew no suspicion.
Her wandering found her in a quiet courtyard, dominated mostly by an old, run-down building that was half red, half yellow. A large sign, its letters tilted or mismatched entirely, spelled 'Time Machine Bookshop.' She was curious, walking forward and noticing acutely just how quiet it was. Even the sounds of the city faded to a muffled thump in the background. She stepped under the entrance - an archway of actual paper books, as if the rest of the building didn't drive home the point that this was a bookshop for printed items. A bell chimed softly as she entered, and she peered into the dim, dusty store, saw nobody. Strange - the door was unlocked, and, now that she looked, the windows open.
She walked through the aisles, trying to discern at a glance what each section's genre was meant to be - there were no labels, which she assumed was either because the shop was meant for wandering, or because the owner couldn't be bothered to actually organize the books.
Malik had just picked up Everyone Loves a Hero...and that's the problem when she heard footsteps directly above her, on the second floor. Listened to them - relaxed and heavy, like the person was comfortable in the store. Like they belonged. She supposed this might be someone who worked here - who was supposed to be at the empty front desk, perhaps.
She waited, calm, for the source of the footsteps to make themselves known, and glanced again at the book in her hands. Eighteen years old and garbage romance from the early '10s, it was right up her alley. She loved the ludicrous nature of romance novels from back then, and each book obsessed with trivial problems took her attention off the grim reality she had to face every day as an aug.
The man who appeared on the landing of the stairs looked like he couldn't be any older than his mid-twenties. Messy hair, patchwork vest, eyes so red and lined by dark bags that she could see them from across the store. Arms. Alloy, augmented arms. Worn out in the open, a sleeve torn off his coat. In Prague. Malik's grip on the book went suddenly limp, as she was fixated by the person across the shop. Who was so brave to parade their augs in broad daylight anymore, especially in this city?
What did a bookstore employee need so many augs for?
Malik pulled off her beanie and tucked her scarf away before he finished descending to the first floor. She wasn't exactly hidden in the store, though she supposed any person would stand out - it didn't seem like it was very busy often, if ever.
After a sweep of the upper floor (just to be cautious, Vaclav doubted anyone could slip past him so quickly but exceptions could be the death of him) he lets his aching legs carry him down the stairs.
Very consciously - he had retreated momentarily before descent to grab Othello off the shelf, feeling drawn to its pebbled golden lettering. Dog-eared corners. Nothing akin to new - a new book was almost a laughable thought.
Just as new augs were as well.
The steps creaked under his weight and he lived for the sound of it so sharp in the silence; a soft shuffle from a guest nearly lost in the thick of it. It's not hard to find her; and it's painfully obvious that she is very, very far from home. There's something about her - the homesick seems to halo about her.
Her stance is comfortable, but Koller knows the feeling of longing all too well.
"Hello?" the accent was thick on his tongue, "may I help you?"
Formalities.
Formalities.
Foregoing, near forgotten.
His little bookstore felt stagnant, static.
As if moving through the air would tangibly disrupt the atmosphere. Time stood still; the name was fitting - or at least he thought so.
The smile he offered was far warmer than he appeared; his wild hair mussed with the constant pull and catch of anxious fingers and his over coat littered with pins, patches, and particular things that would bid caution.
Vaclav Koller was not a dumb man - he knew that she had to be here searching for something else other than a good book. Especially since the one novel she had seemed to latch on to was from the trashy romance novel section, a place he liked to spend time in when he needed a good smile. When he needed to forget the past. The screams. The cries. Hands on walls on flesh on muscle. Bone. Blood.
He could focus on how some macho masculine cowboy obsessed over some prairie-dog beauty queen. As far as he was concerned, those books were written to serve solely as a distraction for people a little too lonely, and a little too sad.
He could guess that she was both.
"You know," he started and approached slowly, "I haven't exactly read that one yet, so I can't really give any good feedback." there's hesitation, before he shifted his weight into his right leg and pointed at the shelf next to her with his tooled right hand, "but maaan there is one about a cowboy that's so abysmal that it's fantastic."
She was so busy staring at his arms - one a hand, the other a three-fingered...tool? - that she didn't actually realize he'd spoken until he was approaching her. Quick-footed, shelving her hundred questions for later (what was a kid like this doing in Prague? Working a bookstore? How did he get all those augs?) she turned to smile. "You think it beats a pilot and some nurse on his plane?"
Her hair stuck up from where she'd pulled off her beanie, no longer hiding the neural chip embedded in her scalp. With the scarf gone, a keen eye would catch the sub-vocalizer on her throat. Making it clear, if he cared to see, that she wasn't a natural - wasn't here to scream and run away because of his augs. That she was like him. And, perhaps, that her staring was not so much out of fear or hate, but awed curiosity. The augs, now that she looked closer, appeared well-tended to. Or, at the very least, they weren't so abused like those of the augs outside, with exposed wiring, errant sparks, rust. His left arm was even painted - suggesting he either had a mechanic who was also an artist, or that his right tool-hand could be changed to hold a paintbrush.
She's finally dragged her gaze up to meet his eyes, and they're even more exhausted than she expected. Red, like this kid hadn't known a good night's sleep in a long time. Like he was kept up by a ceaseless need to escape something - the past, reality, his demons, who knew? He looked like he should not be working today. She wants to ask, bites her tongue on the question. So many questions for one random aug in a city full of them, all hated equally.
"They're all on their own levels, that genre, mm?" he answers instead of disagreeing. His gaze is sharp under the fatigue, catching on the indent in her scalp, the bump on her throat. Subdermals, small and fancy tended to be almost more expensive than entire limbs, especially if they could be made so discreet. She either has plenty of money, or works for someone who does. Which begs the question, what is she doing in Prague? No aug would choose to come here.
Malik decides to not dodge around the topic they're both thinking on. "Where do you find a mechanic in a city like this?" she asks quietly, head tilting toward his arms. To his credit, he doesn't look the least bit surprised at the question.
He ponders it for a moment. Looking her up and down again, evaluating her. "Not many places." Most – those with the money, at least – had picked up shop and left. Others were being…encouraged to abandon their work.
"I need a HUD update," she offers. Cautiously.
"It can't wait until you get home?" He sets Othello down.
"I'll be in Prague fairly often. Better to find a mechanic now than when I really need one." Ideally true, anyway. If she can find a good mechanic here, she could start smuggling parts for them. Especially if Prague continued its descent into the shitter for augs, her services would be sorely needed.
"Well then," Vaclav sticks his tooled hand out. "Nice to meet you. Vaclav Koller, expert augmentation mechanic." Mostly in Chinese black market augs, but he was adaptable, he could learn.
She looks surprised. Or perhaps, not surprised at who Koller is, but that she stumbled upon one of the few mechanics in the city. "Faridah Malik, ace pilot," she says, taking his hand and shaking. An extension of trust, giving him her full name. He could easily look her up and find out she worked for Sarif. If she ended up working with him, he would find out anyway. If she didn't, well. He'd never know what else she did on the side.
"Why don't you come on over to the clinic?" he asks, starting for the stairs.