“Do you want to talk to us about what you saw that night? Any details you could give us would be extremely helpful.”
I saw every detail. I wish I could forget.
“No.” Vail’s forget-me-not-blues scanned the small room, the mirror beyond and then tried not to think about the burn of the skin scraped off her right knee.
The broad shouldered detective that sat across from her frowned and leaned back in his chair that creaked before looking up to his partner who rubbed the scruff of his jaw and then looked at his watch.
While he’d like nothing more than to delve a little deeper into what Dimples here knew, he had an ice cream cake in the car that was probably melting and a children’s birthday party he was currently dreading attending. All he could think about was sticky fingers and how he was going to have to sit through the opening of every single present and help clean up afterwards. His thumb rubbed idly along his wedding ring.
Snap. Click.
A blink later of Vail’s dark lashes and there was a sound of a small card sliding across the table towards her. “I know it’s been a long night. You probably want to go home, take a hot shower and get yourself cleaned up. If you think of anything, over the next few days, don’t hesitate to call me.”
Vail looked down at the card. The small font made her eyes hurt, as well as the fluorescent lighting of the room. It just took one brief look.
Snap. Click. Stored.
“Thank you.” She went through the motions of tucking the card in her bag just the same.
“Bottom line, we’re concerned for your safety. If we know you saw something, they know. Do you understand? Do you have a safe place to go? Friends you can stay with? We’re only trying to help.”
I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself.
A bright smile flared to life as if on autopilot—always service with a smile. “Oh I know. I really appreciate it. Everything is just kinda
jumbled up in my head right now. Hard to think clearly, ya know?”
He had mustard on his tie and a chicken pox scar right above his right eyebrow. Left-handed with no sign of a wedding ring, but asked about the nearest diner so he could take some chicken soup home to his sick wife.
Snap. Click. Shudder.
The detective sighed and his partner shrugged. “I gotta get going,
Jack. Damn ice cream cake’s gonna melt and Lana’s gonna kill me if I show up late.” Dimples would either volunteer, or they’d find another angle. It was time to face the music—of Frozen for the seven hundredth damn time.The lanky partner cut his eyes to Vail and nodded towards the door before opening it for her. “I’ll see you out.”
As they walked out to the parking lot, she squinted against the hot sun and the detective sucked at his teeth. “Something just doesn’t feel right about all this. I know you know something happened at that joint.”
The piercing stare of those forget-me-not blue eyes turned their
lenses on the man and then seemed to look beyond his shoulder. “I know that’s your car.”
Drip. Drip. Drip—onto the pavement.
“Excuse me?” There was a hint of hostility and confusion from the man as he whirled around, but Vail was already walking in the other direction before she answered over her shoulder, pointing in the direction of the olive green Outback with a brand new ice blue child’s bike strapped to the top.
“Nice bike. Maybe add some streamers to the handlebars. Better hurry and pick up another cake though, that one’s already melted.” A flash and pop of a dimpled smile. “Mint chocolate chip is my favorite too.”
As soon as she was around the corner and several blocks away, the card was deposited into the nearest bin.
Time to find a new town.
Eidetic Polaroids
Moderators: Vail Chambers, Rowan Hume, Dax
-
Vail Chambers
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:56 am
- Location: Aurora Avenue
-
Vail Chambers
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:56 am
- Location: Aurora Avenue
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
“We don’t give out name tags here, doll. Customers don’t care about your name. They just want their fries hot, their drinks cold and a pretty face all on a platter before they’re off to enjoy their night. Or you’re there to give them their hangover food to soak up all the booze, you got it? You’re not here to gab with the staff, so keep it moving on your skates or you’re gone. Pay is shit. No benefits. You want your tips in cash? That depends entirely on how good you are to the clientele. You still want the job?” The man leaned back in his chair, eyeing the girl. The turn around here was pretty high. Not many made it through the first week.
“No nametag? No problem.” Vail shrugged and gave the man a wink of forget me not blue.
In fact, it was perfect.
Her keen gaze took stock of the room. Some shady shit went down in this room, she could practically see it written on the walls.
Snap. Click.
“You got a name?”
“I thought my name didn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t. You gotta fill out a few forms for me. All on the up and up.”
Of course it is.
She smiled that dimpled smile and nodded before taking the paperwork he slid her way.
Snap. Flash. Pop
“Sure Mister. You got a pen?”
It would look so pretty in your jugular.
The man rumbled a chuckle. “You came to an interview without a pen? You’re not very bright, are you, sweetheart? You got any experience?”
Plenty with pigs like you.
The manager tossed her the pen and Vail kept her dimpled smile firmly in place. “Uh-huh. Sure do! Dairy Queen, Drive-In Theaters, Diners, Roller Discos, that kinda thing.” She took note of the name of the corporation on the pen.
Snap. Click. Stored.
“Yeah. Yeah. Put that all down.” He gave a dismissive wave of his beefy hand before tearing his eyes away from her legs to check his phone. “Gotta take this. It’s Corporate.”
Vail filled out all the paperwork and slid it his way. The man frowned and glanced up as Vail stood up. “Hang on, honey. I need a last name—you know, to make it all official.”
Vail stared hard at the man for a minute or two, her gaze falling to the grease from his fingers already staining the interview form before an old polaroid developed in her minds-eye.
“May I see you in my chambers?”
“Miss? Did you hear me? I’d like to see you in my chambers. Now.”
“Piece of advice? You always want to carry with one in the chamber.”
“Chambers. Vail Chambers.”
“Welcome to Supersonic, Ms. Chambers. You start tomorrow.”
“No nametag? No problem.” Vail shrugged and gave the man a wink of forget me not blue.
In fact, it was perfect.
Her keen gaze took stock of the room. Some shady shit went down in this room, she could practically see it written on the walls.
Snap. Click.
“You got a name?”
“I thought my name didn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t. You gotta fill out a few forms for me. All on the up and up.”
Of course it is.
She smiled that dimpled smile and nodded before taking the paperwork he slid her way.
Snap. Flash. Pop
“Sure Mister. You got a pen?”
It would look so pretty in your jugular.
The man rumbled a chuckle. “You came to an interview without a pen? You’re not very bright, are you, sweetheart? You got any experience?”
Plenty with pigs like you.
The manager tossed her the pen and Vail kept her dimpled smile firmly in place. “Uh-huh. Sure do! Dairy Queen, Drive-In Theaters, Diners, Roller Discos, that kinda thing.” She took note of the name of the corporation on the pen.
Snap. Click. Stored.
“Yeah. Yeah. Put that all down.” He gave a dismissive wave of his beefy hand before tearing his eyes away from her legs to check his phone. “Gotta take this. It’s Corporate.”
Vail filled out all the paperwork and slid it his way. The man frowned and glanced up as Vail stood up. “Hang on, honey. I need a last name—you know, to make it all official.”
Vail stared hard at the man for a minute or two, her gaze falling to the grease from his fingers already staining the interview form before an old polaroid developed in her minds-eye.
“May I see you in my chambers?”
“Miss? Did you hear me? I’d like to see you in my chambers. Now.”
“Piece of advice? You always want to carry with one in the chamber.”
“Chambers. Vail Chambers.”
“Welcome to Supersonic, Ms. Chambers. You start tomorrow.”
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Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
TW: Violence and Sexual Themes. Not for young readers.
Somewhere in the jungles of North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Approximately 1630 hrs local
The stentorian buzzing of rapidly beating wings audibly announced the arrival of the scavenger. The flight was loud, a cautionary warning of its presence as it beat the air about its body and searched for a suitable landing zone. The reflective black coloration of its thorax glinted in the late afternoon sun as it quickly piloted itself down through the air and towards the ground. The metallic shading scintillated like an organic oil spill as it landed upon the white sea and hungrily explored its new surroundings. Evolution had honed its instincts…it was hungry…it needed to lay its eggs. It existed solely to ensure it reproduced. Six legs felt their way across the white. There was no hesitation, no pause at the moisture felt upon the white’s surface. The compound eyes, a bright, oversized red, judged it as nonthreatening, the small brain driven by genetic need. It scurried across the white and into a ring of brown, the sliver of coffee coloring had been almost completely obliterated by the expanding expanse of black. Another staccato beat of wings announced a competitor and the first took flight again before it quickly landed once more, this time on the black and twitched its way down towards the spray of crimson on dark skin that had splashed all about. More of its brethren arrived…drawn by the unmistakable smell of death and decay. Even one only minutes old, as this one was, put out a siren’s scent.
More came.
There was plenty to eat.
In Africa there was always plenty to eat.
Rowan Hume sat on a fallen tree and watched as the blowfly landed and wandered its way across the dead body’s left eye. The dead eye did not blink. Did not see. Just remained open with a look of shock frozen into the iris. His own eyes stared dispassionately at the scene as he lifted the half-smoked cigarette to his lips for a slow drag. Ears focused on the crackle of burning tobacco and singed paper. Nature always seemed so still and quiet after a sudden outburst of violence. As if the alien sounds of gunfire and explosions, the shouts of soldiers and the screams of the dying scared everything far away. Odd since the jungle was a beautifully phenomenal and decadently violent place in its own right. It wasted nothing, spared no one and recycled its resources with ruthless efficiency. Not entirely unlike Rowan himself. He watched as more flies joined the first and quickly found the blood spray about the neck and face courtesy of the double tap to the chest. The rebel, he was no soldier, had been dressed in sandals, shorts and a t shirt printed to look like a sports jersey…everything about him had been, and remained, pretend. Everything save the AK-47 that lay, unused, next to the corpse…and the blood.
Rowan figured he was no more than twenty. Old enough to no longer be a child…old enough to know better. Old enough to shoot back. Old enough to take two in the chest.
Another disinterested drag as he shifted his rifle and cradled it in the fold of his arm with more tenderness than his rebel friend had ever gotten. He could hear the shouts of his fellow soldiers as they mopped up the remnants of the raid, as they gathered what few survivors remained and began to set fire to the structures that still had the stubborn sense to remain standing.
“Eish! That smells somethin awful. You okay?” The voice sounded behind Rowan and came closer with each syllable.
“Howzit it my bru? I’m hundreds.” Rowan greeted Arno without turning around, just held his fist up for his friend to bump in greeting when he arrived. “Better them than us, eh?” Rowan answered with an easily formed and lazy smile that crept its way upwards across the camouflage face paint that colored his cheeks and jaw, his brow and neck. Rowan pinched the cigarette between his lips and dug out a hard pack of cigarettes from a Velcro sealed pocket on his chest rig. He gave the pack a shake and offered it up to Arno as the man came to a stop behind him.
