PRIVATE Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect

Jack Kowalski

Clean Cop, Dirty City
Jack Kowalski
Eddies
732
Character Bio




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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova




He took a long breath. A very, very, long breath. Another long ride up another elevator, though not as high as he'd like. He liked the views up top. This time, out of uniform- well, a Patrol Officer's uniform. In the weeks since the bank robbery and subsequent shootout, Jack had been all over the news, and all over the place. The Department gave him a medal and wanted more out of him- so plainclothes he went. VICE was the first to grasp at him, and he was happy to be there. It was a natural fit, and he was good at it so far. In fact, the CIs that had come forward or had been found were a wealth of information. All independently sourced, located, interrogated and briefed. And they all produced results.

Guns, drugs, you name it, they knew where it was. They knew who sold it, who was buying, and where it was. In fact, they were hitting four warrants in the next two days. But something itched at the back of Jack's mind. Some facet that he couldn't shake. That things were too good, the CIs were too cooperative, too well-informed. Details that were intricate, lengthy and the targeting specific. The NCPD didn't look too many gift snitch horses in the mouth, though. The NCPD, didn't at least. They were clean hits, good arrests, and a lot of product, guns, and warrants. They were effective, they were good, and they had opened a lot more doors to further investigations. Homicide closures, robbery closures, this and that. Things that wouldn't be possible at all without the information that lead to the warrants, seizures, interviews from these CIs. Needless to say, Jack and the new team he was apart of was making waves.

However, something negged at the back of Jack's mind. Something perched at the back of his skull, hanging there like a cooing crow.

They all came to them. They all came with information. They all came with names, locations.

Things that snitches don't normally come with.

Ever.

So he dug. He interviewed. He interrogated. He broke an arm, then another, then dislocated a shoulder. Then the truth came out. They all came from the same area, same sort of people they interacted with. They were engaged together. They were in the same circles. So it was easy to deduce where they all came from. Formerly associates, underlings of Grigori Abramov now leading an army of vagabonds, goofballs and crooks and thieves. Former associates that now had a new boss. And one word slipped up "she".

She had been at the funeral.

She'd been the one to murder Grigori.

It was only natural that she was in on it. It was easy to see what happened after that. All he had though, was a hunch, was a suspicion. Jack stepped off the elevator, being approached by a lightly-augmented woman holding a clipboard.

"Do you have a reservation, sir?"

He showed his badge.

"Right here."

He said, walking around her. He eyed a towering security guard in a pressed suit, then another. He approached her at the table, eyeing her own personal security detail standing off set of her and behind. She didn't want to see them, not during the show. He took a seat next to her in the private booth, folding his hands on the table. He took a deep breath, watching the show- a soft jazz quartet applying their trade on stage. A rarity in Night City, un-electronic music. But he knew her to be fans of the classics, of the finer things.

"Big last few weeks, Miss Isakova."

His English hardly had an accent anymore. It was damn near perfect.

"Lots of new things for you. And for me. But- that's why I'm here." He turned his head. He knew that he didn't have any real proof. She knew that too. But proof and knowing were two different things. So he just wanted to know. And maybe she knew that, too.

"What are you up to, Lizaveta?"




 
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Jazz wasn't really her thing, but music -- real music, not noise being spit out by fucking robots -- was a rarity in the hellscape that made up Night City, so she had to take it where she could. There was something about it, so unordered as to be almost unmusical, that she couldn't quite bring herself to embrace. It was impossible to find a beat to which to tap one's toes. Her toes were elegantly clad in simple but quality black high heels that matched her simple but quality black dress. But this wasn't really about the fashion, and it wasn't about the music.

Lizaveta Isakova was holding court. Things were informal and fluid, and business was conducted mainly in whispers and traded datashards and credit transfers. Lizka accepted payment for a gig she organized, gave a datashard with gig details to a merc, excused herself to the balcony to call One-Eye, and met two other associates for gigs before the NCPD badge dropped, uninvited, into her booth.

Did she recognize him right away? Was her apparent lack of memory some kind of powerplay? Who could say what was true.

She fixed Kowalski with a blank, glacial stare, one fine eyebrow arching delicately. "I'm sorry. Have we -- ?"

But then he began to speak, and a look of recognition dawned across her brow. At a subtle signal from Lizka, a waiter appeared to take her empty drink. "Another," she said brusquely. "And something for the gentleman."

