General IC [2075: Game World], Persistent World [SR5] IC Thread Options

[pistolgrip]

Tuesday, 23rd November, 2032; Hall Outside Barracks, Secret Subterranean Military Installation, Smolensk, Russia

Ice stood like a bull on its hind legs. He was about that stable in his current condition too. When Nicolas closed the door, Ice put a finger right up to the bridge of his nose. "You been showing off in class. Trying to show me up? Get me kicked out?" The smell of cheap alcohol was almost suffocating at this range.

Nicolas responded, "I don't have Дерьмо with you, Ice. I'm just here to pay off my cyber and get out of the army with some change in my pocket. Nobody's trying to make you look bad." He turned his head slightly to one side and coughed into his hand in response to the man's breath.

Ice was clearly gunning for a fight, but confused that Nicolas apparently wasn't. "Well, uh..." He thought for a moment, twisting his face. "You make fun of me behind my back, don't you? I know it. I hear you whispering about me in class. Making jokes. You think you're better? This training too easy for you?" he said with a snarl.

"Listen Ice, I got drafted into the army, I got my legs blown off by a land mine, and then I got stuck in this bunker as an alternative to living on the streets. I've never been great with words, so just ссать off before you get us both kicked out." Nicolas said with finality and reached for the door. Ice caught him by the shoulder and pushed him back. Nicolas staggered for a second, but caught himself before the dull metal fist came surging through the air where his chest had been. He stepped back a few steps and took up a defensive stance like he'd learned in class. Ice drunkenly lumbered forward and came in with his real arm for a left cross. His left was slower, probably because it wasn't battery-powered and computer-assisted. Nicolas pushed it aside and closed the gap, jabbing Ice in the ribs as momentum brought them together. Ice brought his left elbow down to try to catch the blow, but was much too late. He did, however, continue the leftward motion to bring his cyberarm down like a sledgehammer towards Nicolas' head. Nicolas ducked and rolled behind Ice, grabbing his leg from the back and putting his shoulder into the man's knee. Ice went off-balance and crashed into the wall, sliding to the ground. Nicolas stood to find an angle of attack, but took a kick in the gut instead. Ice was strong, but the kick was wild and poorly executed. In the time it took him to get up, Nicolas was already shaking it off.

The fight went on for another minute, Nicolas delivering real blows but constantly having to dodge the cyberarm and getting put into bad positions. A well-timed shot hit a nerve in Ice's shoulder that seemed to shut down the left side. But the cyberarm came back, and although Nicolas blocked it, he felt the blow resonate through his arm. He stood a pace away from Ice as they shifted side to side, both in the best stances they could manage given the circumstances. Then Nicolas remembered his footwork. "Oh Дерьмо, it's Alina!" He said, looking over Ice's shoulder and making like he was going for the barracks door.

Ice turned around and looked down the hall. "She's not--" He started to say as he turned back, but Nicolas was already in the air and his foot came into hard contact with Ice's face. A spray of blood hit the near wall as Ice grabbed at his mouth and stumbled back. A quick strike to the gut and a hammer fist to the back of the head and Ice was a pile on the floor. He was still conscious of course; it looked like it would take a lead pipe or one more drink to knock out a guy like that. But he seemed to have the motivation knocked out of him, and that was good enough for Nicolas. He turned back to the barracks and went in, pressed the intercom, and called a medic.

[adamu]

Saturday, 12th October, 2075; Carl's Bad Cavern, Renton, Seattle

There was a Zeke Harris tune playing, and Al decided ork country music was probably the worst idea in musical history, and certainly the worst thing about being in a tusker bar. But he wasn't here to pick a fight. He had been here to drink. Now he was here to win some money.

The three orks he'd decided were plant workers and the human he'd marked as a salesman of some sort were happy enough to make room at the table for new blood and new money. They were playing for cash, which always felt more like real poker, and the sums were definitely small enough to be covered by the quantities of scrip working stiffs might happen to have cluttering their pockets. Nothing anyone was going to get too upset over, so the atmosphere was congenial enough. Certainly not enough to cheat for, and Al always played clean against anyone he could see trying to put in an honest day to keep bread on his family's table.

Which wasn't to say he didn't intend to win all their money. He lost some but won more, and before long the table was really all about him and the guy in the suit. They were playing California draw, and Al had drawn the mother of all crap hands. So he'd bet small and drawn only one card, because he'd noticed the guy was a sucker for a reasonably well-planned bluff. Allowed a faint smile to cross his lips when he saw the card, which was almost real because it did at least give him a pair of sixes.

The other guy bet big, so Al did too, going all in, hoping to scare him off quick now that he'd committed enough to make the risk worthwhile.

Well, the feller called. Or tried to, because he couldn't cover it with what he had on the table. Al figured he'd rather lose a little lunch money than win that way, so when the guy said he had the forty nuyen he needed out in his car, they trusted him for it and showed their cards.

Al turned over his pair of sixes with a chagrined shrug, not even bothering to look at the other man's hand until he heard the man curse softly. He didn't even turn his cards over, just waved his hand indicating Al had won.

