It was well past midnight, just about an hour after the scuffle with Rosemary on the subway. Rather than letting me go home to my storage unit immediately, Soho took me back to the mall, where we now sat in a booth in the Waving Kitty.
"Soho!" The same bartender who'd previously served me came to greet us. "And the Fractless too! You're back! Together?"
"He's a coworker," Soho said. "Just finished a grueling job, isn't that right, Klyson?"
I nodded awkwardly, unfamiliar with the energy between these two.
"So Klyson's the name! You can call me Draz, brother!" He then gave me a laughing look. "You said you had an early start tomorrow, why're you back already?"
Before I could come up with an excuse, Soho spoke for me. "I convinced him to take tomorrow off. Who the hell works weekends anyways?"
"Apparently him!" Draz grinned. "The usual?"
Soho nodded. "Put a double on it."
He winked at her, then looked at me. "You gonna finish the drink this time, brother?"
"Of course," I said. He smirked right back, and quickly made his way back to the bar. I looked at Soho.
"Are you a regular here? You two seem close."
Soho scoffed before leaning in to whisper into my ear. "I live here, actually."
I was surprised to hear that. "You live here, in this bar…?"
"Yup."
"Ian never got you a place to stay?"
"He did. But it was so dull and gloomy, just like yours. At the time, I came to this bar to drink so often that one of the nights I blacked out, I woke up on a couch in one of the private rooms of this place. Draz thought that I was homeless, and since I already came so often, he offered that I just stay here until I could find a real home."
"So you lied that you were homeless and took up that offer…?"
"Don't put it that way!" She laughed. "I mean, look at the place! This kind of energy suits me much more than a rusty box of concrete like yours."
I scoffed. "You make it sound much worse than it actually is."
"It is worse! I was just being generous!" We laughed.
Draz had then come back with our drinks.
"Lychee martini for the lady, and Enigma for the Fractless." He slid our drinks forward. "Enjoy the night, you two."
Soho raised her glass towards me. "Cheers, for success on the first job."
I raised my glass towards her and we clinked, following with a sip afterwards. Curiosity then bit me. "How'd you find me and Rosemary on the subway earlier?"
"I told you, I was there the whole time."
"Since when?"
"Since here." Soho insinuated the place we were in. "Waving Kitty was the bar I was talking about when we first entered the mall. While you went and followed Rosemary around, I was waiting here until the four of you walked in."
"You were here while I was here?"
"I was already here before you even got here." She pointed towards the restrooms. "Ever wondered why Rosemary's coworkers never returned from their washroom trip?"
"They went to the washroom? I thought they had left. They were gone for so long."
"That man and the blondie had some business going on inside one of the stalls." She took a sip of her drink. "I used Static and kept them stuck in there."
"Oh…" I scratched my head awkwardly. "Are they still there…?"
"I set my Fractal to release its effect while we were already gone and on the subway. Either they left already, or are still going at it in there."
I took a sip of my own drink, using the bitterness of the alcohol to wash away the unpleasant thoughts of their 'business.'
"So you followed Rosemary and I onto the subway afterwards?"
"Not before using Kinetic to cause a slippage on the left side of the boarding platform."
I recalled it, when everyone had slipped and fallen on the one side of the platform before we boarded the subway.
"That was you?" I asked.
"Mhm. Remember how my Fractal works? Static keeps 'em stuck, Kinetic makes 'em slip. That's the simple way to put it. You were so on-and-on about isolating Rosemary, so I decided to do the job for you!"
That's true. If it weren't for the slippage Soho created in the area Rosemary was first approaching, she wouldn't have gone to the other end of the platform instead and boarded with me alone.
"Thanks. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't have been able to get her on her own."
She patted me on the shoulder. "I'm your accomplice for a reason. You can count on me!" She raised her glass towards mine again. "Cheers!"
Her face was already rosy like a cherry.
What a lightweight.
The thought made me smile to myself. I realized that it wasn't fair for her to let loose on her own. I clinked her glass and took a bigger gulp of my drink this time. "Cheers."
"How are the drinks tasting?" Draz had come by. "I can see you've already drank more this time around, brother."
I nodded. "Of course."
"This shit is strong!" Soho said.
Draz replied. "You did say a double."
"I know, and I love it!" She giggled.
"Can I get any bites for you guys, maybe? Chips? Mozzarella sticks?"
I looked to Soho, unsure of what to get.
"Crunchy," was all she said. I took it that she wanted something of that texture.
I've got a big paycheck coming in. Might as well pig-out.
"Both," I told Draz.
"Perfect. I'll be right back with those."
As he left, I turned to Soho to find her leaning back in her chair already. Her face was flushed, and I realized she'd already finished her drink.
"You're quick to get drunk."
"I never said I wasn't." She slightly slurred her words. "Say, your face is a little roughened up from that encounter with Rosemary, don't you think?"
"She got some hits on me before I fully adapted to her Fractal."
"That's probably because she's got a black-belt in a martial-art. I forgot which one…"
"Said who?" I asked.
"Ian."
