Renegade

Gender: Female

Team: The Hounds

Level: Street 

Location: Reach City

Background:

I’d been stabbed, there was a strong possibility I was concussed, and I was pretty certain my right shoulder got dislocated from the fall. While I couldn’t be sure, it looked more like early morning than night, so it wasn't likely I’d be able to keep my promise to Eric. All this was running through my head as she moved closer.

“Pretty, pretty,” she said, “Lets see what you look like under that little mask.”

The bitch strolled over, her karambit glowing in the moonlight. I stared unblinkingly back into her eyes, just waiting for the right time. She straddled me and brought her hand down to the edge of my cheek, touching the mask. Do it right I tell myself, and its over in fifteen seconds; do it wrong and I end up with a knife in my throat in under five.
------

Seventeen hours earlier.

It was late in the morning when I managed to pull myself out of our bed. Well, late by my standards, 5:15 am. With any luck, Eric wouldn’t be up for at least another two hours. I pulled on yoga pants and a black tank top, then snuck past Kim’s room to my workout studio.

Once there it was the normal Fridays routine: twenty minutes-strength training, forty five-minutes cardio, another ten for strength training, and fifteen minutes of yoga as cooldown.

Kim had been starting to doubt that I’m actually a Yoga instructor; the day before she said that if I actually taught as many classes as I said, then I wouldn’t need as much money from Eric. She’s a smart kid with a bit of a smart mouth. I supposed I could do more though; I don’t need the spending money any more, but it makes things feel normal, and even with a three a week schedule there’s still enough flexibility for my other work.

When finished I walked back upstairs, through the master bedroom, and into the master bath. Once there I disrobed and peeled the bandages off my stomach. The hot water stung over the still healing laceration on my abdomen, reminding me to scrub it well with the soap. A little pain is better than an infection.

I finished with the rest, dried myself off, put my hair up and rebandaged the area. There was no danger of Eric seeing, he sleeps like a stone. He doesn’t even notice when I get up most nights. The sleeping pills I’ve started slipping him help.

I walked downstairs wearing a tight pink cardigan to cover the bandage. Next came making coffee and breakfast by the time he roused himself and wandered into the kitchen. He was late today and it only took twenty minutes.

“Hey babe,” I said as he walked in. I kissed him on the cheek and handed him a cup of coffee.

“Hey back,” he said.

Eric sat down and skimmed through the business and tech section of today’s issue of the Reach Tribune on his Kindle, taking intermittent sips of coffee and bites of the scrambled egg I put down in front of him. Even at 41 he still looks good. He has full brown hair, and a powerful jawline, but had recently regained the love handles I had helped him lose when we first met. But that was way back when he was with his ex. Still, thank God for the midlife crisis.

Kim came down soon after. She looked more like her father than her mother. She had his dark mahogany hair, green eyes, and exceptional height. She nods at me on her way down the stairs, then quickly made for the door.

“Hey,” I called out, “I’ve got breakfast.”

“I got to catch the bus.”

“I’ll drive you, it’s no trouble. Come on, you barely ate anything last night, you need more protein.”

“I’m fine, Anne. I don’t want any.”

And then she left, and we heard the front door slam behind her. Eric finished the rest of his coffee in one long sip, then sighed. My phone vibrated in my pocket. There was a short text message from Taylor: “Need to see you soon to cover a class. Can you help?”

Well, that should make things interesting.

“I can talk to her,” Eric said.

I texted back a quick yes and grabbed my cofee.

“It’s fine, I’m sure its just hormones; I was the same way at her age.” It dawned on me then that I was perhaps closer to Kim in age then I was to Eric.

“Right,” Eric said, “Oh, I forgot to mention. I have to stay late tonight; I’m taking some clients out for drinks. I thought I might be able to slip out early, but,”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.”

“Yeah, its not fine. Everyone in this house just keeps saying its fine, but they don’t mean it.”

“Really babe, its no problem,” I told him, “I’ve got to cover a class tonight anyway so it works out.”

“All right…

He leant in, wrapped a hand around my ass and we kissed. It was a little longer then usual and his other hand was right over the bandage. Then he broke off and smiled.

“Hey, I got an idea. Why don’t we do something tomorrow. Just the two of us. Kim’s with Naomi. We’ll get brunch somewhere.”

Tommorrow, I thought. If everything goes right tonight, then I won’t have anything for tomorrow.

“Sounds perfect.”

“Then it’s a date. Promise me you’ll go.”

