\+/ Night City Stories \+/ Chapter 13 - Who Are You Now - Part 1
Later in the evening, Brian and Zaunya are seen in Graves' Butte finishing some smokes taking the time to scope out the 6th street house on the block. Its clear another conversation has taken place between them prior to this. To their surprise, attentively as they watch, they don't see any foot traffic in or out of the house all afternoon. Brian decides its time to go by simply opening his door, with no signal onto the street; Zaunya follows. With the sun nearly set, both of them can be seen walking with purpose through the busy chaotic streets of Arroyo. The activity within the community always gives off a summer time afternoon energy regardless of the time of year or day. Stepping over dorph heads skezzed out of their minds and past kids running around breaking abandoned building windows and playing with trash. The two share a silence, walking at a steady, determined pace side by side as she follows his lead up the street...neither have a need to talk at this point as the plan is clear. The two of them reach the 6th street house. A huge purple skull with a giant 6 on the forehead lay spray painted onto the wall of the house silently glaring at both of them. The pair both glance at each other before ascending the porch steps. Brian takes a brief pause before knocking on the door forcefully, it startles Zaunya a bit.
"WHO THE FUCK IS IT!?" A loud booming scruff voice yells through the door seemingly across the house.
"Its Brian, open up." He says matching the tone. A long pause happens as the pair outside waiting glance at each other waiting for the door to open. Footsteps are heard on the otherside of the door as well as scattered shuffling around before it finally opens. A shorter, older man with a brown leather bomber jacket and a white cowboy hat swings the door open. A huge smile takes over his face:
"BRIAAANN! LOOK AT YOU! GOOD TO SEE YA!"
"Rick." Brian says before attempting to walk into the home. Rick stops Brian in his tracks by putting his hand on his chest. Brian immediately grabs his arm with quick force, stepping towards him and holding onto it tight while squinting his eyes and gritting his teeth. Rick, unbothered by this turns his full attention towards Zaunya.
Rick and Brian disengage as Rick leans the forearm of his prosthetic up against the door frame and crosses one of his short legs over the other looking up at her. "And you sweetheart? who do I have the pleasure of meeting?" Rick says in a lowered monotone trying to be sexy. Zaunya looks back into the man's eyes with a serious expression. "Z" She simply says in a flat tone. "Z huh..? haha..alright, fair enough." Rick continues to smile big raising his eyebrows and checking her out before stepping out of the door frame letting the pair of them in watching Zaunya walk past.
The 3 of them make their way through the 6th street hangout. With Morro Rock playing obnoxiously loud in the background they see scattered Broseph and polished off Whisky bottles lay everywhere. 'Live Free or Die' spraypainted in blue is seen in the main room. Rick speaks as they follow.
"Hey...some crazy shit a couple days back huh? Did you see ALL that corpo huscle? Tch.. sniffin' around like bloodhounds i tell ya...pretty much scraped the place clean. Funny how some of these rats like to keep things 'extra' tidy at times." Rick stops abruptly in his tracks and looks back at the pair of them remembering something. "And hey Brian...sorry about your dad.." Rick looks down and away briefly. "We lost a real soldier with that one..." Rick turns back around and continues walking. "You checked on Nick at all since? Better to before he strings himself up first. I know he never really wanted to be out here..-"
Rick continues to ramble as the pair silently scan the area following behind him. Stacks of various crates and boxes with old military tech are piled up in the corners with an endless assortment of weapons laying about everywhere..Some being taken apart and laying in pieces to be cleaned, others mounted on the walls like trophies..some belonging to other gangs: A Tyger Claw katana, A Turqoise metal bat from The Mox and even a golden Valentino prosthetic arm formerly belonging to some poor unfortunate choom. Rick sits at a desk displaying the trophies overhead behind him as Brian and Zaunya take seats across the desk from him.
With the music now turned down and cigar smoke from Rick's stogie tacking the room completely out, Rick continues to ramble to the two of them about the car chase and shootout from a few days back. Brian and Zaunya struggling to remain patient sit back attentively listening to Ricks verbal diarrhea drone on and on almost turning it into background noise. The pair of them glance at each other before Brian finally enganges while Rick is mid laugh.
