Context

The quiet chime of his doorbell woke him up. He drummed his fingers and slowly settled back into his chair. Once again he had fallen asleep at his desk. He ought to learn his limits he thought, sleeping on his desk wasn’t the greatest way to rest. The doorbell rang again and the man rose to his feet

“Yeah yeah, I’m coming. Can’t you fuckers wait a goddamn minute it’s …”

He stopped in the middle of his hall, looking straight at the discarded combat armor across the hall. His memory caught back to him and he scrambled to knock off a pile of newspapers to hide the gear. He knew what was waiting at the other side of the door, six secutors of the Departemento Securis, probably looking for the woman he had dragged in the night before. The doorbell rang a third time, followed with loud banging on his door

“SECURIS, OPEN THIS DOOR OR WE’LL KNOCK IT DOWN”

The man leapt to the door and disengaged the locking mechanism, sliding the door open.

A broad man stood before him, wearing the badge and black armor of the Departemanto Securis of Arshaad. He couldn’t see the secutor’s eyes behind his visor, and he frankly didn’t want to. He stared straight at the officer’s jaw, the only part of his visage still visible

“Yeah what is it” the man said, leaning in the doorframe.

“We’d like to ask you some questions citizen; about a pursuit that occured yesterday. Have you seen a young woman, Miragian and heavily augmented pass throught your hab-block last night at 23h44?”

“No, I wasn’t here yesterday, and frankly I don’t really like Securis slamming at my door this early”

The officer grinned and put his hand on his holster.

“We’ll be the judge of that; we’ve got a search warrant. Stand aside, we’re coming in”

“No I don’t think so officer” The man produced a small data slate, identifications flashing across its surface.

The secutor’s smile disappeared in an instant, and his face went blank.

“Oh Fu-.  Huh, sorry to have disturbed you sir, we’ll take your word for it. Once again, I’m sorry to have woken you up, we’ll, huh, be on our way, thank you.”

The secutor jogged away from the door, waving at his five collegues to stow away the search gear and embark on their vehicule. The doors slammed and the black truck sped away.

The man slid the door back and locked it, looking at the identification slate in his hand. His name and and older pic of him were lit up on the slate; Agent Joshua Kartek, Naval Intelligence Bureau. It had been five years since he’d been drummed out, but he still liked to shove off rude secutors with his outdated identification. They never really bothered to look at it closely.

Joshua wondered why the Departemento had come knocking at his door. Why would they be chasing after the woman if she was not of some importance? His gaze wandered from his slate to the closed door of his room. She was in there, either still unconscious or waiting for him to come see her. Joshua stretched his neck and walked toward the door, knocking three times before stepping in.

His old habits kicked in as soon as he saw her. Mid-twenties, miragian low-born, fifth or sixth sector, eighteen cybernetic implant, fourteen of them military grade, she had two inbuilt blades in her forearms and a dart thrower implanted in her shoulder. He settled himself in the doorway, casually leaning in the open doorframe. Definitely a Stalker he thought.

“So what’s a Scout doing on a shithole like this ?” he said, not a trace of humor in his voice.

The woman cocked her head to the side, as if expecting the question.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about sir, I just slipped from the rooftops running away from these thugs.” She answered, her facial expression betraying amusement

Her gaze wandered off across the room, stopping to stare at the open window

Joshua tossed his slate at the woman’s blind side. She caught it mid-air, neatly, and turned to read it.

“Well isn’t that interesting” she said, parting her hair to the side. ”Exactly the man I was looking for”

Joshua moved to the window, leaning on its frame, his eyes locked at the woman.

“Yeah? Scouts and coincidence don’t exist, especially not for one of Cortez’s pet Stalker.”

He rubbed his eyes and stared away from her. Goddamn bastard knew what he liked, Joshua thought, Cortez always had a knack for knowing people’s weaknesses. She was everything he found attractive, from her small but strong frame to her deep azure eyes. His thought instinctively turned to numbers and useless mental jogging, keeping his mind clear from instinctive obstruction.

“You’re here to ask me to go back are you?  I thought the Bureau shut down my cell. Left me here to rot because of some fucking bureaucrats back on the Core” he continued, his thoughts quickly turning to the day he had learned of his cell’s dismantlement.

She shifted in her bed, moving into a sitting position whilst lowering the sheets to reveal more of her upper body. She reached out at the side-table and picked up a framed picture.

“I’m sure you know what’s happening, even here on this shithole of a planet everyone knows. The Defense Councils are getting bolder and more corrupt and we’re hard pressed to clean house” she stared away from the picture and gave him a wry smile. “Seems we need every asset we have… or had”

Joshua sighed and turned to face her, he scanned her from top to bottom and then back again.

“So that’s why you’re here, to convince me to come back from forced retirement. Seems like a waste of personnel, a message would’ve sufficed” he scoffed, trying his best to stare away from her.

She pulled down the sheets to her thighs and slowly unclipped the straps of her bodyglove.

“Well then.” she said, winking at him. “Welcome back Agent Kartek”