Little Hunter
Nanku rolled her shoulders.
Dusk and Dawn were rested and healed. Eager. Ready to fly and hunt. They'd gotten fidgety the past few days and it was becoming a constant expenditure of focus to contain them.
Nanku was more tired of it than her lingering aches.
She rolled her shoulder again. Her ribs still throbbed, but not enough to stop her. Her thigh still stung but the flesh and muscle were healing. With the addition of her own medicines to increase cell growth, she was about as good as she could stand to be.
Dusk and Dawn weren't the only ones tired of lying around waiting.
Nanku slid her armor into place. Checked her weapons. Donned her mask.
She took a breath and activated her cloak.
Dusk and Dawn went ahead. The pair leaving to skitter about or go for a brief flight at night wasn't strange. Nanku made sure it happened often enough.
They managed to get out of the kennel without drawing much attention.
Nanku crept up the stairs silently.
Cassie and Rachel were watching TV, and Cassie was groaning.
"You know," she sighed, "I never considered how the Crusades can be viewed as a direct consequence of the economic and social development of Western Europe. A product of the recovery of complex institutions that restructured themselves in the wake of the Western Empire's collapse and the recovery of renewed Christianized social orders."
"Mhm," Bitch replied.
"You actually enjoy this?"
"Yes."
Cassie yawned. "Well, I'll leave you to it. I'm going to bed."
"Night."
"Night."
Cassie rose and left. The dogs were so used to Nanku's coming and going they paid her presence no mind. Nothing appeared out of place.
The girl strolled by with a hand over her mouth and proceeded to her room.
Bitch waited. And waited. And as soon as the door closed she grabbed the remote and changed the channel to Paw Patrol.
Nanku waited and watched a moment.
As Bitch relaxed and became absorbed in watching the talking dogs talk several of her own canines swarmed her. They piled near the couch though only Angelica was allowed onto the furniture.
Nanku slipped away quietly and crept out the door.
Dusk and Dawn flew low overhead and Nanku quickly ran away from the kennel. West toward the mountains first, and then south along the highway. She hitched a ride on a truck and brought Dusk and Dawn down to keep them from being seen.
They went into the city. Carefully. Through alleys and darting across roads when necessary. It was sufficiently late but the city was never deserted or quiet.
Nanku didn't need anyone noticing her.
Not tonight.
The final stretch to her target was dangerous. The streets were packed. People came and went even at the late hour. Any of them seeing her would call the PRT and they weren't very far away.
In and out. Quietly.
The greatest risk was vaulting onto the roof. With a garage to one side, a lot to another, and windows all around, Nanku prioritized speed. She sprinted across the roof of the best vantage point and leaped into the air. Dusk swung low with an outstretched limb and Nanku swung from it to Dawn's and from Dawn's to the roof.
She struck the gravel-covered rooftop hard and rolled. Her cloak flickered but the camera over the door was looking the other way.
In a security room on the other side of the building, neither of the observing guards reacted to her landing.
Dusk landed on a roof overlooking the parking area. Dawn slid into place on a fire escape where she could watch the front of the building and quickly move to the roof if need be. There were multiple ways in and out of the building and Nanku wasn't worried about that part.
Finding what she needed was going to be hard.
But it was worth trying.
Nanku settled to wait, however long it took.
Night could be a living thing. The play of light and shadow. Usually it was just clouds and stars and moons. In a place like Brockton Bay, it was head and street lights. Flashing signs. Signals.
Shadows danced back and forth.
…
She really was that bored?
Nanku sighed and crouched.
The wait was a wait.
Until someone came up for a smoke break. She waited nearly an hour for it to happen. Two men, both speaking to one another. Her swarm in the building showed the rest of the stairwell clear and no one was approaching.
About forty men and women were inside. Most clustered in a dozen rooms or scattered in offices.
When the rooftop door opened, Nanku slid through the door before it closed and started down the stairs.
Easy.
She had a chance to make use of her meticulous casing of the police station after all.
That was nice.
She started down the stairs. Dusk and Dawn watched the exterior. People. Cars. Lights. Shadows. Dusk turned his head one way. Nanku thought she saw something through his eyes but it was only a passing vehicle.