[adamu]

Saturday, 12th October, 2075; behind Carl's Bad Cavern, Renton, Seattle

Could have tipped Al off his chair with a feather. The guy hadn't eeemed that bad at cards. But when he rose from the table he nearly lost his footing - looked like he was drunker than he'd seemed. His loss, Al thought as he gathered his winnings. The man tried to wander off, but Mordecai caught a handful of his shoulder.

"Whoa, there, kemo sabe. Little matter o' forty nuyen, an' since that equals twenty cheap beers, reckon I'm inclined ta collect," Al said.

"Yeah, sure, I was just going to the little boys' room. I wouldn't rip you guys off."

Mordecai, pretty drunk himself, looked like he wanted to follow the man in, but a nearby ork said, "It's alright - no window in there."

They waited, and the man came out, drying his hands on the sleeves of his suit coat.

"I'm right behind the bar," he said.

They went around back. The alley was piled with garbage and there were no lights, but that wasn't an issue for Al's fancy eyes. There next to an overflowing dumpster was a beater '54 Mercury Comet that looked like its ancient steel gasoline-chugging chassis was held together by duct tape and baling wire. The guy opened the passenger-side door, reached into the glove box, rummaged around for a moment, and came out with a couple of notes. He handed them over, but as Al reached out his hand the money winked right out of existence and there was a dark blotchy tentacle extending out of the guy's sleeve and quick as a flash it was coiled tight around Al's wrist, dozens of suction cups holding it fast in place. It started to pull.

Mordecai looked on quizzically, until the other sleeve produced two more tentacles that came at him. He backed up but hit a wall, then started batting them away. "Al...this guy's got tentacles for hands," he announced as if it was breaking news.

Al tried to resist being drawn in, but he just wasn't that strong - hadn't been for years - and the dug-in heels of his Docs started skidding towards the guy, whose head had turned into a bulbous blob sporting two huge eyes.

Mordecai batted away another tentative tentacle probe, saying, "Fuck you, octopus guy. Al...this guy's got tentacles for hands," as if perhaps his first news flash had gone unnoticed. Sadly, the hand-tentacles had been mere feints, and another suckered appendage had writhed its way out of a pant-leg. It latched onto Mordecai's right foot and yanked hard, dropping him onto his back with a crack.

There were no more clothes now. Just a big-ass octopus dragging Al's heart towards a sharp-looking beak of some sort. He pulled his knife with his left hand and slashed, but the blade had no effect on the rubbery flesh, and another tentacle appeared out of nowhere and dashed the blade from his hand. He grabbed anything he could find off the garbage heap, tossing old shoes, broken crockery, and an old bicycle tire at the thing, with unsurprisingly little effect. Mordecai was doing a little better, having wrapped an arm around the wheel of the dumpster. "Fucking tentacles, Al."

The creature's needle beak inches from his heart, Al took his cigarette from his mouth and thrust it into the thing's right eye. it bellowed with a moan they heard, but not with their ears. They never could explain it to anyone. It just pulled harder, but it gave Al a chance to swing up and plant his boots to either side of the beak. He still wasn't strong enough, but pushing like only a man about to have his balls skewered by a giant octopus beak can push, he bought himself enough time to fish his Zippo out of his pocket and bring the flame to the tentacle that had his wrist.

That did the trick - the thing bellowed again and let him go - only to launch itself bodily toward the prone Mordecai. But what Al lacked in strength he made up for in speed, and just as the thing bore down on his friend he slammed the open door of the Comet onto a straggling tentacle, bringing the thing's beak up with a jerk just inches short of the old roadie's face. Al grabbed a soiled disposable diaper, winced at the odor, pulled off the car's gas cap and shoved the synthetic white fabric in. It'd burn slow, he thought as he held the Zippo to it, but it'd burn. The monster turned on Al, but the little man skipped back easily. He glanced tellingly at the burning diaper, and the thing let go of Mordecai to dislodge its caught tentacle from the car door.

The two men sprinted to the alley mouth and got around a corner before light and shattered glass flashed out into the street with a dull whump. Looking back, they saw the flames of the burning car quickly ignite the surrounding refuse heaps, turning the entire alley into a blazing conflagration.

"Shit. You think it got out?" asked Mordecai.

"Hell if I know. Reckon it opened the door when it looked like a human, it could do it again. But if'n it could run fer shit it wouldn't've needed to go to so much trouble to lure a couple o' drunks back in there inna first place. Give 'er fifty-fifty."

"Al, that thing had tentacles for its fucking hands."

"It sure did, amigo. An' I'm out forty nuyen an' a damned good knife."

[pistolgrip]

Wednesday, 24th November, 2032; Alina's Office, Secret Subterranean Military Installation, Smolensk, Russia

"You've gotten blood on my floor, comrade." Alina's tone was cold and indifferent. She stood in front of her desk facing the back wall, her back turned to Nicolas from the moment he entered. Two men were also in the room, but not meta security. One looked like perhaps an aid or assistant, while the other looked like a high-ranking officer--presumably her superior, but Nicolas still didn't know her exact position or the full extent of her authority. The officer looked at Nicolas with a sort of tired pity. The aid looked nervously at Alina and seemed to be keying in something on a tablet. "I told you not to get blood on my floor."

