\+/ PAST \+/
Marilyn's deep, labored breaths grow from feint to apparent. The sound of her shoes slapping pavement and cracking broken glass ties together with the sounds of loud music, sirens, car alarms and gun shots. Marilyn... having never done this before is clearly in a panic... her mouth and eyes wide open as she sprints down the street as fast as she can. Her dilated pupils illuminated her big beautiful green eyes under Night City's neon glow as she passes by advertisement after advertisement. Countless holograms of eye catching marketing tactically held in front of your face for as long as possible. The fabric of her jean shorts rubbed together vigorously as she hops a loud, clanky chainlink fence before sprinting down a back alley shrouded in shadowed darkness. Moments later, she makes it to an edge before hesitantly taking a final leap down a 10 foot dead drop... the impact makes her fall to her hands and knees as she lets out a subtle grunt. She scrambles back up to her feet, she takes on a brisk and steady walking pace up the dimly lit street towards a parked Cortes while occasionally looking back over her shoulder.
She swings the passenger door open and hops in out of breath and close to hyperventilating. Brian sitting in the driver's seat calmly smoking a cigarette slowly looks over at Marilyn struggling to catch her breath. She glances at him, reaches over, and yanks his cig out of his mouth before using her labored breathing to take a deep puff of it. She rests the back of her head on the headrest while arching her back and continuing to smoke. The adrenaline coursing through her body leaves her restless and struggling to calm herself. Its as if she had plenty of energy left to spare. The mellow, Royal Blue playing on the radio has the volume lowered creating a calming atmosphere in the car.
"Shard?" Brian asks in a dead tone.
Marilyn produces the shard from her jeans pocket, looking at it with longing curiosity while Brian quietly observes.
She goes to slot the shard before having her forearm quickly grabbed... the speed of the grab makes a skin slapping noise that startles her.
"Klep... the shard. Not slot it." Brian says as he calmy takes the shard out of her hand before holding it up in front her. He continues.
"This is corpo trash Mare... the less we know about it, the better. You can use your imagination to discern what's on it...and i'm sure it'd be pretty spot on... Some corpo gonk tryin' to get a taste of the NC night life... probably got a bit too comfortable and started openin' his mouth... or has an acquired taste for somethin' he'd rather no one know about.."
Marilyn, takes another long drag of the cig before she responds.
"A corpo this sloppy... hm... couldn't we see whats on it and like... use it to our advantage or something? Maybe get some extra eds out of him..? Or a favor...? or both? He is dong biz outside of a fixer after all. I mean.. his recourse at this point is practically zilch right?"
Brian looks over at Marilyn with a proud smile. "Easy tiger... this guys a low level corporat... wouldn't have much worth extracting even if it meant having a favor owed... But yes. You're right."
Brian pauses and raises his eyebrows while titlting his head to the side. "Already using your discretion to look for potentially unseen opportunities to be seized... I'm not creating a monster am i...?"
Marilyn looks at Brian and grins before looking forward again and taking another drag of the smoke. He continues.
"And The Moxes that had it...?"
Marilyn looks over at Brian with a now serious expression, almost forgetting that part of the job.
"Oh! uhm... they love me." She chuckles. "Initiation for me is 'sometime in the near future' she said."
"Good... You'll be ready." Brian responds before promptly starting the car.
Marilyn sits up in her seat. "So where we going..? Off to the rat?"
"Off to the gym." Brian responds. "If we take longer... he'll think the job was harder."
The pair look at each other at the same time "Extra Eddies!" they both exclaim in sync as they laugh together while casually driving away.