Prologue:
Lush and emerald green and giving off the faint scent of sap when the wind rustled impatiently through the recently clipped limbs, the hedges that clung to the crisp white slabs of the building were the perfect hiding place. Most offices had breathing room between nature and man's prowess, but the waist-high shrubbery clung to the aged stacks of rock like a babe to a mother's breast. During the day the sun lit the area from mostly harsh angles, sapping the vibrancy from the leaves and wooded mulch, but in times of considerable darkness and on a timer of no earlier than seven at night, posts of charred cast iron mounted from each corner on the first floor flooded the ground below with a thick, milky yellow light. It was thirty minutes after these overhead suns had come up and the last employee had passed the night security that the figure of a woman sauntered up to the front door.
The woman looked to be about eighteen, nineteen, with a rope of silken jet coiled upon her shoulder. Clad in leather from the neck down, something silver gleamed dully from one of the holsters strapped to her person, the hand-crafted case a lighter shade of obsidian than the laced knee-high stiletto boots she donned so shamelessly. A pair of clunky riding goggles covered her eyes, the lenses shaded to the darkest possible hue, and a short strip of stormy gray velvet adorned her throat, the ends seared straight across, a small bead of polished moonstone dangling in the hollow of her neck. There was an air of cockiness to her, as if she knew that things would go her way with minimal effort on her part. Adding to the sex-appeal and intrigue that cloud her like a poison, the tiniest peek of scarlet poked from the top of her shirt when she moved the right way, and frankly this shapely little number was made for walking with an ass that never quit.
Using her natural assets, the woman ran to the front door as if she were being chased and cried out innocently for help, her Finnish flawless and sultry as the rest of her, "Help me, please, help!" Alerted by the sounds of a female in distress, the security guard hastened to open the front door to allow her inside, and once he caught sight of the cleavage poking out in the open air, the elder pot-bellied man thought he might even try to play the hero. "Oh, thank you so much!" Smiling shyly as the door opened for her, the woman extended her hand to grab him by the wrist, "Thank you, for being such a predictable man, always thinking with your dick." Before the elderly gentleman could gape in confusion, she had yanked him by the wrist into the sturdy steel door, savoring the sickening clunk his head made when his face collided with the blunt edge. Once he had been rendered unconscious - Pussy, it would have taken her at least three good bonks to the head to be out cold - she reflected back to her lessons of 'no witnesses, no survivors', so the offender reached down to her hunting knife and stood over where he crumpled face-down. Grabbing him by the forehead, the young adult exposed the length of his scrawny neck gave him the long steel kiss, wiping away the blood on the back of his uniform.
Keeping her head bent low once she ducked inside the building, the cold-blooded murderess followed the neat line of desks to the back of the room, where she had marked out the security panel from previous visits. Disabling the main security with a well-aimed shot from the M92F hung casually from her side, the woman strolled over to the front desk and accessed the primary computer system, disabling the rest of the security but the individual systems, as well as taking down all audio and visual feeds for limited window of time. Hearing the familiar electric ping of success, the hacker knew that the security cameras were down in the main entrance, but only for three minutes. In those three minutes he would require her to slither through the lobby and passed the invisible laser-wire, shimmy through the vents to the back office for the one spare key to the safe, and then if all went as scheduled, that should leave the burglar just over a minute to crack the outermost safe. Once she was inside the vault, all it would take would be the key and the materials he should have sent on to her PDA by that time. Pouting was too immature for the likes of the spy, so instead of sulk she merely mused that he had the more fun task, but her's was by far the most important, so that was consoling enough to get by with; well that, and the look on her benefactor's face when he told her that she had done a moderately satisfactory job. As to keep from any accidents, the female tied her braid into a sable knot at the back of her head, making sure that it was secure and not a hair was out of place. The untrained operative would have taken to the shadows (the cameras were clearly slumped down on their little metal necks, but it was best not to take the risk), sneaking to the door unseen. But she was no novice, so the young woman strode forward as bold as if she owned the building, cutting across the expansive marble foyer to save the time it would have taken to tip-toe around.
Swishing as she swayed her wide hips, most of her gear was exposed over her skin-tight leather cat suit and obscured only by a bulky leather riding jacket that she had stolen previously to plant as evidence, all but the most important part, which she was taught to leave on display to disarm nine out of every ten guards. Frankly she suspected that that was a rough estimate, as most security guards she had encountered were old men with a weakness for a pretty face and an even fuller bust. As discomforting as it was, her natural assets had gotten her out of more jams than any other weapon that could have been at her disposal, so she was grateful for that lesson. Still though, the cleavage and hint of flesh protruding over the scant v-shaped film of pebbled leather seemed to do little to inspire her mentor and most generous patron. He knew her quite well carnally, but she wasn't foolish enough to believe that it was anything more than throwing her a bone to keep her happy and in line - sadly it worked every time though.