The swarm swept the building ahead of Nanku and she quickly identified the rooms filled with papers.
There were multiple record rooms and computers she wouldn't have easy access to. No matter. She'd do what she could.
Nanku descended to the first floor. It was the busiest and the one where she'd find the fewest chances. One presented itself as she entered the building and Nanku hurried down the halls.
The lights were dimmed in the halls. Enough to obscure the shimmer of her cloak while she passed.
Nanku let a woman carrying a box pass her and stepped into the building proper. Her hand coaxed the door closed behind her. As silently as possible.
Moving through the halls, Nanku found avoiding people easier than expected. The building was far from empty but many were in offices working at computers. It was late and only a few were coming and going.
No one to bump into in the halls. There was always another path. A way to get around them en route to her destination. When she needed to wait, she had plenty of spots to stand out of the way and out of the light.
She found the first of three large file rooms.
The sign by the door said 'organized crime.'
Gangs. Gangs did lots of things. Maybe the shipment contained drugs. Weapons. Money.
Nanku checked for cameras. There was one on either end of the hall, but the men in the security office weren't really watching. They were shooing her flies away and playing cards.
Neither camera offered a direct view of the door either way.
Quietly—certain no one was approaching or watching—Nanku pushed the door open and slipped inside.
She quickly wondered if there was even time enough to waste on the exercise.
The room was full of cabinets. Two computers to one side and some other machines. Both were locked and she couldn't open them. That left the files.
And searching through them did save some time.
2010. 2012. 2013.
All the files were marked for the last few years. Maybe they weren't all open or closed or active. Whatever the term was, but they were recent. A case from the time of her father's death wasn't present.
Nanku left the room. She continued on her way. At the stairs she waited as a pair of men came down and went up after them.
The next room was at the corner of the building. Long and narrow compared to the first. 'Homicide.'
Her father was homocided.
Nanku took the chance. The cases weren't listed alphabetically. Not first. They were sorted by year, and then name. That was useful.
Nanku found the year of her father's death first. From there she found 'H' for Hebert. There were other names. Nanku peeked through them briefly. Her father died. Who else died around that time?
Keeping the building in mind and tracking the residents with her power, Nanku poked through the files one by one. Drug dealers. Criminals, a mother of three, one lawyer, and—
Nanku looked at the lawyer again.
Killed a few weeks after her father. The file was thin. No real leads developed. Stabbed like her father though. Late and night on his way to his car. Like her father.
And he worked for Medhall.
Nanku took the file and checked the rest. Nothing of interest. She took the one file that caught her eye and moved on.
The next room was on the other side of the building. Behind a large room of desks with five people inside.
Nanku made her way through the halls well enough.
Getting to the record room would be harder.
Of the room's five occupants, three were looking away. They focused on a board with names, pictures, and maps on it. Lots of paper scattered about. The stink of coffee was stronger and they were eating while they talked.
The other two were facing one another at a shared table. One could clearly see the door to the record room.
Nanku rolled her shoulders again. She ducked low, slipping into the room on silent steps and hiding her cloak's shimmer behind desks and office walls. Skirting the edges she crept as close to the door as she dared.
Then she had a fly buzz about the heads of the two men at the desk.
One yelped when the bug hit his eye. The others in the room all turned.
A bizarre brawl followed. Nanku kept flying the fly into the man, driving him from his seat and sending his hands flailing. When he batted the bug aside hard enough to daze it, Nanku struck him with another.
Soon, all five men were trying to chase the annoying insect, and Nanku led them across the room away from the door.
She hurried at her chance. Their shouting obscured her footsteps and she cracked the door to slip through.
'Narcotics.'
Drugs. Lots of crime on Earth was about drugs. If someone was transporting something in bulk in a shipping container, drugs were the obvious thing to move.
Unfortunately, the cases in the narcotics room weren't listed by year. They were sorted by gang.
Nanku searched the entire place piece by piece. She couldn't even find the Empire or the ABB. Coil had a file, but most of the cases were old. None lined up with her father's murder. Apparently, a few of his contacts were still selling drugs in Brockton Bay.
Tattletale was suspected to be the ring leader and the PRT had taken jurisdiction of the case.
