"Yeah, that doesn't sound familiar at all. Some weird honor system. Corps are a viper pit, head. Glad you got out, if you did."

"More like an 'if you cross Kyros you die' system, in practice, because Kyros just flat-out Could Kill You no matter who you were, but I do see the thing about honor.  Comparing Graven Ashe and the Tower...even if they both have remit over war, I think no soldier of Ashe's would be caught dead harassing civilians, especially not just to get into a bar.

"Looking down on them, so much, absolutely, and heavens help you if you've done something like hurt one of theirs because you'll die screaming, but, despite the ways in which their internal practices were a lot like what I've overheard of Tower's prejudice - I mentioned the 'dissect someone to get their secrets' thing?  That was them, the whole stupid plan, and they didn't ask me about doing it the first time - but when I told them their plan was stupid and they shouldn't do that, you got more information out of alive people, even if they were - some very disliked sorts - they stopped."

"Tower's not actually the worst ones to cross. They'll beat the shit out of you and haul you to prison, they'll even shoot you if you've got mutations, but there's no... Targeted cruelty. They aren't out to get you in particular, they're just out to get someone. Not like the pimps, or triads, or the fuckin' Projects. Like, Tower's a known quantity, stay out of the way and you're mostly fine. The Jags and Modes aren't bad either, they've got clear lines and will only fuck with you if you cross 'em. But there's some real monsters out there too. Small time and big time both. I heard Naas tests new augs in shitty little hellholes in Africa- 'Donating' some untested hardware on the condition that detailed combat data gets sent back to them, knowing full well that they're letting some shitty dictator put 'em in little kids who probably die of the shakes in a few years if the bullets don't get them. You can't believe anything the big corps publish."

"Yeah, there's a reason I compared them worse off to Ashe's soldiers and not the Scarlet Chorus.  I bet most of those would fit right in, here."

"...Frustrating, that there's all this this, and not any that y'all can get or trust.  Kind of makes me want to fix it, not that I'm remotely set up to actually do that, as I am."  Sip.

"Sounds like a good way to die and get a lot of other heads killed in the meanwhile to me," Val says.

(The poker game starts back up. The thing with Nerat or whoever was interesting, but they're moving on now to more practical realities, like how there's a filcher hanging around the market lately, white guy, tall, or how Kevin's old squat is available now, he got a place in the slums and left it, and other low-level gossip.)

...Reilly finally comes out of the bathroom again. She sits and takes the beer she paid for that's been sitting, alone, on the bar. Starts slowly drinking it, thinking hard. Val gives her a look but doesn't move to evict her.

"Sure, but who here really, truly believes they aren't gonna die anyway?

"Way I figure, the people at the bottom of the ladder have the least to lose - all you can go is up."

Oh, hey, it's Reilly.

...

"Thinkin' 'bout something important?"

Val just snorts and starts restocking some drinks.

"...Important to me. Not to you. I'm thinking about work. Need something better than random day labor hauling stuff around or digging latrines for a buck. But I don't have any of my tools anymore, pawned 'em. My own damn fault, yeah? Who wants to hear a head complain about their own shitty life choices in a bar? I'm just glad I didn't get into whoring. You don't get out of it. Would've pawned my support aug if I could have too. Huzzah. Look at my party trick."

She holds up one arm in a clearly awkward and unbalanced position, twisted around and stretched, and- Just holds it there, perfectly still, without it seeming to take any effort.

"I could keep this up for an hour."

"Everyone's important to me."

The mention of whoring being a thing you never leave, a bad ending...

Ophelia's knuckles whiten as she takes a sip of her water.

"...That is indeed a very neat party trick.

"What sorts of tools could you use, if you had them?  What could you do with them, if you did?"

"You know, electronics stuff. Not really a mechanic, and nanotech and hacking and med-tech stuff is beyond me too, but. Phones, radios, lights, networking, to the extent you even can network without inviting everyone with a radio link to spy on everything you do. Drones. Sensors. Appliances, though that's edging towards mechanic again. I can work with most of it. Just not much opportunity. Parts aren't cheap either."

She nods.  "Sounds like a very useful skillset, in my opinion.  I'm very sure my old boss and some of my coworkers in a different branch would have highly valued your expertise.  It's unfortunate that they aren't; I know a bit of how they do things, but I'm no master of making.  Still...I think there may be opportunities for us.  Because depending upon what parts...Well, I even have some raw materials to hand.  And then...we can leverage that."

Reilly gives her a side-eyed glance. "...What, you see a random girl and want to go into business with her?" She's clearly suspicious. "Heads who can fix stuff aren't exactly rare as diamonds, and it's not like I've ever heard of you either. I won't turn down paying work, but you sound like you're selling something else."

"I see someone down on their luck but trying to make something of herself, and figure that if I'm in the same boat, two people trying is better than one.

"I'm - well, you wouldn't know a Fatebinder, you were in the bathroom.  But I'm Fatebinder Ophelia Vaudelle, and I've done far more difficult things than undercut people who're charging exorbitant prices for parts, before.  Plus, I did help you out a bit earlier, you might have noticed, and I'm sure Val can attest to my chronically overinflated sense of responsibility.  I wouldn't say I'm in your debt, per se, but - I try to make sure everyone whose lives I touch comes out better for the experience, and yours isn't quite better yet, despite what's happened so far.  I'm not done.  And if I'm not done...

