Sleepless Angel (OPEN)

Roleplay
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Location: Reveries bar
Time: 0330
Tags: OPEN

Feel free to drop in to interact directly with Ada, or just use it as a setting for everyone to get to know each other.

Adelaine had had this dream before and every time it was the same. She was in her own body but she wasnt her, she couldn’t have been, none of this was her life? She watched as the limousine ground to a halt in the narrow street. She grinned in her disturbed sleep as she lifted her pistol and blew a hole through a gang heavy after he got out, she even felt the burning pain as he cracked her ribs on the way down. She watched as her cybernetic fists smashed through the window of the expensive vehicle just seconds before the occupant put a bullet into the half dressed hooker he had on board for the night. Ada smelled the musk and fear from the cabin of the vehicle as she reach inside and gripped him by his neck. The other woman had the wherewithall to rip something out of his neck, causing him to seize and go limp. Did Ada know her, maybe?

The ran, the gig was up and they got into the back of the van, Ada would pull off her top to reveal the spreading contusions on her side before fainting. That was where she woke up… every time.

She sat up and grabbed her tank top, it was half three in the morning and that was all the sleep she was getting tonight. She needed a drink.

Ada left her apartment and began to make her way down the street towards Reveries, she knew it would still be open. A crescent earth hung large in the sky as she walked, the air felt a little off, perhaps the districts atmospherics were on the blink again, or maybe it was just in her head from the lack of sleep.

The bar was mostly empty when she arrived. It was like most bars on Lun, like most bars on Earth too if she was honest. Dimly lit with neon fluorescence, booths filled the space near three of the walls but where she was headed was the bar. A greying artificial wooden bar ran the whole length of one of the walls and was served by a man and a woman. The man was a young latino, kinda handsome and was covered in tattoos, the woman, she was brunette? Ada didn’t really pay a lot of attention to her if she was truly honest.

“Gimme a double whiskey cholo.” she asked after she picked her seat.

“Here you go… cant sleep again?”

“You got me, got any tranqs?” she laughed, only half joking.

“Nah chica, not here. Let me know if you need topping up” he wandered off and began to clean glasses leaving Ada to ponder her life alone with her drink.

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They hadn’t been lying when they said this place had grown organically. I hadn’t seen anything like it on earth. Even on the walk from the space dock I crossed through three distinct cultures. Each little corner grown by one culture fleeing earth, then glued together by the ever expanding organic mass of people working to meet corporate growth targets. I didn’t like it.

The sign outside stuttered like a dying heartbeat. Some of its letters only flashed every third beat. Most of the time onle “ever es” glowed in sickly magenta. Appropriate enough.

Jeroen Voss pushed through the pressure door and paused on the threshold. Several hours in a shuttle that stank of piss and broken promises. The recycled air of Celeste 7 was cold an unfamiliar. Back home he knew every cityscape by it’s smell. He knew most streets by how the old stone felt beneath his feet.

The bar was nearly empty. A pair of Discretes nursed the same drinks they had started at shift-change. The bartender, sleeves inked with expansive designs polished a glass out of habit.

Jeroen crossed the floor without hurry and took a stool three seats away from her. He did not glance at the woman yet. Not directly.

“Whisky,” he said, voice low, scraped raw from recycled. “Neat.”

The bartender nodded and poured. Jeroen rested both forearms on the bar.

He reached into his coat when the bartender turned his back. His set a white plastic bottle on the bar. It was mostly empty.

He slid it down the bar.

“Sedatives,” he whispered. “Thought they might help me sleep on the shuttle. They didn’t.”

“First night on Celeste 7.”

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Aren had slipped into Reveries long before the night decided what kind of trouble it wanted to be.

She’d taken a booth against the far wall, the one half-swallowed by shadow where the neon spill barely reached her boots. It was the kind of spot that let her watch without being watched — a habit she’d never managed to break, even after leaving the places that taught it to her.

The bar breathed like a tired machine. Pipes ticked in the walls. Condensation dripped somewhere behind the counter like an old clock losing seconds. Reveries wasn’t pretty, but it was predictable, and on Celeste 7, that counted for something.

That was why she noticed the woman first.

