Ch#1— An itch to scratch.

Freedom. Untethered by gravity, people, the past, and the future; nothing but the blanket of stars and nebulas and galaxies. She basked in the beauty of the universe moving around her. She was moving but she didn't quite know where she was going; drifting through the cosmos to some unknown destination. She felt the solar winds moving around her body; rustling through her clothes and pushing back her hair out of her face.

She felt herself slowing down finally as a brilliant spiral galaxy drew closer; seeming to grow in size because of the shrinking distance. Her eyes scanned across the spiraling arms filled with innumerable stars and planets and lifeforms.

"Andromeda." The young girl said quietly to the empty space around her, then continuing with a half-amused tone in her voice; "Who would name a kid after a galaxy?" Although she said that, she had always felt a strange connection to the celestial body. Continuing to ponder this strange feeling, the young woman stared quietly at her name-sake; the solar winds rustled through her clothes once more and blew her golden hair across her face.

"Huh?" She said to herself as she brushed the hair out of her face and took hold of a handful of glowing, golden hair. "Why is it—"

"Miss Hawkins." A faint voice said in the distance. She looked around for it's source but found that she was still alone.

Again the voice came, but louder this time, slightly rumbling through the cosmos around her. "Miss Hawkins." She looked around, confused. Then it came again, very loud.

"Miss Hawkins!" The young woman was pulled abruptly from her peaceful observation of the galaxy as her eyes snapped open. Her sight was immediately met with the bright lights of the classroom as she nearly fell out of her chair when she jolted upright. She looked around, trying to remember where she was.

"Nice of you to join us, Miss Hawkins." Said a disapproving voice in front of her desk. She look up to find her balding history teacher, Mr. Bourdon, looking down at her over his glasses. The students around her stifled giggles and watched in semi-silent amusement.

"No problem, chrome-dome." She said with a sleepy smile. Immediately the classroom around her erupted in the laughter of all of the students as the stuffy, balding, history teacher turned red as a beet with his mouth hanging open— aghast at her words.

'Oh shit.' The young woman thought as she processed what she had just said. She had mistakenly called the teacher by the secret nickname the students had dubbed him with.

"Miss Hawkins—" Came the teacher's angry voice as he began to recover from his momentary shock; only to be cut short by the bell ringing— signaling the end of class and the end of the school day. The classroom was thrown into slight chaos as the students began quickly gathering up their things and running out the door, eager to start their weekend.

Mr. Bourdon was distracted from his previous embarrassment as he tried futilely to pass information about homework to the kids who were no longer paying attention.

"Wait, wait! Read chapter 15 by Monday! Don't forget to finish your study guides!" Looking around the classroom that was rapidly hemorrhaging students into the hallway as he spoke. "The final with be on Friday, don't forget to study and then fail the test. You don't want to do anything that would hold you back from graduating!" He finished to the room, only populated by a few straggling students.

He turned back to the empty desk of the class troublemaker and released a defeated sigh. "Of course she is already gone." He said as his hand came up to the top of his head to rest on the balding dome. "It's not that bad…is it?" he grumbled to the now completely empty classroom.

The very same troublemaker was now making her way, outside of town and down a long dirt road to her home. Her destination was sitting on a hill adjacent a cliff with a ship dock jutting out into the open air. The young woman passed an old wooden sign, marked with the faded letters Benbow Inn. The multiple story building looked a little run down but, it was still sturdy and had a comfortable, familiar feel. As she came closer she saw her mother, Sarah Hawkins, in the garden picking vegetables to prepare for the dinner rush.

Her mother smiled and waved when she saw her daughter coming up the road, "How was school, Julie?" The older woman called out.

Julie waved back. "Good, mom." She quickly yelled in response before running inside to drop her stuff in her room.

After she threw her school bag onto her bed, Julie ran down the stairs and out to the back to the work shed. She opened the shed and approached her workbench, stopping for a second to look over her solar surfer that she had been working on the night before. She touched the key points she had been tinkering with to make sure everything was ready for flight.

After a few moments the young woman lifted the board and exited the shed, kicking the door closed with her boot. Julie was glad that her mother had all but given up on making her dress like a girl. Julie was in her usual outfit that consisted of pants, boots, a long sleeve shirt, and a big jacket; not so girly or pretty looking but, perfect for temperatures experienced in the air. Flowery dresses and bright pastel colors had always made her feel trapped, in a stuffy and uncomfortable feeling. So, much to the dismay of her mother, Julie had simply opted for boyish clothes because they felt more comfortable and didn't feel like they were suffocating her.

