The lights in the dingy store flickered and crackled. It was definitely best described as a fixer-upper, but it was still relatively on the nicer end of buildings a shop could be inhabiting. It lacked that dusty feeling that most formerly abandoned buildings in the area had, and it wasn't otherwise too offensive besides the use of budget lighting.
Per usual, the wallpaper could use with some updating.
“Fifty creds.”
“Forty.”
Mary found herself amidst a haggling war with the shop owner, a hunched over woman with long frazzled silver hair. She might've been a few steps away from being older than the gods themselves. Though, it was less a haggling war and more so an assault on an entrenched position. No matter what Mary tried, she wouldn't budge.
“Forty-two, and, uhm, I'll come back tomorrow and buy more.”
“Fifty,” the old lady repeats herself, shaking her head. “I oughta remove you from my shop at this rate.”
“…Forty five?”
“Did you not see the sign out front that says that I don't haggle?”
Mary blew air up into her bangs. She wasn't happy about paying that price for apples. The Night Market would've gotten her the same amount for half the price. Sometimes for free, even. Not that she had any better option at the moment. The stall she was headed to in the first place is more than definitely closed down for the morning.
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Out of the shop, with three baskets of apples and a hundred and fifty creds poorer than she was before. This would be more than likely the first and last time she visited this shop. Though, it was apparent that the high prices were the sole reason the owner could keep the place in the nicer-than-normal state it was.
On second inspection, the surrounding neighborhood definitely matched the state of the store. It was nice, not even by Slag standards. You could go into Novonachalsk proper and find neighborhoods in the Palisade district in a much worse state than this. There was running power, the street lights functioned, and it all felt surprisingly safe. This was what the Banshees were really striving for. Blackwell had a lot of potential. The people, for the most part, were good people, and the location was central enough to be important that it was held.
Down the sidewalk she strode with a slight skip in her step, bounding over various fractures and cracks in the plascrete. The occasional neon sign above her filled the air with a dull thrumming, despite the fact that it was well bright enough that said sign didn’t need to be on. That was one of the reasons it felt safe. Working signs usually meant safety, either because they had working power, or the local gangs respected the area. That buzz emanating from a neon tube was one of the most relaxing sounds for most Slag residents.
She continued her merry hop along her way with all the merriment of a small child playing in the park, a disconcerting view to those who knew they were looking at a military-grade cyborg. The cyborg herself suspected that most wouldn’t know, considering her body length trench coat and otherwise light step. Still, a tad odd to see a seven foot tall elf doing such a thing.
Especially stopping to hop in a puddle. Repeatedly.
She figured that she wasn’t drawing the bad sorts of attention, anyways. What’s the problem with someone staring at her for being a little strange? Everyone out here is a little strange anyways.
Once she couldn’t clearly hear the thrumming of neon signs behind her, the demeanor that she carried practically snapped in half. She was back to that stiff, confident strut that she would put on any time she was in an unfamiliar space. It was enough to ward off most people from approaching her, and the ones dumb enough to weren’t all that much of a threat to her. It wouldn’t take her long to get home now, what with her cutting through neighborhoods instead of erring to the side of caution as she was just prior.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Caution that she should’ve truly kept to.
The cyborg immediately heard loud jeering to one side of her. The group that were making the hubbub were concealed by a large worn down privacy fence. It didn’t worry her initially, with her writing it off as a gathering watching the tail end of the Moto Gladiatorio game. She would’ve been home watching it herself, were it not for her choice to get some fresh fruit. It wasn’t until her enhanced hearing caught the signature rattle and hiss of a spray can, and started to untangle what the group hooted and hollered about. Further audio filtering caught the words ‘Big Top’ and ‘blowing this corn dog stand.’
Freaks. She heard it through the grapevine that they were encroaching in on Blackwell. Recently, there wasn’t much of a problem with other gangs trespassing on Banshee turf, with much of the fighting being minor border disputes instead of straight pure disregard for who owns what. She hadn’t much of a clue as to what or why tensions were flaring up so bad lately, with gangs seeming to flood into their turf at near absolute random.
She offered herself a brief glance over her shoulder as she continued on the way. Easily more than a dozen of them from a casual count, and most of them wore the clown face paint that marked them as grunts at best. Singlets and torn t-shirts seemed to be the dress code for the occasion, and only three or four of them wore armored jackets. They were halfway done with spray-painting their circus tent logo in eye-searing colors.
Her attention shot back forwards, doing her best to pretend that she wasn’t rubbernecking and hoping that her presence didn’t attract their attention. She’d take her odds with less than half of what she counted, but the solid number she had and the unknown amount that could be out of her line of sight? Not good odds, even for someone like her.
Overconfidence is a very subtle killer.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up when she realized mid-stride that the jeering had come to a halt. No doubt she was being stared at. There wasn’t anyone else in her immediate view, and she wasn’t about to look back over her shoulder again, either. The Freaks liked to make a game of it, and looking again was a surefire way to escalate things way beyond her control. The cyborg weighed her options and decisively chose flight, her long legs taking giant strides and a sudden pivot into a side alley.
The sound of rushing feet followed behind her. She could easily outrun them if she set her mind to it, but then she’d be dragging a bunch of Freaks across Banshee held territory. Which would be bad, for several reasons. It’d make them look weak, first of all, and second, Freaks tend to not be the most respectful sort. Simply put, the longer they’re here, the more that the Banshees would have to clean up beyond some errant tags that don’t belong.
She’d have to just lead them on a merry chase for now until she could sort out a solution.
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Hotrod's Kyberværker CT-3 commlink chirped with an incoming message. She continued scrubbing the logo off the wall, issuing a NeuroLine command to pull the message up in an ARO.
«Sender: Mary»
«Minor issue. Might need some help with things? My location.»
She stopped scrubbing and straightened herself up to her full height. With one hand on her hip, she checked out the progress of her cleaning. The upper half of the circus tent had been reduced to smears of neon streaks, and only the words ‘la Douleur’ were legible now. The still-intact AR overlay of that self same logo created a jarring effect that hurt her head. Probably didn't help that she wasn't a hundred percent sober.
“Need to do something about that stupid AR logo,” she muttered to herself. She called up another ARO and composed a message to Oni.
«To: Onigiri»
«You busy? Need you to erase something. Location pin attached. You'll know it when you see it. Let me know when you're done.»
She looked at the wall again. Still a long way to go to fully get rid of the graffiti. “Fuck this, I'll just head over to Mary.”
She stowed everything away in her duffel bag, mounted her bike, and started the engine. Her Amaya Katana screamed to life, announcing her departure to anyone within earshot.