Little Hunter

She didn't have to look far.

It was late in the summer. Lots of more affluent families likely left Brockton Bay for elsewhere. More than just the Bakeman family. From what Nanku could tell, half the neighborhood wasn't present. Houses were empty, some longer than others.

Using her wristblades, she carefully extended one house's dog door and stepped back. Dusk and Dawn passed through the opening. Through them, Nanku searched the house until she found a girl's room. The girl was definitely shorter than Nanku, but they were close enough in dimensions.

Nanku chose not to think about how the only pairs of underwear she could find were all pink.

It's not like anyone would see them.

It was unavoidable. She wasn't going to waste weeks of time banging her head against trees trying to find answers carefully asked questions could get her.

With the twins retrieving the garments, Nanku additionally searched and found a backpack well suited for hiking and heavy loads. She could store her arms and armor inside when needed. The straps and arms might make it suitable for fixing to Dusk or Dawn as well.

Bringing the spoils out, Nanku stashed the clothes into the pack and checked the sky.

Dusk and Dawn would be far easier to notice in the day, but the sun started setting quickly nearer to winter. It was already going down and taking the daylight with it.

Nanku waited another thirty minutes and got going.

Activating her cloak and sending the twins into the sky, she trekked back into Brockton Bay.

With a computer, searching Goggle Maps was much easier. The mall for Emma's show and the police station weren't far apart. She could go to one from the other in just a few minutes. Plenty of places afforded a chance to quietly change into normal human clothes and hide her armor and most of her weapons—a hunter should never be completely unarmed.

And maybe it would be better to practice blending in sooner instead of later.

***

She checked on the police station first.

Part of Nanku was certain she could be in and out easily, but that would be reckless. Slow and steady.

She sat on a roof with Dusk and Dawn resting on either side of her.

A block away and across a street, Nanku's insects scurried and scampered. Underfoot. Around desks and chairs. Through cracks and vents. Her bio-mask filtered through several visual spectrums and modes before she settled on one that offered her a good thermal layout of the building.

Between the two, observing the entire structure wasn't hard.

Just time-consuming.

Little had changed since her first look, and that was good. The security didn't cycle or alter basic routines. She only needed to memorize the patterns. Identify the right time to enter, the right place to enter from, and the best path to follow to be in and out unnoticed.

Simple, if not for the scale of the den.

The police station was a brick building with dirty windows on most of the upper floors. Vintage on the outside but modernized and expanded throughout. Seven stories with two levels of basements and a pair of adjoining buildings. Her first challenge was identifying which rooms she wanted. There were several record rooms and multiple server rooms for computers.

Which had what she wanted?

If only the bugs native to Earth had better eyesight.

There was a loading dock with trucks and vans, as well as a parking garage. Looking around, the cameras covering those entries from the interior of the building were less solid. If she could find a vehicle to stow away on or in, she might be able to get inside. That left only the challenge of getting out but out would be easier than in if she could get in undetected.

Storming the place was an option, but not one Nanku was eager to immediately resort to.

She might startle someone or something she didn't want startled.

"If only it were as simple as making a hole in a wall and letting you grab what I want." She scratched at the back of Dawn's head. "We could do that."

The local enforcers did somehow blame the R'ka on a cape. She'd have to keep up her observations before she tried anything. At least for a few days.

At the moment, she needed to intercept Emma's show.

It was time to practice wearing a very different kind of mask.

The mall wasn't far, and she found it easily. A large building with multiple smaller buildings inside. Like someone took a set of strip malls that already existed, made them prettier, and then build walls and a roof around the entire thing.

The parking lot was the size of a small forest and a complete eyesore.

Nanku missed the woods already, but she was where she was. Complaining achieved nothing… Neither did putting things off.

Finding a quiet corner absent people, doors, windows, or cameras, wasn't hard.

Once at ground level, Nanku uneasily stripped out of her armor. She placed each piece together as they should be, and arranged her weapons properly.

Then, she donned the human clothing piece by piece.

This was a new feeling. A weird feeling.

Dusk and Dawn shifted around her, apparently as uncomfortable with the clothes as she was.

She'd never put much thought into how little her armor covered—vitals only really—and how naked she felt fully clothed.

The human garments were thin and frail. Nanku doubted they could stop a pinprick, let alone anything truly dangerous. Bras were terrible. The straps bit into her skin and lacked any of the padding or comfort of simply wrapping her chest in cloth. She'd considered wearing human clothes under her armor once the weather turned cold, but no.

