Snippet #2768692

Adam sat up from an old couch, holding his head with one arm, his other draped over the back of it. Another night of fragmented nightmares, barely legible, intertwined with the sounds of equipment and voices. He felt something, barely just barely on his left hand. He glanced over to find the only fully natural thing nearest to him, his cat, Monkey, a black-and-white female tabby, licking at the back of his hand with its sandpaper tongue. Reaching over he gentle stroked its head. It helped having a pet, it reminded him of his humanity, otherwise he may have lost it by now.

The cat looked up at him with brilliant green eyes and, hopping down from the couch went to an empty bowl, pawed at it and meowed. With silent understanding, Adam got up from his couch with a boards of it creaking, and took in the atmosphere of the very shoddy state of his apartment and sighed. He had long accepted this poor living as a form of atonement. He reached over to the side of the couch and picked up a can of cat food.

"Considering the price, I may even be tempted," he says, looking the can over, before cutting it open with the nail on his cybernetic index finger and popping open the can. With a brief look at what was inside he shakes his head in disapproval. "Nah, not quite at that level of desperation yet," he muttered, dumping its contents into the cat's bowl. "All yours, madam."

He had to make some kind of living down here, even with his augmentations, and though he hated to admit it, his body was mostly good at the dirtier side of business. Body guard, bouncer... mercenary. He supposed it was some form of dark humor on their part, a kind of jab at his moment of empathy. He still had some choice on who or what to kill, however, and on the plus side of looking as he does, it tends to work well enough as a conflict deterrent, and negotiated the price for him.

He placed on his helmet, strapped on his blade, and covered his body as best he could with a gray ragged robe coat and set out the apartment, glancing briefly at the state of his neighbors as they gawked at him. He felt no right to exchange pleasantries, for all he knew he was perhaps the one that put them down here, to feed on the scraps of the upper class. He shook his head and put his focus forward as he went out onto the streets and to the bar, where perhaps he could, at least, be of use to someone.