A low, gruff groan rose behind her, startling her eyes wide open. Anya moved as if she had done this a thousand times over and sprung up immediately from laying down on her right shoulder onto her knees in one swift and smooth motion. Simultaneously, her right hand moved ahead, ready to guard as her left hand moved back and surged forward. A small, dark, thin stiletto slid out from an equally small slot-like incision just off-center from her wrist as her fist moved forward to contact.
She froze as she saw who it was. Her eyes widened. The pointed end of the stiletto hovered precariously close to the face of the man lying down on his back, eyes shut, blissfully asleep and unaware of the weapon so close to his cheekbone.
Anya took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Her demeanor relaxed almost immediately as her hands lost their tension and dropped to her sides. The stiletto slid back into the small slot in her wrist, hidden among the intricate ink laces running down her left arm. She shook her head as her lips smirked, adjusting herself as she slid off her bed.
Her eyes then moved in a directional set to turn on her eye HUD while she bent over to pick up a silken robe on the wooden floor. She slowly and softly walked in a figure-eight in the darkened room; message reminders and the time popped up into view on her HUD, eliciting a soft scoff from her as she took note of the time.
“PAT? Please open the blinds. Thank you,” she called out as she flicked her hand, dismissing some messages and leaving some unopened.
“Yes, mistress Anastasiya,” the female voice hummed back obediently as the blinds to the plate glass windows of her room slowly rose, letting sunlight flood in.
Anya walked to a line of clothes left on the floor, from the door to just by her large bed, picking them up as she went while the blinds finally stopped rising; sunlight washed the whole room as the man on the bed stirred, his arm moved to cover his face as he groaned ‘ufff… what time issit…”,
“Late time, which means it's time to go, Eric,” Anya flatly replied and tossed the clothes she had collected off the floor to him, who chuckled at this.
“What already? It’s the weekend. We haven’t spent time doing nothing during weekends for a long time, Anya.”
Anya chuckled softly to herself, her left eye-brow arched up as her face echoed her thoughts,
“As much as I love the sound of that,” nope, her mind chimed in,
“I’ve already made plans with Noa, so you’re fresh out of luck this time,”
The reply elicited a dissatisfied groan from Eric,
“BUT, if things finish sooner than expected, we can always hang out later… if... You’re free, that is?”
She sat down on the edge of the bed beside him, patting his arm. " OK? Chop, chop now; I need to get ready.”
Eric sighed silently, “You girls have constantly been busy for what... Forever? I’ve barely been able to have had any time with you over these past, I dunno… so many months.”
His eyes roamed Anya’s naked form and ran over the intricate columns of ink running down on either side of her spine to her hips, continuing down her thighs and her legs. She rested the heels of her feet on the edge of the bed, her left arm hugged at the knees, pulled close to her chest.
“And the ink, is that nano-ink?” Eric reached out, only to have his hand swatted down by Anya, who didn’t move otherwise as she laughed,
“And finally, he asks… but... Nano-ink… like military types?... or…”
She playfully gasped. “... mercs?” she laughed again.
"Me and Noa, running around Lowbie-land like a couple of mercs… trying to earn some Y-Bees to add to our meager accounts?”
She grinned teasingly at Eric…” Reeeally?” Anya tilted her head and giggled amusedly as she looked at Eric, her face telling how ridiculous it sounded.
“Alright, alright, fine, now that you say it out loud like that,” Eric shook his head and swung his feet off the bed, sitting next to Anya. “Not gonna lie, they look pre-sweet on you, though,”
Anya smiled wide and winked at him. Her feet slid back down, and she smacked Eric’s arm as she got up. " Right? Besides, I do recall you liking them more, too,” she snickered as she headed to her room's door.
“Okay, get dressed, Mister Man; it’s already past midday,” her face looked in Eric’s direction as he got up and started getting dressed. Her left hand and fingers moved as they rested on her thigh, messages scrolling as she continued perusing through what she had started earlier.
She stopped just as Eric turned to head her way, smiling warmly at him as they hugged tightly, exchanging a lingering kiss before she pulled back when she felt a reaction from him,
“Okay, okay, get going, will you!’, she chuckled as she swatted at him again. Eric laughed at this and stepped back, turning to open the door, “Catch you later, Snappy,”
Anya winked and smiled at him, arms crossed as she watched him exit, then shut the door behind him,
Her HUD pointer moved to call select: Noakins; it pulled up Noa’s personal communicator icon at the top left of her HUD as the communicator rang,
“Heey, gooood afternoon Anyanas!” Noa’s voice chirpily picked up,
“Afternoon! Slept well?”.
