Case stumbled into the Comp USA near the entrance of the mall, out of breath and still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His manager gave him a glare and wordlessly pointed at the clock. It read 4:05 PM, which meant that Case was, once again, late to work. To his surprise, there was already a few people standing by the customer service booth in a corner of the store.

Not that he cared. It wasn't as if Case was about to lose his job anytime soon: he knew of no one else who even wanted the position. In fact, when he had applied, his application had come back within the next hour. His manager had practically begged Case to fill it, although, of course, he had forgotten that now.

Case looked at the line again before sauntering behind the booth. It was mostly mothers with their prepubescent sons in tow, who in turn towed along a few computer towers and boxes of the latest MMORPG to grace the shelves. The mothers gave him odd looks as he stepped behind the counter, mostly at his appearance: he absolutely refused to wear the red and white uniforms of the other employees. The grin he flashed at them, shining white teeth and blank, flat eyes, did little to soothe their anxiety.

The first pair couldn't find the "on" button. It was going to be a long day.

The second pair couldn't print. They hadn't bought a printer. He pointed them to the hardware section and returned the mother's cheerful wave as they left.

The third pair, after much debate and threats of reports to the manager after Case politely told them that idiots should not desecrate technology with their grubby little paws, realized that they had brought the wrong tower. The little boy flipped Case off as they left.

Behind the counter and his dead, emotionless smile, Case stabbed a pair of scissors into the stack of happy yellow post-its on his desk, repeatedly, until they were reduced to shreds. He slid them quietly into the already-overflowing trash can, and reached for another stack, never pausing in his steady downward stabbing.

His shift ended at 12 A.M. It was only 5:17 now. Seven hours to go: four hours until the mall itself closed at 9 PM; then three more sitting in the store doing his job by phone. Case bit back a curse and glanced at the quickly diminishing pile of yellow behind the counter with a low, exasperated growl.

He was going to need more post-its.

By the end of the day, he was exhausted. He stalked out of the store, into the darkness outside the mall, pulling his collar up around his neck. A few people hung around, gossiping near the wide entrance; they gave him odd glances as he walked past them, fuming. It was times like these when Case wished he had a car at the university.

Making his way quickly through the pitch-black parking lot on foot, he started off on his long journey home.

In a dark, dirty corner of the parking lot, a dark red sports car sat with the motor idyling. The driver's door was open, and standing next to it was a tall, exquisite woman. She was speaking into a cell phone, her angry English accent piercing the silence as she hissed at her conversation partner.

"Brilliant, darling. Brilliant! I love how you're so mature about this.." A pause followed. "It's probably best you're in Rome, you'd be dead if you were still here. Oh, just fuck off Bo!" She released her grip on the cell, and it dropped from her ear to the pavement with a clatter. To further apease her anger, she lifted her foot and drove the spike of her stellito heel through the key pad. The display of anger seemed much more terrible coming from someone who held the haughty grace of an ice queen.

She was wearing a lovely feminine coat, one of black velvet with embroidered flowers all over it. Her hair curled down her back, being of a generous length. Several sparkly things were on display at her throat and fingers. In total, she did not seem the kind of person who hung out in dank, dark places of parking lots like the one she standing in.

Kicking the little corpse of a phone away, she paused to consider her situation.

At the sound of plastic hitting asphalt, Case whirled around in his tracks. A red sports car immediately draw his attention; next, the he noticed the small black square of the cell phone, and finally, he looked up to stare the woman standing by the door of the car, who was glaring down at the phone on the ground.

Case's eyes widened as she lifted her foot -- he almost cried out for her to stop -- and drove her heel into the cell phone's keypad. With a short shower of sparks, the cell phone's lights faded away into darkness as she kicked it away from her. Case winced at the motion in empathetic pain, as he, ignoring the woman by the car, headed straight for the damaged phone and picked it up.

He examined it for a moment, then sighed. Repair would be pointless; he could tell just by looking at it. The screen was cracked, the casing, shattered: half the keys were already missing. Case closed the phone, gently, and cradled it in his hands. Then, in a tide of rising anger, fueled by his previous encounters with the technologically inept, he turned to glare at the woman.

"The hell did this phone ever do to you?"

Lily was startled at the sentence addressed to her, but she did not jump or cry out like a mortal woman would. She did not flinch, or remove the look of annoyance clouding her face. Instead, she directed it to the boy who had spoken. She turned on her heel, facing him as she stood in front of her open car door. She arched an eyebrow, studying him up and down.

