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 Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 10:47 pm
It was a cool, clear day that greeted the small figure as they stepped of the bus, the overhead gray skies decorated here and there was patchy dark clouds. Rain had been called for on the forecast that morning, a 'chance of rain' and some 'partly cloudy' conditions, and as the child raised her eyes upwards she had to say the partly cloudy guess was the most accurate - for the moment.
Her shoes made soft clicks on the cement as she hustled along amongst the bustle of the crowd, her small frame being bounced once or twice by someone larger or in more of a hurry. Of course, apologies were shot her way by whomever had knocked into her only because of how little she was and how she was dressed, so it was accepted without any problem.
There was no real destination in her mind as she continued her walk, the umbrella she held in her hands swinging back and forth to match her pace and rhythm. A phone call from her cousin this morning had allowed her the break she needed to escape from the house while her mother was occupied, so thanking her older cousin for his consideration towards her the small girl had dashed for the door without any hesitation.
Hoping for something, anything, to distract her mind and perhaps give her a reason to stay awake and away from her home for the day, Naomi Masters simply walked amongst the crowd.
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Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:08 am
Walking out of yet another electronics store, Xinai Kae - or Xai, as she is often called - huffed out a breath and paused in the middle of the sidewalk as she considered her options. She'd visited almost every shop in the area that sold anything remotely computer related, but none of them could offer any solution to her current problem. How could they, supposed experts, not know what was happening to her new laptop? She'd bought the thing only last month, because third year university involved a lot of group work, and laptops made life a lot easier when it came to meeting up in random places to discuss school projects. It hadn't been until yesterday that she finally realized that some of her files were going missing - files that she was absolutely certain she'd uploaded to her laptop from her desktop.
At least the last store had given her a new direction to look into. The shop assistant had mentioned something called a "Net Hacker". Given the fact that she'd already questioned him about being hacked, Xai was sure that they were something different altogether. The assistant, after a little questioning, had given her the address of a place that specialized in them, but he'd known almost nothing else about these "Net Hackers". The fact that nobody else had mentioned them made Xai extremely skeptical about visiting the address written down on the slip of paper in her hand, but the only other alternative she had was to continue asking random computer stores in the hopes that she'd find one that could fix her laptop.
Pulling out her cellphone, she glanced at the display and noted the time. Her bottle green eyes sparked with annoyance as she realized that she'd already spent four hours bouncing in and out of shops. Perhaps it really was time to try something else. A small smile appeared on Xai's lips as she remembered the old saying; "You'll always find what you're looking for in the last place you look."
"Well, Net Hackers it is, then!" Xai spoke her decision out loud, trying to inject some enthusiasm into the words. Absorbed as she was in her train of thought, Xai was completely oblivious to the curious looks thrown her way from the bustling crowd as she turned and headed down the sidewalk towards the bus stop that would take her to the city center, unconsciously avoiding others in the crowd as she walked.
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Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:28 am
Naomi's ears perked up as she happened to overhear two words that she quite adored, and a devilish smile spread across her features as she looked up to see where said words had come from. The crowd around her was moving at a rather feverish pace, their goals in mind more important than the common curtosey that had been displayed moments before.
It seemed that the later in the day it was, the closer to rush hour it was, the ruder people got. A few knocks to her legs from a stray foot or a bustle against someone else from a hurried man prevented Naomi from really getting an idea of who or what had spoken out loud, but she didn't seem to feel like giving up at the moment.
Someone had spoken about the Hackers, almost like they had an idea over something or were simply questioning the nature because they had no idea, and was overly determined to find them. It was more of a feeling that she could help them more than the store could, more than that man and that Hacker, so it was slowly becoming a personal goal...until it occured to her to simply round off whoever it was before they could enter the building. Perfect.
With a renewed sense of something, anything, Naomi lifted up the bottom of her skirt jsut enough to give her legs more running room, and she took off down one of the alleys that she passed. Walking these streets day after day in an attempt to stay away from home had taught her all the different shortcuts...
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Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 7:04 pm
Xai stood in front of the tall building and tilted her head back to look at the entire structure. The front doors said "Home of the .NET Hackers", and a couple of windows had that eerie glow that almost always came from multiple computer screens. It was funny - she came by this area quite often when she was looking for interesting face to draw, but she'd never noticed this place before.
