Associates
Neha's hand rummaged through the bag of cheap, store-brand chips she'd bought as she stared at the TV without anything in mind. The LED display flickered afront her eyes as crumbs spread out on her couch and shorts. Her glasses were halfway off her face, ready to fall at any moment and her posture was equivalent to that of a shrimp. By now there was probably a mold colony sprouting below her bed. What time was it? Who cared anyway, it was Saturday.
Her room was in its usual summer disarray - clothes, blankets and wrappers had all hunkered down on the floor, with two particular packets of beef jerky blasting the light from her TV right back into her glazed over eyes. By now she could feel herself becoming one with her mattress - no bed frame, no nightstand, just a mattress. Two pots stood on either side of the radiator, constantly catching the water that ever so slowly dripped from it.
Her phone, a Motorola her father had bought for her two years prior rang out, an annoying custom song she'd chosen for no particular reason - not that the presets were any good either, any loud sounds tended to make her want to blowtorch her ears shut with a welder. Reluctantly, she turned the phone around. Her big, thick-framed glasses reflected the sky blue display as the phone continued to sing that stupid song.
Kabir.
She hadn't talked to him since their family reunion last month, not after she'd had a whole meltdown about furniture of all things. Was it really worth being petty over? Maybe it was considering what he had said. Before she could make up her mind, Kabir had already hung up the call and had gone over to voicemail.
“Hey.. Neha- look, I know you probably dont wanna talk, like, at all, right now.. but uh, I got a call..! A job offer-! For both of us!” He spoke, a wariness looming over his excitement. Neha's eyes widened as she reached for the phone and pressed it against her ear, intently listening in to the voicemail. “There's this woman, uhm.. Crystal, I think, and she's got this whole crew..? We're gonna be working with this- I- You know what, just.. When you see this, send me a text, see if we can meet somewhere? Anyways.. bye-” He spoke in a fast and jittery manner, stumbling over his words and constantly assisting himself with an “uhm” or an “uh”, all behaviours typical of him when he was being excited.
Neha stood in a silent shock for several moments, her brows furrowing as she looked around her room, as if suddenly realizing the state it was in. Maybe things were going to get better after all.
Sapphire flipped the toast in the pan, the sides brimming with cheddar cheese. Maybe she'd put on a little bit too much, so what? “Hyejin.” -She called over as a heads-up before she slipped the three grilled cheese sandwiches into a plate and passed them over to her.- “How's the recruiting coming along?” -She asked in her regular bland voice, her tone never changing.
“Amethyst just called them,” -Hyejin yelled from the other end of the kitchenette as she reached for one of the sandwiches, unaware of the fact that it was still scalding hot. She swiftly pulled away her hand, whipping it around slightly.- “She might be a bit slow to respond, she's on a new laptop right now.” -She added, clicking away at the keys on her phone.
“I heard Wyatt's getting furniture for the safehouse, should be hauling it over by now.” -Sapphire mumbled as she ran a sponge over the pan she was cooking in just a couple minutes prior, rinsing it off. She left it in the sink and turned around, propping herself up on the cupboards.- “Did you tell him to do that, or.. did he just do that himself?” -She continued, trying to continue the conversation despite how little there was to be said.
“Typical..” -She tossed the phone on the table as she leaned back, visibly annoyed as she reluctantly took a grilled cheese, taking a bite of it.- “Amethyst said they were ‘unsure' right now, whatever that means.” -Hyejin pulled forward, burying her head in one of her hands and roughly pinching the bridge of her nose.
“They're small-time, Crystal.. I doubt they wanna just jumpinto a job like this.” -Nyasha murmured, trying to make an argument for the siblings.
“They told us the wiring plans for Rosedale by just getting a look at the place! They're ready for a big job like this!” -Hyejin insisted, grabbing the phone again as though she had any idea what to do now.
