Awakening

Chapter 11 - Reunion - Scene 1

Eric stood on a concrete pavement, feet slightly tilted from bulging cracks which blossomed beneath. The wind grazed his face, making the tubes attached to his nose-mask rattle slightly. The rays of the sun penetrated the foggy air and painted everything in bright yellow. It all felt right. Even though many years passed since he walked the streets of Palael, his heart fluttered, sending a nostalgic heat wave called home through his body and straight to his wet eyes.

Another hour, he thought watching the local time on his PeP, as he stepped forward through the foggy air and towards his old residence--the orphanage.

He didn't plan this visit. His old caretaker was probably dead, judging by the speed they were switched back then, and the orphanage could well be inactive for years now.

No. The streets and the concrete building he once called home weren't what drew him here. It was the urge to touch something familiar that did. A need to retrieve a piece of Eric Grond from the past. The past he was beginning to forget. The past he was beginning to regret.

For the last few years, Eric was working under the crooked wing of captain Atevias--the infamous pirate who was wanted by most of the Union's authorities. Eric's advancement in the DarkNet-Association, or DNA, was sluggish at best. The grind, as they called it, took him a year, performing infantile tasks on the DarkNet, until the captain finally recruited him and his rusty ship. Only lately did the captain entrusted Eric with solo missions and authorities inside the crew--at last, releasing him from the clutches of an especially stinky pirate named Reij, who took immense pleasure in watching the twitching faces of his inferiors as he reeked commands straight in their nostrils.

Being a double-agent was tedious and harsh in the realm of DNA. No comms out, and no comms in. Complete silence of communications with his true employer--the Union Armed Forces. For two years now, Eric didn't have a single word with his superiors, nor did he manage to contact the only man in the universe he trusted--Umusa. It was disheartening, and it raised a dangerous question--What's my mission?

Eric took a deep breath, filling his lungs with frigid clean air from the suit, clearing his mind and hopping back to his flier. There was nothing left for him here--nothing but a shadow hunting his dreams.

Echoes from the past, he thought and shook his head refocusing on his mission.

The buyer, one called Arkoon, was probably waiting for him already. Eric wanted him to wait--establishing power before his business partner was crucial if he wanted to build a strong first impression. "You don't want to look too eager to sell." The voice of Atevias ringed in his head.

Eric tapped the location given to him through the DarkNet, accepted the route presented by the flier and pressed "AP". His mind was too preoccupied to manually stir and shift this wrecked vessel.

I can disappear. The same thought popped in his head when he landed another planet or station for a mission. Remove the tracking device and go back to Umusa.

He extracted a small metallic box from his suit, feeling the raw texture of the worn-out container. It served him well over the course of his career as a pirate--blocking scanners from identifying its content and preserving the item inside until the switch. A pirate never gave his first Cbox away in an exchange--it was a bad omen. Eric had to play the part.

The flier landed itself on a cracked rooftop of a building with a hard sway and clank, almost throwing the Cbox from Eric's hand with the force of the sudden bump.

"Radding shit," Eric cursed the machine as the windshield slid open.

The roof was a wise choice. Located too high for prying eyes from the Undertown and too low inside the death-cloud for any surveillance to be feasible by the authorities.