Kalika

I have a room mate of sorts now, although I don't know how great that is if you both hold a gun at your sides when interacting.

She contacted me by email asking to study the substance. Since I've made no progress and she seems to have the know-how, I agreed. We settled on a meetup at an alley behind the bar and immediately pulled guns out on each other. I showed her the emails and let her go through my entire phone just to prove who I was. That basically set the tone for the ensuing hidden weapon checks and our tense walk to where I was staying. Things settled a bit after. At least, once a certain amount of time had gone by without anybody shooting or stabbing anything.

"You can call me Kalika." She set up a fold-out table and got out a micro burner and some test tubes.

"Kalika. OK. That's a pretty name."

"It's not my name. It's what you can call me." Kalika pulled out what looked like a small microscope, and held it up to show me. "I lived off nothing but one Pot Noodle a day for months to afford this, so if you break it, I break you. And for when you put this on your blog, the same goes for Graham and any of those other bumblefucks."

"I'll make sure I post about it. How long have you been running for?"

"From the rakshasa? Twelve years, maybe. Since I was ten."

"Ten? How did you survive?"

"I had a group I ran with who protected me, showed me the ropes and the guns," she said shortly, tossing a sealed bag of azoth on the table. "I was raised on bullets and wack theories on just about all the rakshasas you can think of. And my group ain't here now, so don't bother asking. We're not friends, and I don't need what happened publicised."

"Right."

"Anyway, I've got a pretty good idea of what this stuff might be based on those letter emails you got. It fits into a theory I had. I'd say those emails basically confirm it."

"What's the theory?"

"It can wait. Need to translate it anyway." She pulled out a notebook.

"What's that test tube thing with the stuff in it?"

"It's not a test tube. It's a gas chromatograph."

Not knowing what any of the fuck that was, I decided to leave her to it. Now she's hard at work, and I'm typing this up while guarding the door. Hopefully this gets somewhere.