"An unfinished duty is only marginally less viscerally painful to my psyche than one I have failed, and I appear to have picked up 'get your life to a stable and healthy equilibrium' as one to get myself moving in this new place.  If you'll have me.  If you want to throw me out on my ear, that's your decision to make; I'll respect it."

"Never seen you before in my life, so I'm sure you didn't help me earlier." Reilly glances around the bar.

Val says, "She's some kind of foreign. Maybe corpo, maybe some other big player. Talking a lot. Fucked up a cannibal pretty good, or so she said. Normal levels of bullshit, not too high or low."

Reilly nods as if things make much more sense than before, now.

"Also, it'll be time for y'all to buy another drink soonish."

She also nods to this, and sips her drink again.

"I won't turn down charity, or good paying work, but you're not buying yourself - lifelong gratitude or anything, head."

"You were very out of it, at the time.  Your sister would have a better recollection, I think."

At Val's comment, though... "...Well, that's interesting, I had not expected my sense of self to be so direly offended by being described as being only a normal level of bullshit.  I suppose I pride myself a bit too much on my exceptionality."  She shakes her head, allowing herself a bit of self-deprecating mirth.  "Regardless - I'm not expecting lifelong gratitude, not unless I put in lifelong effort.  That's how relationships work.  Or at least how they should.

"Anyway.  Speaking of business matters, I've a few bits of miscellany from my old job with little practical use here, and no particular direct value to me; I figure I want to sell those on to folk with more money than sense, because they sure do love status symbols, but I don't know the locals."

Eyes narrow. Glare.

"I guess I can help you appraise them, or whatever... Sort through, see if there's anything of use... I don't really have the contacts to sell anything classy close to what it's actually worth, though."

"You have more contacts than my none, I think."

"Don't spread a bunch of goods out on my bartop," Val says. "I buy and sell booze and grub, that's it. If you're talking business maybe time to head out?"

"Wasn't planning on it.  Was hoping I'd have an idea of where I'm heading before I headed out, though, if you don't begrudge me the extra few minutes."

"Don't push it," Val warns. "You get some credit for Mateo but a bar is for drinking."

"I was planning on heading over to the market soon. Always a head or two who needs heavy stuff shifted for a few bucks around."

She nods.  "Don't want to overstay my welcome; I'll get myself out of your hair.  If we're heading to the market, then let's head to the market, Reilly?"

"Yeah."

The market is well off to the right of the big gate. They don't want to be within line of sight of Tower's checkpoint. A few people are eyeing Ophelia with interest now.

They pass someone lying face-up on a moldy couch, trying to staunch bleeding from an arm and breathing shallowly. Reilly - keeps a wide berth and makes to just keep going.

Ophelia's thumb traces a pattern inside her sleeve; this person is going to feel much better in a few minutes.

Healing's not the stuff she's used to casting sneakily, but she knows how to do it.

The Border Market is a roughly square collection of stalls, with wary faces watching the customers and fellow merchants just as warily. Serving people who can't get in. People coming. People leaving. There’s always a bunch of weird stuff floating around. Old junk off blankets in the dust. Magazines, plastic tchotchkes and colored glass beads. Baskets of old coins, watches, dirty glasses and cracked plates lorded over by women with weathered faces. Haggling is perfunctory, with prices only changing a teensy bit.

In terms of decent deals on stuff worth having that Reilly points out as they wander around a bit, currently the Border Market has:

Random clothes- An old T-shirt, an ammo belt, tough old boots, a big sturdy survival backpack. $20-$80.
Dirty old knives of a variety of sorts, with one or two that might not be as worthless as they seem on first inspection. $50ish.
Bolt cutters ($40), a 'filter mask' that the seller swears is still good ($12), and a few miscellaneous tools- Wrenches and stuff ($25).
Ration packs and first aid kits out of the back of a pickup truck ($22 each), along with a large tank of water and a drink called coffee that you can have for a few bucks.
Some head selling an old dirt bike for $450 because they're heading into the city and don't need it anymore. That's a steal if you want one, it'll be gone in an hour.
A stack of old construction materials. Plascrete blocks, dented siding, compress board crumbling at the edges. Heavy and bulky. $130.

And two usual features. There's a big garage on one side. Dusty's place, Reilly explains. Dusty is a they, not a he or a she, quiet sort, mechanical wizard, works on vehicles and can't be hurried for love or money. Admirable, the place they've made themselves here, a local fixture. And then the Junk Guy. Or a half dozen of them, really, sharing the only other permanent structure in the Border Market. They'll take random bits and pieces off you for cheap, sort and stack it, and sell it back to folks for more.

Sheeeee will take a closer look at the metalcrafts.  She has her own emergency knife, because she's not stupid, but she expects that there's a few of these knives she could clean up and sell that none other than a Forgebound could.  (She also knows exactly where the flaws are.)

Kind of a lot of things are metal? Lots of the random junk, the bolt cutters and other tools, belt buckles and the construction materials. The knives are mostly damaged through neglect- Long use, dulling, rust, rough treatment, and time. Some more obviously worn down to near-uselessness ones can be had as low as $20-$40 or so, ranging from big rusty slabs of cleavers to savage serrated machetes to nasty little switchblades and butterfly knives to overly flashy serpentine segmented things that have locked up into uselessness long ago.

"So are you gonna actually try and sell something or what?"