CotH: Prologue

Prologue:
                                                    Better Left Unturned

       “Don’t use your fingers!” Roberts voice was a low growl, twisting around the unfamiliar words. Robert enunciated ‘Don’t’ perfectly, drawing a fresh glare from his stockpile of frustrated and angry looks to throw at Rhari from his seat across their table. He’d been at this whole ‘human’ thing a lot longer than she had, and he still didn’t always get the sounds right. It had something to do with the voice box; some aspect of the translation. The longer you were away, the harder it seemed to get it all back.
       "Yes, daddy.” Rhari mumbled under her breath. She tried to restrain herself from giggling by sipping at her complimentary glass of tap water, but the light titter of laughter broke loose just as the lukewarm liquid began to slide down her throat. Rhari sputtered and burst into a fit of coughing.
       “Is something funny?!” Robert glowered. He wasn’t a handsome man, the expression was not doing his looks any favors. Robert didn’t like thinking there was anything to find funny about himself. He particularly hated jokes made at his expense. He wasn’t stupid, and he knew when they were. Sometimes she had wondered if he didn’t have wolf ears in human form as well.
        Rhari hadn’t needed to hear the stories from the other marks—and that was only one of the many—she’d taken part in several of her own first hand. Most of the others in that first gathering had as well.
       Rhari covered her lips and looked away; scanning the other occupants of the Bistrot de L'Etiole. She’d never seen Robert laugh. Come to think of it, Rhari wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen him smile.
       The room was softly lit, Rhari was sure that someone—most likely everyone—thought it was romantic, but simply put, it made eating a bitch. You could see where the stake ended, it being the darkest part of the meal, but the creme de la creme and —(other food) were just where just two shadows of varying colors fighting for dominance. She hated that salty sweet taste you got when the — and — mixed. She didn’t like her food touching... which should have seemed odd to her, considering her background, but didn’t.
       It really was quite... quaint, if she gave it half a chance. It didn’t feel gaudy or expensive. It felt American, almost. They didn’t have burgers on the menu, but they had fries. Not french fries; fries. Fries were nothing without a burger and coke. Rhari wasn’t American, but she’d learned to appreciate their simple and frank cuisine after her first year of college in the states. In America, steak was rather bland, it wasn’t seasoned very well, and so the taste always seemed to be either too brash, or too modest. Side dishes included mashed potatoes with copious amounts of vegetable shortening, or some bland, tasteless mush that masqueraded as greens.
       The burger was the meal in the States, it was the American meal. In France, Steak was a cuisine. The first course of a five course meal that included entre, dinner, desert, side dishes... not to mention wine; red or white, a simple Merlot or a Chardonnay, aged or vintage,..dry?
       Robert liked to make ordering dinner like trying to decipher the instructions for constructing an atomic bomb... Insert tab A into tab B, rotate dial C one quarter turn clockwise, insert electrode D between tabs A and B, secure with type 1 3/4 inch nylon screw; torque to .26 foot pounds per square decimeter. (Add one quarter teaspoon of finely ground uranium isotope if desired) Bake at 350 for one quarter hour. Remove and let cool. Connect grounding wire before serving with fresh grated parmesan and mashed picasios.
       It was all a blending a flavors... a dance. Choreographed so that each movement was consumed in a varying and specific order to achieve the desired result.
       Rhari didn’t give a damn. It was food. You eat it.
       Rhari had lived in and around Issiore for twelve of her twenty-five years. She’d learned French, she spoke it fluently. She could order dinner within thirty seconds of looking at a menu. She’d seen Robert take fifteen minutes... with the wine list.
       Unfortunately she’d been late for their meeting. He’d ordered for her. All five courses.
       He was still waiting to begin the first when the Maitre dé led her to their table. Proper etiquette demanded no less.
       He nodded in greeting, rose to help seat her, but she brushed the assistance aside. Robert had frowned.
       Rhari settled down a little lower into her seat. She tried not to slouch. Sitting with her back propped so squarely to the table was a little uncomfortable, but she was really trying not to get Robert angry with her.
       Was it her fault it was so easy?
       He’d ordered her steak well done, when he knew she preferred it medium-rare. She couldn’t eat her meat fully cooked; so she’d been playing with it for most of the meeting, testing his patience. She nibbled absently at a stalk of asparagus, sauteed because he knew she preferred it raw. The butters and oils would make her sick, but she had to eat something, if only for appearances, to keep him off her back.