“I promise”


Personality

I piloted Eric’s big Jag into a reserved spot in front of the Gold Medal Gym and grabbed my work bag.

When most people start out at what we do, they’re usually working from their home. That works well for awhile, right up until you have to force your stepdaughter out of the garage so she doesn’t ask about the moving bodybag in your trunk. Almost didn’t get away with that one.

But more often then not you just need to go somewhere bigger to expand, to keep all the crap you need kept away from prying eyes. When that happens, you need somewhere that’s private, but not so secluded that it arouses attention if someone follows you there. It needs to be somewhere you can get to at any time of day or night and stay at for hours at a time if need be. If you share it with associates, or need to meet with contacts, it has to be somewhere no one would look awkward going into. Bars and churches do well.

The Gold Medal Gym is open 24 hours. There’s the basic equipment in front, treadmills, free weights, machines, which are all open to normal dues paying members of the public. Beyond that is the sparring area and a quiet room away from the rest with some soft mats and a fountain where I teach my occasional classes. I passed Peter in the halls as he was coming out of the bathroom. His glasses make him stand out amongst the rest of us, though I have had a sneaking suspicion that he can see fine and is just trying to pull a George Smiley on all of us.

“Oh hey Anne,” he said, “Taylor was looking for you in back.”

“I know, I’m on my way.”

In the far back, just past the women’s lockers, there is a steel door with a card reader. That’s the Gold Membership room. Gold membership is limited. Don’t try asking when the next available opening is; it’s always at capacity, and you need to be recommended before you can get in.

I slid my card through the reader and the two electric locks released. Bag in hand, I walked through and the locks slammed tight behind me. Down the stairs was the Pit. To the immediate right there was the gun cage for people who are interested in that line of work. Past that was the repair room. Half an Amazon class drone was dissessembled on Heph’s main workbench. But a few yards beyond that was Taylor’s set-up, a tangled mass of cables, various monitors, and computers all engulfing a desk littered with empty diet A&W cans.

Taylor swilved around as I came within ten feet of her chair. She had a short, black pixie cut and a small, round, freckled face.

“Hey beautiful, haven’t seen you in awhile.”

“I’ve been doing a lot of work on my own,” I said, “But I’m still up for any handouts you’ve got.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Taylor said, “I meant,”

“I know what you meant.”

She swiveled back and opened a minimized window on the largest monitor. It expanded, showing an older asian woman with sharp brown eyes and a circular scar under her chin.

“Fine, fine. God you’re sexy when you’re all business,” Taylor said, “Ok. So you remember Lady Jean right? Her real name was Jean Lily Yung, and she was until last year the largest human trafficker in Reach.”

“I remember I put her in the ground.”

“Yeah, but that’s where Lady Jean junior comes in. We don’t have any photos yet, but supposedly she’s a neice or cousin or something. It’s the same set-up, she tells the girl’s families they’ll be working as maids or in factories when they get here, and then they get here and,”

“I remember. How do I get to her?”

Taylor opened another window, showing photos of a decrpit brick and mortar housing complex.

“She’s squatting in one of the burned out Foundry Square ‘Townhouses’." 

I opened the bag and started getting properly dressed.

“Lady Jean used to stay at The Commodore, why’s the new one slumming it?” I asked.

“Laying low, maybe.” Taylor said.

My uniform was simpler then most. I started by throwing on the red star t-shirt, and replaced my 'fuck me' heels for a pair of combat boots in dominatrix black.

“So run in, kill everyone, let them know who runs this town. Sounds good.”

“I was thinking I could go with you on this one,” Taylor said, “it’ll be like the old days.”

I pulled on the jacket. There was still a knife cut near the front. Aught to get it repaired soon, I thought. I pulled out a red star armband.

“I’m not sure you’re up for field work,” I said, “you don’t leave this place much,”

“And you don’t visit me much,” Taylor said with an audible hint of spite, “so how else am I going to keep in touch.”

As I was working the armband up the jacket sleeve I felt a few cold fingers at the back of my spine. They started to slide up my shirt.

“Taylor, no.”

The little nympho swiveled around to face me with a pout.

“Why not? When did you get so uptight? And its not like there’s any risk of him knowing I even exist.”

“I said no. Can we please just get to work?”

“… My lord,” She sighed, “The rules some people create about what they are and are not willing to lie about. All right, let me pull up the specifics.”

