Sara easily flipped up to the fifth floor balcony where the meeting was supposed to take
place, privately pleased at the lack of light coming from the skies above. She stood there for a few
seconds, breathing deeply, and then decided to wait the ten minutes for her client to appear by sitting
down in one of the plush chairs that had been set up on the balcony. Finally, the doors to the interior
of the building opened, and a large man stepped out onto the balcony.
He was impeccably dressed in a business suit, and oddly enough, sunglasses. Sara instantly
classified him as 'government agent'. Closing the door behind him, he looked around, confused, as
there seemed to be nothing on the balcony though the motion sensors had gone crazy ten minutes
ago. As he shrugged and turned to go back into the balcony, Sara stood up, reached over to the
person, and firmly grabbed his right shoulder. "Going somewhere? I believe you have a mission for
me, and I'm not the type who likes going anywhere without a damn good reason."
The man, extremely surprised, spun around and stared at the blank facade of Sara's armour.
He finally managed to regain his composure, pulling out a small flashlight and sitting down next to
a table, which was covered in papers. Sara walked over to the papers, and, using the flashlight, read
all the information on her objective. *Okay. About five-three, female, black hair, gold eyes. No
picture though. That might be a problem.*
Straightening, she looked at the man. "So, what's your angle? I see no reason why I shouldn't
rescue this person, but you've given me no reason to either."
The man sighed and looked at Sara. "She's my daughter. I haven't seen her in nineteen years,
and a few months ago I got a call from my ex-wife, saying she ran away. I decided to try and get a
hold of only hunters that know anything about rescuing people, and you were on the top of the list.
From what my ex-wife told me, my daughter's being held by some psycho named Von Reichter, but
I have no leads on that name."
Sara sighed, folded her arms, and nodded. "All right. I'll do what I can, and at a discount. Ten
thousand a week, no negotiation."
The man, surprised at the price, nodded, thinking how lucky he was. "Deal."
Sara smiled, knowing exactly what sort of price tag he was going to pay. "I'm not done yet.
Canadian funds, small denomination, genuine money. See ya." Sara leaped off the edge of the
balcony, spinning around in midair so she landed on the building across the street facing back toward
the balcony. She waved once, and then turned, disappearing into the gloom surrounding the city's
nightlife.
________________________
Jacinta gathered her thick black hair and tied it back. No sense in having it fly around when
she was practising with a sword. That done, she walked over to the sword rest in the sparring room
and picked up the shorter of the two blades currently lying on it. Deftly, she unsheathed it and held
the wakizashi steadily in front of her. She took a deep breath and concentrated only on the sword and
only on that moment. Nothing else mattered right now. Just let everything go...
________________________
Sara cursed under her breath, having had no luck at all in her search for the girl. Sighing to
herself as she sat on a rooftop, her armour shut down to its basic leotard form, Sara leaned back and
looked at the night sky. "Why is it that I always accept the difficult missions? Well, it's not really for
the money. I'd rather see the look on their faces when they get reunited."
Sara sighed again, stretched slowly, and stood up. Reactivating her armour, Sara then hopped
along the rooftops to the waterfront, deciding to look through the red-light district as an almost-worst
case scenario. Muttering under her breath, Sara soon smiled when she thought of her last visit to the
district, which ended with a dozen pimps and enforcers cradling broken bones.
Sara stopped on the border of the district, and, throwing her head back, she laughed, feeling
a lot better than she did twenty minutes ago.
________________________
*Ugh. The air in here is too close.* Jacinta thought to herself, lowering the blade. She
glanced at the window. *Hmm . . . outside could be better. The fresh air would help me concentrate.*
Picking up the saya on the floor, she resheathed the blade and made her way over to the heavy
oak door that lead to the much unused back lawn. The breeze on her face was a welcomed bit of
freedom.
*That's better.* The sword flashed again as the saya came off for the second time and was
tossed carelessly aside. She held it in front of her and absently blew away a stray strand of hair. *All
right. NOW focus.*
The blade whistled as it sliced through the thick, tropical air. Jacinta's mind went through the
moves as her body acted them out: free stance, cat stance, half-front stance and over and over again
until she was satisfied. Her newly engineered muscles, at first clumsy, now flowed easily under her
skin like a dancer's.
*I'm getting better, I think. I'm not doing too badly considering that I only started doing this
almost six months ago.*
Sara grimaced as she finished her roofhopping through the redlight district for the second
time, wondering how in hell it could be so difficult to find a lone person in the middle of a city with
a population of about three million, give or take a few hundred greenskins. Finally giving up after
wrapping an enforcer's left arm around his head with a half-dozen extra joints.
Sara headed back to the centre of the city, deciding to relax by looking out over the place by
sitting on the city's guardian for a little while. She did so, looking outwards as she noticed the skies
beginning to get lighter around her. Sighing to herself, Sara mentally reviewed the list of features
the girl had, and decided that it would be easiest if she just focussed on the eyes for now. After all,
there might be all of three people in the city with gold eyes, and how many of them were about
twenty?
Twenty minutes later, Sara had decided to check out the faint gleam of light she had seen
south of the city, and was using the massive trees in the jungle as springboards to allow her to get
close to the slowly brightening area in front of her. Finally, Sara broke out of the underbrush and
found herself standing on a well-manicured lawn, bordering an impressive Victorian-era mansion.
Looking at the imposing building, Sara saw that some windows had been boarded over, and some
shingles on the roof were beginning to fall off, but overall the place seemed to be in damn good
condition for a house that had been left in the middle of the jungle for who knows how many years.
Listening carefully, and tuning out the background noise from the jungle at her back, Sara
heard several faint grunts of exertion coming from behind the immense building. Instead of going
around the mansion, Sara used the ornate cornices and windowsills to jump up to the roof,
rebounding easily between protrusions as she quickly reached the top of the building. The roof, none
too pleased at having something standing on it, creaked dangerously as she dashed up to the top of
the slanted construction. Looking down at the mansion's back yard, Sara grimaced as she saw the
back of the building was in much worse shape than the front. A swimming pool, once
Olympic-sized, was half-full of dirt, leaves, and scum, and standing next to the pool was a girl,
holding a short blade.
Sara watched as the girl went through several stances and types of attacks, and smiled as she
recognised most of them as part of a kendo style that focussed on shorter blades. As Sara watched
the girl's fighting style, she noticed something else. The girl's eyes were a striking gold hue, almost
seeming to glow, as the girl suddenly spun around and looked straight up at her. Sara, who had been
crouching, stood up to her full height, slowly pulling her massive dagger out of its boot sheath as she
did so. Slowly, she flipped the big blade over, letting the tip of the blade face upwards, instead of
the more defensive stance Sara usually preferred.
________________________
Jacinta gasped as her eyes fell on the dark figure on the rooftop. It was a woman with long
red hair, tall and amazingly thin. She was dressed all in black and was armed to the teeth. Jacinta
watched carefully, not daring to move as the woman pulled a long, deadly-looking knife from her
boot and held it up.
*Shit! Why had I come out here? And where were those bloody Fixed Ideas when you
needed them?* She narrowed her eyes, glancing at the door, glanced again at the woman, and tried
to judge if she could make a quick dash inside and warn Jose. But he had to have known something
was wrong by now, with all the surveillance systems he had.
Jacinta then went for the next best approach. She shouted up at the dark clad woman, hoping
for a response that was not involving the vicious-looking knife. "Who are you?"