There should have been a gouge in the middle of her forehead, but nothing of the sort remained of the wound. Merely a bit of blood, and not much at that. She wiped it off with the back of her hand.
Likely, the third eye was merely a programmed bit of fingunt that the Dark-Eyed One, Geminetta, set upon her forehead, and programmed it to sync with her brain.
Tasìa shook her head. She had no time for this idle speculation. The nanospore entities were not her main problem at the moment. She needed to catch up with Matzi, or at least find out what had become of him while she remained unable to do anything about the skater hooligans waiting for him.
She really needed his help, there was none better at recruitment than him, and she also needed his advice.
Getting the NeoPalm was going to take at least a few accomplices to keep her out of trouble; preferably operatives familiar with motorsport given Tasìa's Alfa Romeo HybrClydis was parked within the Vida Escondida Autonomous Authority's own Junker Pit, on the premises of their official drag strip.
The Junker Pit was a testing facility for rebuilt vehicles, ran by a squad of mechanical engineers known as the Demon Crew. They were going to be a substantial problem, as Tasìa had tangled with them before in her drag racing days.
She breathed in and took in her surroundings.
Someone was attempting to climb up the building. It was a solidly reinforced concrete two-story structure with full modular back-end support for up to six kiosk stands.
Tasìa's scream during her fight against entity induced sleep paralysis attracted unwanted attention.
Just as she focused on a countermeasure against the curious invader, on the opposite end of the display front-side, she heard a boot slam into the beam support holding together a kiosk stand.
Followed by a loud clang and gasp of pain as someone smashed her back against the ground.
Mel fluttered away deftly from the incident as he dropped a finger tip out of his mouth.
Did it warrant that degree of violent reaction?
Tasìa wondered, alarmed at the Nightwing.
On the other end of the front side another person was still attempting to climb up the wall.
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Who could it be?
The Czech Sametové Indigo agents? Are they now more curious about me than they are in capturing Matzi?
Tasìa crawled into a turning position, and then quietly rolled over to the opposite end of the tin roof above where the woman fell.
Still climbing up, and kneeling awkwardly positioned atop the furtherest kiosk was a Vida Escondida Autonomous Authority security patrolman.
His armor was light, but the polymer support pads still restricted his manueverability.
It bought her time.
She tilted her head against a rounded display holder clamp that kept the lit-up neon out of her eyes, and her own head obscured from view at ground level.
Tasìa finally peared downward.
Oh . . . shit! She nearly gasped out loud.
"What have I done," she whispered rhetorically between her teeth.
Spread out limp by the trashcan one of the Czech (she had to assume from the gun, stylistic choices, and demeanor) Sametové Indigo agents was being treated by a pair of EMS medics crouched at her side, but to Tasìa's eyes, the agent appeared ghostly drained of all life.
The woman must have had a heart attack when the flash bang went off, Tasìa concluded.
She regarded the scene just beneath her. The other agent layed on her back, the Škorpion a few yards away. Her bloodied hand gripped up against her chest.
Her other hand waved off a second security patrolman who held a P226 repeater pistol in .357 Sig ammo gripped tight and steadily aimed at her.
He asked about the Škorpion, and, from his tone, possessed no illusions of why it was in her possession.
Tasìa checked the other agent again. Just before the paramedics covered up the body, she spotted three closely grouped bullet holes that Tasìa missed previously due to one paramedic being crouched in her line of sight.
There had been a fire fight between security and the Czech rendition and extraction team.
That explained Mel's own violent turn of action. He was merely assisting the patrolmen.
She was the catalyst for all that went down but now Tasìa felt that her conscience was fairly clear in these matters. The two women were tempting fate by their aggressive actions in pushing through the crowd.
That must have drawn in the patrolmens' attention.
Still, Tasìa needed to clear the rooftop before being discovered. Flipping over the back side of the building seemed to be the most logical answer, but a glance in that direction, into the darkness, a vague weariness made her shiver.
No, she was now quite certain that there was something there in that direction that she did not like.
Did the Dark-Eyed Ones want to continue their conversation in a place they could gather nearby? To that, Tasìa was fine. She would like answers to why they incessantly wanted to recruit her to their cause.
Most unlikely it was them inhabiting the dark, however, with Mel hovering above.
Then Tasìa spotted the cause of her unease. In the distance, was a building downtown marked in neon pink - Egliona's.
It appeared to be part of the facade for a nightclub.
The fuck! Another factor hanging over my head? No, I'm getting Demona back. That is the only thing I am dealing with until I succeed or fail.
Before Tasìa had any time to study the domicile of her nemesis any further and weigh her options, two elbows appeared on the awning shoulder.
It was too late to run, the patrolman's head peaked up, and he spotted her.