"Good morning, Grandfather!"
"Good morning, Carter! Sleep well?" Asked the old man, flashing him a bright smile with his classical eye twinkle. Carter smiled back at him, though the motion felt painful.
"Sure," he replied evenly, taking his seat next to two other Bound in the circle they usually started the mornings in. It was a short moment of companionship, after all. "I had a very good night."
"Glad to hear it! Now that you're here, you might be interested in what I was saying. I was just telling Anna here about the time I…"
But Carter wasn't listening. Though he kept his gaze amicable and made sure to eat as much as he could, it was hard to keep himself from glaring, and thus eventually he settled for looking down a bit, as if slightly downtrodden. If anyone noticed, they said nothing — perhaps because that was the common mood amidst the less fortunate.
This man…
The sheer guts he possessed were to be admired, truly. The kind of person who'd spend a night discussing someone's death and then calmly sit by them in the morning, pretending he wasn't to blame for those whom he'd already sent to hell… it was honestly beyond his comprehension.
But — as he realized with a worried chuckle — it wouldn't be for long.
After all… in the corners of his sight, just an inch away from being invisible, sat the words:
[ACTIVE QUEST: "Merit and Mettle." ]
He hadn't had the chance to Decline it — no buttons were offered. Perhaps because such deception had been at the core of his Awakening this strange [System] in the first place, completion of the Quest was somewhat mandatory.
That scared him — but it didn't scare him as much as the realization that, even if he had the choice to, Carter wouldn't have declined it. Not when he knew what he knew — not when he knew what this man had done and wanted to do.
"Ripen him" his cherry-flavoured ass.
But — the thought gave him an idea. Carter looked up, directing a questioning gaze at the man as he happily chattered about his misadventures.
"Say, Grandfather — I forgot to ask you yesterday. What am I to do today?"
That was how things worked — Grandfather would assign people to certain areas, usually with warnings that they might avoid specific unsavoury individuals he'd heard about. If most of the Bound weren't off the Mines by 10 AM, all bets were off and Morpheus' Police Force would barge their way in and force them out. As always, it was around 7 AM by the time they had breakfast — so they had time.
The old man smiled, dramatically spinning his odd hat as he raised an eyebrow.
"Ah, eager, are we? I'll have you know, though, that interrupting the elderly is a terrible sin! What if I die, hmmm? Bet you'll wish you had listened to more of my amazing tales then!"
Sure, Carter mentally agreed. Tales of your violent death.
"Sure," Carter agreed. "I'm sorry. But I forgot to ask yesterday… you saw how tired I was."
The man tipped his head to that.
"Yes, I did… ah, well, no harm was done. We've all been impatient youngsters once, young Padawan. Now… I believe today, as you were the last to ask, you'd be best suited for The Rifts. Don't worry, though — I have it in good authority the Police will be around, so most of the more unfortunate patrons will avoid it like the plague. Won't be as dangerous as usual."
The Rift was…
Well, no use mincing words. It was Morpheus' dubiously legal Black Market. If you knew who to talk to and where to look, there wasn't a lot you couldn't get in that street… for the right price. It was dubiously legal in that, while its activities were sanctioned by the Government, there were things everyone knew were for sale there that weren't.
Like, say, organs. Harvested from stupid Bound who wandered into The Rift.
...Called in a few favours indeed, Carter mused, nodding with a nervous expression that might have been a little too genuine. It wouldn't be easy to make sure Carter wasn't, you know, killed.
How likely was it, he wondered, that Grandfather was the entire reason the Police would be present in the first place? And, most importantly — what was his plan? Because none of this was a ploy to protect him.
"Yikes," he muttered out loud. "The Rift, huh. Harsh, Grandfather. If I die, I'm haunting your ass."
"Psh. As if you'd die from something like that. You're tough, you can do it."
"Yeah," Carter agreed with an easy smile. "I can. Well, I'll be going then. Good day, everyone!"
And with that, he got up from his spot slowly, fixing his clothes needlessly as he walked. Before he left, though, he spared a single look back to stare at Grandfather.
Their gazes met. Carter smiled. Grandfather didn't smile back.
The way to The Rift (The Rift?) was almost as dangerous as the place itself. If he wasn't careful, some random System-bearer could demand he help them with something, and that'd send him down an unfortunate path of unpredictable circumstances. He had little doubts Grandfather had his ways to get information on what happened outside his walls and adapt to circumstances, but Carter didn't have the same advantage.
It was better to meet the enemy on known terrain — or so it went. Therefore, Carter kept to the shadows as he always did, taking care to avoid any of the alleys he'd been caught in before. He was forced to hide behind dumpsters a few times, but it was better than diving into them, so really he shouldn't complain.
Finally, he got there — the sight of The Rift's characteristic black buildings reached his eyes as he sneaked in slowly from one of four alleys that led there. It was a fairly open area, surprisingly enough, and the bright sky outside might fool one into believing it a nice neighborhood — in fact, were it not for the strange convention that led most of the buildings there to be short and mostly black, it would've fit in well in a magazine cover.
Appearances, however, could be deceiving. Before he even stepped into the street proper, he'd already pinpointed two shady individuals — a man with his back on a wall who carelessly read the day's paper and a woman slowly smoked a cigarette as she stared into the sky. They weren't the only ones there, but they were the shady ones.
Why? Well. The woman has a gun under the jacket of the black business suit she wore, of which he could only just tell the silhouette under the sunlight. The man, on the other hand, kept flicking his eyes to the sides now and then — clearly waiting for someone.
Other than them… Well, Grandfather hadn't been lying. Some 8 Policemen were standing around or patrolling, all of them clad in black-and-purple body armor and wielding swords or machine guns. One, he noted dimly, carried a damn bow-and-arrow, which takes guts if nothing else.
Alright then. Reconnaissance arguably complete… now he had to play bait. Grandfather wanted to 'break' him — intense emotions intensified Mana Production, after all. He wouldn't do so by just having him be on edge.
He'd have to attract attention — but odds are they'd be expecting him to come in from the front entrance. Walking in from the sides meant he could very well attack some random System-bearer's attention, which would honestly be quite unfortunate.