The files also noted the dealers 'avoided schools, rehab centers, and hospitals like the plague.' Nanku supposed that was her mother's doing. Even Bad Bloods like the Undersiders could have a code. If some sad human wanted drugs, they could get them. But they had to go looking…
Where did the old dealers deal their drugs?
Nanku searched for the oldest cases she could find. The dealers before the Undersiders took over the city were less discerning about when and where they sold.
Unfortunately, Nanku couldn't search every file in the room.
There was too much paper. She didn't know where to start. The names and cases were all unfamiliar.
She grabbed what she could. Names. Locations. Men who were suspected to be violent or still dealing drugs in places the Undersiders didn't allow.
It was a start.
She'd uncover the entire history of drugs in Brockton Bay if that's what it took. She had the time now. The internet. The sheer will.
She wasn't going to meet her Clan on their return with only a bunch of dead Nazis and her mother's saved life to her name.
Nanku didn't take the records. Instead, she recorded as much as she could about them. So long as she got out of the police station clean, she could find her way back in. She focused her attention on groups and cases active in the Docks. Were the Travelers around back then? Ambassador—
Nanku took the file out and looked at it more closely.
From what she read, Accord had been the leader of the Ambassadors. He'd died to the Pure when they first came to the city seeking revenge. But the police reported several drug connections to his group a few months before that and found it strange.
Accord didn't like drugs and didn't tolerate a close association with them.
Either the Internet lied—possible—or maybe the death of Accord was more timely than it first seemed…
And it didn't matter.
The Ambassadors weren't in the city when her father died. They didn't do it and whatever else was going on wasn't her problem.
Nanku set the file aside and finished her work.
It was time to go.
Getting out of the building had its own trick to it. Someone coming out for a smoke got her in. It was the best way in as far as she could tell. The other entrances had more security. More minders. Technology Nanku wasn't sure she wanted to gamble on.
Even the vehicles that came and went from the garage and lots were checked.
But not the ones that left. Those weren't checked at all.
Made sense. They were more concerned about people coming in than going out.
Which was Nanku's escape plan. She'd watched the vehicles come and go often enough. She only needed to wait and see who left the building and follow them. Get ahead enough to take hold of a sufficiently large vehicle and use it to carry her out of the station.
She waited again, but not as long as before.
A man with a belly and a cup of coffee left the station with a yawn and Nanku kept pace with him. He ascended to the garage's second level and a large truck's lights flashed when he pressed a button on his keys. She got ahead of him and slipped to the passenger side of the vehicle. Waited until he opened his door and started to climb in.
Nanku climbed in herself. Slipped onto the truck bed and laid down.
Outside she directed Dusk and Dawn to gather and follow.
The engine started, the truck lurched, and her helpful collaborator carried her through the gate and onto the street.
Mission accomplished. She'd gotten what she needed and out without a problem.
…
She'd actually gotten out without a problem.
That was a change of pace.
And a shadow moved. To spite her.
Nanku flew Dawn over the moving shadow. The truck turned and the shadow turned with it.
Fucking perfect.
Nanku waited for the truck to lurch and rolled out of the bed. She landed between the truck and another vehicle. Rolled back. Rushed across the street and into an alley. She had Dusk and Dawn continue following the truck.
The shadow followed them and Nanku scrambled her way up onto the rooftops as soon as it passed.
With a twitch, her plasma caster swung down over her shoulder. She vaulted the edge of the roof and flicked a shuriken out. She threw the weapon and readied a spear with her other hand.
Dusk and Dawn swerved in the air, swinging back and flying directly for the shadow.
The woman emerged from the dark, a large crossbow in one hand.
She braced herself and took aim at Dawn.
The whirl of the shuriken drew her ear and she burst into a swirling black mist before the blades struck. When she reformed, Nanku slammed a knee into her back and toppled her.
Shadow Stalker burst again.
Nanku snarled behind her mask and cursed herself for thinking she'd gotten out without a problem.
She needed to stop stabbing before sharpening her blades.
When the mist reformed, Shadow Stalker faced Nanku.
"Jesus!" she pointed the crossbow with one hand and raised the other. "Truce, bitch! Calm down!"
Everyone and their attempts to command her.
"No."