Disclaimer: Normally, I am not really into altering the existing story arcs, but I made an exception for this one. A couple of the people from "The Third Street Authors" received a request to write a story about Saints Row; one involving Lin and the Boss but in which Lin didn't die. I felt so honored by receiving something like an actual request to write something, I decided I wanted to write at least something for that person. The result is what you see before you now. Please enjoy, and feel free to let me know whether you liked it or not.
Chapter 1: The Price of Altering Fate
Sitting on the steps of the old church, a beer in one hand and a burger in the other, the player could not help but feel a rare sense of contentment. The sun was shining unto his face, he had some cash in his pocket, control over his live, and things were looking good for the 3rd Street Saints. Both the Vice Kings and Los Carnalles knew by now that the Saints were to be taken seriously, and with one of their own playing wolf in sheep's clothing with the Westside Rollerz, it was only a matter of time before they had those assholes by the balls as well.
Lin. For some reason the player's thoughts stuck the woman from Chinatown. In many ways, she was very much like Johnny. Tough, spirited and with dangerous temper, she was one quick to throw a punch and long to hold a grudge, a trigger happy straight shooter, who took no shit from anyone. But where Johnny's aggressiveness was often hidden behind an easy smile, cocky jokes and an odd notion of enjoying life, Lin wore her's always on the surface, for all the world to see. Maybe it was a woman's thing, the player thought, smiling unconvincedly.
"Ah, there you are, playa."
He looked up. Dex and Troy came around the corner of the church, dressed as usually. The player saluted them with his beer.
"The boys told us that you were in," said Dex, turning the visor of his tennis cap to the front to shield his eyes. He slapped the player unto the shoulder and sat down beside him. "So what's up? Nothing to do for you today? You do know that between the two of us, we still have more than enough shit to keep you busy, right?"
The player flashed both of them a wry smile. "I'd love to help, but I am still on Rollerz duty."
Troy tsked. Leaning against one of the church's columns, he lit one of his cigarettes. "How is that coming?" he asked and breathed a lungful of smoke into the air.
The player shrugged. "So far real smooth. Lin finally found her entry ticket to the lion's den. Had me stage an attack on this guy, Donnie. Worked like a charm, too. She's in now. We messed up some serious gig for the Rollerz just the other day. And the best part: Lin tells me Donnie has asked her for help to work on their plan b. Once that one is all worked out, we're going to mess that one up, too."
If either of the two lieutenants were impressed by the report, they gave no sign of it. In fact, all they did was share a quite conspicuous look; the kind of look two parents exchanged when their kid had just said something really really stupid, and they were trying to decide whether it was cute or embarrassing. The meaning was not lost on the player.
"What's wrong," he wanted to know. "Something wrong with that plan?"
"You should be careful," Troy warned. "There is such a thing as being too eager, you know. Lin is too impatient, if you ask me. She is pushing too hard. Getting in is great, sure, but now that she is the hardest part will be to know what intel to use and when to allow the Rollerz to do their thing. You know, sitting out on the small stuff and making sure that when she takes a swing it will really be worth it.''
Dex gave Troy a long, odd look, but then he just shook his head and chuckled. ''He is right, playa. Lin is tough, I give her that, but she is not thinking this through. Yeah, sure; knowing details about the Rollerz operations is a great opportunity to mess with their business, but before long someone on the westside who is not a total moron will start asking how we are getting all this good intel. Lin is trying to power through this like she always does, all brawn and bravado, but that is not how this game is played. You've got to bid your time, slowly arrange all the pieces, until everything falls into place. Then you make your move, and you damn well better make sure that it leaves no one else standing.''
This time it was Troy's turn to give Dex a doubtful glance. The player's gaze switched back and forth between the two. Clearly, he was missing something here. He did not pay it too much attention, though. So far, both Dex and Troy had nothing but looked out for him. If there was something he needed to know, they would tell him. Otherwise, they were entitled to keeping a few things to themselves. Everybody did.
"Why are you telling me this? Why not tell it to Lin straight?"
Dex and Troy exchanged glances, squirming a little in their places. The player smiled. This one he understood perfectly well.
