Part II The Bounty Hunter

Six Weeks Later

She was still two blocks from her destination when Elise came across a line up of neon lit shops along a strip of two story buildings.

Not the hep part of town, Elise concluded as she eyed a jewelry store that mimicked in garish orange neon a stylish boutique on the main strip.

But she paused anyway.

If Tasìa del Alma-Gris placed any crew members nearby to keep tabs on law enforcement along the outer parameter of her heist that evening, he would be in a spot in over view of these shops.

To blend in with the urbane souls of West Vida Escondida, Elise purposively wore her outer layer of clothes in a rhinestone gaucha assembly. It was almost Neo-Vaquera level flash but subdued enough to reflect her borderland roots.

Beneath that layer she wore cool and comfortable temperature self-regulating thermals.

Elise turned towards the cases on display at the jewelry store, and squatted as if she were riveted by something that caught her eye. As she did so, a Swiss multi-state timepiece actually did catch her eye.

It first appeared as an extensive set of gears in motion under rose tinted glass. The glass became platinum and the rose became engravings of rose vines. The display now appeared and functioned as a smart watch before restarting the cycle of physical states.

Elise got enough of a view of the timepiece to know it was a generation ahead of what she currently wore in its accuracy and functionality.

"Chief," Birddog began, everyone in the crew called each other 'chief', "her agent just turned away from checking out your ass for twenty seconds, now he is prowling for other things."

Elise guffawed, and expressed on the subdermal, "these old pair of flint rocks?"

Her lover did not respond to the playful taunt.

Instead, Birddog sent over the visuals of the gentleman in mid-inspection and he definitely liked what he saw. Elise had spotted the same man at the den keeping tabs on Gael-Sebastian.

Elise was dressed very feminine the previous evening with her hair down mid shoulder blade and curled feathery. She now had her hair up in a bun, dressed in popular but street casual wear, and her ass formed differently in trousers than in a dress.

He was a man wired by nature to focus on mating ques, it would never register in his mind that she was the same woman.

"You should keep moving," Birddog suggested anxiously.

When Elise answered the tech's call a half hour earlier, Birddog was distressed. Elise thought the girl had shaken her quivers but she was beginning to show the signs of panic once more.

"Birddog, take another shot of nyrrognosis before I get there, okay? I don't need you to be stressing out on me. Do you see what I just sent over to you?"

"The Swiss EclàtTemps?"

"Any money in the budget for it?" Elise asked wanly.

She felt tremendous guilt and humiliation over the enormous funding loss accrued during the Great Fuck Up. Everyone was making sacrifices.

"I checked the specs on it. You need that watch. That Gray Band thing you wear is so behind the current operative standard, it is likely to get you killed one day. I went ahead and purchased it, just go to the counter and show your ID and they'll hook you up. Everything has been cleared.

"Just get over here as soon as you can."

She thanked Birddog with a giddiness Elise had not felt in what she assumed to be several years. She really wanted that watch.

Elise paused before crossing the street. She wasn't sure which one of the service vehicles that were parked at the narrow lot by the side entrance belonged to her.

She shook her head and smiled. The Cordi Brothers did a fantastic job of reconfiguring the vehicle in accordance to the spec that she gave them that morning.

Fingers covered in a white glove reached out of the driver side window and tapped the roof of the slate gray van she now knew was the one that belonged to her. It was Birddog telling Elise to hurry on over.

She checked her six, Birddog's Junebug drone hovered by a row of trees. It was scouting her out as it fixed on her position for the purpose of following Elise in a guard duty fashion.

She hurried across the road and hopped into the vehicle.

"Did you get a chance to study the video," Birddog asked without so much as a greeting. Elise suspected the tech had not dosed on the nuero-relaxer as she had requested of her.

The contents of the video had disturbed Birddog so much so that she called Elise to assist. It seemed a safe assumption that the thief would not strike until four more hours when the manufacturing part of the plant shut down.

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Elise was getting much needed rest until then. But she got the call, and dragged herself across town.

Elise nodded, affirming that she was not happy about the video either.

Birddogs eyes bulged.

"She knows we are here, and she is checking up on us."

The crows had Birddog spooked. When del Alma-Gris scouted the facility an hour earlier, she commanded a swirling murder of crows that accompanied her. Seven of them. They maneuvered around the manufacturing plant before they suddenly changed course and harassed the three drones that Birddog maintained; in their earlier conversation, she was quite chagrined about the damage done to her belovéd Junebug.

Though pained by the vexation that she saw on her young lover's face Elise managed to keep her feelings in check for the mission. Birddog was highly competent but the tech often did not present the most professional demeanor.

Elise threw Birddog an impassive glance; always concerned she was that if she let up on her crew she would get them killed.

Obviously, del Alma-Gris knew something was up. The drones were well hidden from any street-level vantage point on the block, and could have easily been made to be scarce if the thief put a drone up in the air herself. That scenerio Birddog anticipated, but the crows showing up out of nowhere was not something for which they could have planned.

Birddog was waiting intently for an explanation. Elise shook her head. Her breath expired slowly.

No, that assessment was self-serving and was not entirely true. She had met Gael-Sebastian Cuervo the previous evening. Elise was well aware of whom was the degenerate addict's father, but she had failed to debrief Birddog about that meeting.

