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The snow was falling heavily and the smell of smoke tinged the air. The landscape was white on gray in a reversal of roles; the sky usually being the lighter and the ground being dark. The buildings rose out of the snow as solemnly as grave markers.
Artemis eyes scanned the city skyline. The wind changed direction engulfing her in heavy smoke. The space around her turned black. She prepared to shudder as the toxic air was pulled into her lungs, but it never came. She'd forgotten that she no longer had actual lungs and the new high tech ones she'd been outfitted with could filter out just about any impurity.. She could even breathe underwater. No more fear of drowning, she thought bitterly. They helped with the cold too.
There was something unsettling about not having flesh and blood lungs. She could no longer breathe in so hard her ribs yelped from expansion or take short small breaths. There wasn't an instinctive struggle in her to breathe anymore; it wasn't a life force. They just did it for her. In, out, in, out. It felt weird and unnatural; like a piece of her humanity had been taken away. Stupid Shadows didn't want her freezing...or choking. She could still be strangled, though it would take longer, her body still required oxygen.
Artemis furrowed her brow, blinking the tears from the smoke out her eyes, she was supposed to be on guard duty not day dreaming. She turned her attention away from the mechanical breathing apparatuses that kept her alive and back to the snowy white landscape of what had once been Gotham. It was empty, or nearly so. The snow had driven out all living things, or if they were lucky, deep underground. It was freaky to her noisy, chaotic, grimy city so bright white, clean, and forsaken.
Each of the buildings had become a skeleton; empty, cold, and forgotten, left to rot in the snow. There was little left to indicate that it had ever been Gotham at all. Artemis moved forward, crouching on the edge of the roof. The shadow of the smokestack billowed out thick dark ash into the atmosphere conceals her. It was one of the few factories still in operation in the world. That was because it made weapons for the Shadows. Sportsmaster had managed to find her a position as a hired gun there. Icicle Senior and her dad used to be big buds back in the day so the head of the Ice family decided to throw her a bone. A bone the remained unsettled in her stomach at the very thought of working for them. Though it isn't like any of the Ice villains spent a lot of time on premise so it was easy enough to keep the thought a bay. Artemis wasn't exactly complaining, she had seen enough of Icicle Junior for one lifetime.
A stiff wind suddenly picked up making her limbs quake. One would think she'd be used to the cold by now, but nope, even with the whole damn world looking like the south pole she still wasn't used to the feeling of bitter chill biting and clawing at you like knives in the hands of a madman. Artemis adjusts the bow in her hands. Her flesh and blood hands; they were one thing she was grateful for. She almost didn't get to keep them. The Shadows were afraid she'd get frostbite and freeze her fingers off. Her dad had argued that her aim would suffer. Artemis never thought she'd be in a position to be thankful for him.
The bow isn't her's either. It's black not green and much heavier, made for a much larger person. No matter how much she practices it doesn't feel as natural as her old one. Artemis reckons it was one of her Dad's spares. She didn't ask when it was thrust into her hands. She hadn't gotten word from Sportsmaster since the week after she woke up, almost two months time, not that she cared.
Another gust of wind brushed by, this one less forceful than the previous. Her winter clothing easily shielded her from the brunt of it. It skirted across her chapped windblown cheeks like gentle fingertips. The feeling was ominous and made her grip on her bow tighten. The featureless void made her paranoid. Danger could easily hide in the snow drifts and lurk in every nook and cranny. It was also ghostly silent, save for the wind that blows nearly constantly. The movement of shadows had started messing with her vision. Almost like she was seeing things. Her heart pounded in her chest. The fearful response of her own body was both comforting and frightening at the same time. It at least reminded her that she was indeed alive, while at the same time demonstrating how she was slowly losing her grip. Deep breaths, she told herself, deep breaths. The cold air seeps into her and chills her from fingertips to the depths of her heart. Her heart rate slows as she exhales.
What she needed more than anything was an anchor. She'd lost so much in the past few months it was hard to keep herself from completely falling apart. Her mother had been an anchor. But shecwas safely hidden away in some underground bunker. Batman had made sure Paula was one of the first ones to safety in the final days before this sixth Ice Age set in. Now she hadn't seen from her in months. The underground bunkers were a seemingly endless network that were interconnected by zeta tubes. Zeta transporters also allowed the bunkers to periodically move within the Earth. Artemis only had a vague idea as to how they worked from eavesdropping but she knew that it was almost impossible to find them, much less find one's way around in them without a map. Shadows couldn't find them either.
She'd lost contact with the team too. That part was much more complicated. She was struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel and knocked unconscious during a fight. Artemis woke up several weeks later in a makeshift hospital bed with forty-four stitches in her forehead, a massive headache, her head shaved and Sportsmaster standing over her with a "Welcome back baby girl."
It was then that she realized that she was stuck, trapped, in a frozen tundra. She had no idea where the team was, or even if they were alive. She didn't have anyway to contact them. There was literally no one she could pry information of either. Going out to try and find them would have been a death sentence. The last thing she remembered was the sound of Wally shouting her name then screaming bloody murder. It was that scream that haunted her and woke her up at night. It echoed in the empty chasms of her mind like a banshee's wail. Artemis had a strong notion that he wasn't alive. That final screamed the rang out from his lungs echoed of death. She'd heard it enough times to know what it sounded like. That fact made her feel colder than any icy wind. It was a deep throbbing pain she tucked deep inside herself; a hot bleeding wound in they very center of her heart.
