Chapter 3: A New York Minute
The weather was turning. Steam boiled out of the sewer grates and manholes as if a volcano were about to erupt beneath the city.
The night life was in full swing and business was especially good tonight. Vinnie Doyle had been a bouncer at Flanagan's Bar for seven years, he's seen it all, done it all, tonight was no different. Earlier in the evening, the night's act, a minor celebrity singer had arrived and they had moved her equipment via the back door down the alley.
It had been Vinnie's job to clear the way, in recent weeks a homeless camp had formed in the alley, normally it didn't bother anyone, but tonight it needed to be gone, so he'd made sure it was, after he'd given the first few some "Persuasion" the rest had packed up their tents and gone.
The street was busy and the night would be long, he greeted a group of ladies obviously on a Hen Night with his usual charm. Beside him were his long time fellow door staff, they had worked doors all over the city together, Jack Reardon and Eddie Dawes, while Big Donnie "Lurch" Orchard was inside with the boss. Richie "Blue" Ryan could be a bit of a live wire, but for the most part, he was a good employer, even got plenty of off the books work as enforcers for his other enterprises around the city.
It was shaping up to be a good night, there was only one thing bothering him as he kept a wary eye across the street. One of the homeless guys, a guy with a false leg and left hand, who had required some persuasion to move on had moved across the street and was sitting by himself, apparently licking his wounds. He'd been given a broken nose by jack who had taken his false hand and put it above the bar. Crazy fucker deserved it for mouthing off like that, I don't give a fuck if he claimed to be a vet Vinnie thought.
"Watch out lads, at some point, we're gonna get a do-gooder with a camera" Vinnie said to the others "Ahh, don't worry, we'll tell him what we told the other mouthy fucker, maybe I'll get another hand out of it" Jack came back, and the three of them chuckled together as Vinnie stamped his feet and blew into his cupped hands.
One young man and woman had already been over to the homeless man and had their phones out. He seemed to be trying to wave them off, good for him, he didn't wanna lose anything else tonight if he knew what was good for him.
The woman who was with the homeless man had gone off somewhere and returned with a Band-Aid for him "Ahh look that's nice" said Eddie "She brought the monthly fucker a plaster" The three of them shared a laugh.
It wasn't something they went out of their way to do, but he had spouted some crazy shit at them and needed putting in his place, they'd ended up cutting him out of his tent and giving him the business before moving him and his woman on out of they alley, the rest had followed without much persuasion.
Just then, as the woman helped him and the young couple were asking if they were ok, Vinnie noticed something in the adjacent alley across the street next to where he was sitting. A manhole began to move and then detach.
Vinnie watched the crowd but kept one eye across the street, something was brewing. A manhole shifted aside at the mouth of an alley across the street and a man emerged, not big or broad, but looked younger with a cut figure. Vinnie couldn't yet see his face as he was hooded and appeared to be wearing a cloth face mask with a white Guy Fawkes smile pattern.
The man looked like a hobo, but didn't carry himself like one, he carried himself with conviction and certainty, like a fighter "Lads, keep an eye over there, I think we might have trouble" Vinnie said. Jack grunted in response, that was enough for Vinnie to know he got the message.
As Vinnie watched, the man leaned down and spoke to the older man for a minute at the end of which, sure enough, the older man made a gesture in his direction and the younger man turned and looked at him. Even from across the street, under a hood, the man possessed a stare that Vinnie would never admit out loud, sent a chill up his spine.
Vinnie shook it off and readied himself as the younger man patted the older hobo on the shoulder and walked confidently across the street, making a b-line straight for him. As he approached Vinnie, and moved away from the young man across the street who was obviously filming, he swept back his hood and pulled off the face mask that was covering the lower part of his face.
The guy looked strange, he had short brown hair, shaved at the sides, like he did it himself, stretching from his right temple to down behind his right ear and running down to the back of his head was an intricate Celtic swirl pattern tattoo. Vinnie also noted his odd eyes, one deep blue and the other a striking green, the scar on his left cheek could only have come from a knife. As the man got closer still, Vinnie spotted a very distinctive scar on his neck that looked like a bullet wound. He looked tough, but he was still half the size of any one of them.
"Excuse me" the guy said politely as he approached Vinnie "Yeah, what do you want?" Vinnie said as noted that everything this man seemed out of place, definitely one of the crazies from below the streets. The guy whipped out an obviously broken phone with a cracked screen "What the fuck are you doing?".
The guy held up the phone like he was recording but Vinnie could plainly see he was literally playing make-believe, the screen was cracked beyond repair and the phone was busted.
"I believe you and your colleagues had an altercation with my friend across the street earlier this evening, I'd like to make a complaint, to whom may I direct it?" The guy spoke in a polite tone and didn't raise his voice. Vinnie noted another thing, his English accent, not the posh kind, it had more of a regional cadence, but another thing he hadn't expected.
Vinnie knew when he was being punked and decided that enough was enough, time to end this before it went anywhere.
"You can direct your complaint to my balls, boy, now fuck off back down your hole, before I grind your bones to make my bread", Vinnie grinned, prompting a chuckle from Eddie, Jack and a few waiting patrons before turning back to managing the crowd "You, legs, you're in… go on" Vinnie said to a gorgeous young woman as she strode up and straight into the bar.
"I like that one" The English guy continued "That's good, I didn't realise they put Charles Dickens in colouring books".
Enough was enough, Vinnie stepped to the guy "Listen, you wanna be a mouthy fucker like your crusty friend over there, you'll get what he…" Vinne didn't finish the sentence, because the guy calmly flicked open his hand and let the phone fall on the floor, naturally Vinnie's eyes followed the phone down.
Only when he saw it hit the floor with a plastic clatter, in that split second, did Vinnie know he'd made a grave mistake, for the next thing he saw was an open hand palm strike come straight up into his nose.
A wet crack and immense pain sent his head snapping backward. Several more blows and Vinnie felt the ground come up hard to the back of his head. Everything after that was a daze.
The hooded man took a knee at the bottom of the ladder and centred himself, taking time to focus his senses, his strength and his acuity, soon he would go above ground and do what some would say, he did best, but they didn't know him, not really, only one could claim that, and he was here doing this, to prevent what he knew would be a bloodbath if she became involved.
He focused on his breathing, deep and slow, the sound of the pipes around him, the city above him, the footfalls on the street, the passing vehicles, the people. His mind saw the city in the photo-negative, but living things pulsed bright and vibrant.
