Chapter 15: Heart

That damn agent. The one in the blue coat. She's got me all paranoid and riled up now. It's been another two weeks since we talked and those damn beady little eyes of hers…

Any time I turn around and I see anything remotely blue that looks like her coat, I'm just reminded of them.

I know she hadn't caught onto me. If she had, she'd have turned me in right then and there. But it also got me thinking that she, of all people, is probably a lot sharper than I first thought.

Naturally, the second thing I did after that exchange was, after getting home, give Vampy a call and warn her about what ominous things that broad foreshadowed to me.

She shrugged it off and said she already knew… Which, really, just confused me. You'd keep on doing your little smuggling gig despite knowing how close you are to being caught? Either Vampy is extremely confident in her craft or she's just that desperate for money.

Anyway. Point is. I can't get this entire thing out of my head now. What if I get caught? Can I go to jail? Will I go to jail? For how long?

"Hey! B-Face!"

I snap back to reality from Vampy snapping her fingers right in my face. I blink several times and realise that I'm back at the NepDonalds Vampy took me to quite some time ago.

We've actually made it a bit of a habit to meet each other here every saturday morning before I go off to smuggle my chips to Lastation. Which is nice. I like spending time with Vampy like this… Even if I still really think she shouldn't take a big, greasy burger at nine in the morning every time we come here.

"Uhh… Yeah. Sorry. I was just-... thinking." I excuse myself as I take a bite from my egg sandwich.

Vampy shakes her head, leaning her elbows on the table. Her crimson eyes stare at my face. "You've been kinda out of it lately. Like-... Did something happen while you were moving cargo?"

"Nah… Nah, it's just-... You know. I got stuff on my mind, y'know. Stuff."

"Stuff…" Vampy repeated in a dulled voice.

"Yeah. Stuff. You know. Stuff you, uh, you wouldn't, like, care about, I guess…"

She raised her eyebrow, leaning even closer to me than before. "What, y'think I'm gonna let that comment slide? C'mon. Don't be a dick. The hell's gotten into you lately? Is it because of that dumb broad?"

"I-It's… not-... that," I stutter before clearing my throat. "That's not it. It's just-... You're so confident in not getting caught. Or rather, I'm-... worried. You know. Worried that maybe you don't care about being caught at all. She sounded like she had some pretty indiscriminating evidence against you."

"Yeah. And?" Vampy picks a fry from her little pile of golden goodness and wags it around. "I'm still pretty much a free girl, in case you didn't realise. Broad's never caught me before, won't catch me now."

"And why not?" I fold my hands together and lean in a little closer as well. "She looks like a pro to me…"

"Not 'pro' enough to see a brick to the back of the head coming," Vampy mumbles before crudely biting into her greasy fry. "Mm-... God, these are still god awful. Why do we keep coming to this place…"

"Maybe if you stopped ordering the fries at ten in the fucking morning we wouldn't-, wait forget it. Just-... Stay on topic." I aim my finger at her chin and thrust it forward a few times. "I don't know what the history between you two is. But she's lusting for your blood."

"Gross."

"Either you get out of this mess," I continue, "or find a way to cover your tracks. Because sooner rather than later, she's gonna come knocking on your door and bust your skull open before dragging you off to prison."

An irritated sigh exited Vampy's lips. She picks up her soda and takes an exaggerated slurp from it.

"What's your end-game, Vampy? All that money? The risk of smuggling? Your determination to keep going? What's the point?"

"The point? The point is that-..." Vampy clears her throat and looks around. She leans in even closer. Somehow, our faces are now but a few hairs away from one another, yet, neither of us seems to really be motivated to move back. Though, I feel a little awkward.

Do I look her in the left eye or the right eye?

Okay, no, Vampy moved back now, after realising likely the same problem.

"The point," Vampy continued in a quiet voice, "is to get enough cash to finally start my own organisation. I got a basis—smuggling. But that's far from ideal."

"Far from ideal?!"

"I want total dominion over the black market. I wanna get my own pirate chips. Make my own facilities where we print those little pieces of black gold. I want—"

A little softly, I smack my fist against the table, nearly crushing my egg sandwich. That was close…

"Why? Why would you go for such a high profile? You're already on thin ice and you're trying to piss the Guild off even harder? You got some crippling debt or something you're not talking about."

Vampy leans back in her seat with an unamused glare. "I ain't the one with the debt."

Frankly, those words puzzled me. But not for as long as I imagined they would. If anything, I'm amazed at how quickly I deciphered them.

"Then what? Revenge? To who? Your parents for some unreasonable-... reason…? The CPUs for beating ASIC and breaking it all apart?"

That last one got a bit of a reaction out of Vampy. A small shift in her expression.

"That's it, isn't it? You just wanna get back at the CPUs then? By-... becoming some sort of criminal mastermind?"

"Shut up, will you. Why do you care, anyway…"

"Because, you idiot, if I didn't care, I wouldn't have thrown that brick at your Guild friend. And if you didn't care about my opinion, you'd have left me at the bottom of that cliff."

Vampy shifts on her seat, avoiding eye contact with me. Am I finally getting through to her?

My eyes snap at her hand. Dare I?

I press my attack and take her hand in my own. She immediately snaps her attention back to me. I can't read her expression at all.

"Get out of the game as soon as you can," I say. "If you're trying to fund a criminal organisation, then sure as hell you've got more than enough to live a good life by yourself at this point, don't you?"

Silently, Vampy looks away again. To make sure I have her full attention still, I squeeze her hand gently. "What'll you do?"

"... I need some time to think about it. Alright?"

"Does that mean you got enough to quit now?"

"I got enough to live a couple years without doing anything, yes."

Just a couple years? I guess she invested everything into this gig. That or she wasted it all on… whatever caused her to become grey. And get green hair.

"That'll do, I guess." I release her hand and move back a bit. "Let's forget about that for now. How about we just finish our breakfast? Yours must've gotten cold by now, right?"

Vampy looks down at her meal indifferently, then turns her gaze to me. "I've eaten stuff like this so often when it's cold, I kinda started liking it better that way."

For a brief moment, the wings of my nose were raised. That's revolting… I'll just pretend I didn't hear that.

Maybe things don't have to end poorly after all.

Been sitting on this one for a while now. Actually got a DM from someone asking me to continue this. So... Here we are. Another attempt at finishing this. See next time, maybe!