Julie activated the solar sail, stepped on and hit the accelerator with her back foot— causing the board to shoot off the unpopulated dock into open air. She tested out her newly put together aircraft to make sure it was airworthy. After putting it through a few minor maneuvers she decided she needed to test it out at higher altitudes. With a smile beaming from her face she turned back toward the Inn and whipped around the side and went inverted over the garden where her mother looked up at her in momentary shock.

"I am going to go fly for a little bit mom!" She said, waving from where she dangled from the inverted aircraft that was speeding over the garden. Sarah couldn't even get a word out before the 17 year old girl had righted the aircraft and zoomed away, out of hearing distance.

"Guess it is just me handling the dinner rush alone then." She huffed, slightly exasperated at her daughter's behavior. Ever since she had gotten into her teens and found that old solar surfer Julie had been chomping at the bit for every chance to use it. Sarah was actually quiet proud of her daughter; she had pretty much taken a piece of junk and made it fly. Mechanically she seemed to have preformed some kind of miracle that Sarah couldn't quiet understand. Sarah had never had a head for mechanical things but Julie seemed to have an unquenchable thirst for it.

"She seems to take strongly after John I suppose." She said with a bittersweet smile, as she walked back to the Benbow. She set the heavy load of freshly picked vegetables on the kitchen counter and looked out the window to the shed that had been built by the husband she hadn't seen in over ten years. She silently reminisced over happy memories of the three of them while she hummed; washing and cutting the vegetables.

Freedom. She had found it once again just like in her dream.

That is the only way she could describe this thrilling feeling in her chest. This is what she had been longing for throughout the week of being stuck in classes. Everything faded into the background as the wind whipped through her clothes and pushed her short brown hair, peppered with streaks of blonde, back behind her. She pushed her board upwards into the white puffy clouds above the dusty canyon that was far outside of town.

Of course she knew that taking a solar powered vehicle into a cloud where very little sunlight could power it would be considered very foolish, but one of the modifications she had made to her solar surfer had been a reserve power unit that gave her more than enough energy to operate at full throttle for at least 45 minutes without sunlight— instead of the usual 10-15. She had been experimenting with it for sometime and had only recently had a breakthrough.

Julie popped out of the top of the cloud and into the warm sunlight once again. Her clothes were damp due to traveling through the cloud but, she knew they would air dry pretty quickly while she continued running her aircraft through testing maneuvers. Once the her clothes were dry again the young aviator pushed the nose of the craft upwards with an excited smile. She rose high and higher feeling the air getting colder and starting to bite at her exposed skin— turning her nose and cheeks pink.

She leveled had just passed 3,000 meters when she felt the thrusters start to cough and shudder. To anyone but the most experienced pilots, the moment the engine finally failed would have been the most terror inducing thing they could experience. However, the young woman calmly flipped the solar sail back into the board, closed her eyes and spread her arms as she began to plummet back down back down towards the puffy white clouds and the ground below.

This was one of the things Julie would always love about being in the air; free-fall.

Letting go of everything while you gain speed, pulled by the gravity of the planet toward its hard and rocky surface. She opened her eyes to find herself inverted once again with the board that was attached to her feet catching air. She looked down and saw the clouds approaching so she took a deep breath and decided she should probably start the engine and recover to normal flight.

However, when she hit the starter, the thruster coughed but refused to ignite. Adrenaline shot through her as she realized she was in a very bad position, but she did the only thing she could do— cranked the starter over and over in a desperate attempt to get power back. She continued to plummet into the clouds as she banged on the engine with her fist. She didn't have the time or the tools to crack it open to find the issues while falling.

"Come on you stupid fucking thing!" She yelled as she was enveloped in the wet darkness of the interior of the cloud. She exited the cloud and saw the bottom of the canyon below her. The distance continued to shrink as she closed her eyes and punched the engine with all of her might. With less than 25 meters to the ground the engine roared to life and made her pop her eyes open and begin to turn the board at the last second so that she wasn't reduced into a pile of meat against the ground.

She managed to get control and turn just enough to skim right above the ground and avoid death. She couldn't stop the eccentric smile from coming across her face and the yell of triumph from erupting from her throat; echoing through the canyon as she sped right over the top of what would have been her final resting place.

"WOOOOOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOOO!" She continued to yelled out as she turned the board upwards to punch through the clouds once more. Julie popped out of the top of the cloud and leveled out into a controlled cruise and began laughing uncontrollably; to any sane person it would appear she had gone somewhat insane.

"That was pretty fucking close." The young woman said to herself as she took her boots out of the secure places on the board and sat down, letting her feet dangle off the side in the open air. She let her heart rate come back to normal as she watched the sun sink closer to the horizon. She made a mental note to look back over the connections on starter and the engine once she got back while she drifted quietly above the sea of clouds that was beginning to tint from the setting sun.

While silently watching the setting sun paint the sky a myriad of colors she thought back to her dream. Julie took hold of a handful of her hair and looked at it, wondering just what that dream had been about. In recent years she had noticed her hair adopting streaks of blonde; at first she had thought it was just the sun starting to finally bleach it, but this looked different.

Even now it felt like she could see it shimmer, but convinced herself it was just an effect of the now golden sunlight— enveloping everything around her in comforting glow. She didn't notice that her usually amber eyes now shimmered with the same golden color as her hair. She let the thoughts continue to bounce around her head as she focused back on the sunset's warm light.

She had thought about talking to her mother about it but, with how embarrassing their talks had been when she had gotten her first period and then 'birds and the bees' talk— she told herself it was better to just to leave those kinds of things in the past. "It's just my hair color changing, it's no big deal…" Julie said, trying to ignore the knot that had settled in her stomach.

Julie was getting ready to head home after the sun finally disappeared under the clouds when she heard another solar surfer puff out of the clouds nearby, carrying a familiar figure. She smiled and waved as the handsome young man came towards her, with a smile that made her insides flutter with a light feeling of butterflies.

He slowed down as he got closer and threw out a greeting; "Well fancy seeing you here, love. Thought I was gonna find a stain on the canyon floor after I saw you in free-fall that close to the ground." His voice was smooth and flirty and she knew he had a reputation as a player but, Julie couldn't help but enjoy the attention. Most boys around her had always seen her as another guy. Even when she started to develop and become more attractive like her mother; pretty much no one even thought twice about a girl who drank, fought, and cursed like a spacer— and of course flew like she had a death wish.

Matty was different though, he could keep up with her— mostly. He had a habit of trying to fuck everything with a pulse but, the attention still felt good.

"You know me, Matty— I always manage to come out on top." She responded in a light flirting tone. Her words pulled a laugh in agreement from him as she got up on her board and they started flying back towards town together, while talking.

"Sooooo…me and the guys were planning a little fun tonight in up-town…you want in?" he said, in a lower voice. "Score should be pretty good, with how good you are."

Julie mulled it over for a few minutes before she spoke; "Sounds like fun but, I don't know…I'm not really part of your…'group' so I don't think the other guys appreciate me being there and showing them up— especially your big boss man."

Matty rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, they like you; its not like the offer to join us isn't still open. And you shouldn't worry about Ed, he is totally cool."

Julie let out a sigh. "I don't know man. He kinda gives me a bad feeling; he ain't even from around here and he gets a little too aggressive sometimes even when I tell him to back off." Ed had been one of the only other guys to show interest in her as a woman but, unlike Matty who never got too serious or aggressive with the flirting— Ed just came on too strong and it gave her the creeps.

"Relax, we aren't gonna be sitting around drinking this time. Everyone will be focused on grabbing whatever they can to fill their pockets. You could make some serious coin too, Ed's the one who got the 'fence' up in the space port." Julie released another sigh and agreed.

"I guess I could use the money for some more stuff for my solar surfer." She said, then adding with an excited smile; "Maybe another tattoo on top of that."

"Another one, huh?" Matty said with a flirty smile, "You still haven't even shown me your first one."

She looked back at him and biting her lip, she responded, "Well if I get enough for the next one tonight, maybe I will show you— If you're lucky." Shooting a wink at him over her shoulder. He raised an eyebrow and laughed. "Sounds fun."

Julie followed him as he turned his solar surfer off to the side and lead them down towards an alleyway right outside of the rich side of town that was full of big, nice houses and upper class shops. This planet was called Ceres; it had always been a very lowly populated mining planet so most of the miners, machine operators, and foremen— who were lower wage-earners— had lived in the 'less than great' part of town; while the owners of the mines and land had built an up-class section that was always exclusive to those who had more money than anyone would know what to do with.