He saw them as aspects, tones against a dark backdrop, as they moved to and fro about their lives, their moods and individual dispositions, an open book to him. He focused his mind and visualised the street above, the layout, the ingress points and egress points, potential hazards and processes needed for success in what he was about to do.
He had had many names in his life, the first he was given was Connar Braden, and it had taken him a long, painful road to reclaim it.
At the age of twelve, he was taken by the Institute, where "Project Morrigan" had given him a new name, R-23, and forced him into a new way of life, more regimented, more brutal, more challenging. Training his body and his mind for a war in the shadows.
He was one of many children taken from their families, their homes, or disappeared off the streets and forced into the regime of that project. They all had one thing in common, they were The Sighted, individuals gifted with extrasensory abilities beyond the range of any normal human mental or sensory capacity.
His own abilities extended into the empathic and telepathic range with a limited Remote Viewing capability. It had made him a good living as a kid, travelling the length and breadth of the English and Irish countryside, reading people's fortunes at fairs and shows, he would paint a more accurate picture of someone's life than a simple con artist.
The Project had crafted Sighted children such as him into world class Operators and sent them out into the world. Some became "Shadows". Assigned to high profile individuals and used their abilities to assist during negotiations, as well as preventing harmful outside influences in the psychic range, and also assassination attempts.
Others, like him, were sent out as Spies and Assassins, known as "Whispers" using their abilities for infiltration, espionage, search and destroy.
Many of them, himself included, had eventually jumped ship, seeing greater opportunities in hiring themselves out as contractors to the highest bidder. To governments and crime syndicates they were valuable, to rogue states and terrorist organisations they were gold dust.
Give a Whisper a name, and the bearer of that name wasn't long for the world. Eventually, due to this, the original project had been shut down due to changing opinions within the government, not to mention the internal chaos caused by so many active Shadows and Whispers departing in a short space of time. He hadn't been the first to escape, but what started as a trickle, quickly became a flood.
There was a time, not too long ago, when he had been known by reputation, as one of the world's deadliest Wetwork Operatives. Operating under call signs such as "Raven-23", "The Jäger" and, his last and most infamous call sign, The "Hooded Crow". He would often disguise himself among a city's homeless population for reconnaissance and hide in plain sight with other disguises as he drew near to a target, then strike. A wolf in sheep's clothing.
All that ended rather violently six years ago, but he had fought to heal himself, and then his new, more quaint life as a "Fixer" had begun on the streets of New York City. It sometimes required a return to his old ways, but not too often, from street level, he knew the moves of all the big syndicates and most of the smaller, street level gangs. It made him a tidy living which he was happy to share with others.
As a lifestyle choice, it was nomadic, and wasn't much of a change from what he was used to, having grown up on the move, as was the way of someone born into the traveller's tradition.
He had gotten to know the homeless community over the years, their stories, their troubles, and them as people. So when he'd heard that a group of overzealous bouncers had beaten and stolen a prosthetic hand from former Army Ranger Jesse Ozwald, a man in his fifties with three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan under his belt, and also threatened his girlfriend Rebecca "Doc" Leland, who was a former Doctor until she got into gambling debts and drowned her sorrows in alcohol when she couldn't recover her reputation.
It was a popular bar in a busy part of the city, so there had been no argument, he was going to deal with it. He knew that if he didn't, eventually word would reach Nikki, she also liked Jesse, and if she came up here to confront these guys, things had the potential to get real ugly, real fast. Whereas he was going to deal with the bouncers and retrieve the prosthetic, Nikki could be impossible to predict, even for him, especially when roused to violence.
Nicole "Nikki" Toombs, not her real name, wasn't like other people… any other people, and sometimes, when provoked, she had a tendency to become… volatile.
Many people knew the urban legend of the "Angel of Vermin", few knew her to be real, of those few, only a handful knew what she looked like up close, and even fewer knew her personally. It was only he, who knew her true secret, her real name, and the fact that she was something other than human. An Urban Legend that actually turned out to be true.
To him, Nikki Toombs was an angel in every sense. Years before, she had dragged him out of his own personal cold, blood drenched hell and saved his life. Her reasons for doing so were her own, but the incident, and what followed, had helped him see just how very wrong his life had gone, and as he rebuilt himself below the streets, he'd re-evaluated his decisions. Her actions had caused that monumental shift and, overtime, she had come to mean so much more to him.
He visualised the street above and his "Targets" sizing them up. Large, strong, heavy, comfortable with violence, easy to provoke. Meaning that force, pressure application and precise mass control would be needed to overcome them. His senses were aligned, his heartbeat steady, his muscles tight and his abilities sharp, he stood, reached out and put his foot on the ladder.
The English guy's attack had been so swift and out of the blue, Eddie barely had time to register what happened, before he knew it, big Vinnie, one of the toughest guys he knew, was down for the count, his nose, cheekbone and jaw completely smashed.
Eddie had been several feet away working the line to the door, Jack had been nearest, he hadn't fared much better, he'd rounded on the guy and taken a mighty swing, hitting only air as the guy to side-stepped in one fluid motion, catching Jack's swing, twisting the bigger man's hand back and in the same fluid move, flipping himself up bodily to hook both legs around Jack's neck.
Before Eddie could reach them, the English guy had bowled Jack over and busted his head on the sidewalk like a melon before rolling free from the unconscious man.
The English guy's momentum had continued, after rolling free of Jack he went into a crouch, to pounce at Eddie's mid section, knocking him off balance and bringing him down to the ground.
Eddie, now laying flat on his back, couldn't bring up a full punch, reaching up to grab the guy's face only for him to take control of his hand with a painful pressure point, and tear his central tendon, splitting Eddie's hand right down the middle.
Eddie screamed in agony, and almost didn't register that the English guy had grabbed his other hand and was preparing to tear that one too "You've got another one, now where's the fucking hand?"
He yanked on his fingers back and forth, causing Eddie to spasm in pain "Where!" his voice was icy calm. "Inside…. above the fucking bar". "See how easy that was?" the guy said. Patting him on the head like a puppy.
Eddie shimmied away as the guy stood up and all the patrons backed away, just at that moment, the Boss, Richie burst out through the doors, accompanied by Lurch.
Lurch looked around at the carnage and locked eyes on the younger man, then immediately went at him like a guided missile. The younger man didn't make a move to get out of the way of the behemoth charging at him, at the moment of impact, he simply braced a foot against Lurch's right knee, grabbed his jacked and threw himself backwards, taking the bigger man into a submissive roll.