Waiting for the waiter to leave, Lizka turned her attention back to the music. "Your telephone is broken, Officer Kowalski? This is the only reason I can think of that you'd stalk me across the city and approach me here. Should I be grateful I didn't find you waiting for me with a towel as I climbed out of the bath?"

@Jack Kowalski
 



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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova




He took a long breath again, a pause, then a smirk. He waved off the drink- not that he wasn't a drinker, he was technically on duty. And he wasn't entirely sure also that the woman wouldn't poison him.

Not the first time.

"Probably more of a bathrobe person, aren't you?" He said, unable to help himself from his eyes going up and down her figure. She was beautiful, lengthy and dangerous. Things that greatly appealed to Jack. The music, too. While uniquely American, it was also uniquely un-electronic, authentic. For the moment. He was sure that in due course, there would be some quarter of robots doing it.

"You're probably smart enough to not use a phone much anymore. No, I came here-" He reached into his pocket, taking out a list of names of aliases of his recent criminal informants.

"Because my new unit has gotten some of the best informants in the last fifteen years in the last two weeks. I find that at the least, peculiar." He stared at her, moving his newly-slicked back hair back.

"How, and why, is why I came here. And someplace that wasn't bugged." On both of them. A bug planted, or a video that got out, would work both ways. But if he came here in an official capacity- no harm, no foul. But her apartment, her club, anywhere else. All that plausible deniability of doing anything related to law enforcement went out the window. He'd prefer it if no one knew of their interaction here, but his paranoia about how far reach was in the NCPD was getting to him.

If she had anyone on the inside, if she had people on the inside. In his unit. Life as patrol cop was bad enough, but now as a VICE unit member he felt immensely more unsafe than he did. People tended to shoot you in the front when you were a beat cop. Now the knives were all around him. He knew that there was a high level of corruption and apathy in the NCPD- the latter much more than the former. But if he was correct and she was weaponizing his unit and other parts of the NCPD to her own ends…

What else was she doing?





 
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Lizka let the little barb about what her post-bathing habits were pass, though she did offer the officer an enigmatic smile in response as she took a sip of her drink. She had expected the officer to discover her little ploy sooner or later. He was a bright, intelligent fellow, so perhaps that it was sooner made sense. She was not expecting the accusatory tone, though. That part was a little surprising.

"You look different," she informed him flatly, her voice lightly spiced by her accent. As if an explanation for not immediately recognizing him -- if that had, in fact, been the case. "It suits you."

She leaned back in her seat and gestured for him to continue, matching his gaze with her own. "How curious," she said, matter-of-fact. "First you are elevated to a new position -- congratulations, by the way -- and now you are seeing the fruits of your labor. It all seems to be as it should, does it not?"

Lizaveta swirled her glass around, the ice ringing around the inside in a tonal note. "You want to ask me something?" She took another sip, set the drink down, and leaned closer, so he could detect the subtle jasmine in her perfume, dabbed ever so discretely behind her ear and murmured into his: "Or is this some kind of... accusation?" Leaning back there, blue eyes glacial but dancing with something like mirth beneath.

@Jack Kowalski
 



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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova




He took a stare at her, part of his mind on the task, part of his mind on her guards, part of his mind on her plans- and a rather unhelpful part on what she might have wore or not wore.

His new look was something of a milestone, a change in his appearance that marked a change in his life. Not just a street cop anymore, a vice cop, a man on a mission. And so far, his mission had been good. Very good.

Too good, even.

She was ice-cold. She was a criminal. She was dangerous. A killer.

But he couldn't stop his head from turning into hers when she got in close. Her lips sung a song of deceit, lies and ulterior motives. Part of him was upset that she leaned back. But not entirely- her effect on him was obvious. Not a woman had made him feel like that. Powerless, not in control. She held all the cards for the moment, that much he knew. And she was playing him as much as anyone else.

"Yes- I did come here to ask you something." He looked around again, a sense of paranoia on full display. He laid a single hand on the table, fingertips pressing on the surface.

Wood.

In a world without it. A good feeling.

"Why are you helping me?" Not the NCPD, not the police, not the law. No, she was helping him directly. But he also knew that she wasn't doing it altruistically. She was coiling her snake around her enemies. The next step was something more of a mystery.

