Fodor jerked his head towards Tasìa's voice.
"Don't shoot me!"
She shook her head. He had a 10 mm semi-auto repeater pistol strapped to his outer thigh whose make was obscured by his holster.
He was afraid of her.
Tasìa had to admit given their history, her introductory mugging for one, his was a natural response.
His eyes gazed down to the heave of her chest. Another admittance, the Ladies drew similar attention even when they were covered.
From all appearances Fodor was instrumental in saving her life so he had earned this indulgence even if she was predisposed to objecting.
But in truth, she wasn't. What scarring existed beneath the clasper-patch concerned her much more.
But then Fodor did a grand gesture. He peeled out of a black t-shirt with words in a Slavic language written on it, and passed it to her.
Tasìa faked a fetching smile by avoiding the gobliny upper curled lips. It was a lopsided smile she had practiced in the mirror to offset her one serious aesthetic flaw.
"Thank you, Fodor. Could you catch me up to speed? Looks like serious shit happening."
As he spoke, he removed the connective set up to the clasper-patch from his control console and mini-generator source. From a panel in the console he removed a bioKinect battery and installed it into the clasper-patch module.
"Your bounty hunter acquaintances are attempting a rescue of Alisha. They sent flechettes to clear a path for her. She is still holed up in a nearby building."
Green-Eyed Elise.
It was Alisha who told her Elise was in Asunción, and of Felicité's arrangement. Was there something to be gained? Was she hoping Tasìa had something to give up and reveal in turn?
That bore no fruit, so Alisha shot her in the back, and just left her there to die?
No. That wasn't it. The limited hang out was for the purpose of gaining trust until a rendezvous point was reached. But, as always, things got complicated.
Tasìa saw her Chiappa White Rhino 50DS .357 Magnum and her Stealth 338 LAP laying on the ground by the other side of the pole.
She twisted around and faced the weapons. There was pain on the stretched side of her torso but she could deal with it.
"You with that 338 could be very useful to me right now," Fodor suggested.
She nodded. Tasìa was Team Fodor now.
"What's the game plan," she asked.
"The flechettes are doing figure eights patrolling right over there, and I need to get my phasies back home."
Tasìa smiled that the man who directed the cats to be assassin drones gave them such a cute nickname.
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She holstered the White Rhino in her boot, grabbed the Stealth 338, and scoped it. The flechettes were as hard to follow as she assumed.
Tracking kinetic flight patterns was not the task for which the scope was built. The tight focus of the scope worked against her efforts to track the flechette's movement.
Tasìa flipped a pair of switches that held the upper receiver tightly together and carefully removed the scope from its rail supports.
She secured the receiver back in place, and checked out the iron sights on the opposite ends of the rail. They appeared to have never been tampered with in any significant manner.
That was good, but Tasìa still needed to test them. She flipped over, shouldered the rifle and shot dead in the eye the flamingo in the Flamenco Rosa billboard.
The rifle proved to be center on accurate at least up to 350 yards. Tasìa was quite satisfied with her results. As she reloaded, she glanced up, and wasn't sure how to read Fodor's squint.
"I'll replace the eye with a rhinestone if the Americans are offended."
Fodor shook his head. "It's not that. I'm sure no one will care. Your shot was incredible for a night time medium-long range iron-sighted snipe."
Tasìa blushed. She took her marksman abilities for granted and assumed them to be pretty common given she was not the best shot that came out of her barrio.
She flipped back around and sighted down range. She could make out the fluttering arches where the flechettes crested just before they spread out at roughly two hundred yards at the far tip of the coffee shop.
"I have my most nimble cat feinting in an and out of range from the copses. A few flechettes have already killed themselves against the tree trying to catch her.
"So they are in a holding pattern, ready to catch Katya from either street when she makes her move."
Tasìa nodded.
"The crows?"
"Patrolling for Alisha and the bounty hunters. I asked them to steer away from the flechettes."
"Good. Be prepared to go to small arms if I don't manage to kill them all."
Tasìa faced straight ahead. She did not want Fodor to read her expressions while she was engaged in an interior dialog.
Modality?
- Yes.
How is our toxicity levels?
- Less than half way towards your tolerance capacity.
Well then. Hey, ho, let's go.
When the warm, misty vapor rushed up from her sinuses, Tasìa could make out each individual bird along the figure eight pattern that crested down near the street and rose towards the rooftop before the birds spread out and rejoined the pattern.
Seven of them.
She realized in amazement as she grokked the pattern in its entirety.
I can take them all out in three shots.
She focused on a set of two of them, one in ascent, its opposite cresting down. She shot where they were set to cross paths.
When they did, they burst into a multitude of ribbons and sparkling shards of filament.
Tasìa had to take the next shot nearly instantly after the first for the three flechettes lined up just before the birds spread out to circle wide and keep Katya in check. The Lupua 338 round had no trouble soaring through the tailpipes of the three birds.
The remaining two of them tried to follow the same path aiming outward but Tasìa cut their routes short.
Within two seconds all the birds were cut down. Tasìa had given their operator no time to adjust their paths.
She could feel the momentum shift in her favor.
Tasìa thought of Alisha and her double cross, and grinned.
"Now it is time to take that bitch out!"
"Hold on," Fodor urged. "Look back at the billboard. It is an array in disguised for occasions like this one where we are cut off from the satellites."
The Flamenco Rosa sign melted away, exposing a meshed designed radio dish.
"The boss is attempting to patch her way through," Fodor continued. "There!"
He pointed to a midnight blue metal drone slowly descending from the sky. A box container approximately three foot by three foot in size was held fastened inside a nested coupe of bars.
On one side of the container was an attached vorpéd blade.
On the front end of the drone that faced Tasìa as it descended hung a holographic display module.
"It's what I suspected," Fodor offered in explanation. "The Boss wants you to capture Alisha alive, bring her here. We'll clip her head off with the guillotine. Hook her head up to life support - that I'll do. Leave the messy stuff to me. And then we take her to the boss for interrogation."
The boss?
As soon as she speculated, her question was answered. A five foot seven inch tall holographic figure stood before her. Her skin was purely metallic silver.
"Do you still possess any remaining tranq-darts, Tasìa?"
No proper greeting?
"Aunt Tatiana, how can this be?"