The big man's momentum carried him over into the street where Lurch's head made a horrible crack as it bounced off the curb.
The big man's body flopped over into the road, and was immediately further impacted by a passing pizza delivery guy on a bicycle. The poor Pizza guy went over the handlebars and flew like a ragdoll into the street. Unlike Lurch, he was wearing a helmet.
Lurch was down, snoring like a drunk. "Whoopsie" The younger man uttered as he rolled free, got to his feet and made to enter the bar.
Now all that was left was Richie, the boss, and he wasn't having it, slowly pulling out his piece, a customised Czech Laugo "Alien" Gen-2 Creator Series with a competition compensator. Eddie knew all that because Richie never stopped showing it off. Richie had a thing though, he never kept the damn thing cocked, there was no round in the chamber.
Eddie had been with him too many times and seen his thing of pulling it out slowly and cocking it for effect, that worked against him now. In the time it took him to reach into his back holster, bring it round and cock it, the younger man had closed the distance, grabbed it, twisted it out of his hand and delivered a jaw-breaking pistol whip to the side of his face. Richie fell to his knees as the younger man strode past him and entered the bar.
Inside the bar, Eddie heard four shots ring out and a few moments later, the English guy emerged, amid a crowd of panicked, screaming patrons holding the homeless guy's hand.
Still over the noise, Eddie heard loud and clear as the guy leaned down to Richie and said "The man this belongs to is a war hero, and his girlfriend there, she was once a Doctor, you're guys here, they're just slabs of meat that guard a fucking doorway, as far as I'm concerned you're responsible for their actions".
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry" Richie said awkwardly with his jaw rapidly swelling. "You see them on the street, you nod your head in respect, for they are your betters, do you understand me?", "Yeah!" Richie murmured, "Do you fucking understand me?". All Richie could do was nod.
Eddie couldn't get past how icy calm the guy was throughout the whole thing. "Good" he finally said, tucking Richie's custom piece into his waistband "because if I have to come back up here and remind you, I'll stretch your dick over that fire hydrant and snap you in half".
And with that, the stranger reached over Richie and retrieved the smashed phone he'd used as a prop to get the drop on Vinnie, replaced his facemask, then stood up and made to cross the street, stopping mid way to retrieve the fallen heated bag of fresh hot pizzas the delivery guy was carrying when he hit Lurch and flew off of the bicycle. Eddie was sure he heard him utter something like "Ooh look, spoils of war" as he picked it up and crossed the street.
Luke Garcia and his girlfriend Juno Williams had been enjoying their night out when the scene unfolded, Luke, being an amateur content creator had done the only thing he could and hit the *Live button as soon as things kicked off.
They had been talking to an unfortunate homeless man named Jesse, a veteran, about the fact that the asshole bouncers across the street had beaten him up and stole his false hand earlier in the evening, Luke had been working up the courage to go over and try to put them on blast for what they did, but events quickly spiralled from there.
They had been talking to him for a few minutes when all of a sudden, a man had actually crawled up out of a manhole in an alley round the corner and came over to talk to him.
Asking him about what happened, then without any further discussion, the guy walked across the street and lay a world class beating on all three bouncers at the door. Things looked dicey for a minute when a huge guy came out and charged at him, but he'd also made short work of him, and an unfortunate bicycle delivery guy.
Then it really took a turn, the last guy pulled out a gun, a real futuristic looking thing, but the manhole guy expertly disarmed him, knocked him down, went in the bar and fired shots to clear out the venue, then walked back out with the hand, and even scooped up the fallen bag of pizzas on his way across the street.
This was epic, this was going to blow up for sure!
He kept recording, but stayed well back as the guy walked back over to Jesse, gave him back his hand, and also pulled one of the pizzas out of the bag for him and his girlfriend Rebecca, who'd been helping him.
Then, without any fanfare whatsoever, the guy just went back into the adjacent alley and began climbing back down the manhole "Hay Wait!" Luke shouted after him. The guy wore a a hood, and a face mask over his nose and mouth. He nodded in acknowledgement to Luke's call, "What's up?".
"That was amazing, who are you, man?". "Oh… I'm the Fifth Turtle, they never write about me because I keep forgetting my shell" he quipped as he lowered the bag full of Pizzas into the manhole. By Luke's side, Juno burst out laughing at the obvious reference.
Only his eyes were visible, but Luke could tell there was a mischievous grin on his face beneath the mask "Gotta run now, otherwise Master Splinter will be mad".
And with that, he pulled a two finger salute, dropped down, shut the manhole behind him and was gone, like a ghost in the night.
From that street, it was a relatively quick journey down to Terminus. Connar passed another camp on his way by and handed out all but two of the Pizzas, Nikki's favourite, a Tandoori hot, she was partial to spices. For himself, he'd found a BBQ base at the bottom of the bag that smelled great.
"Spoils of War" he chucked to himself as he entered the large, closed off area. The gutted chamber of what would have become a turn of the century deep storage warehouse beneath "Terminal City" which in turn was an abandoned subway connectivity project from the 1900's. Nobody knew about it until Nikki had cleared away some of the rubble and sequestered herself back here. That, however, was long before he came along.
Back here was one of the deepest, darkest chambers in the city, connected to a labyrinth of old service passageways, brick and stone. Nobody would come down here, and since she'd found him, he'd helped turn it into a home for her, as a way to repay her for saving his life.
Nothing was permanent down here, but he'd worked to run some pirate electricity down here and even syphoned off one of the city's water lines to get water on tap that could be heated for washing and even drinking, once thoroughly boiled, of course. There were no rats or roaches to be found anywhere near Terminus. It was as if they could sense the presence of an apex predator and stayed well away.
"Yo, you back? You get what you were looking for?" he said as he locked the big metal door that partitioned off the part of Terminus Nikki had claimed, a place where she let him stay, let him keep his weapons and armour down here, provided he didn't bring trouble her way.
Trouble was something she was perfectly capable of finding by herself. He was never under any illusion, he was at her convenience down here, these were her tunnels, her domain, her territory. Over time, however, through several trying times, they had formed a bond, and enjoyed a fun back-and-forth whenever they were together.
When they first met, she appeared cold and harsh, but over time, her true warmth had risen to the surface. She had come here from the west coast years before and nested herself into the city's dark and forbidden places, nursing a deeply broken heart and not wanting to be a part of society.
Wherever she went, however, an urban legend had sprung up in her wake, whenever she fought or killed some thug in one of the tunnels or alleys she called "hers", the people cast out by society would gravitate to those areas to seek safety. She never played into the "Angel" image or even cared about it beyond being able to collect the occasional freebie of canned food and alcohol, and she would always leave some for others.
