Author's Note : And we're back to some sprinkled world-building and various perversions of our world history. Again, please bear in mind that this is AU world history and just snicker to yourself as you catch the 'errors'.
Edited (4/30/2017) - Minor story and grammar corrections.
Edit (3/23/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections.
Edited (9/10/2018) - Minor corrections.
Russian Roulette : Reloaded
Chapter 36
(Sunday the 9th of March, 1969 continued. Freetown, Republic of Sierra Leone.)
Scruffy cleaned up pretty nicely, for someone that looked like a skeleton with paper thin skin stretched over his bones.
"-which is odd, when you think about it. They're an independent state, have been since sixty-five. But this is the second time the elections have been ever held, and the last time around the Prime Minister was only in office for minutes before he got… uh, ousted. Then the military ran the country, up until they tried giving the man a chance again. And now he's dead… huh. Wonder why they deposed him only to try giving it back before killing him? They'll probably go back to being a military state, for now."
Sonya pretty much ignored the man and his ramblings, pouring an expensive as hell bottle of rubbing alcohol into a tin pie pan. Shoving her blistered and only newly cleaned feet into said tin burned, but at least informed the Russian that this was probably direly needed.
She had Propagated herself a copy of Scruffy's shoes before she could bring herself to take one step into the Freetown sewers, and much to her relief her Cloud Flame copies were immune to her Storm Flames.
Some wandering down rancid tunnels, a bit of stashing her new Dying Will Flame foundling in a trash strewn side street, did a bit of pickpocketing practice to net her some more petty cash, and finished off her morning with a mugging of a cop to reacquire the rest of her luggage. She then had herself sorted out enough to find and rent them a hotel room and direct her foundling to it through a backdoor in order to keep him mostly inconspicuous.
Bjǫrn had found her by that point, trading off their contracts and appointing himself her gopher for cleaning supplies and food after suspiciously glaring at Scruffy Sun man.
The place wasn't anything too impressive, it was at least somewhat clean and neat. Bare walls painted a rather garish pale blue-green, brown comforters on the beds, and a similarly colored carpet she was almost as suspicious of as the sewers under Freetown.
The selling point was the bathroom, which held an actual tub and not just the sink and toilet combo.
The man she had rescued was probably in some kind of shock as he went about like a robot in her wake to clean himself, but he did trail off his verbal diarrhea after a while.
"You… could have done this for anyone."
"Possibly." Since that was actually directed to her rather than at the thief admitted to it blandly, watching the streams of little bubbles rising from the liquid she had her feet in. "I probably would not have bothered, personally."
Not that she didn't appreciate the info dump on what had gone on in-country, but it was about to be a moot point. This was a country she didn't want to do semi-regular heists within, but she had quite a list of those at this point.
Scruffy had shaved off his scraggly beard and clean shaven suited him better than the chin hair had. It didn't magically make him less gaunt or soften the sharp jut of bone under his skin, but he did now look less like any decent crazy person would appear.
Small wonder, really.
His current preoccupation was trying to cut his own hair, long and thin fingers plucking a clump of knotted dirty blond strands as he hacked off the greater lengths into something more manageable. Pausing in what likely was the first grooming session of however many years, Scruffy peered over at her suspiciously. "Why not?"
"Why should I?"
"It's the right thing to do!"
"For who?" Sonya snapped back, lifting one foot to inspect how bad the popped blisters were now. A few had cracked through her skin, meaning they were technically blood blisters. Thank the gods for Storm Flames, they had probably prevented her from getting some kind of blood borne pathogens seeping into her bloodstream. "Nothing ever gets done in countries without a large amount of people dying. For whatever cause or not."
Paranoid was going to be her watchword for the next month. She wondered what kind of tests Tatiana could do for her, and if it would help anything at all to try being tested.
"What? But… those people, they would be alive."
Slipping her right foot back into the pan of alcohol, the Russian gave him a flat stare. He had given up on cutting his hair, but half of the top layer was sticking up from how he cut it and that left him with a kind of cross between an afro and a mullet. It was… rather stupid looking.
"…those are people that took the opening we made and ran for it without so much as looking backwards." She started off slowly, wondering if the man was mentally deficient or what.
Scruffy ran a hand through the ragged hair her still had, only for his fingers to get tangled up in the unholy mass of curled knots he had yet to get to. "You can't blame them for that. They were only doing what was best for them."
"And their best was apparently running out into a firing line."
"You could have stopped them! You stopped me!"
"I could have." Sonya admitted again flatly. "Did not, though."
The man's thin chest heaved as he took in a silent breath. He seemed to count to some arbitrary number, then blew out the held breath. "Why."
"Why did I not stop them, or why did I stop you?"
"Both… please."
The Russian pulled her left foot out of the disinfecting bath, examining the rate of bubbling the remaining liquid was doing even as she reached for her medical supplies and the towel destined to be turned into rags to dry the limb off. "Various reasons. They were only concerned with their own survival, so I left them to it. If they failed or not matters little to me, besides the fact their death might motivate the locals into doing something about this situation. You, on the other hand, had something I was interested in."
"…my diamond?"
"No, but I will admit that is interesting." She also kind of wondered how he managed to keep the damn thing on him, her strip search had been irritatingly through. That, probably, was an answer she could go her whole life without knowing. "The yellow stuff. Your Flame."
Scruffy flat out glowered at her for a long moment. "That's the second time you've said that. Flame, what flame?"
"You are a user of Dying Will Flames of the Sun. Defy death a few times, and it tends to pop out." She informed him blandly, wrapping her heel up in sterile medical bandages before pulling on a sock to ensure nothing would slip on her. "If you are anything else besides Sun, it's too soon for me to tell."
A hand was held up between them the moment she was done with that, lighting up with a flair of violet and red as her willpower burned. Both at the same time had been something she had spent long hours combining, if only in hopes of reacquiring her tri-colored flame start.
"I am a user of Dying Will Flames of Cloud and Storm." Locking eyes with the gaunt man over a palm full of her own Flames, the thief's lips twisted as she took in his wide eyes.
Alas, she still had no Sun.
"You're… I thought… it can be red and purple?"