“Ja, Nee.” Arno agreed as he took the offered cigarette and tucked it behind an ear beneath the wide brim of his boonie hat. “He one of yours?” A nod as he came down to a knee next to Rowan and indicated the dead body laid out in front of the source of the aforementioned smell: Several bodies, it was hard to tell given their present state, had been doused in gasoline and set afire. No doubt they’d been burned alive as that was common in this part of the world. Rebels had kidnapped them, civilians, and murdered them for the shock value and to intimidate their enemies.
Rowan and his men weren’t intimidated.
Damn straight better them than us.
Rowan exhaled his smoke to join that which still curled from the remains. “Ja ja. Him and his friends. They layin about…” The accent placed him from South Africa and was similar to Arno’s though Rowan’s lacked the other man’s Dutch influence and heritage. “Here an there.” A hand waving to indicate several more rebels he’d killed.
“Ya plugged him good, eh? Lekker shots, boet. Put em down quick quick.” Arno paused as he glanced Rowan’s way and it was clear that the man was affected by the grizzly scene. “Least it ain’t kids this time.”
“We’re all made of the same things, bru. Nerves, sinews…levers and pulleys.” Rowan answered with a shrug meant to dismiss Arno’s gratitude regarding the age of the rebels on this raid. It didn’t take much to pull a trigger and there certainly wasn’t an age limit. “You open someone up like that…” A flick of his cigarette towards the corpse to indicate what he was talking about. “…same thing always happens.” Casual exhale of smoke and a wink as the cloud of flies swarmed off at the sudden intrusion of the butt but immediately swarmed back in a moment later.
“You’re a shark, Saffa.” Arno laughed. “A fuckin great white shark.” A shake of his head as he unslung the radio unit he wore on his back when it crackled to life and pressed the handset up to an ear to listen to whatever transmission was incoming while Rowan stood and looked to his left to see three of his men roughly handling two more surviving rebels down to their knees alongside three others. All five had their wrists flex cuffed behind their backs and even from this distance Rowan could see the thick stream of blood coming out of theirs. They’d fragged the buildings before entering. The concussive forces inside a structure were absolute murder.
They’d make for a quick interrogation. Anything of value, what little there was in a jungle village, had already been gathered but the rebels wouldn’t be making the trip back with the rest of Rowan’s force. Prison and the government were just too corrupt in place like this.
“Ro…Riptide’s on the net. Says the U.N. is on their way here. Kivu government is pissed they weren’t told about us.”
“Fuck. Course if they’d been tipped there’d have been a hundred of these fucks waitin or none at all.” Rowan breathed and reached down to snatch the handset from Arno while holding his rifle in the other. He listened to the explanation with more emotion than he’d displayed while staring at the burned bodies and the men he’d swiftly dispatched. “Ja…I know, Riptide. Strictly speakin we ain’t supposed to be here. Then again, they want a secure…right….get the bird on the ground…we’ll be ready.”
Rowan tossed the handset back down to Arno before reaching up to his chest to grip his personal radio transmitter and keyed the mic. “Chips chips everyone, blue helmets are rolling in. We’re out in ten on the dukaduck. Gonna be short interviews for them rebels. Take out the trash and burn it down.” Rowan let go of the transmitter and draped his weapon’s sling about his shoulder so it could hang within easy reach. “U.N.involved in Efrica, eh?” Rowan’s accent curved the sound of one vowel into another as he mentioned that well-known meme that had become a personal joke for those that had to deal with the bureaucrats.
Rowan watched as his men lined the remaining rebels up. He heard the sharp reports of the rifles, saw the pink mist which aerosoled about like macabre halos that only devils deserved to wear.
“Always uninvolved, bru. Let’s chase.” Arno grunted and pushed up to his feet as several more gunshots rang out in quick succession to ensure the deed was done. “Fuck these hills are killing my knee.” Arno groused as he huffed his way up the steep embankment.
Rowan’s attention lingered as his men set fire to the remaining structures and extirpated the pestilence that was the rebel existence from the jungle. Rowan gave a pat to Arno’s back as he began to trudge up the jungle path and the winding road above. Hume gave another look at the dead rebels and burned bodies beyond. None of it moved the needle for him. He turned his back on the grizzly scene and followed Arno up the path as his men did the same a hundred or so meters to Rowan’s east on the double time.
He heard the truck engines, the squeal of poorly maintained brakes and the shouts of dozens of men offloading as he crested the hill. A glance to his right saw the large, two-and-a-half-ton transport trucks coming forward. Open beds loaded with men wearing baby blue helmets and equally garish baby blue body armor ground to a stop and peacekeepers began leaping from the trucks with rifles in hand. The bright white U.N. logo had been emblazoned on the doors of the vehicles. They were anything but subtle.
“They kept this dedication maybe we wouldn’t be needed, eh Ro?” Another of the team grunted as Rowan and Arno joined them at the side of the road. “None of em look a day over eighteen.”
Rowan gave the large man a path on the back. “They’re all just boys playing soldier, Siya.” Rowan chuckled and offered the man a smoke from the hard pack. Siyabonga was the man’s full name and he’d been orphaned by a rebel raid years ago. He bore a strong hatred for rebels…and for the U.N. ostensibly here to keep the peace. “Get the boys ready for their ride outta here, ja? Dukaduck’s on its way.” Giving the man a task before he tore into the peacekeepers.
It took a moment for Rowan’s words to register but when they did Siya gave a nod, took the offered cigarette, and began maneuvering himself and Rowan’s team along the side of the road and away from the truck convoy. Rowan chuckled as the uneasy blue helmets jumped out of Siya’s way when he barked an order for them to do so and turned to follow Arno along the road to the field a few hundred meters away.
“God damn mercenaries.” The accented French greeted Rowan and his men as the young officer hopped down from the lead truck. “Africa’s cancer.” The young man sneered from behind arrogant blue eyes and a face that was still pink from sunburn. He gave a snap of his fingers. “Detain them…we’ll hold these criminals till Kivu officials show up to take them for murder.”
Several of the U.N. troops moved to detain Rowan’s soldiers though Rowan could see there was a hesitancy there, an uncertainty brought about by poor training and lack of experience. “If you jukkas got in the fight maybe me and the boets wouldn’t be so necessary.” Rowan smirked as he came up alongside the young officer. The arrogance and sunburn gave the man away. He still believed he had authority…on the ground…in Africa. And he was too new to have adjusted to the sun and heat here in the DROC. “Equator’s done a number on your skin, eh pinky?” Rowan mocked the young man as he let his rifle hang across his chest. “Long way from Trocadéro or the Montaigne, ja?” Rowan continued as he lit a cigarette behind a cupped hand and gave a wave for his men to settle down for the moment. Yeah…this one wasn’t from the rustic areas of France or even the tougher arrondissements of Paris. Rowan had sized that up with a first look.
“And you’re a long way from the slums of Pretoria, criminal. The pipeline company will no doubt be happy for your carnage. Or is it the gold mines you’re protecting this time?” The officer asked in a weak attempt to look uncowed.
Rowan moved suddenly. He was an ambush predator that struck with speed and overwhelming ferocity to drive the young French officer up against the side of the truck. Whatever protest the man might have given was silenced when he felt the cold press of steel against his throat. That carotid was thumping like one of the officer’s favored Parisian nightclubs against Rowan’s razor edge. Rowan’s soldiers reacted first, their rifles all coming up into ready positions and fingers on the triggers. They wouldn’t hesitate. The U.N. forces did the same though they shared nervous looks to one another and jumpy feet which shuffled about on the hard packed dirt of the road.
“Ne posez pas de questions dont vous ne voulez pas connaître les réponses.” Rowan’s French was accented by his English that had detoured its way through South Africa. “Understand, pinky?” Rowan shifted the edged blade from the man’s throat to tap the point beneath the Frenchman’s eye and smirked when he saw the wild-eyed terror there. “That’s a good pinky. You do your job now…make Efrica safe.” A quick flick of his wrist dug a deep furrow in the man’s cheek before he shoved him back against the truck a second time. “And tend to that wound, ja? Don’t want you getting an infection out here bru. Jungle’s a dangerous place.” He sheathed his knife and pinched at his cigarette before he gave a nod for his men to lower their weapons and walk freely out to the field to meet their ride.
The Mi-17 helicopter sounded in the distance. The blades struck and beat and chopped against the thick, humid air as it streaked low over the road and that quickly diffused altercation to whip its tail around and rapidly descend for a landing. “You’ll live.” Rowan chuckled and gave a rough pat to the officer’s shoulder now that he was hunched forward and grabbing at the cut in his cheek. “Girls will love the scar and the bullshit stories you’ll tell too.” Rowan waved his men forward and jogged to catch up as the copter landed.
The pilot gave a waggle of his thumb and little finger out the open cockpit window as Arno, Siya and the remaining team jogged in a wide semicircle through knee high grass blown flat by the rotor’s powerful downwash. Arno and Siya waited by the ramp beneath the tail boom as Rowan jogged to catch up and both gave him a thumbs up in response to his shouted inquiry. Rowan gave a nod and the two men hopped up the ramp while Rowan turned to sit himself on the ramp’s edge. The copter’s turboshaft engines wound themselves up and a moment later the Soviet built bird lifted into the sky once more. Rowan watched, one leg dangling off the ramp, with that same disinterested stare as the village shrank beneath them and the blue helmets became blue dots, became blue ants scurrying around the brown and green earth.
The rebels would no doubt move in and rebuild the village in a month or so. The mining companies would want him back…the pipeline companies would have a need for men with his skills again. What did it all matter?
As long as he got paid…it didn’t.
Somewhere in the jungles of North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Approximately 1630 hrs local
The stentorian buzzing of rapidly beating wings audibly announced the arrival of the scavenger. The flight was loud, a cautionary warning of its presence as it beat the air about its body and searched for a suitable landing zone. The reflective black coloration of its thorax glinted in the late afternoon sun as it quickly piloted itself down through the air and towards the ground. The metallic shading scintillated like an organic oil spill as it landed upon the white sea and hungrily explored its new surroundings. Evolution had honed its instincts…it was hungry…it needed to lay its eggs. It existed solely to ensure it reproduced. Six legs felt their way across the white. There was no hesitation, no pause at the moisture felt upon the white’s surface. The compound eyes, a bright, oversized red, judged it as nonthreatening, the small brain driven by genetic need. It scurried across the white and into a ring of brown, the sliver of coffee coloring had been almost completely obliterated by the expanding expanse of black. Another staccato beat of wings announced a competitor and the first took flight again before it quickly landed once more, this time on the black and twitched its way down towards the spray of crimson on dark skin that had splashed all about. More of its brethren arrived…drawn by the unmistakable smell of death and decay. Even one only minutes old, as this one was, put out a siren’s scent.