“And what if they don't know that?” -Sapphire glared straight through Hyejin, leaving both of them silent. In the meantime, Zircon pulled into the driveway.- “Is that a Playstation..?” -Emerald's voice could be heard from just outside the door.
Neha could only look at her feet as the taxi pulled up to Kabir's flat where he was waiting intently for her. He'd dressed himself in his typical eccentric outfit - a dress shirt that, on one half had a Hawaiian pattern while the other was in the style of a standard black hockey jersey with the number ten written on it in a bold, white font. He'd sewn it with Neha and her mother a year or two ago as a part of an odd contest and he seemed to wear it all the time after that. Below that he was wearing some regular black trousers, though they almost looked grey with how worn they were. Neha got out of the car, only carrying a small backpack. Despite its size, the backpack was nearly overflowing, the end of a screwdriver peeking out.
Neha's wardrobe was almost like a time capsule, lines of old clothes in just about every niche trend from last decade lay scattered across the tall wooden thing - today, she'd gone for a somewhat grungy look. She'd chosen an old, patched up dark brown jacket with ochre accents that matched her dyed hair, along with a subtle pink t-shirt just below it. On top lay a scarf in a more muted shade of pink that served to tie the layered topwear with the ripped skinny jeans she'd chosen to wear. Kabir waved to her, although she didn't notice at first as her gaze was still mostly locked straight to the floor. He groaned and whistled at her, ushering her over to sit with him on the edge of the porch.
His apartment building was nice, the things around it at least - there was a nice stone porch with a neat arrangement of multicolored peonies, although it seemed no one had taken care of them for a while, but, in spite of their conditions, they persisted. The tiles leading up to it were overgrown; dandelions and weeds peeked out from the cracks like rising suns.
“Hey.” -He mumbled as he sat down, placing his hands on his knees.- “Look, before anything, I'm sorry. I know.. it was hurtful, and stupid, and just plain stupid,” -Kabir sighed as he slid off his backpack to reveal a ziplock bag with two tuna sandwiches inside- “Let's not become distant because of a few words, yeah?” -He reached into his bag and offered her a sandwich, which she gladly took in her hands.
“Honestly, you know how it gets, I get all caught up in this idea that everything's.. sinking, but really, the ship's fine, I just got a little wet while I was looking over the railing.” -Neha was sitting beside him, taking a thoughtful bite of her sandwich.- “Does that.. make sense?” -She asked with a slight chuckle, to which Kabir nodded.
“I.. think, yeah.” -He spoke after a moment's thought, looking back at the flowers behind him.- “You thought about that job yet?” -He turned back to Neha, carefully scanning her reaction through her wide glasses.
“A little.” -Her gaze was trained on the flowers her brother had been staring at just a few moments prior.- “You been watering those?” -She faced him, slightly tilting her head. Kabir shrugged.
“When I got water on me, yeah.” -His voice had a sound of annoyance as Neha did as she usually did, evading the main theme at hand.- “I got some more information– about the job, I mean. We're gonna be stealing this fancy camera prototype - they have a guy that's been trying to crack it for weeks, but, no luck. I think his name was Zircon?” -His face was evidently excited at the prospect of working with “actual criminals” rather than running jobs for disgruntled tech nerds and no-name contractors.- “Anyways, that's besides the point - they've got a whole bunch of gear and this really in-depth plan, I told them I'm undecided right now since I was waiting for you– they mainly want you, think you might be able to crack it.”
“Ookay.. that's a lot- you might have to run it back when we're actually working on it..” -She grumbled, laying a hand over her forehead.- “I'm in.” -She let a smug smile slip as she extended her hand for a handshake.
“Cmon, we know each other.” -Kabir returned the sly expression as he moved his hands out for a hug- “Don't know when it's gonna be the last one, right?” -He snickered over Neha's shoulder.
“Don't even joke about that.” -She replied with a small laugh as she held him tight, warily considering what he said. He'd been her anchor for a while now, the thing holding her in one place when her mind was scattered with no purpose.- “So, when are we meeting with these guys, anyway?” -She said, still smirking as she pulled away.