"As well as blue, green, orange, and violet." Sonya clarified with a shrug, carefully pulling on her left boot from her luggage she nearly lost to Freetown's police. Leaving her things in beachside lockers didn't help when she got arrested and an officer was sent to pick up the rest of her few traveling possessions. "Rain, Lightning, Sky, and Mist."
"…you can make copies of things with that light and burn other things until they're gone." Scruffy stated slowly as he tried to understand what she was telling him. "I… can… make a laser with an uncut diamond?"
"I have done that with Storm Flames before. The ability of Cloud is Propagation, Storm is Disintegration. Suns are Activation." Pulling her right foot out of her makeshift disinfection tub, she started cleaning and bandaging that as well so she could finally get a move on. "If you are really that interested, Bjǫrn can direct you to a book and another Sun user."
The man blinked, examining her closely. "You're not going to…?"
"To what? This is a parting of the ways. You are going somewhere for medical aid, as well as an educational brief you likely would die without getting regarding those pretty yellow Flames of yours. I have other things to do."
Sonya pulled her other sock on just as carefully as she had done to her other foot, then stamped her boot on.
She was never ever going around in anything other than these boots ever again. Even if that would mean she'd have to have a new pair every damn year. At least not without actually breaking in a pair of whatever other shoes she wanted to wear.
"My Lackey will ensure you reach a hospital and set you up for anything you would need to return home."
"What? No-! Lady, you saved me. Take responsibility." Scruffy didn't even flinch when her eyes narrowed, he just glared back. "I have no home. You just pulled me out of… well, no. Actually, I got my own ass mostly out of the worst… but you did save me in the end."
"I saved you out of pure curiosity. It is sated now, you are useless to me."
Skeletal Sun user man scrambled around his discarded prison rags on the floor of the bathroom hurriedly as she started packing her own stuff back up in order to enable her leaving.
"THIS!" Scruffy whirled around before she got to dealing with her pan of rubbing alcohol, shoving the rough bit of jewel in her face. "You said I did something that 'we' never managed. Which means there are more of you. Like you and me. I can… I can study that, help you figure it out. I have a degree in engineering."
…how the hell had he ended up in Sierra Leone's Freetown then?
Looking like some kind of prisoner of war?
Sonya stared at the man. "Geology would be more useful."
"I can learn that too. I actually-" He glanced down at 'his diamond', looking entirely disgusted and a bit insane as he glowered hatefully at the lump of compressed carbon. "I… actually spent about five years, learning a bit of the diamond trade. Before."
There was a twitchy gesture, aimed at the dinky little window of the rather dumpy hotel she had wrangled a room with a bathroom from a very suspicious proprietor.
"I have no use for diamonds, but IF I take you on," the thief started slowly, suspiciously, "you will be expected to catch up. Quickly. And find yourself something to do, because I do not tolerate lazy people leeching off me."
She had no time to learn herself, Tatiana had too much on her plate as it was, and Galina was more a secretary than a scholar. Gedeon might have the smarts but would probably not have the drive for years. Ziven probably wasn't sticking around for long, Dmitriy was in prison and not useful. Bjǫrn could, if she asked him too, but she was planning on dumping finance and investment training on him first.
Scruffy gave her a hard look, dropping the hand gripping his bit of uncut diamond to his side. "Lady, I think you're possibly psychotic and a little too cold to be human. Frankly, given what I think you are, not surprised. But you know what's going on, with this 'flame' business. And seem to know what to do, even when arrested and stripped of just about anything useful. I'd rather be on your side."
"I have been called worse than just 'cold' before." Sonya informed him flatly, stooping to snatch her pie tins to dump the liquid down the drain. "And to be completely honest, the only reason you are still standing is because you currently have inhuman stamina."
"…what?"
She gave him a look over her shoulder, the gaping expression made her feel better about the whole damn thing. "Your Sun Flames are the only thing keeping you upright, anyone else would have collapsed long ago. How else do you explain why you look like a skeleton with skin and yet still be able to stay awake for more than five hours without eating?"
By the time she had dealt with her medical disinfectant and the tin, Bjǫrn had returned with the variety of fruit juices and the easy breakfast food she had asked of him.
Her Lightning Storm Lackey was also instructing Scruffy not to scarf down the liquid like a dying man. "If you keep guzzling it all down, your belly will pop."
The Icelandic teen helpfully mimed his own stomach exploding to help the Sun figure out that he should slow down before he killed himself.
"Lackey, take him to Doctor Kappel. Tell him he's a baby Sun, and if he gets him to a healthy state I'll pay the medical fees. Set him up with one of the copies of my book while he's there until I can get to him." Snagging a few of the Cassava bread loaves from his shopping, the Russian also grabbed her complete luggage set and her next heist contract. "Tell Galina I am sorry but got slightly arrested."
Bjǫrn looked slightly wide-eyed at he stared at her. "Dama, how does one become 'slightly arrested'?"
"By not staying arrested. My parents are going to be so disappointed in me for not hanging around a little." She took one last look as Skeletal and Scruffy and Sunny, then gave the teen a hard look. "He so much as twitches wrong towards you, have him killed."
(Thursday the 13th of March, 1969. São Paulo, Federative Republic of Brazil.)
Côte d'Ivoire, the Ivory Coast, wasn't much better than Sierra Leone.
Just a tiny bit more south.
It was at least a hell of a lot less headache inducing of a country, the local government had been in power for a long while now and wasn't at risk of instant destabilization if another enterprising assassin managed to kill another political leader on her.
This particular contract was more civilian-oriented, she was stealing a thesis from one of the professors of the University of Abidjan-Cocody. One of the boring contracts, mostly.
Sonya barely stopped for a full day, merely waited around the large campus until the professor of whatever got tired and turned in for the night before stealing her mark, calling Bjǫrn in the early hours of morning for the details of her next contract, and taking the next flight out.
Brazil was newer of a situation for her.
The government, which was another military one but one she expected, was splintering up under what she was pretty sure was sabotage. Outside or inside was the question, but the Russian merely made note of it and decided this was another country she wasn't sticking around in for long.
She didn't speak Portuguese anyways.