"So where's everybody at..?"
"Crews out workin right now.. Badlands."
"Still got em out there rollin' around in the dirt huh."
"Eds are eds Brian.. nomads are usually good for it. Last fuck up turned out to be on OUR end..we flatlined that trash though. Fucker had the audacity to look me in the eyes and lie to me right in my face...can you believe that? I don't even think the-" Brian cuts him off before he can get going with another ramble.
"Did you find anything out there after the badges split Rick.. We're lookin for an access card."
Rick abruptly stops talking and takes a long drag of his stogie leaning back into his chair and changing his facial expression. The pause in conversation allows the radio to take back over and makes Brian and Zaunya lock back in. Rick takes one more puff before putting out the stogie in a dirty littered ashtray that looked like a graveyard for smokes. He then reaches over in to the top drawer and pulls out the access card. It has a sleek all black finish with gold trim throughout it which shined even under the dim lights of the hangout. No identiying markings, brands or logos are on it at all..just a clean sleek piece of metal that he promptly puts into his pants pocket. Rick finally speaks in a now lowered and serious tone.
"I sent Angela over there after things got quiet..Didn't tell her to go snoopin' through people's backyards though.. shes a real go getter that one."
"Mm. And what do want for it.." Brian asks
Rick wrinkles his eyebrows and crosses his arms before continuing, still leaned back in his chair.
"Where's Graves a-"
"Dead." Brian immediately responds in a flat tone looking Rick straight in the eyes. Rick raises his eyebrows surprised and looks down n' away before looking back at Brian.
"..You know he owed right?"
"No, I didn't Rick.. the hell does that have to do with-"
"He'd been your fuckin choom since the sandbox Brian. I remember seein you little shits runnin' around this block all the time. Was he chasin scratch..? You'd know. He better have been. Shit. We might need to take a look through that apartment of his tomorrow when everybody gets back." Brian blankly stares at Rick stone cold.. keeping his emotions buried expertly and not reacting. Rick shifts subject slightly due to the lack of response now looking at Zaunya.. he leans forward in his chair.
"Sweetheart...let me ask you something.. Do you have any idea who it is you're runnin around with? Hm?" Zaunya, sitting back in her chair with her both her legs and arms crossed doesn't respond. Rick continues gesturing toward Brian.
"This is the son of Enrique Varga.. haha..of course you don't know who Enrique Varga is...but if you did..you'd damn sure know who his son is." Rick giggles softly before reaching over and grabbing a bottle of Massy. He continues
"Something I picked up servin' always stuck with me..everytime I think about it..makes me think of you." Rick says glancing over at Brian before pouring a glass of Massy for himself. The sound of the liquor filling the glass takes over the lack of sound due to the now turned off radio. Rick continues while raising the filled glass.
"Talent... Talent hits a target that nobody else can hit...Genius hits a target that nobody else can see." Rick takes a swig from the glass before continuing still looking at Zaunya whose attention is now raised.
"You see...Brian is a brain. Alright...? You're not gonna find him on the recieving end. Any conflict you have in the streets leads back to a thought. A thought someone, somewhere once had that manifests itself into action. In our world.. our game.. in this city.. its not the guy whose gonna pull the trigger you have to worry about..its the guy who plans it."
Brian staring at Rick finally breaks his stare looking away slightly bothered. Rick takes a final swig finishing the glass before continuing. "I still say to this day you would've been the best damn thing to happen to this outfit Brian. Your dad made sure that never happened of course..unfortunately."
"What do you want for the card Rick.."
Rick completely ignores Brian before continuing. Still looking at Zaunya. "He disappeared into NC once upon a time.. Don't know what the fuck happened but when he came back, well.." Rick reaches over and re-opens the same drawer he pulled the access card out of. He pulls Brian's blood red, crimson Nue out of the drawer and gently lays it on the desk in front of them...the heavy weight of it makes it knock down onto the wood hard.
Zaunya and Brian both look at the Nue shine and glimmer even in the dimly lit, darkened hangout. Brian stares deeply at his iron..almost as if seeing someone he thought he got rid of for good long ago. Rick proclaims, "Graves ain't the only one that owed."