She'd inhaled something too, least that's what they told her. Something that ruined her lungs. Fiberglass maybe? Or some other horrible antigen the Shadows had in their arsenal, the list was literally endless. Fuck, Artemis even had her suspicions that the Shadow's had just taken her lungs for the hell of it. She was positive there was a tracking device installed in them in case she decided to make a break for it or even managed to make it back to the others. Almost more than the team never finding her was the fear that there was a danger living inside of her. That if she did manage to find them that it would be dangerous to go back with them, to be with them.
Suddenly a patch of black appeared on the streets a few hundred feet away. It flickered then disappeared. Artemis stared at the place it once was for several moments. Just an illusion, a trick of the light. Her eyes go back to scanning the horizon.
Another flicker of black; Tt was a shadow of something bigger. It was so small it was miracle she caught it the second timeamong the snow and deaden buildings. For a second she thought thought she imagined it. again. But no, it was moving sneaked in and out of the shadows so nimbly for a moment she wondered if it had been some sort of animal that had wandered down from the north. Some of her "co workers" liked to joke they'd seen polar bears or some shit wandering around. Artemis didn't believe a word of it and had always kind of assumed they were too far south for that. Perhaps they weren't.
The thought of fresh meat was almost enough to make her salivate. Artemis hadn't consumed anything that hadn't popped out of a can in months. Those assholes better be grateful if she hauled in some game. And if it was by off chance a person she was more than equipped at handling them.
Attaching her grappling hook to the outer wall she zip lined down to the ground. She landed with a heavy thud onto the compact snow that was barely audible above the sound of the wind. She mentally noted the rapidly dropping temperature.
Artemis notched an arrow on her bow as she darted across the street into the umbra of the adjacent skyscraper. The world was infinitely cooler in the shade. She often forgot how much she relied on the sun even in this gloomy world. She pressed herself as closely as possible to the icy wall as she approached the edge of the building; walking in a low crouch.
The snow was high it covered almost the entire first floor. Artemis could feel the sting of the icy steel even through her thick brown winter coat. The hood was lined with fur to keep out the cold. It tickled her face with every gust of wind; the tiny brown fringe a constant nagging reminder of the holes in her coat had been Wally's. She wasn't quite sure how she ended up with it, but the coat had been with all the rest of her clothes when she had finally been strong enough to rise from the infirmary. At first it had carried his scent of familiarity with it, now it just smelled like smoke and like her. It constantly reminded her of the holes in her memories.
The wind blew again smashing her against the building. She gritted her teeth and continued to move forward. The street was silence save for the howl of air currents and the gentle crush of freshly fallen snow underfoot.
Carefully she peered around the edge of the building. The street at first appeared empty. There was nothing but the endless stretch of white for miles. Then Artemis spotted it. A shadow emerged slowly but surely out of the buildings dark umbra on the other side of the road.
Artemis pulled back her bow string, aiming for a kill. But it isn't an fox or deer or an elk that bounded out of the dark. It was a polar bear...just trotting along the road of downtown Gotham...thousands of miles from the arctic circle.
If this was someone's idea of a joke she wasn't laughing. She squinted at it for several moments trying to decipher is this was a mirage in the snow or a sign of her own insanity.
Instinctively, she fired an arrow. It missed by a small margin. The bear stopped and turned it's head staring in bewilderment in her direction. Taking its reaction as a sign of reality she darted out from behind the protective wall and into the street for a better shot.
A gust of wind blasted into her, throwing her hood off her head and nearly knocking her off her feet. The commotion was enough to get the attention of the polar bear to get to stop and turn around to stare at her.
They stand in the middle of the street a few hundred yards from each other. She raised her bow and aims. The thing was far away and she'd never been good at long range targets. And with the wind her shot was less than clear, not to mention her living conditions hadn't exactly honed her skills in the last couple months.
"Fuck," she muttered letting the arrow fly. She missed by a good three feet.
The bear inched toward it with its head tilted curiously. It was still eyeing her, which was freaky, making her notch another arrow. Artemis frankly was wondering why the hell it didn't charge at her.
She was about to fire for a third time when the heavy metal door to the factory banged open. It was barely loud enough to even be heard over the roar of the wind. Artemis glanced over at. The red haired woman with her air raised above her head bracing the wind.
Shooting her attention back to the animal as it hightails it back toward the shadows. "Fuck," Artemis grumbled again releasing the projectile. It rushed through the air following the polar bear into the dark.
"What are you aiming at?" The older woman asked approaching her.
A bird suddenly flew out of the cusp of the shadow with the arrow in its talons. What the...?
"Nothing I managed to hit," Artemis commented dryly. Her eyes drifted up to the sky watching the strange bird disappear into the abysmal white sky. The heavy snowfall clumped up on her eyelashes.
"Tis a shame," the woman said pulling her mouth into a thin line. Her face was bony, hollowed out so deeply you could see the outline of her skull. The cold had caused her to remove all her piercings. The shaved side of her head had grown back in covering most of her tattoos. She seemed softer without them, older, more world weary, like the cold had frozen some of her ruthlessness. Not that Artemis was about to let her guard down. This woman would kill her in a moments notice if ordered. They all would.
"Come inside, there's a storm about to pass over." She said this simply. Her green eyes darted over to the shadow. She frowned slightly then turned on her heel to amble back to the building, one arm up still bracing the wind.
Normally Artemis would have released a breath she had been holding in anxiety. Instead the tension just slowly leaked out of her joints. Starting with her metacarpals and working their way up. She tried to sigh heavily and let go of the tension encasing her nerves, but she couldn't.
Glaring down at the snow packed beneath her feet she shoved her hood back over her head and trudged back toward the factory; attempting to push the thought from her mind. It was all she really could do.
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