Interestingly enough, she would be contributing to the on-going sabotage according to the paperwork her Lightning Storm Lackey brought to her as she ate breakfast. The beachside café was cute in a picturesque way, but the creeps and coffee weren't exactly filling.
Sonya liked the palm trees though, they were suitably different enough from the African versions to be worth a stare or two.
"Dama? The Sunny man? He is not… exactly healthy. The doctor isn't happy with you."
"He didn't die between now and then, did he?"
"…no?"
She glanced up at the teen over the paperwork she was reading. "Then what's the issue?"
"He is… too skinny." Insisted the Icelandic Lightning Storm, playing with his food instead of eating it. At her dirty look he shoveled a bite into his mouth and tried looking innocent. "Doctor said he would need weeks of careful watching before he can be… let go."
"Released." The thief corrected his French absently, turning her attention back to figuring out where she had to go. "Doctor has until the end of the month to get him to a state my sister can take over from."
Sonya really had only one doctor she would conform for. 'Doctor' was a decently vague way to reference Kappel when not in Mafia Land. She didn't know what if anything the German was avoiding or would rather hide from, and frankly she didn't care.
"You can stay in my hotel room for a bit or go back to the island but bring me back another contract tomorrow. I don't want you wandering around this country just yet. Too hot."
Bjǫrn accepted that with a shrug.
Since she was vaguely sure this country was also heavily into torture, even if she couldn't recall against what or for why but could guess pretty damn well, and she didn't want to do another jailbreak the thief would rather her more vulnerable asset got out as quick as he could. His movements were his own though, so warning him would do for now.
…she was going to need a camera for this next bit. Taking pictures of the documents in question would be less risky than trying to take the papers themselves or make copies on-site.
Especially from within a military base that had close ties to both the US and Britain.
"I will be very annoyed if Scruffy Sun has to become my next Lackey, especially if it's due to some civilian reason. He would probably be terrible at it, and I'm used to you."
It earned her a smirk from the teen. "I will be careful, Dama."
(Friday the 21st of March, 1969. Mexico City, United Mexican States.)
After Brazil, two contracts one of which was industrial sabotage picture taking and the other a robbery of a politician's home for some suitably shiny trinket, her next target was Bogotá in Columbia.
Aside feeling rather thankful she was no longer in sub-Saharan regions, the temperature was still as bad for a girl from the frozen north. She made a mental note to inform her Lackey that contracts in near equator countries during the swing into summer were not ones she liked very much.
She found it a bit bemusing it was just as vegetated as the Ivory Coast, if only a lot higher in elevation. Which did nothing for the humidity, not quite as miserable and salty but still sticky and pervasive.
Other side of the Amazon in terms of an actual mountain plateau and not borderline scrublands, and the first time Sonya dipped back into the local underworld since leaving Italy.
There was a bit of relief in the fact she only had to deal with the urban jungle and not the actual jungle again. Less shelter from the sun, but less insects and less wildlife she had to maneuver around as well.
This government didn't seemed any more stable than the rest of Africa or South America, but because the mafia hangouts were pretty much the only place to get halfway decent information it was still not somewhere she wanted to linger about. She had to go through two pawn shops before finding a rather rickety underground bar affair that seemed less like a criminal watering hole and more of an army one before the initial hostility to her mere presence tapered off.
Asking around there carried less risk than chancing asking an unknown member of whatever anti-political guerrilla faction about some detail and getting violently or quietly removed for the mere act. Within the underworld, at least whichever faction would admit to it before you asked possibly life-threatening questions.
Sonya found it all rather tedious if possibly murderous, a terrible combination. She made liberal and heavy use of her inability to become drunk anymore to drink several heavily armed members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo under the badly made makeshift table for her needed information.
The FARC–EP at least didn't give her dirty looks for having the bone structure of a Russian.
This was another semi-boring but at least interesting because it was bizarre kind of contract, she was stealing a soccer trophy. Football in this corner of the world… but she kept thinking of it as soccer anyways.
The trophy she was after was the División Mayor del Fútbol Profesional Colombiano original, and ambivalent to sports as a whole or not she didn't even breath a word of that to the guerrilla soldiers she pumped for 'where not to step unless you wanted to be pumped full of hot lead' information.
Sport fans were nuts, in the worst ways.
To take up the empty hours before she could go to work, she shopped around a small bit in the tourist traps to replace some of her more ragged clothing and a few odds and ends. More medical supplies mainly, because if she didn't have that fully stocked Tatiana would bitch at her until she was blue in the face.
There was an interesting little crafts section, within which she picked Shamal up a little retro and tribal looking bobble headed lizard/turtle thing made out of wood and string.
The weird bulbous trophy she was actually after had actually semi-decent security on it, which took her two tries to break into without tripping. She hid the thing into a massive shipment of Colombian coffee beans, wondering if Renato liked soccer/football at all.
Skipping several countries Bjǫrn couldn't line up quick and dirty contract for left Sonya in Guadalajara, Mexico. Siemens Mesoamerica held an industrial complex on the outer reaches of the city, not nearly as big as the one in Mexico City by all reports but a decently large one nonetheless.
This contract was on behalf of the Mafia Land hospital, which made her take due care in what she was acquiring if only to not hear about it from her sister for years. Buying medical equipment from the very place she intended to rob a backup generator from probably wasn't a very smart plan, as a matter of fact it was a very bad one according to all the lectures Arseniy and Lisa had given her over the years.
However, the place was large enough to require internal maps for their own workers. A lone thief with little to no familiarity of how the inside layout worked meant Sonya had little to no idea and little time to acquire it.
As Bogotá was a very high city compared to seaside port towns and Guadalajara wasn't much better in that respect, the Storm-Cloud had to take an entirely unexpected full day just to counter altitude sickness. At least, she dearly hoped it was altitude sickness and not something else.
Another three days were needed to arrange the purchase of medical lab equipment and paraphernalia, and two for customs to look it over her legal shipment before giving her their stamp of approval.
During that time, she learned that 'generator' was a very broad term. They came in sizes from table-top affairs useful only for a handful of lights to two-story monsters that could create enough electricity to run New York's Times Square. Her paperwork called for nothing but 'a backup generator for the hospital for use during times of conflict'.
