Human Nature (Onas+Crew)

[Clairabella Corinth]

Athena at docking port 92, Persephone; April 20th 2523

Clairabella had been to the Athena once before since she met Onas. She had gotten to know the man a little sence that night at the ring. He had a good crew of people and she had learned a bit about them all. Today's meeting with them would be a little different she had been debating on a job and how to pull it off. It actually wasn't that hard but it would take more then here and a ship to help out with it.

Simply put it was a cargo transportation mission. They would go meet with a contact, pick up supplies there and transport them to another location. Discression was needed though which told her the cargo was either illegal or highly taxed to ship by the Alliance. She had tried to avoid smuggling as that was what her parents had done and that was part of why she left but some time the price was just to tempting and she had to take the chance.

As she approched docking port 92 where the Athena was stationed she took a moment to look the ship over. Clairabella hadn't taken the time to look at it before but it sure seemed to be one nice looking ship. Onas' crew had done a good job getting this ship in order. After several minutes of walking around the out side she decided to enter the ship. She could hear music off in the distance inside the ship. Clair walked in to the cargo bay "Hello? Onas you here?" She said as she made her way up the stairs to the rest of the ship.

The music got louder every step. "Onas?" She continued to walk as she spoke. Finally she got up to the hallway to the crew quarters and the music was blasting and Onas was their Dancking around the area in just his towel. Clair bounced back out of surprise. He was singing along ot the music, she held her laughing back for a moment but couldn't keep it in check for ever. "Looking good Onas. So is this what you do on the second date now?" She said with a laugh.

[Onas Knox]

Onas woke up feeling like a million platnium. Jax had left him a message saying that the whole crew would be out for the morning and for once, he had the whole ship to himself. He synced his personal data pad with the ships PA system, and cranked up his favorite music. Doing a little cleaning around the Athena, he mosied about just taking it easy. After a while, he climbed into the shower and had a long hot bathe. His wounds were healing nicely thanks to some ointments and shots that Nick had come across. They wouldn't do much for his ribs, but his arm, lips, eye and leg were much improved. After his shower, Onas wrapped his towel around his waist, and bypassed his room, heading for the mess area. He rummaged through the food Jax brought with him, and found fresh tomato's and lettuce that had been foolishly left where he could find them.

His music was the dance style, with the fast, heavy bass line, and the singers going on about rediculas drinking and sexy women. He didn't listen to it often, and never danced in public. Onas was your typical white guy when it came to such as this, but it was a guilty pleasure. He found some sterilised wheat bread, some steak flavored protien and several containers of spice condiments. As he gathered the makings of a sandwich that would make Sam Sakuluc proud, Onas danced to the beat of the music. He cut the wheat rise in half, shaking his arm like the guy in the video, and lifted the lettuce and slowly lowered it boucing to the beat. He dropped the tomatoe slices on, and the protien, and then started pouring on the extras.

He didn't know he had attained an audiance when he started singing into the bottle, but it wasn't long at all before he nearly jumped out of his skin as Bella busted out laughing so hard that he heard her over the music. He dropped the bottle and wheeled around, then leaned back against the counter holding his chest, and turned beat red. At least, his face felt like a power plant. He reached over to his pad, and paused the music. He stood there with nothing between himself and God but a towel, and reluctantly drummed up, "I... uh.. Ta dou tu la shi." He laughed in spite of himself, and added, "Everyone dances around in a towel on the second date! This is Persephone after all." He bounced his shoulders and threw his arms up adding, "You know you wanta' join in, woo woo!"

Not much point in playing the always serious criminal role when you were just busted singing along to the female lead after all. But to be fair, it was a catchy song...

[Clairabella Corinth]

Clair just laughed at his attempts to come up with a story to use to cover his actions. She knew it was a line but it wasn't intended to really cover it all up. "I would have never guessed, I guess things are quite a bit different out here as opposed to out on the rim." She joked back with Onas as she watched him blush as she looked on.