Black, was the first thing which she observed. Roughly the same height as herself. She could smell the blood in his veins. She noted the broken phone in his hands, before replying.

“And what business is that of yours?” Her voice was the icy counterpart of his angry tone.

Case's anger only rose at her icy, indifferent tone; her cultured accent only served to infuriate him further. This was a lady of intelligence: he could tell from the way she spoke and carried herself. That only made it worse.

"You people... if a woman is being beaten on the subway by her abusive husband and some guy decides to stop him, you call him a hero. And yet, if someone does something... like this..." He held the cell phone up for her to see, as if it were some kind of atrocity. "What business is this of mine? It's not. It's the defense, of the defenseless-- at least that woman could have fought back--"

It was pointless. She wouldn't understand. Or even if she did, she wouldn't care. Might as well save his breath.

Case halted in his tirade, clenching the broken phone tightly to himself and looking down at it with an almost sad expression. "Easier to replace you than to fix you. And humanity complains about their replaceability. Hell." The last word exploded softly out of him in a whisper. He continued, addressing the phone as if it could understand. "I'm sorry for what we are."

Lily listened in obvious amusement as he began comparing the phone to a human woman. She regarded the phone indifferently as he held it up to her, unaffected by his spirited speaking or his affection for the phone. It was when he ceased addressing her and began speaking to the phone that she shook her head.

“You’re a freak, aren’t you.” She made the question into a statement, hardly expecting an answer. “Fine, apologize for what you are, but don’t you dare assume I’m anything like you.”

She touched the tip of her tongue to her left fang, in an almost subconscious manner. She kept her lips close, however, and he could see nothing of this movement.

Case tensed when the woman insulted him, but otherwise remained motionless. "No. We're agreed on that. I'm not anything like you at all. Thank..." He caught himself, almost smiling at his accidental near-use of the word "God." Case winced as another key fell from the phone in his hand, and stooped to pick it up. "I consider myself lucky."

He turned his head to one side, staring down the rows of cars still parked outside the mall. It wasn't the first time that Case had found that other people were incapable of understanding: he had begun to expect this kind of treatment years ago. He'd learned to let the insults to himself slide--after all, he wasn't the important part.

"I'm a freak," Case said quietly, vehemently, "but at least I'm not agonizingly human like you."

“Aww, poor baby.” Lily said in a mock-sympathetic tone. “Well, if you’re happy being different, isn’t it possible I am too?” She smiled a bit to herself, realizing that at the moment she wasn’t happy. Not that that came from her lack of compassion toward machines. No, that came from an infuriatingly handsome jerk who had stirred up trouble so much more trouble than he was worth. And from knowing that when he came sauntering back they’d make up again because she was pretty and he smelled nice, not because they’d work out their issues.

“Besides, you’ve missed the mark again, love. You’re more ‘agonizingly human’ than I’ll ever be again.”

"No, not happy. Satisfied. I can deal with what I am and what I've got." Case took her words seriously, ignoring her mocking tone. He shook his head at her declaration of contentment. "You, I think, are having problems with that. No matter how happy you say you are."

Still holding the phone close to himself, he looked down at it and back up at the woman. "What is it, a husband? A boss? A kid? Get a hold of yourself, lady. This phone had to die for your anger."

Lily only shrugged maddeningly, letting that be her only answer. This little mortal boy had no right to know whom or what she had been angry at, nor would she offer any more details.

She turned then and sat in her car, leaving the door open and her long dancer’s legs outside. She reached across the seat to her purse and, pulling it into her lap, began to dig through it. If she had Hannah’s cell phone she could call her, have her bring the extra car keys she always left at home. She wouldn’t tell this Freak, as she would now forever call him, that she was in effect stuck here in the parking lot.

Lily soon struck paydirt, and pulled a second phone from her purse. She got out of the car once more and looked over at Case, smirking playfully. “Would you like to stay and guard this one from my ‘humanity’?”

OOC| I’ve used it before, but I still don’t know if maddeningly is a word.. Heh, it’s hard to say out loud, too. |

"Yes," Case replied with no hesitation. "I would." With that, he sat down on the asphalt near her car, drawing his knees to his chest, and tilted his head slightly, watching her and the new phone in her hand. "But I worry more about the car. I have a feeling that you might run it into something."

