The flash of lightning always made her think of Church: violent, powerful, and unpredictable. One could never tell when or where the woman would strike, only that it would be devastating for the victim. Not that she could see lightning then, amidst the flashes of strobe light, or hear the roll of thunder above the bass. It was raining in Seattle, but not in Ikon.
Ikon was the favorite nightclub of many a hardcore partier. The fact that it was run by the Russians was an open secret in the shadows of Seattle, but that dangerous reputation only added to the allure. There were no shootouts in the club, but people still died...if they crossed the wrong person. For the most part, it was just fun given a wicked edge by danger. Glowing neon and flashing colors, pretty dancers and the pulse of bass. The air was electric, charged with passion and desperation and euphoria. Everyone in the world could find a gateway to whatever vice they wanted at Ikon, and the Vory v Zakone made it possible. It was where one went to have a good time in a bad way.
Anna had only been working there a month or so, but she enjoyed it. For a girl with no nuyen to her name, it was an easy chance to get out of the gutter. Plus, she could shower at work and there were clothes in the wardrobe. She didn't have a System Identification Number, so they couldn't check to see if she was lying when she said she was eighteen. She was lying, though—one year to go. It had been all good until that night.
Anna struggled against the body pinning her to the wall, tears in her eyes. He was big and strong, muscular human ganger clearly accustomed to taking whatever he wanted. He pinned her slender wrists with one hand and broke open her jeans with the other, grinning ferociously as he did. Her shirt was already torn open from the initial grab, showing a lacy white bra. His friends were standing around, laughing. She was certain that he was going to give them a turn too. "Please, stop!"
He laughed. It was a horrible, cruel sound.
Then a fist hit him in the side of the head, dropping him momentarily to the ground. His assailant had come out of nowhere. Anna found herself looking at an athletic elven woman dressed in business attire, though the sleeves of her red blouse had been rolled up to expose scarred forearms, including a simplistic tattoo of a rising or setting sun and a few flying birds on the inside of her left wrist. Her hands were tattooed too, as if she was wearing ink rings. There were letters across the back of her knuckles: ОМУТ on one hand and МИР on the other. The woman adjusted the cuff where her sleeves had been rolled up. She had dark brown hair and darker eyes that burned like coals. Cruelty lived in her face, hard and set with anger.
"What the drek?" one of his fellow go-gangers shouted. "Do you know who we are?"
The elf's lip curled in a sneer. Anna had never seen a clearer picture of contempt. "Get out."
Her accent was Russian.
"Come on, Jax," one of the gangers said to the man that had been holding her, suddenly nervous. Jax stood up. He was a lot bigger than the Russian elf. "We don't want no Vory trouble."
"Frag you, razorgirl," Jax said harshly. "I paid to get in here. I can do whatever the frag I want."
The woman stepped in and hit him in the face with her palm so hard his feet left the ground and he was sent sprawling backwards. His nose was crushed flat and a few front teeth were cracked. She flicked her wrist and suddenly an eight-inch long metal spur shot out of the heel of her hand. "I do not ask twice," the Russian said casually, watching him.
"Let's get the frag out of here," one of the gangers said, grabbing Jax. They made a hasty retreat towards the exit.
Anna slid to the ground shaking as the tears continued to roll. She felt like she was going to be sick and like her body was filthy from his hands. He'd put them everywhere. She would have wiped at the tears, but that would have meant uncurling from her little ball.
The elf retracted the spur with one smooth movement, then went over and pulled Anna up to her feet by the arm. "You work here."
It didn't really sound like a question, but Anna nodded anyway. "Y-yeah."
The hand around her bicep was tight, but not quite to the point of bruising. Without saying anything else, the Russian escorted her to the dressing room where the dancers changed. Anyone who looked too closely at either of them was rewarded with a lethal glare. There were other girls getting dressed there, changing from street clothes into the tight, revealing attire expected. The elf opened the door and pushed Anna inside. "Help her," she ordered the others before closing the door and vanishing as quickly as she'd appeared.
"Oh my God! Anna, are you alright?" one of the others asked, hurrying over. She was a human, like Anna, a pretty blonde named Leto. "What happened? Did she do this?"
Anna shook her head. "She saved me," she said, barely loud enough to be heard over the music.
Leto gave a small smile. "Looks like you've got an angel," she said, helping the trembling girl sit down.
"Who is she?" Anna took a few deep breaths after she asked to calm her nerves and used her sleeve to wipe away the tears. She was going to have to get changed and go to work in a few minutes, but she needed a chance to pull herself together first.