Matty and Julie left their solar surfers in hiding spots and covered them in garbage and random things that were in the area, so no one would find them and steal them— or so the cops couldn't confiscate their means of escape if things went sideways. Once they were hidden well enough— they continued up the dark alleyway until they found the group of young men accompanied by a few of the more promiscuous girls in the town, that were currently dressed in the least amount of clothes possible.

Julie rolled her eyes as the girls gave her annoyed looks and the guys all threw out friendly greetings to the pair— tossing a bottle of alcohol to Julie, who took a long draw and then tossed it over to Matty who followed suit. All of the people present, which wasn't more than 10, were around the 16-18 years of age— with one 20 year old who acted as the ring leader for their gang.

Besides Julie, everyone was part of a shitty little gang that Ed had decided to organize them into about 6 months before— they had named themselves something stupid and kept changing the name but it always ended up sounding lame.

'What was the last thing they settled on?' She thought to herself as she took another swig of the burning liquid and pick-pocketed a pack of cigarettes off of the person she passed it to, while they were busy up-ending the bottle.

"Hey Drifters, gather 'round; we are gonna go over the target we are gonna hit. And of course you as well, sexy, why don't you come right up here next to me?" Ed stated, first to the group and then to her with a look that made her skin crawl. She walked over to the group and stood on the opposite side from Ed and answered his offer with a middle finger as she put a cigarette in her mouth with the other hand and lit it.

Ed, after a few laughs at their interchange sounded from the group, waved her off and yelled for them to be quiet as he explained what they were doing. "Alright everybody, this is gonna be the biggest score yet. We are hitting Mayor Janus' house." Everyone who was listening made shocked faces and a few of the girls let out over exaggerated gasps and clung onto a nearby male.

Julie would have rolled her eyes again, if she had been paying any attention to them, but that wasn't going to happened because she was currently thinking of an excuse to bail out of this stupid venture.

The Mayor of this town— who happened to be the owner of the palladium mine that was the planet's main source of revenue— was one of the richest and most pompous people around. However, pissing him off would pretty much mean you would have to flee the planet— maybe even the system.

The estate had a 24/7 police presence along the outskirts and armed private security on the interior. Ed could see the hesitation written on everyone's face as he continued; "Tonight is his giant party for the start of his reelection run. Every rich asshole around the planet is gonna be in his backyard drinking themselves into a bender. The house and his personal safe will be unguarded and we are gonna clean them out; while he is busy kissing ass to every guest who is coming."

Julie let out a heavy sigh. She had to admit it would be a pretty great score and the security would be mostly focused on the party, but it was extremely risky. She spoke up to Ed and the rest of the group. "Well, since you don't need 7 people to hit one house, I'll keep myself busy hitting the shit ton of empty houses that have minimal security." She said as she started to back away.

"Hey, don't even think about it!" Ed yelled over the murmuring of the group. "You are gonna be the primary on this one, you are the best infiltrator we have. We may not need everyone but we need at least a few more for a distraction— just incase things go wrong."

Julie clenched her fists and kept her tone even as she responded; "I don't know if you forgot, Edward, but I ain't part of your gang. I didn't come out of some sense of loyalty to your stupid ass or your goals; I came to make money and it sounds like I am the one risking my ass the most— so if you want me to do this job, it ain't gonna be cheap."

After thinking for a moment, the gang leader stepped through the group and spoke in an annoyed tone; "Alright, fine. You ain't one of us; so I'll give you a 10% cut of what you take. It will probably be over 30K, so that should be enough for you." He turned back and walked away from her but, stopped when he her her speak up in a cocky voice.

"50%"

Ed whipped back around and leveled an incredulous gaze at her as she let a snarky smirk come across her face. She knew she had him by the balls; this plan relied on her to get it done, without her it had a significantly greater chance of failure and frightening consequences that would ensue.

"15%" He responded, tightly. "You know 50% is too much, we need money to build some of the gang's assets."

"Fine 30%. You should have enough to buy yourselves some fancy nipple tassels and enough wood to build a fun little treehouse." Julie responded, rolling her eyes as he huffed at her words.

"20%, and it isn't for stupid shit— we need it to get some stuff."

"25%, I get that your old dildo got worn out but, the simple truth is— this job doesn't get done without me. 25% or I walk." She said, settling a little higher than she initially thought she would.

