//File 0.1 - Clarice//

The Languid Lotus Dungeon was accessed via an exclusive private entrance in back lane of the clubbing street of Lan Kwai Fong. Three flights down the plush velvet staircase opened into a cavernous chamber, an opulently refurbished storm culvert, pumped feathercore beats, air laced with narcotic synthspray, bodies writhing to the music. Through one of the side arched doors private rooms branched.

In one of these rooms sat Miss Heather, bespectacled, on a pile of books. The books themselves, thick bound volumes, were themselves stacked on her submissive client, a portly salt-and-pepper haired man, bound in leather, gagged and blindfolded. A slow guttural moan was all one could hear from him, whether from pleasure or pain one could not tell. Miss Heather paid no heed to him; a call had just come through her commlink. It was Ancient Mai.

What do you do?

This is the Mistress of the library, you may speak in a quiet tone. Missy closes her book and places it on her submissive client. With a flick of her wrist, her riding crop extends to full length. Absentminded she tabs the end of the crop on the client's buttocks while she listens to Ancient Mai.

"Love trouble coming your way Missy!" Mai's localised Cityspeak accent came through loud and clear on Clarice's commlink. "Man say he's your ex-boyfriend, Janus his name. Come to Ancient Mai's parlour. Say he looking for you. He not happy man." This was a puzzling revelation, given that Clarice had no partners, significant others nor private clients by that name, as far as she could recall. "Saw your holopic and name of club Languid Lotus. He going your way now. Mai warn you first!"

Missy steps out a second and calls for another girl. Jasmin! Please take the table out and give it a polish. Missy then light some incense for air and prepare her self for the summoning. She wants an invisible surprise if her uninvited guest needs a hard lesson.
A small vortex appears in front of her. Hide and be ready to protect me if my guest is unplessent.

With a spirit guardian in place, Missy heads to another room. This is decked as a Victorian parlor, where she prepares tea for her guest.

Clarice didn't have long to wait. While the parlour room was well insulated from the throbbing music of the lounge outside and above, she could almost swear that she could hear this Janus' arrival and approach. A sense of urgency seemed to emanate from outside the door, and with no prior knock, the handle turned and the door swung open. A man stepped in through the threshhold, his facial expression showed anger, but there was something else behind his eyes. "Clarice! It's me, Janus!" The bewildering thing about this person was that he was the splitting image of Shanto, an old lover! Yet he had introduced himself by a different name, and his voice and physical mannerisms were nothing like her ex-boyfriend's.

Would you care for some tea? Missy is sitting behind a table with fine china tea-ware. She turns the teapot so the handle is pointing towards "Janus". I like taking my tea in here. It's a quiet oasis of civility from a bygone era. Please sit with a handwave she indicates an empty chair.
You do remind me of an acquaintance from New-Toykio, have you ever been to the city? Missy is in control, it is important for her to control the situation. She is using several psychological tricks to keep him off balance. Mostly he barged in expecting someone to submit or face him with equal aggression. She is facing him with something that does not match aggression: Calm and civility.
But her air spirit is a thought away and a she has a spell in the front of her mind.

What brings you to my door? A lesson in etiquette? The first lesson is now to make an appointment.

"It's me, Janus! Don't you recognise me? What are you doing here, and why are you speaking to me like that?" Janus walked towards her, tension still in his voice, but now with a note of bewilderment as well. It was evident the man was still trying to take stock of his surroundings, and trying to comprehend Clarice. It was hard to tell what action he might take next.

Your face does remind me of a true gentleman, who to my knowledge resides in New-Toykio. But his name is Santo-san, not Janus. Now I will ask you again, please sit and tell me what brings you to my door

She looks at him over her glasses and takes a peek at his aura. The real Santo had a datajack behind his right ear.

The man settled down somewhat as Clarice's calm and persuasive voice convinced him to temper his emotions. He looked like he wanted to hug Clarice, but instead took the seat that she indicated and made no move to pour himself tea. Instead he continued to stare intently at Clarice, still not understanding why she was doubting him. Clarice's assenssing revealed the same. The aura that surrounded him appeared cloudy, the light that was associated with all living things on the astral plane was muddled, why or how come it was so was not evident. He was a mundane, but there were traces of magic on him.

