020

--The Enclave--

“I’ll have a Caramel Macchiato, please, Dassah said, pulling out her card as she leaned into the counter of the coffee shop.

Grim’s large, satellite-like ears twitched behind the counter as he stared at her with an unsurprising degree of bored familiarity that questioned her presence before him, but such things no longer phased her.

“One Caramel Macchiato. Anything else, bottom feeder?” he repeated, his eyebrow twitching.

“Some sanity, if you have any of that to spare,” she grumbled, almost appreciating the bat man’s typical unwelcoming behavior in the current state of events.

“That kind of morning?”

“Mmm.”

“Five creds,” he said, sliding her card of the reader and leaning over the counter to hand it back. “Your friends coming around today? Am I prepping for an invasion?”

Dassah gave him a half grin. “No, but a friend of one of them is coming to meet me. Feel free to your regular, charmingly rude, self to him at any time.”

“Ahh,” Grim rolled his eyes. “It’s that sort of morning.”

She nodded and sat at the sidebar, watching him as he busied himself with his fancy coffee maker.

“Hey, Grim?” she went, toying with the loosened skin around her finger nails. The earar barista flicked up his dark eyes. “Why do people insist on ‘helping’ people who don’t ask for help?”

“Am I a therapist?” he grumbled as he set her coffee in front of her. “I got my own problems, ugly girl.”

“So what if I’m ugly,” she grumbled against and circled the rim of the cup with her finger. “I’m ugly. I don’t like people. And I’d rather be reading a book or playing a video game than have a social life. Is that so bad?”

“I’m not a bartender, either; I couldn’t care less about your sob stories and self image,” he snorted, then sighed and put his elbow on the counter. Looking at her flatly, he said, “If you can’t tell, I am not the biggest fan of people either. They are stupid, loud, smelly, ugly, and usually don’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer. Annoyingly, most of them are pretty good at something called ‘caring’, too. And when they care about things, they tend to want to ‘fix’ them. Obviously, even though you are this ugly, someone cares enough about you to think you need fixing. Silver linings.”

“You kind of suck at this cheering up thing. I could argue with at least half that if I wanted to.”

“Yeah. Well.”

Dassah burst out laughing and took a sip of her coffee. “Thanks,” she told him. He shot her a crooked smile before moving himself off over to the register where a new customer was waiting.

All things considered, it was pretty quiet there, for a Saturday morning. She hadn’t even needed to wait in line. Did something happen again?

There were a few groups of people and casual coffee drinkers who were reading books and working on their computers. Because of TheirWorld, she hadn’t been paying much attention to the news, but it also wasn’t like this place was in some kind of tourism district; most of the goers had to be locals. Still, she was curious.

“Did you scare all you customers away with that shotty customer service ability of yours?” she asked when Grim had finished with the customer.

He shrugged. “If I was trying harder to run this place into the ground, then I would say ‘absolutely’,” he told her, looking around. “Unfortunately, though, one thing has nothing to do with the other.”

Dassah winced. “More murders?”

“Three more bodies were found in Io,” he informed her, wiping his face with his hand. “Chief Landau may end up being the cause of the next body we find if things don’t get settled soon.”

“This mess can’t be good for public relations…” she said, sipping her drinking.

Grim shook his head. “No. And Sai’s already working so much damn overtime to make up for it,” he said. He scratched the back of his neck and sighed bitterly. “Why did I take this damn job…”

“‘Sai’?” Dassah questioned. “As is Corvex Sai, the Silver Hound? What’s that got to do with you?”

“Never mind,” he growled, his ears going flat against his head. “What hex do you live on, anyway? You don’t seem to be affected by this mess.”

“Bris.”

The earar looked her over, tilting his head. He opened his mouth to say something, but a customer at the register called him over with an, “Excuse me? Service?” that made Grim’s face twist unpleasantly.

She watched in amusement for a bit as Grim dealt with the customer who had obviously never been to the Perch before. The other customers in the ship who knew better were also risking looks and chuckling to one another as the watched the man almost wilt away from the earar man’s oppressive gale.

Opening her smartwatch holo-monitor and keyboard, she changed to doing a quick search about the state of Io.

The previous week saw several hex cities in chaos as authorities went on a manhunt for a suspected serial killer. Four bodies had been found then, and the police made a big deal about catching the criminal — or criminals — behind it. Obviously, it hadn’t gone too well.

Now, several dozen new headlines were coming up about police incompetence as more bodies were found. Indeed, Detective Corvex Said, the ‘Silver Hound’, seemed like he was being the sacrificial lamb of the agency's PR department, even though his Virtual Crimes Unit wasn’t supposed to have had a direct connection to the investigation.

Dassah looked over at Grim, then back down to her screen again. Grim had told her that three bodies had been found, but all the article coming up for her had left the number as vague or unspecified as they could, saying that the police had yet to make an official comment on the situation. Sucking on her lip, she looked up at the misanthropic earar again, his ears flat against his head and his wings tucked behind his arms as he yawned at the frustrated customer.

It couldn’t be… and I just told him what hex I really lived on... she thought to herself in a panic, then shook her head. While it probably wouldn’t have shocked anyone who didn’t know him that Grim would have killed someone, it hadn’t taken her long to realize that he was probably far too lazy to make a habit out of it. With three new bodies found, it would bring the total body count to 32 — not a small number.

Right?

But he was always standing and yawning and complaining about this not being his read job. If this wasn’t his real job, then what was?

Killing people?

Snorting to herself, she chuckled. Since when did the real world turn into TheirWorld, Dass? Thinking your coffee shop barista is a serial murderer out to get you... How arrogant can you be. Drink your coffee.

“Why is that guy so scary?” The customer that Grim had been dealing with up to that point came over and sat on the stool next to Dassah. She gulped her mouth of coffee down in mild shock as she looked at him. He was a fairly youthful looking valkyrian man with light brown hair and green mystriks freckling his cheeks in what looked like a random pattern.

“Sorry?” she went.

“That guy is… kinda… not very nice,” he said, looking at her with a worried expression. “How does he still have a job when he’s like that?”

“Ah-Ahh...,” she murmured, looking down at her coffee, then up at Grim — who was staring at her with an all-too-pleased sort of expression. Frowning, she fiddled with the coffee cup in her hands. “W-Well, I think it’s just his personality… Other customers don’t seem to mind…”

“I guess that’s true,” he said, and pushed his silver rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You’re Hadassah Graydon, right?” the man went, light blue eyes gazing at her nervously. “Stella’s friend? You look like your picture.”

She blinked at him several times before looking at Grim again, who was grinning as if to himself, but she had a sneaking suspicion that he was quite focused on their conversation.

“A-Ahh,” Dassah went, and turned her attention back to her coffee as she internally cursed the bat barista.

“She told you about me, didn’t she?” the new man asked, holding out his hand. “My name’s Jake.”