More came.
There was plenty to eat.
In Africa there was always plenty to eat.
Rowan Hume sat on a fallen tree and watched as the blowfly landed and wandered its way across the dead body’s left eye. The dead eye did not blink. Did not see. Just remained open with a look of shock frozen into the iris. His own eyes stared dispassionately at the scene as he lifted the half-smoked cigarette to his lips for a slow drag. Ears focused on the crackle of burning tobacco and singed paper. Nature always seemed so still and quiet after a sudden outburst of violence. As if the alien sounds of gunfire and explosions, the shouts of soldiers and the screams of the dying scared everything far away. Odd since the jungle was a beautifully phenomenal and decadently violent place in its own right. It wasted nothing, spared no one and recycled its resources with ruthless efficiency. Not entirely unlike Rowan himself. He watched as more flies joined the first and quickly found the blood spray about the neck and face courtesy of the double tap to the chest. The rebel, he was no soldier, had been dressed in sandals, shorts and a t shirt printed to look like a sports jersey…everything about him had been, and remained, pretend. Everything save the AK-47 that lay, unused, next to the corpse…and the blood.
Rowan figured he was no more than twenty. Old enough to no longer be a child…old enough to know better. Old enough to shoot back. Old enough to take two in the chest.
Another disinterested drag as he shifted his rifle and cradled it in the fold of his arm with more tenderness than his rebel friend had ever gotten. He could hear the shouts of his fellow soldiers as they mopped up the remnants of the raid, as they gathered what few survivors remained and began to set fire to the structures that still had the stubborn sense to remain standing.
“Eish! That smells somethin awful. You okay?” The voice sounded behind Rowan and came closer with each syllable.
“Howzit it my bru? I’m hundreds.” Rowan greeted Arno without turning around, just held his fist up for his friend to bump in greeting when he arrived. “Better them than us, eh?” Rowan answered with an easily formed and lazy smile that crept its way upwards across the camouflage face paint that colored his cheeks and jaw, his brow and neck. Rowan pinched the cigarette between his lips and dug out a hard pack of cigarettes from a Velcro sealed pocket on his chest rig. He gave the pack a shake and offered it up to Arno as the man came to a stop behind him.
“Ja, Nee.” Arno agreed as he took the offered cigarette and tucked it behind an ear beneath the wide brim of his boonie hat. “He one of yours?” A nod as he came down to a knee next to Rowan and indicated the dead body laid out in front of the source of the aforementioned smell: Several bodies, it was hard to tell given their present state, had been doused in gasoline and set afire. No doubt they’d been burned alive as that was common in this part of the world. Rebels had kidnapped them, civilians, and murdered them for the shock value and to intimidate their enemies.
Rowan and his men weren’t intimidated.
Damn straight better them than us.
Rowan exhaled his smoke to join that which still curled from the remains. “Ja ja. Him and his friends. They layin about…” The accent placed him from South Africa and was similar to Arno’s though Rowan’s lacked the other man’s Dutch influence and heritage. “Here an there.” A hand waving to indicate several more rebels he’d killed.
“Ya plugged him good, eh? Lekker shots, boet. Put em down quick quick.” Arno paused as he glanced Rowan’s way and it was clear that the man was affected by the grizzly scene. “Least it ain’t kids this time.”
“We’re all made of the same things, bru. Nerves, sinews…levers and pulleys.” Rowan answered with a shrug meant to dismiss Arno’s gratitude regarding the age of the rebels on this raid. It didn’t take much to pull a trigger and there certainly wasn’t an age limit. “You open someone up like that…” A flick of his cigarette towards the corpse to indicate what he was talking about. “…same thing always happens.” Casual exhale of smoke and a wink as the cloud of flies swarmed off at the sudden intrusion of the butt but immediately swarmed back in a moment later.
“You’re a shark, Saffa.” Arno laughed. “A fuckin great white shark.” A shake of his head as he unslung the radio unit he wore on his back when it crackled to life and pressed the handset up to an ear to listen to whatever transmission was incoming while Rowan stood and looked to his left to see three of his men roughly handling two more surviving rebels down to their knees alongside three others. All five had their wrists flex cuffed behind their backs and even from this distance Rowan could see the thick stream of blood coming out of theirs. They’d fragged the buildings before entering. The concussive forces inside a structure were absolute murder.
They’d make for a quick interrogation. Anything of value, what little there was in a jungle village, had already been gathered but the rebels wouldn’t be making the trip back with the rest of Rowan’s force. Prison and the government were just too corrupt in place like this.
“Ro…Riptide’s on the net. Says the U.N. is on their way here. Kivu government is pissed they weren’t told about us.”
“Fuck. Course if they’d been tipped there’d have been a hundred of these fucks waitin or none at all.” Rowan breathed and reached down to snatch the handset from Arno while holding his rifle in the other. He listened to the explanation with more emotion than he’d displayed while staring at the burned bodies and the men he’d swiftly dispatched. “Ja…I know, Riptide. Strictly speakin we ain’t supposed to be here. Then again, they want a secure…right….get the bird on the ground…we’ll be ready.”
Rowan tossed the handset back down to Arno before reaching up to his chest to grip his personal radio transmitter and keyed the mic. “Chips chips everyone, blue helmets are rolling in. We’re out in ten on the dukaduck. Gonna be short interviews for them rebels. Take out the trash and burn it down.” Rowan let go of the transmitter and draped his weapon’s sling about his shoulder so it could hang within easy reach. “U.N.involved in Efrica, eh?” Rowan’s accent curved the sound of one vowel into another as he mentioned that well-known meme that had become a personal joke for those that had to deal with the bureaucrats.
Rowan watched as his men lined the remaining rebels up. He heard the sharp reports of the rifles, saw the pink mist which aerosoled about like macabre halos that only devils deserved to wear.
“Always uninvolved, bru. Let’s chase.” Arno grunted and pushed up to his feet as several more gunshots rang out in quick succession to ensure the deed was done. “Fuck these hills are killing my knee.” Arno groused as he huffed his way up the steep embankment.
Rowan’s attention lingered as his men set fire to the remaining structures and extirpated the pestilence that was the rebel existence from the jungle. Rowan gave a pat to Arno’s back as he began to trudge up the jungle path and the winding road above. Hume gave another look at the dead rebels and burned bodies beyond. None of it moved the needle for him. He turned his back on the grizzly scene and followed Arno up the path as his men did the same a hundred or so meters to Rowan’s east on the double time.
He heard the truck engines, the squeal of poorly maintained brakes and the shouts of dozens of men offloading as he crested the hill. A glance to his right saw the large, two-and-a-half-ton transport trucks coming forward. Open beds loaded with men wearing baby blue helmets and equally garish baby blue body armor ground to a stop and peacekeepers began leaping from the trucks with rifles in hand. The bright white U.N. logo had been emblazoned on the doors of the vehicles. They were anything but subtle.
“They kept this dedication maybe we wouldn’t be needed, eh Ro?” Another of the team grunted as Rowan and Arno joined them at the side of the road. “None of em look a day over eighteen.”
Rowan gave the large man a path on the back. “They’re all just boys playing soldier, Siya.” Rowan chuckled and offered the man a smoke from the hard pack. Siyabonga was the man’s full name and he’d been orphaned by a rebel raid years ago. He bore a strong hatred for rebels…and for the U.N. ostensibly here to keep the peace. “Get the boys ready for their ride outta here, ja? Dukaduck’s on its way.” Giving the man a task before he tore into the peacekeepers.
It took a moment for Rowan’s words to register but when they did Siya gave a nod, took the offered cigarette, and began maneuvering himself and Rowan’s team along the side of the road and away from the truck convoy. Rowan chuckled as the uneasy blue helmets jumped out of Siya’s way when he barked an order for them to do so and turned to follow Arno along the road to the field a few hundred meters away.
“God damn mercenaries.” The accented French greeted Rowan and his men as the young officer hopped down from the lead truck. “Africa’s cancer.” The young man sneered from behind arrogant blue eyes and a face that was still pink from sunburn. He gave a snap of his fingers. “Detain them…we’ll hold these criminals till Kivu officials show up to take them for murder.”
Several of the U.N. troops moved to detain Rowan’s soldiers though Rowan could see there was a hesitancy there, an uncertainty brought about by poor training and lack of experience. “If you jukkas got in the fight maybe me and the boets wouldn’t be so necessary.” Rowan smirked as he came up alongside the young officer. The arrogance and sunburn gave the man away. He still believed he had authority…on the ground…in Africa. And he was too new to have adjusted to the sun and heat here in the DROC. “Equator’s done a number on your skin, eh pinky?” Rowan mocked the young man as he let his rifle hang across his chest. “Long way from Trocadéro or the Montaigne, ja?” Rowan continued as he lit a cigarette behind a cupped hand and gave a wave for his men to settle down for the moment. Yeah…this one wasn’t from the rustic areas of France or even the tougher arrondissements of Paris. Rowan had sized that up with a first look.
“And you’re a long way from the slums of Pretoria, criminal. The pipeline company will no doubt be happy for your carnage. Or is it the gold mines you’re protecting this time?” The officer asked in a weak attempt to look uncowed.
Rowan moved suddenly. He was an ambush predator that struck with speed and overwhelming ferocity to drive the young French officer up against the side of the truck. Whatever protest the man might have given was silenced when he felt the cold press of steel against his throat. That carotid was thumping like one of the officer’s favored Parisian nightclubs against Rowan’s razor edge. Rowan’s soldiers reacted first, their rifles all coming up into ready positions and fingers on the triggers. They wouldn’t hesitate. The U.N. forces did the same though they shared nervous looks to one another and jumpy feet which shuffled about on the hard packed dirt of the road.
“Ne posez pas de questions dont vous ne voulez pas connaître les réponses.” Rowan’s French was accented by his English that had detoured its way through South Africa. “Understand, pinky?” Rowan shifted the edged blade from the man’s throat to tap the point beneath the Frenchman’s eye and smirked when he saw the wild-eyed terror there. “That’s a good pinky. You do your job now…make Efrica safe.” A quick flick of his wrist dug a deep furrow in the man’s cheek before he shoved him back against the truck a second time. “And tend to that wound, ja? Don’t want you getting an infection out here bru. Jungle’s a dangerous place.” He sheathed his knife and pinched at his cigarette before he gave a nod for his men to lower their weapons and walk freely out to the field to meet their ride.
