The lady shook her head, revealing the many piercings on her ears.
"You have to order, else you'll have to leave," she said. "Sorry, new order from the boss."
Without turning around, she pointed in the direction where her boss was standing behind the counter.
Damon looked over, saw the bearded man and sighed.
She was distracting him from his thoughts and he wished she could just scram.
"A cup of coffee will do. Thanks."
"With—" she tried to inquire further into Damon's taste.
"Just a cup of coffee. Nothing else."
Damon shut her out immediately and discharged her from his presence.
He turned his attention back to the television but they were already through with Neons' interview.
He stared at the waitress with a narrowed gaze as if blaming her for him missing the interview but there was not much he could have done anyways.
There was no way he could reach Neons through the television anyway.
Damon looked around, taking note of his surroundings and then leaned back in his chair before putting the hood of his sweater back on.
About 15 minutes passed and another person walked into the restaurant carrying a brown box.
He stopped and glanced to his sides as if searching for someone.
Setting his eyes on where Damon sat, he smiled as he had finally seen the person he was looking for… Damon.
He walked up to Damon and sat in front of him.
"Sorry, I'm late. Here it is."
He put the box on the table and slid it gently to Damon, who opened it and peeked into the box briefly.
"Thanks a lot. I owe you one, Fredo."
"Sure you don't want to sign up and play for NERVE? Heard there's some mouth-watering rewards for the top players to complete the game and other challenges among their recruits."
Fredo cleared his throat. "You should sign up, Damon. You're good with games and stuff."
Damon boiled inside as Fredo rattled on about NERVE proudly but Fredo could not be blamed.
He did not know about his friend's tragic ordeal three months ago.
Damon leaned back on his chair, faked a smile and shook his head.
"I'll pass, man. I want to be a solo player. I'm not good with teams, especially when they slow me down."
Fredo considered Damon's reasons for a few seconds and agreed with him. "That's cool too. That way you don't have to share your spoils with anyone. Anyways, it's eighty bucks for the gear."
Eighty bucks was a lot for Damon. However he nodded in agreement and reached for his pocket.
He took out more cash than requested and gave it to Fredo, almost burning through his stash.
"Keep the rest—"
"Here's your coffee." The waitress ushered herself into their conversation unannounced and interrupted Damon.
Fredo leaned back a little, creating her more space on the table for her to put down the cup of coffee that Damon ordered.
Damon glanced at the cup of coffee and then at the waitress, repeating this three more times but did not say a word.
He took out some money from the rest he had and handed it to her.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. I hope you enjoy your coffee."
As she was about to leave, Damon noticed the tattoo on her left forearm.
It was drawn to appear like a black scaly dragon coiling up around her arm.
"That's a nice tattoo you have," he complimented her.
She looked at her arm and Fredo did too, nodding in approval.
"Thanks," she responded, smiling at Damon.
"It's cool."
Fredo watched the two of them silently while wondering what was going on.
He did not say a word, only to start teasing his friend after she had left.
Not long after, Fredo stood up and took his leave.
"Give my regards to Beth and Nate, man. I gotta go."
Damon froze, hesitating to take the hand that was extended to him.
Fredo gave him a curious look. "Are you okay, man?"
Immediately, Damon got himself back and bobbed his head.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good," he answered while hurriedly shaking Fredo's hand.
"Thanks for this, Fredo. I appreciate it."
.
.
.
Damon returned to the abandoned warehouse where he had been hiding for months.
There was no way anyone would come that far from the city to look for him in a place that catches no one's eye anymore.
An old warehouse that found its way between old, deserted factories with a roof that had a third of it broken down.
He sat on a heap of straws and opened the brown box to take out his equipment.
It was a jet-black device that looked like a gas mask with silver-lined edges and a pair of glasses attached to it.
He admired it very much. It was neatly carved and no colour would have been better suited than black and silver.
Fredo had brought him one of the first sets of the Axon gears made by NERVE — the Obsidian Alpha model.
Damon held the gear with both hands and kept on staring at it.
He had his memories from three months ago flashing through his mind in a split second.
He exhaled.
Damon was only thinking of one thing: how to get revenge on Dr. Joe Neons and NERVE for all they had done.
From his investigations, Damon could hazard a guess on the real reason behind the disappearances of different individuals of the societal lower class.
He was disgusted and made up his mind to bring an end to it all but first things first.
The only way was to complete and crash the game Neons went the extra mile for.
He thought deeply about it for months and always came to the same conclusion.
Nexus must have been very important to Joe Neons, even more than his life, for him to go that far.
But to carry out his plan, Damon had to find Beth because he couldn't do it alone.
For him to find his sister, he would have to become a player in Nexus Online.
After the session of deep nostalgia, Damon made up his mind and put on his Axon gear.
The pair of glasses turned dark and a prompt appeared, written in blue.
He followed the instructions and successfully activated his A-N Link and other preliminaries without any troubles.
Those tasks were a piece of cake.
Within a few real world minutes, Damon was done and the prompt that he was anticipating finally appeared on his shades
[Welcome to Nexus Online!]
[Player has been tagged with a number]
[You are player #60,765,989]