And it scared him. Just a little. What was this femme fatale- this intoxicatingly beautiful woman, this slender statuesque woman truly capable of? And why involve him in it? And could he stop it- or move against her?





 
Lizaveta reclined ever-so-slightly against the faux-velvet banquette, allowing the high, channeled back to cradle her delicate form. She put a cigarette between her lips and lit up, allowing the glow to illuminate her face briefly as she took a drag, then drew it out, blowing smoke in the other direction from the badge. An elegant arm stretched forward to rest her hand over the ashtray on the table.

She was silent for a few moments, and when she spoke she turned her head coquettishly toward him. "Promoted to the Vice Squad, I believe," Lizka said, not exactly a question. Lifting her cigarette to her lips again, she left a subtle carmine print around the filter, and she exhaled into the ether before tapping the cigarette on the ashtray, shaking some ash into it. "Happy to answer your question if you'll indulge me, Detective Kovalski," she began, pronouncing his name like it would be in her native tongue.

Lizka left her cigarette in the ashtray for a moment and ran a tongue across her bottom lip as she glanced back at the stage. Whether she was interested in the music, the performance, both, or neither was not immediately apparent. Her glacial blue-grey eyes remained impassive, half-lidded.

"What is vice in a city like this one?" she asked, turning her eyes back to him, locking gazes with him. "Whores and drug pushers on every corner, homeless under every bridge and overpass, murderers for hire in every dive bar. What is vice in a city where everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden?"

 
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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova




Her point was an interesting one, and ultimately, also, correct.

Night City was a flood of sin, vice, of every color. Every facet of human depravity existed here.

"It's a struggle." He said earnestly, honestly. He was not without hope, not without a belief that he was going to do something worthwhile with his efforts. But it clicked, then and there. She really didn't want him to succeed too much- just enough to give her the edge. He leaned back in the seat, his eyes turning to the show for a moment, then back to her.

Perhaps Jarosław was more into the arts than he let on.

"Gomorrah. This place. Gomorrah and Sodom. And in time, there will come the wrath of God."

A blank stare, harsh, glazing over on her. He was a true believer- the wrath of God was not something to be trifled with. Perhaps it would come as plague. Atomic fire. Starvation. It was hard to say- but Jack believed it was coming. Not that he was the architect of it, or the instrument of it. No, there would be something biblical to come and wash away the stain of sin and depravity.

He was just there to try and make a difference. He didn't know what to do, so he did what he could.

"Is that why you're feeding me things through your little helpers? Because you hate the sins of this city? Or because you enjoy using me?"


 
The ex-ballerina waved the smoke away like Moses parting the Red Sea so she could look at the badge clearly. "Using you?" she echoed, her eyebrows lifting over her cool blue eyes. Her voice betrayed equal parts surprise and mirth. "I shouldn't be surprised that you'd view it just that way, in retrospect, but I am. I, using you?" A short chuckle and she took another drag, blew it away from the conversation. "I will not do you the disrespect of denying it, but I will challenge you on the question of motivation."

She set the cigarette down on the ashtray and took a sip of her drink, savoring it for a moment before settling against the banquette.

"At best," she began, "I facilitated the arrest of criminals and provided enough detailed information so as to make the prosecution and conviction of the criminal all but a -- what is the term? -- slam dunk," the words were like a foreign language coming out of her mouth, not fitting naturally between the pretty lips of the refined dancer. "In my understanding of the legal system here, such as it does exist, you would stand to benefit from successful -- ah -- collars is the word, yes?"

Her fingers twitched for the cigarette and she gave in, took a drag, and fixed him with a cool blue-grey gaze. "You might consider it one good turn deserving another," Lizaveta said simply. Quid pro quo by any other name -- he had scratched her back and now she was scratching his.

"In the worst case, it is... two birds and one stone. Regardless of whether I benefit from it, I have not facilitated the arrests of anyone who didn't deserve it, anyone for whom there would not be sufficient evidence to convict even in this Gomorrah of a city." Lizka shrugged her delicate shoulders before stubbing her cigarette out. "Am I to understand you are upset?" she asked simply, in a tone so as to suggest that she was bewildered by the suggestion.

 
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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova



He sat there for a while, contemplating the meaning, merit, and reality of what she said. She was, above all things- a criminal. He knew that much. Her crimes thus far were unknown to him, but her machinations since her lover's murder were deliberate, calculated, and exterminating the competition, or problem areas. Her words, normally refined, elegant, came to his level.

