07-10-2018, 10:10 PM
About an hour later, Drake shuffled out of the bathroom with his hood up and the edge of his cap tightly pulled down. Yeah it was kind of hard to pass off the whole 'one-arm' thing, but he was at least able to maintain a low-enough profile to escape the Rhythmless with only a few shouts for his attention. Following through on his desire to avoid additional human contact, Drake walked straight across the street and down one of Nippur's countless dark alleyways.
The lanky Prime wasn't too far from his garage, but he debated on whether or not he should actually go home for the night. He checked his Datavice and clucked his tongue. Monika still wouldn't be getting up for another few hours. Yandere Lover would be even later than that. Reaching into his bottomless man-satchel, Drake plugged an unlit cigarette between dry lips and exhaled softly. The night air had already become brittle and cold. High desert climates like the Dunes had little in the way ambient moisture to hold the day's heat; a fact which now encouraged Drake to zip up the front of his usually loose jacket.
Despite the ambient light of the streetlamps and residential oil lights, the sky overhead still glittered handsomely with an array of static, dead stars. Without even really intending to, Drake tapped his fingers together in the sequence required to call his Ibis Skybike. A few seconds later, and the slick, bullet-shaped vehicle slid to a whining halt at the streetside entrance of the alley. Its black cockpit carapace slid open with nary a sound, waiting for its jockey to climb aboard. The smuggler did so with practiced, acrobatic efficiency. With a small hiss-thump, Drake's bionic legs kicked him up into the cool air with a slow somersault, allowing him to land in the saddle perfectly. The maneuver would have been murder on his balls, had he still possessed them.
...Anyway...
Drake cranked the Ibis' accelerator, pulling out into the street with the repulsors on minimum output. Didn't want to go blowing sand into everyone's face, now. A few beeps and bips, and the Skybike was set to auto-cruise, allowing the smuggler to browse ONN for potential leads and threats. Aside from the latest, mostly banal, news from Dante's Abyss, the biggest piece of gossip seemed to be the promotion of some EPD Prime. Whatever. Next. His half-addled mind turned to the Blue Flame Rum that he had been guzzling down, and a quick searched produced the welcome news that the last of Nebula's strongholds had been shut down. The Imperial navy was going to busy mopping up the stragglers for a long time, but it was at least an improvement.
What else...
Most of the rest of the Omniverse seemed quiet. A few blurbs here and there about some new jackass antihero stomping their way around Camelot. Princess Guu turning herself in for the theft of a star piece...eh. Nothing that really Gilgered his Mesh. Although, he did remember at this point that some local pushers owed him an explanation which hadn't been delivered yet...which meant Drake owed them a visit.
Oh did I forget to mention the part where Drake had been working to cultivate an underground drug trade between Nippur and Coruscant? Yeah that was a thing he'd been working on since the Cult of Tiamat had their head cut off. Naturally, the enterprising young Prime had inserted himself in its place...something which the Chaos cult had seemed to take just as much in stride as a bandit raid or the sudden resurgence of their most hated monarch. It's probably a pretty interesting story, but Drake has things to do in the now, so we're not going to worry about it.
But here's basically how it played out. The Followers of Tiamat used opium as their primary source of income for funding their protection and loan rackets. The hardy plant did pretty well in the irrigated sections of Nippur, crammed in alongside other cash crops like cotton and saffron. But, this being the Omniverse, the poor little Nippur gang had no idea that the poppy latex could be refined down into more potent forms. No, no that was the sort of thing that the gangs of Westside specialized in. The OTHER great thing about Coruscant, at least in this smuggler's opinion, was the utterly insane number of high-class restaurants situated in the cozy strata of Tiers 1 through 3. Those fuckers BREATHED saffron, which worked out pretty well.
Now, of course, the laws of Coruscant were even more unstable than those of Nippur, in that any jackass in vanilla turtleshell could tell you to prolapse your ass in the name of Palpatine at a moment's notice. However, drugs tended to not really be a Tier 1 problem, the gates to which were also the main highways into The City. Even better, Carrefore tended to be a...how should we say...bit of a Casa Blanca scenario for the upper crust of the Empire. Sure as shit it wasn't Vegas (yet), but the well-to-do bourgeoisie from The City liked to spend time there being charmed by the quaint, village atmosphere, while still feeling safe as clanking chicken walkers stumbled past.
And yes, that dilettante clientele included some of the most skilled and utterly foppish restaurateurs in Coruscant's culinary game. You bet your ass these dandies would be more than happy to pay a pretty penny for some fresh, rare Nippurian Saffron. Would the eager little fucks ever guess that the 'compost-friendly' boxes that the saffron was packed in were actually molded from dried poppy latex? Nah. Bring your fuckin' camera crew to the bazaar and pick up some of that Nippurian Saffron on tape. Boom. A drug handoff, right there on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
All of this, of course, was still in its very nascent stages, which is why Drake was a little more twitchy than usual. He had shipped the first duffel of opium and saffron to his Tiamat contacts in Carrefore over two weeks ago, and hadn't heard back on their progress for the latex shaping process. Cursory browsing of the municipal sheriff records indicated that they hadn't been taken in. Looks like Dr. Pariah was going to have to make a house call.
As if having already anticpated his intentions, the Ibis had made its way out onto the Royal Palisade, the central superstreet that lead directly from Nippur's main gates to the outer walls of Gilgamesh's palace. Drake hungrily took the accelerator of the Skybike in a single, weathered hand and cranked it hard. A whirling, gusting plume of dust and sand fanned into the orange dusk of the Babylonian night, accompanied by the banshee wail of repulsor turbines. The polished, streamlined form of the Ibis rocketed off into the darkness beyond the main gates in under a few seconds, its only traces left an echoing wine and rapidly shrinking tail lights...