She had come with business for him but this was entertaining. "Maybe I'll have to introduce this to the people back home. I bet it will catch right on don't you think." She couldn't help but poke fun with him a little bit. She walked over to where he had been making himself a sandwich and grabbed a knife to cut it in half.

"Back on New Canaan it is sutomary for the host to offer half his meal to a friend that has come to offer a business deal you know." She told him as she smiled and picked up the half of the sandwich she cut off. She took a bite then pulled a small stack of papers from her pocket, and unfolded them for him to look at.

The first few pages were docking permits for Santo and back on Persephone then the next was the important one. "I got a job, but I need a few hands to help and a ship for it." Her finger ran down the page to a series of numbers, the pay for the job. 19,000 platinum. "It is a simple transport misson that I thinkw e can handle but it will take some discression." She hadn't really though about what they would be carrying but that didn't matter.

She figured it would take a few thousand to pay for the Athena's cost then the rest would be hers, his and maybe a few others of Onas' crew. If there were four of them they could split 16,000 between them for four thouasnad platinum each. The rest would go to the cost of the ship. For the short distance that Santo and Persephone were away from each other this time of year it was good pay. She tapped her finger on the page as she took another bite. "So what do you think?"

[Onas Knox]

"Oh I think it's catchy whever you are," Onas quiped. Then as she took half his musical sandwich, and added her bit about why she was due, he lifted himself to the counter, adjusted his towel and took the papers. Everyone here seemed to use hard copies. He would have to school her on the dangers of physical paper. It was a sloppy rookie mistake. But, Claira was newer to this game, and very young. 'And', Onas thought, 'Bringing me work.'

The docking permits were in order, made by a third party. The coding of the papers was typical of Persephone, and not very hard to decipher. They would be making pickup in a city, or a villiage, on Santo called Tifton. The contact's name was Jessup, and they would meet at a bar, or pub, depending on your encoding style, this could have gone either way, called Havaton's. Onas smiled, sounded like O'Hanrahan's Pub. Anyway, the package would be around four hundred pounds, then simply enough, they would return it here to a contact, codename Leafy. Leafy was Thomas Voyer, Onas knew him, he worked for Minerva. So the plesantries aside, Clairabella was playing with mighty big fish for such a small shark. The payout was uncommonly high, 19,000 platinum. In his experiance, when the price was that high for something that small, something somewhere was rediculasly alufe.

He read, as she laid out her other points, and concluded with, "So what do you think?"

"I... think," Onas was a little speechless, "Bella, you took the money already, the front? Let me ask that a different way. How did you get this job, who was your contact?"

Onas liked Claira, he wanted to help her. But this was streching his bounderies a bit. There were friends looking to get by, and then there were young pretty girls looking to get their foot in the door. Thomas was using her. The code was very specific about the Alliance not getting wind of this. She was being played, she just didn't know it yet. He could only hope that she hadn't gotten a front yet, and was still only in negotiations. Not at all likely since he was physically holding port documants, but hey, one could hope. Right?

[Clairabella Corinth]

Clairabella was excited as Onas went through the document. It seemed she had him on the line for the job already. That was easier then she had expected, but then his mood seemed to change as he read on.

There was talk about front money. It was a payment half before, half on arrival no big deal. She had done transports before out on the rim and that was the same way it worked out there as well. There was a hell of a good price on this one, but still. She knew it was shady, as they didn't want the alliance to know about it, but that was explained to her as well. Some goods have heavy tarrifs on them, so the Alliance can control what goes where. This was a way for one businessman to make a living and Clair would profit from it as well.

"Of course I took it, I wasn't going to do this with the possibility of no pay out. You know it is common for people to get someone to transport goods with out paying in the end, or at least try." At least that is what they told her, this was a binding agreemant and a payment of good faith on the cargo. She saw it as fair.