"Pity about that place by the docks, it had a cool view, cosy little empty units on the tenth floor. Shame to see it go" he said as he lit a lamp and made his way through the space. There were still turn of the century oil lamps in this part of Terminus that were functional if you found the right mix of fuel.
Some old, salvaged furniture sat in the centre of the large space, Nikki had many "Homes" in tunnels, abandoned buildings and stations throughout the city that she could bug out to at a moment's notice, but this was her primary hideaway, she often found this stuff and dragged it down here. It was easy when you were able to lift over twenty times what the strongest human was capable of without much effort.
There was an old table with one side being held up by a stack of books by the furniture, not a lot, but enough to make it homely for her.
Curiously, on the table was something he hadn't seen before. He set the pizzas down on the table and looked over her latest finds, fully aware that anyone else caught doing this wouldn't be long for this world. Apart from the strange object, there was a flash drive attached to a cord that looked like it had been detached.
Laying next to that was a wallet and a modified Glock with a ported compensator, next to that was a small pouch full of jewellery, likely what Nikki had stashed in that building. Connar pulled out the fancy Laugo "Alien" 9mm he'd liberated from the idiot club owner and set it on the table by the other items. He'd be keeping that weapon, perfect for his skillset.
The Object was truly strange, it was in a cylindrical plastic tube marked with a biohazard symbol. It was a chitinous, triple helix shaped object with a strange bioluminescent glow that followed your hand around the tube.
"Hay Shanty, don't touch that" Nikki's voice announced from somewhere in the dark up on the higher level "That Hot Tandoori I smell?". "Bang on, now, come down get it before I get tempted, what is this thing anyway?".
Now she appeared at the railing overhead, a towel was draped around her neck and her hair was damp, "Didn't I say don't touch that? I get weird vibes off it".
He had to admit, being this close to it, so did he. It gave off a strange, and not too positive aspect. He set it down on the table and looked up. Nikki put her foot on the railing and vaulted over, down a clear two story drop, landing in the centre of the floor with a cat-like grace.
"What happened to you?" She asked, "Where'd you get the pizza bag". "Well, some arsehole bouncers punched Jesse and stole his hand, I took care of it. A Pizza delivery guy ended up as collateral damage and I wasn't gonna let them go to waste".
"Wait, back up, they did what to Jesse?" she said. Connar could see that look in her eye, and sense that anger boiling up in her "Hay, chill, Relax, like I said, I handled it, they're all on their way to the emergency room as we speak".
"What about you? I'm getting the sense you had a rough night" he asked as she came over. "Sometimes I wish you weren't so damn perceptive" she sighed as she fell into the raggedy sofa and began pulling a slice out of the box, her rhythms returning to normal as the anger subsided, but he could still sense something was bothering her.
"But you're right, I've had better nights" she said with a mouth full. Connar frowned "Something to do with… whatever that is" gesturing to the object in the Biohazard tube. "You could say that, six people died over that thing".
Connar almost choked on his slice "What!". "Relax, I only killed three of them". "Oh only" he said, and reached for the wallet "Oh fuck, DT First Grade Nathaniel Ward, Major Crimes Squad… Nikki, this is gonna bring down heat on both sides".
Her only response was a shrug and carry on eating. "DT Ward is known to moonlight as an enforcer for Viktor Nickolaev, you know who that is?". "Nope, but I have a feeling you're gonna tell me", she said, looking at him with a side-eye as she ate.
Nikki was always nonchalant about everything, having truly mastered the art of not giving a fuck. If Connar was honest, so was he, he'd seen too much heavy shit over the years to worry about it. "Only the head of the Vor V Zakone down in Brighton Beach, not a guy to to be trifled with. You stepped into a new league tonight" Connar said as he dumped the wallet back on the table and grabbed a slice.
"Oh, didn't realise I was known for trifling with people" Nikki said with a wry smile. She finished a slice and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand "Relax, nobody saw me come or go…. I imagine the Coroner will be scratching his head though.. Or her head maybe".
It was clear that not only did Nikki not care what went down tonight, she was obviously enjoying this, meaning that DT Ward had clearly done something to piss Nikki off. "Come on then, don't hold out on me, what happened?" he asked.
"You know the rooftop with the stash?" she said pointing at the bag of jewellery. "Yeah" Connar said. "I was sitting up there when I heard the first shots… by the time I got back to the alley, they'd killed two guys, I think they were reporters. There was a homeless woman too, she had that thing on her, with that flash drive" Nikki lifted her leg, pushing up the lid of the pizza box with her foot and pointed at the flash drive laying on the table. "I wanna see what's on that, you got your tablet".
"Yeah, it's in my pack… wait, you said "they", Connar queried. "Yeah, he had two Russian guys with him, Vor V Zakone judging by the tattoos they had". "You catch any names?" Connar asked, trying to build a picture of the tidal wave of shit Nikki might have just brought down on the city.
Connar was immersed enough in the gangland politics of the city to see a snapshot of what was coming down. The Vor V Zakone and the Cops were about to go at each other in a big way. It was then likely that other groups, sensing the opportunity to move in on Nikolaev's operations, would take advantage.
Other organisations in the city with the means to take on Nikolaev included The Commission, Latin Kings, The New Harlem Council, certain elements of the Yakuza, the Irish, some Biker Crews, not to mention the Triads. If their various allies smaller street crews got drawn in, the city was looking at a real shit show.
"I heard one call the other one Yuri" she finally said with a mouth full. Connar immediately had an Idea. Taking out reporters was a high roller hit. If Dirty DT Ward was down there with two others, and one was Yuri, that was likely Yuri Kuznetsov, one of Viktor's most trusted guys, and he was there, he was almost always found with none other than Kirill Nikolaev, Viktor's younger Brother.
"Ahh shit, that means the other one was probably Kirill. Yuri and Kirill weren't just two of Viktor's best Wetwork guys, but Kirill was his younger brother…I'm guessing you ghosted him too?" Connar asked.
Nikki nodded while biting into another slice "Mm Hmm, that was the big man's little Brother huh?... Awww" Nikki grinned. Her devil-may-care attitude to life came from a painful place, she had told him her story, but it also made her oddly endearing. She had no filter, no inhibition. They both began to laugh. The Laugh of two people who had both been through far worse and now, thanks to Nikki, they had ring side seats to the city's next big gang war.