Makes sense. Her kicks were precise, and so were her abilities to evade my attacks before I adapted.
"Still, we got the better of her," I said. "Say, how were you unaffected by your Fractal? Me and Rosemary were slipping, but you stood there just fine."
"I used Static on the soles of my shoes just before I used Kinetic on the floor."
"So Static and Kinetic can cancel each other out?"
"Mhm." Soho went for a sip of her drink but realized it was empty. "I can even choose the amount of which form I want to use at a time, like 70% Static and 30% Kinetic, for example."
That's really useful. That gives her a lot of opportunities to adapt to certain situations.
"Hey, wanna know why the Waving Kitty is called the Waving Kitty?" She suddenly asked.
"Sure."
She leaned forwards now, as if ready to have a formal discussion. Yet, I couldn't take her seriously with her tipsy state.
"Do you know about the Sin of Lust?"
"From the Seven Sins?"
She nodded. "She's the one with the Fractal that allowed her to amplify emotions using eye contact."
"Yes, I'm familiar. She killed a lot of people by amplifying their emotions to a point of fatality, didn't she?"
"She did. But you gotta lock eye contact with her for a while for it to happen, right? Most people think 'I'll just avoid eye contact with her,' and then they won't have to worry. So it makes you wonder how the hell she had so many fall victim to her Fractal if it was so easy to avoid, right?"
"Right…"
"Well, the legends about her say that she was so stunningly beautiful, so inexplicably sexy, that people couldn't help but lock eye contact with her whenever she looked their way." Soho reached over to the windowsill and grabbed one of the waving kitty decorations, placing it on the table in front of us. "It was just like how you can't help but wave back at this kitty who constantly waves at you. It's an irresistible action you feel the need to return, whether it's eye contact, or waving!"
"So the 'Waving Kitty' actually just represents the Sin of Lust?"
"Bingo!" Soho laughed in amusement. "One day, I wanna become so sexy people will stop and stare at me just like they did to the Sin of Lust."
"Wasn't Ian one of the Seven Sins too? The Sin of Sloth."
"Yeah, he was. You know, I've tried asking him about all the other Seven Sins and what happened to them. But he never gives me a straight answer and always avoids the topic."
The history books say that they all died during the Filtering. But clearly that isn't true, if Ian really is the Sin of Sloth.
I realized how vague he was as a person and with his intentions. "He's too mysterious in that regard."
"Well, it's not like we could ever approach him directly and get answers out of him. We don't even know where he is!"
I was shot with curiosity. "Is his location kept anonymous? Even to members of Heathen?"
"Mhm. No one is allowed to know where he is, except for the co-founder of Heathen."
"Who's that?" I asked, unaware that Ian wasn't the only one who started Heathen.
"Hugo Hethens. He's the one with the Fractal 'Imbue.' It lets him imbue other people's Fractals into a medium of his choosing."
"Wait, the Fractal that allows Ian to emit his own Fractal from people and cameras and toy plushies?!"
"Toy plushies?" Soho laughed. "Has Ian used that as a medium to communicate to you before?"
I nodded, slightly embarrassed. "Then this guy, Hugo, is the one Ian combines his Fractal with to create Fractal Boxes, right?"
"Yeah. I've never seen a more perfect Fractal pairing than those two."
"What a wild Fractal. It's basically useless without someone else's Fractal though."
"At least he has a Fractal," Soho said jokingly.
"Well, I've got my Flow State now at least."
"Flow State? What the hell is that?"
I thought about it for a moment, because even I realized that I'd never really stopped to recognize it for what it was.
"It's a sort of state I enter when I'm in danger that allows me to keep up with HP Fractals. I don't know the depths of it yet, but all I do know is that it's what got me this role in Heathen."
"Right… Ian has always been infatuated with all that 'Fractless potential' stuff ever since he left."
I took note of what Soho said. "He? You mean Enzo, right?"
"You know him!?" She was shocked.
"Of course I do. I used to work in the military with him. I know he came from Heathen too."
To my surprise, Soho suddenly took on a face of regret.
"Yeah… It's been a while since he left."
"Did you know him personally?" I asked.
She looked at me as if she were about to answer, but before she could, Draz suddenly arrived with the food we'd ordered.
"Chips and mozzarella sticks, fresh from the fryer." As he placed them onto our table, Soho was quick to speak up.
"Get me a strong shot, Draz."
"What kind?"
"Anything. Surprise me. And make it quick."
"Got it." He snapped his fingers. Draz rushed over to the bar and began pouring out a shot.
"Are you sure you need more to drink?" I asked Soho.
She looked at me and scoffed, her face red like a cherry. "With the topic of conversation you want to get into, hell yeah I need another shot."
Draz arrived with the shot and slid it over to Soho. He noticed my unsure expression. "Don't worry brother. If you're tired of her rambling, this should shut her down for the night." He then walked off in a laugh.
As I turned my head towards Soho, she was already downing the shot.
"Damn!" She said, slamming the glass onto the table. She was suddenly more energetic than before. "Alright, Klyson. You've got 10 minutes before I crash from all this booze. Say what you wanna say."