No matter, there were more pressing matters at hand than what he did with her body in their downtime, such as spraying the doorway with a fine mist that would barely give the intruder enough time to memorize where each beam was located before evaporating and making the room look harmless enough. It was a good thing that she didn't just barrel into the room, because there were criss-crossing lines in the door-frame that required either a keycard to disarm the beams or a body bag and a damn good excuse. Stretching with a smirk - this pattern was a cakewalk compared to the advanced systems she had been trained on - the would-be thief stuck one leg in through the gap and swung through as if she were stooping beneath a fence. Once in the room, the young woman took two bored steps forward and spun cockily to the side, dropping suddenly to the floor so she could roll for three rotations, tucking her knees at the second. Throwing her arm out and jutting her left leg out as if prepared to swim on dry land, she put her shoulder into it and tossed herself to the side, popping up straight as a pencil with her hands clutched tight to her sides. Aware that she was now at the hardest part of the maze, the young woman held her breath for half a heartbeat and bent both knees as one, bowing so that her eyes were parallel with the floor. Diving through an infinitesimal gap, she caught herself on her hands, balancing herself before walking forward and bending forward over a final incision, landing neatly on her narrow two-inch heels. Checking her watch to be sure she was still on schedule, the woman beamed as she scanned the walls for the artificial row of ficus that formed a hedge.
Locating that man-made wonder with ease, the limber lady carefully set aside the first two in the line so that she could squeeze into the space. Once that requirement had been fulfilled, all that remained was the removal of the grating so that the woman could act the worm. Wedging herself inside the narrow space, the young adult reached across her chest and brushed against the pale flesh of her jaw as she tapped the light fixed to the left shoulder, nudging it so that it would guide her through the ceiling to her next destination. The going here was slower than she had anticipated, and there were mere spiders in webs than expected, but the level of dust was about right. Stopping for a second when she hit the first web, the sleek sneak wiggled her blade free of its holster and slashed away the creepy crawler and its offspring, moving the hunting knife to her mouth while she moved so she could use it more conveniently the next time. That was sooner than she would have cared, but it was better to take the extra minute to exterminate the arachnids in her path than to risk getting poisoned in the air ducts and dying before she could accomplish her mission. He would be quite cross with her if that happened, and the only time she cared to draw his ire was between the sheets.
Once out of the metal tunnels, the ruthless spider assassin found herself in the best lighting since breaking into the building, a pale off-white glare shining from the dim sconces flanking both side of the door and standing sentry behind the desk in a straight line of three. Taking a deep breath to clear out the refuse from her lungs, the lithe figure kicked over the only picture on the desk and shrugged out of the coat that had been stolen from a recently fired ex-employee, tossing it carelessly on the floor by the shredder in the back corner. Checking one last time to make sure that her glossy gloves were still immaculate, the woman began to shuffle through the drawers until she stumbled across the spare key, and as luck would have it, the spare keycard for the laser systems. That would make her exit much cleaner. Pocketing her finds, as well as a file that caught her eye on a proposed experimental strain of the T-Virus aimed for marine life, the woman took her leave of the office and followed the route she had studied on the map of the building until she landed at just the right place. She was immensely grateful that the vents were behind her.
The last destination before she could call the night a success (although the documents she unearthed might prove to hold some interest to him and his plans) was a highly guarded safe, protected by the latest technologies. A shame that the security all around it wasn't nearly as advanced, because the female would have welcomed the challenge. Oh well. Standing just outside of the innermost chamber - unscathed - the woman pulled out her PDA and was punching away on the device in search of the information she would need to open it when a call came in. Recognizing the number at once, she grinned, "Worried that I wouldn't make it back in time to celebrate the first stages of your victory?" He was not the sort of man with a sense of humor, but that rarely stopped her from trying to crack a joke.
"I have every confidence that you will see your mission through to the end. You were trained by the best after all." Somehow she doubted that he had called her just for that ego-boost, and she was proven to be correct. "Blackbird," a codename as much as a nickname, the young woman much preferred that identifier than her given name, as that only recalled the life that might have been, "once you have what I sent you in for, I want you to wait and get your picture taken. You have such a photogenic face."
What, he actually wanted her to get caught all of a sudden?! And after all that hard work too! He had better had a damn good reason for it, "And why, pray tell, should I do something as stupid as get myself seen? My anonymity is one of the reasons I'm such an invaluable tool for you, so why waste it now over something as stupid as this mission? Sir. I get that what I'm retrieving is of the utmost importance for your work, but if stealth wasn't the key here, why couldn't you have just sent in that monster to break up the place and get it for you? And I do recall a certain man teaching me that shadows and secrecy were my second-best bet. Besides, I already planted the evidence to frame that disgruntled runt for trying to double-cross you, so why spoil that?"
Knowing her for the entirely of her life, Mr. Mentor had a great answer that he knew would please her. In fact, as he conveyed his intentions, he could practically see the effulgent spark in her gray eyes, burning the silver and gunpowder away, "Because now I need you to kill him like a good little pet. We both know you've wanted that honor ever since he dared to hint at the possibility of betrayal." On the other end of the line, the thief could hear him dismissing a foe, "For your insolence I should see you punished, but this matter requires your presence, so that will have to wait. Besides, I should think that you of all people would be glad to hear that our very own Black Dove will be returning home to us after so long."
Author's Notes: A reference to Revelations, if it please you. It makes me happy.
Music: "Bad Girls" by M.I.A.. Off to a great start then, if two days debating between a handful of songs is any indication.
Disclaimer: Resident Evil and its characters are the intellectual property of Capcom; all I own is the plot, Robin, and all other OCs within the story. Also any music or branding mentioned or used belongs to their rightful owners.