"Speaking of names, wanna hear something weird?". "Nikki, you re-define the term "Weird" but absolutely, do tell" Connar quipped. "The woman they shot, I coulnd't save her, but she spoke to me before she died, she thought she knew me, like…she looked at me like she really knew me…but she kept calling me "Eve", what do you think about that?" she said as she reached in for another slice. She seemed to hold it there, waiting for his reply.
Connar shifted to look at her "First of all, you played along right? If this lady thought you were this "Eve" hope you didn't burst her bubble if those were her last moments?". "Of course I played along, what do you think I am… wait, don't answer that…" she trailed off, knowing he'd retort by making up some fantastical wise crack.
Connar thought for a moment "Well, maybe you've got a twin sister out there somewhere? Hell, for all I know, you come off an assembly line… in which case put me down for half a dozen".
She took a playful swipe at him that landed on his chest and almost knocked his slice out of his hand "Shanty asshole, they don't know what to do with just one of me" she said with a grin.
Connar laughed but continued "Yeah, but what if there is someone else?". "Hmm, well" Nikki finally said after some thought, biting into her second slice "If I don't like what I find on that drive, I can go find her, and dump all this shit in her lap, let her deal with it".
Connar laughed "Oh, no getting to know her then, no buying her a drink, no small talk or exchange of stories, just turn up out of nowhere and dump all this on her… if she exists of course". "That lady, Vikki, seemed pretty sure, she seemed to be fond of whoever she thought I was, so I just let her believe it, she was bleeding out".
"Sounds like she left an impression" Connar said. "Yeah, I guess she did, I wasn't there in time to stop it. If I had, maybe I'd have some answers" she said, gesturing to the strange object in the biohazard tube.
"I dunno why, but it feels like its… watching me, you get that? Like it's waiting for something" Connar said. "Yeah" Nikki breathed, pulling the towel off her neck and throwing it over the thing. "I could always grind it up and we can smoke it, deal with it that way if you like" Connar asked with a smile. "You're gonna open a container marked "biohazard", that's entertainment".
"Remember what you told me, you came out of a container marked Biohazard, and you're very entertaining" Connar quipped back, reaching down the side of the sofa for his pack with his slice still in his mouth. "Thanks… I think" Nikki grinned, biting the cork off a bottle of wine and spitting it out somewhere into the room.
Connar opened his pack and came out with his tablet "Here, this should run whatever's on that thing, or you could use it to start an Cam service, whichever you get to first, if you use that other form of yours you'll corner the market".
"Yeah, and get the entire city put under Martial Law while they look for me… nice idea but not worth the pain in the ass" Nikki smiled sarcastically. "Really, I'd take a pain in the ass for a few million, that's how much those people make" Connar smiled "I could even be your agent". "You'd take a pain in the ass for customer loyalty points" Nikki clapped back as she wiped her hands and switched on the tablet.
"This'll be interesting, remember our Wager" Connar said. "Oh yes, that wager on what I really was?" Nikki said as she reached over to grab the Flash Drive. "That's the one" he said. "Right, and what did you bet I was again, a high altitude Mermaid, something stupid like that?". Connar laughed "Come on, after you bet on your other side being something alien, I didn't know where to go from there".
"So, true to form, you went for the most ridiculous thing your shanty brain could blurt out. Besides, you've seen me, you know, like that, in my other skin, did you see flippers? Fins? Gills? A tail?" Nikki snapped sarcastically as she passed him the bottle and he took a swig of the wine.
"No but I did see tentacles" Connar said, smiling "and spikes". "Then you've already lost, because last I checked, Mermaids don't have tentacles" Nikki laughed, pointing at him.
Connar let that hang in the air for a moment before quipping back "Ursula did". "Ohh fuck you" Nikki shouted, half laughing, she grabbed a leftover corner of pizza crust and ate it. "But, in all fairness, you never freaked out when you saw me like that for the first time, so you points for that". Connar took another drink of the wine and handed it back.
"I thought it was cute actually, really quite alluring…then again I'm not a Japanese school girl, so tentacles don't bother me" Connar said. Nikki instantly quipped back "You're not smart enough to be a Japanese School girl… and by the way, fuckin Eww!". Connar sat back and sighed "Yup, in all sarcasm there lies a hint of truth".
Nikki continued "Matter of fact, that mental image was so bad, I'm making a fucking ruling on this right now. You no longer get to say the words Japanese or school girl or tentacles to me again in the same conversation, alright, don't even mention calamari to me". "Right, where did you leave your DVD's?" Connar said. Nikki looked confused "What, why?". "Because now I'm gonna have to throw out Spider-Man 2". She took another swipe at him and they both laughed.
"Ok, shut up now, here we go" Nikki finally said as she got into the flash drive and a large selection of files presented themselves.
Connar's mood instantly darkened "Project Athena… ahh shit…" he hissed "The Project is named after a goddess, I already know this is gonna be some ugly shit". He could tell she sensed his internal rhythms take a turn. She also went a little quiet.
Nikki set the tablet on the coffee table between them and they both unconsciously shuffled inward to see what kind of secrets this "Vikki" had in store.
Nikki clicked on an MP4 file that was marked with a simple number 1 so it would be at the top of any file order.
The Video opened as Vikki came into view, steadying the camera. "That's her, the woman in the alley" Nikki said.
"My name is Victoria Foster, I'm a microbiologist with an additional degree in the field of astrobiology. For the past four years, I've been part of a highly classified project under the military. The goal of Project Athena, is to study the biological processes, adaptations and vulnerabilities of Extra-terrestrial life…"
"Fuck…." Nikki breathed and leaned forward, Connar instantly sensed her mood darken. Her tone was low as she uttered "You lose".
Olivia Smithson had worked Homicide for the past six years, having made first grade and assigned to the major crimes squad in the past three, she had seen her fair share of horror on these streets, but this was a whole new level.
Olivia had been minutes away from going off call after a long shift, a mountain of casework and two court appearances, but this was the life, she dropped what she was doing and headed out to the location. "Detective Smithson responding, show me active on that call".
The location, as it turned out, was a dingy network of alleys behind a warehouse by the docks. As she made her way to the scene, she had listened to updates on the radio, an "Officer Down" had caused every unit to flood the surrounding area with blue lights, but exactly who this officer was had been drowned out in the cacophony of voices.
Other descriptives "It's a goddamn bloodbath back here" weren't much if any help at all, and someone was probably going to get written up for eating up airtime with those kind of remarks. It did, however, inform her that she should probably prepare herself for a bad night.