The Mi-17 helicopter sounded in the distance. The blades struck and beat and chopped against the thick, humid air as it streaked low over the road and that quickly diffused altercation to whip its tail around and rapidly descend for a landing. “You’ll live.” Rowan chuckled and gave a rough pat to the officer’s shoulder now that he was hunched forward and grabbing at the cut in his cheek. “Girls will love the scar and the bullshit stories you’ll tell too.” Rowan waved his men forward and jogged to catch up as the copter landed.
The pilot gave a waggle of his thumb and little finger out the open cockpit window as Arno, Siya and the remaining team jogged in a wide semicircle through knee high grass blown flat by the rotor’s powerful downwash. Arno and Siya waited by the ramp beneath the tail boom as Rowan jogged to catch up and both gave him a thumbs up in response to his shouted inquiry. Rowan gave a nod and the two men hopped up the ramp while Rowan turned to sit himself on the ramp’s edge. The copter’s turboshaft engines wound themselves up and a moment later the Soviet built bird lifted into the sky once more. Rowan watched, one leg dangling off the ramp, with that same disinterested stare as the village shrank beneath them and the blue helmets became blue dots, became blue ants scurrying around the brown and green earth.
The rebels would no doubt move in and rebuild the village in a month or so. The mining companies would want him back…the pipeline companies would have a need for men with his skills again. What did it all matter?
As long as he got paid…it didn’t.
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Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Diani Beach, 30 km south of Mombasa, Kenya
Approximately 2330 hrs local
Rowan awoke some seven hours after that helicopter ride out of the jungle to the discordant and antagonistic ring of his cell phone. Never one to fall into a deep sleep, Rowan awoke on the first ring and had answered it by the second. He slid the earbud into his left ear, his right still suffering some lingering tinnitus from the afternoon’s gunfire, and thumbed the touchscreen to answer.
“You should know better than to call this late. You only get to boss me around when it’s on the radio.” He playfully chastised the voice he’d called Riptide as he slipped from the bed with barely a ripple to disturb his companion for the night. He donned a pair of loose-fitting cotton pants and half-heartedly cinched the tie beneath the abdominal curve of sculpted muscle and the protruding rise of bone at his hips.
“Then you should know its important.” The female voice sounded in the ear bud with a decidedly British accent as Rowan stepped directly from the hardwood floor of the luxurious one-bedroom beach suite and onto the white sand which was still warm hours after the sun had set. “Busy time in the Congo?” She asked with a playful tilt of her voice.
“ADF, FPIC, CODECO, Mai-Mai, foreign rebels, Congolese Army and the U.N. To name a few.” Rowan’s litany of hostile forces rolled off the tongue with a tinge of amusement. “Everyone’s got a taste down here.” Soft yellow light glowed behind him from the living space of the open aired floor plan, it mixed with the brighter light of the single point of illumination in the pool to his right to be a beacon of respite and recharge. In the distance he could hear the waves rhythmically surging forward against the beach only to slip back out beneath the next incoming swell.
“And it’d better be a good god damn reason.” Rowan answered with half a glance spared over his shoulder. Eyes wandered over the dangerous curves he found waiting in the bed. That half hourglass figure as she lay on her side more than enough to keep the man’s attention for a night.
There was a chuckle on the other end of the line. “You love it there. Blonde or brunette?”
“A gentleman never tells, Oxley.” Rowan answered as he silently walked back and forth along the curving, secluded path that would lead to the open beach and ocean.
“So blonde or brunette?” Came the expected reply. “You’re no gentleman, Rowan…no matter how you might pretend at it.”
“Jealous?” Asked with a chuckle that knew she wasn’t. “Brunette then.” Rowan answered as he came to a stop halfway between house and beach and stared at the ghostly remains of a freighter that had run aground on a sandbank and surrounding reef some years ago. “Very…brunette.”
“We have a theme then. And a new job. You’re too hot to work anywhere the U.N.’s operating at the moment.” Rowan felt his phone buzz in the pocket of those low-slung pants. “Check your datafiles.”
Rowan produced his phone and decrypted the file send. “So they can do their job against us but not on the ground eh?” Rowan smirked and scanned the files that had been sent to him. “Little light, isn’t it?” He asked as there was almost no information listed. Just a picture of a brunette woman with a few notes. Not even a last name. “Vail.” Rowan tried the woman’s name on his tongue, tasted the single syllable of her identity and found both it, and her, to be as sweet and pleasing as a Cape Town peach.
Rowan listened though his attention remained on the woman’s face as she was pictured on his phone’s screen. There was a magnetic draw there, specifically to her eyes. She was gorgeous, but the eyes were haunted. Seen too much – of what was the question. Running away? “What you running from, Bok.” Rowan quietly murmured to himself as he stared at his screen.
“Rowan? Hello? I swear the reception where you choose to spend your downtime…” Oxley interrupted his thoughts and demanded he surface back in the present.
“I’m here.” Two words to reset his focus. “What’s the job?” Rowan asked and listened. “And where?”
“Rhydin.”
“Think I’d rather stay in Africa.” Rowan answered as he turned back towards the beach suite at the sound of falling water. He watched as the brunette stepped beneath the cascading, rainfall of the outdoor shower. He listened as Oxley laid it all out for him, the money, the job, the details…Rowan listened while watching the shapely silhouette of a woman dip her head back and then look over her shoulder at him with a coquettish shrug and inviting look as if she were daring him to ignore whatever his focus was for her. His gaze, however, was drawn back to the one with the dimples – much to the flesh and blood woman in the outdoor shower’s annoyance. Not that it mattered to Rowan. Something about the woman’s eyes had his attention and not because she was easy on his own. “I’m in.” He answered, cutting off some of the explanation. “I’ll call you tomorrow with the details of what I need. I’ve got some research to tend to.” Rowan disconnected the line and pulled the ear bud out.
“You woke me up with your…business.” The brunette taunted with a pout from the shower with the expectation that Rowan should apologize.
Rowan tossed the phone and earbud on a hammock as he drifted towards the shower and the woman who had run her hands back through her hair beneath the falling water. “Shhh…” Rowan silenced her as he joined her in the shower. “You’re not here to talk.” A knowing smirk for that telegraphed look of shock on her face that transitioned so easily into a smile of approval when realization set in.
Rhydin could wait for a night.
Approximately 2330 hrs local
Rowan awoke some seven hours after that helicopter ride out of the jungle to the discordant and antagonistic ring of his cell phone. Never one to fall into a deep sleep, Rowan awoke on the first ring and had answered it by the second. He slid the earbud into his left ear, his right still suffering some lingering tinnitus from the afternoon’s gunfire, and thumbed the touchscreen to answer.
“You should know better than to call this late. You only get to boss me around when it’s on the radio.” He playfully chastised the voice he’d called Riptide as he slipped from the bed with barely a ripple to disturb his companion for the night. He donned a pair of loose-fitting cotton pants and half-heartedly cinched the tie beneath the abdominal curve of sculpted muscle and the protruding rise of bone at his hips.
“Then you should know its important.” The female voice sounded in the ear bud with a decidedly British accent as Rowan stepped directly from the hardwood floor of the luxurious one-bedroom beach suite and onto the white sand which was still warm hours after the sun had set. “Busy time in the Congo?” She asked with a playful tilt of her voice.
“ADF, FPIC, CODECO, Mai-Mai, foreign rebels, Congolese Army and the U.N. To name a few.” Rowan’s litany of hostile forces rolled off the tongue with a tinge of amusement. “Everyone’s got a taste down here.” Soft yellow light glowed behind him from the living space of the open aired floor plan, it mixed with the brighter light of the single point of illumination in the pool to his right to be a beacon of respite and recharge. In the distance he could hear the waves rhythmically surging forward against the beach only to slip back out beneath the next incoming swell.
“And it’d better be a good god damn reason.” Rowan answered with half a glance spared over his shoulder. Eyes wandered over the dangerous curves he found waiting in the bed. That half hourglass figure as she lay on her side more than enough to keep the man’s attention for a night.
There was a chuckle on the other end of the line. “You love it there. Blonde or brunette?”
“A gentleman never tells, Oxley.” Rowan answered as he silently walked back and forth along the curving, secluded path that would lead to the open beach and ocean.
“So blonde or brunette?” Came the expected reply. “You’re no gentleman, Rowan…no matter how you might pretend at it.”
“Jealous?” Asked with a chuckle that knew she wasn’t. “Brunette then.” Rowan answered as he came to a stop halfway between house and beach and stared at the ghostly remains of a freighter that had run aground on a sandbank and surrounding reef some years ago. “Very…brunette.”
“We have a theme then. And a new job. You’re too hot to work anywhere the U.N.’s operating at the moment.” Rowan felt his phone buzz in the pocket of those low-slung pants. “Check your datafiles.”
Rowan produced his phone and decrypted the file send. “So they can do their job against us but not on the ground eh?” Rowan smirked and scanned the files that had been sent to him. “Little light, isn’t it?” He asked as there was almost no information listed. Just a picture of a brunette woman with a few notes. Not even a last name. “Vail.” Rowan tried the woman’s name on his tongue, tasted the single syllable of her identity and found both it, and her, to be as sweet and pleasing as a Cape Town peach.
Rowan listened though his attention remained on the woman’s face as she was pictured on his phone’s screen. There was a magnetic draw there, specifically to her eyes. She was gorgeous, but the eyes were haunted. Seen too much – of what was the question. Running away? “What you running from, Bok.” Rowan quietly murmured to himself as he stared at his screen.
“Rowan? Hello? I swear the reception where you choose to spend your downtime…” Oxley interrupted his thoughts and demanded he surface back in the present.
“I’m here.” Two words to reset his focus. “What’s the job?” Rowan asked and listened. “And where?”
“Rhydin.”
“Think I’d rather stay in Africa.” Rowan answered as he turned back towards the beach suite at the sound of falling water. He watched as the brunette stepped beneath the cascading, rainfall of the outdoor shower. He listened as Oxley laid it all out for him, the money, the job, the details…Rowan listened while watching the shapely silhouette of a woman dip her head back and then look over her shoulder at him with a coquettish shrug and inviting look as if she were daring him to ignore whatever his focus was for her. His gaze, however, was drawn back to the one with the dimples – much to the flesh and blood woman in the outdoor shower’s annoyance. Not that it mattered to Rowan. Something about the woman’s eyes had his attention and not because she was easy on his own. “I’m in.” He answered, cutting off some of the explanation. “I’ll call you tomorrow with the details of what I need. I’ve got some research to tend to.” Rowan disconnected the line and pulled the ear bud out.
“You woke me up with your…business.” The brunette taunted with a pout from the shower with the expectation that Rowan should apologize.