Not by sight — but by the way she entered. Shoulders pulled too tight. Steps careful in a way people got after waking from a pain they couldn’t find on their skin. Ada looked like she’d left half her mind somewhere between her apartment and the street outside.

Aren’s gaze followed her only long enough to understand the shape of her exhaustion. Then she looked away. Respectfully. Quietly. She knew what it was to drag a bad dream around like a second spine.

Then a man entered — unfamiliar face, unfamiliar posture, carrying the brittle weight of someone who hadn’t yet learned how Celeste 7 pressed on new arrivals. He didn’t look at Ada, not directly, but Aren watched the white bottle skitter across the bar toward her. Sedatives. Wonderful.

Aren exhaled through her nose and let her boots drop to the floor. The sound was soft, but final — the sound of someone deciding not to stay hidden.

She rose from the booth, jacket shifting around her shoulders, and moved toward the bar in a slow, measured line. Not hurried. Not confrontational. Just present — a steady current cutting across the room.

She didn’t take the seat beside Ada. That would’ve been too forward.
Instead, she chose the one space over, close enough to make her presence known without boxing anyone in.

The bartender glanced over, tattoos flickering under neon, and Aren nodded once.

“Coffee,” she said, quiet but sure. “Black.”

It arrived a moment later, steaming faintly in the cold bar air. Aren wrapped her hands around it as if absorbing the warmth straight into her bones. Only then did she turn her head — just the barest angle — to acknowledge Ada.

Her voice, when it came, was low and even, the kind that didn’t demand attention but gently settled into the space between them.

“You look like you’ve been chasing sleep,” she murmured, not unkindly. “And losing.”

A soft pause — not for effect, but respect. She wasn’t prying, just naming what was already written across the woman’s posture.

“If you’re drinking to outrun it…” Her gaze flicked to Ada’s whiskey, then back. “…whiskey keeps slower company than nightmares.” Not judgment. Not advice. Just truth, offered gently.

She took a sip from her mug, eyes steady on the rising steam. “I’m not here to tell you how to get through the night,” Aren added, tone quieter still. “Just… don’t let it eat you whole.”

She didn’t look away after that. She stayed — a calm, steady presence carving out a quiet pocket in the neon-drenched dark, as if keeping watch came as naturally to her as breathing.

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Ada leaned into the bar out of tiredness. It wasnt even like she was in that bad a mood, just a bit done with the lack of sleep. She probably needed to sort out her meds again, that was usually it. But the doctors office was always so expensive.

A man walked over just as she was about to knock the glass back, he had obviously heard her enquiry and thought to chip in. She sized him up, older than her, looked like he had been in a few scrapes but no obvious signs he was looking for trouble tonight.

“Nah, i’m a regular bar fly here, you?” she laughed. The woman noted him slide the bottle across the bar and she picked it up to have a look, prescription sedatives, she rattled it and peered through the dark amber glass, there was about thirty bucks in the bottle if they were real. “These legit? How much?” she asked, placing the bottle back down in front of her. Her tone was transactional but friendly, she could do with the price being on the sweeter side right now, but she wasnt an idiot.

Another woman came over and sat a few chairs down to offer some advice. Ada twisted her head and raised an eyebrow curiously, what was she on about?

Adelaide pointed at her glass. “Chica, if you think this little little glass is enough to get be blacked out, you haven’t seen me drink.” she drained the glass and tapped it twice on the bar for the barman to refill it, which he dutifully did. Ada pulled her legs up so she was now sat cross legged on her barstool.

The drummed ger fingers on the table. “The dreams arent so bad anyway, its waking up and realising you a still in fucking Celeste… cheers” she lifted her fresh glass to propose a toast.

@Jeroen @Maulkat

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@Maulkat @Angel

“No I mean…”

Jeroen stopped and gave a small shake of his head. He smiled faintly at the joke and dipped his head.

Someone else joined them at the bar.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jeroen said.

He frowned.

“Actually you probably shouldn’t take free pills from a stranger at a bar…”

He had suddenly realised how that would look.

"They’re just counter sleeping pills. Don’t cost much back on earth. Didn’t do much for me on the shuttle.”

I could have told her that I was a bounty hunter. The truth was that after all the cops I had run down over the years, being law enforcement meant nothing when it came to trust.