Nicolas cleared his throat and responded. "Actually, so said that floor."

Alina turned her head, almost looking over her shoulder at him. "You think cleverness will save you here, comrade Kostiy?"

Nicolas looked straight ahead into the air as he replied, "I wasn't trying to be clever. Only precise." The officer shook his head.

"You assaulted a fellow class member outside of a sanctioned sparring area. Do you understand the severity of this infraction?" Alina asked, almost looking up. Though with her glasses, she might well just be reading something more interesting than their current conversation.

"He did the assaulting. Come on, you know Ice." He said with an empathetic hand gesture. The officer scoffed and looked down, apparently being all too familiar with the man who called himself such.

"Comrade Gheata was discharged from the program this morning. He will be serving on the front line." Alina answered. "But we are not here to discuss him. We are here to discuss you." The aid looked at Nicolas with a worried expression.

"I acted in self-defense. I'm sure you have video of the whole thing. What would have been a more correct response?" Nicolas asked genuinely.

"You called a medic with the intercom, yes?" Alina asked in a leading manner. "Considerate of you." She added.

"Yes I did. My intention was to make him someone else's problem." Nicolas responded.

Alina paused for a moment, then tilted her head down and continued. "Which is what you should have done to start with."

"What?" Nicolas asked, confused. He could be clever or sarcastic at times, but a lot of implied meanings escaped him.

"You should have used the intercom to call for a superior to mediate your dispute." Alina explained.

Nicolas was silent for a moment. He scowled, even turning a bit red as the frustration built. He hadn't even considered that option. It never once occurred to him. "With all due respect, comrade Zhirov, nothing in our training has given me the idea that I should call someone else to fight my battles for me."

Alina turned around to face him. Her face was expressionless, her gaze unwavering. "This is why you are not leadership material, comrade. Fighting your own battles is brave, but avoiding conflict when possible is strategy." She silently turned her head to look the officer in the eyes. He sighed, then nodded. Alina continued, looking back to Nicolas. "We have decided not to promote you at this time. Well fought, comrade."

Nicolas made eye contact, not even disguising the confusion written all over his face. Alina leaned in and spoke in a low tone, "You walk away from this one, comrade. Don't let it happen again." She stood up straight again and looked into nothing. "You are dismissed."

[adamu]

Saturday, 12th October, 2075; Smithers Road, Renton, Seattle

Al and Mordecai were already unsteady on their feet when they made it to the next dive, where they switched from beer to whiskey and got down to business. Half an hour and seven shots apiece later, Al asked, “So tell me now…”

“What?”

“What you was sayin’ afore…” Al’s cigarette slipped out from between his fingers, and he nearly fell off his chair retrieving it.

“About the….umm…” Mordecai crossed his eyes as he focused on forming words with his lips and tongue…”about the tennacles?”

“No no no nononono….” Al nodded off but just for a half a second. “No…no….NO. The never again thing. Never goin’ the drunk tank again, ya said. Whatcha wanned ta come out here for.”

“Shit in the bed, Guthrie, s’posed ta’ve been there at…what time is…bitches fer breakfast, we gotta go.” And Mordecai was up and staggering out the door. Al followed as best he could, colliding with two tables and a door frame on the way out.

They were on South Third, which was fairly busy at the witching hour on any night, but being Saturday had some good traffic. There were girls out, and cars driving by slow enough to shop. Couple of Knight-Errant’s finest keeping an eye on things from the comfort of their car. Other men competing with Mordecai and Al for having the least business being on their feet. The ground was wet from a quick rain that had fallen while they were inside, and a passing Jackrabbit sprayed them as it coursed through a nearby puddle. After two blocks they turned left, headed south on Smithers. There were less people around, except for some wannabe artistes loitering in front of a jazz bar - more interested in being seen outside then hearing what was happening inside.

And then they were standing outside a place called Ink Emporium. Mordecai stood himself up straight and patted a pocket to make sure his credstick was still in place.

“Ink gon’ keep you outta the clink?” Al asked.

“They do more than tats here, Al. Lots more, if you know who to ask.”

“Heh heh. Ink with a happy ending? Reckon I’m jist ‘bout drunk enough…”

“No man, they do…you’ll see. Costin’ everything I got set aside, but fuck them cops. I got an appointment. Called ‘em from Carl’s when you went to the head. Be out inna few hours.”

“A few hours?” Al was sleepy enough now he wouldn’t have minded laying down right there on the sidewalk to wait. Maybe have a little nap. But he said, “I sure as hell ain’t waitin’ out here a few hours.”

“Get a tat then, man. They got those too.”

Al’s right hand went to his left upper arm. Under his brown leather jacket and running down from his shoulder were the names of ten different women. Annika. Charlene. N’shonge. And so on. Each, including the tenth, had a neat black X inked through it, leaving it legible but indelibly deleted. He’d been thinking about adding an eleventh for a while now.

“Reckon I will, kemo sabe. Reckon I will. Lead on.”

Inside there was a lounge, flash everywhere on the walls and in AR. Several people were waiting. Two women that were obviously enthusiastic patrons as well as employees greeted them. Mordecai gave one his name and was told he was late. Al explained what he wanted. Both men were invited to wait It wouldn’t be long before they could go in.

