001.1 Chapter One - A Night at Jessica's

Richard drops the dog tag in Eli's hand and then follows Veronica downstairs. He's not stopping her from helping out downstairs but he sticks close to her and keeps an eye on her. Until Malachi makes sure Scarface isn't a threat, he wants to make sure she won't be in danger.

Jack, seeing his new potential source coming down to help the other patrons, quickly joins her with a smile to help.

Veronica looks briefly to Richard, "That was impressive, scary but impressive."
Then she looks to Jack, "Oh hi Jack, I didn't know you were here tonight too, did you catch my show ?" She smiled a bit.

Malachi heads downstairs. More security personnel are already there, these ones with gear. One bends the scarred man's arms around behind his back and fastens a heavy set of electronic manacles onto his wrists while another injects something from a syringe into the scarred man's neck. He nods to the guards as they push in a hovercart. Lining it up behind the scarred man, one guard holds the cart while the other two topple him back onto it as gently as possible. The guards adjust the controls on the cart and then begin to push the scarred man toward a back door.

"Easy as pie," Malachi says, turning toward the group and smiling wide. He spins in a slow circle, looking around the club at the customers, his hands up in the air to get everyone's attention. "Sorry for the disturbance, but everyone is okay, n'est pas? The threat is neutralized, and for being brave enough to stick around, you get to enjoy your next drink on the house!"

There is a flicker of applause and a few cheers from the crowd and most people return to their merrymaking. Several people are still helping the injured up, and one security guard is being taken through the same door as the scarred man on a stretcher.

"Ah hello miss Venorica, I didn't notice you where back." Jack quickly and naturally pretends their encounter was not planned. "Yes, yes. It was some show. I could listen to that divine voice for the entire night!". As he is exaggeratingly praising Verona's performance, his eyes follow the scary guy, Orlan Brennan was it?, being taken away, hoping to find out where he is being taken to "I need to get some time with that one before it's too late"

Once the scarred guy has been taken away, Richard relaxes his posture. He returns to the bar to finish the half of his drink that he still has left after Scarface made him spill the first half. He looks around to see if people are paying attention to him or if they have all returned to their own conversations. He also keeps his eyes on Eli, trying to make eye contact with him. If their eyes connect, Richard will nod at him to come over.

When he hears Jack's exaggerated praise for Veronica, he rolls his eyes. He doesn't think Jack is a threat to Veronica but he's certainly a creep.

Eli stands there watching as they wheel the brute out. As he holds the dogtag, subconsciously running his thumb along the metal tag, Eli finds himself repeating the name over and over. Brennan...Brennan...Bren suddenly as Eli's thumb catches a small jagged splinter on the dogtag, a memory suddenly flashes in Eli's mind.

Eli and Brennan are standing over several digital photographs on a table. Both are in standard military fatigues, and wearing full combat gear. As Eli points at various spots on the pictures, Brennan points at a couple and asks a question. "Are you sure Sarge, there's no civilians in these areas. This mission goes south and the possibility of innocent casualties will skyrocket." Eli looks over and simply clasp Brennan on the shoulder. "No worries big guy, the Intel is solid on this one. You stay on the machine gun and cover me. I'll get everyone in and out. It's a piece of cake....

As the memory fades away, Eli staggers from the impact it left. Catching himself on a table, Eli shakes his head trying to snap back to reality.

"Thank you Jack, one of the few things I got to do back in school that didn't involve computers was chorus. I am glad if it picked up your spirits. We need to hang out again, I know we are separated from the rest of the world here but we could talk about transhumanism again."

When Richard sees Eli's reaction, he immediately gets up from the counter he had been leaning on. He walks over to his old friend, drink still in hand, and asks: "Eli, you alright?"

"This guy?", Richard asks. "He did not seem like a gentle-as-a-lamb devout Christian to me. But it explains why he was pointing at you. Maybe I shouldn't have... mosquitoed him. I'm sorry, Eli. I thought he was going to hurt you or Veronica." After a short, barely noticeable break, he adds: "Or Will."

"Eli, he didn't seem like an old friend though. Not the way he was acting. I think you did the right thing Richard. More people could have been hurt if you didn't step in."

Will had remained upstairs during the altercation, and only now came down once everything had been neatly wrapped up by Richard and Malachi's men.

"Indeed, Richard. Well done." Will nods to Richard, then notices Jack.

"Hello, Jack." He is polite but remains distant from the two men, then turns to Veronica and Eli.

"He certainly didn't look like an old friend to me, Eli. But perhaps we could speak with him when the bug bites wear off." He glances sideways at Richard again. That was some trick. "If he was looking for you, there must have been a reason."

Jack looks distracted has he tries to look busy help others "I guess there is beauty in the world outside computers as well" he says with a very brief laugh, as he gestures to make it clear that he is referring to Veronica's most famous creation, the AWAKEN game everyone in the QZ is playing. "We sure should grab a drink sometime. Few people in this place care about these issue as you do. But I guess not everyone can be as skilled and knowledgable as you are. You can clearly see the benefits of moving forward, and you are right, it would be much better outside this place, where you could be part of it too."

Jack then moves closer to the others, having overheard Eli's recovered memories. "He does seem to have changed" he agrees with the others. "It could be that your memories are not complete, but it could also be that, he was there when you lost your memories and, the problem could be that maybe he didn't...". Jack looks back to where the Scarface was taken. "Will is right, we need to have a word with this... confused man... It could help Eli recover his memories" and of course, explain what the military was doing here! he continues in his mind. His eyes turn to Veronica as he asks no one in particular "You guys think Malachi could be convinced to let us in for a quick visit?"

"I assume Malachi will want to speak to the guy first before he lets us talk to him. We'll probably have to wait." Richard takes a deep breath. With a serious tone, he asks: "Eli, can I talk to you in private for a second?"

Huh..sure. Eli replies as he watches where Brennan is being carted off to.

Richard walks into a private corner in the VIP area with Eli. He looks around to make sure nobody is listening in and then, with lowered voice, explains: "You owe money to Ms. Parker and she told me to talk to you about it. You know my job. I'm the guy who does freaky shit to the people that cross her - and not the fun kind. I would never hurt you but we both will be in some serious trouble if we don't get this resolved. Do you have the money?"

"Jack could you imagine a whole city set up with the technology we have here at Jessica's it would be amazing !" Veronica smiled as she slipped into nerd mode talking holograms and hardlight.