Rowan tossed the phone and earbud on a hammock as he drifted towards the shower and the woman who had run her hands back through her hair beneath the falling water. “Shhh…” Rowan silenced her as he joined her in the shower. “You’re not here to talk.” A knowing smirk for that telegraphed look of shock on her face that transitioned so easily into a smile of approval when realization set in.
Rhydin could wait for a night.
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Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Fool’s Luck Bay, Rhydin
2347 hrs Local
The sound of the diesel engine rumbled and vibrated up through the deck of the humble fishing trawler as it rolled and rose up and down on the gentle waves. The modest three or four knots slowly pushed the tub through dark water and the coastline which crept inexorably closer. The aroma of the exhaust, pungent and redolent of the big engines used by the Army, competed with the fresh tang of sea salted air to form a heady cologne of intrigue and risk. A few high wattage lights illuminated the deck in sterile white while a softer glow of red and green denoted left from right, port from starboard, and ensured the ship was visible from miles away. Which was good. No need to attract attention by looking different than the various ships and junks motoring about.
What they were doing…it wasn’t, strictly speaking, legal.
But then again, what was illegal in Rhydin? The word had more elasticity here than any other place in the verse. It was something Rowan Hume was counting on as he rested against the gunwale at the trawler’s stern. There were many ways into Rhydin proper. Rowan was sure they could have employed other means, had even considered it, yet ultimate he’d decided on the slow and simple. Few people needed to know he was here, and attention was the one thing he wished to avoid.
The trawler’s warp winch was quiet, and the outriggers were stowed and tied overhead. The nets hung dry and unused while the tickler chains clinked together and added their mournful notes to the typical creak and groans of a ship underway. The mercenary tapped at his data pad and brought up the picture of Vail once again, reread the scant file once again and absently scrolled through any relevant data that might have been added over the past few days. It was still slim. Rowan resisted falling into the mental trap of making up various fictions to fill in the gaps and keep an active mind busy. It was a pointless endeavor and a symptom of an undisciplined mind. But still, he wondered what had put her on such a radar as to spike the interest of those who hired men like him. At the end of the day, Rowan Hume was a problem solver…and he wondered just what kind of problem Vail had become. And why. The questions stalked him from the shadowy depths like a Great White shark. The thought drew his eyes to the black water sloshing slowly by as he took another slow drag from his cigarette.
He had yet to receive a final objective as well. That part remained stubbornly blank as eyes returned to the woman’s photograph. As of right now he was simply to establish a beachhead, as it were, and find her. He took another displeased drag from the cigarette casually held between fore and middle fingers, pinched the filter between his lips and swiped the file closed when he heard the pilothouse door open. Rowan was used to operating without a full picture. But he had never quite learned to like it. The exhale of smoke masked the fog of his breath as it was a cool night with a breeze that only added to the chill. The half-smoked cigarette was reclaimed as Arno shouldered the pilothouse door closed again, both hands occupied holding two Styrofoam cups of a steaming liquid, and slowly approached the stern.
Rowan watched as his associate, business partner and friend negotiated the roll and pitch of the deck as he made his way along it. Older than Rowan by a few years, Arno had been with Rowan for years now, had left the army with him to bushwhack a path towards something better…something more rewarding. There were not many men living that Rowan trusted. Arno was one of them. The rest of his team had been given a bit of R&R while they collectively waited for the U.N. to blunder into some other fiasco and that part of his team could get back to work.
“Here ya go, Saffa.” Arno murmured as he handed one of the steaming cups to Rowan. A grunt accompanied his lean against the gunwale alongside Rowan and the man turned his eyes out over the black water of the bay and the twinkling lights out in the distance. “Something to warm your bones in this insufferable cold. When I was a lighty me and my dad would troll the waters off the coast of Durban in a tub not much bigger than this.” Commented as he leaned back to inspect the netting and chains dangling above. “Simple life, Saffa…simple life.”
“My bru…pitching up with a hot drink. Shot, hey.” Rowan grinned through an exhale of smoke and reached to take the offered cup. “You miss it, China?” Rowan took a final drag and casually flicked the remnants of the cigarette over the side of the trawler and then lifted the cup in a mock toast of thanks before he’d take a testing sip. “Eish this is some true slop.” Yet the mercenary chuckled as he forced the coffee down and shook his head, shifted the cup from one hand to the other so he could hand the datapad to Arno. “You miss it?” Inquiring about that simple life.
“Shit no, Saffa.” Arno grinned as he took the datapad to study a digital manifest of various supplies and weapons. “I’d rather be shot at in such extravagant locales as Congolese jungles and this fine spot than grow old chasin fishes. And you’re welcome…even if you’re a little spoiled when it comes to your brew.” Another grunt as he scrolled through the list and nodded. “What we ordered, ja. Still on to meet that cherrie, Thumper and her ballie, Sandman at the docks.” Arno took a heavy sip with a satisfied sigh. He had no such constitutional concerns when it came to the slop.
“Can’t say I’m wired for anything else either, bru.” Rowan answered after a moment spent in thought and allowed his mouth to curve like the reaper’s scythe for Arno’s verbal swipe…but said nothing. He watched for several more moments as the distant lights of Star’s End and the massive space elevator, Yggdrasil, came into better focus off the starboard side of the trawler. “Tech and transport, yes?” Rowan clarified the roles of Sandman and Thumper. “Not a bad pair to be working with.” A nod of approval as he reached up to adjust the black wool knit cap atop his head.
“Ja.” Arno confirmed as he lowered the cup and followed Rowan’s eyes out to the space elevator. “Thumper’s wired in to the digital underbelly of this place. And Sandman can handle anything with wheels, wings, or rotors.
“I remember them now.” Rowan confirmed with a nod and another forced sip of Arno’s coffee. It had taken a moment for his mind to fully access the memory. Too often Rowan saw people outside his immediate circle as single use commodities and assets. Loyalty changed with the dollar amount in the mercenary world. “She hacked the Vencinza Megacorp…knocked out the drones while Sandman ran decoy.”
“Ja. Fried their brains good, boet.” Arno chuckled. “Anything else on our girl, Vail?”
“Nothing else. Girl’s a ghost. She’s either trained…or getting help.” The clipped response accompanied the change which settled over Rowan as their objective came into focus. He needn’t comment about the manifest. It was as he’d intended and that is what he wanted. “C’mon…” A nod towards the pilothouse before Rowan forced himself to down another sip of coffee.
“Copy that shore patrol…the Whiskey Venom will steer clear of sector six.” The two men made their way into the pilothouse where the captain of the boat was just clipping the radio handset back into place. “All clear, shore patrol’s busy with a ship fire o’er in sector six.” He gave a grin to reveal several missing teeth while a few more stubbornly clung to black gums like recalcitrant head stones. He spit his chewing tobacco into a jar and handed a pair of binoculars over to Rowan. “See for yourself.”
“Now that’s a damn shame.” Rowan’s words crept through the man’s smirk. “Your doing?” Rowan asked as he took the binos and lifted them to his eyes. The pilothouse was dark, a few panels lit with a soft amber glow, but otherwise the space was as black as the water rolling by. The mercenary’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dimness while the electronic illumination of the binos shaded everything in a ghostly green. The fire was spotted almost immediately, a bright white flare in the enhanced vision mode. “Got it.” A chuff of laughter as he focused the view. “They look busy.” Amused as he handed the binoculars to Arno.
“Nah. It’s yours.” The captain, a gangly man by the name of Monarch, eased the wheel a bit to the left as he navigated between the harbor markers and nudged the throttles forward just a bit. “Well…on your behalf at least. Can’t be lettin ya waste your money. I wouldn’t be no Monarch of the seas ifn my smugglin run got kinked up with a bunch of shore patrol.” A wink of a milky eye set deep within a weathered face and white beard stained yellow around the mouth with tobacco. What wispy hair he had left was pulled back into an unkempt tail that dangled to mid shoulder. “Course you never know Fool’s Luck Bay.”
Which brought the circle back round to that whole illegal thing.
Rowan scanned the horizon with a ghost of a grim-faced smirk for Monarch’s answer. He noted the towering structures of several megacorps headquarters like they belonged in a gloomy techno noir painting, half their structures were obscured beneath low hanging harbor fog which bore an eidolic glow from the illuminated logos somewhere above the brume. The buildings stood tall above the skyline like black fangs made of high tensile steel, tinted glass, and a malignant need to expand. Rowan had done work for some of those same trading dynasties in the past, made enemies of others, and had to be cautious when he traveled in and out of the realm. Hence the nondescript fishing trawler puttering towards the docks.
Arno tapped Rowan on the shoulder and drew the man’s attention towards a shuttlecraft lifting off to ferry passengers and cargo up to Gateway or beyond. The craft was hovering far above the water and seemed to maneuver with glowing thrusters the color of molten gold. The distant rumble vibrated through the ship as the boosters ignited and the craft began to climb and accelerate into he æther. “Never get tired of seeing that.” Arno grinned like a child. “Don’t see much of that off the coast of Durban.”
“You boys been off-world before?” Monarch asked as he steered the Whiskey Venom away from a larger freighter making good speed for Mimisportr. “Got a good casino over there too case you’re ever in the mood too.” Nodding towards the larger freighter’s ultimate destination.
“Once or twice.” Rowan answered. “Didn’t much care for it.” He gave a nod, then, for Monarch to take the trawler on in as the radio crackled to life with the harbormaster’s voice without giving the departing shuttle another look. The casino could wait, too, as Rowan wasn’t here for entertainment. The mercenary braced for a demand to give way for an inspection as the harbormaster inquired of their destination. Rowan knew all too well how corrupt some of these officials could. He’d bribed plenty of them himself in the past.
“Whiskey Venom, Shore Patrol.” The tired voice sounded on the radio, “go ahead and bring her on in. Pier three. Be advised winds outta the southwest at 5 knots. Waves three to five feet, expect same at outer harbor entrance.”
“Whiskey Venom copies, pier three. Much obliged shore patrol. You boys be careful out there.” Monarch said back with a grin at Rowan and Arno. “Smooth as snot, boys…smooth as snot.” The words chased another spit of tobacco into his jar as he steered the trawler towards Pier 3.
Twenty minutes later the Whiskey Venom was tied up and Rowan was catching a thrown duffle bag from Arno. “Up ya go, boet.” Rowan snapped his fingers twice and reached out to help haul Arno up onto the pier.
Arno hopped easily with the pull to land on the dock to stand to the side and slightly behind Rowan. “We’re settled and straight.” Rowan said to Monarch as the old sea dog supervised the offloading of his illicit cargo. He’d been doing smuggling runs in these parts since before men like Rowan had even been an itch.