He ran his eyes over her car's sleek, sporty exterior, nodding in approval, then returned his eyes to the woman. "It's a good car," he murmured quietly, more as a compliment towards the car than to the car's owner. He mumbled something else, perhaps another apology, then quieted, leaning backwards against the side of another car in the lot.

OOC: As far as I know, maddeningly is a word.

“Thank you.” Lily was finally civil at the remark about her car.

Lily dialed a number, pushing the various buttons quickly and a lot harder then she needed to. Perhaps she was simply attempting to goad Case further. She held the phone to her ear, and as she waited for an answer she tapped its plastic casing with the pad of her finger. Better that than one of those savage, manicured fingernails.

“Hannah, darling, glad you’re home… Yes, I know it’s taking me a very long time to get the car, but I don’t have a very fundamental part needed to bring it home… No, the cab just left… Yes, he took the keys… How did I get the door open? I used my magical powers! Get the spare and bring it down here, would you? I’m in a corner of the Middleton Mall parking lot… Drive around until you find what corner! For someone who insists she’s regained her mental stability you’re awfully close to the edge again, dear… Okay, goodbye.”

She snapped shut the phone at the end of her brief conversation, and reached back into her purse to deposit it to safety. “And she’ll take an hour, at least.” Lily muttered to herself, as she once again took a seat on the edge of the car’s interior. She crossed her legs in front of her, undoing the few bottom eyelets to give her freedom of movement.

Underneath, she was wearing a dark red skirt which rose an inch or two above her knees when sitting down. She began to move the foot suspended in the air, rotating it in slow, controlled circles in the restless manner people have.

OOC| Heh, okay.. I was going to go look it up in a dictionary but I decided it’d be too much work. By the way, Lily’s not hitting on Case! At least, I think she isn't. Can't always tell with her.. *little smile* |

Case twitched at every smash of a button, but only lowered his eyes, not wanting to further infuriate this woman for the sake of her belongings. He only half listened as she spoke, staring at his knees through his touseled black bangs.

"Left.... he took the keys... get the spare..."

So it was a guy. His first guess had been right. It figured that this whole mess had started with another human and their silly emotions; they were always causing problems.

"And she’ll take an hour, at least..."

An hour. Not so bad. He had done worse for the sake of his beliefs. The woman put the phone away, in a normal, gentle manner, and he looked at her with less antagonism as she sat down.

She didn't say anything more; neither did he. Case was perfectly comfortable sitting in silence. Hopefully, the woman would be as well. As forceful as he had been at the beginning of their encounter, the truth was that he had been awake for over eighteen hours, and with work added in, he was tired as all hell. Sitting down wasn't helping any. That, and he had a class at 9 AM tomorrow...

Case felt his eyelids closing slowly, and blinked once or twice to will the sleep away.

Lily was silent as well, but where Case was struggling to stay awake, she had energy to burn. After several moments of foot-rotating, she switched which leg she had crossed and started on that foot. She examined her fingernails, smoothed the hem of her red skirt, and spun a rather large diamond ring around on her finger, all to give her hands something to do.

Finally, she placed her left hand on her lap, and dropped her right elbow into it. She then cupped her chin in her right hand and fell to examining Case once more. She again took in everything she had noticed at her first glance of him, then fell to sifting through the thoughts which radiated from him.

"I'm Lily," She ultimately said. "And if you're so tired, Case, you can go on home."

Lily's words jerked Case sharply out of a half-asleep state. Had she just known his name...? It was probably just his exhaustion making him hear things...

He raised his head and shook it in tired defiance, eyes catching a stray beam of light and flashing brilliantly green once with a fanatical light before fading back into the darkness. Unconsciously, his fingers tightened around the broken phone in his hand. A soft sigh escaped his lips. "No. I don't trust you with what other people have let you own."

A sudden feeling of sadness washed over him, smashing down his usual apathetic barriers. All over the world, people were treating machines the same way... and all he could do with his pathetic little self was try and save as many of them as he came across in the narrow scope of his life. Even if no one else seemed to understand, he was fine with it: he only wished that he could somehow do more.

Case thought back to his long day of work, fixing towers and printers and everything else that his store's customers had managed to bust up. He'd nearly broken down into a shouting fit of rage when a young mother had brought in a tower smashed almost completely apart and told him that her husband had gotten frustrated with a piece of software that refused to install.

The OS of the computer had been Windows 98. The software was for a Macintosh. He'd ordered them out of the store.

At least this Lily woman didn't seem to be so technologically inept, if completely uncaring towards her machines. She'd been capable of turning a cell phone on, which was probably beyond the skills of most of the world...