The seating was soft. So was the lighting. And they were both out of cigarettes.

[adamu]

Sunday, 13th October, 2075; alley behind Smithers Road, Renton, Seattle

Daggers were stabbing Al’s cybereyes, right past his flare comps. Experienced with this sort of thing, he factored in his splitting headache and deduced that he was waking up hung over in an alley with his face towards the late-morning sun. As he gradually grew aware of the smell of garbage, the sound of traffic, and the feel of wet pavement, he didn’t need to lift his eyelids to be sure he was right, and silently congratulated himself for his keen reasoning and powers of observation. None of that explained why his hands hurt, which was a strange thing since it was nowhere near August fifth.

“Al?… Al…Al!”

It was Mordecai. Still no need to open his eyes. “Right here, amigo.”

“Who’s Alyce? With a Y.”

“Long time ago, kemo sabe; Galaxy far far…what?!” He sat bolt upright, banging his forehead agonizingly into the corner of a hanging dumpster lid. Sparks flew on his periphery but he looked down at his arm. His jacket was still on…he looked over at his friend and there was the mutton-chopped old guy holding up his left arm. And there was her name.

“What the…” Once again, he didn’t have to look. There was no sensation of fresh work on his own left arm. He reached for his ‘link, chuckling. “Well, alrighty,then, let’s see what they charged ol’ Al fer puttin’ her name on your redneck…waitadamnedminute…twenny-two grand?”

He was on his feet, hangover forgotten, looking for whatever back alley door they’d been thrown out of. “They’ll see what happens they try’n roll ol' Al Guthrie…”

“Al! Al! Hold up, cuz.”

He turned. “What, you comin’?”

“Okay, now jist hold yer horses a sec.” Al shifted foot to foot impatiently. “Right, just sit down there on them steps,” said Mordecai. “I think I know what happened.”

Al sat down on the cast iron grates that formed steps up the back side of a dingy brick building.

“Now put your hand out flat there.”

Al knit his eyebrows quizzically, but did as he was asked.

“Now close your eyes a sec…no, don’t argue, just do it.”

He did so, and a few seconds later there was a crashing clang and pain seared across the back of his hand. His eyes flew open. Mordecai stood in front of him. He had just smashed a cinder block down on Al’s burn-scarred hand. Where the mottled flesh wasn’t bloody it was already bruising, which generally took some doing through all the scar tissue. The bones had obviously been crushed, fingers sticking out at odd angles.

“What the fuck, Sparks! What in Creation would….” Al cursed and Mordecai raised his hands placatingly and things were almost tense for a while but eventually Al calmed down enough to speak, hand held gingerly at his side, horribly misshapen.

“Now, does it hurt?” asked Mordecai.

“Does it…damn right it hurts!”

“Does it hurt like a bitch?”

“Well, yeah…...yeah it does hurt like a bitch.”

Mordecai gave it a minute so sink in. “But does it hurt like a son of a bitch?”

Al fell silent. Finally, “Naw. Naw it don’t. Hell, it don’t hardly even smart no more. Not much.”

“Now make a fist.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

“Hell, it won’t even work…”

“Just try it.”

And Al did. And his fingers closed right up and he made a tight fist. Then opened his bloody hand, fingers splayed, all perfectly in place.

Now it was Mordecai’s turn to cuss. And he did for a few minutes. “They done swapped out the bones in both yer hands with mixed rigidity smart materials, souped up your tendons some, and spliced in localised pain dampers.”

“Never again,” Al said.

“That’s right. Never be in handcuffs again. That was the idea anyway. Hell, containment manacles won’t hold those things.”

“So now I’m out twenty-kay on yer crazy idea o’ proactive emancipation.”

“Well, you always say you’re never going back to jail.”

“There is that. More important, these’ll really help with my magic tricks.”

“I won’t tell no one.”

“Damn straight you won’t. Now let’s go git some breakfast, an’ I’ll tell ya ‘bout the lady yer gon’ have on yer arm the rest o’ yer life.”

[Beta]

June 2071, Forty, home in the Puyallup barrens

Forty looked down at Sylvia’s bloodshot eyes and demanded “Frag it, did you stay up all night AGAIN?”

Sylvia’s gnarled hands smoothed down her housecoat, she tossed her gray hair defiantly, and replied in a disconcertingly girlish voice “I’ve been dancing with Hikado all through the ball, floating like a butterfly. He’ll be back in a moment, he’s just getting us more champagne.”

Forty hissed as she bounded across the room, grappled her sister and deftly yanked the BTL chip from her datajack—all before Sylvia even reacted. Forty managed to channel the hiss into low, fierce, words “Fragging hell, you promised to get some sleep, to keep this crap out of your head,” Forty took a sniff and added “and to take a shower while the fragging water was working—I’m out of prison, I shouldn’t have to live with so much human stink anymore. I’m going to hide all your damn chips, I swear!”

At that threat Silvia finally came to life, bucking and scratching, screaming incoherently. With casual contempt Forty tossed her sister onto their futon. Towering above, fury turning her tan skin ruddy and highlighting the pale stripes of old scars, the elf looked every bit the ex-con that she was. She spat out “Do I need to have a spirit sit on you again?”

