Nesia 010

She hit the small clothing stores first.  They were all clustered in one end of the mall and Nesia wandered in and out of any store that caught her interest.  Mainly, she found herself skipping several of the stores because she felt nothing.  Though she was not sure about her memory really giving her any hints, Nesia felt confident she would feel if something was familiar.

Twenty minutes later, though, she still had nothing.  She had ten minutes until ten and almost decided to skip the specialty stores, but the idea of a huge department store in an already crowded mall was less appealing.  Why any mall needed ten stores dedicated just to pajamas was beyond her.

She ruled out the stores that were just selling Leisure souvenir pajamas as well as the store that was more lingerie than anything else.  Nesia sighed as she found herself staring at flannel pants.  All the advances in technology and fashion and people still bought plaid, flannel pants.  Then again, the customers were probably from Talline.  She sincerely hoped she would never have to go to that planet again.

Again.  Her mind immediately latched onto that thought.  She had been there before.  It was cold and isolated.  Machines did most of the harvesting there.  People just maintained and tried to keep warm.  Minerals were the primary export.  And she had been there, looking.

“Looking blue,” a voice said in her memory.

“Really?” Nesia rolled her eyes and looked at that speaker.  “You just couldn’t resist that one, could you?”

Vince laughed, a booming laugh that you could not glare at for long.  He had a hat on over his head that was bald by choice.  He was usually getting into fights and had long since decided hair got in the way.  His brown eyes stood out in the blizzard, though his many scars were harder to see.  Nesia slipped and Vince caught her, steadying her as they continued to climb the flight of stairs that led up to the mansion.

“Please watch your step,” he asked.  “I would hate to fail at being your bodyguard all because you lost to a patch of ice.”

“It’s you’re job to keep me safe,” Nesia chided.  “Defend me from the vicious cold.  I swear, I’m going to kill someone if I get pneumonia.  Whose idea was it to have an ice fortress?”

“Someone who doesn’t want visitors,” Vince shrugged and lost his own footing, nose diving into the steps.

“And you’re the one keeping me safe,” Nesia said calmly.  “At least this time I’m not the one who ends up with the broken nose.  Now let’s get inside before I actually match my name.”

“Attention shoppers,” the intercom startled Nesia out of her memory, “remember that today is the two-in-one special…”

Nesia ignored the droning voice and tried to reclaim the memory.  All she got was the words Algernon and Katherine and a brief flash of staring down a cat.  But she did have the puzzle of who Vince was solved.  He was obviously a bodyguard of sorts.  Not all the time, but she felt like she had been around him enough to have the big brother, little sister relationship with him.

She looked at her watch and sighed in disappointment.  It was about a quarter after ten.  She had zoned out for at least ten minutes.  It was past her meeting time and she finally remember that she was in the wrong mall.  Nesia buried her head in some pajama pants and tried to keep from screaming.

It was not a memory, but just the knowledge that Mark liked guns.  So naturally she would meet with Mark at Derringer Mall.  The time it would take to get to the taxi pad and then get to Derringer Mall, Nesia would be almost an hour late.  And she still had no idea which store Mark was supposed to be in or how late he would wait.  She headed to the taxi, trying to make up her mind as to what to do.

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Should Nesia…..

1 – Give up on finding Mark and just head to the Asuraeson Estate now?

2 – Head over to Derringer Mall and try for just a while longer?

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