Out of Nowhere - Part 1

Most places in New Ferenginar wanted you to know they existed. Signs, vendors calling out, holographic displays cycling through prices and promises in three languages. The shadow market was the exception. No signs. No calls. No displays. Just a corridor off the lower commercial district that most people walked past without registering and a door at the end of it that was only a door if you already knew it was there.

Inside, three warehouse spaces connected by low arched passages ran deeper into the original swamp infrastructure than the building's exterior suggested was possible. Vendors had arranged their setups with the particular logic of people who had been doing this long enough to know exactly how much light they needed and exactly how little attention they wanted. The result was a space that moved between warm amber pools and stretches of near darkness and smelled of machine oil and marsh damp and things that had changed hands too many times to remember where they started.

Zedd picked up a coffee from a stall near the second warehouse entrance, something dark and adequately hot, and moved into the space at the pace of someone with no particular destination in mind. His eyes were doing what they always did in rooms like this, reading the layout, reading the people, filing what was worth filing without making the process visible.

He was not here for anything on the tables.

Word had come through the right channels that someone worth meeting had been spending time in the shadow market this week. Someone with a background that the Dutchman could use before she moved out of orbit and into whatever the Gamma Quadrant had lined up for her next. Zedd had learned a long time ago to pay attention when the right kind of word came through the right kind of channels and he had come down to find out if this particular piece of information was worth what it had cost him to get it.

He found a spot with a reasonable view of the room and drank his coffee and waited.

The man who entered the market seemed to do it with the air of someone who had clocked half the space as dangerous and the other half as inconvenient. He was tall, fair-haired, and rough around the edges in a way that did not feel accidental. Not polished, not softened, not scrubbed clean, with enough casual scars to suggest he had not always had a dermal regenerator on hand. His hair caught light brown in the low amber pools and was worn practical, while the stubble along his jaw gave his face a weathered look that suited the straight nose, strong cheekbones, and mouth that looked more used to dry remarks than easy smiles. He had the kind of build that came from climbing, carrying, fighting and working rather than training to look good, lean strength under a worn leather coat.

Ragnar Meral paused near a table of salvaged comms components and let one hand hover over a cracked casing as if he had any real interest in buying it. He did not. The message had been specific enough to bring him here and vague enough to annoy him, which usually meant work, trouble, or someone who thought the two were different things. Near the second warehouse entrance, he noticed the man with the coffee.

Tall. Broad. Handsome as sin, which was irritating. Dark hair brushed back, beard kept neat without making it look like he preened over it, leather jacket and boots that had done real work. In the light it was difficult to see his eye colour, but the man was watching people without looking too bothered by any of them. Ragnar let his attention move past him as if he had seen nothing interesting at all. Instead, he crossed to the coffee stall and ordered something dark enough to argue back. When the cup was passed over, he stepped aside, drew a scratched metal hip flask from inside his coat, and tipped a measure into the coffee before tucking it away again. Only then did he glance back towards the man by the warehouse entrance, lifting the cup to his mouth as he decided that whatever this was, it was probably going to be annoying.

Zedd caught the other mans glance his way. While it wasn't unusual, most people lingered a bit longer to determine who was around them and any possible threats. This area wasn't exactly known for being the friendliest. Seeing as how he garnered such attention, He decided it best to at the very least make an introduction. I this was by chance the person he was looking for, he didn't want to miss the opportunity to make contact. Although the man didn't seem to be in any sort of hurry through the area either.