No, she'd need a different solution for that problem.

The Yautja habit of wearing little to nothing had been weird years ago, but she'd grown comfortable enough in it. This was too much.

With a breath, Nanku reached for her temple. A hiss echoed in her ear as the plug for her mask. The visor winked out with a soft ping, and the connection ended. It wasn't something she normally noticed. The implant only translated simple mental commands to the computer in her equipment.

It felt very distinct as she removed her mask from her face and set it down with the rest of her armor.

She looked over the items, all of them earned through struggle and triumph. Her achievements. Things she'd done to prove herself worthy.

And without her mask the city smelled so much worse.

Nanku removed one simple palm-sized disk from the lot and slipped it into her pant pocket. The item was innocuous enough, and she'd practiced using it without her mask for support. It would do in an emergency.

The rest of her armor and weapons went into the backpack that formerly held the clothes.

"Dawn."

She dropped to the ground.

With her power, Nanku guided Dawn into standing upright. She couldn't maintain the balance for long but long enough to slip the backpack over her arms. Using the straps, Nanku secured the bag in a way that wouldn't obstruct Dawn's flight or limbs.

Then she checked it thrice to be sure the contents were secure and wouldn't fall out.

And that the bag wouldn't slip free.

"Take care of me." Naku scratched Dawn's jawline with both hands. "Careful."

The bug chirped in response, spread her wings, and flew back onto the roof where Dusk waited.

Nanku shuddered uneasily and punched her own side.

She wasn't a child. She wasn't ten anymore. Even if Emma turned right around and called her mother, no one could shut her in a room anymore. She wouldn't let them.

Turning on her heel, Nanku marched out to the street and adjusted her braids. She undid just one, enough that the hair would hand down over her temple and obscure her implant. Then she set a few to hand over her brow and tucked them behind her ear.

Easy enough camouflage.

Nanku turned a corner.

The light and sound of the street lay ahead. Nanku didn't expect light and sound to be so distressing. It poked at her. Left her needling in uncertainty. The clothes were no armor. The open was no place for a hunter.

She kept going. Her father was dead. The kids from the camp were dead. Someone had to pay. She wouldn't find them hiding from her own face.

A chill ran up her spine as she entered the light.

The street was loud. The roar of engines and the echo of countless footsteps.

She stood stiffly. This was nothing like her cloak. She wasn't invisible. She could be seen.

Another woman gave her a passing glance but kept walking. A man leered far below where her eyes were. He kept walking when she glared at him. Two girls her own age gave her hair raised brows, but Nanku ignored them. She didn't care about any fashion trends.

She had a job to do.

And she was far too stiff. Stiff like her first day in her first set of armor.

Her eyes swept the street. She looked at the people around her. The way they walked and stood.

She'd gotten good at mimicry.

One hand in her pant pocket—she picked the one containing her shuriken—the other at her side. Shoulders relaxed. Legs shoulder width apart. She straightened her back and held her head high. Like she was just trying to get somewhere.

While Nanku focused on looking normal, she moved Dusk and Dawn toward the edge of the roof. Their eyes supplemented the bugs she tagged people with and allowed her to know if anyone was paying her undue attention. People still looked at her but only with passing glances. Those who looked longer were mostly men.

Pe'dte did say males had a one-track mind.

Universal truth.

The looks relented once she joined the crowd at the corner of the street. Everyone gathered before the lights waiting, but most watched their phones or talked to the person beside them. They were casually dressed for the most part, a few looking tired and on their way home.

None of them paid her much mind.

This plan might actually work.

Watching the lights, Nanku moved with her as a white hand flashed. The mall was surrounded by smaller, less elaborate rows of stores, all crowded with people. A lot more people than it looked like from above. Just a forest of them.

Dusk and Dawn flew overhead at her command, her power directing them from roof to roof and ledge to ledge. She'd gathered a subtle swarm in the surrounding block and directed all the insects to keep an eye on everyone.

She stuck to crowds, moving from the back of one pack to another swiftly and quietly. A few people noticed her, but they only gave looks before moving on. Good enough for a first time.

Raising her head toward the doors, Nanku read the words 'Brockton Bay Area Mall'

Her head lowered as the doors opened, and she was assailed by obnoxious mall music. Did human musicians always sound like dying animals? She didn't remember it that way.

Nanku paused through the doors, taking a moment to look around and realizing she wasn't sure where she wanted to go. The name of the store was Needlepoint, but there were dozens of stores in the mall. Bugs alone weren't enough to read all the signs and locations.