Silvia froze like a rabbit that has seen a hawk’s shadow. She whispered back “No. No, not that. Don’t make the Kami see me like this — please!” Tears started leaking down her face and she tried to stifle a sob lest it set her sister off again.

“Then don’t keep slotting so much drek into your head.”

Silvia’s response was flat, defeated “You can’t understand — with the chips I’m young, vital, wanted. What is so good about this?” Her gesture encompassed both the worn one-room apartment and her own worn and wrinkled body “that I should want to come back to it? You wouldn’t understand —you’re an elf, you’ll be young long after everyone else I know is dead.”

Forty snarled silently and she cocked a fist, then she checked herself. Two deep breaths and she reminded “You were young once — and free. You’ve loved, worked, danced all night, and made the choices that left you an old broken chip-head. I spent all that time in prison, just surviving.”

“But you still have a future.”

Forty responded in a flat, cold, voice “And you have a past worth remembering, and could have a lot of years of future still, if you don’t cook your brain first. Most of my memories are of prison, and the ones from before that are only a bit better. Remember hiding in the closet while Dad hammered on the door, waiting to see if he’d break in, waiting to see if Mom would really shoot him if he did? Good times, good times, right?”

Silvia licked her cracked lips, and said nothing.

Finally Forty turned away with a jerk, and picked up a bag from where she’d dropped it inside the apartment door. “I brought food—at least that’s what they said it is. Go see if the water is still running—I don’t care if it is cold now—and get washed up, then come eat something. Maybe you can sleep a couple of hours before you go to the shrine for the daily babysitting — Wait, before you wash up, were there any phone calls? Messages, AROs, whatever they call them now. Were you even aware enough to notice?”

“There was a call on your link, the parole system. I entered the code saying it was you, and that you were here.”

Forty slumped in relief, and admitted “That can’t have been easy, to remember how to deal with that when you were chipped in.” She gave an awkward, self-conscious bow to her sister, and in stilted Japanese stated “I am grateful that you helped me save face.”

Silvia smiled and responded more fluently “Your Japanese is getting better, thank you for practicing it. Also thank you for your acknowledgement of my humble contribution to your well-being.” Sylvia’s smile drifted into a sly expression, and switching back into English she continued with barely suppressed eagerness “I had a call too. There is a new episode of Butterfly Princess! Radiant Shadow has a few copies of the ‘good’ version but she might sell out soon, maybe I could get it?”

Forty slapped the wall, then snapped at her sister “I don’t even have next month’s rent, we’re eating third rate soy, and you want a new fragging BTL? What the hell sis! And the first decent moment we’ve had between us in four days and you turn it into … into … Frag!” Forty spun on her heel and strode the few paces to the far side of the apartment.

Silvia begged “Angela, please!”

“Don’t call me that!”

Sylvia cringed, but continued wheedling “Forty, please! I’ve slotted the old ones so many times, they don’t work right anymore! I was thinking, we could sell Mom’s gun, I don’t think I could manage it anymore and you aren’t supposed to have one anyway—that should pay for it, maybe leave a bit left over, you could go and…” She faded out, then said in puzzlement “You cut off your hair?”

Forty nervously ran a hand through her dark brown buzz-cut. “Yah, it was a rough night. I’ll tell you about it over food, after your shower, OK? And we aren't selling Mom's machine pistol -- that and Mr. Bonsai are the only things we have left from her. Look, maybe after we eat we can bring down Mr. Bonsai and adjust his gravel, its been long enough, don't you think?”

Once the shower was running Forty swore, then muttered “Being a junkie is the worst kind of prison. At least with real prison they were paying to imprison me.”

Then she looked around at the four gray-beige walls of their apartment, swore again, kicked the ratty futon, and admitted “From one box to another. And there ain’t nobody going to let me out of this place, unless I do it myself.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

While Sylvia used tweezers to minutely adjust a few pebbles, Forty explained her night “I knew it would happen sooner or later — one of the sleazebag customers made a slur that I couldn’t let slide, and I told him exactly what sort of slime-mold he was. The Blob called me to his office and reamed me out. I managed to keep my temper that time, but he was talking about my hair being a mess, so I went to the dancer’s change room and found some scissors to cut it off.”

Sylvia made a questioning “Hmmmm?” noise while she focused on the miniature rock garden.

Forty shrugged and admitted “The whole time I was prison, one of the things I looked forward to was being able to grow it long, without it being a danger in fights. But three months out and I decide to cut it even shorter than in prison. Go me.” She ran her fingers through the short, dark, remnants of her hair and added “Anyway, I like how it feels. I think I’ll keep it this way.”

Sylvia asked “I’m not sure if this pinkish pebble is right, where it is. What do you think?”

Forty stared at the tray for a while, breathing slowing down, until she admitted “I really don’t know. It doesn’t look wrong, but I don’t know if it is right either?”

Sylvia nodded and explained “Mom always had issues with that pebble too, it just never seemed to quite fit anywhere.”