Case realized the thought was ridiculous immediately after it popped into his head. The world had, of course, been using wireless phones for years now. Fucking exhaustion was making him completely incoherent. He began to laugh quietly, ducking his head between his arms, shoulders shaking slightly in contained amusement.

Lily shamelessly absorbed each of this thoughts, slowly digesting his great feeling towards machines, uncertain of how she felt about that. It was apparent to her by now that he cared little for people, that he instead loved machines. She wondered what he would have been like if he had been born before any of his beloved friends had been invented, wondered what his mission in life would have been then.

She was surprised when he started to laugh, but she smiled herself.

“You are a freak, aren’t you!” She seemed happy to be right about that, to be justified. “Look, the car isn’t even mine. I’m not going to smash it out of spite. Do you know how much it cost? Much more than the value placed on me.”

That last piece had been said solely to sooth Case’s seemingly frazzled mind. She knew herself that the money spent for the car, in fact money itself, was nothing to the car’s owner if compared to herself.

Case looked up as she spoke again. Freak? Hadn't they already gone over this? She said it as if it almost made her happy to repeat it. "Yes," he replied simply, in matter-of-fact tone. "Yes, I am."

It heartened him a bit to hear that the car wasn't hers: if there was one redeeming quality Case had found in the way humanity treated machines, it was the fact that they would literally destroy their own but make sure to keep borrowed things in pristine condition. At least, they did if they liked who it belonged to...

Was it this boyfriend of hers, again? He, Case was beginning to think, was not someone she particularly liked.

He peered at her over his knees. "Value placed on you by who?"

She paused a moment, as trying to decide how to describe him. Several words came to mind, but they were all vulgar and born out of her current anger. And ‘sexy beast’ seemed out of place in this conversation. She sighed during her indecision, and the scent of his cologne and of he himself, lingering in his car, invaded her senses and presented her with the proper answer.

“By Bo.” She said simply. She spoke softly, though her voice was guarded once more.

He noticed the sudden change in Lily even through his sleepy haze. She seemed to struggle for words, and when she spoke, the tone of her voice had changed yet again.

"Bo, huh. The boyfriend-husband-boss?" Case asked. Tact was a thing he was completely unacquianted with; it took years of social interaction to perfect, and Case tended to avoid that as much as possible. He regarded Lily's expression for a moment, then ventured a question. "You don't like him?"

Lily shook her head as she replied, "No, he's not my husband. My husband is dead. Bo was my boyfriend, I guess you could say. Problem is, is that he's also several other girl's boyfriend."

She hated using that word, boyfriend. It was such a mortal word to her, so fleeting and shallow. As was lover, which would probably be the only other word to describe Bo.

“I don’t like him right now. He’s being an ass. That doesn’t mean I don’t care for him.”

The way she said "boyfriend," made Case think otherwise, but he nodded anyway. The guy was some kind of player? It didn't surprise him: the brilliance and obvious cost of the bright red sports car had already subconsciously prepared him for the news.

Case sighed. To him, relationships, especially romantic ones, had always seemed like more hassle than they were worth. "Several other girls' boyfriend...? So, you're gonna like him again when he comes back?"

He'd never understood the whole undying love stuff that he kept seeing every time he bothered to watch a movie. In fact, he recalled now, he'd stopped watching movies just to get away from all that sappiness. People were always complaining about lovers cheating and things like that.

But this was new. She didn't seem to mind all too much. Odd, and interesting. "He cheated on you, and you're just gonna forgive him?"

Lily did not know how to explain her relationship with Bo to this boy. In fact, while she understood the alliance they had herself, she had never bothered to put it into words. Those who knew of them understood, perhaps because they were all of their nature.

“No, he didn’t cheat on me. While we were together, I was the only woman. It’s just that there were so many women before me, and now again after me. In fact, that’s why I’m angry. He’s hurt someone much weaker than I with his affections, or lack thereof.” She replied carefully.

That was much easier than explaining that she didn’t consider Bo’s affairs with mortal women actual discrepancies. She knew none of them held any depth of emotion, and would be over before they had time to pose a threat to her position in his affections.

“I’ll forgive him because.. We simply outlast any conflicts. They just fade in time and cease to have any meaning.” She paused here, and gave Case a mock disapproving look. "Why am I telling you this, anyway? Why do you want to know?"

