Nickels and Nails

[Leo]

"Now you have ta keep your lid on Nails." Nickels said out of the side of his mouth as they walked. "I know how you are with women."

Nails looked at his brother and proceeded to smack him in the back of the head. "Like you've ever been with a woman." he said with ephasis on the "you've".

"Look all I'm saying is-"

"All you're saying is what?" an asian woman said walking up to Nickels. She smiled. "Good to see you Jess...this must be Josh 'Nails' Reynolds."

Nails stared, tried to spit out a sentence, stopped, thought for a second, and just smiled.

"Is he-"

"-stupid? Yes. Let me explain what happened, and how we got here."

Several hours later, Nickels finished his story. Shan sat wide eyed at the story he had just explained and sat for a moment, thinking to herself.

"The corperate system gets more and more shady everyday."

"And there's no signs of it changing." Nails finished taking a drink. "Nickels said you could get us a place to lay low for a while, that true?"

"Depends, if these weird patrols quit coming thorugh here, I can probably get you guys into 63 for a bit, but that's pushing it."

"Weird patrols?" Nickels asked.

"Yeah, Kusari usually never comes in here unless they're chasing us from Hokkaido, but recently, they havn't even been chasing US. They've been looking for someone, or something."

Nickels looked at his brother and sighed. "They're really wanting to find us aren't they?" Nickels asked his brother.

"Looks like it, I say we lay low here for a few days, get our s*** together and then buy a couple of different fighters and head into Outcast territory."

"Outcasts...never thought I'd go there for protection."

"Yeah me neither, but we don't really have much more of a chance. It's either Crete or Malta. Long as we buy some Cardi at Malta, we'll probably be allowed to stay." Nickels nodded and stared at his drink for a few minutes in silence.

"Sounds good...I'm going to head up to my room for oa bit, get some shut eye, I'll contact you when I'm up and we can start making plans to get out of here...I'm kinda tired of this running ****, hope we figure something out soon."

"Yeah, me too." Nails said as Nickels walked away and out of the bar.

"So Nails-" Shan started.

"-just call me Josh. Sometimes that nickname gets old."

"Ok, Josh then, have you ever heard of something called Project Tundra?" Nails stopped mid drink and stared at Shan.

"No, I havn't." he said and took a drink.

"I think you do...because your father was on that project before he dissappeared, and you know exactly what he was researching for Liberty...that's why they killed him, and that's why they're after you and your brother..." she paused and gave him a look. "You havn't told him have you?"

"It's better in the end, if they capture me, it's over. They know he had nothing to do with it, and I prefer it stay that way. I only made the mistake of joining my father on the project just before he was captured...I'm lucky I've lasted this long with out the Governments discovering my involvement in the failed project."

"What was it about?" Shan asked folding her hands in on themselves. Nails took a long hard look at Shan and narrowed his eyes.

"You don't want to know."

"On the contrary, I do." she said locking in a stare with Nails. "I've seen some crazy **** in my time, that's another story all together though, but what I want to know is what Liberty was up to, and why they murdered your father and are after you to do the same thing. It has to be something big else they wouldn't waste their resources on anything this big."

"Project Tundra, which is now Project Frostblight, was an attempt to discover the truth about the alien artifacts discovered on Manhattan when we first arrived in the New York system 800 years ago. That was what it's intention was, until they discovered similar artifacts on Stutgartt a few years ago. The standard protocol was of course brought into play, but somehow it was leaked to my father. Now my father was a brilliant man, both in science and research. Instead of shutting him up, Rheinland decided to bring him in on the project. My father was a Liberty National just like me and Jess are, so naturally, Liberty didn't like that. I was only 19 at the time, and my father wanted me to see the project, Rhienland agreed and brought me in as well to research what they had found. Two weeks later my father didn't show up for one of the work days, and got the officals worried. I was detained for questioning and released a few days later when no evidence of my father had turned up. Rhienland had said that with out a doubt all information and records of me being on the project were wiped clean and the project renamed to what it is now. Apparently the Rhienland government has a rat in the highest tier of their system, and ratted my name out to them. That's when me and my brother took the job in Rhienland. When that Liberty offical died, I knew **** was about to hit the fan...I didn't say anything though, assuming that they knew my brother wasn't in on the project and would let him go when they caught me."

"So why not just tell Nic-I mean Jess what's going on?"

"My brother is the only family I have left, our mother is gone, ran off, and my father is presumibly dead in a shallow grave somewhere. If I told him I was responsible for our fathers death, he would never look at me again. The best bet is for me to just go along with this and see where it takes me. If it achieves me freedom, then so be it."

Nails scooted the chair out from the table and looked at Shan.

"And if you tell my brother this, I'll f***in' kill you. Is that clear?"

Shan smiled and nodded.

"I promise." Nails walked to the door and Shan called out. "Be careful Josh Reynolds, you never know who is your friend these days...

"...and who isn't."

---

You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.

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