As far as her contact, he prefered to remain nameless. It was a deal being made under the Alliance's nose, and he didn't want it coming back on him. She didn't like that part, but she'd agreed with that and she'd had only given them her first name as well. "Well, I am not sure what his name was really. Just told me where to meet back at. And a few seperate days to find him at that spot."

She was starting to see that this might be a bit more shady than she had thought. She looked over the papers again for what they said, maybe she could go back and return the money and be done with this business. "Maybe I can just return the money and say I couldn't come up with the ship."

[Onas Knox]

Onas sighed as she explained that she had deffinantly taken the front. If Sid were here, he would hand it back to her and tell her good luck. Onas would do the same. She heard his sigh and obviously took note. She took the papers back, and thought out loud, her mind on her sleeve. She was comfortable around Onas. Here he was in a towel, and after some jokes, and such, she was more concentrated on the potential problems than what was in front of her. Maybe Claira would catch on after this, if the contact is annonomas, you walk away. Every time. She started thinking from the other end of the rainbow. If you were doing this job, and you wanted it to fall on someone else if the job went south, you wouldn't give them anywhere to point a finger. In the industry, this was known as a "Joker's Wild." She was Thomas' patsy. Onas might pay him a visit.

Onas thought about it while she took the papers back, and started figuring this whole issue out on her own. He did feel a connection to her. When Sid had taken him on... hell, not just him. Just about every child Sid took on, was exactly like her. Expendible. Hopeless. In over their heads. Onas certinaly had been. So had Nick, Vallan, Big T, Andre, Silla, Tumbler, Jax, Alice and pretty much the entire crew. This was how Sid found people he could trust because they could trust him. He was the only one who never let them down. He never turned his back on them, never gave them up. He certainly never turned a willing soul away. If they had talent, and they showed moxy, they were in. Bella had the talent, and she certainly had gumption. Onas decided at length, that he would follow his 'father's example.'

As he summed up that he would help her, Bella finnaly turned the dark room's lights on, "Maybe I can just return the money and say I couldn't come up with a ship."

"No. You can't back out of this deal now, you already took the money. That's rule number two. Once money changes hands, it's binding." He let that stew with her a second, and then added, lighting a cigarette and ignoring his sandwich, "You never... Never, take a job from an anonomas contact. It's called a 'Joker's Wild,' heard of it? Your the scapegoat. If this goes south, the Alliance hits you as a dead end. They know that, because you don't know anything. I'm gonna fill in a few blanks for you here, but Bella. After this, you turn these jobs down. Rule number one, if it sounds to good to be true..." He let her finish.

"Ok, so we are gonna run a little class today. I'm gonna call it, 'Play it smart.' And your going to listen, or you wont need to worry about gettin your name out there, cause you'll just be a number in a cell," Onas said it exactly as Sidney had said it to him, so many years ago. For a second, he saw a short thin brown haired drop out, who hated his parents, and was niave enough to think he could handle it own his own. If Sid hadn't done this same thing for Onas years ago, who knows where he'd be buried today?

"Your contact works for Minerva, his name is Thomas Voyer. He's a punk. A low life who likes to wear a suit, and tucks his piece where everyone can see it cause he thinks it looks tuff. Ringing any bells?" She could problably describe the man in detail, but she didn't have to, Onas saw through his la shi first thing. He'd had to be rather firm with Voyer about not talking to him again. He went on, "But his boss, the queen of this planet, IS the real deal. And she wouldn't hesitate to drop you off a cliff. Don't worry, it's a milk run for us. We go to this place, pick up the goods, and make the delivery. You will collect your share, because I'm coming along for the ride, and Voyer wont cross me. Minerva likes 'Trigger' better than him. An Trigg likes me better than him. And I got more muscle." That last part may not have been true, but Claira looked a little pale, and Onas wanted to give her a little light at the end of the tunnel. One thing that was true. Onas didn't like Voyer, and he'd been waiting for a reason to beat the punk into next year. Now he had one. And he had Jax. And Jax had a talent for this sort of thing.