Idly she wondered why so little people knew about these Net Hackers if they were important enough to merit such a large and impressive building. And what did such a big establishment have to do with the glitch on her laptop? In her experience, glitches were bad things that had to be fixed, not maintained and given a home.
A loud beep from her backpack jolted her out of her reverie and she jumped slightly, looking around almost guiltily. The noise had come from her laptop - it had taken to making the occasional random beep at the worst times, even when turned off. "Okay fine, I give in," she muttered as she finally walked towards the building, "anything to shut you up."
Xai knew she was talking to something that basically amounted to pieces of plastic and metal, but the way her laptop had been acting up lately, she could almost believe that there was a little demon residing in it. Almost. Things like that just didn't happen, right? Even if it seemed like every time she talked to her laptop, there was a responding beep. It was all in her head. She sighed and shook her head to clear her head of such random thoughts, and put out a hand to push open the heavy glass door.
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Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:37 pm
Naomi happened to round the corner right as the woman reached her hand out towards the door, and her pace picked up for a moment before the tip of her shoe snagged against a piece of raised and uneven pavement.
"!!!"
Letting out a sound that was a mixture of a gasp of surprise and a shriek, the small girl toppled forward and landed heavily on her elbows and hands. Part of her face contacted with the heavy cement as well, the impact loud enough that several people who happened to be passing by stopped for a moment to look over their shoulder.
Of course they didn't look down, and when they didn't see anything they continued walking on, leaving Naomi to stew in a small puddle of gravel-mixed blood and tears. She was crying, a bit weak though it would soon increase to a heavy flow of tears, and she pushed herself up and against her legs.
"Uuw...."
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Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 1:01 am
Just as the door started to open beneath her hand, Xai heard a small shriek from somewhere to her to her left. The sound was close enough to the beeping noise that her laptop had been making lately that she almost passed it off as such - at least, until she heard the slap of skin on cement and realized that someone had fallen over.
Moving her hand away from the door and letting it close again with a quiet swoosh, she turned in the direction of the noise. A small figure was slowly pushing itself upright from the sidewalk. Judging from the skirt and the size of the figure, Xai realized that she was looking at a little girl. Wincing a little in sympathy, she rushed over to see if the girl was alright.
"Uuw...."
"Are you alright?" Xai asked, crouching down near the girl and offering a hand to help her up. "That was quite a fall... Did you hurt anything?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:56 pm
....Success.
A small grin flashed across Naomi's face before it turned back into her look of pain and sorrow, the small trails of tears running down her cheeks in a pair of silent rivers. She nodded her head softly at the woman's concern and looked up at her hand, her mouth quivering as it held back sobs.
The fall had actually hurt more than she thought it would have, but not enough to cry over like she really was. This was all an act for a certain purpose, the purpose being to get the woman away from the store and to her side, and so far it seemed to be working quite well.
"I'm...I'm okay. I...I think I cut my knee open."
Naomi's words were chopped as she sniffled in between speaking, and she moved her skirt back a bit to reveal a knee that resembled fresh hamburger. Bits of blood leaked out between gravel and torn skin, and after the puddles grew larger enough that started to drip from her knee and onto the cement.
So she had gotten hurt worse than she'd thought. Oh well.
"It...it hurts, lady."
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Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 2:49 am
Xai's heart went out a little in sympathy as she looked over the cut on the girl's knee. "Ouch, that looks painful. Are you sure you're okay? I think I might have a bandaid in my bag somewhere. It might not stop the bleeding completely, but I've heard that bandaids have a way of fixing everything!" Xai flashed the little girl a slightly mischevious grin as she carefully removed her backpack and began to dig through it. As she did so, she accidentally knocked her laptop, causing it to make an unusually loud (and slightly scolding, to Xai's discerning ears) beep in return.
"Ah... Just ignore the beeping noise. My laptop seems to be acting up on me for some reason. By the way," Xai cast a quick glance over at the girl and noted that the snifles and tears were slowly abating, "I'm not a lady, i'm still young. My name is Xinai, though you can call me Xai if that's too much of a mouthful."
Finally locating the bandaid somewhere in the inside back pouch of her bag, she held it out to the girl. Now that things seemed on their way to being alright again, Xai abruptly realized that the girl was out in the city center alone. A slight twinge of concern prompted her to ask, "What were you doing out here alone, anyway? Aren't you too young to be out by yourself?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 8:40 pm
Even more success.
All according to plan.
"I...I think Naomi'll be okay. Naomi's gotten into worse before, but it ruined my clothes. I...will Naomi's Mama beat her for this, you think?"