Jeroen could only raise his glass half way to the toast.

“Cheers.”

He had never thought he would return to this place. Not after escaping the psionic programme and returning to earth.

“Maybe a few drinks and my body wil forget the timezone it was on.”

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Aren watched the exchange unfold with the stillness of someone who could sit through a storm without flinching. The man’s hesitation about the pills, Ada’s half-joking bravado about drinking herself senseless — neither surprised her. People on Celeste 7 carried their pain like second wallets; she’d learned that the first week she arrived.

But the toast — the dry, tired “cheers” to waking up trapped in the same orbit — that pulled the faintest pull of a smile from Aren. Not amusement. Recognition.

She shifted her coffee mug between her palms, letting the warmth anchor her before she answered.

“Dreams always feel easier than what you wake up to,” Aren said, tone low but not unkind. “Doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to tell you something.”

Ada had drained her glass as if it were nothing. Aren didn’t comment — she wasn’t anyone’s keeper — but her eyes flicked to the bottle Jeroen had offered earlier.

“And he’s right,” she murmured, a dry hum under her breath. “Don’t take meds from strangers. Even friendly ones.”

A look toward Jeroen — not hard, not suspicious, just acknowledging him.

“Especially on Celeste.”

She lifted her mug in return to Ada’s toast — not with whiskey, but coffee. The gesture mattered more than the contents.

“To still be here,” she said quietly.
Not celebratory. Not sarcastic.
Just… true.

Aren took a sip, then set her mug down gently.

“Timezone won’t fix that,” she added to Jeroen, almost softly. “But people adjust faster when they stop trying to go back to wherever they were.”

Her gaze drifted between them — Ada with her legs pulled up on the stool, Jeroen looking like he’d been scraped raw by the trip, and Reveries humming around them like an old machine that refused to die.

“Celeste isn’t kind,” Aren said. “But it doesn’t have to eat you alive on your first night.”

She leaned an elbow on the bar, posture loose, presence steady — not inserting herself, but not retreating into her shadows either.

“And if you’re both trying to drink yourselves into forgetting your problems…”
A beat, the faintest tilt at the corner of her mouth.
“…you could at least make better company than your nightmares.”

She stayed there — calm, warm in her quiet way — letting the moment settle, offering them both an anchor without demanding anything in return.

@Jeroen @Angel

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Ada tapped her glass against the others, she didnt care what they were drinking, only that it kept coming, although if she kept this up she was certain she would be drunk before breakfast, and her body clock would hate her for it.

“Yeah, pretty much that. Seems like an excellent way to get yourself bundled in the back of a van with a one way ticket to see Miss Ghislaine.” she laughed and handed the whole bottle back. She could still do with a little chemical entertainment but not that right now.

But then the other girl stuck her nose in and suddenly Ada was ready to down the whole bottle just to prove a point. Dont take drugs, try not to be eaten alive here, try to make better company than a nightmare, who was this woman?

Ada turned to Aren. “Alright Chica, I get it. You’ve got that edgey, wholesome gringo thing going on. I’m there for it, my best friend is an edgey gringo. But if we’re sharing life advice let me reciprocate. Dont offer advice to strangers who are hammering it out at 3am in a shitty bar (no offence). As you said, Celeste 7 isnt a nice place.” she nearly made a wise crack about the sort of girls who did like to get eaten but thought better of it. Instead she winked, a friendly a word of warning to the girl. Ada didn’t have enough shits to give about the incoming platitudes, but some might take offence and that could end badly.

She flipped her attention back to Joren. “So, you just arriving then, hmmm… running from, or running too?” she said playfully, it was none of her business of course, but she would love to know.

@Jeroen @Maulkat

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“Yeah, nightmares…” went Jeroen, giving @Maulkat an odd look. There was something slightly off about the way she spoke to them. Something a little artifical. Either an implant generating odd words or a chemical enhancement that had hit her the wrong way. Given the coffee, maybe she was nursing the mother of all chemical hangovers.

They clinked glasses. Adelaide. The name arrived, a faint psychic echo off the rim of her glass where her lip had left a trace of heat and whiskey.

He inclined his head a fraction, acknowledgement rather than greeting.

“New enough,” he said.

“Landed dirtside eight hours ago. “Hadn’t even planned on coming back.”