Meaning either the docs wanted the hospital's power to be on its own grid when idiots invaded the island, or the internal affairs people wanted to ensure if they ever had to treat someone really important the power couldn't be cut and take someone on life support off it on demand.
Sonya, since she used that hospital, fully agreed with the idea. The issue was she didn't know how much space the hospital had for a backup generator.
As she was trying to get through as many contracts as she could in a month, she also didn't have the time to ask and get the answer back through whatever agency was in charge of Mafia Land's hospital or just the island's acquisitions department or related sections in general.
She was going to steal three. A two-story affair, a room sized one, and one that fell in-between the two. Then she was going to write a nasty note to whoever would take possession of them about being specific and saving her time and effort.
Given the sizes of the objects in question, disassembled or not, she placed a bogus order for pickup in order to have it pre-assembled for shipping for her. A few pesos to a beggar prevented her voice from being recognized, and a few more got him drunk enough he likely wouldn't recall what she had asked of him in return for the liquor.
Then she had to skip back to Mexico City because Siemens Mesoamerica had the order available there and not in Guadalajara. If she had wanted it assembled where she was, it would take another week.
Sonya then did the nasty thing, as in the night before the beggar man was supposed to pick up his shipment she went in and stole not only the damn parts but a few extras and a bloody truck to get it all back to Guadalajara. Mexico City wasn't quite as foreign underworld friendly, and she had started the arrangements for a completely illegal airlift for the shipment already before learning about the location issues.
Systematically taking out the guards on an industrial complex's loading bay was easier than it should be, spaced too far apart and with too few check-in points, but since they were civilians she wasn't really going to complain that much. Altering documents that would get her pulled over by the Mexican highway patrol took her longer, as well as fudging the paperwork on her acquired shipment to muddy the trail. Hopefully enough she could get out of the country before the discrepancy was noticed.
On her way out of the security office she only belatedly realized they had a close circuit security recording going on and did a bit of on-the-spot arson in the recording room.
The thief also found out, very quickly, that driving a full diesel big rig with an attached trailer was a lot different than a van or any commercial car. She also wasn't very good at it, unless the streets were more or less straight. The only bright spot was that it was an automatic transmission, and she had started out on mostly deserted roads.
Resigned to the fact she was probably going to end up pulled over, as she didn't know anything about driving the damn thing, she aimed the lumbering beast of a truck in the direction of Guadalajara and hoped she could at least get an hour or two of the possibly three-hour trip done before anything nasty happened.
Before she got out of the capital city of Mexico, she spotted the train yards and tried very hard not to Disintegrate the steering wheel she was clutching. If she couldn't get the truck out of the city without massive amounts of luck, she could probably have it shipped for her instead.
With a dubious amount of legality, but it was less risky all around.
She had dealt with ports more than train lines and airlines, but the basics were the same. She was going to have to rely on bribery more than prior shady connections, and if she was really unlucky a murder or two.
Maybe she could trade the big rig?
It was hot, and a little damaged from a sideswipe or two plus a dent in the grill from where she ran over a sign, but still a very large truck.
(Saturday the 22nd of March, 1969. Agua Caliente Touristic Complex, Tijuana, Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, United Mexican States.)
Her last heist for the month, having lost a good week in Mexico already and unwilling to overshoot that badly, was in Tijuana.
It was also where something she only fuzzily recalled from Rachel's time horribly clashing with her reality now.
The Agua Caliente Touristic Complex was something she knew had been shut down long before the 1960s, and yet it was still in operation in front of Sonya now. In a past-life-future-dream it had been notorious for a lot of things, more notably Hollywood movie stars and just as much for American mob involvement if for worse reasons. There had been a crackdown on gambling due to some government official, and the high profiled guests dried up in response until the place shut down.
Yet… it was the end of April in 1969 and the complex was still open. It was a lot of things; hotel, spa, dog-track, racetrack, private airport, golf course, and gambling casino. Apparently popular as a retreat and a vacation still, crawling with people she could peg as both security guards and mobsters mixing freely with the high-society slumming it.
The Russian checked her paperwork again, even if she had the moment she landed here, and pressed her lips into a flat line. She was required to go in there for her last contract.
Turning on her heel, she left the area to prepare.
To start with, she picked herself out a long-sleeved cocktail dress in red from the local shopping mall with all the accessories she would need. Since she had expected a working-class month and not a high society one, she didn't have anything like that on her at the moment.
A room at a hotel across the city was another must, rather pricey for the better security but she could change there and fall back to it later if things turned sour.
The thief wasn't sure if she expected things to go sour, but as it was a possibility she was preparing for it anyways.
Her blisters from Freetown had healed up well enough, but she still put on stockings against current fashions to prevent the newer skin from tearing open or getting more blisters and covered it mostly up with her usual boots. Taking out the bulk of her weaponry she secreted more than enough to actually be a 'walking arsenal of jewelry weapons' without the obvious chains of them wrapped around her bicep.
Last time she did one of these 'present yourself to acquire the details' contracts the Chinese Triads had tried to acquire her later. She didn't really hold high hopes of avoiding that again.
A magnetic bracelet she had found in the city allowed her at least one of each type of weapon for one wrist, the charm bracelet of axes she had repaired by a local jeweler went on another. Her blond hair was put up into a bun with a Bec de Corbin, a few more were set in a purse with a couple hair ties and the bare minimum of makeup she could get away with wearing.
Leaving behind her luggage, she had paid for a week but better not really need that, the Russian retraced her steps back to the Agua Caliente.
Since she didn't know the place, nor did she particularly wish to be shot either now or at the end of this contract, she went right up to the white stucco bell tower that seemed to work as a gatehouse and handed her Mafia Land paperwork and ID to the nearest guard. The skeptical look she got was ignored, as was the hushed conversation via radio, and she only stepped forward when the same guard waved a car going down the drive to stop and gestured her forward.
A short stint in the backseat, and the driver took her right up to the racetrack clubhouse. After he opened her door, she followed him into the building.
He had taken her paperwork from the guard, and she didn't intend to lose sight of her ID or the contract.