"You know how she gets," Troy mumbled, scratching his head. "Hell, she is probably still pissed at me because of that stupid racing plan of hers. Who needs that noise?"
"Totally," Dex agreed. "Besides: It's not our job to deal with her. It's yours. We're just trying to look out for our sister is all. Take it or leave it. Just don't come running later complaining we didn't warn you. All right, playa?"
The player did not like the sound of that. Not one bit. Dex and Troy left shortly afterwards, leaving the player once more to his musings. Any illusion of contentment that he may have harbored left with them.
It was not that he didn't trust Lin. She was a big girl, more than capable of taking care of herself. He had not compared her to Johnny for nothing, who was without doubt one of the toughest motherfuckers in the entire city. But this similarity was exactly what concerned the player. With Johnny, even Julius had thought it better to provide him with a babysitter, someone to keep him from pulling some reckless stunts. Was the player supposed to be Lin's? Even if he wasn't. Dex and Troy both agreed that a bit of caution might be the smarter play here, and the two of them were pretty much the smartest heads that they had within the Saints. At the very least, their advice was worth considering. There was only one problem: The player did know how Lin got, and unfortunately Dex and Troy had a point.
It wouldn't be pretty.
In the end, the player's conscience got the better of him, and he left Lin a message on her burner phone, telling her that they needed to meet that night. She sent word back to him quickly enough, but even by her message alone he could tell that she was not happy. Then again, she rarely was, so he wasn't overly concerned.
They met behind Glitz, one of the few prominent nightclubs in the northwest of the city. It was a pretty risky move by itself, as the club was also frequented by some of the Rollerz, but it had worked before, and apparently Lin had a hard time convincing Donnie that she needed to get out, seeing how they were supposed to be working and all. The player chuckled at the thought. As if somebody like that guy Donnie ever would be able to keep Lin from doing anything she wanted.
The player waited for Lin in the relative darkness of a nearby alleyway. He had thought about not wearing his colors, but he doubted it would make much of a difference at this point. After the stunts he had pulled with the Rollerz, most of their crews were pretty familiar with his face and would probably try to waste him on sight. An inconspicuous jacket would not change that.
Lin was running late. It was already quarter past, and there was still no sign of her. Slowly but steadily, the player was getting anxious. He was just about to do something about that when she suddenly appeared behind him from out of nowhere.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?" Lin whisper-snarled. "What do you want?"
"We need to talk."
"Then start talking and stop wasting my time! I need to get back."
"It's about ruining the Rollerz salvage plan. I don't think we should go through with it."
The look on Lin's face was hard to describe. At first it was just mere disbelief, but after that all kinds of emotions and expressions began to cascade over her delicate face. The player spotted traces of a cynical smile, doubt, a rebuking scowl and even a certain amount of genuine wonder. As he had expected, though, the dominant emotion was anger: overpowering, all-encompassing anger.
The player was kind of surprised that Lin did not hit him right there. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she growled. "For that you risk blowing my cover; Just when we are about to score big-time? Because you are getting cold feet!?"
"It's not that."
Lin wasn't really listening. She turned away from him and paced around the alley like a caged animal, fists clenched and something clearly brewing inside of her.
"Think about it, Lin," the player urged. "If we are not careful, you will be made. We already fucked the Rollerz up good. We need to play it smart. You are no use to us if you end up shot or at the bottom of the ocean. Or both."
"Listen, you Jackass!" She got up close and stabbed him into the chest with her finger. "I can take care of myself! So why don't you let me do my job and go fuck yourself in the meantime."
The player hesitated. Having Lin this close and up in his face somehow reminded him of one of their previous meetings. He had arrived inside Glitz, and Lin had taken his hand to lead him to the dance floor, moving her body close to his, and swaying softly to the music as she briefed him on their next move. At one point, she had moved her mouth close to his ear, breathing a husky "boom" into it as she described the sound the Rollerz race cars would soon be making. Everything about that meeting had be so much unlike her, the player thought. Why had she chosen this kind of meeting? If she just wanted to talk, there were a million easier ways to do that, without requiring her to cozy up to him. So why did she? He looked into her blazing dark eyes, remembering what she had said to him just after that: "You're no good to us dead."