“Was the Playstation really necessary?” -Diamond groaned as he clicked away at the controller with an unmatched vigor, trying to swerve into Emerald’s car on-screen. Unfortunately for him, her speed in-game was equivalent to her speed on her average assassination job.
“I think you’re just mad because you’re losing.” -Wyatt raised a brow, his gaze turning to Cordelia. Her face was firmly glued to the screen as she quickly and consistently dodged Arthur’s attacks. The three of them, along with Sapphire and Aquamarine, had been taking turns playing Need for Speed: Underground for some time now since they were all waiting for Hyejin to tell them when the new guys were coming along.
“So these new hires,” -Arthur began, visibly exhausted as he handed the controller to Nyasha.- “do we really need them? I mean, we’ve been doing well, the lot of us for a while, haven’t we?” -He queried no one in particular as he stood up to let Nyasha get more into the game.
“Look, kid, I tried my damndest to crack those cameras, no luck. Ain’t the first time, either.” -He scanned the other operatives, looking for approval, though most of them seemed bored out of their mind.- “Hiring individual people every single time has been eating away at our funds - now a little five percent cut here and there will be expensive, but it sure as hell won't be eating up as much as that damn–” -He clicked his tongue, gently patting the couch as he tried to remember the name of the person they'd contracted to crack a new model of power boxes a while ago.
“Corvo.” -Cordelia called, her gaze still glued to the screen as she tried to avoid Sapphire's onslaught of attacks.
“Corvo! Right!” -Zircon proclaimed with an odd pride to his voice- “Yeah, she ran us three thousand for that!” -He grumbled, the bitterness from their encounter with the wire-worker still evident.
“Point taken..” -Arthur murmured as he looked over at the time indicator on the corner of the TV, displaying ten minutes until three o'clock.- “So, these guys were coming at three, right?” -He dusted himself off, going to take a peek out of the door.
“..scouted the place out, yeah. I swear these guys aren't gonna kill us, Neha, I swear.” -Diamond overheard two voices from the other side of the door. He was quick to open it, finding two fairly young people talking outside.- “Well, it's about time!” -One of them, a boy with large wire-frame glasses and light hair, grumbled, turning his phone to show it to the Conman. Six unanswered calls to "Crystal”.
“So.. you must be the new hires?” -Arthur cast them a warm smile as he opened the door wider, allowing them to come into the safehouse. Kabir was quick to rush in and Neha went right after him. Diamond slightly groaned as he watched them run past him, slightly waving at them.- “How long were you out there anyway?”
“Since.. maybe two-thirty? Someone here insisted on being early–” -Kabir grinned from ear to ear as he unsubtly pointed a hand in his sister's direction. Neha was quick to jab him in the ribs with her elbow, moving away to go and get a better look at the place they'd be spending most of their days in for a while.
It wasn't all that special by any means - there was hardly any furniture and whatever furniture there was seemed to be salvaged rather than consciously bought for this place; not that it made much of a difference, if anything it was smart to not connect this place to any purchases, Neha thought to herself in a vain attempt at justifying how bare-bones this place was. She strutted up to the kitchenette where a woman with a fiery orange hair tipclicked away at a laptop in an insistent manner.
“Hello?” -She waved a hand at the woman in an attempt to gain her attention, and, to Diamond's surprise, she did. The woman looked up; similarly to Neha, she had glasses with a thick circular frame with such a thick dioptre she frankly believed that she could look past her.
“Ah, my mistake,” -Hyejin shut the laptop, standing up to face Neha- “I take it you're one of the siblings?” -She extended a hand towards her new operative in an awkward manner, visibly trembling from her constant clicking and writing. Neha tentatively reached for it, shaking it only two times before pulling away.