"One more thing, from here on in, your on my payroll. You understand," He said this with suplimental meaning, his crew couldn't know it was really her show. If the package was something really bad, which come on, it was, then they would all say to just dump it in her lap. "When the jobs done, if you still have the stomach for this, I'll show you the ropes. If not, we should find you a nice ship to tour the galaxy on, where you can have a commander that will treat you just a little better. But I do think your resourceful enough. Hell, you might just make a name for yourself yet. For now though, lets just get the job done." He finished and put his cigarette out, it was gone anyway, nothing more but the filter. He picked up his half of the sandwich and took a big bite. His stomach was churning a little, but he wanted to show her some confidence.

Was this what Sid went through every time?

[Clairabella Corinth]

Clair began to turn white as Onas explained everything to her. After a moment she set the sandwich down on the counter. She had lost her appatite at the thought of what she got herself in to. She wasn't really a criminal, in fact she actually thought of herself as just the opposite of that. Sure there were things she had learned to do that could be considered criminal but he intentions were honest and she had left home to avoid being a criminal like her parents.

She didn't have a problem with that life style Her family were all that way, and so was Onas. She had taken the mission because she felt like itwas doing the right thing not just commiting a criminal act. She could convince herself that was alright, but this, this was different. Minerva was a big time crime boss, Persephones biggest by what Onas was saying. She listened as Onas Continued. "I.. yeah ok." She said agreeing with him.

He continued, not harshly, but straight to the point about it. She would be on his pay roll now. She nodded her head agreeing with everything. "Thank you Onas.. I.. I.." She paused a moment as she stood up. "I.. O'm going to be sick." She said as she bolted out of the room to find the rest rooms on the ship.

Onas could hear her heeving from in the galley of the ship, and when he got in to the restroom behind her, he found her doulbed over the toilet. "I'm sorry Onas." She said as she hung her head waiting to see if she was done.

[Onas Knox]

Onas put the sandwich down after Bella took off, presumably to the head. He leaned his head against the counter, "Yep," he said to no one, "That was my first reaction too..."

It had been, when Sid put him in as a boy, he'd been younger than Bella. Funny how parallel their experiances ran. He took a towel off the counter, stuck a smoke in his ear, and walked slowly to the bathroom. He leaned against the doorframe when she finished. Onas didn't like people to look at him when he was at that point, he'd do her the same honor.

"Here," he offered, not sadly, not poking fun, he just offered. After a moment, he took out his lighter, and took the cigarette, lighting it. He puffed it while the lighter was still on the end, causing a flame to flare off it as he snapped the zippo closed. Onas cradled the relic for a moment, then tucked it in the waistline of the towel, and turned his head to Claira.

"I'm sorry Onas" she said into the bowl.

He took a toke, and widened his eyes a little, not much, but how one does, when they have something to say, but then don't. "You got nothin to be sorry bout, you ain't the first one who had the wool pulled over their eyes. How'd you think Minerva got where she was," He gave her a minute, then asked, "What's the worst part of it for you?"

It was an honest question. You might say that he could relate, and he wanted to know what her plan was before he commited more bodies to this. His crew would get paid, and so would Claira. But she had to do her part. All the same, he just wanted to know, for personal reasons.

[Clairabella Corinth]

Clairabella was a bit embarrassed at her current state. She couldn't believe she reacted this way, so much for being tough. She was glad he wasn't making an issue of it really. It was bad enough that she was where she was and that she had made the choice she did with out thinking on it. If he had been upset as well then she wouldn't know what to do.

She took the towel and listened as he spoke, though she didn't lift her head up she wasn't ready to look him in the eyes just yet. She felt horrible about it all. "I... I feel like I have created trouble for you and your crew by doing this, and yet you say you will help. I.. I'm not sure what I was thinking. This isn't who I am." She could have gone on forever but she had to hold herself back from breaking down at this exact moment.

