The Bright Sea, Echo and Family Jewels

*Alex's dream

"The sea is beautiful, sadly I can't play there.

After my 6th birthday, papa took me to sea. It was beautiful, so many people. Everyone was playing i also wanted to play, but papa told me I couldn't. It would hurt my body.

But I liked it anyway. It was like a dark sky, and those tides, they were so high. People were riding on them; pap told me that it is called surfing. I also want to surf. It looked fun.

I think I surfed in my dream. God probably helped me. I am sure I will like surfing.

Mama said, sky is a very big ocean, I think she is right, after all both are blue. So once I become a star, I will surf there.

Today we all came to beach. There is a big mountain in the sea. I think it is called hay rock or something. It is famous. This is where papa and mama met.

Papa told me to make a list of important stuffs. Stuffs I really want to do. It was very difficult. There are so many things I want to do. I want to jump from a cliff, swim under the Ocean, eat many types of pizza. It was very difficult, but I think i manage to list them all. Papa was smiling. He said that one day I will get all of my lists done.

But Papa is behaving weird. He told me, that some of my wishes I may have to do alone. Maybe they won't be there with me. Of course I know that, I told him it's okay, once I became a star, I will do the swimming, surfing and jumping stuffs. I think there should also be a pizza store for stars, so I will eat my pizza's there. But pap said, not at the sky, I will get my wishes right here. Only, they may not be here.

Mama told me that papa made a mistake; they will always be with me. Even when I will be at sky or somewhere else, they will still be with me. She said that when people love each other very much, no matter where or how far they are, they always remain close. It will be fine in that case.

Stupid Papa.

But if papa is right, then maybe I shouldn't eat too many pizza, and watch some of the surfing videos. Who knows when I get to surf?

I REALLY WISH TO SWIM IN THE SEA"

Alex woke up.

'Another dream, well this one is new and longer.'

While she always tried to figure out the origin of these dreams, she wasn't able to. The total information these dreams had are too little. All she could tell, that it was bout a 7-8 year old girl, who was dying and have a loving family. Honestly, before today all the information she could gather from the dream was pretty much that.

One thing Alex noticed that these dreams clearly depict a picture of pre war Earth. In today's dream, she somehow knew that it was the Cannon Beach at the Oregon (She had no idea how). Unfortunately that beach was around 2000 miles from her and thanks to the amount of forest, beast, raider, bandit and etc. etc. it would took her at least a year if she tried to go there. Not to mention, the whole place was a ruin, the sea creatures rule over there and the human settlements there weren't too happy to welcome a complete stranger. The Haystack rock mentioned in the girls dream was actually had became a huge source of water type energy crystal and if not for that, humans won't even bother to stay there.

Alex didn't let the dream bother her much and went back to sleep, she figured that maybe one day she would arrive at Oregon and maybe able to get some answer, didn't really mattered though after all there were many mysteries in world so it wouldn't matter much if one of them remained unsolved.

Morning came and Alex left her trailer. The trailer was like her mobile base. It contained her gears, money, some gold, and some other stuff she had been "gifted", by many "generous" gentle men and women. She usually kept it hidden in forests or places where surveillance was a bit low. The trailer itself had some good features she had installed over time and therefore quite handy. Nobody Alex came in contact with had ever seen this trailer and Alex preferred to keep it that way.

She went to a cafe for breakfast; she had been in Echo for last month but hadn't made a plan and still surveying the rich zone.

Echo was a grade-B city near what once known as Washington DC. After the war and human revival, a large number of human powerhouses focused to rebuild the old capital. Soon what known as Federation now-a-days was established and Washington again became the capital of this new Federation. Washington became a Grade-S city with major surveillance and security, not at all suitable for an independent con like Alex for work and most of the shady many businessman and wealthy people usually stir clear of this city because of all this security ho-hahs. Therefore Echo had become a good gathering point for these people and these were also the type Alex preferred to show a good time.

Alex was planning to stay in Echo for sometimes, there are lots of "unhappy" people in this city who needed her "help". However considering the local law enforcement and the post helping reaction of her patients she needed to do some ground work so these happy people, didn't lynch her.

It took almost all of her day to gather information regarding the cities major sad peoples. Of course Alex had her standard; she wouldn't "help" people unless they were quite sad. Still after her overall survey over the last month, she was quite conflicted, because the number of people who needed her help was quite high.

Night came and Alex went to a bar.

The Bar, known as Family Jewels was one of the low end bars near the slum area south of Echo (almost opposite of where her trailer was parked). The proprietor was a white male and quite notorious in his circle. The bar was also a source of illegal gambling and brothel and pretty much all kind of scum's had visited this bar at least once in a month. The owner Jeorge, was quite a rough hothead and it wasn't healthy to mess with him.

Yet once Jeorge saw Alex, he smiled like he had seen her long lost mother.

Alex came here on the first day she reached Echo, she had casually given Jeorge around 1000 Credit and told him to maintain a book. From onward, she had been drinking here almost every day. As per her calculation she had already drunk way worth of those initial 1000 credits, but each time she asked Jeorge to settle their account Jeorge had been politely refused and told her about his absolute trust on her.

Of course that's pretty much the reaction she had expected and she was definitely not going to pay anymore. Beside, after she had done here in Echo, she was quite sure that Jeorge won't have any energy left to focus on her.

"Hello Ms. Nicole, the usual?" as usual Jeorge looked quite happy once he saw his favorite customer.

"You are the best Jeorge". Alex replied with one of her angelic smiles.

Soon a bottle of Jeorge's special liqueur and some food arrived in front of her.

Right before she was going to start, a person two tables apart caught her eye. He had a slender build, but most important feature of him way that he had no feature at all. You can basically put any dress and some make up on this guy and put him into any social circle and he would fit right in it, also it would be really difficult to remember him because of his lack of any prominent feature.

'What a waste of talent, he could have become a great asset'

Little did she know that this featureless man and this city Echo were going to stay with her for a long time and she was going to be involved with them in much more ways than she had been anticipating.