She had found the scene already awash with Press Journalists being held back by uniform officers and police tape. She located the Sergeant in charge of the scene, a young, but seasoned officer named Rayas. Rayas and his rookie patrolman had ones who called it in and secured the scene.
It was a maze of alleys behind old warehouses by the docks and he had done a commendable job of locking down the scene, securing and preserving the two parts of the alley that encompassed the crime scene proper, and even doing a decent job of keeping the Press from getting an angle to point their camera lenses.
"So what have we got?" She had asked upon entering the alley "One hell of a mess" was Rayas response "Never seen anything like it".
The young Patrol Sergeant had proceeded to walk her through the scene, first, they had come upon the bodies of the two Russians, both of whom were well known to Olivia, and the entire Major Crimes Squad, no less than fifteen murders had been attributed to them but Brighton Beach had an unbreakable omerta. Meaning nobody would talk, and no charges ever stuck.
Yuri Kuznetsov, one of Viktor Nikolaev's best enforcers was laying in a corner, in a recessed part of the alley wearing his head on backwards and looking like he'd been in the middle of a major open heart surgery when the surgeon suddenly lost interest. A few families will breathe a sigh of relief when they read tomorrow's obituaries Olivia thought to herself.
She knelt by the body and examined the wound, it actually looked ripped, not the work of any bladed instrument, more like an animal. "Jeez, well Yuri, we all know you had this coming".
"Yeah, fairly sure these guys didn't" Rayas said as he moved around her and lifted up the first of two more white sheets covering bodies in that part of the alley. Damn it Olivia thought, and vowed that if she ever thought out loud again, she'd do it out of earshot of anyone else on a crime scene, defence lawyers loved comments like that. She put it down to her obvious long day and shook it off.
Olivia wrapped up her initial inspection of Kuznetsov, apart from the gaping wound in his chest, additionally, his head was twisted and snapped at an unnatural angle with parts of his vertebrae protruding through his neck. It looked sudden, like a coup de gras, a finisher, by something incredibly strong and fast.
Raising an eyebrow, Olivia stood and made her way over to Rayas. "Ahh shit, who have we got here?" Olivia asked. "ID has one Henry Reeve, he's from the Optic Investigative team over at the Times". Olivia looked him over, he'd been a good looking young man, once, now half his head was gone. His funeral would be a closed casket affair.
Given the fact that there was a tactical Saiga-12 automatic shotgun laying just out of reach of Yuri Kuznetsov just a few feet away, Olivia surmised that this had been his handiwork, before someone got to him.
Olivia looked at him, a life cut short, smartly dressed, at one time handsome, young, vibrant, he likely had work in the morning, then maybe a date tomorrow night. Along with the imagined snapshot of his life, was the wave of anguish she knew would wash over his loved ones in just a few short hours.
They had gone to bed tonight feeling that everything was right in their world, this night was likely their last night of sound sleep. His parents, and likely some young lady somewhere were about to get their entire worlds ripped apart.
This was that moment, the motivation she needed, she was going to get whoever was ultimately responsible for this. This time she made no comment out loud, and let herself internalise it. He was a reporter, and his final story just became hers.
"Show me the next one" she said in a measured tone. "This guy needs no intro" Rayas said as he lifted the sheet. Olivia was rarely shocked, but when that white sheet lifted, she suddenly understood the magnitude of what this case was going to be. John Ramos, the Pulitzer prize winning journalist had broken many high profile stories over the years, she had even met him on several occasions in the course of her duties.
"Jesus Christ, John Ramos?" Olivia breathed. "The Same" Rayas answered "Looks like you caught one hell of a case DT". At that moment, she knew this would be a case like no other. The only reason anyone sends a thug like Kuznetsov after someone this high profile, is to protect someone even more high profile from something they don't want reaching the public eye.
Ramos had died of a single gunshot wound to the head, execution style. Not the shotgun, so someone else had pulled the trigger on him. Blood from both bodies was pooling around them and seeping down through the nearby manhole cover.
"Right, ok, let's see the rest of it" Olivia said. Rayas wasted no time, leading her across the alley to another white sheet. When he lifted it, Olivia felt even more pressure, Kirill Nikolaev was the younger brother of the big man in Brighton Beach, Viktor Nikolaev. The thought of him waking up to this kind of bad news didn't bother her at all, what he would do as a result of it, however, that did bother her.
This case was already shaping up to be one hell of a shit show, but if she didn't solve it, or resolve it, and fast, then Viktor would likely start pointing fingers and there would be a major gang war.
Kirill looked like he had been hit by a train, and then shot at close range, someone had gone full auto on him, tight grouping, professional. It was his other injuries that looked strange, he had obvious crush injuries to the lower chest.
There were spent casings all around him, littered all around this section of the alley, laying several feet away, in a pool of blood, was a 3D manufactured FGC-9 with some modifications to make it full auto. These weapons were showing up on the streets with alarming regularity. Laying next to the weapon was a spent magazine and a full one, so whatever happened, happened while he was trying to reload.
Judging by the scraped trail of blood, it looked like whatever had happened to him happened several feet further down the alley. He'd somehow survived that catastrophic injury only for someone to come and finish him off over here.
Olivia looked up at the wall illuminated by the lights, it was riddled with bullet holes, almost as if he had been trying to hit someone but they were too fast for him. It looked like Kirill had been spraying and praying. Panic fire. At first glance, the gunshots that killed him looked to be the same calibre as Ramos. This time, Olivia kept her thoughts internal Just like your friend over there, you had it coming.
Olivia took some quick notes and then moved on. "Ok, who's this?". Rayas lifted the sheet, below it looked to be a woman in her late thirties, possibly early forties, brown hair, obviously homeless, one gunshot wound in the leg and another in her abdomen. One or both shots had hit an artery and she'd likely bled out in minutes. Olivia couldn't help but notice the serene look on her face, as if she'd died looking at a friendly face, or that her final moments on this earth were a giant weight lifted off her shoulders. Despite suffering a violent death, the woman looked absolutely at peace.
"We haven't been able to find any ID on her yet" Rayas said "Yeah, we probably won't know more till Prints come back, whoever she was, she didn't deserve to go out like this". Olivia's first thought was that she was likely camping somewhere in these allies and had witnessed whatever went down, professionals like Nikolaev and Kuznetsov were well known for going after witnesses.
"Detective, you might wanna prepare yourself for this last one" Rayas said. "Ok give it to me" Olivia replied and followed him over into the corner of the alley where a larger body lay under a white sheet.
