Maybe it was part of being the new girl, but Onigiri hated this. Constantly out running errands for everyone else. Maybe it's more so because Switch was busy with matters from out of town, and they were short a pair of hands. Especially with Switch being the boss lady.
She didn't get it, but she had the one thing that was supposedly a thing of urgency for this meeting, comfortably stowed in her messenger bag like it was some lost relic or secret documents.
“This is way too fuckin' absurd,” she mumbled to herself, the wind whistling past her as she dismounted from her bike. It wasn't much consolation that the meeting was rather close and in a known spot. Shaileen's warehouse. Or, to be more accurate, the warehouse formerly assigned as Shaileen's spot. It sat in a relatively quiet part of the neighborhood, with nothing much ever happening out here. The most eventful thing to happen here in the past while was—
Harridan. The tall blonde woman was already standing in the doorway staring her down. Oni nearly jumped out of her skin at this, despite the only real imposing part about her being her vaguely-toned build. Otherwise she was clad in second-hand clothes that appeared to be a size too small, obviously Shaileen's clothes that were left behind.
“Fuck me! How long were you standin' there for?” Onigiri exclaimed, clutching at her chest as if she were about to keel over from a sudden heart attack.
“I was waiting. I am unsure if you wish to come inside,” Harridan responded as stiff as she stood. Where most others would gesture for their guest to enter, or give any indication, the blonde woman remained utterly blank and nigh-on unreadable.
Some of the girls found Harridan funny. Others found her concerning. Onigiri was in the latter camp. There were rumors abound that she was some escaped corporate experiment and wasn't even a natural being in the first place. Other rumors being that she was some strange Thread-born abomination given human form. Any-which-way, she definitely acted like someone who wasn't human at all.
Especially with the other rumor floating around that she apparently fought off a corporate kill team while protecting Shy with nothing but a holdout pistol and her bare hands. Nobody does that unless you're loaded up with chrome, or you have some connection to the Thread. And Harridan wasn't exactly reflecting the glint of the moon. The only people that had any inkling to why she was even here were Switch and Hotrod.
But she was harmless to the Banshees. Supposedly.
The mousey hacker scrambled her way into the warehouse, if only to get out from the windstorm that was brewing outdoors. The inside of the building wasn't much better, with the frame audibly creaking and skylights audibly clattering under the stress of the weather.
“Fuck. Okay. I brought what you asked for.” Onigiri scrambled around to rummage through her messenger bag for Harridan's prize. The less time spent with this bizarre supposed creature, the better. She liked things better when they were just done online.
A box of cereal. She pried it loose from the confines of the bag a moment later, slamming it down on a scavenged coffee table that sat in the middle of the warehouse.
“I apologize. I do not know where the nearest store is. I am still getting used to my surroundings.”
She even talked like someone that wasn't human. Her attention darted not a second later to the offered box of cereal. Which she quickly strutted towards, picked up, briefly investigated, and deposited into a nearby cargo container, just a few feet away.
Which was also nearly filled to the point of spillage with the same brand of cereal.
“Y'know you could just look these things up?” Oni blurted out, clearly without thinking. She bit her tongue a second too late. “—You've got a commlink, right? It's pretty easy.”
Harridan turned slowly, her posture so utterly unwavering that she could be a statue being pivoted in place.
“I do have one. I do not understand this one. It is not like my old one,” the woman blurted out, tone as flat as ever. “It does not matter. I only wished to relay matters in a secure way. Talking is secure. Commlinks are not secure sometimes.”
Onigiri exhaled. She had a point, but—
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“If you were lookin' to tell someone somethin' important that couldn't go over the commlink, why didn't you just get Hotrod to bring you the cereal?”
“I believe it is below her station to do those sorts of tasks.”
Onigiri stared. She wanted to cuss the strange woman out, but she also didn't want to invoke her wrath. Especially if the rumors were true. Not that she didn't trust her sisters, but she knew how things can get exaggerated out in the Slag.
“You've got a... point.”
Harridan didn't even miss a beat, talking quick enough that she nearly spoke over Onigiri.