I've never seen someone drunk in this way before.
"I was asking if you knew Enzo personally while he was still a part of Heathen."
She nodded. "Yes."
"In what way?"
"I mean, apparently we came from the same orphanage. I don't know. Something like that." She was already slurring her words.
Ian had mentioned that Enzo came from an orphanage. If Soho came from the same one, it must mean that they left at the same time.
"So you two joined Heathen at the same time?"
"Yeah."
I was suddenly curious. "What was Enzo like back then? What did he do?"
"Gosh. Back then? He was so different. So, so different." She leaned her head back. "Before he had that awakening, he was just an innocent Fractless trying to make ends meet. When we came across Heathen, he told me that it was finally a place where we could find a sense of belonging. And it was true, at least for a bit. Until that."
"What happened?"
"His fucking awakening!" She nearly yelled. "He changed that day. He changed forever. He realized his power and it made him hunger for more. Then he began to go on those bounty missions. The same exact types of missions Ian's making you do right now."
Right. Ian made it clear I was Enzo's successor.
"Before all of that, we used to be together all the time. I mean, of course we would. We came from the same orphanage! Even if I didn't remember our time together before joining Heathen, I couldn't help but confide in him knowing he was the closest I had to family. But with the power he gained, he grew more independent. He wouldn't even let me accompany him on his jobs. Slowly, over time, I saw him less and less. He was drowning in corruption and he didn't even realize it. He wouldn't even talk to me anymore. He told me that I was 'of no use to his ambitions.' He basically said I was useless! And to shove it in my face, the results of his work basically proved exactly that. He worked the best while alone. He showed me that I wasn't needed. I really wasn't needed."
She was beginning to sob.
"For as long as I could remember being in Heathen, I've only ever felt like a burden. I've never felt of use to the organization or to anyone in it, and it's all because of Enzo. He abandoned me. He abandoned all of us. All because of his stupid Fractless power." She suddenly shot me a petty look. "You remind me of him a little bit. I hate it!"
"What?!"
"You're dull, quiet, and cold, just like how he was after he had his awakening. Don't let it corrupt you too!"
My eyes widened a little. "I… I won't."
"You better not!" She crossed her arms in frustration. "Let me help you! Let me assist you! I'll prove to you, and to everyone, that I can be useful to someone's 'aspirations'! I'm not a burden!"
"I never said you were…"
"But that's what you think, don't you? You probably think I'm going to get in your way, just like Enzo did back then!"
"No…" I suddenly recalled the events from today. It made me stop for a moment and realize just how much Soho had already done to assist me in just my first mission. "That's not true, Soho."
"Yes it is. I'm just a burden, and will always be one to anyone and everyone. People probably don't even want me around…"
Her true feelings were pouring out. I could tell that the alcohol had done the work to open her up this way. She was being vulnerable with me, and I understood that I couldn't neglect her emotions.
"You aren't a burden, and you've proven that to me today." I looked her directly in the eyes to get my message across. "We wouldn't be here celebrating the completion of my first bounty if it weren't for your efforts, Soho. You alone did the work to isolate Rosemary from her coworkers, and the passengers at the subway station. You were even there in the end to prevent her from escaping."
Soho's eyes twinkled for a moment, but she averted her gaze with unjustified shame. "You're just speaking out of your ass…"
"I'm not." I turned her to look towards me. "All I did was kill the target. You did everything else. I was a mere one-percent of the total work, while you were ninety-nine."
In that moment, she looked at me with eyes of uncertainty, yet they were on the brink of gratitude. It was almost like she was unsure of what to feel about what I'd said.
"You're stupid," she said, as she suddenly fell forwards onto the table.
Slam!
She wiped out in front of me.
"Soho?" I tapped her shoulder. She had no response.
'10 minutes before I crash from all this booze,' is what she'd said. She really wasn't kidding.
I scoffed at the thought.
Maybe it's better that our conversation is left off from there. She is, after all, just an accomplice.
From across the bar, Draz noticed the scene. He waltzed over with a grin on his face, noticing the passed out Soho. "I told you, didn't I?"
I smiled back. "You were right."
"When you've been bartending for a while, you get a gist of when people are approaching their drinking limit. Soho's an easy one. She makes it super clear."
"Very clear."
He laughed in response. "You don't worry about her. She does this so much, I always have a room ready for her to camp the night in. Plus, her hangovers in the morning are a fair amount to deal with. You look like you've dealt with enough today."
"You'll watch over her?" I asked.
"I always do. We may not be related, but I see her as the little sister I never had. I'll make sure she's well rested and safe, if that's what you're concerned about."
I nodded in approval. "Thanks, Draz. I'll take my leave then."
"Anytime brother. Please, come by to the Waving Kitty again sometime. You're always welcome here."
I waved to him as I left the bar, and he and all the other Waving Kitties waved back at me. Into the night, I returned to my storage unit living space and crashed as soon as I got home, exhausted by the multitude of events that'd transpired today.