Visions of the Visor

Chapter 4b

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To date, Aidan had pulled three people out alive from the collapsed Cyprus Structure. A feat he had managed all by himself. And while those who were on the surface on the collapse were there to help him take the rescued away and offer there congratulations, his emptiness still remained. Even as the saved blessed him with their kind words moments before they were taken away, it did not replenish his loneliness and sense of loss. Aidan would spend hours burrowing down to the buried and then even more, longer hours digging them out. He got to know their names, where they worked, and the sin they would commit if they could never caught by the Vertigo. He saw the joy in their faces when he found them, the pain and misery as they waited in agony for Aidan to free them, he saw them almost give up, and then in the end he saw that joy returned as he pulled them free from the collapse. But Aidan himself was receiving no joy, nor fulfillment. Like his entire left side had gone completely numb, he still felt like something was missing, and it seemed the more people he freed the more loss and separation he felt.

The protesters had only grown in strength and tensions on the ground had been intensifying still with no Vertigo around. And unless they decided to show themselves, the rioting was in danger of exploding into a problem beyond the fallen Cyprus Structure. There was never a rioting up rise in the city before, but for whatever the reason no one seemed too concerned including, curiously enough, The Visor and his Vertigo.

Aidan hung his head and looked away from the growing mob of protestors. It became very clear to him that he was not feeling well. Thinking he had overexerted himself over the past few days, he headed down the opposite side of the debris field to find a quieter place to sit down. Almost loosing his balance a few times, Aidan was slow in realizing that everything was becoming a bit hazy and his head was slowly spinning. Too fatigued to reach the bottom, Aidan sat down where he stood. Still not noticing his trembling hand as he wiped his sweating brow, he leaned back closing his eyes. No one had come over to this side of the collapse and it looked as though it had been abandoned for years, a forgotten vanquished wasteland. But at least it was quite and peaceful in some strange Adramedic sense. Fever overcame him and Aidan thought of never opening his eyes again. Perhaps this was why he felt compelled to come here, to just simply slip away with all the other lost souls who were bound to the nether life. Maybe now he would feel whole again.

Relishing in the solitude around him, he suddenly felt as though he were no longer alone. Aidan opened his eyes for a moment and then leaned forward. She did not stand out like something peculiar and rather exotic would, but Aidan's eyes went right to her. She stood at the bottom of the massive heap of rubble, leaning up against the adjacent building that's darkened façade cast no shadow upon her. And she was not afraid to show off her striking body. She was an Asian woman, exotic, risqué, and dangerously alluring. Despite the cold, she hardly wore anything, but her firm, thin body showed no evidence of displeasure. Her black hair was streaked with blue and it looked maddeningly intriguing and seductive at the same time. On the end of a long cigarette holder she smoked poison flower petals blowing the smoke out ever so slowly from between her red lips. The blue painted above her eyes only drew them out further as they rested right upon Aidan, and never did she move them from him.

Aidan felt a hot rush flush through him and he knew it was not from his recent fever. He got to his feet perched precariously on the side of the debris field and looked behind him and to his sides to see if this woman was looking at someone else, though Aidan was still the only one in clear view. What were the odds that someone would come to this side of the collapse and search for him personally? What were the odds it would be this incredibly alluring woman? Aidan could defiantly feel something within him stir, though he did not know what it was. Perhaps this was why he was to come here, not to save the lost, not to lie with the dying, but to be found by this woman. With her seductive eyes still on him, Aidan made his way down the rest of the Cyprus Structure to her.

"What is someone like you doing in a place like this?" she asked him, her Asian accent unbridled over the words, her tone as seductive as her posture, though it was clear she was still in charge.

"I'm missing something," Aidan replied almost completely entranced by this woman, having never seen such a creature especially in such a city as Andrameda.

"Kind of a strange place to look for it, don't you think?"

Aidan watched her curiously now beginning to wonder of the more fundamental things as the initial shock began to ware off. "Why are you here?" he asked slowly lacking the confidence of the smoking Asian.

She momentarily took her eyes off of him to take a long drag off her cigarette. Then she turned to look at him with eyes much more penetrating then before. "Do you want to fuck?" she asked bluntly.

"Excuse me?" Aidan replied completely taken off guard.

"You said you were missing something. Perhaps it is something that I have." She took another drag, lighter this time, her eyes remained still.

"Do I know you from somewhere?"

"Would it make any difference if you did?" Aidan frowned slightly. The woman righted herself, pulling away from the wall. She turned to gaze far out into the city where she saw the lone tower of the Vortex with its single soft light uncontained from its window. "The Gospel Manifesto speaks of a pale horse. 'A pale horse ridden by a white panther will appear in the city. With the strike of one paw he threw the Black Rider from his horse and severed his torso with one bite of his jaw. But when the Black Rider saw the horse before he appeared, the panther was struck down with black horse's hooves and killed.' Indoctrination 3:35-36. It hardly seems possible doesn't it?"

Aidan switched his glance to the darkness of the city, the smoke from the factories slowly billowing up into the permanence of night. "Anything seems possible in this city."

"Does it frighten you?"

Aidan turned back to the woman to see her looking at him again, her face the same, as was her body. But set behind her eyes, he saw something different. "No. It confuses me."

Her eyes returned as she took another long drag off her cigarette. "Have you thought about whether or not you want to fuck?"

"Doesn't someone like you already have somebody for that?"

"Of course," she turned away, "and he's very good at it, when he's available." She turned to leave. "You're very intriguing Aidan, don't go getting yourself killed in that Cyprus mess," she remarked walking away, her long legs further elongated by her high heels which crossed over each other as she walked.

Aidan was not about to say anything until he heard her state his name, which he did not disclose to her. "Wait," he called out after her, "I don't want to fuck, but I'll go with you." She stopped and turned around as Aidan joined her. "Though I don't know your name."

"Delphi," she replied.