She wiped her face with the towel and stood up. She kept her back facing Onas for a moment longer while she took a few deep breaths. then turned to face him. "I understand if you don't want to take the risk. I'll find a way to deal with this either way, but don't feel like you are forced in to this alright." She told him. The last thing she wanted was to force his hand and put him in hot water too.

[Onas Knox]

Onas appreciated her courtosy, but it wasn't right to leave her out on a limb like this. He'd already made up his mind before she even started, he let her finish though. It's important that anyone who has something on her chest can get it out. Then they can leave it behind them, Onas had things on his chest, regrets, burdens, he'd never said it when he had the chance, now that opertunity was gone forever, and he had no one left to confess too. Bad memories, he left them in the past.

"No Bella, we do this together. My crew is the best, everyone problebly thinks such about their crew, but mine is the best I know. Together," he held out his hand to her, to lead her back to the kitchen, "we do this together." He paused a moment, after she passed, and thought it was about time to get some clothes on, "You go eat your sandwich, and don't do this to yourself. I'm gonna throw on more than a towel, and we'll get it sorted."

As he went to his room and changed, Onas thought about Sidney and Alice. He treated her like a daughter. Not like his ties to the rest of the crew, like it was personal. It had actualy caused some problems internally. though he'd never told her, Onas and Sid actually fought over this in a heated argument. It ended when Onas demanded that she be transfered off Sidney's crew, and Sidney nearly broke Onas' jaw. He had this massive soft spot for Alice, and it showed. Onas could feel his trouble today, you see an opertunity to do one good deed, and it made you feel like you shed some of the bad. Claira wouldn't know it, but Onas would benifit from this more than she would. Even without the money.

Onas was dressed like any other day when he got back to the kitchen, and as he walked in, he heard Nick returning, talking to someone. Oj lamented to himself that it had been a good time to put clothes on after all, because that would have been awkward...

[Jackson Grimm]

Jackson was discuesing the then turn of events with Nick as they headed towards the Athena.

"Can you belive this la shi man, nine months on this palnet and we got made. And we don't even know by who all we got it a name." Nick said as they walked aborad the ship

"I don't know how she found out about us, nor do i know anything about her, but rest assured all of that is going to change as soon as i can get to my comp." Jackson said sounding a little irratated.

"And here I was thinking that we had done a good job keeping our heads down, and our collective nose's clean" Nick mulled out loud half to himself. Jackson and Nick rounded the corner still oplenly disscusing the info that Chuck Talnfor had passed there way. When Nick spotted Onas and more importanly Bella, droping it all together and giving the and signal to Jax to do the same. They made there pressence know with plesantires.
"Bella," Jackson said with a little suprise in his voice "nice to see you again, on our ship?'' he concluded while giving a puzzled look to Onas.

"Onas, can I brrow you for a minute, we kinda got issue" Jax said as he walked close to Onas's shoulder facing away from Bella and speaking in a low voice.

[Clairabella Corinth]

Clairabella smiled at Jax as he came and joined them she was trying her best to look like everything was fine. It was fine after all, Onas had told her so and she had to believe it. "Hello Jax, good to see you again." She told him as she took a deep breath.

Jax had seemed a bit surprised to see her there a bit like she might be unwelcome to the ship. She didn't worry about it though it would be strange seeing someone you barely knew in what you considered your home. What she did notices though was that he wispered to Onas about soemthing. "I'll just go grab that sandwich and meet you in the Galley when you are ready Onas." She told them then walked to grab her food. She had no intentions of eating it right now really but she wanted to be out of the way if she could manage it.

[Onas Knox]

Onas nodded as his crewmates came into the ship. Jax came right to him, "Onas, can I borrow you for a minute, we kinda got an issue." Onas nodded, and was fixing to excuse himself, when Bella showed her intuition. She couldn't have heard Jax, but she reponded to what she saw, "I'll just go grab that sandwich and meet you in the galley when you are ready Onas," she said and dismissed herself. Nick passed her on the way in, and motioned Onas the the bridge. Once they were there, he leaned against the pilots consel, and waited for the issue, lighting a cigarette.

