"A pleasure doing business with you," I said as I picked up the renegotiated contract, immeasurably thankful for my full-face mask. I would never have managed to make that believable without it.

I'd been sat here for the last three hours hammering out the details of the new contract with the representatives of Lunar Technologies, the very first firm I'd worked for, and even with Dad giving me advice from a distance and reminding me to keep calm I felt like I wanted to throttle the lot of them. It was a week since I had been to Medhall, two weeks since I had gotten my rogue's license, and the 'trial period' of $50 per hour had come to an end for Lunar.

Honestly, we could have gotten the contract finished in half an hour if they hadn't been so goddamn pernickety. I'd warned them ahead of time that the initial rate wasn't going to be forever, but they had been dead set on keeping it that low. I wouldn't have minded that. It was perfectly understandable that they'd want to keep costs low. It was just how obtuse they were about the whole thing. I had the whole of rogue law on hand the whole time, but they insisted on double and triple-checking every last point, only to come to the same conclusion I'd given them at the beginning. They had the grace to look a little ashamed at the end, as I'd dealt in nothing but good faith, but that didn't really help reduce my annoyance.

What did help was that it was over now, I had a copy of the renegotiated contract safe in my briefcase and I was on my way back to catch the bus that would take me back into town.

I was still pissed, though, enough that I didn't notice the pair of white vans pulling up, one in front of me and one behind, until the doors had opened and half a dozen men had piled out.

I had a second to take in the men's appearance - scruffy, dirty, dishevelled, barely better than hobos, save for one in a bright red hoodie with a crimson scarf around his mouth - and then they were on me, grabbing at me. I dropped the briefcase and ducked below one's swing, coming up again with a fist aimed at his stomach even as I tried to step to the side.

Someone else crashed into me from the side, knocking my arm off course so that my fist sank harmlessly into his puffer jacket. I stumbled, and that was enough. I was overwhelmed by a wave of stink and bodies and unintelligible shouting. Arms clasped tight around my body and limbs. I tried to kick out at them, throw them off and I did, but when one let go another took their place. I yelled and fought, but they bundled me off the sidewalk and into one of the vans. Four men climbed in with me, two clinging to my arms and the other grabbing me around the waist, while the rest peeled off and vanished behind the closing doors.

The man dressed who had closed the doors turned around and I recognized him. He was Barb, a cape that had been running with the Merchants for a couple of months now. No-one was really sure about the details of his power, but he was superhumanly agile and had a body count. Over a dozen people were confirmed to be killed by him, and another two dozen were suspected to be his work. Rumour on PHO was that he was on the way to the Birdcage the next time he got caught.

I struggled harder, wrestling one hand out of the grip of one of the men and catching him in the head with a good hit. He went down, stunned, but before I could do anything else Barb leapt forwards and punched my shoulder. Pain lanced through me like fire. Even through the separation my power gave me, it was enough to make me pause for the moment it took for Barb to get a grip on my arm, twisting it and wrenching at my shoulder. I felt something wet dripping down my chest and soaking into my suit.

"Alright - girly," he said, sounding like he gargled pebbles daily. "Let's get you hooked up." The guy I'd dropped to the floor was picking himself up.

"Fuck you! Get the fuck off me!" I yelled, buoyed up by adrenaline and defiance.

"Get the fucking dose, dipshit!" yelled Barb. The other guy said something unintelligible back and started fumbling around on the van's floor. I felt it start to move. Panic flooded through me. I redoubled my efforts.

"You better quit fighting, bitch, or I'll make sure shit's all downhill from here for you. Squealer wants you for some fuckin' tinker shit, but you don't need your legs for that. Fuckhead! Where's the fuckin' dose?!"

The other guy had found what he was after, and when he straightened up what he had in his hand sent a chill right to my core. It looked like a syringe, if a syringe had a metal ring around the needle - needles, I realized. There were a half-dozen. So it's harder to break, some part of me realized. I'd heard stories about this, of the Merchants forcibly addicting people to their drugs then recruiting them by offering them their fix.

"Well? Stick it in her!"