The lanky Prime wasn't too far from his garage, but he debated on whether or not he should actually go home for the night. He checked his Datavice and clucked his tongue. Monika still wouldn't be getting up for another few hours. Yandere Lover would be even later than that. Reaching into his bottomless man-satchel, Drake plugged an unlit cigarette between dry lips and exhaled softly. The night air had already become brittle and cold. High desert climates like the Dunes had little in the way ambient moisture to hold the day's heat; a fact which now encouraged Drake to zip up the front of his usually loose jacket.
Despite the ambient light of the streetlamps and residential oil lights, the sky overhead still glittered handsomely with an array of static, dead stars. Without even really intending to, Drake tapped his fingers together in the sequence required to call his Ibis Skybike. A few seconds later, and the slick, bullet-shaped vehicle slid to a whining halt at the streetside entrance of the alley. Its black cockpit carapace slid open with nary a sound, waiting for its jockey to climb aboard. The smuggler did so with practiced, acrobatic efficiency. With a small hiss-thump, Drake's bionic legs kicked him up into the cool air with a slow somersault, allowing him to land in the saddle perfectly. The maneuver would have been murder on his balls, had he still possessed them.
...Anyway...
Drake cranked the Ibis' accelerator, pulling out into the street with the repulsors on minimum output. Didn't want to go blowing sand into everyone's face, now. A few beeps and bips, and the Skybike was set to auto-cruise, allowing the smuggler to browse ONN for potential leads and threats. Aside from the latest, mostly banal, news from Dante's Abyss, the biggest piece of gossip seemed to be the promotion of some EPD Prime. Whatever. Next. His half-addled mind turned to the Blue Flame Rum that he had been guzzling down, and a quick searched produced the welcome news that the last of Nebula's strongholds had been shut down. The Imperial navy was going to busy mopping up the stragglers for a long time, but it was at least an improvement.
What else...
Most of the rest of the Omniverse seemed quiet. A few blurbs here and there about some new jackass antihero stomping their way around Camelot. Princess Guu turning herself in for the theft of a star piece...eh. Nothing that really Gilgered his Mesh. Although, he did remember at this point that some local pushers owed him an explanation which hadn't been delivered yet...which meant Drake owed them a visit.
Oh did I forget to mention the part where Drake had been working to cultivate an underground drug trade between Nippur and Coruscant? Yeah that was a thing he'd been working on since the Cult of Tiamat had their head cut off. Naturally, the enterprising young Prime had inserted himself in its place...something which the Chaos cult had seemed to take just as much in stride as a bandit raid or the sudden resurgence of their most hated monarch. It's probably a pretty interesting story, but Drake has things to do in the now, so we're not going to worry about it.
But here's basically how it played out. The Followers of Tiamat used opium as their primary source of income for funding their protection and loan rackets. The hardy plant did pretty well in the irrigated sections of Nippur, crammed in alongside other cash crops like cotton and saffron. But, this being the Omniverse, the poor little Nippur gang had no idea that the poppy latex could be refined down into more potent forms. No, no that was the sort of thing that the gangs of Westside specialized in. The OTHER great thing about Coruscant, at least in this smuggler's opinion, was the utterly insane number of high-class restaurants situated in the cozy strata of Tiers 1 through 3. Those fuckers BREATHED saffron, which worked out pretty well.
Now, of course, the laws of Coruscant were even more unstable than those of Nippur, in that any jackass in vanilla turtleshell could tell you to prolapse your ass in the name of Palpatine at a moment's notice. However, drugs tended to not really be a Tier 1 problem, the gates to which were also the main highways into The City. Even better, Carrefore tended to be a...how should we say...bit of a Casa Blanca scenario for the upper crust of the Empire. Sure as shit it wasn't Vegas (yet), but the well-to-do bourgeoisie from The City liked to spend time there being charmed by the quaint, village atmosphere, while still feeling safe as clanking chicken walkers stumbled past.
And yes, that dilettante clientele included some of the most skilled and utterly foppish restaurateurs in Coruscant's culinary game. You bet your ass these dandies would be more than happy to pay a pretty penny for some fresh, rare Nippurian Saffron. Would the eager little fucks ever guess that the 'compost-friendly' boxes that the saffron was packed in were actually molded from dried poppy latex? Nah. Bring your fuckin' camera crew to the bazaar and pick up some of that Nippurian Saffron on tape. Boom. A drug handoff, right there on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
All of this, of course, was still in its very nascent stages, which is why Drake was a little more twitchy than usual. He had shipped the first duffel of opium and saffron to his Tiamat contacts in Carrefore over two weeks ago, and hadn't heard back on their progress for the latex shaping process. Cursory browsing of the municipal sheriff records indicated that they hadn't been taken in. Looks like Dr. Pariah was going to have to make a house call.
As if having already anticpated his intentions, the Ibis had made its way out onto the Royal Palisade, the central superstreet that lead directly from Nippur's main gates to the outer walls of Gilgamesh's palace. Drake hungrily took the accelerator of the Skybike in a single, weathered hand and cranked it hard. A whirling, gusting plume of dust and sand fanned into the orange dusk of the Babylonian night, accompanied by the banshee wail of repulsor turbines. The polished, streamlined form of the Ibis rocketed off into the darkness beyond the main gates in under a few seconds, its only traces left an echoing wine and rapidly shrinking tail lights...
![[Image: screen_shot_2018_02_16_at_4_33_57_pm_by_...c3dkog.png]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/883e/f/2018/047/1/d/screen_shot_2018_02_16_at_4_33_57_pm_by_tearen_and_zearen-dc3dkog.png)