"I thought you had died when you disappeared completely from New Essen months ago. Imagine my relief when I heard your were alive in Hong Kong." He reached out for her hand, "Forgive my anger, I got more and more upset when I entertained the idea that you were refusing or avoiding letting me know that you were still alive. But I understand now you have your reasons. But what are you doing in a place like this?" Janus poured out his thoughts which sounded like genuine feelings. If he was indeed a stranger to Clarice, then it was a mystery how he could know so much about her.

I agree that there are elements that don't make sense. Will you allow me to work some magic that we might find an explanation? She takes out her briefcase and retrieves a leatherbound book. The letters on the book have a long time faded, its Lord Tennyson poetry, but also a test of the man in front of her. Santo was of the Hermeticism school of thought, where the magic stucture was easy to integrate with logic software. While she was of the emotional and intuitive persuasion. Some would call it black magic, witchcraft or shamanism. But both saw the advantages in a digital spellbook - this was where their relationship began, at conferences where they had this to agree on, and then had long discussions about Hermeticism vs Shamanism.

With one hand on the book she places her other hand as an invitation for him to take it. This will not hurt.

Janus/Santo looked a little perturbed when Clarice suggested magic as a means of uncovering the truth. "I don't know why you won't believe me, but to prove I am speaking the truth, I will share with you my memories." He submitted to Clarice as she cast her spell...

... and the next thing she knew was that she had fallen off her seat, with Janus hovering above her, "Are you okay?? You lost consciousness!" He picked her up and helped her to the chair, and raised the teacup to her lips, to help her recover. "What happened?"

Her brain hurt. A jumble of images filled her mind. She had used the spell before, and was familiar with the fact that it enabled her to see into the recipient's mind. But she did not expect a magical backlash like this. Working backwards, she saw Janus look for her in Hong Kong, eventually finding her at Mai's lounge. She saw him checking into a hotel here, and before that, disembarking from a flight. She saw him get on a flight in neo-Tokyo, before that he was at what looked like his apartment, and before that he was at his office at MCT. Everything seemed to check out. But clearly some greater magic was at work which sapped her energies through the spell.

Shaken and out of control, she tries to center her self. She got a splitting headake
You have been touched by some greater magic somehow. What do you remember? Why did you decide to come find me? How did you know to come to look here in Hong Kong?
She looks him in the eyes. I am not convinced that you came here without outside manipulation. And to answer your question, what doing in a place like this? I'm hiding from a dragon... and making a living income.

"So no one in Saeder-Krupp knows you're here?" It seemed that Janus knew as much and as far back as when Clarice used to work for the megacorp, until her entire department was fired. Clarice never quite understood why, and blamed the CEO himself, Lofwyr. But there was no chance to investigate the truth then, every member of her team was found dead thereafter, and Clarice fled Germany so as not to befall the same consequence.

"Someone sent me this. And before you ask no I don't know who it was." Janus pulled out a small ring from his pocket, silver with a citrine stone. Clarice recognised it straightaway, it was a gift that Santo had given her, which she returned when they broke up. "Your aura was still present on the item, it was sufficient for me to track you to Hong Kong. The rest was legwork." Janus thought about it for a while, "Sure, I thought someone was pulling my strings too, but finding you was a chance I had to take."

Clarice is getting her head back together. I have done what I can for SK to be in the dark.
She looks at him, trying to understand the man in front of her. Why did you seek me out? And why are you calling your self Janus?

Strings are indeed being pulled. I wonder why?

She is toying with the ring in her hand. What happened with this ring? What did you do with it after I returned it? How did someone get their hands on it and send it back to you, while not changing my aura on it? That is an interesting feat

She is deliberately drinking tea now to pause the barrage of not-easy questions ... and ease her headache of corse.

"But I am Janus. What do you mean? I have described my life and yours as clearly as I can." As Clarice continued with her questions, the assensing she had conducted earlier tugged at her intuition. The spirit she summoned also rematerialised, which startled Janus and made him leap out of his chair. "Your guest is unpleasant." It intoned, repeating the exact words that Clarice had used to command it. It seemed that the spirit reappeared to protect Clarice, but did not move to attack Janus, who was obviously not displaying any aggression whatsoever.

It is time she takes control of the situation again. You! She commands the spirit. Stay there!
And you! She points at Janus. Sit down and shut up! With a flick of her wrist, she extends her riding-crop. You barge into my sanctum, under a spell and demands my attention. You will sit there and let me remove that spell. The alternative is the spirit removes the air from your lungs. While I work, lookup the name Santo from Mitsuhama Corporate

She uses her riding-crop as a magic wand, pulling at the fabric of the spell clinging to Janus.