I squirmed this way and that, eliciting grunts and curses from the gangers holding me. Barb wrapped an arm around my neck and squeezed, but I fought on. He had succeeded in restricting my movements, though, and the other two guys kept me still enough that the one with the syringe could yank at my suit, sending buttons flying off in all directions, pull up the T-shirt I wore underneath and plunge the injector into my belly.

I felt the needles go in like tiny icicles, and then the other guy slammed down on the syringe's plunger.

Within seconds, I felt a hot, tingly fuzziness wash over me. Dark spots danced in my eyes for a moment then retreated, still there but distant. Like the pain, I thought.

The Merchants - they had to be - were looking down at me expectantly. They thought that whatever they'd stuck in me would subdue me, I realized. I couldn't fight them like this. I needed an advantage.

I went limp, sinking down bonelessly into their arms, against all my instincts. The gangers lowered me to the floor.

"There we go," drawled Barb. "Now you just sit quiet there and enjoy your high. You'll be getting plenty more of those. Now, let's see what's under that fancy mask of yours, shall we?" He grabbed the plastic face covering and pulled it away. I resisted the urge to react to the snap of the elastic, infinitely grateful for the fact that my actual mask wasn't something he could just pull away like that.

He looked at the plastic in his hand, then back to my still-covered face. "A real fuckin' special mask you've got there. Eh, don't really matter. I was just wondrin' if you were pretty." He tossed the mask carelessly to the floor. "Not like you've got tits to make up for an ugly face." He slumped down against the opposite wall and pulled out a phone which he fiddled with. I ignored him. I had other things on my mind.

The floor of the van was rough, dirty and, most importantly, it had holes. I closed my eyes, concentrating on my power, keeping my mask bright and gold while dimming the rest to near-invisibility. Then I sent out searching tendrils through the floor and into the workings of the van. After half a minute of searching, I found what I was looking for: the van's computer. Eagerly I swarmed it, insinuating myself into its working and feeling out its functions.

It was crude even in comparison to my phone, but that wasn't important. What was was the fact that it managed the engine, making sure that all the parts worked in synchronicity, as well as sending the signals to the brakes.

I had no idea where I was, and the traffic wasn't heavy in this part of the city. Better to stop us now, but I needed to stun them, to buy myself enough time to get out of the van. And I didn't like my chances even then. They had the numbers to drag me back in, and they wouldn't fall for the same trick twice - they'd probably just bludgeon me into unconsciousness the second time, or worse. Then I remembered the phone in my pocket, the one Dad had got me at Christmas. There was no way I'd be able to use it manually, but…

I pulled out another trace of the glow and linked to the phone, muting it immediately. It was nothing special, it couldn't even connect to the internet, but it did have a couple of basic functions apart from texts and calls, GPS amongst them. I rifled through the contacts until I found the number Armsmaster had put on the invitation to come to the Rig and dialled it. It rang once, then picked up.

"Armsmaster. Who is this?"

Aurum, I said. It was easy enough to trick the simple computer into thinking its microphone was picking something up. I've been kidnapped by the Merchants. They've got me in a van, and they tried to drug me.

The cape's tone shifted to one of deadly seriousness. "Do you have any idea where you are?"

Give me a moment, and I'll get you GPS coordinates. The phone's GPS wasn't meant to transmit to an outside source. However, I could take the data it produced and send it via text. It took almost 30 seconds to find the data, reformat and send it, but I managed to do so without drawing any attention from my captors.

"I have your location," said Armsmaster. "I am approximately three minutes away. Try to stall them however you can."

I intend to, I replied, then hooked my fingers into the nearest holes in the floor and mentally stamped on the left-hand brake, flooring the accelerator at the same time.

The van leapt forwards then veered to the side amid a chorus of shocked yells. The driver yanked on the steering wheel, but the van had electrical steering rather than mechanical, so his efforts did nothing. With an almighty crash and a jerk that sent men flying this way and that the van hit something and came to a stop.

My head was still ringing with the impact as I leapt up, jumping for the door. I fell on the handle, pushed it down and tumbled out onto the sidewalk.

XxXxX

A/N: So yeah. That happened. As always, comments, thoughts, criticism, corrections and speculation are more than welcome.