Three stories up lead to the roof of the clubhouse, and what she supposed was a fantastic view of the track. The gentleman her loosely termed 'guide' was bringing her to barely so much as twitched as the sheaf of paper and the laminated card were placed on his café table.
"Do you like the races, señorita?" Asked the likely Spanish descendant with the typical tanned skin, black hair, and equally dark eyes.
"Not particularly."
The man, somewhere in his thirties and dressed to the nines in a light tan suit, glanced over at her distractedly. "No? Pity. Do you mind if I keep this? For… validation, I assure you."
"I do mind." Sonya informed him flatly, since he was fingering her Mafia Land ID. "We are… heavily encouraged to keep track of such things. Personally."
Looking neither surprised nor irritated, he drew a pen out of his breast pocket and noted down her ID number on the ticket stubs she was somewhat sure he received when placing bets of his own. "I am Emmanuel Rodrigo Vásquez, señorita. May I have your name?"
"…Salina Buhari." Her fake passport was still set for a French woman to visit Africa, she had yet to switch it out for a new fake. The ID Mafia Land issued held no names, merely a number and a picture, so the skeptical look he shot the thing netted him no conflicting information.
"Vásquez!" Someone behind Sonya called out as she snatched her ID out of the air as the man lazily flicked it in her direction. "You rogue, keeping all the pretty ladies to yourself."
The new man was easily over fifty and rather portly with a similar ancestry of something Latino, yet again in a well-tailored suit but he had his greying hair slicked back and had a very puffy mustache that was only salt and pepper in coloring. He and her possibly temporary boss looked nothing alike, except for the shape of their eyes.
Cousins, the thief hesitantly assumed. Possibly a great uncle.
"My dear," she had to suppress the desire to rip her arm out of the new man's hands when he grabbed her elbow, "if you're looking for some entertainment I would be glad to help you out. If racing isn't what you fancy, there is a simply delightful spa on the other side-"
"Hermano, ella es agente de la Agencia."
"Si, si. I am-"
Old and pushy was suddenly yanked to a halt by his grip on her arm when Sonya planted her feet and refused to move under his direction. She gave him a flat glare in return for his handling of her person. "Let. Go."
"Señorita, it would be churlish-" He cut himself off that time, as she allowed her eyes to flash red.
Better to appear to be only a Storm than a Cloud, given the reactions she had experienced to date for each.
It did get the man to let her go with all due haste, if seemingly alarmed his possible relation still seated.
"A change in venue, I think." Vásquez abruptly declared, pocketing one of the tickets he had in his hands and tossing the rest to the table he was seated at.
Standing he wasn't much taller than old and grabby, and she privately admitted he cut a poor figure against someone like Renato.
Also, she could smell his cologne from where she stood not three feet away. Combined with his possible family relation's own eye-watering amount, it made her eyes itch and her nose sting.
At least the hitman's cologne never made her want to sneeze, even if that was still too strong for her when in his personal space.
Having rounded the little café table and placed himself between the thief and his… whatever, her possibly likely temporary boss flicked a wary look down her form. "…just… follow me, por favor."
Sonya gave a short nod, that bit of Spanish she did know.
After this, she was going to restrict her movements to countries where she spoke a local language. The two of them could have an entire conversation she wouldn't be able to understand over her head, and that did concern her a little.
(Sunday the 23rd of March, 1969. Mexicali, Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, United Mexican States.)
Long winded story short, the owner and manager of Agua Caliente wanted an auction house added to the Tijuana resort. Vásquez had been in talks with one from San Diego, but the owner of that establishment got tempted away over to Mexicali.
It was mostly farms and food production over there, but also located below the border between Phoenix and San Diego. Said owner apparently decided that the revenue could be improved by weekly antique auctions for those more local and monthly weekend ones for their high-end clientele.
As to why a Mafia Land thief was brought in, Sonya was to steal one of the once a month auction items before it was actually auctioned off but after it had been displayed and verified as genuine. Vásquez promised a bonus if she got something bigger than a pocket-sized item, but also wouldn't pay anything if she got caught.
The objective of her contract was to scare the target into seeking protection from a well-established complex, not prove that their security was more than enough.
The thief was also encouraged to make use of the resort while she was there, with heavy emphasis on the gambling hall and the two racetracks. She wasn't much of a gambler, so all she did do was make use of the spa's salon to have her hair cut back to a mid-neck length.
Vásquez did not know what display procedures the auction house she was targeting had, did know what was up for auction, didn't know what kind of security they would have in place, but did have some knowledge of where and when.
She was… less than impressed with him.
Of course, the last time she did something like this it had been for the Triads so that might have been why she had more resources to work with then.
Leigh's Auction House wasn't an overly classy affair during the week, but the invite her temporary boss had gotten for the ritzier night did have a dress code to attend. Sonya had to buy another dress, this time with matching heels, just to get in the door the night of the auction.
A few mostly superficial checks for their seemingly standard operating procedures during the less hyped week, and then the Russian used Vásquez's invitation to gain her entrance in order to scope out what was up to be sold.
"Señor Vásquez did not wish to leave you with an empty seat at your first auction of this caliber, as that would have been greatly rude of him." The petite blond assured the man who had fussed over the invitation she had handed over. "However, he is also unfortunately committed to a business meeting he could not get out of. As my company handles acquisitions for various entities all across the world, he gave the invitation over to me to see if we would be interested in frequenting your establishment when the more… tricky to acquire items are found."
"That is greatly generous of Señor Vásquez." The man who had yet to introduce himself commented quietly as he showed her to a seat. "Considering we did not accept his invitation to set up in his resort."
"There is time, you may want to expand in future years and so he intends for your relations with him to stay good." Sonya gave him a small smile, the most she could manage without it coming off as fake or plastic. "I will not be staying the whole night, merely long enough to understand what kind of history and value the lots tend to be. If something is interesting enough, or I know of someone who would like an item or two, I might bid myself."
She actually had more than enough money to buy something legally, cash given by her temporary boss even. Depressingly, it looked to be jewelry at most out of the first few lots. At least if she bought it she wouldn't have to steal it later.