"You once pretty much told me the same thing, remember?" He nodded at the nightclub, but Lin merely shrugged it off.
"That's because were just some new kid in way over his head, and I didn't want your corpse on my conscience."
"How sweet of you," the player said with a smile. "In that case, consider this being me returning the favor."
Lin shoved him hard. "Fuck you."
"What's your problem? I'm just trying to look out for you!"
Lin tsked and gave him one of her derisive glares. "You know what? Forget it."
She turned to move away, but before she could the player jumped at her, grabbing her arm.
"We're not done. Come on, Lin. Let's talk about this."
"Talking is overrated," she replied, looking first at his hand, then up to his face. She was deadly calm all of a sudden. "Actually, that was one of the reasons I liked you." She yanked his arm from his softening grip. "Right up until now."
The player's face darkened at that, and he pulled back his hand. "Fine, be my guest. But I am still not doing it. I will not be the one to get you killed."
"You think I wanted this!? I'm no backstabbing little bitch who gets off on lying and letting people dance to her fucking tune, you hear me! I took this job because Julius asked me to, because I am the only one who can actually pull this off. So don't you come preaching to me now like you know shit. This is my neck on the line here, and we are doing this my way. If you have a problem with that tell Julius to find me someone who doesn't!"
In that moment, he was one inch away from smacking some sense into her. Apparently that was the only language she'd understand. Yet even as he considered that option and growled at her in preparation of his angry retort, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Instinctively, he throw a glance to the left, and as he beheld the blotches of blue flashing up from the flags of three Roller thugs that had just stepped into the entrance of the alley for a smoke, all his anger fell off him in an instant. Lin followed his gaze, and when she spotted the Rollerz as well, she froze, and her eyes widened in terror.
By some sort of miracle, the Rollerz had not spotted them yet, if only because none of them had actually looked down into the alley so far. But it was only a matter of seconds before one of them would, and then all hell would break lose. The player's thoughts were racing. They could not be seen together. It would ruin everything. The Rollerz would know that Lin had been sent to spy on them, and the Saints would loose the only advantage they had over the tuners. Not that it would matter much for Lin and the player. Chances were they would not survive the night.
The player glanced at Lin and back to the Rollerz. They could not be seen together, he repeated once more in his mind. Then his eyes suddenly lit up with an idea. It was true, they could not be seen together: Not talking anyways. So when one of the Rollerz finally started to turn, the player did the only thing he could think off on top of his head. He hit Lin straight in the face.
His fist exploded against her mouth like a baseball bat, snapping her head to the side and sending her reeling. Lin was so surprised that she did not manage more than a muffled grunt of pain. For the first punch, anyway. But the player was not done yet. This wasn't the time for halfhearted measures. It needed to look convincing, at least that was what he told himself. So he moved after her, even as she was still recovering from the first blow, and set to hammering a vicious combination of punches into her slender frame, finishing with burying his fist in her stomach, causing Lin to double and spit a mixture of drool and blood unto the ground. This time she did scream.
It turned all of the Rollerz' heads at once. They needed a moment in the gloomy light to realize that the person receiving the beating of her life was wearing their colors, but once the did, they did not mess around, and started charging down the alley to come to her rescue. That was the player's cue to get the hell out for there, but as he turned to make his escape, a punch suddenly exploded against his chin.
"You bastard!" Lin screamed, struggling to her feet. She wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand and spat out. Then she threw herself at him. The player stumbled backwards, frantically trying to defend himself from the punches that Lin rained down upon him in her rage. What the hell was she doing? he thought, glancing at the Rollerz that were coming in fast
"Shit, Lin!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "Stop it. I need to get out of here!"
Lin did not respond. She had totally lost it. Screaming and snarling like a banshee, she laid blow after blow after blow on him. And she was strong, too. He needed to find a way out of his, and fast.