Forty stared at the pebble some more, then suddenly started out of her reverie “Oh, subtle sis – not! Anyway, I was telling about my night. One of the customers in my section didn’t like my new haircut, and felt the need to tell everyone nearby that he’d need to have his buddies put a sack over my head before he raped me – not his exact words but his exact meaning. I replied that his wife said he couldn’t find his dick with both hands and an ARO, but that if he wanted I could tell him how I get her off better than he ever did.”

Sylvia turned away from the miniature rock garden to exclaim “You said that to a customer?”

Forty shrugged “I thought it was pretty funny, but I guess they don’t like it at The Zoo when the 'animals' talk back. A bouncer took me back to see The Blob again, he yelled about my hair, yelled about my attitude, fired me, then offered to hire me back as a pit dancer for even less money than I’ve been making slinging cheap soy-beer.”

“Did you take it?”

“Frag no! I told him we should take a walk outside in a thunderstorm, that he was such a greasy ball of lard that lightning would set him off like a bonfire- – that I’d happily dance around that, but that was the only way I’d ever dance for him. The bouncer took exception to my opinion, but he’s all vat muscle and no speed and I was already revved up. I could tell when he made his moved, avoided his lock, tripped him, then had my lightning taloned friend manifest.”

Forty smiled at the memory, and mused “Maybe they believed me about lighting igniting The Blob? Anyway, the bouncer stayed down, so I grabbed a bottle of cheap-ass whiskey off The Blob's desk and took off—although The Blob was already comming for help as I went out the fire escape door. I had my spirit cloak me before anyone got eyes on me. Then I hiked home from Loveland.”

Sylvia mumbled a quick prayer in Japanese, thanking the Kami for watching over her sister, then switched back to English to chide “Oh Forty, why can’t you be more patient? What if he calls you in to Knight Errant? You don’t have a license for using magic! They’d lock you up again for sure, but this time they’d know, they have ways of locking down magic you know.”

“I know, last few years I was in a more mixed prison, there was this elf-wannabe whose a shaman or something, she said. Anyway, they had her locked in special cuffs the whole time cause of her magic, so I guess it is true. She managed to teach me a few things despite the cuffs, but she couldn't really do any bippety-boppety-boo stuff herself.” Forty rubbed at her own wrists and shivered, then returned to the topic. “I’m pretty sure I’m safe from The Blob calling me in, he breaks too many laws, and doesn’t pay enough bribes to want a lot of law attention. Anyway, that was my night—except that I found an all-night Snack-Shack and traded what was left of the whiskey for some so-called food, then hiked home. Best night of fun I’ve had since I got out., to be honest.”

Sylvia shifted the pinkish pebble, then reproved “But you lost your job.”

Forty shrugged “Yah-but it is all good. It was never going to pay our way out of this hole anyway. I’m going to find ways to do better.”

Sylvia frowned, but kept her voice gentle as she riposted “Serving beer at The Zoo was the best job you’d found in four months since getting out. With your criminal SIN … I know it isn’t fair, but I know the discrimination, just being your sister made it hard sometimes. I was so lucky to get hired at Shiawase.”

“Yah, real lucky. What was it, thirty five years with no real promotion because no matter how much you studied Japanese and Shinto your only a quarter Japanese, maybe? The guy who said he loved you ended up divorcing you so he could get promoted, and then they fired you the first time you actually screwed anything up. Fragging saints they are.”

“That is just the way things are.” Sylvia looked at her now shaking hand, and with a sigh put down the tweezers. “And you wonder why I love my chips? Why can’t you just leave me to enjoy things with them?”

Forty made a ‘time-out’ sign with her hands, then passed a snail shell to her sister, and held up a sunflower seed. “While you were in the shower I coaxed the spirits — kami — to give us blessings. Focus for you, thinking for me. They won’t last more than a minute or two, but maybe we can have a good conversation in that time. One-two-three: be strong Sylvia, be sensible Forty.”

Sylvia sat up straighter and said “Thank you. Now: how are you going to get a job even as good as the one you lost with your temper?”

Forty explained “I’m going to stop playing the game that is rigged so that no matter what, I lose.”

Sylvia shot her a concerned look, and replied “No, no, no! You promised, no criminal stuff. They’ll put you back in prison right away.”

“No they won’t, Sis.” Forty emphasized the last word of the sentence. “Your little Shinto shrine at the end of the street, and the fragging kids who you teach when you can remember your own name -- how much good would it do all that when people found out your sister was going back to prison? No, you can’t afford to go through all this again, so you aren’t going to tell, you are going to go on covering for me. And I’ll make enough money to get you your new chips, and maybe enough for us to move somewhere a little less horrible, maybe even enough to put some lights in the shrine.”

Forty stood up, stretched out her arms, and waited a few seconds while a storm cloud in the shape of a huge hawk materialized behind her. “It’s the small time crime that would do me in. I need to go after bigger game. Now, give me the phone number of your BTL dealer.”

“Nobody uses phone numbers anymore, Forty.”

“You know what I mean, the code, digits, whatever. Something Shadow you said she was called?”

“Radiant Shadow. But you can’t threaten her! She’s a pretty connected dealer, people trust her, she has connections. She promises she’ll never sell anything she hasn’t slotted, nothing that will burn your brain out.”

