Chapter Ten

Tension pulsed through the Undercity, Natalia took note of it, but it did not surprise her. The public areas were packed with irritable people trying to get the things they needed, after two days of being trapped inside because of rain. People were hungry and annoyed.

She kept a close eye out, and one hand rested on her knife-stick. About fifty feet away Saki and Aaron were going through the line at an Okanomiaki booth, getting lunch. The pair looked like a dating couple of teenagers, even with the girls arm still in a sling. Aaron had died his skin a rich gold and his hair a sooty black, he looked very handsome next to the Saki, who had brown hair, brown eyes, and the pale skin of someone who rarely went to the sun spas.

Something is off. I can’t place my finger on it but this place feels like a nitro-bomb. She took a moment to look over some jewelry on a cart. It was all plasticine, none of it real metal, but there was a pair of earrings in the shape of platypuses. They had been cleverly painted an emerald green with tiny foil flecks for eyes.

Natalia smiled at the stand owner. “I’d like those, can you box ‘em for me?” she asked as she pulled out a yellow cred-stick and waved it under a scanner as the happy vendor quickly packaged the earrings. She put the box in the inner pocket of the billowing vest that she was wearing.

The one thing she truly hated about ‘playing human’ was the clothing. Human fashion for females called for either loose knee length gowns, or a very full cut shirt, both worn unbelted, and both where usually worn with a knee to ankle length over-vest with pockets on the inside and a frog closure just under the breast. The idea was to minimize the appearance of a waist, heaven forefend anyone know you were pregnant!”

Kitsune fashion was the opposite, skin tight cat suits made of stretchy fabrics, or tiny tank tops that barely covered the chest with garters attaching the top to cargo pants with dozens of pockets. Kitsune had a reputation for promiscuity, but the truth was body modesty was silly for someone whose form was a reflection of their own desires.

Miyako will like the platypuses…Platypi? Whatever, she loves odd earrings. Casually browsing the different stalls Natalia and her people scanned the crowds, more out of habit than any real need to find anyone or anything. Natalia also found herself expecting trouble, regretting having allowed Saki to talk her into a shopping trip in this less well patrolled district of Undercity

Then there was an angry roar, and the tension in the air snapped as a small riot broke out around the small, fortunately armored and enclosed, civil service kiosk. Quickly the violence spread outward, as people began ransacking the stalls, and fighting over the right to loot shops.

Natalia pulled her Knife-sticks out, styled after the Leo’s shock-sticks. The difference was that, in addition to the taser, the ends of her sticks had retraceable blades that came out when she gripped a certain spot on the shaft. She ruthlessly tased combatants as she began to fight her way to the outside of the riot. She wondered how many people would get hurt or killed this time.

She didn’t try to stop it, she didn’t have the tools or the man power, all she could do was try to get out of the way, and she knew that Saki and Aaron were doing the same thing. None of them wanted to be there when Riot Control came. She knew they would arrive quickly; riots were common after a bad storm so they were on full alert. She also knew that the crowd suppression tools would be used on everyone in the area, friend or foe.

The crowd was thinner at the edges and Natalia prepared to make a run for the fallback point that had been set up for if her people got separated. Natalia noticed that she wasn’t the only one making a break for it. Half-dozen males and two females were dragging a young woman away from the riot. Clutched in the woman’s arms was a small child who was shrieking in terror, as they tried to pull him from his mother. The assailants all wore necklaces made of dried ears that sent shivers down Natalia’s spine.

Ferals! Without hesitation, Natalia sprinted towards the gang, As she ran she re-Tuned her body, hardening her skin for natural armor, reinforcing the muscles and bones in her arms and legs, and shaping razor sharp bone hard claws on both of her hands. She hated Ferals, it was a feeling that was shared by most of the military and every resident of the Undercities; almost everyone not well off enough to live on the surface had a friend or family member that had ended up on a Feral’s dinner table. The cultists bragged about how they were strong, because they ate real meat, not the vat grown clone meat or the protein pastes that most people consumed.

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With an almost silent snap the blades of her sticks popped free just before she attacked a male feral, whose scream at being stabbed by the electrically charged knife was brief as Natalia’s weapon found his heart.

Rei was happy to finally get out of the hotel. He’d chosen to leave the Deep shortly after his sister had gone back into her clinic. Unfortunately, when he’d come up it was raining.