Luckily for him, he remembered something Johnny had said to Lin after the Saints had taken over the row: something about not throwing her shoulder so much when she punched. So when Lin reached back for her next one, the player surged forward and ducked through under it. Her punch still hit him, but true to Johnny's word she had raised her shoulder too high, and in punching down at an awkward angle, the punch lost much of its fierceness, allowing the player to power through. Making full use of the sudden opening, he quickly hammered two jabs against Lin's ribs, followed by a bone-jarring uppercut that snapped Lin's head back again. When Lin still refused to go own, he grabbed her by the shoulders and smashed a head-butt right unto her nose, breaking it with a nasty crunching noise. That proved to be too much even for Lin to take. Dazed and in all kinds of agony, she finally stayed down, stumbling backwards on unsteady legs before finally collapsing to the ground with a groan.
The player did not have any time to spare feeling sorry for her. One glance behind him confirmed that the Rollerz were almost upon him, and so he bolted, heading straight for his car around the corner. But the Rollerz were already sprinting at full speed when the player set off, and the distance dwindled quickly. Cursing under his breath, the player fumbled for his gun. It took him a second, but then he managed to pull it from the back of his pants, and he started to fire blindly at the Rollerz, emptying the entire mag into the alleyway. The Rollerz ducked and dove as the bullets started flying, seeking shelter behind the few trash bins or throwing themselves flat to the ground, struggling to produce their own weapons. One even managed to pull in time to get a shot off, but it missed the player by several inches before he darted around the corner and out of harm's way.
By the time the Rollerz surged out of the alleyway, all they could see were the rear-lights of a purple car, quickly disappearing into the distance.
It was in the middle of the night that the player's phone rang. He did not even realize it at first. The irritating voice slowing forced its way into his slumbering consciousness, first invading his nightmares and then slowly pulling him to the surface of awareness. He awoke with a disgruntled groan, disoriented for a moment, but when the phone rang again he sat up, starring at the vibrating and crying little device with a growing sense of forboding. He had not heard from Lin ever since he had left her in that alleyway, and neither had any of the other Saints. A call at this hour could only mean two things: Either it was her, or it was about her. He sincerely hoped it would turn out to be the former. He reached for the phone, hesitating for a moment as he held it. Then he answered the call.
"This one's on you," Lin said on the other end. The player's heart jumped in his chest as he heard her voice, but even as he let out a sigh of relief, he realized that something had to be wrong. Lin's voice was barely above a whisper, halfway between an incomprehensible slurr and a reproachful snarl. The player had never heard her like this. It was obvious that she had been drinking. What little remained of his tiredness was burned away in an instant.
"Lin! What's the matter? What happened?"
"What happened?" she repeated, followed by a chuckle so cynical that it sent a shiver down his spine. "What do you fucking think happened? You attacked me! Beat me! The others, too! Did you expect the Rollerz would just let that stand!?"
"Jesus, Lin. What did you do?"
"Me?" Another chuckle. This time it almost broke into a sob at the end. "Oh, I did nothing. Just what you wanted me to, I played the part. We have to be careful, right? Wouldn't want them to find out that I am not a real Roller, would we?"
The players hand grabbed a handful of his blanket, clenching it so tightly that the white showed beneath his knuckles. "What did you do!?" he asked again, more forcefully this time.
"Couldn't let you disrespect us like that, you know? First Donnie and my car, then you jumping me. It was just too much. I couldn't refuse." She paused. "Fuck! You damn Motherfucker! We retaliated! I retaliated!"
The player froze at his end of the line. This couldn't be, he thought. This was not possible. But even as he sought to deny it, another part of him accepted the news all too eagerly. It wasn't hard to see it all playing out before his inner eye. Lin, beaten and bloody struggling to her feet, surrounded by other Rollerz, making up some story about the same guy that attacked her and Donnie at the garage jumping her. The fateful question pretty much asked itself. Were they going to let the Saints disrespect them like that? Of course they weren't. And who would do the honours? Who better than the Rollerz-girl that had just been jumped, who by any reasoning had to be out for blood the most? Lin was right. There had been no way she could have refused.
"Lin, I - "
She cut him off before he had even started, her voice cold and frozen, devoid of any emotion. "Don't bother,'' she said. "I don't need your pity. It's on you. It's all on you."
Just like that, the line went dead.