The usher, she guessed, raised an eyebrow at her probably dirty look to the items on display for the beginning of the auction. "…our more valuable items will not be displayed until much later in the night, señorita."
Vásquez did have some useful information for her, and in particular was a crash course on how auctions worked and were normally laid out. Sonya gave the man a very purposely fake smile. "The gap between what you and I consider less valuable will tell me much about what difference there is between what we think is more. I will stay at least until midnight, but not much longer if I do not need to."
She would be stealing something from the very last lots, after all. Best to leave hours before anything happens.
It wasn't perfect, even if her temp boss promised her an alibi for the hours after the agreed leaving time, but she had little information to work with in the planning and this was the first auction house she would be robbing.
Digging out a rather battered notepad out of her very shiny purse, and letting the man hovering at her elbow catch sight of the various denominations of money she kept on her, the Russian flipped through the mess of shorthand notes she kept track of her legal shipping details and attached receipts in.
The fact that most of those 'legal' shipments held a few illegal bits in them wasn't the point.
Establishing that she seemed to be what she claimed to the man was the point. A lot of money, foreign receipts for large numbers, the fact the pocket-sized booklet was almost full of rambling letters and numbers, all of it was just props to establish her 'credibility'.
Similar to the way she could go from a pair of trousers and a blouse to a snug dress and heels and imply she wasn't a working-class girl but a high society one slumming a bit. She had the 'air' of one trained into her over her second go at being a child, and Lisa's directions for implying or suggesting without the crass action of drawing attention to such details was still something she remembered.
Sonya had little idea what separated 'classy' from 'trashy', it all seemed to be behavior oriented and she wasn't naturally inclined to that sort of thing anyways. She also didn't have to know, as long as someone else did and could instruct her.
Her foster mother had declared she could do 'icy snob' very well, anyways. It seemed to work the best for her.
Noting down the maxed out line of business credit she had with Mafia Land's bank as her max limit for the evening and the island's 'wish list' items she had only updated almost a month ago on a clean sheet of notepaper took her only a few more moments. Enough time for the man that ushered her to her seat to make up his mind if he believed her or not.
If the glass of champagne he pressed on her was any measure, he bought the whole line.
Ironically, it was true if you looked at it from a less than legal perspective.
He was civilian, he could be excused for thinking her a small wildcat and not a full-fledged tiger.
Sonya settled in to be bored out of her skull for the most part.
At the end of the night, when she came back to ensure they panicked over their security arrangements, the thief no longer felt bored. She felt rather cheap, especially since she ended up stealing a Ming dynasty vase out of everything she could have grabbed.
It was the more 'obviously' expensive piece, and decently sized enough to make her bonus.
What she was going to do with said vessel of near-ancient clay was a good question. She couldn't leave it behind, nor did she really want to hawk something so damn pricey on her own.
…maybe Lisa could do with a new flower vase.
(Monday the 24th of March, 1969. Zolotov Condo, Mafia Land.)
"I cannot believe you some days." Tatiana informed her little sister exasperatedly.
"It's a piece of pottery. What else would I do with it?" Sonya even helpfully gestured to the 'it' in question, sitting oh so innocently on the table between the sisters.
A genuine Ming Dynasty vase. A tall white one with blue patterns of birds, bamboo leaves, and two Chinese dragons circling the base. She had seen some of those bulbous vases for sale before, so she knew what it was and how much they were generally priced as.
Something the redheaded Sun using nurse believed to be almost priceless, and yet the other woman was planning on gifting it to their foster mother for her birthday. To display cut flowers in.
It fit right into their current setting, the condo was a rather bland affair with really pricey junk left all over it.
Tatiana couldn't wait until they got their own apartment and could not only decorate as they wanted but paint the walls.
"Not just that, Nya." She ignored the weird look for hacking the blond thief's name up in a not-obviously Russian way, plastering a hand over her face to try and hide the smirk. "I mean this entire month. The sheer insanity of what you get up to…"
"…what?"
"There's the gaunt skeletal Sun in the hospital Doctor Kappel is having a blast poking and prodding that you sent him, the three generators you sent the hospital when they really only commissioned you for one? I know you did that, that note was in your handwriting and it's your sense of ill-humor all over the situation. Now… I love you, I really do. But little sister, you are a few sheets shy of a full stack if the only thing of note you think happened is a few hours of being arrested and a new flower vase."
The look that said little sister sent her way informed the elder Russian that she believed herself still rather sane. "Tats, I love you too and all, but you're weird."
She wasn't the one intending to use a vase easily worth more than half a million rubles as a flower vase.
Tatiana could not get over that.
"The hospital would like the thief that did the contract to know they only wanted the room-sized generator. The other two were a bit over the top."
"The hospital should then be more specific." Sonya groused irritably, arms crossed defensively before her unlike how she would hold herself if anyone else said something about it to her. "Since the only thing they gave me was 'an emergency generator', they should be happy I guessed right and sell the other two."
"I'll pass it on." The elder Russian promised the younger, flouncing over to sit on the couch with her. "Now, my turn. A couple things happened back home you should be aware of before walking into it."
"Oh?"
"Mmm… something a bit important happened, and it will affect you." If at all possible, Tatiana didn't want to be the one to tell Sonya what was going on back home.
Yes, her baby sis was a very well controlled Cloud. That really only meant that her breaking point had yet to be found, and from her fits of temper before escaping the situation for two full months…
"Arseniy got attacked."
There was a very long moment of silence, as something violent and purple flashed in the younger thief's normally grey eyes. "…what."
"You remember the visit from the Novgorod Brotherhood?" Only when the blonde nodded sharply did the redhead continue. "The vor they sent to talk to you didn't return to his territory after he talked to you. It was kind of bad that first month you were out, until some wise ass finally decided to double check the prisons between our headquarters and theirs. That wretch got his ass arrested but hadn't been able to get word to his fellows."
"Tats, that's nice and all… but Arseniy deals with training. He's normally in secured territory or running little would-be-hopefuls through a milk run or two. He rarely gets more than that."
"I healed him." It earned her absolutely nothing. "It was pretty damn minor, all things considered."