“Like a decommissioned CT laying in a heap-yard, yes, yes.”
Anya chuckled. “Hmm, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a CT, maybe... I dunno, a nice sleek car perhaps.”
“Oooh hmmm, well, if I’m a car, I would definitely be a D’nov L12; now that’s a sweet ride; nothing feels and rides better than that,” she paused on the line. “...way better than that kerbie you keep seeing on and off, I would say”, she laughed on her end of the line, eliciting the same from Anya.
“Oh shuddup Noa!”, barely able to string the words smoothly through the laughter, “aaanyway, I wanted to ask if there was anything new with what we talked about,”
“Ah, spoke to Bunbuns, and she helped put out feelers when I woke up, still too early, though. Honestly? I’m leaning towards a go; of course, I may still have questions by the time the meet arrives, but… I can ask him then. Anlidar is a good repeat, and Mama seems to be comfortable with the arrangement she has with him and us. It's a definite snatch-and-go, minimal soft-bags and maybe some steel ones, basically standard sec-team…at least that’s what the specs say”,
Anya’s mind raced, recalling the past jobs they had done for Anlidar. Humans and robots were the usual level of security they encountered on contracts given by that man. Her mind made mental notes on the kind of tools needed as she nodded to herself,
“Well, alright, keep me posted if anything else comes up then yea?”
“Always babe. Watcha got planned for today, then?”
“Oh, well, probably just go around aimlessly, do some training, you?”
“I’ll be working on the Angel 6 as usual”,
“Ah, still contemplating if you wanted to make it hover like the old days?”
Noa chuckled on her end; Anya swore she could see her giving a mischievous grin from ear to ear,
“I’m trying to! Honestly, I actually thought it was simpler than this mess”.
“Eh, you’ll get it, one way or another.”
“You bet your ass I will!”.
“Noa…” Anya’s tone turned serious. “I will not bet my fine ass on anything I can hardly understand, please,”
Noa laughed in reply, “Perhaps, maybe I’ll just use that kerbie and bet his ass then.”
“Noa Hellena! He is not a curb crawler!” Anya laughed, almost whining at Noa in response,
“Okay, okay, fine, I won’t call him kerbie. I’d still bet him over you, though”, Noa chuckled,
Anya chuckled as her mind stumbled onto a thought. “Oh, by the way, I just remembered. Do you want me to check on our stocks? It’s been some time since we’ve done an Anlidar-level gig, so I figure I should check up on whether we need refreshes.”
“Babe, are you ok? Are you actually volunteering to go down to our Lowbie-town place and do ammo shopping at Nik’s?”
Chuckling, Anya nodded curtly as if she were in front of Noa. “Yep! Sacrifices must be made…For the greater good,” both of them chiming in on the line,
“Well, never hurts, would really appreciate that, yep, yep.”
“Alright then, catch you later, Noakins!”
“Careful in Lowbie-town, babe!” Noa chuckled as the line clicked, ending the call.
—--------------------------
The vehicle descended slowly and settled onto the deserted parking lot, kicking up dust. Sparse and dry woods lay on either side of the paved area, while seemingly deserted rows of storage spaces and an exit road hugged the other sides.
“We have reached your stipulated destination, mistress Anastasiya,” a pleasant digital male voice broke the relative silence,
Anya looked up from the small flip screen she was looking at and smiled. “Alright, please make sure to follow the procedure for erasing the travel route.”
“As always, mistress,” the pleasant digital male voice chimed back as the side of the vehicle opened, the top half rising as the bottom half set down akin to a short ramp to the ground.
Getting up and taking a few short steps to the ground, Anya stretched her arms over her, took a deep breath, and flexed herself loose. Her nose scrunched up as the deep inhale enabled her to pick up faint smells on the breeze toward her, making her sigh disapprovingly.
Her left hand moved up to the back of her neck with a small flat stick between her fingers as she searched for one of the three small slots at the nape of her neck, inserting the stick that proceeded to disappear into it. A flash of information scrolled up on her eye-HUD as she walked to the row of storage buildings, making mental notes of items on her to-do list.
Walking along the row of steel doors, she stopped when her eye HUD highlighted one of the many shut steel doors, and she turned to face it,
“Link Established. Welcome, Miss Nagrey. Please enter your user code.” - A message scrolled on her screen.
Her hand moved up, fingers seeming to key in a sequence of numbers from a keypad.
“Thank you. Please stand by”. Another message scrolled up in response to the code she had just entered.
Moments later, the heavy steel door slid slowly into a channel, and Anya entered the storage space.