       He was trying to make her more human; to domesticate her. He’d been trying for years, and slowly succeeding. Moving her from her home in the forests east of Issiore to the small rehabilitation center the CotH had set up in Clermont-Ferrand had only been the first step, and that step had been hard enough. The move from there to the council seat in Orléans three months later had been a nightmare... for her. Robert, of course, could not wait to get back to the center of his universe.
       Sometimes she thought it was Robert that had kept her sane in the beginning, even if he drove her crazy doing it.
       “Your flashing the room.”
       That shook her from the reverie.
        Rhari’s lips clamped shut around her teeth like an iron vice. Robert looked smug. Cheeky bastard.
       “So what is it now?”
       “Your not touching your steak.” He peered at her over the edge of his wine glass—Dom Pérignon, 1872—eyes guilless, all worried father figure:
       ‘Honey, you have to eat something!’
       ‘I can’t dad, I’m a vegatarian....[insert shocked silence]’
       “You know I can’t eat it cooked like that.”
       “You really should try.” There was that disapproval she knew so well.
       “Robert. Enough.”
       “At least try some of the wine; it was a very good year.” His eyes were pleading, begging her; she’d never seen Robert beg before. The look was... obscene. Still, she was starting to get annoyed.
       “You know I don’t drink that stuff. It makes me feel... funny. Besides. This is business., right? Don’t you think we both need a clear head?”
       He looked so disappointed that for a moment Rhari thought seriously of cutting off a piece of the meat and shoving it in her mouth and saying ‘There!...just please don’t cry.’
       Roberts bent slowly and retrieved a small envelope from his case of the floor next to him. He sat it on the table between them. His look had turned serious.
       Rhari picked it up and opened it. Inside was a plain black square, maybe an inch and a half by an inch and a half. On one side the smooth surface was broken by three tiny, copper contacts. It was unlabeled.
       “Later?”
       “Watch it now.”
       Rhari glanced around them discreetly. They were surrounded on all sides by other people, other seemingly happy couples out for a romantic dinner, other business partners, talking shop, other tourists, going over tomorrow’s planner. All very close.
       “I didn’t bring a veiwer.”
       He frowned a second time.
       “No pockets. You said dress... (word for the way she’s dressed, I thought casual, but that’s not it....anyone want to help me, what is 'dressy' like, business attire called?).”
       “Alright. Take it with you. Crack it when your done.”
       Crack was code; Rhari loved their little sayings. Basically the disk had a pressure center in it’s middle, the flash chip inside was highly unstable, a quick squeeze to the casing and the silica fibre shattered, rendering it useless, and all the information lost... of course, you had to ‘crack’ the disk, or anyone could get their grubby little paws... er, fingers on it.
       The council had better toys, but like most privately funded corporations, finances were tight...obsolete did not always mean useless.
       Besides, it still got the job done. And without one of the decoding viewers you’d have to have a degree in micro- and reverse-engineering to tear the disk down and restructure it...
       At that point Rhari had always got lost in the lecture.
       Getting to take the disk with her still meant she had nowhere to put it. For the moment she slid it beneath her napkin.
       Two waiters approached, a man and a woman, carrying separate trays. Robert had finished his (name of french food), the woman removed his plate, as well as the place setting, before sitting down her tray.
       Her own waiter... who had no name tag, looked at her worriedly, glancing down at her barely touched second course. It was fine, she’d gotten the same look when they’d come to take away the first course; like they were mildly offended, and might be informing the chef of her indiscretions shortly thereafter.
       “Just take it.” She tried to put on an apologetic smile; just a little stomach flu, not feeling very well tonight, smelled delicious though, thank you!  
       Would the chefs spit in your food if they got a bad report on how you treated the first course?
       He frowned at her; great, another Robert, but transferred the serving platter he held to one hand. It was like watching a replay of events; he collected her plate, the used silverware, all with one hand, and then set his tray down in front of her with a flourish and smile that made Rhari want to gag. Where did they find these people?!
       He leaned forward dramatically, sharing a smile with his cohort colleague across the table, and together they removed their lids.
       Robert was lost for a moment behind dizzying aroma’s and steam. Rhari made the mistake of breathing in as they lifted the lids and almost coughed, but then didn’t. She savored the aroma, taking another deep breath and closing her eyes as though the very smell were too delicious to look upon.
       A Big Mac, American fries, and a Coke...Robert; the sneaky bastard.