“I wish for you to relay to Hotrod that I found the whereabouts of Shy. She was under armed corporate guard, entering the metroplex proper. It did not appear that she was resisting. I do not know which outfit they were with, given the lack of identifying logos or marks.”
“...Hold on. You're implyin' that she's workin' with the corpos?” Oni paused to think this over. She literally just got a report back from Stiletto and Mary about corpos on the job they were just on. The hacker continued her train of thought. “—Fuck. Normally I wouldn't say that tracks, but all things considered, it tracks. We've got a major friggen uptick in corpo activity, so maybe she's related to why they're workin' out here?”
“I do not believe so. The corporations moving operators out here have largely been competitors.” Harridan finally moved away from the cargo container, taking a seat down at the disused sofa. “I believe it would be more of a symptom. It seemed to me that she may know something that she used as a ticket out, judging from her movements prior.”
“You used to work with t—Wait, why the hell were you tracking her? She was supposed to have skipped town with Gunther.”
“I assume that she did not.” The strange woman stopped for a beat before continuing. “I was suspicious when I became aware of her presence in the Slag last evening and followed her movements up until tonight. She made contact with an exfiltration team several hours ago. A few kilometers out of the metroplex proper.”
“…why the fuck didn't you call us and say somethin' earlier?”
Harridan stared for a long while, as if her brain had to be coaxed to conjure up a response. If it wasn't awkward enough waiting for her to say something, her nearly soulless black eyes bored straight into Oni as she sat—almost patiently. “I did not know how to use my new commlink.”
Onigiri's mouth hung open for several seconds. And in Harridan's usual fashion, she didn't react whatsoever, besides continuing to talk as if nothing was amiss.
“I would suggest that you relay this information to Hotrod as quickly and securely as possible. I am unsure as to whether this will cause any external issues, or if she would wish to mount some sort of rescue attempt. The latter being—”
“I doubt she's gonna want to do shit with her, Harridan. I think they left on bad terms or somethin'. Ain't like I talked to the girl, though. I'll pass it along.” Oni pushed herself up promptly. She was both uncomfortable and frustrated. How could someone supposedly dangerous be this socially thick, and technologically inept to boot? She had way too much on her plate to worry about already. A chapter sister that vanished when the going got tough, only to reappear in the middle of this gigantic mess? That's an extra helping of problems she didn't need.
The hacker was out the door before Harridan could say anything in response. Not that she planned to. She stared at the door gormlessly, as if this was all normal human behavior.
----------------------------------------
Harridan bounded up a fire escape as casually as one would step up a curb. From one floor to the next. A surprising amount of grace for someone who otherwise looked awkward in any other situation, her chameleon cloak gently trailing behind her with each hop and skip.
She wasn't told to try and hunt Shy down, but she wasn't exactly told not to. Curiosity took hold of her for once, and unfortunately when security checkpoints were nothing but a speed bump, curiosity tended to carry you far. Far, being defined as inside the metroplex's limits.
Maybe she just needed to get out. Being cooped up with nothing to do was hard. She had something to fixate and focus on now. Back to the same old. Though, for once, she was doing this of her own volition.
From one rooftop to the other, she crossed each gap with a quick bound. Past old air conditioners. Leaping over climate control units and vents. She didn't know what some of the things that she surmounted were, besides that they were obstacles. Every footfall was a silent one. She's done this hundreds of times before. The rooftops were her old home, and she could navigate them like nobody else. Besides, she does better up on high.
The former operator didn't really have an idea what she was looking for, but she figured that a black, unmarked SUV would be an easy pick in the otherwise colorful traffic below.
Not that she would be that lucky, taking up a perch on the edge of an apartment building. Nothing of the sort driving up and down the roads below. Realistically, that SUV was long gone in the hours that have passed.
Though, a thought struck her the moment she took pause. There was a safehouse nearby that a lot of corporate-affiliated operators used in the past. She'd been to it many times. Even if Shy wasn't there, she'd probably be able to find someone who might know what's going on.
Only one way to find out.