The space was filled with wall racks and a couple of jackets. Small boxes were on long metallic tables on one side, and bare boxes lined the other three walls. Two tarpaulins covered something relatively large under them and occupied most of the space.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
She stepped to one, pulled the deep blue tarpaulin, and tossed it away, uncovering a metallic blood-red colored motorcycle, its mixture of gentle curves and sharp lines giving it an impression of aggressiveness. She turned and picked up her favorite jacket, which hung from a wall, smiling as her gloved fingers ran gently over the aged deep brown leather of the bomber jacket; a finger circled the cartoony sunflower with a smiley face in the middle before slipping it over her bodysuit.
After pushing the bike out of the storage space and making sure the door was shut again, Anya slid onto it and turned the engine on, which hummed into life under her as she slipped a black full-face helmet over her head.
“Destination, City - Home,” the HUD on the helmet visor came to life. Immediately displaying the distance to the pre-programmed destination. A faint yet noticeable line appeared on the road in front of the ride,
“Disable route guide,” the line disappeared. She shook her head, reminding herself that it should be set to default for her home destination. Then, she pushed off and started the ride back to her city apartment.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------
The door slid swiftly shut. Anya turned and patted the dark wood surface of the security door, tapping the rectangular panel next to it to lock it. After removing her boots, she headed directly to the back of the apartment, where another rectangular-shaped panel stood rather out-of-place in the middle of the otherwise bare cream-colored wall.
A hand pressed at the panel's glass keypad; she then proceeded to push it up, revealing a similar keypad under it. She paused momentarily to undo the gloved part of her bodysuit and freed her right hand, which she pressed onto the translucent keypad.
The small screen over the keypad acknowledged her DNA as coded and recognized, eliciting soft hissing sounds and a sequence of sturdier mechanical sounds immediately after.
The wall’s smooth surface was suddenly broken up with lines depicting a door before it opened inside, showing off a sizable room. Anya stepped in and smiled to herself as her eyes browsed at her favorite weapons on a wall and a work table.
Screens and other weapons of various kinds were kept in purpose-built racks along the sides as she made her way to a wall-sized cabinet. Opening the doors, she was greeted with boxes of various ammunition for the weapons in the room. Her eyes scanned each of them as she picked out those she had already decided upon. Having done this often enough with Noa, she was pleasantly surprised at herself that she had remembered the list of steps Noa had painstakingly drummed into both their minds about this part of the job.
After assembling the array of hardware they would usually bring to a job like this, she stepped back and nodded slowly to herself with her hands resting on her hips when she realized something and proceeded to call Noa.
“Hey Anyanas, you ok? everything dazz?” Noa chimed in as she picked up,
“Hmm, well, I’m great.. But… the Smart rounds are a bit lacking”,
“Smart rounds? I don’t use smart rounds; you use smart rounds, dummy.”
“Ya, I know, you asked… Dummy”, she smirked as she retorted back,
“Okay, well, we won’t be giving our response to Mama and Anlidar til this coming week, so we got time to restock that, yes?”
“Yep, I was just about to say that. Just giving a heads-up that I’ll be dropping by Nik’s. How’s your day coming along?”.
A sharp cuss followed by a loud clanging sound greeted her question: “Sorry, sorry. The shop delivered a wrong bit, and I was trying to be smart and modify it. Turns out I’m not THAT smart after all.” She could hear Noa chuckling at herself: " Everything is green on my end aside from that. You stay safe when you get to Nik’s, and keep me posted, please.”
“Will definitely do that, Noakins. Don’t scold your tools too much now,”
An animated icon of Noa’s face with her tongue sticking out and her two hands giving the viewer the finger popped up on Anya’s HUD,
Anya giggled. “All alright, later then!”
“Toodles!” Noa chimed back before the line cut off.
Anya smiled and sighed happily. Deciding she needed something to add to her light mood, she headed toward the apartment’s large living room. The space occupied most of the apartment, with two large walls and a corner entirely of floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
As she entered the room, she spun to her left and tapped her fingers over the top of a few bottles, stopping at one of the more beautifully made bottles. She smirked. Her father had given this as a joke present on one of her birthdays, and it had always been one of her favorite brands.
She opened the large bottle and paused, taking a brief moment to appreciate the scent of the liquid while a smile formed on her lips before she poured the clear liquid into a shot glass.
Stopping herself, she opened the cold storage unit door at her feet and fished out a couple of small dilled pickles. She nodded in silent satisfaction and smiled before picking up the shot glass, toasting herself in her reflection, and took a shot, repeating it twice before she closed the bottle and headed to the weapons room again, relishing in the burn of the liquid that slid down inside her as she chewed on a pickle she fed herself with.
