theprofessorruns

[theprofessorruns]

A Small Comfort

He took one step off the small freight elevator, heaved a huge sigh of relief and relaxation, and tossed his bag into the corner of the room where he normally keeps it.

He needed coffee. Real coffee. Actual coffee. None of this soy drek everyone's stuck with... After walking over to the small kitchen area, he opened a cupboard and poked around the poorly labeled cartons inside. A few moments later, he had a very small, very expensive container of dark brown grains that many people these days would kill him to obtain.

This smells amazing.

One of the many benefits of having wealth. Another was the apartment he was standing in. A decent sized loft in the Lakeview area of Bug City. You have to have money for a place here. You have to have money to get people to leave you alone... Especially when you don't exactly fit in. 

The problem he had within himself though was that he fit in a bit too well here. In Lakeview, not being an elf would bring cautious, sometimes spiteful glances, quiet murmurs, and a whole deal of discomfort. Luckily for him, he was well over six feet tall, slender, pale, and had those piercing golden eyes that haunted even himself when he looked into the mirror.

He did his best to dismiss the thought that he was at least partly elven, but it was hard to shake off... And it occasionally worked in his favor. A strange internal paradox: wanting nothing to do with a potential biological part of his own heritage, while simultaneously playing the dreaded "elf card" to live in comfort and peace.

He had once thought of going in for tests to know for certain what, if not who, his parents were. All the same though, he really did not want to know for sure. There's a very specific feeling that comes from just having everything up in the air.

He could accept or deny at his own discretion. It was better this way, and it had worked to his advantage so far.

Why change all of that? If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

He relaxed into his lounger and took a long sip of his hot coffee. His mind wandered back out to the many people down at the street level who had never tasted pure joy like this.

I'll take joy over soy any day.

A bit embarrassed, he still laughed at his own bad pun.

[theprofessorruns]

A Questionable Decision

Elgin... Why would anyone want to be in Elgin?

But there he was... sitting alone in his van, waiting for the rest of his team to come running back from whatever it was they were doing. He really needs to pay closer attention to the details of some of these runs. Important things, like the goal of the job... or even what the job is in general.

All he knew was that they wanted him as nothing but a driver... a chauffeur. A glorified chauffeur, that’s all he was tonight. “Why did I even agree to this?” he thought aloud to himself.

He knew the reason though. He had been antsy lately. Restless. The month had been slow, and he really just wanted to get out and do something... Right now, he just wished that he had some idea what that something was. What were they doing? ...and in Elgin of all places. Nobody should ever be in Elgin.

He hadn’t bothered paying any more attention to the details the moment he was told that he wouldn’t even need a drone. He had brought one along anyways...

Elgin at two in the morning...

They could have asked any basic rigger to drive them. Why him? The only specific type of driving he was known to be best at was a clean getaway. He could outmaneuver and lose any pursuers better than all the known local riggers mashed violently into one person, and he knew it.

But nobody on his team seemed to expect any sort of trouble. None at all, actually, and that little thought was what bugged him the most. A clean run.

There is no such thing as a clean run.

Even the smoothest, easiest jobs brought at least a bit of trouble, and if you tried denying it, you were full of dreck. Plan and simple.

Yet here he sat, in the middle of the night in Elgin, waiting for a team that seemed free of worry. Waiting to drive them away from there, for whatever purpose he drove them all there in the first place.

A sudden movement to his right, and he realized they were rushing silently back to him. He snapped to alertness, ready to do his part.

Are they carrying a body?