From our past, comes a unique source of power. Power all our own, special to each and every one of us. One only needs to dig far enough down to find it, then fight through that underworld and come back to the light above. Tired eyes and cramping hands worked to dig through around a dozen reports carefully put together and delivered in the search of this very thing.
Files in old-fashioned paper bound in manila folders cluttered the surface of the scratched walnut desk, competing with the touchscreen terminal where a short letter to a distant friend had been penned. The writer leaned back in his fine leather chair with fingers steepled, intent on checking his work, but he couldn't help but find his eye drawn to the bold-faced red letters across each of the folders surrounding him.
THE VAULT OF CONVERGENCE - Probably fake?
THE CONFLUENCE - Inaccessible. Not kidnapping a Caster.
THE FONT OF STARLIGHT - Can't find it.
These he gathered into a neat stack, his gloved hands working quickly to avoid the risk of flipping one open and poring over the contents which he had reviewed four, maybe five times already. He set them aside to his left and scooted them just out of reach, leaving only two remaining where an impatient mind could reach.
He turned his attention back to the screen and tapped away, writing out his signature and the closing line that he hoped would signal his true sincerity.
"Por sempre tuo nella pausa,"
Forever yours in the Break.
His friend would, hopefully, understand. Even after all these years. He hit send.
A soft knock at the door stole his attention, and he looked up from the file marked THE AETHER which drew his eye and beckoned the visitor inside. The thick wooden door opened, and a slender woman slinked into the stuffy dark of the office, her form flanked by two overfilled bookshelves that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. What little light there was caught her fine jewelry with wonderful sparkling patterns that shimmered as she stepped closer to his desk, and cast her freshly-dyed punk-rock pink hair with several shades of deep gloom.
"Lorenzo? The wine's getting warm and your food's getting cold. Come downstairs, I'm not letting you eat up here again." She said, gripping the edge of Lorenzo's desk with both hands and leaning over his screen.
But Lorenzo didn't move, didn't even react to her presence. He flipped through The Aether's file, reviewing the dense type of the printouts inside. Re-reading seemed to give him some kind of ephemeral reassurance. As if by running his studious eyes through these documents he makes the possibility of seizing it for himself real. The probability, absolute.
"Earth to Lorenzo, this is Roma calling, your wife wants to drink with her King."
That name never failed to curl the corner of his lip up into a smile. He shut the folder and put it down, finally giving the intruder the attention she demanded.
"Your King is working. There will be time to drink later, I promise Passerotta."
"You promised last time!" She plucked the file from his hands with two delicate fingers and set it on the pile of rejects, "And next thing I knew you took Pelican Black and flew all the way to that casino of yours."
"I had work to do, amore mio, and I can't do that work from home." His rebuttal was punctuated with the deliberately noisy recovery of The Aether file from the reject stack and placing it on its own to the right of his terminal.
"You work too much, rosso." There was a brief pause where the sentence should have continued. But she left it there. Instead giving just a coy wink and a twirl in lieu of continued insistence to join her. "Fine, but I'm drinking your Chianti!"
YOU ARE READING
Black Sector Blackjack
Science FictionKuria Saren is tired. Tired of drifting, tired of running, tired of playing second fiddle. At one of her lowest points, she receives an offer from her old employer: The enigmatic Office of Secret Intelligence. Technology powerful enough to anchor a...
