“This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full of ocean. Some people say when we are born we’re born into stories. I say we’re also born from stories.” ― Ben Okri
~Sonder
Liam stretched out over the counter top, propping his head up in one hand and stared with mute interest out his shop front windows at passersby. It’d been quiet lately, too quiet for his taste.
Ever since the H&R Wesley bombing and the subsequent gang war that followed, people had been weary. Oh they still went out and shopped, not even all out war could keep Gaians from shopping, but they did so quietly, spoke in hushed voices when they spoke at all and nearly everyone made it a point to be inside after dark.
There was also a lot of foot traffic between towns lately, especially from Durem. Calling it a mass exodus would be exaggerating things, but not by much, especially for the vampires. Some remained behind with Louie, but many had already left the city, for the time being at least.
Most people knew the current peace was just a temporary lull.
Personally the blond had his fill of fighting in the last cult war; to this day he still couldn’t stand the smell of clams.
Liam shuttered at the thought.
At that moment the bells above his shop door rung, signaling he had at last a customer.
He turned ready to greet them, hopefully it’d be a pretty girl he could flirt with to pass the time, but paused at the sight of a pale young man standing just in the doorway.
Not that the stranger was exceptionally odd looking, this is Gaia after all, it’s not uncommon for people to walk through who are exceptionally odd, but he was missing an eye.
Not just that, but the missing eye had been replaced with…something else, that gave off a pale orange glow from under the low hood he wore.
Not that Liam was the kind of guy to jump to conclusions but with all the crazy things that had been going on of late he would admit that the stranger’s slightly imposing demeanor did raise his pulse rate a bit.
It didn’t help that the guy was looking at him with this dangerously coy expression, the corner of his lips twitching up into a sly smirk.
“What can I do for you?” The blond finally found his voice.
The pale man pulled back his hood, revealing his raven colored hair, “I’m wondering if you might happen to know where I can find Brennivin?”
“That crazy wizard? Nope, he’s not been around lately.” Great, it was something to do with Brennivin and hopefully not mob wars or family feuds.
The other man cracked a smile at that, “That’s too bad, he owed me a favor and I was hoping to get some help. Ah, well…” He shrugged and turned to head back out the door, but paused as if considering something. In doing so he revealed some form of high tech gauntlet that ran up his forearm stopping just below his elbow.
Mechanics curiosity peaked Liam studied the sleek black metal gear, it glowed orange like the man’s eye piece in places, but wires were poking out from the bottom and sides as if it’d been damaged.
“There wouldn't happen to be anyone around who could lend me some tools would there?” He held up his forearm now, presumably noticing Liam’s scrutinizing gaze. “Ran into a bit of a trouble, you could say.” The grin that pulled at his handsome face left one to wonder exactly what kind of ‘trouble’ the young man meant.
“You need a mechanic?” Liam asked even more curious now.
“Well, I can probably fix this myself, but I’ve not any equipment on me. Sorry to say I doubt anyone around here would be able to work on this though.” An amused smirk found its way across the man’s face.
Liam wasn’t sure what was so funny but shrugged it off.
“You’d be surprised,” now it was Liam’s turn to grin, “Aekea’s pretty well known for it’s tech, I work on robots all the time and we happen to have a pretty great mechanic not to far from here. She’s even been known to work on the occasional airship or UFO. Sam’s likely to have any tool you’ll need.”
“I see, so this Sam person, where might their shop be?”
Liam looked around his shop for a moment, “Eh it’s close to closing time. Let me lock up and I can show you the way.”
About thirty minuets later Liam walked into the back entrance at Sam’s shop, the sound of an impact wrench echoing in the garage as Sam removed the back tires off a Musculero. The stranger hung back in the door way as he waved at Sam to get her attention.
“Hey Liam, what’s up?” The blue haired girl removed the bandana from her hair to wipe the sweat from her forehead. “Who’s your new friend?” she motioned to the guy behind him.
“Uhm…” It occurred to Liam that he hadn't asked the guy his name. ‘Really suave man, now you’ll look like an idiot in from of Sam again.’
“Fedir,” the man spoke up from where he’d been slouching nonchalantly against the door frame, “The names Fedir and I’ve been told you’re the lady to speak to about borrowing some tools for this.” He raised his arm up to reveal the damaged device.
“Oh, a customer! Is it so slow at your shop you have to bring people to mine Liam?” She teased, elbowing him in the side as she passed him, lingering for a moment to shoot him a peculiar gaze.
“Well you know I’d do anything to help a lady out.” Liam winked at her, a movement that seemed to take every muscle in his face to do.
She walked up to Fedir and gave his gauntlet a scrutinizing glance, “Yea, yea, I think I got what ya need. Get into with somebody?” She turned and began to rummage though a tool box on the work bench behind her.
Fedir grinned once more, “Something like that, some negotiations went south for me. Apparently she didn’t take too kindly to me borrowing a few things of hers, it was just a bit of fun really, but she didn’t think so.”
Sam laughed as she lugged out several tools and set them on the counter, “Sounds like there’s more to that story. I’m sure it’d be quite the story at that,” she looked over as a customer came in the front of the store.
“Oh, well we all have one of those to tell,” was Fedir’s only reply as he sat down at the bench.
“Hey, I’d like a new paint job on my Scion!” The customer called out from behind the counter.