"All what things?"
Nope, not going there. "Point being, Nya, things are a little… tense. Lisa's not happy someone almost got her man and baby's daddy, Arseniy's not happy something failed and got through to where he was running the baby vor through their paces, heck even Lina's not happy."
"…so, not that I don't appreciate a heads up, why tell me this now?"
Tatiana probably shouldn't have finished that statement in her head with 'and not when I can throw a hammer at the assholes'. Frankly, the nurse would be entirely too happy to hear Sonya had murdered the entirety of the Novgorod Brotherhood with a hammer. "Gedeon managed a… cease-fire."
"Will wonders never cease."
"Oh hush. He's not incompetent." The truly skeptical look that earned her made the Sun smile, but it really shouldn't have. Their Pahkan's son wasn't stupid, just less practiced and maybe a bit too rigid still. "What I wanted to warn you of, is that you are kind of a large part of that."
The completely blank look on the Storm-Cloud's face was probably not a good sign. "I was what now? How?"
"There are fifty Dying Will Flame users that we know of now in the Soviet Union. Technically forty-eight, but not the point. One of them was a Cloud."
"…was."
"Was." Tatiana confirmed slowly. "He… went out with a bang, to say the least. The kid, Dorokhov was his name, took out the Khimki Ring by his lonesome. Do you remember them?"
Sonya blinked at her a few times as she tried to place the syndicate in question. They shared a border territory with the Zolotovs, so there was more than enough interaction for the younger thief to at least recall who they were.
"The smugglers? The ones north of us?"
"Yeah, the entire building they used as a warehouse slash base ended up collapsed on top of all of them. Killing everyone there including the Cloud kid. Then a pair of twins ended up burning themselves alive using what's reported to be Storm Flames out in Yekaterinburg. Did you know that was possible?"
"I heard rumors but didn't really know if it was or not."
"Well," the nurse continued in a markedly less depressing tone, "the point is that they know fully understand what it means to have a Cloud and some of what it means to be a Storm. That kid was untrained, what you called feral, and completely new to his Flames. And took out a syndicate trying to box him in to recruit. Then there's you, fully trained with that burn alive ability and ghosting about the Zolotov clan."
"…so, they know what I am now?" Sonya tried to clarify.
"They did before, in an entirely abstract kind of way. You carved up a bit of the forest here, Nya, and bitch smacked that one clerk. Rumors got back to the other vory, but they probably discounted a lot of it since it's outside information and kind of inhuman even for Flame users. Rumors and folktales. Then they got a report of that one kid from their own people who can go see it easily enough and recalled what rumor reported you did in a fit of temper. Both here and back home."
She still didn't really understand either, Tatiana could just tell. As far as her little sister was concerned, she hadn't changed a bit so the reactions to her shouldn't either.
One of those kinds of situations where her social incompetence was more frustrating than amusing.
"Gedeon used that uncertainty and fear to arrest any more violence to our clan. Which is a good temporary fix, but the 'threat' of you isn't going to stay static. If you don't somehow prove to all and sundry that you are a murderously violent bitch, we're going to lose a lot of face and probably a lot of clout against the other vory."
Sonya's features went an icy blank. "But I'm not."
"I know you're not. So do our foster parents, Cherep, Lina, Ziven, and everyone else important. However, they might ask you to."
The Sun had a very bad feeling about the ice she could still see in her little sister's expression.
"I got eight heists done out of the twenty plus I need." The abrupt change in topic jarred the nurse a little, and the younger thief kept going before she could redirect the conversation back to where it had been. "One or two more two-month stints, and we can get that apartment for us all. If my Lackey and I can keep up the same rate. I got a bit tripped up twice and he had issues lining them up, but another goes or so and we'll have worked out the kinks."
Well... way make your older sister feel like a bitch, Sonya.
Tatiana rubbed her forehead tiredly, yanking one of the couches' pillows out from behind her to clutch and kneed in worry. "As soon as I get my probably illegal medical practitioner license you can scale back Nya, but that's not for a few more years yet."
"I don't mind the work, Tats."
Of course she wouldn't, because she could be nauseatingly sweet sometimes.
"…why are you calling me Nya?"
"I had a little Japanese girl for a patient a week ago. Who shared with me her manga about a cat."
Sonya gave her a blank look, one thankfully without the ice. "And?"
"You kind of act like a ditzy cat. I'm calling it like I see it."
"…thanks ever so much for that."
"Welcome!" Tatiana chirruped back to her gleefully. "Now, what do you want done about Peter?"
"Who?"
"The Sun man your Lackey brought into the hospital for Doctor Kappel? The guy's mostly set, he could leave at any time. He just needs his supplements as we try to counteract his brittle bones and some of the other health risks he flirted with when he got skinny enough to do substitution duty for a skeleton model."
The younger thief huffed softly. "He's calling himself Peter?"
"It's not his name, terrible liar. But it's something."
"I call him Scruffy."
Snorting, because she could totally see her little sister doing that for the rest of the man's natural life, the nurse gave her couch mate a smile. "Scruffy then. He's good to go, but Doctor Kappel will want quarterly checkups as he progresses as a Sun. More if possible."
"Keep him for another week or two, then send him to me with Bjǫrn." Sonya instructed slightly absently as she nibbled on her lower lip. "Actually Tats… wait until the worst blows over, I'll call you when it does, then send him on with my Lackey. I'll send you a white sapphire for Scruffy to start on with, so Kappel can have the first control exercises to inspect. If the good Doctor wants more visits, then he needs to make more appointments. I'll still pay."
"The Doctor will be ever so delighted to hear it." Announced the Sun user.
"Speaking of," the younger sibling announced as she got to her feet, "I need you to test my blood for any tropical diseases. I know I was inoculated against a lot of them, but given the places I went through…"
"You want me to check to be sure?"
"Please."
(Wednesday the 26th of March, 1969. Moscow School #3054, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)
"…you'd think I would learn about leaving you in charge."
"Then maybe you should stop leaving me behind." Galina announced wickedly, shuffling some of the paperwork on her clipboard.
"Galina?"
"Yes, Sonya?"
"It's a school."
"Yes, yes it is."
