A person stands alone at the end of a long narrow alley. The dim yellowed lights by the back doors of the businesses on either side barely shine light on the evidence of the recent carnage the lone figure perpetrated in this isolated place. The disfigured bodies of three men lie in puddles of their own blood and post-mortem expulsions among the trash lining the otherwise blank brick walls.
The person still has the weapon responsible for the state of the deceased still clenched firmly in it's gloved hand. A slim blade that was scarcely shorter than a ruler, still dripping with bits of viscera clinging to the wicked teeth of the blade. The weapon's hilt was dark gray with red lines that may have also been blood stained in a strange artful pattern.
Clearly this weapon was not used only tonight, the easy manner in which the figure studies their own handiwork would give any uninvolved observer the belief that this was not the first group of people that person murdered. The knee-length coat ruffles as the figure searches its pockets and produces a pristine white handkerchief.
The person, who's face is obscured in shadow cast by a ball-cap, meticulously cleans the blade, wiping all the unidentifiable chunks from the serrated edge and polishing the flats to a dull sheen. Having finished maintaining the implement, it was stashed away in a sheath sewn into the inside of the wide left sleeve of the figure's coat.
One-by-one, each of the victims were searched. Pockets were rifled through and jewelry was removed. Having collected the wallets and jewelry, each corpse was then pulled to the end of the alley and wrangled into the trash receptacles. The legs of the last victim refused to bend, so the shadowed person pulled out a large cleaver from within their coat.
The heavy blade descended at a diagonal angle repeatedly, striking deeply into the protruding appendages with each swing. The person stopped most of the way through the corpse's legs and dropped the chopping instrument to the dirty ground. bits of coagulated blood decorated the surroundings as the person gripped the legs firmly and snapped them off. The legs were then stuffed deep into the trash can with their owner.
The figure removed the ballcap and wiped down the previously obscured brow with another handkerchief, the pale girlish face appeared sick in the dim yellow lights with its sharp features casting very unattractive shadows across the dingy brick walls. She retrieved the broad cleaver and gave it the same polish job the'd done on her knife before returning it to the pockets in her coat.
The girl returned the black ballcap to the top of her head and tucked the short hair up under it before stalking away under the cover of perpetual darkness. The girl walked with a with a slight forward hunch that centered her weight on the balls of her feet and on her toes. It was as if she was prepared to bolt at the slightest danger, or more likely charge into it.
The crunching of her combat boots tromping through the refuse laden streets was only marginally discernible over the chittering of rodents and insects fleeing from her presence. The empty thoroughfares and destroyed store fronts painted the scene of a desolate city as she trekked past them.
One would think that no sane person would come to this filthy hellhole, and if they didn't count the girl as sane, they'd be right. The girl continued to patrol her turf until she arrived in an overcrowded sector that glowed in a thousand colors of refurbished neon signs. The pavement of the pockmarked road was significantly cleaner, but the air was still stale and had the aroma of putrescence that seemed to permeate the mostly stagnant air.
This was one of the many pockets of life in the underbelly of the prison city she had been born in. She was being noticed by some and they would eagerly step out of her path, not out of fear for the blood clinging to her oiled black leather coat, but out of respect for her position in the sector. Some of the more ignorant denizens would snicker at this reaction to the presence of such a small individual, but none would cause trouble here unless they wanted to be cast out and hunted down.
The girl seems to ignore the throng for the most part, keeping her head low and her eyes darting around in search of drawn weapons. Seeing only the self-appointed peacekeepers as the only readily armed force nearby seemed to encourage the young woman to relax her guard a bit. She rested her palm on the handle of the cleaver which could be seen clipped to her belt rather than in a pocket, now that the lighting had improved.
She avoided cutting through the crowds gathered around food carts handing out reheated canned goods in slightly clean bowls as she strode through the blaring road to a shop that had the words The Quartermaster written above it on a lime green neon sign. She tapped out three staccato knocks on the metal door with her studded gloves before opening it and entering.
Knocking was generally not in practice in the dank environment she grew up in, but one of her trainers beat the compulsion to knock into her when she was young. It became a bad habit that nearly got her killed on a few occasions, but she just couldn't seem to shake it even a year after she'd killed the man.
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A balding middle aged man with a beer gut and an eye patch was sitting behind a counter that was built with a floor to ceiling chain-link fence running through it. There were small rectangular frames built into the fence at counter level for passing packages through it. Though she was the only visitor in the establishment at the moment, she rumpled the back of her coat a bit and sat on one of the old style chairs like one would find in a twentieth century waiting room at a hospital.
