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Continued from Warstory 11.
Piker looks up from her glass of scotch, with a slight
expression of surprise.
"Yeah, thought that might get your attention
lass." Angus smiles.
"In a nutshell, it's pretty much the same story,
but the devil's in the details as he usually is."
Angus leans back as the waiter brings salad. Angus
takes a bite and begins his tale.
"Annette, your mother, was in fact a prostitute
for Madame Li. However, the gentleman caller that
eventually became your father was Frank, not me. He
and I would visit Madame Li's as we found our work
made it difficult to keep a relationship alive. I
was partial to Silver."
Piker expresses recognition of the name.
"Oh no, not the same Silver that works there
now. It's just a trade name. In a hundred years, there
will be a nubile Elf named Silver working there and
she won't be the same person either. For example,
Annette was called Mocha, on account that she had
light brown skin from her Hispanic heritage. You see,
she was originally from Aztlan."
"Mocha came to Seattle to make it big and help
get her family out of their back breaking, dust for
dinner, poverty. A noble goal perhaps, but one that
she was just shy of pulling off without some help.
She wasn't some bright-eyed innocent young girl. I
doubt such a thing can truly exist outside of a corporate
campus nowadays. However, she was not as savvy about
the shadows of Seattle as she needed to be. I don't
really know the details, but inside of a year, she
was working at Madame Li's and counting herself lucky
for it."
"Madame Li has little trouble finding girls.
Prostitution has damn near become a desirable occupation
in a place were most folks can clear enough nuyen
without doing something less palatable, risking their
life, or worse."
"Anyway, Mocha revealed that her name was Annette
and that she was sending some money home, but it was
never enough to get the family out of their rut. Enter
horny young Frank; young, dumb, and full of... Well
you get the picture. Annette was a professional, so
she didn't exactly spill the beans about her life
to everyone, but you spend enough time in bed with
someone and eventually words will slip."
"Anyway, next thing I know, it's a year later
and Frank shows up at the Lodge with Annette in tow.
We weren't very happy with that. It turns out she's
Awakened and didn't realize it. Frank calls in all
of his favors with the group and finally convinces
us to give her a try."
"I'll have to say, she wasn't half bad. She
was no star pupil, but she kept up with everyone.
Ms. Kim never liked her, though, and that mostly had
to do with a belief that she lacked Spirit in Ms.
Kim's mind. Ms. Kim may have had an unusual way to
describe that, but there was something wrong with
Mocha. Too much rage. Her ki was unbalanced."
"She said it was her pregnancy. Oh yes, she
started to blossom a few months after getting involved
with us. I'll be blunt love, you deserve it. She probably
would have aborted, but there was a question that
it would mess up her magic. So she went on an Astral
Quest with a little help and the universe played a
little joke on her. Giving birth would be her next
ordeal."
"After a year of training and doing her part,
she and Frank revealed their intents. They were specifically
training to infiltrate Aztlan and assassinate some
corporate officers." Angus pauses to let the
story sink in and takes a sip of scotch.
"We weren't saints. We had lots of blood on
our hands, but we did not just kill people willy nilly
and we generally did not do wet work anymore. We had
enough of that when we were working for the government.
There had to be just cause and lots of research. It's
the only smart way to work anyway." Angus shrugs
matter-of-factly.
"Well anyway, the long and short of it is that
their targets were questionable. Annette's family
had been killed in a military action in Aztlan and
she wanted blood. Plain and simple. Frank and Annette
had been training for this so long, they didn't want
to hear anything to the contrary. In the end, we decided
to try and back them up. Annette was still carrying
you, but the window of opportunity was going to close.
They had an inside contact and they needed to move
right away."
"So off we went. Things went badly, to say the
least. One of us didn't return and the mission was
a failure. Turns out Frank's insider was a double
agent. Frank was never a very good judge of character."
"Annette and Frank stopped at Madame Li's to
buy some drugs to induce labor and with a bloody dazzling
display of incompetence, she ended up having you right
there beside a dumpster. Madame Li had called me when
they showed up looking for drugs, so I showed up right
about the time you started screaming bloody murder.
I'd hate to think what she might have done if I hadn't
shown up in that alley when I did, but I like to think
Madame Li would have made sure nothing bad happened
to you." Angus looks very grim, an expression
Piker has only seen in passing during heavy drinking.
Angus snaps out of his haze and continues, "So
Frank turns to me and asks me to take care of you.
He had the look of a man that was going to his death.
So I took you in."
"Actually, until you were out of diapers, Ms.
Kim helped me out quite a bit. When you started to
recognize and remember things, that's when I stopped
taking you to the lodge. And the rest you know."
Angus slugs back the rest of his drink and wolfs down
the rest of his salad as he spies the waiter coming
across the room with his steak.
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