The Seed of Khepri - Rough Draft Edition

Chapter 5 - The Assignment

Daytime had been fully realized, as the blazing sun now was held high over Khepri City. Casting its magnificent rays down through every street, and dampening the neon glow of the omnipresent advertisements that lined them. The city hummed with the life of average people. Busying to work, or weaving between stores. Treating themselves out for a paid breakfast, or visiting friends when free time aligned. It was these hours of the early morning when everything was most abuzz. Everyone beneath a shared sun, as they searched for their places to settle for the day

The sun shined down most prominently, however, upon a spot far above the day's the humming rush. Heat blazing through the huge, slanted windows that marked the apex of a rising spire; built as one of many vertical extensions atop the pyramidion structure that marked the center of the city. It was a point amongst the highest - if not being the highest - in Khepri where one could look down over the busy lives of everyone below. Sightlines only blocked when looking straight down, by the colossal building that this place was extended from.

Thanks to no obstructions being this high up, it wasn't necessary to light the room with anything other than natural glow. Though 'room' might have been too diminutive of a description. Though this high aloft place was open planned, with the only walls being those surrounding its perimeter and a supporting structure within the center, it was sizeable and versatile. Different areas were clearly mapped out for different purposes. One area had a long, transparent table in an oval shape. Adorned with a myriad of unique, plaque chairs that waited in anticipation of a meeting. Another portion sported a small, makeshift kitchen. Not necessarily for long term living, but ideal to make a drink, get a snack, warm something up... What was more designed for the sake of living was a more casual spot. A small quality of life addition to the formal space, that featured a set of luxurious sofas. All faced towards the only solid, non-glass wall of the structure's exterior, where a projector was in place to display an oversized screen on command.

In spite of all this decor and space, there was only one, more simplistic spot being used at the current moment. A bulky desk, basked in the rays of the sun that immediately reached it through the flanking windows. The piece of furniture, forming the head of the 'room', was distinctly of old world design. And although it would've been one expensive buy back during those times, it was now wholly invaluable; built from a hardy wood, subtle different shades of brown intermixed like a strong but milky coffee, that had survived as one of the few pieces of its kind to the modern day. Even if only through intensive care, much prestige, and various forms of preservation techniques.

One man, somewhere in his early to mid-thirties, sat behind the solar baked desk. His skin was well tanned; surely in part to extended stays in this spot, but also from his Egyptian lineage. It was this beige hue to his skin that made it somewhat difficult, at first, to notice the dull gold coloration of a cybernetic under and around his right eye. The sculpted, smooth lines of metal not so subtlety mimicking the Eye of Horus. Provided his eyebrow, which remained natural and well groomed, was included within the design. Of course, this wasn't the only alteration made to his body. Once someone noticed that detailing on his face, clearly done in no small part for the attractive symbolism, it became much easier to notice more of that same, almost copper colored markings of geometry. To grafted rings around his fingers that were flush in height with his skin, or long stretches that looked like circuit boards over his bare arms and covered legs. These were the markings unique to only the best, most advanced kinds of augmentations and cybernetics; both compact enough that most of it could be easily concealed beneath the skin, whilst also being cosmetically appealing for those who wished to express their technological additives.

Like tattoos, only each with a tangible function.

The other occupant of the room was significantly less subtle with her choices of body modification. For one, the few places where those marks of high value augments showed up where instead an eye catching platinum. A much more obvious decal over her similarly shaded skin. Polished to the point of shining with just the slightest add of light, never mind the intensity of such a close sun. This was not it, however, as her left hand had undergone an even more significant transmogrification. Two fingers, her index and middle, serving as the supports for a pair of long, fang-like needles that reached out past the length of the already long nails on the rest of her fingers. The back of that same hand had entirely been modified too, where it look as if several slots for something cylindrical could be slotted, although they currently weren't. These two alterations evidently intertwined with their purposes, and made of the same shining platinum. This time intermixed by a similarly pristine gold. And as if these changes weren't enough, her eyes served as perhaps the most difficult to ignore change. Having gone a step beyond contacts to make more irreversible changes, that would be impossible to miss when in conversation. Both her sclera and iris an abyssal black, whilst her pupil presented as a permanently glowing point of gold. Like a lone, lavish island floating in a night sea.