"There's no way to say this without pissin in your grits, so here's how it is. We got rolled over, three nights ago, at the 'Bout." Nick told him, his tone still hushed and looking very put out.

Onas kept his voice down, but he still paced the bridge twice muttering, "Ni you bei ta ma de, shui gen wo kaiwanxiao ma? Xiao quan mieyou yitian de jiaqi," he finished with clenched teeth.

Nick was either over that part already, or just calmer as he only added, "Yep. That was my first reaction."

"Did you get a name," Onas asked quitly, angrily, and towards Nick, his eye's narrow and dark.

"Kitty. That's all we got." Nick answered.

Onas took a deep breath with his eyes closed. This day just kept getting better and better. He opened his eyes, and focused them on Jax, "Get to work on that, scour the cortex," then to Nick he added, "Talk to Jedidia, get me something else." He finished and walked to the door, then turned back to them and added with his finger pointed to them collectively, "And find out exactly what was said."

Onas went to check on Claira, get a time for their departure. Whatever this was about, it could only delay his first problem for a short time. 'But rest asure,' he thought, 'You'll get yours whoever you are... kitty'

[Jackson Grimm]

With the orders being handed down, Jackson got right to work. Nick left the bridge to hit the streets, to see what stones could be turned over. Jax had set his gear up at the navigation console the morning after he'd arrived on Persephone. Jackson had installed three aditional screens along with the tweenty odd moniters already on the bridge. His main screen tapped into the Athena's navigation system, and the other two were prodominantly for access to the cortex. He could still link to any other system or functions of the dutchess, but the true purpose was for data decription and retrieval.

When trying to find somebody on the cortex, you start out by just searching their name and location. In Jackson's case, it was Kitty and Persephone. As he figured, that came up blank, next he began to set up a daisy chain. Which is a process of gaining entry to one network and then accessing a follow up network, from that network, you access yet another network, and so on and so forth. The idea is to keep a CSET from following you back to your orginal pirate signal. CSET being a cortex security engineering team. From this point Jackson began to hit every known database that might have information on his target. Sitting back in his chair, letting the deep magic take effect, Jax pulled out a cigar stub, stuck it in his mouth and chewed on it. This was a routine he'd developed while working at his computer.

Coming up empty on all local networks, Jackson realised he would have cast a broader net. Locating the few trap doors that he had placed in the Alliance system several years back, Jax noticed a black hat hacker had set up a snake code thinking that it would keep him locked out. But using a simple brute force method, he was able to lope the snakes head off. Jax loved running over low level hackers who thought they were regou shi, hence the term, black hat hacker. Or more commonly known as newbs. Everybody was trying to crack the cortex these days. Jax put his cigar down, cracked his knuckles and streched his hands over the keyboard. With keystrokes of a seasoned veteran, Jax hit every police, law enforcement, military, all the way up to the Alliance government itself.

Hours later, cramped hands, and eyes suffering from rasterburn, Jackson pushed himself away from the computer, deciding that if she did exsist, she was either damn good at covering her tracks, or she simply hadn't been caught yet. Both were improbable, because if your in this buisness, you will eventually get snagged by the system. Leaning back over his keyboard, Jax initiated his last logic bomb, and severed his connection. Picking his unlit cigar up, he set out to find Onas.

Onas was in the galley with Bella, Jax caught his eye and motioned him back to the bridge. "Well I threw everything I had at it boss, but I came back empty handed. Let's hope Nick has something more concreate." Jax sat down, rubbing his hand over his shaven head in obvious frustration. "Unless we've just been given bad intel, this 'Kitty' just doesn't exsist. She's not on the SPI, the MUD, any of the LANs, hell OJ, this broad ain't even on the DNS."