“Yeah…yeah…you boys are sophisticated with that stick of crypto.” Monarch spent several moments to dig that fat chaw of tobacco out of his mouth with a dirty hook of a finger. “Much obliged gents.” Tossing the tobacco over the rail of the trawler. “Keep your heads down out there.”
“You too.” Arno stepped into the breach of politeness that Rowan had so casually and uncaringly vacated. “You too.” Added with a bit of a faint smile before he reached down to pick up his duffle.
Rowan took a moment to brass check the pistol he kept concealed inside the loose fit of his hooded jacket. It was an old habit and done for function far more than show. Style got you killed in this business.
“Paranoid, Ro?” Arno asked as he saw Rowan negotiate the slide of his pistol back a bit and make sure he was carrying with one in the chamber. “These two are our allies.”
“You ready to bet your life on it, bru?” Rowan asked after a moment of adjustment, eyes flicking up to study his friend for a moment. “I’m not.” There was a brief pause before he gave a nod towards where he knew Arno carried his own weapon. “You still carry that boat anchor of a pistol?” Rowan asked with a smirk to lighten the mood. He hefted his duffle bag over a shoulder and bounced it a couple of times to settle the weight before he and Arno turned for the lonely stroll down the empty pier and the dark stacks of containers which loomed in the near distance.
“I like the Czechs. Good guns…good women.” Arno smiled back at that Great White smirk as the CZ 75 was checked and concealed on the man’s tall frame. “Maybe I’ll beat ya ta death with it, ja? Better than that plastic toy you carry.”
The mercenary elicited a brief chuckle and produced a slender phone from an inside pocket of his jacket. There was no standardization within a mercenary company. A man was free to use whatever worked best for him and nothing was stupid if it worked. A thumb tapped a single icon on the softly glowing screen, and he pressed the phone to his ear. “Riptide, we’re feet dry.” Terse and to the point as he noted the triple flash of headlights at the end of the pier. “They’re here. Net-nou. I’ll contact you from the house.” Casually tossing the phone into the water as the pair strolled towards the now visible vehicle.
“You boys are early.” The gruff voice sounded from the shadows cast by a stack of metal containers. A scarred face beneath long hair pulled into a top knot were briefly illuminated as the owner of the voice sparked up a lighter to light the end of a clove cigarette. There was a brief kretek of paper and burning cloves before the exhale spread the smell of spice about the area directly in front of the sprinter van…and the source of the flashing headlights.
“Easy now, Sandman.” Thumper’s voice sounded from the side of the hulked-out sprinter van. The diminutive girl barely reached five feet as she leaned alongside the open side door. Her black hair had been dyed a wild orchid purple and ended in a dark shade of indigo at the tips that just barely brushed the leather shoulders of her oversized bomber jacket. “You know how Rowan is.” She grinned to reveal white teeth set between a pair of dimple piercings and a small nose ring.
“I remember.” Sandman grinned as his teeth bit down on that clove and his squared off beard framed his face along with the olive branch tattoo which came down from his right temple. “Been a minute Ro…we were glad to know you were still in the game.”
“Howzit Sandman…Thumper.” Rowan greeted the pair as they neared the sprinter van. “You remember my bru, Arno.” A jerk of his head over his shoulder to indicate his fellow mercenary though he did not take his eyes of Sandman as the silent game continued to play out between the two. “And you’ll have to carry me feet first outta this game, soutpilaar.”
Which brought a laugh from Sandman and an end to their little challenge. “Missed ya, man.” Sandman reaching out with a large paw of hand to clasp Arno on the shoulder and gave a nod to Rowan. “Let’s get your gear put away. Thumper’s already got us plugged in back at the house, wired up and ready to get after it.” Arno grinned and turned the shoulder clasp into a hug. It was an embrace Rowan casually sidestepped and eschewed in favor of dropping his duffel in the back of the van.
“Good to see you Rowan, Arno.” Thumper’s voice bombinated in her throat while large eyes watched her partner embrace the other mercenary. “I’ve got us setup on an Erebus Network piggybacked on a Talos protocol for snooping. Figured that’d be a good start.” A slowly moving snake tattoo slithered in its muted magenta ink around the girl’s exposed midsection between the bottom of her shirt and the top of low-cut cargo pants. The tattoo…something only seen in Rhydin…undulated like a real serpent as it crawled about her skin like it had a mind all its own. The ink marked her as a member of the cybernate underground, a loosely affiliated and secretive legion of techlords, resonancers and hackers. Few outside the various cells knew they even existed.
“Perfect, stompie.” Rowan answered as he appeared from the back of the van and gave a nod for Arno to stow his gear and climb inside the van. “How’s the underground these days?” A nod to the snake whose tail was just disappearing around her hip.
“You know we don’t talk about that with Sojourners, Ro.” Thumper chastised and climbed into the back of the van as Arno tossed his bag in the back and then joined her in the back.
“And yet I still know about it.” Rowan blew his exhale out his nose to shroud a brief grin before he pulled himself into the front passenger seat alongside Sandman. The bulky Gunner keyed the engine and the Sprinter rumbled to life.
Thumper grinned alongside Arno who welcomed the girl with a one-armed hug after pulling the side door shut. “Straight to the house?” Sandman asked as he leaned over the wheel to look between Rowan and Arno.
“Nah.” Rowan licked his lips and rolled the window down to hang his cigarette out the side. “Let’s drive around a bit…get a taste of the place, what’s changed…what’s stayed the same.”
2347 hrs Local
The sound of the diesel engine rumbled and vibrated up through the deck of the humble fishing trawler as it rolled and rose up and down on the gentle waves. The modest three or four knots slowly pushed the tub through dark water and the coastline which crept inexorably closer. The aroma of the exhaust, pungent and redolent of the big engines used by the Army, competed with the fresh tang of sea salted air to form a heady cologne of intrigue and risk. A few high wattage lights illuminated the deck in sterile white while a softer glow of red and green denoted left from right, port from starboard, and ensured the ship was visible from miles away. Which was good. No need to attract attention by looking different than the various ships and junks motoring about.
What they were doing…it wasn’t, strictly speaking, legal.
But then again, what was illegal in Rhydin? The word had more elasticity here than any other place in the verse. It was something Rowan Hume was counting on as he rested against the gunwale at the trawler’s stern. There were many ways into Rhydin proper. Rowan was sure they could have employed other means, had even considered it, yet ultimate he’d decided on the slow and simple. Few people needed to know he was here, and attention was the one thing he wished to avoid.
The trawler’s warp winch was quiet, and the outriggers were stowed and tied overhead. The nets hung dry and unused while the tickler chains clinked together and added their mournful notes to the typical creak and groans of a ship underway. The mercenary tapped at his data pad and brought up the picture of Vail once again, reread the scant file once again and absently scrolled through any relevant data that might have been added over the past few days. It was still slim. Rowan resisted falling into the mental trap of making up various fictions to fill in the gaps and keep an active mind busy. It was a pointless endeavor and a symptom of an undisciplined mind. But still, he wondered what had put her on such a radar as to spike the interest of those who hired men like him. At the end of the day, Rowan Hume was a problem solver…and he wondered just what kind of problem Vail had become. And why. The questions stalked him from the shadowy depths like a Great White shark. The thought drew his eyes to the black water sloshing slowly by as he took another slow drag from his cigarette.
He had yet to receive a final objective as well. That part remained stubbornly blank as eyes returned to the woman’s photograph. As of right now he was simply to establish a beachhead, as it were, and find her. He took another displeased drag from the cigarette casually held between fore and middle fingers, pinched the filter between his lips and swiped the file closed when he heard the pilothouse door open. Rowan was used to operating without a full picture. But he had never quite learned to like it. The exhale of smoke masked the fog of his breath as it was a cool night with a breeze that only added to the chill. The half-smoked cigarette was reclaimed as Arno shouldered the pilothouse door closed again, both hands occupied holding two Styrofoam cups of a steaming liquid, and slowly approached the stern.
Rowan watched as his associate, business partner and friend negotiated the roll and pitch of the deck as he made his way along it. Older than Rowan by a few years, Arno had been with Rowan for years now, had left the army with him to bushwhack a path towards something better…something more rewarding. There were not many men living that Rowan trusted. Arno was one of them. The rest of his team had been given a bit of R&R while they collectively waited for the U.N. to blunder into some other fiasco and that part of his team could get back to work.
“Here ya go, Saffa.” Arno murmured as he handed one of the steaming cups to Rowan. A grunt accompanied his lean against the gunwale alongside Rowan and the man turned his eyes out over the black water of the bay and the twinkling lights out in the distance. “Something to warm your bones in this insufferable cold. When I was a lighty me and my dad would troll the waters off the coast of Durban in a tub not much bigger than this.” Commented as he leaned back to inspect the netting and chains dangling above. “Simple life, Saffa…simple life.”
“My bru…pitching up with a hot drink. Shot, hey.” Rowan grinned through an exhale of smoke and reached to take the offered cup. “You miss it, China?” Rowan took a final drag and casually flicked the remnants of the cigarette over the side of the trawler and then lifted the cup in a mock toast of thanks before he’d take a testing sip. “Eish this is some true slop.” Yet the mercenary chuckled as he forced the coffee down and shook his head, shifted the cup from one hand to the other so he could hand the datapad to Arno. “You miss it?” Inquiring about that simple life.
“Shit no, Saffa.” Arno grinned as he took the datapad to study a digital manifest of various supplies and weapons. “I’d rather be shot at in such extravagant locales as Congolese jungles and this fine spot than grow old chasin fishes. And you’re welcome…even if you’re a little spoiled when it comes to your brew.” Another grunt as he scrolled through the list and nodded. “What we ordered, ja. Still on to meet that cherrie, Thumper and her ballie, Sandman at the docks.” Arno took a heavy sip with a satisfied sigh. He had no such constitutional concerns when it came to the slop.
“Can’t say I’m wired for anything else either, bru.” Rowan answered after a moment spent in thought and allowed his mouth to curve like the reaper’s scythe for Arno’s verbal swipe…but said nothing. He watched for several more moments as the distant lights of Star’s End and the massive space elevator, Yggdrasil, came into better focus off the starboard side of the trawler. “Tech and transport, yes?” Rowan clarified the roles of Sandman and Thumper. “Not a bad pair to be working with.” A nod of approval as he reached up to adjust the black wool knit cap atop his head.
“Ja.” Arno confirmed as he lowered the cup and followed Rowan’s eyes out to the space elevator. “Thumper’s wired in to the digital underbelly of this place. And Sandman can handle anything with wheels, wings, or rotors.
