Wynn recalls how the two women just happened to meet through mutual connection and became good working acquaintances. Yolanda is a special type of scav and what people in the business call an Airlock and one of the best. Airlocks are who you when a corpse or two needs to be on the unrecoverable list and disappear. Yolanda cleans the scene, strips them of all usable augmentations and organs and sells them on the black market or to her clients.

“Oh, you are finally waking up. Good-good.” Yolanda says her voice sounds genuinely happy as she lightly taps Wynn’s nose with a finger. “Take it slow girl, you were one beer away from that being your last sleep.”

“W-what, happened.” Wynn stammers out.

“I found you drunk and blazed out of your little gord.” Yolanda says as she opens Wynn’s eye and shines a light. “A woman walked in right before we did. I won’t charge you for that clean up. She had a Grade-4 sensory aug and a CybOrganica ocular aug and her kidneys were perfect. Honestly I got a lot of great stuff from her. The man was bigger than I expected, organs were shit, but I got a cracked bridge police aug for the trouble. That is going to go for a lot.” She shines the light into Wynn’s other eye. “No takesies backsies on those augs by the way I already have buyers lined up.”

“You said a woman was there? You killed her? Who was it?” Wynn asked.

“Not sure.” She taps a finger to her chin as if in deep contemplation. “I didn't get the chance to ask before I cut her throat. She screamed and it would have drawn too much attention otherwise.” Yolanda looks up to the front of the vehicle. “Don, do you know?”

“Her name was Floran Aycock, I believe it was one of his daughters or something. Best not think about it. She saw your face and would tie you to the incident.” The man, Don, says from the driver's seat. “Right now we have a decoy of both of them in the Miche Street redlight district. That is where they are going to disappear. Lots of cameras and witnesses seeing them leave the apartment and have the time of their lives then, poof.”

“You’re lucky we got there when we did love, or you would be behind bars.” Yolanda says as she caresses Wynns cheek. “Or, actually, you killed an auti, you would be dead.”

Tears well up in Wynn’s eyes and run down her face uncontrollably. She didn’t mean for anyone else to die. Aycock himself sure but not his daughter she wasn’t even supposed to be there. He lived alone with no family to care for him or mourn him. Sure she didn’t kill her but her actions lead to it.

“Oh-oh dear. Are you still in pain?” Yolanda asks, slightly panicked. “Don’t worry momma Yolanda is on the case.”

Yoland takes out a second syringe and injects Wynn with the substance near the same spot on her neck. She then instructs Wynn on breathing techniques exaggerating the motions. Wynn decides to take her advice and breathes in then out slowly while closing her eyes.

Honestly this is the longest time Wynn has ever spent with Yolanda. Wynn always believed Yolanda wasn’t all right in the head, the mixture of her age and who knows what augmentations created this unhinged psychopath. She always found the woman more than a little unsettling. She is always so bubbly despite the fact that she literally cuts people up and harvests their insides for a living. Something about the way she will walk into some of the most horrific shit with a smile on her face is just disturbing on a level you don’t see much even in Solar City. Yes, there are plenty of scavs but none of them derive the same bliss she has day by day.

“Where are we going?” Wynn asks weakly while trying to lift her head.

She quickly finds out that is a bad idea as her vision starts spinning. Yolanda gently grabs her face and places it back down into her lap.

“I have another job and I couldn’t just leave you in that apartment.” Yolanda says her eyes unsettlingly looking over Wynn’s body. “So, I decided to take you with me. For a minute there I thought you were going to die. So I thought, if she does die I would have to come back anyways.” Her gaze became far more predatory. “No way I am missing out on an Orbital Police aug too. If you don’t die you owe me for saving your life which is much better. So much more profitable especially when you give me treats like tonight.”

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Wynn pulls her gun from its holster, the combat augmentation doing its job perfectly despite the dizziness she felt from the motion. She points the gun at Yolanda’s head not liking the conversation she was hearing at all. Yalonda doesn’t even flinch and instead looks excited at the turn of events. Even claps as the speed of Wynn’s augmentation.