“Chill Syl. I’m not planning on killing her or anything, just looking for a job, she sounds like a reasonable woman, for a human.”

“She’s not human, she’s a dwarf.” Sylvia sighed as the magic faded, looked at the trembling starting up in her hands, then added “She said not to tell you, but she was in prison with you. She says you did her a favor, and that is why she’ll supply me, even if I’m small time.”

“Kate? Kate is your dealer?” at Sylvia’s blank look, Forty added “Big birthmark on her left cheek, sweats a lot, sounds kind of spaced out?”

Sylvia nodded tentatively, and explained “I’ve only ever seen her with full face paint on, and she’s pretty fat so if I’ve seen her looking sweaty I just thought it was that, and if she sounds spaced out I always thought it was all the chips and drugs she tries …..”

Forty gave her surprised sister a hug, and said “That is definitely Kate! I told you things were going to look up soon.”

[Beta]

Tuesday January 14th, 2031, The Crossroads mall in Bellview

“Pull in there, pull in there!” Angela laughed, more than a little tipsy. “I want to go look at the birds!”

“Aww come on Angel, we gotta be out of Belleview before dark, you know how the cops get. And I’m carrying way too much cash for them not to take it, at best.”

“You scared of some cops, Ethan? ‘Cause I ain’t afraid of cops.”

“Angel, I’m afraid the cops will decide you are so fucking sexy and drunk that they can take you off to the station house and gang bang you and get away with it.”

“What, jealous of the cops and their big sticks? Maybe I should try it, find out.”

“Angel, shut the fruck up, you’re going all crazy talk again.”

“Turn around and take me to see the birds, and I’ll stop.”

“Fruck! Fine. Whatever. I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“Because I’m about the hottest thing on two legs you’ve ever seen, and you need a gun to watch your back.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

As a middle-aged man and a young boy came out the exit door of ‘Fur, Feathers, and Scales’ Angela pushed her way inside, her backpack smacking the door frame with a clang as she slid past the humans. At the sound, Ethan, following close behind, started to say “Fruck Angel, you didn’t bring …” but was cut off by an agitated store clerk.

“Excuse me miss, absolutely all entrance must be through the mall.”

Angela looked down at the young man, rolled her eyes, and sneered “Like I’m going all the way around to the entrance and waiting to get through security. I just want to look at the birds for a minute.”

“Ma’am, all customers must go through security screening before entering the mall or any of the stores. It is for everyone’s safety.”

“Do I LOOK like a frucking gun toting orc? Pull that poor parrot out if its prison for a minute, I wanna to pet it.”

A middle-aged woman came to reinforce the young man. She looked over Angela’s hair and clothes, and gave an audible sniff to the air. “Miss.” she made the word sound like something scraped off the bottom of her shoe. “You need to leave the store right now and come back through the mall entrance, or else I have to call security to enforce procedures.”

Making air quotes, Angela mocked “‘Enforce procedures,’ oooh, you think you are so tough, bitch. Not getting enough at home, is that why you’re such a bitch?”

Ethan lay a hand on her arm “Angel, come on, let’s go. We don’t want trouble.”

Angela shook him off, and swung around her backpack. “Fruck that! You know what? Maybe I do want trouble, and I still want to see that damn parrot out of its cage.” She swore under her breath as she fought with the backpack briefly, then she pulled out a machine pistol and waved it in the air.

Silence fell on the store for a moment, until the parrot cawwed. It seemed to break the spell. Someone screamed, someone else dived for cover behind the counter, and Angela screamed “Bring out the frucking parrot! In fact, bring out all the birds. This is a god-damned frucking PRISON BREAK!” She squeezed off one round into the ceiling toward the front of the store, freezing the young man who had been sidling toward the door.

“You, shut that frucking door, I don’t want the birds going into the frucking mall. Ethan, open the exit door. You, bitch-face, open the cages, send the birds outside.”

The younger clerk cleared his throat, fell silent as the gun swivelled to point at him, but then he screwed up his courage and said “Those aren’t wild birds, and they aren’t from here, they probably won’t survive out there.”

Angela froze for a moment, then snarled “At least they’ll get a chance to live free. Now move!”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ethan was swearing a blue streak as they raced through the darkening streets of Redmond. Finally Angela snapped “Would you chill? All we did was free some poor birds.”

“Fruck Angel, how can you be so dumb?” Ethan started pounding the steering wheel in frustration but just then they hit a cavernous pothole and he had to get both hands on the wheel to get the van back under control. “You pulled a frucking gun Angel, in god-damned tight-ass fruckin Belleview! That isn’t JUST anything. The cops are gonna be looking for us for sure!”

“Come on, that was fruckin awesome! A hold-up, did you see Bitch-Face? I think she shitted herself.”

Ethan swerved around a burnt out car and absently replied “Shat.”

“What?”

“It’s ‘shat herself’, not ‘shitted herself.’”

“Fruck, whatEVER!”

“No, it isn’t ‘fruck, whatever.’ It’s ‘fruck, we gotta get the van out of sight, and lay low ourselves.”

Angela sighed, pouted, but capitulated “Fine.I’ll ask the wind to help hide us. How long, a couple of days?”