When he lifted the final sheet, it was all Olivia could do not to drop her coffee all over the crime scene. Instead, she played it cool, kneeling and putting it down, hoping Rayas didn't notice the extent of the shock on her face. "This is the officer down" Rayas said in a sad tone.
Before her lay a man she had been partnered under for her first six months at Major Crimes, he could be abrasive and at times hard to work with, an old school cop with an old school attitude, but despite the rumours about him, she had found him to be good at his job and professional.
Detective First Grade Nathaniel Ward had suffered a major trauma, his arm had been torn off at the shoulder and his ribcage beneath the missing limb looked to have been caved in by a powerful impact. "Where… where's his arm?" Olivia demanded. "Over yonder" Rayas said, and directed her attention to another, smaller white sheet laying a few feet away. "What the hell could do this, there are no cuts, this was ripped off". His body also looked crumpled and there was a dent in the brick work at chest height just behind him, like whatever happened was the result of a massive blunt force impact.
"Ok" Olivia said, standing up to compose herself. This was clearly going to be one hell of a night. "First things first, where's your rookie?" Rayas called over a young man from the press line.
"What's your name, son?" Olivia asked. "Officer James Perkins Ma'am" he replied sharply. "Ok officer Perkins" she haid, thrusting a twenty dollar bill into his hand "I want you to take this to the nearest fast food joint, get a large coffee and a Number 1". "A number 1?" he asked "Yup, I'll eat whatever appears in your hands when you get back".
"Ok, time to wake everyone up, we need forensics down here, and I also want a Virtual scan, I want a map of this entire scene including bullet trajectory" Rayas reached for his radio and began speaking into it while Olivia turned and stared back up the alley.
As she considered the amount of shit that was about to fall on her lap, she couldn't help but notice the graffiti at the far end of the alley. This place was somewhere the homeless called an "Angel Alley" meaning it was meant to be safe. This was one of those places where that urban myth was always being perpetuated by one crazy or another. The "Angel of Vermin" was supposedly some kind of spectral guardian who tolerated no hostility or aggression in it's domains, usually abandoned or derelict parts of the city Yeah right Olivia thought Then why am I looking at six dead bodies?.
Investigative Reporters, Russian Mobsters, an innocent woman and a seasoned Cop who was supposed to be off duty. Olivia had been there when he's clocked out earlier. This case stank to high heaven. Turning back to the particularly well drawn graffiti, Olivia took a deep breath. She had a feeling that if there was an Angel in this city, then it was going to be needed before long.
It had rolled around to 2am and Nikki had seen enough. She'd been going through it for the past hour and despite several big revelations, all she had really achieved was making herself more angry.
This woman, Vikki, had indeed recognised her face, because the woman from L.A. had recreated her in some Lab somewhere with the distinct purpose of figuring out how to kill her. They called it a vulnerability test.
All of that had had all been put on hold when the Excursion mission returned and women around the capitol started going missing.
The Captain of the Excursion, Patrick Ross, had, at one time, been on the cover of every magazine, beer bottle and even cereal boxes. Nikki had always found it amusing whenever the subject of him, or his mysterious death had come up. Connar had branded him a "Plastic Ken-Doll" for the lack of fire in his personality compared to Dennis Gamble, who was now a Senator. While she had always preferred Anne Sampas.
Nikki had watched the livestream from the Excursion with Connar on a warm evening in Lighthouse park on Roosevelt Island, not far from where they had first met. It hadn't been difficult to find a vantage point that overlooked one of the huge screens that had been erected around the city during that time. Their evening had been disturbed when Nikki had experienced some kind of episode around the time the Excursion was preparing to leave Martian orbit. The mysterious seven minute transmission failure. All of that made sense now.
They had spent most of the night making fun of the man, how he'd given a dull, pre-rehearsed speech about "Not for one nation, not for one people, not for one creed, but for all humankind" while hypocritically holding the stars and stripes in one hand.
They were both out of the country at the time of the Excursion Mission's triumphant return six months later, but she did distinctly remember having several strange episodes around that time, but that was a whole other story.
After reading through a few files, however, it was no longer funny to either of them. The deaths of Sampas and Ross shortly after their return were always suspicious, but now, down in Terminus, in the dark, the mystery had been blown wide open to the two of them.
Connar had, of course, lost their stupid wager, for as it turned out, she was indeed something Alien. Deep down she had always felt something like that, but now she had the proof. Neither of them had laughed about it after a few minutes, as they went through the files, things had gotten very dark, very fast.
Her DNA had been synthesised according to some kind of instructions, intercepted in a deep space transmission by the SETI project. The human part of her DNA came from an Ovum, the donor of which was unknown. Could that mean she had a family out there, would they know or even care that she was alive, what she'd been through? She had always known she was different, that she stood apart, now she knew why.
As for this "Eve", Vikki had described her in detail, no wonder she'd asked forgiveness, the shit they'd put her through, it was horrific. There had even been some Lab footage of several of the chemical tests, it was all Nikki could do not to smash the screen. The scream Eve had issued as poison gas ate away at her skin had gone right to Nikki's soul and that was enough, she cut off the video and switched off the tablet.
"Shit! I wish I'd told her who I really was, burst her bubble right on her last fucking breath!" Nikki hissed "I know what I did, and I fucking paid for it, but this, this is a whole new level of sick!".
Nikki stood up and ran her hands through her hair. Breathing deeply and pacing around the sofa, the frustration was gnawing at her. She finally had answers, and there was much more on that drive to go through, but she was way too pissed off to carry on after seeing that.
Connar was also in a sullen mood now. Their back and forth wisecracking had ended only a few minutes into the files, most were documents, others were Vikki's personal video logs, going over certain events, people and project details. "Looks like both Vikki and that other one, Dr. Baker, went and grew a conscience after that shit with Ken-Doll" Connar said.
"Yeah? Fuck her, and her guilty conscience" Nikki said sharply "And that other Bitch, she was in L.A. she helped hunt me down, like a fucking animal, she was there when they…they…". Nikki seethed and let loose a deep growl, trying to reign in her anger "Just too little, too fucking late!".
Connar let her calm herself before speaking again "There's some good news, looks like they still think you're dead, but Nikki, you've got to be smart about this, when they ID that body, the government will be crawling all over this case, they're gonna be looking for this stuff" he gestured at the "Helix Shard" on the table. Apparently that's what it was called.
Nikki stared at him "Fine, then I'll finish what she started and give that thing to some journalist, better yet, I'll just upload it all to the tube".