“Jeroen,” he added, as if the name were an afterthought. “I find things that don’t want finding. Tonight I’m off the clock.”

You don’t step into a bar like this and say the phrase ‘bounty hunter’. There would always be at least one self-centred soul who assumed you were there to collect them. I once made the mistake and someone tried to turn the self in. Could have been worse; they might have tried to shank me.

He let the silence settle a beat, breathing in the layered scents that clung to her. He picked up pain, a lack of trust in her own body. Arousal and violence, both came hard and fast but didn’t satisfy.

A single touch isn’t enough to build a real psychic scent to follow. You get a bit of an image, but it doesn’t paint the full picture. You really need time with an item that they had an intimate relationship with or had owned for a long time.

“If my body doesn’t know when morning is…”

This was not a whisky for sipping. He knocked it back.

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Aren took the note without bristling.

Ada’s words weren’t cruel — just tired, edged, protective in the way people got when the night had already taken more than it was owed. Aren respected that. She’d said her piece; there was no reason to press it.

She lifted her mug slightly at Ada’s wink, the faintest acknowledgment passing between them — no offense taken.

“Fair enough,” Aren said. No heat. No retreat either. “Three in the morning isn’t when people come here to be fixed.”

Her gaze shifted briefly to Jeroen — not prying, not curious enough to linger — just a calm recognition of someone who knew when to keep their distance.

“Off the clock is sacred,” she added quietly. “Enjoy it while you can.”

She finished the last of her coffee, letting the bitterness ground her, then set the mug down with care. The bartender caught the gesture and nodded; Aren left a few credits where they’d be noticed, not admired.

As she stood, she adjusted her jacket and stepped back just far enough to return the space to them.

“For what it’s worth,” she said to Ada, tone even, sincere, “I hope the dreams give you a night off.”

No sermon. No advice.

Just that.

Aren turned and made her way back toward the door, boots soft against the floor, neon washing briefly across her back before the pressure seal sighed open and let her go — leaving the bar, the whiskey, and the rest of the night exactly where they belonged.

@Angel @Jeroen

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“Shit,” Cassus swiped away at the holo-alarm glaring in the corner of his HUD as he raced through the street. Luckily, barely any people in the way. Unluckily, he was bike-less. He was pretty sure he knew who jacked it from him while he was investigating a lead, but that didn’t matter right now; he was late for setting up his 4AM. It looked like someone was exiting Reveries, but he didn’t have time for much pleasantries.

“вибачте!” Sorry! He apologized to the woman he pushed past (@Maulkat) in Ukrainian, thankful most all Neuroports standard to the residents of Celeste 7 would translate the sentiment to them in real time, boasting 90% accuracy. That last 10% though, woof, sometimes catastrophic in the wrong company.

“Deepest apologies comrade boss-man,” Cassus bowed towards the bartender, half in earnest, half just catching his breathe after sprint-skating across town to get here. One hand rested on the bar top, while the other reached down to swap out his cyberskate for his foot, magnetically secured in one of his leg compartments. “Bounty hunting job went sour, lost my bike.”

“Fa! You were my worst bouncer before I let you make a fool of yourself every night with that sound you call ‘music’. Bounty hunting… you’ll spook the customers!” The bartender gestured to what Cassus saw as a lovely couple at the bar (@Angel, @Jeroen), maybe a little tired under the eyes, but he could liven that up.

“Ah, early birds, nevermind me, please continue as you were! Слово не горобець!” // A word is not a sparrow. (Ukranian idiom meaning words cannot be easily taken back, so one should think before speaking). With a brief friendly salute, he positioned himself to the back corner where he began busying himself with constructing a stage with his usual props for performance.

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Aren had just cleared the threshold when something clipped her shoulder hard enough to spin her half a step sideways.

She caught herself automatically, boots sliding a fraction on the pavement as a blur of motion and apology rushed past her. The Ukrainian hit her ear a beat later — translated cleanly by her port, if a little late.

She turned her head just enough to track him as he went, eyes narrowing with reflex rather than offense.

“Watch it,” she called after him — not sharp, not angry, just firm enough to carry. A hand lifted briefly, palm out, more acknowledgment than reprimand.