“Longer than that, week, two, minimum. And the wind does NOT listen to you.”

“It does, and you fruckin know it. You seen it.”

“I saw nothing, we get fog here all the time.”

“You just don’t want to admit I can do something you can’t. I’m gonna do it anyway, you can’t stop me, ain’t nobody can stop me, I’m like a frucking super-hero.”

“What? Oh never mind. Look, we’ll go to that burnt out Oil-Changers. I don’t think the roof is coming down just yet. I’ll go out and get the sleeping bags from our crib, some food. Everyone was looking at you, I’m probably safe for a few hours, you …. Just stay in the frucking van, OK? And no drinking the goods, the last thing I need is you more drunk.”

[Beta]

Friday January 17th, 2031, shell of an Oil-Changers location, Redmond

Their discipline had lasted for most of three days, but just before noon on Friday they cracked open a forty-ouncer of high test moonshine from the cargo they’d been supposed to deliver a few days earlier. Ethan had finally admitted “If Doug catches me, he’s about going to kill me anyway, might as well pass the time.”

That he knew Angela got more sexually adventurous when drunk may have played an unspoken role in this decision. Then again, Ethan’s life choices were not always the wisest -- after all, he was sleeping with Angela. Whatever the reasons for or the wisdom of the choice, that afternoon they started drinking, and trying out some of the positions and activities of the digital Kama Sutra which they’d deemed not feasible over the previous, sober, days.

Perhaps good police work finally led the investigators to their hide out. Maybe a local had sent in a tip. Maybe Angela’s requests of the wind to hide them had been making a difference, and that she was too drunk to remember to renew her request after the sun went down was the cause of their discovery.

Whatever the reason, the rocking of the van suddenly stopped when high-beams suddenly lit up all around the shell of the building, and a megaphone bellowed out “Come out with your hands up, if you want to live.”

Angela was so drunk that she didn’t understand what was happening at first, other than that Ethan had left her alone. After several seconds she stumbled after the sound of his swearing, grabbing a couple more bottles of moonshine on the way. Seeing him stealing glances out the hole that had been the office window, uzi in his hands, Angela giggled “That isn’t the gun I want! But if you are too tired of what we were doing, I have an idea using bottles.”

Ethan shoved her back with an elbow and snapped “Get it together Angela, it’s the cops. Fruck, what are we going to do? What the fruck are we going to do?”

Angela peered through the hole of the window before Ethan snatched her back out of line of sight. But he quickly lost his grip on her naked skin, and she ran back to the window and flung one of the bottles out at the lights, screaming “PIGS!”

Ethan all but tackled her away from the window, but Angela recovered her footing and gave him a hard shove away from her, mumbling “I wanna fruck over the cops.”

As Ethan stumbled into the light pouring in through the broken window, a red dot momentarily appeared on his shoulder, then his shoulder seemed to explode in a red haze as multiple bullets tore through it.

Angela started screaming, in raw, primal, rage. She dove to where Ethan was lying, but realized she had no idea of what to do to save him. Still screaming, feeling like she’d never stop screaming, she flung the other bottle up through the window, then snatched up the fallen uzi and held it up over her head to fire out through the window, stopping when return fire flung it out of her hands.

Then she called on the wind. Up until then when she’d called on the wind, she’d thought of it as birds, that she could cup in her hand and whisper to, who would take flight and cloak her in their cloudy wings or protect her from accidents. But in her rage realized that there was something else that could be called, something red in beak and talon, an avenger, a storm of violence and death.

The calling left her too weak to stand up, even if bullets were not zipping buy over her head. But she found the strength to keep screaming, and the spirit was screaming with her, or in her head, and her scream told it “Strike them down.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The police report said that she threw molotov cocktails at the police cars. The first one had failed to ignite at first, but the second bottle had somehow resisted breaking on impact, but blew up several second later, also igniting the puddle of alcohol that the first bottle had left under the engine of one of the cars. The resulting intense fire ignited fuel in one of the police cars, causing a secondary explosion which killed three of the policemen, and causing varying degrees of injury to five others.

It was in fact only the two most veteran officers who were unscathed, as they had stayed farther back to direct the operation. They were the ones to finally enter the building, and their discipline meant that Angela and Ethan were arrested, rather than shot ‘while resisting arrest.’

Angela never corrected them, that it had been a mighty lightning bolt which had ignited the moonshine, and that additional bolts had struck at the besieging officers. In fact, she said very little at her trial at all.

Ethan’s trial was delayed until it was clear he would survive the loss of his arm, and he was clear on how the entire hold-up of the pet stores had been Angela’s mad whim, and that she was the one who had thrown the first bottle, and that he had been out of action for the rest of it. Never having believed that she could talk to the wind, he never mentioned it.

And nobody saw a need to call for a difficult, expensive, and unreliable assessment of magical ability for an extremely minor street-punk, no matter the deaths that she had caused.

Angela received a life sentence with no chance of parole for forty years, Ethan received only seventeen years -- however it ended up being a life sentence for him, as he died during riots at the prison six years later.

Being an elf, Angela had every expectation of resuming her life on the outside eventually.