The tech would have likely adjusted their planning to fit that reality, accordingly.

"I'm sorry, Birddog; the contact I made last night has a father who controls that murder of crows that attacked your Junebug. They are specialist' fitted for spotting Manifest illness within crowds of people. They are amongst the best spotters on the planet.

"What's more, Tasìa del Alma-Gris is a favorite of his and it would be a trifle matter for her to acquire those crows for a mission like this one."

Birddog looked crosséd for a moment, but then she quickly mimicked Elise in her impassivity.

She's learning, Elise noted.

"So," Birddog asked, "now what do we do, how do we maintain control over this?"

Elise paused for a moment, as the answer that readily came to mind, pulling back and not getting involved, was unsatisfactory. Though the drones had been spotted there was no evidence or reason to believe that the service vehicle had been compromised as well.

Birddog reviewed the flight patterns earlier. No consideration was given for the position of the service van in the crows' previous actions.

"Let's take a few minutes to study that video, see if we can figure out why she brought those crows. She could not have anticipated that we would be here in the few days it would have taken her to set them up, so there must have been something else that del Alma-Gris had in mind to use them for."

Birddog nodded along as she pulled up a replay analyses for a presentation she had put together.

"I've been studying that, and I'm pretty sure she is going to have them fly threw those vents that lead into the accumulation deck."

Elise squinched her face tight, trying to wrap her head around what the little thief was up to. The sign above the double doors nearby read, Densidad ProActiva Engineers. Whatever del Alma-Gris was there to steal it was not consistent with her usual modus operandi of focusing on luxury goods, weapons, recreational pharmaceuticals, and medical supplies.

Elise watched the photos sequenced together of the crows making runs near a ventilation system. It looked as if they were collecting data to learn how to breach it.

The van rattled with a brisk knock banging on the back doors. Birddog's jaw dropped as her head spun from monitor to monitor.

"It's her! But how?"

Elise motioned for Birddog to calm down. The bounty hunter swung out of her seat, squatted on a tool bench, checked her gun, and popped a moonclip in the 10 mm Magellani Terra Bruciata Revolver.

Satisfied, she commanded the vehicles voice control to open the doors just as a second round of knocking boomed through the interior.

The double doors spread out. In the darkness, shadowed from the industrial lights of the parking lot, a small petite figure of a mestiza woman stood in a tense pose, studying the interior near where Elise sat before she spoke in a low feminine rasp the bounty hunter wasn't expecting.

"Your heat dispersion system is flawed. My birds picked up on you right away. Concentrating the heat signature into a two-dimensional array bouncing off of each side of that top foam might work against drones and fixed cameras, but the crows just pick up on the queerness of it all. Mel wants to check it out himself but I won't let him get anywhere close by."

Elise shrugged.

"The captain of your murder, I take it? He is free to take a look, we wont stop him."

Tasìa nodded. "Yes, Miss Luna Claro, Mel is the captain of the murder."

Elise chuckled as she tried to regain her composure.

"So, you know who I am?"

Del Alma-Gris' shoulders snapped together as she writhed her head from side to side until she produced a cracking sound, "of course. I know that you talked to Gael-Sebastian last night, asking about me. I know you are a bounty hunter, and you have to be aware I don't care much for your kind."

Elise relaxed. Del Alma-Gris was aware already that this was a negotiation and she was establishing her position.

"Well then, that saves us trouble. You already know then that I have no interest in hunting thieves. Not even those who command 1.2 million USD. Tempting, but I made promises to my team about the nature of our assignment. Come in, let's talk."

Elise slid her gun over to del Alma Gris. The thief gave it an appraisal with a wide grin but pushed it to the side, and hopped up on the truck bed where she stood erect on her knees. To Elise, she appeared more compact than her 4'11" frame suggested even as her bosom drew attention as they stood out in a straight position in front of her.

The bounty hunter was 'on the clock' as the Americans put it, so Elise ignored the thief's striking profile.

"Excuse me if I don't exchange my piece in return."

Elise chortled languidly.

"Don't remind me. I had a drone trained on you for over an hour, the other day. I could never find where you kept it hidden. The AI deduced but never positively identified that it would be a Kel-Tech repeater .32 strapped in camo on the left side of that lovely little fufa. You were wearing a mid rift with your navel exposed while on the streets yesterday so I have to ask, how was it even possible?"

Tasìa pulled the street-gray thermal shirt she wore up and she pressed a connector strip embedded within the end-seem of the shirt. A cameotic skin dissipated its illusion revealing the small caliber gun strapped on the side of her stomach.

"That's pretty cool," Elise commented as she wondered why the thief was revealing so much stage craft.

Because she is auditioning for what I am about to ask her to do. She knows about the Great Fuck Up and wants in.

"Hey," Birddog interjected. "I have a question for you."

Tasìa grinned as she studied Birddog for a moment before she reached out her hand, turned it left, and then up, then down, and finally right with her index finger.

"How I snuck up on you? You have a pattern that Mel picked up on in how you read your monitoring devices. I merely went in the counter direction but hoping you would not catch my lateral move between those two vehicles before I approached yours.

Elise felt a chill running up her vertebrae. How does someone get that good?

"Ms. del Alma-Gris, I have a proposition for you."

The thief folded her legs together, yoga style.

"Go ahead. I am listening."