It was one of those very rare nights when there was no secret lair to extrapolate and infiltrate, a night where Eliza Cassan had no depressing insights on modern society and its many, many pitfalls. It was however one of those nights where the VTOL was in need of some repair, and a normal night for Jensen. That is to say, he had absolutely nothing better to do than help the local pilot with said repairs.
The helipad was covered in plastic wrapping, mismashed screws, tools of various sizes and cables as thick as an arm belonging to a man of small stature. Huddled behind some cardboard boxes, Adam was sorting through various spare parts that he had brought up from the store room.
"Cooling cable." Faridah said from under her bird with only a hand visible, ready for grabbing a cooling cable.
"Cooling cable." Adam repeated, handing her a cable with a blue tint.
Sounds of mechanical labour slid out from under the belly of the large aircraft as Malik performed her Technomancer magic, always out of sight.
The sounds stopped to let her voice through once more.
"Alright, now hand me the purple cable!" She said in a slightly strained tone.
"Purple cable.." Adam muttered as he dug deeper into the box in front of him. His search was rewarded with a yellow cable, red wires and a large indigo coloured cube. It did not contain a purple cable.
"Adam, purple cable." Malik repeated with annoyance.
"No purple cable in here." Adam replied with disappointment.
"No purple cable?"
"No purple cable."
Faridah slowly slid out from under the belly of the metallic beast with a dead look on her face.
"No purple cable, no flying." She said factually as she looked straight into his eyes.
"Can we stop calling it purple cable? It's getting annoying." Jensen said with exasperation.
Faridah stood up and brushed her flight suit off with a hearty sigh. The dust looked like clouds of chalk in the glare of the yellow floodlights fixed above the helipad.
"Have you checked the other boxes?" She asked tiredly.
"Empty." He said, his voice foreboding.
"Well, if it's not here, we're gonna have to get a new one." Malik set off towards the entrance to the cafeteria with Jensen hot on her heels.
The building was eerily empty. Now and then you would see a security guard walking around but that didn't lessen the echo of Jensen's clinical footsteps that were unnervingly even and precise, Malik tried to eliminate the sound she was making, clumsy compared to Jensen. All to no avail.
She opened the door to her rarely-occupied office and booted up her stationary computer. While Malik was entering her password, Jensen walked around the small room taking in whatever details he could find. Some flight magazines on the coffee table, a few model air-planes on the desk. Aside from the expected items, the room was noticeably bare.
"You haven't changed office recently, have you?" Adam asked, facing the coffee table.
"Nope, had this one for a good while now. My bird is my real office Adam, this one's just a spare." Faridah clattered away on her keyboard, eyes hypnotized by the screen.
Makes sense.
"Alright! I found the spare part, we just have to tell the boss about it, he has all the codes for ordering mechanical parts for the company online." Malik scooted away from the screen waving at Jensen for him to follow.
The elevator sheathed its metal shields, letting the pilot and the chief into a lofty embrace for a ride to the top. From the glass wall, they could look out upon the criss-crossing cables of soft, warm yellow light that were the streets and the unorganized maze of brick and concrete that was downtown Detroit. The closest buildings were lit up by fluorescent billboards, their skylights were leaning in opposite directions, trying to catch a glimpse of the moon through the night clouds, to point towards it, spotlights upon the quintessential spotlight.
"You see this almost every night?" Adam didn't take his eyes off the muted, everynight spectacle.
"Kinda, sometimes I'm flying too fast to get a legitimate look at the ground, other times I'm above the clouds. It's great, sometimes, I can see the whole world beneath me like... collective candles in a lake of darkness." Malik brushed her fingers along some invisible photograph or painting in front of her. Perhaps it was the glass wall that framed it.
"Poetic." Jensen chuckled as the elevator slowed to a halt.
"Oh hush."
Sarif wasn't in his office. His desktop was still flashing, so he must have planned on coming back. Adam and Faridah decided to wait, not venturing into the empty Colosseum that was Sarif HQ on this particular night.
"Boss' got a nice view." Malik noted as she leaned against the designer desk, facing the panoramic window.
Adam hummed in the affirmative.
"Kind of like... the only working streetlight on an empty boulevard?" Jensen supplied hesitantly, avoiding eye contact with Malik.
"My, my, Mr. Jensen! I never knew you had it in you!" Malik's stiff posture melted into relaxed enthusiasm as her surprised smile showed her pearly teeth.
"I've got a similar view." Jensen replied coolly, doing an admirable job at not-quite-hiding his pleased demeanour.
"Hit me with another one, Robert Frost!" Malik eagerly egged Jensen on in her best cheer-leading voice.
Adam visibly chuckled and crossed his metallic arms. "You first, Mrs. Shelly."
They spent their wait exchanging bad poetry about the view, not always seriously.
It was a lengthy wait.