Goodnight waits just inside the three-meter sewer access, her slim form hidden in the shadows and further cloaked by her SecondSkin's ruthenium polymers. She doesn't like London Above; she's allergic to the sunlight and people either shout slurs and insults at her for being a "keeb" or a "leaf" or a "freak," or else try to grab her ass wherever she goes. Its polluted, its loud, its decaying, its bright in all the wrong ways, and while she understands the impossibility of living only in Below, she equates sunlight with her time as a child in Lambeth and tries to avoid it as much as possible.
So she lurks, still shrouded in the shadows. Only her eyes are easily visible, the large, vivid orbs currently glowing an unnaturally vivid purple thanks to her contacts. The color is well chosen, it matches her lipstick perfectly, and it is the only color on her body. Her white hair is held back with a silver alice band that holds her trodes, and her heeled boots- impractical for running unless one has superhuman balance like she does- are chosen for their visual impact rather than their appeal.
Goodnight sighs and resists the urge to tap one purple-painted toe in impatience. She's been here for the last twenty minutes. Erica fixed her up with a job as a guide. Normally she wouldn't be caught dead bringing tourists into London Below, not this close to Shadows' Folly. If they wanted to get back to the Underplex like most people did, they'd have to pass through either Hellbound Station or Night's Bridge unless they wanted to take the long way, and none of those options were easy on visitors.
But...
At the end of the day, she couldn't turn down the request. She owes Erica a lot, and she absolutely had to stay on her good side if she wanted to keep working. The Iron Tolltakers were serious about their debts, and she owed them the lion's share of a hundred kay. If she didn't pay, they'd break her and give her back to the Vory, or take her sister, and the thought of Victoria going through what she went through chills Goodnight to the core. Erica gives her work, work means money, money means not dying in an abandoned railway while thugs drag her teenage sister off in stuncuffs.
Ergo this stint as a tour guide.
Goodnight sighs again, then checks to make sure that her Lightfire is in its proper place on her thigh, that her choker is clasped around her swan-like neck, and that her wrist injector is comfortable beneath her glove. Its all purely nervous tics, this is not her first time to the dance and besides, Erica had warned her that her contact had told her the group she would be guiding would be a mixed bag of tourists and Shadowrunners, so she'd put extra care into her accoutrements.
Impulsive, emotional, and hedonistic was Goodnight, not stupid or unprepared.
Finally, Goodnight shifts her perception to the Astral to check on her spirits. She had only conjured two before setting out, but they glow brightly in her perceptions, strong fire spirits, ready for combat. With them and her own talents, Goodnight is certain she's ready to take on just about anything.
Then she looks around and everything goes to hell.
Only a couple hundred meters away, there's a spirit just as rough and ready as her own, fully manifested and spoiling for a fight. It can't possibly be coincidence that its here right when she's supposed to be meeting a group of Shadowrunners and their charges who seem to have a pressing need to get down into London Below.
Smiley comes around the corner just as she's shifting her perceptions back to the mundane world. Glowing amethyst eyes fix on him for a moment as she drops her ruthenium out, leaving her clad in a bright white catsuit, white gloves, and white boots with twelve-centimeter silver heels. Her hand drops to her gun, but she manages to keep from drawing down on him, and her poison-purple lips curl up into an instinctive I-am-nice-and-harmless, please-don't-mind-me smile as he eyes her form and introduces himself.
"Yes, cherie, I am Goodnight." She says softly. Her voice is throaty, low and musical and perfectly pitched. It is the heartwrenching voice of a balladeer coupled with the whispers in dreams just before waking in the small hours of the night, sweat-slicked and hungry. She can't help sounding how she is, even at inappropriate times. She looks back the way Smiley came and asks, "Is there some problem I should be aware of?"
