Celia

[Azazelkeep]

Celia woke up from the persistent ringing of her alarm.
<beep beep beeep!>
She stretches her arms with a big yawn and slowly opens her eyes.
-What time is it?
<beep beep beeep!>
-I'm awake already! Well kinda... Shut up and give me the news!
A soft automated voice replies
- It's 3:25 pm Celia. It's 35 degrees in Jobe. Athen is clouded and they are expecting a sandstorm. In Borealis...
-I don't care about weather.
-Clans got three new minning sites while you were sleeping. One from the Neutral organization "The Defiant" and two from the Omni Tek "Punk"
-Good! I do not like the Punks.
-Aaand... You're not alone if I may say.
-You may not!
She blindly grabs a cigarette from the desk near her head and lits it up while relaxing a bit before she stands up to face reality. Who is with her? And most importantly why? What happened?
Ten minutes later the cigarette is over and she stands up from the bed to realise that she's bare naked...
-Great! She whispers."Just another lovely night..."
She walks across the room to enter her bathtub and after pressing the small button on her left she lit up another cigarette while the bathtub was filling with fragrant foam.
Ten minutes and one cigarette later she slid into the bathtub and closed
her eyes to concentrate on her immidiate problems. The guy that was entering the bathtub room right now. He was short but handsome. Blue eyes, steady build, long dark straight hair.
She looked at him wondering for a while until he broke the silence with his deep and soft voice.
-Good morning beauty. Care if I join you? I have the coffee ready as well as a couple of bronto steaks.
She coughed a bit trying to remember last night but it was impossible so she just mumbled.
-Who...Are you?
-Jonothan. Jonothan Rheis at your services madam, he adds while playfully chuckling in a deep comical curt.
-Did we...?
-We did.
-Good... And now that we settled that, what are you still doin' here? she asks while getting off of the bathtub and dries her short, black hair with a towel.
-I thought...
-You thought wrong. Now off you go...
-If you say so... Expecting you'll honor our randez-vous in Newland today. Not good to let us all wait, he replies while walking off of the buthtub to the grid device, located in the hallway.

Celia after drying her hair to an accepted degree walked out of the room and into the kitchen and grabbed a cup of hot, black coffe that the musterious man had prepared. She then reached her window that overlooked Jobe and shrugged.
"Stupid Celia, you've done it again didn't you? You let whiskey lead you to someone's hug again."
She opened the window and walked out to the small balcony. Her nakedness didn't bother her much. She was confident about her opifex beauty, plus... Besides some random Jobe scientists that'd shy away if they accidentally look at her, noone really had a way to see her up there.
"Now, what did he mention about a randez-vous?"
Celia wondered. She reached her comm and ordered a list of planned meetings. First in order was a meeting in Newland with some strangers signed "Fun!". She opened it and the details mentioned a raid on some lunatic's den called the Steps of Madness. It was planned in three hours from now.
She got inside, sat on the sofa, lit another cigarette and opened news gridfeed. The white wall suddenly turned to a giant TV and started projecting the news from all around Rubi-Ka in small thumbnails.

[Azazelkeep]

After watching the holovids concerning the recent events in Borealis and finishing her coffee and breakfast she stood up and walked to her room to get dressed. Time was closing by swiftly.
She looked at the big painting she had above her bed, depicting TIR's beauty from above and shrugged. They DID try to nuke it after all. And now Zora was dead. And against anything she ever hoped that was not good. The new CEO, Bahirae or however she was called was even more crazy, more dangerous than Zora!
She opened her wardrobe and stood there looking at her clothes with a blank look. She didn't know what to put on... Hell, if she ever knew...
"The cursed duality of big, filled wardrobes... You always have the right clothes, but you are never able to pick them up when needed" she thought and chuckled slightly.
"Well let's think now. It's a raid... And raids involve fighting. He's a lunatic and that has nothing to do with my clothes. There will be other people, as well as this guy that I woke up with. I need something slick, something that'll look well on me without hindering my ability to fight"

After this esoteric monologue she picked up her tight black leather vest and pants. She put them on swiftly and started tying the laces when her comm started beeping to remind her the time.
She should be in Newland in five minutes and she hadn't dressed up yet. Thanks to grid technology tho' she'd make it there in time. After lacing her leather boots she grabbed her long coat and moved to the grid terminal.

A holographic keyboard appeared out of thin air in front of her and she quickly typed her sixteen digits access code. Suddenly she felt that tickling feeling in her spine as her molecules were being digitized into a long bunch of data transfered to the huge grid network. Took her a couple of seconds to get used to the grid projection of the world around her and she then moved to the familiar Newland exit. If she was in material form she'd take a deep breath before hitting the exit point. She knew there was no danger but she was always afraid of what could happen if someone or something else was occupying the place she was supposed to be materialized at.

She appeared just outside Newland as expected and while she was trying to catch her breath, grid travelling always made her a bit queasy, she was approached by someone whose facial characteristics were familiar, but she couldn't remember where she knew him from. He was tall and the veteran soldier bodytype. He was wearing full cammy military uniform, Had two submachine guns holstered at the outter side of his hips and his beard was very carefully cut. Almost everything was too much on him. Like he was more concerned of how badass he looks than how good he was at what he was doing.
"Hey there, Celia! I am James, if you don't remember all the people you met last night. It appears others are still late so we're still waiting on Rheis, Eline, Reed and Marius. I'll be the heavy artillery in there. As I understand it you'll be our scout?"
Celia felt dizzy with all this talking right aftr materializing. She knew from that moment, she was going to hate this guy.
"There's a problem we got here." she whispered to him concentrating all the power she had left.
"Hmm?"
"This mouth..." she whispered touching his lips with her index finger, "Is talking too much. Do something about it."
He took a viscious look after this comment, something which made Celia chuckle for a while, which in turn made him furius.
Right then Rheis decided to appear to save Celia from the awkward moment. There was another girl with him.