Beneath her. She was above, he was below. She was in the tower, and he was at the foot of it. She held more power, held more cards, more money, more men.

"Part of me worries what comes after. And no, it doesn't feel good to be... used." His eyes flicked up and down her figure, again. Blatantly, not as he usually did, scanning hands, waistlines. He was unable to articulate why it made him upset, outloud at least. But being a tool in someone else's shed wasn't good, as his father would say. He wanted the wins, and yes- the information that ultimately she provided through a loose series of who's-this and what's-that was not able to be officially traced back to her, but it was obvious to Jack where it was coming from.

Especially since it went just to him.

"Why me, Lizaveta? Why not anyone else in NCPD? Any other team, any other cop- they would've gone the same distance that I did with all this." He wanted to not believe that he did her any favors- in fact, he knew she was a murderer, and the only reason she was out and about was that the evidence against her was circumstantial and easily warped in her favor in any court- even one as pervasively inept at Night City's.

"Or are you trying to spare Gomorrah from God's wrath?" He knew it wasn't altruistic, there was no doubt in his mind about that. He just wanted to elicit some type of response from her, something to measure her intentions. Throw off what she was thinking, even.

 
Lizaveta shut her eyes briefly. Covering up an eyeroll? Enjoying the music? Showing off her perfectly-applied eyeshadow? It could have been anything, really.

An elegant thumb and forefinger pinched the bridge of her nose momentarily before she took a breath and sat up straighter, lowering her hands to her lap once more. When she opened her eyes and fixed the badge with a serene, beautifully blue gaze, there was a faint smile across her lips. "I thought I had been clear about my intentions, Officer Kowalski," she said delicately. "I told you. These are bad men. They are exploiting people. Hurting people. Whether pushing drugs or trafficking people for unspeakable purposes or arranging for murder and extortion, they are criminals. Consider me a concerned citizen."

Picking up her cigarette, she took a drag again, held it a moment before exhaling. "Could I simply pick up the phone and make a report?" Slender shoulders shrugged. "Possibly. But there is so much paperwork, so many questions. Names and dates and all." Waving a hand to clear the smoke. "This way is simpler. You make use of a network of confidential informants already. What is the problem? What is the harm? I used you?" This last question was asked in a tone that suggested she was incredulous at the suggestion.

"Why you? Why you, Officer? Because you handled my recent tragedy with the delicacy and sensitivity it demanded." This was a lie, of course. Kowalski had been brutal with her, demanding answers to his hunches. But they would both understand what she meant, with the added benefit that anyone overhearing would not immediately know that she had murdered her lover and that he had let her get away with it. The thought made her internally thoughtful; she wondered whether Kowalski would see it just that way. She suspected he would decline to view himself as an accessory after the fact to Grigori's murder.

The law would say otherwise, of course, but that was the beauty of Night City.

"And anyway," she continued breezily. "I wanted you to get the credit. You have a promising career ahead of you. If you want it. If you take it. I see very little limit as to what you could achieve. And perhaps in my small way I wanted to be a part of it. I have taken an interest in you. Is that so wrong? You say I used you and if you'd rather not receive these occasional little tips... if you'd rather I go to another colleague of yours, I can arrange it. Perhaps there is some other ambitious, highly driven detective who would feel fewer compunctions about these things."

Eyes met his with a hint of challenge. "How much bandwidth is there, do you suppose, for multiple hot-shot detectives to capture the imagination of Night City? You -- clawing your way up, solely on your wits with no assistance from such a wicked manipulative Jezebel as I -- and several others?"

 
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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova



He watched her close her eyes, waiting for the moment they opened again. He noticed her eyeshadow. Did she know he was coming? Or was she always this perfect?

"Yes. I would consider them bad men." He leaned forward more, noticing her guards and the club-goers noticing his movement. He was not in friendly territory, and being human as he was, a bunch of bullets or fists coming at him would not be fun. But he wanted to press her, wanted to use the physicality he had to push on her a little. "But you aren't doing it to make the city better. They were in your way, or maybe leftovers from what he left." He said- a bitter tone in his voice. "Or maybe, you're taking over and you just wanted more people out of the way. Because they weren't your people, Russians, Soviets, Eastern Europeans that were being wiped off the board." He looked around the room, then back to her.