"Church is a Vory cleaner," Leto explained. "She makes their problems go away."
Anna knew how to read through the slang. Church wasn't scrubbing tables and vacuuming—she was making messy people go away.
"Normally, Church doesn't help anybody," one of the others said softly. Eva hardly ever talked to anyone, except for customers. "She's an ice queen on her good days and a hurricane on her bad ones."
The girl decided in that moment that she didn't care why—she was just grateful that Church had decided to step in. "Is there a way I could thank her?"
"I'm not sure," Leto said thoughtfully. "I mean, she probably enjoyed putting hands on whoever was hurting you. That might be reward enough for her. I doubt she cares much one way or the other."
"Antonov might get jealous too," one of the others called.
Anna felt a cold current. "Sergei Antonov? The sovetnik? They're together?" She'd learned about the Russians a bit while working, enough to know who the big fish were. He was the number twoman in Seattle.
They all laughed. "You're so cute," Leto said, patting Anna's hand. "They fuck now and then, when they're fighting. I don't think they even like each other, but when has fucking ever been about liking?"
Anna had never put much stock in romance, so working at Ikon wasn't a huge shock to the system. It meant that selling her body to strangers didn't come as too much of a loss. At times, she felt used and dirty, but sometimes it was fun and she almost forgot it was a business transaction. There had been a few times where she was scared, like when Church stepped in, but that was why she stayed at Ikon—it was safer to be closeby help. Yuri did his best to keep them safe. The head bouncer was a former Vory enforcer, old enough that he wanted out of the roughest business. The big ork wasn't a nice man, but his heart was slightly softer around the girls. Anna was grateful he was there, even if he frightened her sometimes. He was very insistent that no one damage the Vory's goods.
It was an hour or two before she saw Church again, moving towards the bar like a shark through a school of fish. People seemed to instinctively move out of her way, creating a clear space around her on all sides. Anna slipped away from the other girls she had been planning with—who would be at what tables and the like—murmuring an apology as she did so. She owed Church a thanks, even if she was just a well-dressed cyberpsycho.
"Hey," Anna said almost breathlessly as she caught up with Church. She'd had to struggle a little to get through the crowd. "Church?"
Church turned, those coal-eyes narrowing as they focused on the dancer. "Can I help you?" Her voice was accented, but clear and precise. Her English was good. Her tone was a little forbidding, though.
"I wanted to thank you."
The killer shrugged and picked up her drink. "It is what I do," she said offhandedly, sounding a little less dangerous. Like a relaxed wolverine, maybe. "He was disrespectful."
"Well, thank you. I know you didn't have to step in, but you did." Anna smiled when Church raised an eyebrow at her. "Not used to hearing someone say that?"
"I suppose not," Church said, downing her shot of vodka.
The bartender arrived. Anna liked Mikhail. He was always in a good mood. "So, I hear you almost made a deposit in the body bank at our fine establishment, Church," he said with grin.
Church shrugged and motioned for him to pour her another drink. "He needed to learn some new manners."
"Well, we appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to do right by the girls," he said with a wide, toothy smile. "Especially go-gangers causing static. Ikon has a reputation to maintain. I'll be down the bar if you need anything, ladies." He nodded to them both. There was no mention of her paying for that drink. Vory ran the place and their thugs could drink free...not that Church was some street level bruiser. She almost looked like a wageslave, some corp type, except for the fact that the cut of her clothes was a little too fashionable for the average Jane, but she didn't reek of money the way an exec would. Church looked professional, like a woman who took her job seriously. She looked a little out of place among the crowd of ravers, dancers, and tweakers.
Anna studied Church's hands for a brief moment. They didn't look like they belonged to a killer: neatly manicured and delicate, a pianist's dexterity in the flickering movement of her fingers. "They called you a razorgirl, but you don't look modded," Anna said curiously. "Where's your chrome?"
"Just the spur," Church said, turning to face her again. Suddenly they were having an actual conversation. "The rest is bioware. Hardly a secret."
"You're a vatjob?" Anna said, surprised. Every biopunk she'd ever seen had been pretty freaky. Between organic augmentation and body modification, people could look all kinds of ways. Muscle grafts, bone density deposits, troll eyes, symbiotes...it pushed the envelope of the weird and dangerous. A biopunk gillette...no wonder Church was so dangerous.
"You could say that." The killer's eyes were interested now. "You are a brave one."
