Thread: The Lady and the Wolf - Penitency x Praxis

Rachel pinched a small tube of cotton between her thumb and forefinger, aiming the syrette's needle at the innermost area of her right thigh. With one naked leg draped over the other the girl was perched on the edge of her tub, the steam from the near boiling water kissing at her back as she sank the pinprick into her skin and squeezed. Almost instantly she felt a warm rush enter her body, beginning in and around her hips and spreading in large, radial waves that tickled at her ribs and up her neck. Her pulse quickened, a counterpart of the drug cocktail she'd just injected, speeding up the delivery of a very powerful synthetic opioid. She exhaled in a slow, breathy gasp and rocked gently from her perch. She felt her eyelids growing heavy and did her best to hurry down into the tub, letting the heat bathe every inch her body, accentuating the mellowest notes of the drug and lulling her for a few long moments into a near sleep. The melodic pinging of in her left ear roused her, though for a moment she failed to place it's purpose. Eventually, through her stupor, she lifted her left forearm from the water and slid her index and middle fingers quickly across her slick flesh. A momentary blue glow emitted from just below the surface of her skin and she heard the voice come to life in her ear. Hey, babe. It said. She smiled weakly, closing her eyes again and letting her head rest against the back of the tub. Hi, baby... she slurred back, feeling weary of the conversation before it had even begun. You sound tired. Did you work? Her fiance's voice came back after a moment of non engagement from her. It would have been morning where he was, most likely. She could never quite remember the name of the Off-World Colony he'd been sent to. It was in their same relative system, but he'd explained some notion of time differentials relative to their position in the Galaxy. All Rachel could remember was being angry that he was leaving. The details of his weekly calls had been missed in her own heated fuming. Mhm. And how is -what did you call him? The 'Side of beef with a gun? She snorted, opening one eye to peer in annoyance around the spacious washroom. She'd dimmed the lights to virtual nothingness and was having difficulty making out the time on an antique desk clock she kept on her vanity's counter. The large, open space to her left had been dedicated to a viewing platform that ran the length of the loft. From there -and from virtually anywhere in the space it was possible to get a panoramic view of the California coastline. With the sun set only the fiery glitter of the city hubs illuminated the far-off skyline, twinkling in the high dark like a billion candles until they sharply dropped off and gave way to the inky black Pacific Ocean. Big. Angry. She replied flatly, rolling her eyes, she added Unpleasant. She shifted in the tub, sloshing some of the foamy water and propping herself on an elbow along the edge. That had been strike two. Asking her about him . Was that the best he could think of? Asking her something as insipid as 'How her day was' had been strike one. Never having seen a game of baseball and generally ignoring rules that served to impede her point, it was with no lack of venom that she reciprocated How's... wherever . Enjoying your time away from your life? The last bit had been so purposefully barbed that the crushing silence that followed it made her stomach knot. She hadn't been sure what to expect from him after that. How could he answer that? Regardless a complete lack of reply -no, of concern was about the worst thing she could have imagined. She had been about to snap the dialogue into her eye implant and force him to look her in the face when three rude, successive chirps rung out in her ear. There was a flat silence on the other end and she knew she would have screamed at nothing. Hello!? She asked, instinctively, glancing at her forearm and noticing a red circle illuminated beneath the skin where blue should have been. Raising her voice this time she called to seemingly nothing in particular. Call Adam. There was a pause, followed by the same three chirps, announcing the same error, this time from several speakers hidden throughout the loft. Apologies, Miss Hawthorne. In-Home system is unable to communicate with WebSAT at this time. Please try again after some time. The voice was dull, robotic. Not unlike that on the hovercraft. Shit . She hissed. Standing up and out of the tub, she reached for a plush, pink bathrobe and hurriedly wrapped it about her dripping body. She padded wetly through the open space, calling again to the in home system. If WebSAT was down it would've been pointless to try and initiate a call of any considerable distance. However, something closer may still have worked. Again the system failed and Rachel felt her first wave of true panic set in. Without contact to the world outside of her semi-circular bubble hovering several hundred feet above ground she was, in effect, stranded. At the mercy of whatever maintenance team got dispatched for issues such as this. Any hope of that was soon eviscerated as from the corner of her eye she saw the Northernmost edge of the coast line go dark. Then the next. And the next. Grid by grid Rachel watched as huge chunks of the hub's lights began to simultaneously vanish from existence. Replaced by a sprawling darkness that merged seamlessly with the ocean, swallowing the long strip of land and plunging the world below her into a hellish, black void. Her loft came next as hers and all of the adjoining lattice-shaped rows of boxes lost their feeds from stations below. Rachel gasped involuntarily. It was a high, airy sound that she hardly recognized as her own and dumbly stared around the pitch. She found her way to the floor and remained there for a long while, listening for sounds of... anything . When only oppressive darkness replied her mind began to scramble for solutions. The affects of the syrette were still pulsing at the base of her skull and made sharp thought difficult. Regardless she arrived at the same conclusion time and time again. She didn't have a choice. She navigated into the menu behind her eyes, lids fluttering in place as she scrolled through menus and tabs, supplying credentials via the bio metric device that had been installed before her birth. The same device that allowed her access at all. For as long as her heart was beating her body would produce the energy to run minor but usually essential programs. Such as the interface that allowed her directly contact Ethan. It was a massive breach, to simply hop in the mind of her Templar without justifiable cause. To her knowledge neither of them were in any immediate danger. She would have to hope that these qualified as extenuating circumstances. She sighed, pulled up the final menu needed and enabled the Override feature.