Fortunately, there was a map.

And a helpful arrow reading 'you are here.'

It took Nanku a moment to find the right store. The map separated them by type, and it was near the bottom of the listed clothing stores. With a letter and number to identify it.

Reading the map correctly took a bit more time. The mall had two levels and a few basement areas with more stores and restaurants. Thinking back, there was nothing like it when she was a child.

And the building was packed.

She'd been surprised by how many people there seemed to be outside, but inside the mall, there were even more without the street or the road to spread them out.

There was a crowd bigger than the others, however. They came together before a store near the center of the mall. It was two stories, covering the lots above and below one another and connected by a stairway. Despite that, it seemed smaller, or rather, more empty.

There were far fewer clothes inside, and those that were there were dresses, gowns, and ensembles. They were nice, Nanku supposed. They looked expensive. Like the sort of thing she'd see in a movie.

The store itself seemed closed. A stage was set out on the first floor. Men in suits surrounded it, separating people with lens boxes—cameras, Nanku realized—from the crowd around the platform.

Emma's profile had said it would be a show.

While the store appeared closed, it wasn't empty. A dozen women were inside on the second floor. Shutters had been closed to separate the space from the rest of the mall, and most of them were in states of undress.

A flash of red—only visible to a spider living behind one of the cabinets—caught Nanku's attention.

Raising her head, Nanku crept back from the stage and went toward the nearest set of stairs. Through the insects, she could see the layout of the mall. All the walls, halls, doors, and windows. Dusk and Dawn flew onto the roof and landed out of sight, their heads tracking Nanku as she left the open causeway of the mall behind.

She waited in a side hall by a restroom. A door across the hall marked 'employees only' stood shut, but she'd seen a man pass through simply by opening it.

Nanku waited, observing until another employee—a woman in a hat with a clipboard—came out.

Once the woman passed, Nanku quickly crossed the hall and slid through the door.

The hall beyond was cold and built of concrete. Not a very welcoming space but more authentic. She preferred it.

Following the layout of the building, she ascended a flight of stairs, cross a storage space, and came to a back door into the shop.

She wouldn't enter or be seen.

She only wanted to be sure.

Edging the door open quietly, Nanku moved inside another storage space.

The voices carried from the room. Women, young and airy.

One stood out.

"—say that she shouldn't be in the show. I said she should actually show up to rehearse if she wants to be in the show!"

Nanku kept herself silent as she moved around toward an open doorway. A counter was ahead, with a register and bags stacked atop it. The girls were all near the center of the room, hidden among a maze of mirrors, clothes racks, and changing screens.

"We had three meetings for this," the voice said. "We all showed up! Where the hell was she?"

"She's dealing with stuff," another girl said.

"We're all dealing with stuff! Dealing with stuff is life, deal with it! She didn't show up for the rehearsals, and now she's not showing up again, and she's saying that something came up? No. She's lying her fat ass off. She's probably drunk again."

"We don't know—"

"Oh, we definitely know," a third voice said.

Nanku didn't care. She moved the spider closer. It wasn't perfect, but they were the best cluster of eyes she had.

"Maybe we should call her," a guy said. "You know. Make sure she's—"

"After the show. We have a job to do. Remember?"

The spider crawled atop one of the dividers and looked down.

Nanku's lips parted. "Emma."

Memories came rushing up.

Playing with sheets tied around their collars. Shopping. Silent pleading for Emma to say something as Annette dragged her away. She'd been angry at the time, but they were ten. What was Emma supposed to do that Aunt Zoe couldn't?

She looked a lot like her mother now.

She was taller and curvier, and half-naked, but Nanku still recognized her hair. Long and brilliantly red. Her cheeks were pronounced, and her eyes green. She'd always been pretty.

"We got the first run?" Emma pointed at a standing rack of clothes. "These ones here?"

"That's them. Where is Parian?"

"She's busy," a girl sitting off to the side said. Her hair was long and black, bound behind her head in a braid. "She'll be here before the show starts."

"Cape business?" Emma asked.

"Just dealing with a supplier. It's mundane."

"Just curious." Emma looked at a piece of paper and fetched one of the dresses from the rack. "Her work's impeccable as always."

The other girl smiled. "I'll let her know you approve."

Nanku lingered for a moment, listening. Thinking.

Not here. Too many questions would be asked. Better to engineer an encounter outside with fewer people around.

Enough delays. It was time to start asking questions.

She needed to find her mother.