“Well I got to go help my customer; I’ll leave you to it. Be right back!” She called over to Liam and headed to the front of the store.
Liam watched her retreating figure with an appraising eye for a moment before looking back over to see Fedir with a hand held plasma cutter, it lit up white hot for a moment as he popped open the damaged housing around the inner workings of the…whatever it was on his arm.
The blond sat across from him, wondering briefly what on Gaia that gauntlet was actually used for. A weapon maybe? Who knew these days?
He sat watching the man work for a moment longer, but curiosity was getting the better of him again. Opening his mouth to finally ask a question Fedir beat him to it with a question of his own.
“So, what’s the story on the girl?” He didn’t look up from his work as he soldered a couple of wires into place. “That look she shot you spoke volumes.”
“Um, story? There’s nothing to tell,” Liam squared his shoulders, trying to look as nonplussed as possible, the telling shade of red coloring his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose said other wise. “The babes just dig me.” Somehow his signature confidence seemed out of place in this particular moment.
“Oh there’s always a story, like I told the girl, everyone has one,” Fedir looked up at him with his good eye briefly. “I've been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things, been to worlds full of wars and crime, worlds where they've had peace for centuries. I've even been to places where time and gravity don’t follow the same rules and met people who by any of your standards aren't people at all, but there’s always one thing that remains unchanged, everyone has a story and everyone has a part in it.”
“All you have to do it decide what part of it you want to tell,” Fedir reached over and picked up a pair of glasses and flicked a magnifying lens over his good eye and began to weld a broken section back onto this forearm. “So, what’s your story with the girl?”
Liam shielded his eyes from the light put off by the welder for a brief moment, “It’s nothing much to talk about, we went out a few times awhile ago and well nothing much came of it so…” here the blond shrugged. “Not all that important, really.” What was with this guy, was he that curious, or was Sam really that obvious and he was too dense to tell?
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, you know, perhaps it’s not important in your version of this story but perhaps it is important to someone else. To someone else it could be the climax of their story or you could only be an extra that passes them on the street. There are as many stories about one moment as there are people in it and the importance of something shifts with each person’s focus.”
Fedir grinned at the bewildered expression Liam was giving him, “Or I’m just bored and it was fun to mess with your head while I fixed this.” There was a click as he snapped something into place and the hum of something electric kicking on filled the space between them and a section of the module lit up a bright orange color.
“Ah, there we go,” he stretched out his arm, examining his handy work. “Or in other words I’m telling you to ask the girl out again.” Fedir snapped the controls on his arm closed just as Liam was about to speak. Whatever Laim was about to say will never be known because suddenly there was a loud crash outside.
“What was that?” Edy poked his head out from the back office.
“No idea Edy. Hey Sam everything okay out there?” Liam called out just as the door swung open to admit a coughing Sam with a cloud of dust.
“Sorry, sorry my bad! It’s been awhile since I worked on a space craft. You won’t guess who just showed up out front, Flynn! Apparently she had a run in with some wizard who stole some sort of loot she’d stolen…I mean uh plundered? Banged up her ship good in the process.”
“Darn right, if I ever get my hands on that weasel I’ll kick his a** to the Beta quadrant and back again.” Flynn burst though the doors, cloak swishing around her as she came in behind Sam.
She froze when she saw Fedir, “You!”
“That’d be my cue then! Thanks for the help.” Grinning, the apparent wizard took off running across the garage with Flynn in hot pursuit as he tried to start up something on his now repaired arm module.
“Don’t you dare transport you little twerp. I had to go half way to the Orion’s belt for that Stellarite!” Flynn shook her fist and started running like a mad woman.
Both Liam and Sam watched dumbfounded as Flynn pulled out her sword and chased the wizard around the garage and between cars.
“You think we should tell them the Star Twins that look Flynn’s old job have that stuff by the truck load?” Sam asked and Fedir dodged as some sort of sharp object was thrown his way.
“Maybe, I don’t know…” Liam ducked just in time to avoid a buzz cut from Flynn sword, “Yikes! Hey watch the hair!”
“If you even so much as scratch one of those cars Flynn I’ll charge you for the repairs!” Sam shouted over the noise.
At that moment Fedir came skidding past them, “Thanks for the help again, wow this lady was serious about putting my head on a platter, haha. Oh, if you see Brennivin, tell him he still owes me one.” A flash or orange lit up around his arm as the device kicked on, “Oh yea,” here he looked over his shoulder at Liam, “Don’t forget you’ve still got a story to tell,” with that and a flash of orange he was gone, leaving a fuming Flynn and an equally angry Edy, arguing over paying for the damages to the garage.
Liam gave Sam a sideways glance, “So, like, it’s pretty close to closing time you wanna grab something to eat. I think Josie said something yesterday about going out tonight.”
Sam spared a glace at the mess all around her and then glanced at Liam for a moment, studying his face as if to see if he were serious or not. She finally beamed, a small blush coloring her face, “Sure let me go change real quick!”
Sam dashed off and Liam watched as Flynn glowered at being handed a bill for damages plus the repairs to her ship by Edy, all the while threatening to tie him to her ships reactor core for being overcharged.
Liam grinned; it’d be an interesting night, after all both he and Sam would have quite the story to tell.