The rest of her time at the apartment was spent preparing for her visit to Nik’s, which was located in a less desirable part of the city than she was comfortable with. Her inherent dislike of the area and its denizens fed the need for her extra attention as she diligently went through the motions of getting ready.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------
Nik’s was the front for one of the more affluent gun pushers in the quad-city area. Located toward the outskirts of the quad-cities, just beyond the borders of where most of the skyscrapers in the central corporate office zone were located. In a set of small and less than looked after blocks of still operating shop-houses.
Multiple layers of piezo highways that comprised the city’s many ring roads had been built over the now less-used large asphalt road that stood opposite the block. Despite this, the area was still used as one of the many busy commuter transit points for those who commute deeper into the city from the outer districts.
Anya parked her bike and turned off the route guide from her helmet’s HUD. Her nose wrinkled as she noticed the foot traffic around her and a group of less-than-desirable people in the corner of her eye. ‘No doubt fouling the city streets,’ her mind coldly added.
—-------------------------------------------------------------
Pressing the inhaler, a cloud of substance was released from it as he inhaled deeply and leaned back while the effects coursed through his body.
“Fuck yea, that’s what I’m talking about! Woo!!” He leaned back and passed the inhaler to the girl sitting next to him, who eagerly grabbed it and proceeded to take a hit as well, giggling as she did so.
“That hit on the van was amazing, such a rush, and damn, the Y-bees,” Mils piped out, as she leaned back against the bench, leaning her head back over it as she let the drug combination flood through her blood and senses.
Raccoon chuckled, turned his head toward her, and nudged her, “You got to test your new iron too, don't you?”
She sat back up, nodded slowly, and gave out a lazy, satisfied smile as she pulled out her pistol and laid it on her lap, patting it as if it was a pet ‘Heck ya, worth all the Y-Bees.”
Another guy, who sat on the ground and leaned against the bench she was on, passed the inhaler back over his shoulder. “This one is just about finished, where's the rest?”,
A tall, thin man with bright-colored tattoos on his shaved head squatted beside him and passed him another inhaler. “Here, we got many, many more where that came from.”
Blitz laughed and slapped that man’s leg as he eagerly took the inhaler and used it, “Fuck ya, thanks, miyoh,” he chuckled as some of the drug clouds escaped his lips.
Racoon sat lazily back on the bench next to Mils and tapped her thigh; his head nodded toward something he saw over by the street they were at. It was late in the afternoon, and those who weren’t moving around in cars or commuter transport back to where they lived were walking around on the wide sidewalks; plenty of people would usually go unnoticed, but this one stood out from everyone else.
“You see that?”
Mils sat up and rested her elbows on her thighs as she shook her head to try and focus her vision. She nodded when she noticed what he was just implying,
“Looks set for pick up,” she chuckled wickedly as a grin slid onto her lips.
“Fuck yea” Racoon sat up straight and looked toward the other two by the bench,
“You kerbies wanna have some fun?”
“You know us, Racs! All the time ‘yoh, what you got?” Rain chuckled as he adjusted the small rectangular alloy boxes on his face, his eyes, the colors of the glass-like surface adjusting from a soft blue to orange as he turned in the direction that Racoon was pointed
“Hmmm,” the colors of the glasses oscillated between different intensities of orange. “What the fuck, the ID reads aren’t working.”
“What the fuck ‘yoh, you said you got it fixed!”, Mils swatted him behind his head,
“Hey! Lay off! I did get it fixed!”,
“You got ramped, kerbie. Best to go see that Tech again,” Racoon brushed it off as his eyes studied the subject of their attention.
She’s tall and fit, perhaps too fit for a regular civilian. What she wore didn’t hide much from the eye, allowing any simple mind to have an idea of what she was having under all that cloth.
“Chill, I wanna see what she does.” Racoon’s attention was now fully focused on the woman as he leaned forward on the bench,
The woman who was attracting their attention removed her full-face helmet, revealing long, dark, auburn hair that flowed down well between her shoulder blades. A wild combination of cream, blue, and green highlights streaked throughout the healthy, shiny hair.
“Humph, she’s got vogue hair,” Mils scoffed, her voice heavy with envy.
“Well, you can have it if you want.” Racoon chuckled as his eyes salaciously took in the woman they were looking at
“Rain, Blitz, you guys game? We’ll wait for her to come back out.”
