Oce stood in the shadow of a large open front tent. She was at a dig site. Miraculously an artifact they had spent years and many resources tracking was found right under their own noses.
On the outskirts of town a large hole was being dug as she stood there. Big chunks of grass were being ripped up by a huge mechanical digging machine. It resembled a bulldozer but a bit more advanced. It moved quicker was less choppy and bulky; One of her little experiments for moments like this. One of her assistants brought in a chair and Oce sat down. They had been there all day and the previous night. She was not letting this one out of her sights.
"How much farther?" she asked one of the companies geologists on hand. He responded another 30 minutes or so. Oce nodded and drank from her bottle of water. She wanted a shower at that moment. She was covered in dust and dirt. One of the rare times she dressed in anything but her elegant wardrobe was when she was in the field. She wore black pants and a white tank top. They still cut a wonderful figure if a bit less fancy then usual. Her hair was pulled back in a bun over her shoulder and she had 2 long knives on either thigh. In her belt she held 4 smaller daggers. Of course around her neck was her locket. She played with it absentmindedly.
"I wonder what this item was doing here." She asked out loud not even realizing it... "And how did it get here for that matter." Her staff didn't say anything. They were use to her talking out loud to herself. Realizing she had some time she decided to call Xerxes.
"Hello Xerxes." She smiled at his stammering. It was rather cute. "It seems my travels didn't take me quite as far as I had expected. Care to join me for some... day time fun? With appropriate cover of course," There was a hint of playfulness in her voice.
"The rolling hills and this wonderful forest could use some company. I know I do."
The City Outskirts
Xerxes' Lexus snaked across the increasingly unpopulated regions outside the metropolis named Nachton. As Xerxes glanced in the rearview mirror he could catch glimpses of the lights and bustle of it all, the Meridian Tower a glass pillar in the sky. The summer was fully in swing and the forest was alive with the sounds of life.
Xerxes was no stranger to such environments; he had spent more than a few days sheltering himself in some cave and the nights travelling over natural grounds. The gravel road had started to become more narrow and winding as he began to ponder why exactly he was coming. Oce had said it would be an adventure, and he thought perhaps he could start proving his worth to the clan a bit. And to think, he was going to spend the night working on software at his house.
It all started from that damn woman, he thought, and chuckled.
~:-:~
(Earlier that evening...)
The tea kettle whistled demandingly as Xerxes rushed to finish the line of code he was writing. His fingers made soft tapping noises on the keyboard, a familiar tune in this house. Somewhere, distantly, classical music played and the lights were comfortably dim and yet pleasantly light. He pushed his chair away as he raced for the kitchen but took pause when his phone began to ring on his desk, its vibrate feature sending the device dancing across the clean glass of the desktop.
He glanced down at the digital display as he raced across the hardwood floors of his home to the kitchen. It was Oce, he noted with a smile, and he flipped open the phone to answer, "This is Asha," he said by force of habit, though a hello would have been just fine and so, he continued, almost stammering, "erm I mean, Hi."
Océane Émond
18 years ago
Xerxes Asha
18 years ago
He had agreed, of course; it was for that very reason he made his way further and further from the bright glow that was Nachton.
"Funny," he said to the empty seat beside him, "for a race that clings to the shadows of the night, we sure do make that night well lit."
He punched a couple buttons on his console and the small LCD screen changed it's standard display of comfort settings: temperature, volume and the like to that of a high-resolution computer generated map. His car, a simple white dot remained in the center and as he moved the perspective on the map changed always leaving what was ahead of him at the top of the screen. Another tap of his fingers changed the settings of the tracking system slightly, fixing the map in the more standard cardinally oriented method of mapping. Each had their uses but this suited his needs for the moment.
He returned his focus on the road ahead of him but, using his peripheral vision, keyed a command on the cell phone that lie in his lap. The screen glowed with a green beacon and a yellow pathway began to stretch between his current location and that of the one he had inputted in the system.
He glanced again briefly at the screen, smiled slightly with his approval of the speed of the mapping process; he had just finished the code for the system last week and was quite impressed with its functionality. The system pulled data from several sources including military, local law enforcement, civil services as well as a complicated ai that could determine undocumented obstructions, such as fallen logs or broken down vehicles. It also included a feature that would display properly marked vehicles, and, though untested at this point, should predict the route for up to a few blocks with no small amount of accuracy.
He put work behind him and slowed as he neared his obvious destination. Marked by a dozen or more vehicles, many pickups with equipment of all kinds packed in their beds, two or three large tents and ten times as many smaller ones. The area had several generator powered flood lamps to provide adequate light both day and night and the whole place, from Xerxes' trained eye, had been designed with security of the project in mind.
He found a parking spot that was well enough out of the way of the other vehicles to keep too much dust from marring the paint. His slowing car made cracks and pops as the tires rolled across the gravel and finally, the purring of his engine died as he turned the key in the ignition to off.
"Funny," he said to the empty seat beside him, "for a race that clings to the shadows of the night, we sure do make that night well lit."
He punched a couple buttons on his console and the small LCD screen changed it's standard display of comfort settings: temperature, volume and the like to that of a high-resolution computer generated map. His car, a simple white dot remained in the center and as he moved the perspective on the map changed always leaving what was ahead of him at the top of the screen. Another tap of his fingers changed the settings of the tracking system slightly, fixing the map in the more standard cardinally oriented method of mapping. Each had their uses but this suited his needs for the moment.
He returned his focus on the road ahead of him but, using his peripheral vision, keyed a command on the cell phone that lie in his lap. The screen glowed with a green beacon and a yellow pathway began to stretch between his current location and that of the one he had inputted in the system.