By the time he was already bowing theatrically to the bartender, Aren had adjusted her jacket and resumed her path without further comment. No lecture. No lingering glare.

Just a quiet shake of her head and a low breath through her nose.

Celeste 7 never slowed down for anyone.

She stepped off into the street, neon washing over her once more as the door sighed shut behind her, leaving the bar — and its chaos — exactly where it belonged.

@Cassus @Angel @Jeroen

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“Ada” she said back politely. “Lovely to meet you. And welcome to Celeste, if you need a tour I can recomened and excellent company that will show you the shiny bits. But if you want to see the real Celeste… you might need another drink.” she tapped on the bar and was quickly refilled by the barman. It was a stingey shot, barely making the required level. She she wrinkled her nose at him, he was trying to slow her down, he was usually much more generous.

Another guy came in and walked across. Muttering something in a different language about sparrows. She would just assume assume it was a mistranslate though. Spanish was the second most spoken language of Earth and yet sometimes the real time translations would still slip.

Adelaide’s skin prickled at the thought of bounty hunters, would the IRS have bothered chasing down a dead orphaned teenager for fifty grand of unpaid taxed, all the way here? She wasnt aware of any bounties active on her head, but if she was honest she didnt check that religiously.

She would not dwell on it but would keep her guard up in case. “Never tried the bounty hunting thing myself. I’m a mechanic by trade, I fix what doesnt want to be fixed.” she joked, mimicking the man’s own mysterious description. “To be honest, could do with some work… either of you got any leads on someone with plenty of money and some broken down mining equipment they care too much about?”
@Jeroen @Cassus

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@Cassus @Angel

Ada, the name matched the echo I’d picked up off the glass. The name matched that sensation. Sharp and practice. Almost everyone needed work. It was how the corporations maintained control. If everyone was employed people started asking for more pay and more rights.

He lifted his glass at last and took a measured sip. It burned clean, stripping away the shuttle’s lingering stink for a moment. His pale eyes flicked briefly to the newcomer, then returned to Ada.

“Haven’t been here long,” he admitted. “But I’ll send anyone your way.”

He set the glass down and leant forward a fraction, elbows on the scarred wood.

“I know a few fixers who move parts off-manifest,” he said. “Rich clients who pay fast and ask few questions.”

Yeah, I knew a few people. I knew a few people who knew lots of people. Even in The underworld bounty hunters were sometimes seen as a necessary force. We were like sweepers, clearing away those who had crossed too many lines. Not that I would put Ada in touch with anyone I relied upon the most. Not until I knew her real rep.

His gaze held hers, unblinking. “But they’re not lovely people. You sure you want leads that deep, Ada?”

He let the question settle, then glanced sideways at the stage where the newcomer fussed with his props. A faint, tired amusement touched the corner of Jeroen’s mouth.

“Part time bounty hunter, part time performer?”

I don’t want to stay on the moon so long it swallows me up. It nearly stole my whole life once. If the programmes that set up the generation of psionics I was part of worked out I was here, there wouldn’t be a bounty. There would be a skinshifter in my room in the small hours. I wouldn’t even catch their scent before I was flayed.

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Cassus calibrated the holographic light display and pressed a hand to one side of his head, listening to a quick diagnostic metronome beat in one ear. He kept one ear open for situational awareness, when he heard the bar patrons turn conversational. This was exactly the sort of thing his little “strategy” enabled. Lips were looser around the safety of performer, and his “boss” denigrating his skills helped to sell the persona of some desperate starving artist.

“Oh I could list dozens of people too endowed with money, and at least three with a firm drill stuck up in unmentionable places… but leads? I’m afraid much harder to come by. But I do get around as a performer, meet lots of interesting people.” The lilt in his voice was conspiratorial in such a fashion it could be played for jokes.

“Whatever gets the Mohs, my friend. One can’t be too proud here on Celeste, drop a body there, drop a beat here, nothing too serious.” To continue playing off his earlier comments, he touched a holographic record and scratched it a couple times, testing the speakers now instead of the sound mix. The bartender rolled his eyes as he goes to wash a glass.

“I mean, don’t you have a hobby? Maybe you can monetize it!” He added cheerfully as he began the upbeat tempo right on time.

@Angel @Jeroen

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