"Fine, 25% but no more fucking around we get in and get out; no drama." then he added with a creepy smile and a leering look, "You know if you learned to control that mouth of yours and dressed like a girl once in a while— I'm sure you would make a nice piece of ass, at least a lot more than you do right now."

She clenched her teeth and fists as her anger flared. "You better learn to control your own mouth or I'm out of here you, sack of fucking shit."

His words poked at a sensitive nerve, and made her want to spit in his face and call him every slur in the book, but she wasn't exactly sure that was a good idea. He was a shit-head but, he was a big shit-head and she knew he was pretty good in a fight.

Julie was physically fit and more than just good in a fight but he had a few inches and about 50 lbs on her. She saw his hands tighten into fists as he looked at her dangerously. They were teasing at the edge of outright aggression and everyone around them could feel it; not many people dared to go against Ed in public— even fewer would ever outright insult him to his face. Before she had gotten away with saying things in a casual and joking tone, and never overtly pushing the boundary but, her last words left no room for joking or amusement. No one made a move while a tense silence gripped the alleyway.

She made a quick plan to to throw a few distracting strikes and try to immobilize him momentarily with a swift kick to the groan before escaping back to her hidden solar surfer. Her heart was beating rapidly as she clenched her fists and readied herself incase he moved to attack her, but was thrown off when she heard him let out a laugh and throw his head back.

"I have to admit, you got fire." He turned around and walked back towards the other end of the group but, added over his shoulder with a dark look on his face, "and while thats admirable, you should be careful who you use it against." He then took a swig from a nearby bottle and went about explaining the different roles the others were gonna play. Julie relaxed her stance as her heart rate slowed.

After he was done explaining the plan, which she was barely paying attention to, everyone started to go off their separate ways to get ready. Matty walked up to her and they walked back to their solar surfers together in the half light of the alleyway.

"Julie, you really gotta learn how to pick your fights a little bit more carefully. Ed isn't someone you want to fuck around with." Matty said, quietly.

She just huffed and waved him off. "I told you I don't like him, now he is trying to force me under his thumb and I'm not gonna sit back and let him." Her voice changed and became a little more quiet and serious. "Matty…I might be done with stuff like this for a while after this job…he's pushing into more dangerous territory and I don't know if I want to get involved with the kind of heat that it will bring." She looked over at him as they stopped by their boards. "I won't start trying to tell you what to do or who to hang out with but just…be careful."

The young man gave her a small smile and a playful punch in the arm. "Don't worry Julie, I'll be fine— even if you are finally getting tired of doing stupid shit and getting into trouble with us." His small joke made her smile and punch him back before grabbing her board.

"I don't think I could ever get tired of doing stupid shit with you guys." She said warmly, as the two carried their boards through the back alleyways of shops and made their way into the up-town section of town, towards the Mayor's estate.

"This isn't going to work."

"Oh come on, you've used a chimney to get into places before." The young man said, his voice muffled slightly by the cloth pulled over his face— meant to hide his features. Matty was laying next to her in the dried out brush as they surveyed the best route for her to reach the main residence. The plan was to memorize the patrols of the security and slip through an opening to the house.

"Not into the Mayor's personal office, after slipping by a shit load of armed guards and cops. I can handle chimneys, but the rest of the shit is starting to add up." She said as she finally identified a hole in the overlapping patrols. The guards were distracted by the party going on so they were spread more thinly on this side of the estate; a guard that passed by had actually been grumbling about not getting to eat the food at the party, loud enough for them to easily hear.

"Don't even worry about it. I will be talking to you through the headset the whole time; if anything goes wrong, we set off the distraction at the party to pull the guards away and we haul ass to our boards. No problem." Julie just rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed huff. Her stomach was churning with nerves but she couldn't help but feel a bit excited; she had always had an thing for adrenaline-inducing activities, and criminal behavior usually fulfilled that itch nicely. She had never really cared all that much about the money but, it let her buy better equipment for her solar surfer and let her finally get a small tattoo that if her mother found out about would probably lead to her being kicked out.

At the thought of her mother she felt a worm of guilt wiggle it's way into her mind. Julie knew that she should have gone home to help with the dinner rush, but instead she was out here in the dark pushing the envelope on criminal behavior once again.

A thought drifted— uninvited— into her head; 'Does she even really know who I am?'

She let her eyes fall to her hands while she played with a blonde strand of hair. 'Do I?'