He glanced again briefly at the screen, smiled slightly with his approval of the speed of the mapping process; he had just finished the code for the system last week and was quite impressed with its functionality. The system pulled data from several sources including military, local law enforcement, civil services as well as a complicated ai that could determine undocumented obstructions, such as fallen logs or broken down vehicles. It also included a feature that would display properly marked vehicles, and, though untested at this point, should predict the route for up to a few blocks with no small amount of accuracy.
He put work behind him and slowed as he neared his obvious destination. Marked by a dozen or more vehicles, many pickups with equipment of all kinds packed in their beds, two or three large tents and ten times as many smaller ones. The area had several generator powered flood lamps to provide adequate light both day and night and the whole place, from Xerxes' trained eye, had been designed with security of the project in mind.
He found a parking spot that was well enough out of the way of the other vehicles to keep too much dust from marring the paint. His slowing car made cracks and pops as the tires rolled across the gravel and finally, the purring of his engine died as he turned the key in the ignition to off.
Xerxes Asha
18 years ago
He had agreed, of course; it was for that very reason he made his way further and further from the bright glow that was Nachton.
"Funny," he said to the empty seat beside him, "for a race that clings to the shadows of the night, we sure do make that night well lit."
He punched a couple buttons on his console and the small LCD screen changed it's standard display of comfort settings: temperature, volume and the like to that of a high-resolution computer generated map. His car, a simple white dot remained in the center and as he moved the perspective on the map changed always leaving what was ahead of him at the top of the screen. Another tap of his fingers changed the settings of the tracking system slightly, fixing the map in the more standard cardinally oriented method of mapping. Each had their uses but this suited his needs for the moment.
He returned his focus on the road ahead of him but, using his peripheral vision, keyed a command on the cell phone that lie in his lap. The screen glowed with a green beacon and a yellow pathway began to stretch between his current location and that of the one he had inputted in the system.
He glanced again briefly at the screen, smiled slightly with his approval of the speed of the mapping process; he had just finished the code for the system last week and was quite impressed with its functionality. The system pulled data from several sources including military, local law enforcement, civil services as well as a complicated ai that could determine undocumented obstructions, such as fallen logs or broken down vehicles. It also included a feature that would display properly marked vehicles, and, though untested at this point, should predict the route for up to a few blocks with no small amount of accuracy.
He put work behind him and slowed as he neared his obvious destination. Marked by a dozen or more vehicles, many pickups with equipment of all kinds packed in their beds, two or three large tents and ten times as many smaller ones. The area had several generator powered flood lamps to provide adequate light both day and night and the whole place, from Xerxes' trained eye, had been designed with security of the project in mind.
He found a parking spot that was well enough out of the way of the other vehicles to keep too much dust from marring the paint. His slowing car made cracks and pops as the tires rolled across the gravel and finally, the purring of his engine died as he turned the key in the ignition to off.
"Funny," he said to the empty seat beside him, "for a race that clings to the shadows of the night, we sure do make that night well lit."
He punched a couple buttons on his console and the small LCD screen changed it's standard display of comfort settings: temperature, volume and the like to that of a high-resolution computer generated map. His car, a simple white dot remained in the center and as he moved the perspective on the map changed always leaving what was ahead of him at the top of the screen. Another tap of his fingers changed the settings of the tracking system slightly, fixing the map in the more standard cardinally oriented method of mapping. Each had their uses but this suited his needs for the moment.
He returned his focus on the road ahead of him but, using his peripheral vision, keyed a command on the cell phone that lie in his lap. The screen glowed with a green beacon and a yellow pathway began to stretch between his current location and that of the one he had inputted in the system.
He glanced again briefly at the screen, smiled slightly with his approval of the speed of the mapping process; he had just finished the code for the system last week and was quite impressed with its functionality. The system pulled data from several sources including military, local law enforcement, civil services as well as a complicated ai that could determine undocumented obstructions, such as fallen logs or broken down vehicles. It also included a feature that would display properly marked vehicles, and, though untested at this point, should predict the route for up to a few blocks with no small amount of accuracy.
He put work behind him and slowed as he neared his obvious destination. Marked by a dozen or more vehicles, many pickups with equipment of all kinds packed in their beds, two or three large tents and ten times as many smaller ones. The area had several generator powered flood lamps to provide adequate light both day and night and the whole place, from Xerxes' trained eye, had been designed with security of the project in mind.
He found a parking spot that was well enough out of the way of the other vehicles to keep too much dust from marring the paint. His slowing car made cracks and pops as the tires rolled across the gravel and finally, the purring of his engine died as he turned the key in the ignition to off.
Xerxes Asha
18 years ago
As he made to open his door, all grins and excitement, his phone chirped at him urgently. He checked the text message and suddenly became somber and serious.
"God damn it," he muttered to himself as he returned his keys to the ignition and turned them impatiently. His car responded promptly and the engine roared as he reversed. Gravel and dust spat from the wheels as the Lexusarrowed towards Nachton.
His fingers flew across the keypad on his phone with practiced ease as he sent Oce an explanation
Sorry, my dear, important business just came up. I do hope you understand, I will explain it later. Don't have too much fun without me.
((OOC Xerxes out, sorry.))
"God damn it," he muttered to himself as he returned his keys to the ignition and turned them impatiently. His car responded promptly and the engine roared as he reversed. Gravel and dust spat from the wheels as the Lexusarrowed towards Nachton.
His fingers flew across the keypad on his phone with practiced ease as he sent Oce an explanation
Sorry, my dear, important business just came up. I do hope you understand, I will explain it later. Don't have too much fun without me.
((OOC Xerxes out, sorry.))