Deus Ex Human Revolution: Shadow's Showdown

Chapter 5: The Crunchy Shadow

Detroit - Laura's apartment.

After another grand failure, she merely dreamt of finding herself at home and not leaving it for a long time. She endured every loss badly, and there were far too many of them in a short time. Stalker slept when she came back, fortunately, today he didn't do anything foolish. Laura left her backpack next to the plain violet sofa and only just now realized that she had lost her hoodie. She was so furious after the encounter with Jensen, that even the cold didn't bother her on the way home more than him.

"I likely left it at the office." she thought and went straight to the shower.

Today, however, the past did not want to stay in the past. It didn't drift down her face with drops of flowing water but invaded her like a swarm of enraged wasps. How many more times can she be humiliated so hard before she finally succeeds in this unequal struggle? Should she fight at all? Perhaps it is better not to interfere with Adam, as Faridah had suggested, and allow him to fulfill his official duty. Naturally, this is the wisest solution, but the problem is Jensen can discover her intentions, then everything will fall apart like a house of cards. Avoiding provoking him should eliminate the key reason for looking for dirt on her. At least theoretically. Laura turned off the water and stood still for a while in the cloud of steam filling the cabin. Finally, she wrapped herself in a towel and reached for another one for her wet hair. It's good that she has a day off tomorrow, maybe the head of security will forget about everything during this time and things will return back to normal.

Dressed in blue cotton pajamas, warm beige socks, and a dark blue bathrobe, she went to the kitchen intending to make herself a cup of cocoa. She sat on the sofa, curling her legs, and warmed her hands on a hot cup. She still felt the rum buzzing in her head. It was then that the memory of the moment when Adam did not let her drink more came back to her. Once somebody did the same. Once, somewhere in the misty past. The memory awakened a dormant sadness that she did not reveal to anyone. A longing for something she had lost forever. Laura wanted so badly to alter the past, to perceive the faces that slowly blurred in time.

Stalker jumped onto her knees, yawned, and fell asleep curling up in a pretzel shape. Laura sat for a long time, in this gloomy silence, sipping cocoa, which had long gone cold. When she finished, she placed the mug on the table, carefully slid the cat from her lap onto the sofa, then got up and stepped to the terrace window, which occupied most of the wall. Laura noticed that in the Chiron building on one of the floors the blinds in the windows were slowly raising, and right afterward a pale yellowish light illuminated the interior of the apartment. Her eyes instantly caught someone's silhouette moving back and forth. An ornate, ancient clock just chimed out at 11 pm. Laura's mind was already overwhelmed by a fierce wave of tiredness. She usually liked sitting until late at night, which didn't even bother her to get up early, but lately, it has been challenging to force herself to do so. From the vast living room, she walked into the bedroom, swiftly took off her bathrobe, hurled it on the armchair, and sank into soft linen.

The dream came instantly and rapidly turned into a nightmare. She was delirious for a long time before she woke up screaming, and drenched in sweat.

"How could you bitch?!"

"Stop blaming yourself."

"You're nobody!"

"You can't live like this."

"One day I'll slay you!"

She still clearly heard shreds of conversations, and the images visualized in her subconscious were vivid and paralyzed her to the depths. Images she did not want to recall.

She was breathing shallowly, restlessly, and in the fallen silence, she heard the pounding of her own heart that seemed to gallop like a herd of wild horses. A faint moonlight fell through the window, mingled with hated city lights. She wanted to get up, but as soon as she did, she felt dizzy. Laura fell heavily on the bed, at first not comprehending what was happening to her. She turned on a lamp on the bedside table and took a thermometer from a drawer. Running in the heavy rain performed its job. She had a high temperature and chills.

Once again she tried to get up, this time she managed to do so. She walked carefully from the bedroom to the kitchen where she kept her home medicine kit. She stuffed herself with everything she could and went back to bed. Laura didn't sleep until the crack of dawn, observing the light lazily flowing across the ceiling, listening to mutter engines of cars passing by there and back again, drunken chants and loud laughs. It was around 7 am when her exciting activity was interrupted by the ringing phone. Laura lazily reached for it and cursed seeing Archn3rd0 picture on the screen.