The Lightning had purchased the entire property using the leftover funds she had after selling the higher quality gems in order to buy the lesser semi-precious ones. Getting it refurbished required the aid of a few other Flame users pooling their powers together to generate the cash… and a few other things she was still genuinely surprised about.
The yet to be opened Moscow School #3054 was a nice four-story brickwork affair on the outskirts of the Zolotov's territory, close enough to encompass the neighborhood they grew up in and yet still far enough away that they could provide their own security without drawing attention to the kids' homes. At least, that had been her intent until the nastiness of the Khimki situation blew up in everyone's face.
A lot of things changed priority after that, some of which had yet to be fully dealt with.
She slotted a glance to another of those Cloud Flame users and wondered the sheer amount of destruction the tiny blonde could cause if given enough reason to.
"Did you have a childhood dream of becoming a school matron or something?" The thief in question wondered aloud as she finally let them into the building.
Ziven tried really hard not to snort at the question, but the smirk on his face had been there ever since he had been sent to pick up the Storm-Cloud and betrayed his feelings on the situation. The vor leaned his frame up against the school's gates, content to wait until the two of them were done at the building.
Galina sniffed in mock offense even as she followed her fellow Flame user, her heels making a rather nice clicking noise on the polished tile flooring. "No. Lisa has agreed to teach a home EC class and history, I will be doing mathematics, Irinei agreed to teach grammar and literature. I was hoping you would consent to do art and the girl's side of physical education, Ziven the boys. Tatiana will be the school nurse when she has the time. And Gedeon will overlook it all with Arseniy and do criminal lectures jointly until Dmitriy is back. A few more here and there, and we will shift things around when one or more of us leave to do other things, but for now…?"
"I might have a science teacher for you. Not too sure about him just yet." Sonya admitted slowly, peering into a classroom on alternating sides of the hallway they were going down. "Why though, Galina?"
"Why keep it all apart? Our Flame users can then rub elbows with their contemporaries instead of be segregated, make the connections and earn favors while the non-Flame users learn what not to do around them or how useful one or two might be for their own aims." Taking the lead, the Lightning lead her superior down a different hallway to where the basement of the building was. "Also, it takes the place of the homeschooling efforts that is becoming harder for your parents to handle without civilian scrutiny. Aleksandr also donated the weaponry he no longer teaches others to use for our own training hall, which is now mixed with the Flame practice hall."
The Storm-Cloud easily followed her down a flight of stairs, wandering into the mostly barren but well-lit sub-basement level arranged to be a few different things all at once. One wall was covered in mirrors and held a barre for ballet classes, the mid-east wall had the mats and equipment for gymnastics. Opposite of that held a row of the donated training weapons set under the bank of windows, and the far end held seven different stations for Flame lessons spaced equally apart from one another.
Wandering to the middle of the cavernous room, Sonya glanced at each wall in turn. "So… what am I not seeing yet?"
"There's a hidden room behind the Flame stations," Galina admitted readily enough, "in there we'll test Flame users and possible stones. But everything really expensive is back there with the sharp weapons and the lock is very… tricky."
The thief probably would've found it in time if they had the opportunity to let her loose to poke around on her own. They would do that later, because as much as they stripped the place to the bare bones and built it back up to what they needed there was nothing like a professional picking everything over to get to any possible hiding place.
"Galina, would you please just tell me why."
"It has to do with the Flame related deaths news that made the rounds and I'm sure Tatiana told you about."
She didn't look remotely surprised, merely expectant.
"I actually started it from your plans to provide a place for Flame users and also ease the work your foster parents do." The Lightning was pretty sure the Storm-Cloud hadn't intended for her to find the idly made plans for a legal criminal school she doodled up out of boredom one day in between stacks of paperwork. Purely a mental exercise of hers to try figuring out if it was possible or not. "Then things happened, and we got a lot of ill-trained Flame users tossed our way. Just shy of twenty from that, nearly ten on our own end, plus the thirty we already had. You said it would get worse, and so I wanted to be on top of that before it became so."
The expectant look didn't falter, but the younger woman looked more contemplative. "No one is going to trust us with their Flame users for any decent amount of time. We could train them to be hostile to their 'sponsoring' syndicate or other such similar things."
"Exactly." Galina admitted shortly. "Which means, in the long run, the teachers we end up with will be cut loose from their syndicates. A few of those 'other' teachers and the staff we need are coming in from the outside of our clan, until we have a nice even mix of various syndicates represented. If you are one of those teachers…?"
"…can I be the librarian instead?" Sonya asked a little tiredly, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'll teach Flame use and applications, which I suppose is an elective kind of thing."
Noting that down, and highly aware what she just said could constitute as betrayal of their syndicate, the Lightning moved on with her end of this affair. "I do not wish to see you go like the Khimki kid. I don't think anyone really does. When it happened, this was the best way I could ensure you wouldn't."
"They will not let me go, Galina."
Possibly not, especially since the Soviet Union was waking up to what Flame users were capable of. Especially her type.
"This will keep you out of the Zolotov headquarters most days."
With a sigh, the thief retraced her steps back to the other Russian. "Good enough, I suppose. I'll still have to check in twice a week or so."
Galina intended to ensure this would work no matter the pessimistic outlook of her ticket out of here. This Cloud self-destructing like those others would be a sight she wanted to be spared from and would do their clan some serious harm.
"…what kind of books do we have now, anyways?"
She was also pretty sure having said Storm-Cloud as the school's librarian might be its own anchor. The thief was obsessed with her books. "I'll draw up an inventory list of what we have so far."
"Did Fong ever swing by? I was kind of expecting him to show up enough for you to say something by now."
Almost missing a step of the stairs, the Lightning shot her boss' back a strange look. "Who?"
"Chinese Triad member, expert martial artist. Storm, one stronger than me. The man's irritatingly stubborn, but I did tell him to come here if what he wanted to talk to me about was that damn important."
"Not that I am aware of." Galina admitted slowly. "Is he the one Tatiana refers to as 'Tasty Muscles'?"
"Yes. I suppose he might have been waiting for me to leave Mafia Land first. So, he might show up in the next week or so."