Pulling out a standard lighter, Jax was so agitated the he actualy lit his cigar, and took several large puffs from it, letting the thick blue smoke hang in the air between them. Looking back up at Onas, "This chicks either twelve, or a ghost. I mean come on OJ, if your in this buisness long enough, yur gonna get caught. 'Specially in the early years, when ya just don't know any better."

Nick came back on the bridge as Jackson finished his point.


(((OOC hope no one minds, but I am getting my brother to help me with fleshing out my posts till I can get better at this)))

[Onas Knox]

Onas checked in with Bella, and sat with her for a while to raise her spirits. Jax and Nick went to work, and for now, it was a waiting game. He decided that they would deal with this 'Kitty' once they were through with the current job. Oj sat smoking cigarettes, and instructing Claira on the basics of the underworld. How to pick your jobs, how to pick your areas, how to know when you were getting to big for your britches. At length, Jax came back first, and nodded him up front. Once they were back on the bridge, Jax began to explain that the leak may not even exsist. He had compelling points. If it were any other man, Onas would insist that he run the search again, but Jax was on Onas' crew long enough to know. You do it right the first time. Still, if Nick came back empty handed, he'd go through it again anyway, just to be sure. Tipoffs like these were hardley ever compleate yanmu.

"Those are a lotta big words for me Jax, give it to me straight, is the leak real or not?" Onas asked plainly.

Jax thought she could be a ghost, and while that certainly wasn't unprecidented, it didn't bode well for his crew. Better that she didn't exsist. If she was good enough to evade the cortex compleatly, then she was good enough to gather plenty of useable intel. He hoped it was just paranoia.

Nick came up as they wrapped up the briefing, and tossed his hat down on the console, then remained standing. Both Onas and Jax had seen that look before, and Oj's heart sank before he ever heard the first word. "I got several leads. All local, and all spotty. But I got the full picture put together now, you Onas will especially not like this."

Onas dropped his cigarette to the floor and smashed it underfoot, "Don't give me the speech, just tell me what you found."

Nick leaned against the console and laid it out, "So Kitty is really Primrose Artemis Evony, alson known under a second alias, 'The Queen of Hearts."

"Really," Onas interjected. That was a new one.

"Yeah, I know. Right? Get this, she works for Minerva, not by choice if I'm puttin this together right. This is where it got spitefull. She has a slew of different looks she throws over, but she is young, less than tweenty. Kitty is suposedly thin, white, has a tattoo on her wrist, couldn't get which, and one defining characteristic. Dark eye shadow, heavy and broad. Every discription I got had that tail."

Onas swore in four languages. The waitress from the bout met that description. "The lan fu from the Bout! I knew it! I gaisi de gaisi knew it!"

"Oh theres more. She wasn't there by chance, she's on loan to the Vender. He had to have put her on us. You think this whole thing is his way of tellin us were still in his pocket," Nick asked.

"I don't give a good gorram what he thinks. I'll deal with the old man... What else'd you turn up," Onas pushed.

"Wasn't much else out there, like she was a ghost, I mean, almost no one had heard more about her than Kitty. Most of what I got was hearsay, other than coincidin descriptions, all I kept hearin was that she was ruthless. Till Colie was the only guy who had an address, said he heard she kicked it over in gravel town. An we can't go there, so if your plannin our usual run, we gonna have to take her outside the Bout, or somewhere inbetween. If you wanna bet it on what Till said. You know how he can be." Nick said, finnaly sitting down, "Your call, I'm free tonight."

"No, we table this for now, we gotta job. After though, then we take her. You still got the chick's info, the one that has the attic," Onas asked, breezing right past the job.

"Yeah of course. But lets go back a second, we got a what," Nick asked.

"We got a job."

"When did you get that?"

"This mornin, after you left. You ain't the only one with contacts here," Onas lamented, standing up to leave.

"Ok," Nick started, eyeing Jax for a second, then adding, "We goin to do it now?"

"Yeah, and were takin Bella along, gonna test her wings out a lil. Might be takin her on. Come on, I'll breif everybody in the galley. Is Alice here?"