"They were everyone you and your people have a problem with. How convenient." He leaned back in the seat at the mention of how he handled the fact that she murdered her beau, furrowing his brow. "Just because I couldn't prove you killed him, drugging him and getting him on that balcony- doesn't mean that I let you get away with it." He itched his face, his tattooed fingers running across the 8-pointed star on his neck- just a month old tattoo. Healed, but still fresh. "Just that I couldn't prove it in court. That the Homicide division didn't give that much of a shit of a pretty woman having to watch her boyfriend fall to his death." He took another deep breath, clicking his teeth. He had a facial tic under stress, or when he was angry. A long blink, a curve of his lip upwards and to the left.

"I dropped a Cyberpsycho on my own. I think I can handle Nightcity without some Jezebel's help. Who else, I wonder, is helping you- help me?" He snapped back at her after a moment, a long pause when he thought of what to say. It was true- NCPD was for a moment, abuzz with Jack's actions at the bank robbery. That, and Night City as a whole. A regular man, no augmentations, no cybernetics, nothing. A freak, in most cases- a Catholic man with no augmentations. A rarity in Night City.

The thought snapped back to her last comment. He flicked his eyes away from her, to the rest of the room. More of her. More eyes. More people in NCPD. Or feeding NCPD. She was just the tip of the iceberg. He took a deep breath, shaky almost. She was weaponizing NCPD broadly, not just him, if his hunch was right. Maybe willingly. He knew how corrupt NCPD was. Or maybe corrupt was the wrong term- bribes weren't common, but apathy was. Who cared where the information came from? Who cared where the collar came from? Who cared who got killed? Jack knew the answer in some areas of the department, and the answer was practically no-one. No-one even bothered to piece together things some days, with how busy they were.

Maybe she was counting on that apathy. Maybe she already used it. He needed to look broadly when he had a moment to himself. Grigori was one man, but to secure her position there had to be more people to get out of the way. Not everyone would go along willingly with her. Grigori was powerful, poised, and earned his place. Surely there were others who put it together like him. So what else did she do, what else had she done, and what was she planning to do? She was now sitting pretty at the top, or mostly near the top- but who fought her on the way and lost?

"Jezebel is a bad term to call you, by the way. You aren't a Jezebel. Jezebel was killed when she became Queen." A pause, the Catholic in him unable to help himself from correcting her. "And here you are, at the top. I wonder, though-" He turned his head, icy blue eyes- handsome in every other instance, but predatory and killer-focused in this, lasering in on her. He switched from English to Russian- his Russian perfect, though with the accent of a Polish man. The lingua franca of the Soviet Union was still there, and he grew up speaking both Polish and Russian.

"Is it lonely at the top, Lizaveta?"

Difficult to say what he wanted out of that question. For once, Jack was hard to read.



 
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They were, in some ways, two peas in a pod. Most importantly -- to Night City, probably -- they were unaugmented. They were as God made them -- her titanium knee notwithstanding, which she overlooked because it was not really cyberware. Most importantly -- to them -- they were followers of all but defunct religious traditions. Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy were as different as they were similar, but both valued tradition and hierarchy, almost to their peril. Was it God, then, that had brought the two together that fateful day? The thought was almost seductive, that their existence in each other's lives might be something like kismet. She stubbed out of her cigarette and resisted the impulse to light up again. The cigarettes were a shield, a crutch, a tool that allowed her to pretend not to be vulnerable.

Perhaps Jack Kowalski didn't deserve the courtesy of experiencing her without the shield. But she could feel the way they circled each other, like two predators asserting dominance. And while nothing would change the fact that she was a predator, she could at least assure him that he had nothing to fear from her.

So when she looked up at him again with those grey-blue eyes, there was no artifice there this time.

Is it lonely at the top, Lizaveta?

There, a hint of a sardonic smile came to her lips. When she replied, her voice was soft, and though the words could be considered unpleasant, they were softened by her voice, warm in her mother tongue. "Ah, Detective Kovalski, the education I could give you in Night City's shadowy underbelly. Or perhaps you simply meant to flatter me. No, I am not at the top. Not even with my recent collaborations with the NCPD. No, these are matters of survival rather than advancement. Though it is an open question, one supposes, where survival ends and advancement begins in a Gomorrah."