“I remember them now.” Rowan confirmed with a nod and another forced sip of Arno’s coffee. It had taken a moment for his mind to fully access the memory. Too often Rowan saw people outside his immediate circle as single use commodities and assets. Loyalty changed with the dollar amount in the mercenary world. “She hacked the Vencinza Megacorp…knocked out the drones while Sandman ran decoy.”
“Ja. Fried their brains good, boet.” Arno chuckled. “Anything else on our girl, Vail?”
“Nothing else. Girl’s a ghost. She’s either trained…or getting help.” The clipped response accompanied the change which settled over Rowan as their objective came into focus. He needn’t comment about the manifest. It was as he’d intended and that is what he wanted. “C’mon…” A nod towards the pilothouse before Rowan forced himself to down another sip of coffee.
“Copy that shore patrol…the Whiskey Venom will steer clear of sector six.” The two men made their way into the pilothouse where the captain of the boat was just clipping the radio handset back into place. “All clear, shore patrol’s busy with a ship fire o’er in sector six.” He gave a grin to reveal several missing teeth while a few more stubbornly clung to black gums like recalcitrant head stones. He spit his chewing tobacco into a jar and handed a pair of binoculars over to Rowan. “See for yourself.”
“Now that’s a damn shame.” Rowan’s words crept through the man’s smirk. “Your doing?” Rowan asked as he took the binos and lifted them to his eyes. The pilothouse was dark, a few panels lit with a soft amber glow, but otherwise the space was as black as the water rolling by. The mercenary’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dimness while the electronic illumination of the binos shaded everything in a ghostly green. The fire was spotted almost immediately, a bright white flare in the enhanced vision mode. “Got it.” A chuff of laughter as he focused the view. “They look busy.” Amused as he handed the binoculars to Arno.
“Nah. It’s yours.” The captain, a gangly man by the name of Monarch, eased the wheel a bit to the left as he navigated between the harbor markers and nudged the throttles forward just a bit. “Well…on your behalf at least. Can’t be lettin ya waste your money. I wouldn’t be no Monarch of the seas ifn my smugglin run got kinked up with a bunch of shore patrol.” A wink of a milky eye set deep within a weathered face and white beard stained yellow around the mouth with tobacco. What wispy hair he had left was pulled back into an unkempt tail that dangled to mid shoulder. “Course you never know Fool’s Luck Bay.”
Which brought the circle back round to that whole illegal thing.
Rowan scanned the horizon with a ghost of a grim-faced smirk for Monarch’s answer. He noted the towering structures of several megacorps headquarters like they belonged in a gloomy techno noir painting, half their structures were obscured beneath low hanging harbor fog which bore an eidolic glow from the illuminated logos somewhere above the brume. The buildings stood tall above the skyline like black fangs made of high tensile steel, tinted glass, and a malignant need to expand. Rowan had done work for some of those same trading dynasties in the past, made enemies of others, and had to be cautious when he traveled in and out of the realm. Hence the nondescript fishing trawler puttering towards the docks.
Arno tapped Rowan on the shoulder and drew the man’s attention towards a shuttlecraft lifting off to ferry passengers and cargo up to Gateway or beyond. The craft was hovering far above the water and seemed to maneuver with glowing thrusters the color of molten gold. The distant rumble vibrated through the ship as the boosters ignited and the craft began to climb and accelerate into he æther. “Never get tired of seeing that.” Arno grinned like a child. “Don’t see much of that off the coast of Durban.”
“You boys been off-world before?” Monarch asked as he steered the Whiskey Venom away from a larger freighter making good speed for Mimisportr. “Got a good casino over there too case you’re ever in the mood too.” Nodding towards the larger freighter’s ultimate destination.
“Once or twice.” Rowan answered. “Didn’t much care for it.” He gave a nod, then, for Monarch to take the trawler on in as the radio crackled to life with the harbormaster’s voice without giving the departing shuttle another look. The casino could wait, too, as Rowan wasn’t here for entertainment. The mercenary braced for a demand to give way for an inspection as the harbormaster inquired of their destination. Rowan knew all too well how corrupt some of these officials could. He’d bribed plenty of them himself in the past.
“Whiskey Venom, Shore Patrol.” The tired voice sounded on the radio, “go ahead and bring her on in. Pier three. Be advised winds outta the southwest at 5 knots. Waves three to five feet, expect same at outer harbor entrance.”
“Whiskey Venom copies, pier three. Much obliged shore patrol. You boys be careful out there.” Monarch said back with a grin at Rowan and Arno. “Smooth as snot, boys…smooth as snot.” The words chased another spit of tobacco into his jar as he steered the trawler towards Pier 3.
Twenty minutes later the Whiskey Venom was tied up and Rowan was catching a thrown duffle bag from Arno. “Up ya go, boet.” Rowan snapped his fingers twice and reached out to help haul Arno up onto the pier.
Arno hopped easily with the pull to land on the dock to stand to the side and slightly behind Rowan. “We’re settled and straight.” Rowan said to Monarch as the old sea dog supervised the offloading of his illicit cargo. He’d been doing smuggling runs in these parts since before men like Rowan had even been an itch.
“Yeah…yeah…you boys are sophisticated with that stick of crypto.” Monarch spent several moments to dig that fat chaw of tobacco out of his mouth with a dirty hook of a finger. “Much obliged gents.” Tossing the tobacco over the rail of the trawler. “Keep your heads down out there.”
“You too.” Arno stepped into the breach of politeness that Rowan had so casually and uncaringly vacated. “You too.” Added with a bit of a faint smile before he reached down to pick up his duffle.
Rowan took a moment to brass check the pistol he kept concealed inside the loose fit of his hooded jacket. It was an old habit and done for function far more than show. Style got you killed in this business.
“Paranoid, Ro?” Arno asked as he saw Rowan negotiate the slide of his pistol back a bit and make sure he was carrying with one in the chamber. “These two are our allies.”
“You ready to bet your life on it, bru?” Rowan asked after a moment of adjustment, eyes flicking up to study his friend for a moment. “I’m not.” There was a brief pause before he gave a nod towards where he knew Arno carried his own weapon. “You still carry that boat anchor of a pistol?” Rowan asked with a smirk to lighten the mood. He hefted his duffle bag over a shoulder and bounced it a couple of times to settle the weight before he and Arno turned for the lonely stroll down the empty pier and the dark stacks of containers which loomed in the near distance.
“I like the Czechs. Good guns…good women.” Arno smiled back at that Great White smirk as the CZ 75 was checked and concealed on the man’s tall frame. “Maybe I’ll beat ya ta death with it, ja? Better than that plastic toy you carry.”
The mercenary elicited a brief chuckle and produced a slender phone from an inside pocket of his jacket. There was no standardization within a mercenary company. A man was free to use whatever worked best for him and nothing was stupid if it worked. A thumb tapped a single icon on the softly glowing screen, and he pressed the phone to his ear. “Riptide, we’re feet dry.” Terse and to the point as he noted the triple flash of headlights at the end of the pier. “They’re here. Net-nou. I’ll contact you from the house.” Casually tossing the phone into the water as the pair strolled towards the now visible vehicle.
“You boys are early.” The gruff voice sounded from the shadows cast by a stack of metal containers. A scarred face beneath long hair pulled into a top knot were briefly illuminated as the owner of the voice sparked up a lighter to light the end of a clove cigarette. There was a brief kretek of paper and burning cloves before the exhale spread the smell of spice about the area directly in front of the sprinter van…and the source of the flashing headlights.
“Easy now, Sandman.” Thumper’s voice sounded from the side of the hulked-out sprinter van. The diminutive girl barely reached five feet as she leaned alongside the open side door. Her black hair had been dyed a wild orchid purple and ended in a dark shade of indigo at the tips that just barely brushed the leather shoulders of her oversized bomber jacket. “You know how Rowan is.” She grinned to reveal white teeth set between a pair of dimple piercings and a small nose ring.
“I remember.” Sandman grinned as his teeth bit down on that clove and his squared off beard framed his face along with the olive branch tattoo which came down from his right temple. “Been a minute Ro…we were glad to know you were still in the game.”
“Howzit Sandman…Thumper.” Rowan greeted the pair as they neared the sprinter van. “You remember my bru, Arno.” A jerk of his head over his shoulder to indicate his fellow mercenary though he did not take his eyes of Sandman as the silent game continued to play out between the two. “And you’ll have to carry me feet first outta this game, soutpilaar.”
Which brought a laugh from Sandman and an end to their little challenge. “Missed ya, man.” Sandman reaching out with a large paw of hand to clasp Arno on the shoulder and gave a nod to Rowan. “Let’s get your gear put away. Thumper’s already got us plugged in back at the house, wired up and ready to get after it.” Arno grinned and turned the shoulder clasp into a hug. It was an embrace Rowan casually sidestepped and eschewed in favor of dropping his duffel in the back of the van.
“Good to see you Rowan, Arno.” Thumper’s voice bombinated in her throat while large eyes watched her partner embrace the other mercenary. “I’ve got us setup on an Erebus Network piggybacked on a Talos protocol for snooping. Figured that’d be a good start.” A slowly moving snake tattoo slithered in its muted magenta ink around the girl’s exposed midsection between the bottom of her shirt and the top of low-cut cargo pants. The tattoo…something only seen in Rhydin…undulated like a real serpent as it crawled about her skin like it had a mind all its own. The ink marked her as a member of the cybernate underground, a loosely affiliated and secretive legion of techlords, resonancers and hackers. Few outside the various cells knew they even existed.
“Perfect, stompie.” Rowan answered as he appeared from the back of the van and gave a nod for Arno to stow his gear and climb inside the van. “How’s the underground these days?” A nod to the snake whose tail was just disappearing around her hip.
“You know we don’t talk about that with Sojourners, Ro.” Thumper chastised and climbed into the back of the van as Arno tossed his bag in the back and then joined her in the back.
“And yet I still know about it.” Rowan blew his exhale out his nose to shroud a brief grin before he pulled himself into the front passenger seat alongside Sandman. The bulky Gunner keyed the engine and the Sprinter rumbled to life.
Thumper grinned alongside Arno who welcomed the girl with a one-armed hug after pulling the side door shut. “Straight to the house?” Sandman asked as he leaned over the wheel to look between Rowan and Arno.
“Nah.” Rowan licked his lips and rolled the window down to hang his cigarette out the side. “Let’s drive around a bit…get a taste of the place, what’s changed…what’s stayed the same.”
