Somewhere between a root canal and an orgasm exists the special feeling of euphoria and fear that is search and rescue work. Adrenaline pumps up and down my arms like an expensive drug. My skin tingles where the rushing wind brushes over it. No one shares these few private moments of pre-mission jitters with me. The familiars will search me the moment I set foot in their inner sanctum, and unlike most of the people I scam, they'll be thorough enough to find any wires or concealed weapons. I know that Biggs and CeCe are out there somewhere, trying to wedge in on my position, but so long as I can't see or hear or taste them, they cease to exist at this moment. The aloneness brings me fondly back to my days as a cat burglar.
Before the weight of a people weighed on me, long before I'd ever hooked up with the handsome and sarcastic Alec, even ages before I'd bound myself to the Eyes Only cause. There had just been me and a skintight suit and my genetically engineered super girl abilities. Scared as I am I feel fabulous, this is what I was made for, blurring across a damp, deserted field about to lay down my life on the assurance that I was invincible. You can take the girl out of Manticore...
My body slows automatically as I catch sight of the building that is my target. A deserted hotel in the middle of a deserted sleepy pre-pulse community. The place could be crawling with heavily armed familiars, I chuckled gleefully at the thought. The heavy, rotten door swings open at my push. As I step through I hear the tell-tale reverberating click of a nine-millimeter being drawn and cocked behind me.
Slowly I bring my hands up and lace my fingers behind my head, the easier I make this the quicker I get to the real action. "Good girl." The voice is familiar, but not the one I'm expecting. Instead of a deep contralto, the person speaks with a lisping, uncertain tenor. "Otto, isn't it? Shouldn't you have flung yourself on your master's funeral pyre like a good little wife?" I bait him purposely to see if he's gained any nerve since our last meeting.
"Hah, master? White was a fool, I serve a master of more potential now. Move." He steps around me, into the light, looking much the same as I remembered him from previous encounters. The same bent shoulders and slightly fearful look, only this time he had added a row of rather nasty looking, half-healed scratches across his left cheek. He waves the gun motioning me forward. I consider making my move now, but this whole situation might be a set up. Wouldn't want to knock Otto unconscious only to find that Alec and the dark woman weren't even in this building.
The aged stairs groan beneath my light weight as we climb. "To the left." The second floor is a slight improvement over the first floor. Fresh curtains hang over the windows, and the walls don't show the same signs of decay. Without being told, I walk towards the end of the hall. My dream is bearing out as creepily accurate. I'm thankful that the sloshing coating of blood seems to be missing from the floors. As we approach the door I hear a woman's voice lifted quietly in song. My stomach turns softly, I'm about to come face to face with the dark woman; the crazy bitch that kidnapped my lover, the psycho that claims to be some kind of sister to me.
Knocking the gun out of Otto's hands, I rush forward and bash the door open. She stands in the center of the room. She stands unclothed, covered from head to toe in his blood. Barely visible beneath the red, sheets and scrolls of runes decorate her skin. I'm too late to hide the poison. All I could do now was somehow rescue Alec while making my own escape.
Laughing madly, she stands immobile with her head thrown back. She doesn't even twitch as I shove her to the floor.
Breathe. I slide aside the curtain which separates the anteroom from her bedroom. He is almost unrecognizable for cuts, and blood and bruises. Breathe. I drop to my knees and touch my fingers against his downward tilted face. A deep moan escapes his lips, and I know he lives. Leaning towards him, I brush my lips against his. The light smacking of a footstep behind me sends me whirling to my feet. For some reason my balance is off and I almost pitch forward.
"'Drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after? I will kiss thy lips; perhaps some poison yet doth hang on them, to make me die'**. Shakespeare wrote that you know, or would you? I suppose that Manticore wasn't much for classical education. You'll enjoy that little poison, not deadly of course but it could stop a charging elephant.
Hands gripping my stomach, I sink to my knees and then the floor. I can feel nothing but the strength ebbing from me. She holds out a scalpel from her tray and advances purposefully on Alec. My body starts forward but lacks the strength to finish the motion. In one smooth motion she swipes down and cuts his bonds, then catches him in her arms as he slumps forward. With the deceptive strength of transgenic and familiar, she hoists him out of the chair.
"Say goodbye Tiger." Ignoring the fact that the window is closed, she flings him at it. Time freezes for a moment and his now open eyes catch mine. I mouth three words and he nods once. Glass shards fly at us like tiny projectiles, but she remains next to the window as if they didn't exist. "Damn it all."
"Forget about opening it first, Sister?" I put as much sneer into the words as I can manage.
"Sure sweetie, whatever you say. Now take a little nap and then we'll talk." As if by command, my head slumped to the floor and my eyelids slid closed.
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"Thank god we arrived when we did."
"Easy for you to say, you didn't half to catch his deadweight, fat ass."
"Fat Biggs?"
"Come on CeCe, I say he hasn't been working out lately."
"Hey, I think he's coming around."
"He's just been mumbling, same thing over and over again. I can't make out the words though. Give him another couple hours and maybe we'll get something coherent out of him."
I heard them talking about me, but I had yet to fight my way through the fog that still surrounded me. She'd said it; I know it wasn't a hallucination. Just before I'd fallen into Biggs less than accommodating arms, she'd caught my glance. I finally had what I wanted, I had love. Now I had to live long enough to get her back.
**The quote is from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