She pushed back and the chair rolled into the desk. I decided not to continue the discussion any further and looked into my bag. My mask was staring back at me, ready. It was time to get started.


Environmental Awareness, Standard:  (2)

This place was far too quiet. Sure there was the odd bum sleeping in the hallway and a few more standing next to a roaring trashcan fire. But if Lady Jean was running a human meat market you’d expect commotion, yells, cries, and the odd plea in a foreign language.

I snuck up the stairwell, careful to not let the vagrants get a good look at me.

Once safe, I got off on the second floor and scanned the area. The inside of this place had been hollowed out by the fire. The walls were smoke black or otherwise covered with gang tags. The sound of a radio was coming from a single room down the hall. It was loud, intentionally loud. Someone wanted it to be heard. This wasn’t right.

I stopped and ducked into one of the rooms. The inside was just as scarred by the flames as the hallway, and most of the floor had collapsed to the level below. The room with the radio was a few doors down. I needed to get there but wouldn’t be coming in through the front door. I silently made my way to the far window and slid out.


Acrobat, Standard:  (4) 

It wasn’t hard to get across. You can jump between window sills pretty easily, especially in these old buildings; you just have to be sure about your movement. Kim was taking gymnastics and even at thirteen she could have pulled it off, so there was no excuse for me not to.

The room with the radio had its window open to let cool air in and noise out. Ash stained drapes billowed in the wind.

I dropped back in through the open window. The room was dark, empty. The radio sat alone on a nightstand. No Lady Jean in sight and this all seemed to be a waste of time. It happens sometime, you get bad intel. I walked to the radio and turned it off. Then the ceiling creaked.


Reaction speed, Standard: (6) 

It might have been nothing. But you don’t live long assuming everything is nothing. You survive by assuming everything is a something.

I combat rolled to the side when it happened. A large, shadowed form dropped from the ceiling and hit the floor in a crouch on all fours. It was humanesque, but covered in fur, with two glowing blue eyes. There was a growl somewhere in the darkness and it lunged.

I backed up and only saw a long sharp limb. It swiped a few times only milliseconds too late. I kicked back into the darkness but only hit air.

Pain flared in my gut. I wasn’t able to see it this time, but it could see me somehow. Something had stabbed me, or clawed me, or bit me on the abdomen, just parallel to the old wound.

I swiped the air trying to catch it, but it was already gone. Then I saw a brief flash, nothing more, and I reacted. I caught the creature’s arm, and pulled it close too see what it was. As it got closer it became clearer. The flash was the gleam on a blade, and beneath those bright blue eyes was a scowling human face.

We pushed back against each other, I was trying to hold her in place, until she forced herself off me. Everything but those bright blue eyes dissolved into the dark. Then the beast barked, and charged me. She leapt at my throat, I blocked, and her momentum shot us both back through the open window.

Iron Will Standard: (8)

It was only two stories and I took it on the shoulder. Better then the head or spine, but it still hurt like a bitch. I also think I cushioned the blow for her, but I can’t be sure. She fell off me once we hit.

I moved my fingers and toes, everything still worked, so that’s good. The moon was full and everything was far more visible outside. I could see the street we landed on, I could see the other woman lying next to me, and I could watch her as she started to get back to her feet. She must have landed softer because that fall would have killed a lesser woman. I took a good look at her in the light: red hair, strange clothes, some sort of pelt on her head like a hood. As she turned I saw her eyes first, but not her real ones. The big blue eyes were really just some sort of goggles strapped around her head. She turned and saw me. I lied still as the grave. She grinned like a wolf and began to stalk in. In her left hand was a knife covered with my blood. It was short and curved, probably a karambit.

I’d been stabbed, there was a strong possibility I was concussed, and I was pretty certain my right shoulder got dislocated from the fall. While I couldn’t be sure, it looked more like early morning than night, so it wasn't likely I’d be able to keep my promise to Eric. All this was running through my head as she moved closer.

“Pretty, pretty,” she said, “Lets see what you look like under that little mask.”

The bitch strolled over, her karambit glowing in the moonlight. I stared unblinkingly back into her eyes, just waiting for the right time. She straddled me and brought her hand down to the edge of my cheek, touching the mask. Do it right I tell myself, and its over in fifteen seconds; do it wrong and I end up with a knife in my throat in under five.


Martial Arts, Superior: (12)

She had to think I was dead. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t move. Knife fighters are dangerous, but they have to get close. She thought I was dead, she’d get cocky. When her hand touched my mask and began to pull, I moved.