"That should be Eline", Celia thought.
She was a tall Solitus redhead. Her pale skin with the small red sparsed frekles, contrasted her deep red long hair beautifuly. She was dressed in a white uniform and she had a white backpack with a red cross, on her back. She was walking proudly, like she was pretty sure of her abilities.
She walked slowly towards Celia and she offered her hand for a handshake. Celia grabbed it and smiled warmly.
"Eline, the medic, I suppose."
Eline nodded.
Rheis whispered. "I take it you met James." and laughed when Celia emoted cutting her veins on James' mention.
"Well... I guess we're ready" Rheis added so everyone could hear him.
"Reed ain't comming. He has work he said. Goddamn 'crats! All they do is talking anyways! And Marius is already there."

The four of them entered Newland, following Rheis. They then approached a floating nanomage chick dressed in a long cloak in several different shades of blue. Celia shrugged. Nanomages were always ugly and with a bad taste in dressing. They were a disgrace of fashion. It appeared like they were genetically modified for that. Like their first line of defence was making you run away from this uglyness.
Thus, she didn't wonder why everyone just entered the portal she spawned without speaking much with her. Celia tho' wanted to know what she was getting herself into. She was wondering how to start the conversation when the nanomage freak addressed to her.
"What do you want?"
"Who are you...?" Celia replied defensivelly.
The nanomage female turned to her and her white eyes bore into her. She looked blind, but somehow Celia know she wasn't, and that she could actually see much more than an average person.
"Child, my Awoken name is Zyvania Bagh. I am the Third of the Nelebai."
"The Nelebai?"
"Yes. We are the Enlightened ones. We have understood the Awareness of Master Neleb, who works from his sanctuary in Omni Forest. I am called the Third because I was the third Sleeper to Awaken. I expect you are familiar with Master Neleb?"
"No, I don't know what you're talking about."
The nanomage smiled and closed her eyes halfway.
"Then allow me to explain. It is always a privilege to inform a Sleeper as yourself."
"Sleeper?" Celia felt offended but let the nanomage continue.
"Master Neleb had a difficult child hood, like every member of his Nelebai. We have all experienced some sort of abuse, mental or physical. Some were victims of very bad domestic violence, others escaped or were released from test facilities, scarred for life. "
Celia shrugged as she found out that this was going to take a long, long time.
"Master Neleb also had challenging early years. His foster parents regularly beat him in the cruelest way, he was denied schooling and was eventually thrown out of the home much too early. But, as an adult, he has never carried resentment and vengeance. He is convinced that these challenges were necessary for him to Awaken and find the Path. Perhaps you can experience it too. Will you seek out Master Neleb and discover your Awakening?"
"Awakening?" Celia was not feeling well around the nanomage, but something was intriguing her to continue this weird conversation.
"The Awakening is the moment in which a Sleeper, one who does not yet understand the Awareness of Neleb, opens his or her mind and heart and connects to the common mind the Nelebai share. The journey after the Awakening is called the Path.
The Path is the life after the Awakening, when the Nelebai have successfully expelled the despair, anger and fear that used to rule our lives. We now live only to explain to people about the great vision and truth of Master Neleb, hoping that more people like ourselves will break free from the chains of past terrors."
"And what you mean by, Awarness of Master Neleb?"
"The Awareness is the process of expelling your mind of negative memories from your childhood. Feelings like jealousy, anger, fear and despair are removed from the mind and instead takes a metaphysical form. The Path strengthens us! Instead of being tortured by nightmares and bad thoughts, The Awakening lets us release all of this."
Her eyes became so bright, they seemed to be burning with a zealous reserved only for the mentally ill. It was something, quite disturbing.
"Poisoned lips spread vicious rumors of Master Neleb being delusional and that he's lost his sanity, that what he does hurts people. Nothing could be further from the truth. His Path is the only right one, and frankly, if someone gets hurt because they visit the Sanctuary it is their own responsibility."
"Neleb?" It was the only thing Celia managed to spell at the time.
"Master Neleb has chosen the life of the hermit, living in his Sanctuary in Omni Forest outside Omni-Ent. There, he has found a place where he continues his Awareness without being too disturbed by the outside world. He does not deny anyone entrance, but it isn't a place for unwilling Sleepers.
In his Sanctuary, he is able to expel all the negativity and focus more on his plans for the Awakening and Path for new Nelebai. Perhaps you would like to visit with Master Neleb and discover your own Awakening?"
"Sure, whatever you say." Seemed quite an ironic way to reply, but she was not feeling well and she wanted to meet with the others as soon as possible.
"I sense that you are unsure of the powers of Master Neleb. I suggest you visit him. You will be convinced of the right Path, I am sure of it. If you are willing, I can transport you to the entrance of the Sanctuary and you can begin your ascension towards Awareness."
"Riiight. Fine, sure. Send me to the...uh..."Path of Awareness"." Her attention was distracted as she noticed the portal had dissappeared.
"Very good. If your heart and mind is open, you can Awaken. I wish you good luck, child."
The nanomage closed her eyes and started weaving the intricate pattern of a nano program and the portal reappeared.

Celia entered the portal feeling really sick and as she appeared on the other side only thing she could notice was a huge roving eye looking at her in a really judgemental way.
"Help...Please..." she whispered and immidiatelly passed out.