She fell into a thoughtful silence, and after a moment realized she was still gazing into his shrewd blue eyes. She held the gaze a beat more, then smirked and sipped at her drink. When she spoke again, it was still Russian. "You must understand, Detective, that someone will do what I do -- as long as there is demand for it, which is to say -- always. Before Grigori there was someone doing it, and when I am dead and gone someone else will do it. The question I suppose that is of interest is the harm that is done by the people doing it. Grigori was not a violent man... usually. When he was getting what he wanted. When his women did as they were told. But he was careless. That people got hurt was of no interest, no consequence."

Lizaveta paused and took another drink from her glass. "The man Grigori unseated? Oh, I never met him, but -- the things I learned about him made me sick. I do not exaggerate, Detective. He wasn't careless like Grigori was. He took pleasure from the violence. The things he did to people, just because he enjoyed hearing them scream. Enjoyed hearing the weeping of their family members when he recounted their deaths to their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters...." Lizka closed her perfectly shadowed eyes again and she shivered violently. This time, a singular tear escaped from under an eyelash, dragging a bit of mascara down her otherwise porcelain cheek. "You get the idea, I think?"

Picking up the cocktail napkin, she dabbed at her cheek and eye. She cleared her throat in an unsuccessful attempt to clear away the emotion from it. "That was Amvrosy Yakovlevich Korobov," she said, in English, her voice shaking. Kowalski would recognize the name as one of the collars that week his confidential informants had facilitated using intelligence she had provided. "Was he in my way? Not especially. Of course he made moves when Grigori died, but the people supporting him in Moscow no longer have the reach they once did. Not enough to get him back in my chair. Certainly noy enough to have protected him from justice. And if his downfall suggests to people who are affiliated with him that the cruelty with which he operates is not to be tolerated, then I ask you again: what is the harm?"

 
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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova


She had a tale and spun one of monsters prior to her, the evils that men did. To her, to them, to each other. Jarosław stared for a while, thinking how to respond. On one hand, he sympathized with taking vengeance, righting wrongs. He stared for a while at her, the femme fatale, the killer, the murderer, the boss, the manipulator, the one with the cards. Whatever term he applied to her, he realized something-

She was a replacement. For the moment, more.... beneficial one. More tolerant, more kind. For the time being. But he knew a few things about Night City. It corrupted, it changed you, and it was vile the further down you went. And she- she was pretty far down. Even at the top.

"So you sell information more now. But your hand, is still in those pots. Your people's hands are still in those pots. Those schemes, those things, those vices." He said firmly, leaning forward more to face her more head-on, more confrontationally speaking. "And soon enough, someone gets hurt. Someone may have already. The things you know, sell, take, keep tabs on. It all adds up." He was speaking as a Catholic moreso than a cop at that point.

His eyes burned into her, casting aversions and displeasures on her sins.

"That's the harm. That you aren't going to stay clean, stay away from it forever." He looked around the room, eyeing her goons, security, the other patrons. He looked at the stage, away from her. "No one stays clean here in Night City." He spoke for himself just as much as her, but for the time being, the both of them. He, however, maintained a morality, maintained a path of righteousness, a desire to help. He wasn't sure of her motivations, of her desires and her endgoal.

Or if there was any to be had. He took a deep breath, leaning back against the plushy leather- perhaps faux leather seat. He lowered his tone. His voice was soft, perhaps- his actual voice? Not his cop voice, not his usual tone. He spoke almost softly.

"I don't like the way you look at me. And the way I look at you."




 
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Lizaveta polished off her drink and set the empty glass down on the table. She moved it around the surface for a few moments, watching the ice swirl around. "You seem to be very concerned with my cleanliness, Detective, and I should be grateful for your concern, I think," she said, her voice brimming with the kind of subtle humor that suggested they were the only two people on earth who were party to this inside joke. "There is a phrase -- from my line of business, but perhaps applicable here? -- I wash your back, you wash mine? Something like that, anyway. So it is not such a bad idea to, ah... co-exist in this way, hm? We can keep each other clean. Keep each other honest."

She glanced sidelong at him, her blue-grey eyes amused, and at his commentary about the way they looked at each other, she arched a delicate brow. "If you don't like the way you look at me, Detective, I suggest you don't look at me."