“You didn’t answer my question, amizé.” Wynn says.

“Oh, didn’t I?” The cat masked girl says as she tries her best to get a good look at Wynn’s arm. “Nice model, has to be a muscle and targeting combat aug, right? Both hands, biceps, triceps, coracobrachialis and anconeus, even some of the shoulder, breast and back.” She grabs Wynn’s wrist in less than a blink with one hand. She effortlessly turned her arm over and pokes at her muscles with an amused look. “Didn’t aug all the muscle though… real skin too. That is lovely.”

“Ma’am we are here.” Don says as the vehicle comes to a stop. “We can sit here as long as he needs.” He turns around and his eyes nearly pop out of his head. “What is going on back there?”

He sees Wynn now weakly fight against Yolanda grip as she continues to poke and prod the different muscle groups in her arm. She doesn’t even bother to disarm Wynn, not even seeing her as a threat at all. Don on the other hand quickly unbuckles and gets out. He has to run around the side of the van and open the sliding door to get in and after some force wretch the gun from Wynn’s hand.

“What is going on back here?” Don says as he places the gun in the front seat.

This was Wynn’s first time getting a good look at the man. He is dressed in pink personal protection equipment with a big logo of a cartoon cat winking on his chest and back. The logo is the name of the cleaning front company PurePaws Sanitation. Wynn can’t get a good look of his face because has the same cat mask as Yolanda. He explains that they are at the monorail so she can get on to go home when she feels ready. The news calms her down until Yolanda tries to take off her shirt to get a better look at the combat augmentations.

It takes over thirty minutes before Wynn can sit up and another fifteen before she feels stable enough to walk. Yolanda waves her off as she leaves the van even giving her a kiss on the forehead for luck. While riding on the train she looked at several calls she apparently missed while in her drug induced stupor. She missed nearly twenty calls from Jason and several of her friends and a couple of his. Apparently they were looking for her. She calls Jason and lets him know she is alright and on the way back up to the locker to bathe.

As soon as the frosted glass door to the locker opened she saw Jason sitting at the stainless steel table. Whether by shock or simply because of the alcohol and other substances in her blood she lost balance and stumbled in nearly falling to her face. The only reason she caught herself is because of the combat augmentations acting to protect her by shooting her arms out in front of her. She uses the counter to pull herself back up to her feet and leans against it as much as possible to retain as much balance as possible.

“Are you hurt?” Jason asks softly, his eyes boring holes into her.

“No.” She responds clenching her jaw and looking anywhere but directly at him. “You gonna lecture me?”

“Should I? I mean you’re home, you’re safe.” Jason says his voice still soft but in the way that seemed forced. “I mean that is all I wanted to know. Just that you weren’t bleeding out in some alley somewhere. Or-or, or burnt out on some shit while get’n god knows what done to you. Stipped, harvested, raped who fucking knows.” He stands up the chair clattering to the ground behind him.

Wynn can’t help but fight back tears. She had this same conversation with Kevin before she joined the Orbital Police. Kevin always tried his best to keep her and Jason shielded from the harsh realities of Solar City. Jason thrived in academia becoming top of his class and even getting a great job. Wynn thought she was different; she never felt like she could live up to what her brothers achieved. She wasn’t the smartest or had any special talent or anything like that.

She had to claw her way up and only by fighting did she even make it into the Orbital Police. There she thought she could be better, actually achieve something good. However, that wasn’t the case, the Orbital Police wasn’t what she expected. Corruption, cover-ups, abductions, assassinations you name it she has been a part of it in some way or another. Of course she never told them. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t. Because at least in their eyes she was doing something good. Now though she just felt hollow, defeated, tired and the one person that would know exactly what to say to pick up her spirits she would never hear again.

Wynn gets ready to say something in her defense. Before she could Jason is already standing directly in front of her. He draws her into his embrace and doesn’t say a single thing more. She is shocked at first but every defense she tried to put up crumbles. Everything she felt floods out as if a dam broke and she just cries.