The chair was more than a little uncomfortable as it was held together with duct tape and the back was screwed into a slightly forward leaning upright direction. She might have chosen a better chair if there was one, but most were worse, and this one was nearer to the counter than most.
She fished the grungy wallets of the men she'd killed earlier from her pockets and flipped through them until she found an identification card. Two of the cards had an image of a pawn chess piece while the third had an image of a rook like the light gray patch sewn onto the back of her coat.
The I.D. cards had the basic name and date of issuance on them, but were otherwise blank with the exception of the chess piece image. The back of the cards had a black magnetic strip and various information that was of little consequence, things like their reason for incarceration and where they were from.
"Princess, you're up." The balding man called out as he shuffled some paperwork into a drawer beneath his side of the counter.
The girl scowled at being at the way the man addressed her, "I thought I was pretty clear from the get-go that I hate that nick-name." The woman growled through her snarling lips.
"Whatever Rook, what have you brought for me today? Offed some more pawns did we?" He calls her by rank in a more business-like tone as he reaches for the trio of cards she placed in front of the window.
The balding man raised his eyebrows as he spotted the rook card first, "You've expanded your territory again?" He asked as he swiped the card through an archaic card reader and adjusted her information in the system.
"Only a bit Quartermaster, I added one more block." The rook answered in a professional manner as the man kept typing.
He seemed to be noting her new border as he responded with another question. "Any intentions to expand on your crew of one? I have some promising pawns that will at least be able to get the lights in your area up and running."
The girl seemed to waver as though she were considering the proposal before answering, "Not at this moment Quartermaster, I do all my best work in the dark."
The man quickly processes the two lower ranked cards and adds a note to the map of territories in the database suggesting avoidance of the girl's area. "All set, your value has been altered accordingly, the earned credits from your hunt is noted on this receipt."
The girl reads the receipt and notes her current balance of 10,000 credits. Apparently the target of her earlier hunt was a higher value than she was. Then again, anyone who had actually been outside and commited a crime greater than shoplifting would be higher value than her. Unlike other inmates, those born here were considered valueless targets until they attained the rank of rook, so all her value as a corpse came from her rank and the murders she committed in the turf wars of the city.
Keeping all this in mind, the girl asked a question only those born in the prison city would ask. "What's my value at now, by the way?"
The Quartermaster raised the eyebrow over his eyepatch again as he typed in some commands to get the answer. "Your current value is... 30,000 credits." He said with a wry grimace spreading across his face.
This was a considerable amount for a native, but a pittance to anyone else. They would only get a tenth of that if they managed to kill her. Your value was only useful for two things, recruiting crew members, and raising your rank. She could recruit thirty people at her current value, but then she would be a valueless target again, which would make hunting that much harder since no one would persue her. Raising her rank would be a much easier task as it was less based on your personal value of the target you killed.
"I see, thank you for your time." She bid her farewell to the man and turned to leave.
Upon exiting the building, the rook turned right onto the main strip and dodged crowds again until she reached the run-down inn that she usually frequented on her short stays in the neutral zone. It was a multifloor building that stretched the full ten storeys to the floor of the city layer above hers.
Like all buildings that reached that high, it was a load-earing support which kept the ceiling from crashing down on her little slice of hell. She was told that there were five such layers and that only a person of king or queen rank could take the ascension trial. These trials were battles that would pit a member of their own against the newcomer in a fight to the death.
It seemed to be a more deadly affair than the hazing gauntlet held for the bottom floor's quarterly injection of new prisoners as there was a guaranteed fatality. It was rumored that the higher floors were much nicer, but none of the lowest residents could truly confirm or deny the conjecture. People would always say that the food was nicer, or the air would be cleaner, but nobody ever went aside from the first King. In short, The girl wanted desperately to go up, and see for herself how things could be.
The girl rang the bell at the desk and paid the attendant for a night and a meal in a room in the top floor of the inn before taking the stairs. She ate her meal, which consisted of some sort of canned pasta that was missing its label, while thinking deeply about what might have to be done in order to advance to the next floor of the city.
She stripped out of her armor and set her weapons on the table next to her pillow as the rumors and ambitions whirled in her mind. She used a damp rag in a bowl of boiled water to clean herself before laying down on the stiff mattress and drifting off to the sounds of the bustling city far beneath her.