       She smiled at him, he didn’t smile back... but she saw it in his eyes. He was happy that she was happy, even if McDonald’s did upset his — palette.
       “I hope you enjoy it. I took special pains to have it prepared.”
       “You mean you didn’t just bring it from down the street?”
       “And offend the Chef? No way.” He said ‘offend’ and ‘no way’ like he expected to receive a death sentence had he. Maybe he had...
       “Thank you Robert.” She said, quite genuinely touched that he would go to the trouble of having something like this prepared for her, at the cost of being banned forever from one of Frances’ thousands of restaurants. It might seem like such a small deed, but for Robert, it wasn’t.
       “Your welcome, Jenny.”
       “I’ve asked you never to call me that.” ... and he just had to go and ruin it.
       Robert said nothing. His face was blank. Unreadable. A mask. Not even his eyes showed a glimmer of what he was thinking. She’d seen the look before. It meant more than one thing really, but usually it meant that he felt hurt. She’d hurt his feelings. Great!
        Now she felt like a total jerk.
       “I’m sorry Robert, really.”
       “No, I’m sorry. I know it’s painful. It’s just...”
       “Please. Don’t”
       “You need to stop hiding Rhari. It isn’t doing you any good. Denying who you were is only going to makes things harder. It’s only...” He trailed off, looking into her eyes.
       “It isn’t good for you.”
       “Like eating my steak medium-rare isn’t good for me? Like eating my vegetables uncooked isn’t good for me? What?”
       “Like hiding in the shadows Rhari. Like locking yourself in that hotel room all day. Shutting yourself away from the rest of  humanity. It isn’t good for you.”
       “Then what is good for me Robert?! Killing people? Burning buildings? Hunting things down? Keeping secrets? Telling lies? Is that all good for me Robert?! Is it?!” She didn’t want to cry, she didn’t want to angry with him, but she couldn’t help herself. Just like he couldn’t help himself. He ruined it every time. Every time she felt she had someone she could turn to. Someone who might be able to understand some of what she had gone through.
       “No.” The word was quiet, almost a whisper. The last thing she’d expected was empathy. It startled her to silence.
       “No?!”
       “No, it isn’t good for you.”
       “Then why did you bring me here? Why did you do this to me!? How could you do this to me!?!” Her voice had raised and she was beginning to cry. People where starting to look their way. It wouldn’t be long before someone from the staff would come to make sure everything was alright. Let them stare. Fuck it!
        “It was better than you hiding in the woods for the rest of your life. I didn’t do anything to you Jennifer. I tried to help you. I"m still trying to help you” His voice was so soft, so gentle, full of concern. It made her want to cry harder! "... And that stuff... All that stuff... It's stuff you good at. It's stuff that needs to be done. To protect all of us."
       Of course it wasn’t his fault! It wasn’t her fault! It was nobody’s fault! That didn’t make it any easier!
       “Jennifer, if you’d just listen to me. If you’d get counseling—”
       “Fuck Counseling!” She jerked back form the table and stood up, sending her chair skittering violently toward a couple sitting directly behind them. “Fuck Counseling and Fuck You! What do you know anyway!” Now she was crying, really crying, and she didn’t give a damn.
       Robert looked around abashedly, embarrassed; Awe shucks folks, I’m really sorry for the commotion.
       His eyes turned back to her. She was making a scene; making a fool of herself, that’s what they said.
       “Fuck You, Robert!” She said, and stormed toward the doors.
       She made it half way before he stopped her; grabbing her arm and pulling her around to face him. Rhari slapped him. Reaction. She immediately felt sorry. He let her go.
       Robert held his hand out to her, in it was the little yellow envelop, inside that, down in a corner, she saw the little black disk pressing out.
       “You don’t want to forget this.” He said. Quiet. Reserved. He was right. She didn’t want to forget it.
       “I’m sorry.”
       “I know.” He held her hand for a minute, then let it go. She took the envelope. “ I was going to give you my number, in case you—”
       “Robert—”
       “—needed to contact someone at the council. The information on the disk is pretty sketchy. It was compiled in a hurry. Some of the sources were less than... willing. You’ll find it all in the drop down list. F8.”
       Rhari nodded, looked longingly back at the burger and fries, then turned and continued toward the door. Robert might have followed, might have walked her back to her hotel, she wouldn’t have refused, but he didn’t.
       Oh well.



I know I have notes to myself in this, so don't remind me....lol...they're there because I need to check them out...they're mostly info that I have to get or research.....

Anything else, bring it up....