"Sociology and psychology have always been interests of mine," Case replied, quite seriously. "I don't care for humans. I don't like them. Never have. But finding out what... drives them... fascinates me. In a strictly scientific way..."

He lowered his eyes. "But some of the things I've found out, most people wouldn't want to know." It was true: his job, his acquaintences, and his ability to calculate people like numbers had allowed him to see sides and motives of people that disturbed even him. "You don't get that kind of shit in scientific laboratories and psychological experiments that consist of rich suburban white people. And those are bad enough."

Case shrugged, deciding that he'd explained enough, and looked back up at Lily. "Your view on the relationship is odd, that's all. Most people don't think that way."

“I’m not most people.” Lily’s little smirk grew slowly larger as he explained his fascination with humans. She was about to say something else when the lights of a taxicab broke through the silence, illuminating them both. She looked up as a raven-haired woman escaped from the backseat.

This new woman slowly walked over to Lily, looking down at Case with curiosity as she passed him. When she neared, Lily stood up and faced her. A certain electricity passed between the two women. They were not friends, but were bound together by something strange and broody.

“Hello, Hannah.” Lily finally said as the cab pulled away.

“Here’s the key..” Hannah spoke softly, each of her words underlined with a soft Southern accent. She held out the little piece of metal, then took a step away from Lily, turning to look back at Case.

“Thank you, darling. This, is Case. He’s a freak. And he likes humans. We can pretend to be humans for at least a half an hour.” Lily said as she briskly got down to business. “I assume you didn’t tell the cab to wait? Now then, Case. I haven’t destroyed the car, are you happy? Get in and we’ll give you a ride home. Hannah, your purse is here, are you happy now?”

Lily handed Hannah the purse she had gotten the other cell phone from, and inserted the key into the door of the car, turning it and unlocking all the other doors. She then fully got in the car, shutting the door as she did so, and started it. The motor purred to life instantly and smoothly. Lily rolled down her window and looked with impatience on the two still outside.

“Hurry up!”

The sudden blast of light from the taxi cab illuminated them both, and Case was surprised to find that Lily was even paler than he. Almost really white, even. The new woman that got out of the taxi was the same, skin contrasting sharply with her black hair.

He watched as they spoke to each other, wondering at their connection. They didn't seem "friendly" at all, but there was something more, and different... he couldn't quite figure it out. It was odd...

And then Lily was calling him a freak again. Case looked up to see both of them, Lily and the new woman, Hannah, staring at him with mild amusement. Lily gathered her things and started the car; Hannah stood outside, still regarding him: he realized they were waiting for his reaction.

With a muttered "oh," Case stood and walked over to the sports car. Reaching the open window, he glanced at Hannah, back at Lily, then shook his head. "No, I'll be fine walking."

"Here," he added, balancing the broken phone carefully on the sill of the car door. A soft, pleading, desperate note entered his voice as his green eyes met Lily's one last time, a tone that he would never even consider using for his own ends: but for what he loved, anything. "I don't know who you are, what you want, where you're going... Honestly, I don't care. But... even if it's for the sake of some freak you met in a parking lot and not for the sake of the machines, don't do... this, anymore..."

Stepping sideways to avoid Hannah, Case turned to leave.

Lily stared at Case as he spoke, blinking occasionally but giving no other reaction. She whisked the broken phone away inside the car, then returned her hands to the steering wheel. As he pleaded for the better treatment of machines, she began to smirk again.

“I think he’d cry if he knew how we shattered the TV screen.” She said to Hannah, her voice thick with amusement.

“That was an accident! I only pushed you.. And I’m getting it fixed.” Hannah said defensively. She was upset now, with Lily and with being out so late. It was almost time for her to be asleep for the day, her hours had been reduced drastically lately. “Look, we’re going your way anyway, it’ll be so much easier if you just get in the car.” She said, looking now at Case with woeful eyes. He could make this a lot quicker, get her home a lot sooner.

“No, forget it, Hannah. He said no. Get in the car. Now.” Lily’s voice was a cold command when she spoke to Hannah, and she was obeyed. Hannah opened the back door, and slipped inside. The spring on the door swung it shut with a heavy thud behind her, and she cradled her purse to her chest.

“Goodnight, Case!” Lily said with sugary enthusiasm as she hit the gas pedal. The car peeled out of the parking space and roared towards the exit. One shred of hope for Case.. Lily may have been an extremely rapid driver, but she was a good one.

OOC| And I believe we are fini. Well, that means dead. I really have to find out what finished is.. Hmm.. |