Connar thought for a moment, looked at the now blank tablet screen, then to the Helix Shard, and then back to her, she could see whose Whisper wheels were turning and his expression was serious yet imploring. Nikki knew she probably wasn't going to like whatever he was about to say "Ok, I agree, that would be a big "Fuck you" to the government, a well deserved one at that… it would be a good idea… were it not for the fact that this "Eve" looks exactly like you, Nikki".
"So fucking what if she does?" Nikki snapped.
Connar raised his hands in a calming gesture "So…if you upload those clips, her face goes all over the internet, and by extension, so does yours. You're pretty memorable, you know… emphasis on pretty, people see you, they don't forget you quickly"
Nikki tilted her head and grinned sarcastically, feeling her mood lighten somewhat, she knew that slipping in a little charm was his tactic to break her black mood "Flattery will only get you so far, Shanty".
Connar kept going "Alright, pragmatism then, how long before someone recognises you… and that girl you told be about in LA, you stopped that guy attacking her, if she's still around, and says anything, they'll go back and figure out the timeline of events. Then…" He let it hang in the air for emphasis… "They might come to the conclusion that "Sil" might not be as dead as they thought…you get where I'm going with this".
Nikki glared at him, hooked her fingers together behind her neck and cracked them. Connar knew how much she hated hearing her old name, and wouldn't use it lightly. Her expression softened. His analysis of the scenario was unnervingly accurate.
It wasn't often that Nikki thought about that girl in the car, but she was in no doubt that girl probably thought about her a lot. There was no way that night didn't leave a mark.
"Fuck… fine, not just a pretty face, Braden, sometimes I hate it when you're right". "That's two reasons you keep me around is it?" he said, a soft smile growing on his face.
"What's it like, finally knowing where you came from, what you are?" he asked with a soft expression. Nikki slid herself over the back of the sofa and dropped down next to him, leaning her head back "I dunno, Alien… I mean, it doesn't exactly change anything about my life, knowing that… maybe it just hasn't sunk in".
Connar leaned back next to her, pulled a joint out of a pouch on his arm and lit it "Yeah, the whole world wonders if we're alone in the universe, and only you and I, down here, just found out the truth, and you are that truth". He took a hit and passed the joint to Nikki.
"And those people from that project" Nikki corrected him "Obviously they know". "Yeah, well they don't count, they represent everything wrong with humans" Connar countered. "Oh, do I sense one of your Shanty brained philosophical moments coming on?" Nikki quipped as she took a long drag on the joint. She held it in her lungs, feeling it permeate her and a slight euphoric sensation, then passed it back to Connar who did the same.
"They get this gift, right, this answer to one of life's greatest questions, and they dive straight into it, only then they see that they've actually created someone that is different. That reminds them of another fundamental truth of humankind… human beings fear what we don't understand, so naturally, we have to kill it… It's primal".
"So initial curiosity gives way to Us vs. Them… and I'm the them?" Nikki breathed, bringing up a long puff of smoke. "Exactly" Connar replied. A curious thought then came to her, Connar wasn't exactly what most would call Normal either, as one of The Sighted, he also stood a part to a certain degree.
"I may be "Alien" but you're not exactly your baseline human, where do you stand on this whole Alien thing, now that I finally know what I am?" she asked.
Connar's answer wasn't what she expected. "What Alien thing? There's no such thing as Aliens, not really as far as I'm concerned" he said in a matter-of-fact tone while passing the joint back to her.
Nikki frowned and looked over at him, he looked back at her, totally confident in his statement. Nikki almost laughed as she locked eyes with him "I've known you what? Six years, you've known my secrets for almost all that time, you've seen what I really look like. Then you sit with me for the past hour and look at classified files about extra-terrestrial experiments, messages from space and goddamn Helix Shards… and then you go and say "Oh there's no such thing as aliens"... Of all the dumb shit I've heard you come out with… I mean, that's even more stupid than the time you tried to convince me the British never went to the Moon because Isaac Newton already held the patent for Gravity, and the moon didn't have enough".
Nikki took a drag, passed the joint to him and folded her arms, making a show of eagerly waiting for whatever bullshit he was about to come up with next. Connar began to giggle and set her off, which grew into a laugh "Yeah, that was a good one" he chuckled.
Connar shifted closer and went into his I'm gonna explain this mode, Nikki was already trying not to laugh as she knew this was probably going to be ridiculous.
"Ok" Connar began "You and I are different right?" he said. "Yeah, just a bit" Nikki quipped back". "But that file said you were part human right?" Connar continued, taking a drag and handing it back to her. "Part Human still isn't Human, shanty" Nikki grinned, he was clearly building up to something.
Nikki took a hit and passed it back to him. "So whoever sent that message is probably as different from you as you are from me right?" he carried on "But…it doesn't matter how different we are, because in the end…" he took a hit and made a show of letting the smoke roll out of his mouth "We're all the same stardust, just different chemical reactions".
"Well shit" Nikki chuckled "I was expecting something absolutely, monumentally stupid, but that actually makes sense". "I have my moments" he said, taking a small hit and passing the last of the joint to her".
Nikki raised her hand between them and let herself feel a small amount of freefall into her true form, her hand and forearm slowly morphed into a chitinous claw, her true form. Connar wasn't bothered by it, his rhythms remained constant and steady, he'd seen it in its entirety.
"I wish that were true" Nikki said as she looked at her hand "But I've always felt alone in the universe, now I know why. I'm not quite human and I'm not quite the other thing either".
"We stand apart from the rest, but we aren't that different" Connar said. Nikki chuckled again, snapping out of her melancholy. "Oh really, can you do this?" she said, lifting her chitinous hand closer to him for emphasis.
"No" he said "But I can do this" and took hold of her hand, slipping his fingers between hers, completely unafraid of the lethal claws, or inhuman strength, his grip was strong and reassuring. "Chemical reactions, remember. We've got chemistry right?" he smiled and continued "Remember, it was only a couple of hundred years ago, they were burning people like me for being fucking witches".
Nikki looked down and fell deep into thought "Burning witches hug?… Been there, done that". Connar realised he'd evoked a painful memory "Sorry I didn't mean…" he began, but she gave a gentle squeeze "No, it's ok".
They sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the euphoric effects of the joint they'd shared. After a while, she felt calm and quiet again, and her eyes felt heavy.
"Ok" Nikki said and stood up with a stretch "I'm beat, you're beat, time to sleep". She wandered around the sofa and gave his legs a playful kick when he didn't immediately move..."That was an invitation, shanty, come on".