The woman placed her helmet into the top box of her sleek, eye-catching ride, then stepped back. Her left hand moved to her neck while she seemed to pause momentarily before she proceeded to tie her hair into a pony-tail,
Racoon scoffed as he grinned. “Heh, bike has a defense mech, sneaky bitch”
“Yea, seems so.” Mils nodded as she kept her eyes on the subject,
“So what, I can jack that just like any other vik meyoh,” Blitz interjected eagerly,
Racoon glared at Blitz and tossed an empty inhaler at the other guy’s metal-covered head,
“Your chrome make you dumb, kerbie? That’s a jacked-up Aranagi ride, which means whatever that blud has on it for sec is likely just as jacked-up, kerbie” he shook his head and leaned back.
“She’s goin' into that store, so we’ll wait for her to come out, you kerbs, get your irons ready.”
—-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Not too close to the bike, kerb,” Racoon hissed at Mils, who shrugged and nodded in response. He moved to his side and leaned against a wall close to the door that the woman had stepped into earlier.
The streets were relatively empty now, safe for a few pedestrians on the other side of the large road and vehicles that went back and forth on it. No sane person would go for a walk in this area so close to sundown.
“Fuckin’ kerb took too much.” Mils nodded toward the direction of Rain, whose oddly long, bony fingers were covering his face while he lay sideways on the bench they had sat on
“His loss; means Racs and I get more time with her, right, Racs?” Blitz chuckled lecherously as he nudged Racoon, who was nursing his large shotgun hidden under his long jacket. Blitz then stepped some distance away from Racoon, his head swiveling as if he was trying to ensure that all escape routes were covered.
They had finished their stock of Race-V, a drug popular for the way it changes color perception and enhances sensation. Racoon looked toward the large, tall buildings in his view and then at the multiple layers of highways overhead.
The sun was setting, and the structures that kept the area shaded during sun-up made it even darker than it was later in the day. It'd been hours now that they had been waiting for that woman in her skin-tight bodysuit who had disappeared into the store. ‘Who takes that long to buy housing items anyway?’ his mind wondered just as the door opened.
The woman they had seen earlier stepped out. His eyes again roamed over her bodysuit and paused as he noticed the cartoonish sunflower on the arm of what looked like an aged leather bomber jacket. ‘This blud is definitely swimming in stacks with a jacket like that,’ his mind chimed in as he stepped closer to her.
“Hey, blud, what did you buy in there?” He grinned salaciously at her as he stepped in front of her, blocking her path forward. His wide build seemed to dwarf her, and she looked up at him as if she were frozen momentarily. He noticed her large gray eyes; tiny illuminated lines seemed to scroll in her left eye.
He chuckled and smirked confidently. “Ah, you are checking me out?”
She smiled warmly at him, her hands moving up slowly as she looked to her sides at Mils and Blitz, indicating she had no weapons.
“Who wouldn’t want to check you out?” Her covered left hand slid onto Racoon’s cheek as she cooed warmly and gently patted his cheek.
“You guys were waiting for me all this time?” she purred softly at him, as her head kept intermittently looking at Mils and Blitz at the flanks.
“Heck yea, blud, we wanted to make sure you were safe,” Racoon smiled at her. Mils smiled with him while Blitz chuckled, his hands massaging each other as his eyes roamed overtly on the curves afforded by her bodysuit.
She smiled warmly at him, “That’s so sweet; maybe I can reward you after all...” she smirked, the gray of her eyes then suddenly lined by a deep red,
“… Lokh.” Her tone changed as a long stiletto blade sprang out from under her wrist; a smooth squelching sound escaped as the blade sunk deep into Racoon’s skull via his lower jaw.
“What the…” Mils exclaimed in shock as she saw Racoon suddenly go limp, her body immediately reacting, and she raised her pistol as she screamed angrily at the woman,
A loud boom cut her movement, and her head suddenly jerked back violently while her body dropped to the pavement.
Blitz’s eyes widened; Mils’ corpse flipped back and then dropped to the pavement in a spray of blood that seemed to spout out from an instantaneous channel in her head.
He screamed out in horror as he looked at the woman, who turned to face him. Her left hand moved down, Racoon’s heavy build dropping down to the pavement, whose body twitched momentarily as she walked over to him. Blood dripped from the tip of the long stiletto blade that protruded from under her wrist as she raised the pistol toward him in her right hand.
“Please, please, please! We didn’t mean anything; Racs was just…” Blitz gulped, slumping down to his knees, his pistol having dropped to his side as he looked at the two lifeless bodies and then at the woman who now stood over him with her pistol pointing at his forehead.
“Fuckin’ lowbies,” she sneered in disgust as another loud boom filled his hearing. Then everything went black for Blitz.