"That instruction will not enable me to protect you." The spirit disappeared, with Clarice immediately understanding that it had dematerialised into the astral plane. Perhaps something was happening there.

Janus, who had backed away when the spirit appeared, began to get angry again as Clarice began to direct another spell at him. "I've submitted to your magics, yet all you're doing is giving me orders. I refuse to be subjected this. I will return when you are more reasonable." Janus got up to leave, clearly prepared to reject whatever else Clarice was about to do to him.

Janus wanna leave, she is not holding him back. On the contrary, as soon as Janus it out the door, she heads to her private room, where she locks her self in. Then she Astral projects in order to follow Janus, and perhaps see what got into the air spirit.

Clarice followed the signal of her spirit and withdrew herself into her astral aspect. Dematerialising into the astral plane of endless void and emptiness, her body shone with a radiant light. The air spirit next to her shone a clear blue, as it indicated the source of what caused it to declare a warning just a moment ago. The aura of Janus was seen to be departing from Clarice, as his physical form did. But what remained was a vile presence, an image of an astral being surrounded by what could only be described as some poison or toxin leeching out of its form and coalescing about it.

That followed your guest here. No wonder Clarice hadn't detected it earlier when she assensed. The toxic being only just managed to track Janus in order to find Clarice. The spirit then communicated that its service was over: it protected Clarice from any unpleasantness from Janus, but now that Janus had left and the toxic form no longer haunted Janus, the terms of its service had also ended.

The toxic form, which looked as if it had insectoid features, stood there in front of Clarice, but did not take any action.

Scheisse! Its the first time the Clarice has been face-to-face with the dreaded insect spirits. She has lots of theoretical knowledge, but no experience with them. 80% of her focus is set to withdraw the second the spirit seems to attack, with the remainder she asks Who are you, what do you want?

A small pang of sorrow, Clarice realizes that this was her the last day in Hong Kong. Someone had sent the ring to Shanto/Janus, filled his mind with longing, and let him do the legwork while this poison spirit followed him.

The astral form did not seem to want to attack, although it was evident that it was there to track Clarice down. An image appeared in front of her, of Shanto in his office at Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, before the image of Shanto itself turned into a human insect hybrid. This picture lingered in front of Clarice's psyche for a long time, and when it began to fade, the astral creature behind it had long gone already.

Clarice had no experience with insects, but knew someone who did, a runner named Helios Zen whom she had a chance to work with on occasion.

Clarice withdrew from the astral and back to her own body. She had two calls to make. One to Santo's office to confirm his whereabouts and one to Helios Zen, arranging a meeting.

Then she packed her things, handing in her resignation and settling her financial affairs (wages/bills ect). When she left the club, she would never come back.

The club manager was stunned at Clarice's sudden resignation. Was something the matter, he asked, was it the money, was there a difficult client, did someone else offer a better deal. Clarice had been an excellent employee who had never raised a fuss about anything, so the manager was surprised to hear her say she wanted to leave. Seeing no way to persuade her otherwise, he agreed to let her go. This meant that there was going to be a problem with finances.

Clarice made the first of her two calls, her commlink patching her through to MCT headquarters in Japan. She managed to get routed to Shanto's department, arcane research, before the automated voice at the other end asked, "May I know who's calling please?"

Dis is frauline Hönikin, from Saeder-Krupp, Neu-Essen, for herr Santo... Clarice imitates that bitch down in SF accounting, with a heavy german accent.

The voice on the other end apologised, "I'm afraid that Mr Santo is not in his office. May I take a message?"

Do you have his extension? I have a time-sensitive question for herr Santo. Clarice continues her schrade, but is pretty sure that "Janus" she just had a meeting with, was the real Santo under a spell or possessed.

She starts to compose a message for Helios Zen, asking for a meeting. She then takes a taxi to the drycleaners where some of her "gear" have been treated. Then home to collect her stuff.

The automated call reception rerouted the call to Santo's workstation computer.

Clarice was uneasy throughout her journey home and during the errands she was running. It seemed that she had to run away again, and still without discovering the truth behind why she was being pursued. She thought it might have been the Saeder-Krupp problem all over again, except that this time there seemed to be no link whatsoever to Germany. Instead, everything pointed to Japan. Perhaps there was never a Lofwyr problem in the first place, but something deeper.

All packed, she waited for Helios' reply and got ready to meet him.