"I don't think you saved me just to kill me," Anna said.
"Perhaps I could not care less."
Anna studied for her rescuer for a long moment. Church's expression was composed into a sort of serene distance, but her dark eyes were slightly curious. "Suit yourself," Anna said breezily. "I'm sure you make friends left and right with that attitude."
Church did something the dancer hadn't been expecting. She laughed. Anna decided that she liked the sound. It was almost warm. When Church smiled, she almost looked like a completely different woman for a brief moment. "I know your type," Church said, still smiling faintly after her brief laugh. "Trouble."
"Actually, it's Anna," the girl said, holding out her hand to Church. "Nice to meet you."
Church's touch was almost delicate, slightly calloused fingers brushing against her hand before settling into a firm, but not bruising grip. It was much more careful than the arm around her bicep had been. "A pleasure, Anna."
"I haven't seen you around before, but everyone seems to know you," Anna said. She glanced over to where Mikhail poured drinks, further down the bar, before looking back at Church.
Church shrugged. "I've been away," she said. There was a buzz from the commlink sitting on the bar and the last of the smile was suddenly extinguished. "Duty calls."
Anna smiled. "Well, stay safe out there." She would have added chummer or omae, but that seemed a little too familiar for Church.
The killer raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything before answering her comm. "Allo."
Curiosity piqued but well-aware that intruding into Vory business wasn't wise, Anna slipped away, back to work. She was still within sight of the bar when a hand gently closed around her wrist, halting her. Immediately, she felt her whole body tense as she looked at the person holding her. He was clearly a collar, someone who worked for the corps. He was wearing a plain grey suit, a dark tie, and a cream colored oxford. His face was completely unremarkable, as bland as his clothes. Carefully combed dark hair spoke of attention to detail and his light-colored eyesthat reflected back the flashes were keen.
He didn't belong in Ikon.
"Have a seat, please," he said smoothly, letting go of her wrist. "I'm worth your time, I assure you."
Anna didn't like the feeling he gave her. This one was dangerous, maybe even more dangerous than those go-gangers. She was used to trusting her intuition. But how to get away without provoking him? "Alright." She sat down across from him.
His smile was pearly. "What's your name?"
"Anna," she said softly. She wasn't a runner, she didn't need a handle the way people like Church did. "You are?"
"What a pretty name. As for me? You can call me Mr. Johnson," he said, folding his hands on the table in front of him. "I'd like to offer you a job, Anna. You see, I need people like you. People that nobody ever notices."
Anna wasn't certain she liked the sound of that. "I…"
"Don't worry, it won't be difficult. All I want is for you to pay attention to the rumors that circulate around this fine establishment. And it's five hundred nuyen a month," he said calmly. "How much do you make here in a night? Maybe forty?"
"Why me?" Anna asked softly, considering this.
"I know talent when I see it. It's a gift." Mr. Johnson produced a pen and scribbled a comm number on his napkin before sliding it across the table to her. "Don't be a stranger, Anna. If you're going to keep that bliss habit alive, you need the cash."
She almost flinched. She wasn't used to people being able to look at her and just know. It wasn't novacoke or cram, after all. Leto had introduced her to the stuff, a nice way to check out after a rough night...like this one. It had turned into an addiction quickly. And the johnson was right: it did leave her hurting for cash. She wasn't to the point yet where she'd pass on food in order to get it, but she knew that could be in her future. There were ways to make more money working for the Russians, of course, like being a full-time joytoy. She didn't object to the principle, only to the idea of being out of Ikon, in someone's hotel room away from Yuri and the protection of the Vory bruisers. Bad things could still easily happen to a girl like her in Ikon—they almost had—but it was still safer. No SIN meant no cop shits given. They weren't going to hit Redmond with a heatwave over some dead hooker. Girls like her needed gangs and Vory. They were pretty bad, but they were still better than the alternative.
He was smiling at her. "Think about it. If you're in, shoot me a text. If not, well, there are a lot of other girls here who would leap at the chance to make an extra twenty nuyen, let alone five hundred."
Anna nodded, her thoughts churning. "I'm in," she said after a moment, hand tightening on the napkin. "What do you want to know?"
"All the personal information you can find on the movers and shakers at Ikon. Nothing...protected. Just quirks. Vices. Associates. Inquiring minds want to know." He chuckled. "Trust me, my dear, this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship."
The johnson stood up, tipped his head to her in a polite nod, and vanished into the crowd as if he'd never said a word to her.