She was pulled from her thoughts by a nudge from Matty's elbow. "You ready?" he said, in a whisper. She nodded her head silently and tied her hair back, then fixed a knitted hat/beanie she had been given by Matty to hide her unique hair along with the small communications headset on her head. The young woman pulled a dark colored bandana over her face and tied it off; She slipped off her favorite jacket so that she only had on a black shirt along with her brown pants and boots. She also slipped on a small bag that was made so that it would stay tight against her back even when it was full. She settled in once again, pulling on a pair of gloves that would make sure she didn't transfer any finger prints to anything inside, after she passed her jacket to her friend— she readied herself.

All thoughts of anything but the task at hand faded into the background as she waited for the 'hole' to appear. She saw it open up when the patrols were momentarily out of sight.

She darted towards the outer wall and climbed up, dropping silently to the ground on the other side. Ducking into a line of shrubs when guard stopped and looked back in her direction, wondering to himself if he was just imagining the small noises she had made when she was climbing the wall. When he didn't hear anymore noises he turned and went back to his set path, grumbling about all the appetizers he was missing out on.

Julie sat in the bush breathing as quietly as possible before rushing back out through the next opening towards the house. When she finally reached the wall of the large house, after repeating the same process of hiding and then darting out through another opening, she immediately scrambled up the side to avoid another patrol turning the corner.

The thief pulled herself against the wall as the guard came closer and passed below her, oblivious to the young girl holding her breath above his head. Once he turned the corner of the house on the other side, she continued climbing until she pulled herself over the ledge onto the roof— 5 stories from the ground.

"Good job, you made it through the hardest part, no sweat." Came the quiet voice over the headset into her ear.

"Yea, now I just need to slide down the chimney to his office and hope no one decides they want to light a fire in it." She whispered in response, making her way across the roof— stepping carefully so as not to cause any creaks or shifts in the roof that would be heard in the house. The roof was dark and difficult to navigate but once she located to designated chimney she climb up and peeked down to make sure there wasn't a fire going at the bottom.

She let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the shaft was dark and inactive. "Entry is dark; I am going in."

"Alright, good luck." said Matty's voice over the headset. Julie slipped into the chimney feet first and slowly felt around until she found good footholds that would support her weight. She took one last look around before disappearing completely into the darkness of the shaft. The chimney she was climbing in was made out of brick so it gave her a wide array of much needed hand and footholds to support her venture. The brick inside of the dark shaft was still relatively clean; seems as if the Mayor had only ever actually used the fireplace in his office once or twice— most likely for the aesthetic rather than the warmth. No doubt the mansion had a good heat and air-conditioning so there was no real purpose for the chimney besides the vanity of the owner.

She approached the bottom and held for a second to listen for any voices or movement coming from inside the office. When she heard nothing she looked down and saw that the light was off as well; thus she concluded the office was in fact empty and went down the rest of the way and slipped into the dark office.

Julie stood and looked around the office; the entire office was covered in a dark reddish-brown wood. The name of the rare and expensive wood escaped her as she shook her head and refocused on finding the valuables. The office was rather large and had multiple objects lining tables and set on the walls; they were paintings, antique weapons, vases, and other boring things that rich people had a habit of collecting. Julie was perplexed by the apparent need, in rich people and the mayor specifically, to hoard useless shit that costs oodles of money for no reason other than to look at it while it collected dust.

Julie's own philosophy on money was rather simple; buy shit that is useful or fun. Most of the things were too boring and too big to fit in her bag anyhow, but one thing stood out. A mannequin dressed in the strange clothes with a sword and laser pistol hanging off a harness around the waist with a strap traveling across the torso and over the opposite shoulder then back down across the back to reconnect to the waist again. Julie slowed to a stop and looked the figure up and down.

'Why the fuck does the mayor have something like this?' The young thief thought to herself while she looked at the vaguely familiar clothing. 'Isn't this a pirate?'

The figure was larger than most of the men she had seen and the face was longer and differently shaped than a human's would be— so it obviously wasn't human, but she couldn't quite make out what race it was. Even though it was only a mannequin— the figure had an intimidating air about it but, also struck her with familiar feeling that teased at an old and hazy memory.

On impulse she took the harness with the weapons attached to it and fastened it around her waist and over her shoulder along with a dagger and sheath that was in the boot. She set the large hat on her head with a small laugh and moved around. After she had fastened everything in place the young woman walked over to the desk, adorned with her newly stolen items; she shuffled through the drawers looking for anything valuable— but found nothing of interest. Except for a little bit of money which she quickly pocketed.