Naomi switched the addressing of herself to third person, the change rather seamless. She often did refer to herself in the manner naturally, having been raised by her mother to do so because it was 'cute', and she found it harder and harder to refer to herself as 'I' when speaking to others. Well, at least to other women, as she had to always do it around her mother or her mother's friends at their 'tea parties'.
At the sound of a beep from the nearby laptop, Naomi swung her gaze in that direction with a forced look of little interest. In reality, she was dying for the chance to see whatever it was on the screen, whatever was causing the beeping, but for now she had to play it calm and collected.
"A problem on your computer? Naomi is pretty good with computers."
She pointed to herself in a childish manner, continuing to do so even as her leg was properly band-aided up by herself and Xai had introduced herself.
"So you're name is Xai? Naomi is Naomi Masters, but you can call me Naomi. Naomi is nine years old this year, soon to be ten come the holidays."
Naomi didn't really have to give her age, but it was part of the plot. Get the woman's interest and her pity, and get into her laptop. It was a one-two maneuver that never failed. Ever. When the woman asked another question, one about why she was out and about, she knew it was working even more so.
"Naomi ran away from home, Mama was being mean. Naomi's tired of the tea parties and wanted to meet new people. What about you?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 10:12 pm
Watching as the girl carefully stuck the bandaid over her cut knee, Xai noted that her movements were quick and deft, quite unlike any other nine year old she'd ever met. Little Naomi's actions contradicted with her manner of speaking, and it struck her as a little bit odd. Giving a quick mental shrug, Xai dismissed such behavior as one of the quirks that children went through and concentrated instead on the conversation at hand.
"I don't think your mom will mind when she finds out that you fell over by accident. Anyway, she'll probably be more angry that you ran off without her. Nine year old girls aren't supposed to wander around alone, you know?" She completely ignored the part about running away from home. Considering Naomi's attire and the way she carried herself, Xai doubted that she would stay away from home for long. She'd had her own share of "running away from home" as a child, and it was often nothing more than a game.
Sighing as she realized she was getting close to scolding the child for being so silly, Xai quickly shifted topics. "In any case, you've met me now. Don't worry about my laptop, I was actually just about to go get it fixed when I heard you falling over. The building I was visiting is just over there. Would you like to come in with me?" She turned towards the large building with the glass doors as she spoke, almost taking a step forwards before she glanced back to see if Naomi would follow.
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 9:13 am
"Mama is always angry at Naomi no matter what Naomi does, even if Naomi was to stay at home and keep locked in her room. That's why Naomi runs away, because she can get outside at least for a while and try to do different things. Papa says it's good for me, but he's scared of Mama and that she might hurt Naomi, so he never helps Naomi escape."
It wasn't that odd for Naomi to tell her past story so openly to a stranger. It was sort of part of her plan to gain more sympathy, but it was also sort of a plea to someone, anyone, to try and possibly help her.
She hated her home, all the abuse, but there was nothing she could really do about it. Until she was strong enough, or until someone would honestly believe her, she was stuck living in endless tea parties and wearing Lolita clothing.
"Naomi...will go with you into that shop. She knows all about it, and was actually trying to get there as well today. Naomi had to ask and see if her Hacker friends were okay, as they'd been having troubles."
Naomi pushed herself upwards to her feet, her movements like a gymnast trying to push themselves into a handstand instead. She placed her hands in front of herself and pushed enough that her back legs stood correct first, and then she swung herself up. It was a movement she'd done so many times before to stand up, mostly out of boredom, but now she did it more and more because of the increased layers of clothing she wore.
Today's outfit consisted of bloomers (now torn), two petticoats, a full ruffled skirt complete with three different kinds of lace, and a childish bodice that poked her ribs every time she breathed in. Her russet colored hair was done up in it's usual multitude of tiny ringlets, and inside the mass of curls were dozens of ribbons braided in and out for effect. She also had a small top hat that was tied to her, and it overall completed her look.
"Is that why you're going, you have a Hacker on your computer? That could explain your beeping problem, Naomi thinks."
For some reason her face smarted as she rubbed her hand, and she became vaguely aware she had scrapes on her face from the impact, as well as on her elbows. It was odd that her legs had felt far more pain when the rest of her shaken up as well, but that didn't matter for now.