“Well, yeah. Kabir's–”
“Opal's.” -Hyejin was quick to correct her as she sat back down, offering the seat next to her to Neha, who gladly obliged.
“Wait– we get cool nicknames?” -Neha beamed with unprecedented excitement at the idea of a codename - if anything it was more like how she thought being a criminal would be, all fancy ciphers and sneaking around instead of sitting hunched over at her desk trying to figure out how to rewire some new, needlessly complicated series of circuits.
“We got a bit of a theme going on too.” -Hyejin pointed to the group of operatives sitting at the center of the room, all sitting bewildered as Opal flawlessly countered Emerald at Need for Speed.- “Diamond, the blonde one, he's our thespian, you're not gonna be working with him, though.” -Hyejin cleared her throat before continuing.- “You're gonna be working with Emerald and Sapphire. Emerald's the ginger one, usually she's on assassinations, but we're a bit understaffed for this.” -She turned to Moonstone who seemed to be almost mesmerized by Cordelia. Hyejin snapped her fingers at her, breaking her out of the illusion.- “Hey, loverboy, I'm not gonna repeat most of the things I say so listen.”
“Ookay, my bad.” -Neha stood up, turning to Hyejin.- “Say, before we continue, what’s my codename gonna be?” -She asked, raising her eyebrows, still smiling at the idea of working with these people. Full-time, “authentic” criminals.
-Hyejin clicked her tongue as though she was trying to make one up on the spot before she opened her laptop back up, scrolling through a Word Document of ominously placed names and codenames.- “How's Moonstone sound?” -She asked, an undertone of annoyance in her voice.
-Moonstone nodded, her smile and eyes both growing wider.- “That sounds sick!” -She exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. Hyejin flinched, moving her chair back as she stared at Moonstone in an awkward, judging manner.
“Right..” Crystal slid her chair closer to her laptop.- “Go and introduce yourself..?” -She said it in an odd manner to where Moonstone couldn't exactly discern if she was asking her or telling her. Nonetheless, she was quick to leave her frankly odd mission coordinator alone, gliding off to where most of the operatives had gathered to watch Opal and Emerald racing neck-and-neck on Zircon's console.
By the time she'd gotten there, Emerald had T-boned into Opal's car enough times to tear one of the tires, leaving one of his wheels as nothing more than steel grinding against asphalt. Despite her onslaught of attacks and the less than ideal state his car was in, Kabir was determined to come out on top. With a swift tug at his joystick, he swerved his car around into what he'd thought was a ramp, but was just an oddly placed series of logs. Before he could recover, Cordelia had already slammed into him, rendering the car immobile and the match over.
“My record remains unscathed.” -She leaned back, her expression somewhat satisfied as she placed the controller down on the coffee table in front of her. She seemed to actually be having fun, maybe even impressed with how well her opponent had managed himself.
“Jeez, my fault for underestimating you I guess!” -Opal put down the controller as well, turning to face his sister standing behind him.- “Had fun talking to Crystal?” -Kabir asked, a clear irony in his voice as he gazed past Neha’s shoulder and through the interior window in the kitchenette to get another look at their future mission coordinator.
“Eh, she’s closed off, but she’s basically our employer now.” -She shrugged as she leaned on the back of the couch, her gaze shifting over to Cordelia.- “Heya, Drift Queen.” -Neha announced her presence to her, carefully considering where her eyes landed, how much she looked at her, where she put her hands and all the likes.
“You the other rookie?” -Emerald seemed somewhat charmed by the newcomer’s awkward behaviour, carefully eyeing her up and down.
“Yup!” -Moonstone’s face was back to a wide, ear-to-ear grin. She adjusted her glasses, trying to seem more dapper before her.
“You know how to shoot?” -She asked, raising her eyebrows, almost suspicious of her eager nature. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind as she continued staring in her direction.
“I could use a round at the shooting range..” -Neha replied, tentatively placing a hand on Cordelia’s shoulder with a raise of her eyebrows.