'He's gotta have a safe somewhere around here with his good stuff.' She thought to herself. Turning and looking on the wall behind the desk, she saw a large painting of the overweight and pompous Mayor.

"No way…that would be too obvious." She whispered to the empty room as she pushed the painting to the side; immediately seeing that her suspicions were right. There was a large safe set in the wall behind the painting. She rolled her eyes and went to work to crack the combination; which didn't take very long since she found the combination written on a note stuck to the underside of the large wooden desk.

'This guy is a fucking idiot. Must think he is untouchable because of the security outside and because he has most of those rich snobs in his pocket.' The young thief thought to herself as she pulled open the door and started to plunder the valuables inside.

Even though she still hated Ed, she had to thank him silently; this would be one hell of a take. The mayor's safe held a pretty large assortment of cash, gold, and jewelry— much of which looked old and antique like; which meant it could fetch a higher price. After stowing away the valuables into her bag and sliding it onto her back, she looked back into the safe and picked up some papers that she had almost forgotten about in her rush to snatch anything that looked valuable.

It was a bit hard to read most of the documents in the dark; some looked official and some were hand written. The handwritten ones drew her attention more and she moved over to the light of the window to read them, but even then she wasn't exactly sure of what she was reading. Most, seemed to be written testimonies of sightings of some kind of planet and then the possible locations of something like a key to a door. Her face was scrunched together in confusion until she stopped on a sketch of a small round orb with lines that connected to circles crisscrossing the surface— somewhat resembling some constellations that gave her a strange feeling.

Underneath the drawing was just two words— 'The Key.'

"Doesn't look like a key…" she said out loud. She was pulled abruptly from her musings when she heard faint voices in the hallway outside of the office door. 'Fuck' She thought to herself as she shoved the papers into her pants pocket without thinking and closed the empty safe, sliding the painting back into place.

"I have the party favors and I am about to make my exit but their is someone coming towards the office to spoil the fun. If I key the mike twice, I need you to set off the distraction so I can slip out without them knowing until it's too late." Julie said as she ducked back into the fireplace and began to climb up the shaft towards the opening on the top.

"Got it, get out of there. I'll tell rest to be ready." Her friend responded, slightly easing the tension in her stomach. She began to feel rain light rain drops falling from the opening in the top of the chimney. When She had been flying earlier she had figured it would end up raining during the night but, thought she would be inside by that time. She continued climbing, trying futilely to control the large weirdly shaped hat that sat on her head.

The young thief frozen when she heard the door to the office open and the voices got louder. She looked down and saw the lights flicker on.

She quietly listened to the voices for a moment, steady and silent as a stone while she set her feet into footholds, feeling the rain drops lightly wetting her shirt and the bicorn hat she had taken on impulse.

The first voice that bounced up the walls of the shaft was male; she figured he must have been some assistant from the way he was talking. "Yes, yes. Everything is set to be transferred to the gentleman upon his delivery. He has the package and will be here in two weeks time."

The Mayor's voice responded, "Good, make sure we have someone to meet him; I will plan something like another campaign fund raiser or something so I can have the alibi, should his delivery draw the attention of any…undesirables." The assistant voiced his agreement before the Mayor continued; "Finally…I'm so close; all thats left is to charter a ship to find—" His voice stopped and she heard foot steps across the room.

"Kenneth, did you track these shoe-marks across my office?" The mayor said, soundly a little annoyed. Julie's stomach sank as she keyed the mike on her headset twice; hoping Matty was listening carefully. Had she been able to she would have used words, since it would obviously be much more clear, but if she made any sound— it would echo off the brick sides of the shaft and alert the two in the room of her presence.

"No, sir!" The assistant said, indignantly. "I never stepped in anything— otherwise I would have been tracking it through the halls." Then after a short pause, he continued. "Sir, this appears to be a boot print as well and neither of us have—" His words were interrupted by a loud bang from the behind the house at the party. It was immediately followed by a chorus of screams and confused yelling.

Julie heard both of the men rush out of the room to see what was going on and as soon as they were gone she was scrambling up towards the top, ignoring the rain drops that were coming down faster. Although she slipped and almost lost her grip on the now wet and slick sides of the chimney, she made it to the top and poked her head out to cast a rapid glance around.