Lizka leaned over the table, her elbows on the table. The space between them shrank until he could smell the botanicals from the pulse point on her wrist and neck, rose and jasmine weaving together with orris and iris root, maybe even the sweetness of the drink on her breath. Her eyes traced over his face, down and then up, and when her eyes touched his again, her lips twitched into a little smile. "And if you don't like the way I look at you..." Eyes dropped momentarily to his mouth, then up again as she leaned even closer.

"...that's just too damned bad. And anyway," she said, finally leaning back into her own space, though the scent of her perfume lingered. "You searched me out, remember?"

 
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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova


"I think you searched me out a little bit after Grigori went cold." He said boldly, matter-of-factly, and a bit... unusually crass for Jack. She leaned in, she spoke, she smelled like everything he thought she would. Flowery, but with a hint of alcohol, sweet. Jarosław could not help but notice her downward glances. His breath caught in her throat.

She was a killer. But so was he. He killed far more people than she had. In one day, more than likely. She was dangerous, she was calculating, she was cruel in a way. He breathed deeply, rapidly almost. His heart rate rose sharply when he smelled her, was closer to her. She could see it plainly, no fancy cyberware needed.

"You want to wash or scratch my back?" He said with an amused tone in his voice. His grasp of English was a little better than hers on idioms and metaphors, maybe. He rubbed his hands together, before his eyes flicked to the door. He didn't want to leave, not really- he vocalized the thought.

"I'm worried that if I stay here much longer that I won't leave alone." He said bluntly. No qualms, no quips, no dancing around the subject. He was far too direct for that. And so was she, maybe. His eyes flicked back to her, after he was glancing at the stage.

"You're going to be a problem for me, aren't you?"




 
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Lizaveta regarded him curiously for a few moments, her eyebrows twitching together. There was plausible deniability in her expression. She could pretend not to know what he meant -- something lost in translation. She settled back into the banquette and fished for another cigarette. "That's what places like this are for, right? For if one feels like... company?" She placed the cigarette between her pretty pink lips and lit it, taking a slow drag. The saturation of oxygen in the flaming embers made them glow, lit her face a little before going dark. In that brief period of illumination, Jack would have seen the comment for the lie that it was, seen the understanding in her eyes, the touch of color in her aristocratic cheekbones that was -- what?

Recognition? Reciprocation.

And then it was dissipating into the air between them like the smoke she exhaled, swirling and ethereal until it was gone.

"It's never been quite my thing," she went on. "But I don't judge. Sometimes there is nothing else that will do besides some sort of human contact."

Blue eyes lingered on his for a moment before flickering off, another little half-smile coming to her lips at his next question. She thought about it for a few moments -- lapsing into a comfortable, companionable silence with the Detective as she smoked half her cigarette. She set the remnant of it on the edge of the ashtray, a subtle pink print where her lips had been, and cradled her chin in one hand. "I don't have to be a problem for you," Lizaveta told him. "But it all depends on you, Detective. Say the word and you won't hear from me again. I will burden some other badge and content myself to watch your career from a distance."

One hand stretched over the table toward him. "Or..." Her index finger barely brushed his knuckle. "We could continue to wash each other's backs and clean up Night City, one monster at a time. And since we're smart, we can avoid trouble, hm?" Lizka looked at him through her lashes, the very picture of innocence, but -- they both knew better, didn't they?

 
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Tags: @Lizaveta Isakova


"Wouldn't know what places like this are for." He said with an earnest tone, looking around. He didn't belong- not here, not anywhere down below. He stood silent for a while, before he took a deep breath. He watched her expression briefly illuminated by the cigarette, unable to stop staring, watching, analyzing. Wondering. Picturing.

He stood up tall, craning his neck, watching her bodyguards shift. Maybe he was faster on the draw than them, but he didn't want to find out. Her touch lingered on his mind- goosebumps echoing across his skin. Perfect, unblemished, unchromed skin. He was quiet for a moment, not saying anything which way.

"You should think about confession."

And in a way he was saying "so should I".

"It's hard to avoid what's already there."

Jack was good at a lot of things- saying something that meant many things seemed to be top of that list. He spoke in double, triple meanings. He was enigmatic, much more than most would suspect from a street cop. He waited for a moment, wondering if she had any final thoughts. If not-

He'd take his leave before he wound up further ensnared in her trap- not that he minded being around her.
 
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