I seized her hand by the fingers, then twisted them back a way fingers are not meant to twist. Her shock was immediate and took a second to process. In that second I flipped us in the street and tossed her on her back. A punch to the throat stunned her even more, and after that it was just ground and pound. You can learn all the fancy moves in the book, there are only so many that allow you fight off someone while on your back.

When I was sure she was unconscious I stood and picked the bloody karambit off the street. Even with all the commotion I should have seen the trashcan fire. The three bums from before had watched it all and now stood slackjawed as I held the knife.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” The biggest one said back.

I turned around, slid the knife between my waistband and picked up wolf-lady.


Tactician Standard: (14)

“Yeah baby I know…no its fine, I’m fine now, I wouldn’t want you to worry… really, I’m not even at the hospital anymore… I’ll meet you when I get home. I love you too.”

I turned off the phone. Peter was smirking at me.

“Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine, but if my husband asks I got mugged on my way home. Can you get your friend in Reach PD to doctor a report; Eric’s likely to follow up.”

“Shouldn’t be hard, and the giant knife wound helps back it up plenty.”

We were in another part of the Pit. Behind Taylor’s set up there was a second card reader door that opened to the hallway Peter and I were standing in. I looked towards the third and final locked door, this one leading to the room we call “The Box”. It was just a solid cement room, small as a prison cell with a single light brightly shining down from the ceiling. There was sound-proofing foam on all the walls, but special fittings had been bolted in to hold chains, and belts, and rope, and all the other things Taylor found necessary. The Box was where we took people who knew things we wanted. Peter and I waited as The Box remained silent as ever.

“How long have they been in there?” Peter asked.

“Three hours I think.”

“Hmm. Taylor’s taking her time tonight.”

I shrugged.

“She’s an artist.”

“Right,” he said, “say. How’d you manage to get her over here without being seen?”

“I didn’t. Three vagrants and two junkies saw me and her, when I had my mask on. Then a cab driver saw us when I had my mask off.”

“You want to explain that?”

“The bums saw us fighting in the street. The junkies were a nesscessity. I knocked her out cold in the fight, but she wasn’t going to stay that way for long, and with a dislocated shoulder and a knife wound I didn’t feel like fighting her a third time. I knew I couldn’t drag her the three miles it would take to get here so we needed a car, and I needed her to cooperate. We were in Foundry so I put her down and hunted around awhile for a junkie carrying heroin; the first guy I found was using meth. Anyway the second one had heroin and I rolled him and took it. Then I went back to where I left her and as she was regaining consciousness, I stuck her with the needle.”

“How much did you give her?”

“Don’t know," I said honestly, "Just about enough I think, she wasn’t totally unconscious, just very much of out of it. Anyway after that I took my mask off and took off her hood and goggles. We walked through Foundry without much trouble. We were just two girls out on the town, one of whom appeared fall down drunk. I called the cab, he drove us here, and then you know the rest.”

“Hmmm. Quick thinking. Why not take your car?”

“Too much blood,” I said pointing to the wound that he had dressed a few hours earlier. It wasn’t any more dangerous then the one I got two nights before, but it would have ruined the apholstry in the Jag.

“Hmmm,” Peter said again, “Still, doesn't seem like you to go through the trouble. I would have expected you to break her neck and end it all.”

“I was set up. There was no Lady Jean; someone wanted to send us a message. They gave Taylor’s people bad intel and laid a trap knowing that one of us would show up. I want to know why, and she’s going to tell us.”

“Oh, I couldn't agree more," he said as he cleaned his glasses calmly,"It just seemed unlike you is all. Though if that’s all true then I’d imagine this is going to take Taylor all the more time if her subject has a morphine high.”

I smiled.

“Maybe not. She was starting to come out of it when Taylor was prepping and you’d be surprised how much a zap from a car battery can sober you up.”

Just then the door swung open and Taylor came walking out. Her mask was like white porcelain with just two eyes and puckered lips, kind of like a living doll. Taylor could be a creepy chick some times.  She lifted the mask up, brushed the sweat from her brow, and grinned.

“Whew! Been awhile since you guys brought me a live one.”

“She talk yet?” I asked.

“Oh she talked, but only said she would speak to you. I tried giving her the normal routine, but I think she was starting to enjoy it.”

Peter slid his glasses back on and muttered under his breath.

“Why do we always get the crazy ones?”

“Ok,” I said, “she wants to talk to me, then lets talk…”