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 5:57 pm
Now that Naomi was standing up, she realized the girl's outfit was odder than she'd first thought. Who dressed like that nowadays? Not only did it not look comfortable, it also made the girl look like some life-sized doll. Xai mentally shook her head at such silliness and opened her mouth to comment -
- only to be interrupted by another beep, this one louder than usual. Xai closed her mouth a snap as she mentally cursed the laptop. Fine, fine, she thought to herself, I get the damn point already.
Tilting her head, she considered the little girl in front of her. Xai wasn't sure how much a nine year old would know about computers, but she figured the extra company wouldn't hurt. It would also be a good way to keep an eye on the child - at least until she decided to go home. While she wasn't sure what to believe about the things that Naomi was telling her, the fact still remained that the girl was out in the city alone and Xai couldn't quite justify leaving a child out in the streets by herself.
"A Hacker, huh? I'm not sure what it is I have on my computer. All I know is that it's not working properly and makes random noises." Unthinkingly, she held her hand out to Naomi in an unconscious request to hold hands as she headed towards the building, the gesture as natural to Xai as breathing. "Maybe they'll have a washroom we can use to clean up the rest of your scrapes, too. It would be bad if any of your cuts got infected."
They reached the heavy glass doors just as she finished speaking. Putting out a hand, Xai opened the door and took a step inside, looking around as she did so. The place was big, and very well kept. And empty. There didn't seem to be anyone but themselves in the large reception area, and Xai had no clue regarding where to go. Turning to Naomi beside her, she raised an eyebrow in a silent inquiry.
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Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:24 pm
Naomi took the woman's hand as it was offered to her, the final pieces of her plan in action finally locking into place. She'd successfully managed to get into the building with this woman under no false pretenses of her own, and now that she had some access to certain things, she wasn't going to pass up any opportunity.
But first...she had to convert this Xai woman to Mugen, or at least, to her own side. There were plenty of ways to do this, and her hopes soared higher as they entered the building and found it to be completely empty.
There was no one here to stop her, no one to really interrupt her plans, and Naomi reviled in that fact. She'd start her second phase of her plan as soon as she could but for now...she wanted to wash off the blood and gravel from her hands and knees. There was only so much pain she could rightly ignore.
"I...Naomi's only been in here once before, with Mama, so she doesn't know where the bathroom is. Perhaps if we look together Naomi can find it with Ms,. Xai's help?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:34 pm
"Mmm sure, maybe we should. We can check back to the front desk later to see if anyone's back."
As she spoke, Xai was looking around for any signs that would give a clue as to where they should go. Her eyes fell on a discreetly labeled corridor that seemed to open into a wide space. Tugging slightly on Naomi's hand, she headed in that direction, glancing at closed doorways until she found the one with a female figure drawn at eye-level.
"C'mon, Naomi, I think this is it." Pushing the door to the washroom open, she walked in and headed towards the sink, turning on the tap as she waited for Naomi to join her. "Try to put your cuts directly under the running water, it'll help clean out the dirt a bit. It's too bad there's nobody at the reception area, we could've asked them for rubbing alcohol."
Xai left the tap running as she went to grab a couple of paper towels from the dispenser. She didn't say anything, and none of her agitation showed on her face, but she was worried about her laptop. It was really getting late now, and she wanted it fixed as soon as possible. The fact that the damn thing was beeping even while it was off was highly unusual, and she had a feeling that the longer she took to fix the problem, the more damage whatever it was would do.
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Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:35 pm
Naomi obeyed as she felt herself get tugged along, and she still obeyed as semi-cold water from the tap ran over her scrapes. It stung like the dickens to have something run across scrapes that were doing their best to heal, and she closed her jaw tightly in an effort to prevent any crying out. After all, this didn't hurt that bad and crying out now would only seem to bring to a halt whatever she had in the mix.
"Ms. Xai, are yo still worried about your laptop? If you want, Naomi could take a look at for you with some help from one of Naomi's friends. They know a lot about computers and could fix whatever you have wrong."
Her hands were still running under the water as she spoke, but her head and face were turned in Xai's directions. There was nothing different in her expression, one still of childish innocence, but something seemed a little sinister in the way she offered her assistance.
"Despite Naomi's appearance and age, Naomi is really good with computers, even more so when Naomi's friend helps her."
She was hoping that this ploy would work and that Xai would let her look at her laptop, or at least get access to it. She needed to get the chance to get on, no matter the issue.
"Please? Let Naomi try and help first?"
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