Seeing no one around still, she pulled herself out of the hole and moved over to the side of the roof that she had come up; she continued to hear a large amount of noise from the other side of the house, now including the voice of the Mayor— trying in vain to calm his guests. She ignored everything else and looked over the space that had been previously riddled with patrolling guard; seeing that it was now mostly empty.

Wasting no time, the young and adrenaline fuel thief, carefully made her way low enough down the side of the house until she got impatient and jumped about 5 meters from the bottom. She was only vaguely worrying about the level of noise she was emitting as she darted through the various greenery of the yard, that was most likely some kind of manicured garden.

She reached the outer wall and climbed it, hearing a guard yell out in her direction— telling her to stop. The young woman, did exactly the opposite, jumping down and sprinted to where her friend was hiding behind an outcropping of rocks. When she finally saw him he jumped up and came into place next to her; now they were both running as fast as they could towards where they had stashed their solar surfers.

"She is out!" Matty yelled after switching to a different frequency that Ed and the rest of the guys must have been on. "Get everybody out of there!"

The two continued to run and Matty finally commented on her newly acquired attire; "When did you suddenly decide to start dressing like a pirate?" His amused voice said, words slightly broken apart by the need to breath harder while running. She threw her head back in laughed and said back to him without breaking her stride; "Mayor's office had a bunch of antique stuff in it and apparently he has a thing for pirates!"

They skidded to a stop when they finally reached their boards; the noise from the engines were usually pretty loud so they had set them up with plenty of distance to slip off, unnoticed, into the night. Julie slipped the bag off her back and tossed it to her cohort and grabbed her board after she slipped back on her big black jacket that he threw over to her.

"You coming back with me to the hideout?" Matty said, slipping the bag over his shoulder and grabbing his own board.

"Nah, I have to head back to the Inn; my mom is gonna give me an earful for letting her work the dinner rush alone…again." She responded, feeling more than a little guilty.

"That seems a little far for the battery life on these things, J." Matty said.

"Well that would normally be the case, especially for chumps like you but, I happened to find a way to extend my boards battery life pretty significantly— so I won't have a problem." She said with a mocking smirk, as he shook his head in disbelief. She started the engine and secured her feet in place before speeding down the canyon through the rain, with Matty fast on her heels.

The young criminals weaved back and forth along the bottom of the canyon, racing and trying to knock each other off playfully before they came to the point where they had to split up. Matty waved to her and yelled as he turned off in the direction of the Drifter's hideout; "You look pretty good as a pirate by the way— probably your true calling. Maybe one day I'll be calling you Captain Hawkins, Scourge of the Cosmos!" He said the last part with over the top expressions and mimed movements of shielding himself from an imaginary terror to illustrate his joke.

She just waved an laughed back, "Yea, maybe you will!"

As she saw her friend disappear into the rain she turned her board in the direction of her home and then turned upwards and shot up through the raining clouds; bursting out of the top into a star filled night sky. She couldn't hold back another yell from thundering from her throat as he hair began to glow underneath the hat she had on, unknown to her.

"WWWWOOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOO!" Her excitement and adrenaline that was still pumping through her veins began to gradually slow down and she smiled and watched the, muffled lights of the city pass under the clouds beneath her. Once the lights came to an end she dipped back below the rain clouds and turned her surfer towards home. She saw the dock was now full of different kinds of vehicles and the lights in the dinning room were brightly shining into the rainy darkness.

Letting out a sigh Julie came around the Inn and landed as quietly as possible before putting her solar surfer back onto her workbench in the shed and shutting the door. She walked up to the back door and peeked into the kitchen through the round window on the wooden door. Upon seeing her mother she quickly ducked back down.

Julie looked down at her clothing. 'Well I can't just walk in, dressed like a pirate that decided to go for a swim.' She thought before moving over to the side of the Inn and scaling the wall up to the window of her room— which she always left unlocked. She slipped into her room and pulled off he soaking wet clothes, she took a second to hang them up and shove the hat, sword and laser pistol— that was probably just an antique— into a hiding spot behind a loose panel in her closet.

She was looking for some clean clothes while drying her hair with a dirty towel before she noticed the pastel dress laying on her bed with a note ontop of it from her mother; "When you get back, put this on and come help me downstairs." Julie let out a frustrated groan. Her night had gone from exciting and danger filled to being a boring waitress once again.

Julie threw on pants and a T-shirt instead and slinked out of her room and descended the stairs while tying her short hair into a loose bun. Not noticing the amount of golden blonde streaks had increased from earlier today.