The Kitsune man had never really understood what lunatic came up with the idea of giving the Undercity rain. When ever the Uppercity, the only part of the Arcologies which made up the City that actually sat on the surface to suffer real weather, were hit by either a mundane cloudburst or a rarer and highly lethal chem-storm, huge spouts in the ceiling of the effected areas of the Undercity also kicked to life. Granted, no matter what the intensity of the rain on the surface, Undercity rain was always a steady light rain but the water was filled with anti-pathogenic chemicals which irritated even Kitsune skin and stank enough to bring tears to the eyes. No one who could help it went out in it.

Granted, during the chem-storms the risk of walking into a leaky area existed, but stories of it happening were few and far between and the Undercity rain usually cut the acids enough to prevent real, lasting harm on the occasion it did. That, however, only explained one “rainstorm” out of every dozen.

The rest of the time it was probably because some Uppercity psychologist had written a paper on how steady weather cycles would make the Undercities more natural feeling, thus calming the population and bringing a sense of unity between the Upper and Undercity inhabitants. Rei absently wondered how big of a bonus the jerk had gotten for that particular line of bull.

Fortunately for him the hotel was mostly empty, and the innkeeper had taken pity on him by providing a room till the artificial weather had passed. Rei could have almost kissed the man, since his only other option had been to go back down to the Deep and crash with his sister’s family. Either way the rain had finally stopped allowing him to set out cheerfully on his way.

So of course, that was when the riot started.

Granted, Rei had found himself on the very edge of the swirling stream of human chaos and had quickly managed to slip out of the stupidity flooded streets but it forced him to skirt around the yelling and shattered glass sounds of looting instead of heading directly for the tube-way which was his destination. Thanks to those sounds, and Rei’s tuned hearing, it was easy to avoid the rioters.

Most of them, anyway. The Kitsune male came to a stop as he watched a woman, dressed in the flowing fashions preferred by human females, run with a grace only a Kitsune could produce, crashing into a mass of Ferals who were dragging a screaming woman and child along with them. Silver flashed as the bladed end of her street modded shock-stick bit into the heart of one of the lunatics, sending him convulsing to the pavement.

Rei leaned against a wall as, before the gang had a chance to realize what had happened, a second fell to a well delivered axe kick which most likely shattered one of the man’s shoulders. That’s when the Ferals turned, and the fight began in earnest.

Rei debated joining in, but the erstwhile victims, a mother and toddler, were running away and the Kitsune girl was holding her own, so he saw no reason to. Ferals were fundamentally cowards and scavengers, so when enough of them were injured Rei was sure they’d run.

As if to prove the point, one of the two Feral females broke ranks. Unfortunately she made a beeline for the scared mother. Rei cursed and pushed off the wall to give chase when the strange Kitsune’s shock stick spun out of the fighting mob and took the runner, blade first, in the neck. The falling corpse was all the urging the mother needed to pick up the pace and run around a corner.

The problem, Rei realized instantly, was that their savior was now left unarmed in a pack of five Ferals.

Rei watched the fight, hoping two dead and another unconscious would be enough to scare off the pack, but the girl wasn’t so lucky. Especially when the man, which even Rei had thought was out of the fight with a shattered shoulder, grabbed her ankle from his prone position and jerked her off balance.

That in and of it’s self wouldn’t have been enough to turn the tide. Unfortunately for the girl he’d timed his attack with her blocking a thrust kick from a husky Kitsune. The combination of a straight line kick with her sudden loss of footing sent her tumbling to the ground. The Ferals howled and pounced, sensing a victory and dinner well earned.

The rearmost pair of Ferals howled again as Rei’s knives sought out and found their backs, removing them quickly from the fight. The young Kitsune almost burst out laughing at the look of surprise on the prone girl’s face as he pulled one of the three pinning her down off of her. A simple, inelegant body slam planted him on top of the one who’d tripped her, removing them from the fight and freeing Rei’s hands to defend himself from a human Feral who quickly switched targets to him. “What? You think you’re the only good Samaritan down here?”

She clawed the last of the men struggling with her in the neck, removing him from the land of the living. Rolling to her feet in the same motion she said “Yes, actually.”

“How pessimistic.” Rei chided her, blocking a three-punch combo from the last remaining gang member. A lightning-fast punch sent him to the land of nod. “A lovely thing like you shouldn’t be so down on the world.”

The girl chuckled. “Maybe not.” She admitted. “And thank you. They’d have had me if you hadn’t of shown up.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” Rei commented with a grin.

She didn’t know if it was that devil may care smile or the alluring, musky scent of his body which caused her to slip and give her real name. “I’m Natalia.” She introduced herself, smiling and offering her hand even as she cursed herself for violating her own standard operating procedures.

He shook her hand, ignoring the claws, as his smile deepened. “They call me Rei.”