Last edited by Rowan Hume on Wed Nov 10, 2021 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Somewhere in the sprawling warehouse district, Rhydin City
Approximately 1947 hrs local
“The problem is the heat, Ro.” Thumper challenged before taking a long, slurping pull on the straw of her extra-large slush puppie. Flavor? Grape. Of course. “That kind of job’s going to attract a lot more attention than just the underworld types.” The caution came from the young woman’s command center of computer banks, monitors and screens established in a corner of the open warehouse the group had commandeered for the time being. Her profile, as she swiveled in her chair to eye Rowan and Arno at a pool table, was illuminated by a kaleidoscope of colors form various news feeds, a video game or two, several security drones and even a layout of Rhydin city’s electric grid plus all the access nodes. She was a professional. No glowing keyboards, no distracting LED mood lighting. Her workstation was a temple and her goddess Technology. The only vices she allowed herself, in fact, was her slush puppie and her music. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons blared quietly from the left ear cuff of oversized headphones currently pulled back from her ear.
“Izzit now?” Rowan’s smirk was soft this time as he responded to Thumper and inhaled to explain. “The heat is the reason, Thump.” Rowan answered as he lined up his shot. The mercenary paused to give a triumphant look to Arno before putting the cue ball back within deadly sights. “Outfit that owns this particular contract doesn’t have a lead. And they hired me and my boet here to fix that problem for them, find our target and figure out what she knows. Extract her back home if necessary.” Rowan tapped the cue ball to send it in a smooth roll down the table. “Cause and effect.” He spoke as the cue nudged the 8 ball into the corner pocket. “We pull a kiff job…for free…steal us something valuable, maybe even someone, something these underworld types be wanting and then maybe we get networked in.” Rowan paused, still leaning over his cue to eyeball Arno. “Pay up.”
“Fuck you, Saffa.” Arno groused and pulled a stack of folded bills from his pocket. His thumb fanned them out as he counted before he just threw the lot of them on the table. “Great White bastard. Take your winnings and be done.” The grin indicated there was no real pain there…other than the lost money and ding to his pride. “But I want that added back come bonus time.” A point to indicate the cash with a cigarette clutched between his fingers.
“Rowan’s right though. We need to find us a choice cut so them skollies’ll think we’re a right bunch of invaluable criminals.” Tossing his cue on the table to indicate he was done, Arno drifted across the cold concrete floor of the warehouse to Thumper’s tech station so he could peer at the screens behind her, one in particular that was rapidly running through personnel databases…corporate, civil and legal files flipped through too fast to read, ID card photos as well for those that had them on file. “What ya listenin to there eh?” Cant of his head before he was drawn towards the moving screens again. “What we need is a corpo with a bit of larceny in his soul…not so important we bring down their wrath, but important enough to have access to some tech…some secrets that’ll have em frothin at the mouth.” Arno paused and dared to reach for Thumper’s mouse and was rewarded with a wide eyed and hard flick to the back of his hand. “Jislaaik!” The exclamation came with a shake of his hand.
“You know I love your accent, Arno…but touch a woman’s mouse without permission again and I’ll erase you. Permanently. With a single click.” Another long slurp on her straw as she stared with challenging eyes. “Vivaldi…the classics keep me calm.” She tapped off a series of keystrokes. “Now let me see…”
Rowan leaned against the table and counted up his winnings while ignoring the back and forth banter. Satisfied with the amount, he tucked the folded bills into a pocket and shifted his eyes to the small stack of crates and deliverables that Sandman had recently brought up the freight elevator. Arno was correct. That was just the type they were looking for, but Thumper was no operator, not in the traditional down range sense. The girl was competent, a terror with anything electronic, but she was no gunslinger. Sandman was too valuable behind the wheel. Man could defend himself in a pinch, but that really only left them with Rowan himself and Arno behind the guns. Rowan had learned from his time with the Recces that your people thrived when they could play to their strengths, individually and collectively. “We need another shooter.” He murmured to himself and set the pool cue on the table across Arno’s.
“What’s that?” Arno asked with a glance over his shoulder and still wore the grin from Thumper’s threat. The girl had a bit of spice. Arno liked spice.
Arno’s question drew Rowan’s attention towards the pair and his eyes sighted in on Thumper’s undulating snake tattoo. “I said we need another guy…another shooter. I think I know just the one too.” He pointed to the computer screens as he moved from the table to grab his jacket and pistol. “You guys stay here and find me a fuckin job to do.”
Arno simply shook his head and turned back to lean over Thumper and eye her computer screens again. “Ja nee, Ro. We’ll just have a jol of a time goin blind on screens.”
But Rowan had already departed the warehouse and Arno’s complaints went unheard.
Third Eye Tattoos, Rhydin City
Approximately 2143 hrs local
Rowan rolled upon the tattoo parlor on foot. He’d been away for a while and time was the unseen enemy. Places changed, memory was faulty and so the mercenary strolled the streets like a slowly prowling Great White lazily patrolling the waters of False Bay. One had to get out on the streets to feel the energy of a place, scent the environment and taste the air of it all. He casually flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the street as he came round the corner of the red bricked tattoo shop and pulled the Third Eye’s door open.
“We’re closing early!” Dax Kincaid called from deep within the narrow shop. Black latex gloves covered tattooed hands as they placed several tools of the trade in the steam sterilizer for cleansing. Dax couldn’t see the door but had heard the brass bell ring when the door was pulled open. “Just fair warning…got a celebration to get to.” Dax closed the machine and began to peel the gloves off with a snap of latex before pitching them in a waste bin as he came out from the back to spy the figure standing in the lobby and looking at the various designs on the wall. “What can I help you with, man? You pick something simple out, we can bang it out quick…consult is gonna have to be another night.”
“Was hoping to get a tattoo.” Rowan spoke without turning to look at Dax. “Eagle globe and anchor…you know the design?” The smirk gave way the setup but Rowan’s expression was turned away, so Dax remained in the blind.
“Yeah…I know it.” Dax answered and narrowed his eyes at the man’s back as he crossed arms over his chest. “I’ve got several of em myself. Thing is…we don’t just hand that out here.” Kincaid’s exposed forearms sported full sleeves which crept up beneath the fabric of his simple t-shirt. “Emblem like that’s gotta be earned…specially on the 246th anniversary. You serve or got family?” Dax had far too much pride to just stencil that design on anyone.
Rowan turned and exposed his left forearm to Dax to indicate that was the spot he was thinking. “Maybe here?” That smirk grew to reveal his teeth when he saw the recognition flash in Dax’s eyes. “Didn’t they call you Prophet, bru? Thought you could see it all coming, ja ne?” The smirk lifted to a grin as Dax flashed one as well. “Howzit been, Kincaid? Been awhile, no?”
“You Rainbow Nation motherfucker.” Dax grinned and instantly came forward to wrap Rowan in a hug that the mercenary briefly returned. “The hell you doing here, man? How’d you even find me? Last time we crossed paths was…what…in that Syrian shithole.” Dax gave a laugh and released the South African.
“Mmhm. Your three letter agency boys had gotten into a good pinch. Needed us former Recces to ride to the rescue.” Rowan answered, met the former Marine’s banter with ease and naturally fell back into the jargon and lingo of those who had lived life far out on the edge. “Place looks great, bru. Never figured you for the quiet artist type, ja? You were lethal last time I remember.” Rowan took a moment to feel out the former Marine. They were cut from similar cloth with how Dax had gotten sheep dipped by Direct Action guys and Rowan had ended up going off the reservation completely and into the murky world of a true soldier of fortune. It was a small world…and a smaller community.
“Yeah?” Dax glanced around with a clear note of pride in his eyes and on his features. It wasn’t much but it was his and that meant something to Dax given all that had forced him to leave the clandestine world behind. “I love it, Ro. The drawing…the art…it’s relaxing. Keeps the demons away, ya know?” Dax paused and brought his attention back around to Rowan. “You didn’t answer my question. And we didn’t need any help…just felt magnanimous, wanted to share the wealth that night.” A jut of his chin towards the mercenary above crossed arms. “You’re here on a job aren’t you?”
“I can see that.” Rowan answered with the appropriate level of empathy and understanding. He could also see the invisible scars on the Marine that no amount of ink could ever truly cover. It happened to a lot of them. Battle Fatigue, Shell Shock, PTSD…the names had changed over the years, over the wars, but men like them saw far too much of what shouldn’t ever be seen. For some, like Rowan, it had no effect. For others, the majority, it left signs as varied as those who dealt with them. Matter of fact, those reactions were the normal ones…it was the ones like Rowan that simply felt…nothing that bore watching. The mercenary was self-aware and had made peace with his lack of empathy years ago. Dax’s accusation produced a grin and a laugh. “Now there’s the Prophet that doesn't miss much.” Shoulders lifted in a shrug as he wouldn’t openly confirm or deny exactly what he was doing. “Thumper sent me. Said you’re the guy to talk to.” Knowing that would be enough of an answer for Dax to correctly surmise the mercenary’s reasons. “Show me about, ja? Get me a beer? Marine hospitality ain’t what it used to be.”
Dax let a wary eye linger on Rowan for a few moments after he mentioned Thumper’s name and refused to speak plainly. “I’m retired, Ro. Whatever you’re gonna ask…I’m retired. I lost too many friends, man. Left too big a part of myself scattered to fuck all and back. And I’m just now starting to put it all back together. Got me somebody I’m sorta seeing now too.” A jerk of his head back towards the back of the shop. “But I’ll have a beer with you, retell some old stories…old time’s sake…c’mon.”
“Thumper said you’d say all that.” Rowan improvised and chuckled as he followed Dax back to the break room where he tossed Rowan a beer from the old, beat up refrigerator. “Guess I had to see for myself, eh bru?” Rowan caught the bottle with his left hand and looked about for an opener.
“Church key’s right here.” Dax answered Rowan’s look about as he popped a top with the opener tied to the handle of the refrigerator. “So what’s the gig?” Dax fell into a reclined seat on a leather sofa and propped his feet up.
“Thought you were retired.” Rowan chuckled and popped open his bottle to sit opposite Dax. Men like them…it was just in their veins like a high-octane afterburner. The ones who thrived…the real ones…never truly put it out. “Running down a skiptrace for a client.” Rowan was careful to edit his language around Dax. The mercenary had a different moral compass than the Marine. “Next to no info so I’m looking to make a little noise here…get on some radars as an asset…me an Arno use another shooter…”
“But I’m retired.” Dax answered after a moment spent taking a long pull from the bottle.
“But you’re retired.” Rowan repeated though he could see the gears in Dax’s head churning. “You got a good spot here, Kincaid. I ain’t gonna try and strong arm you back in and have you hesitate cause you’re not all in on your own. But…if I see you round the way down range…” Rowan let the offer hang in the air for a long moment.
“You won’t.” Dax answered. “I got too many nightmares as is. I don’t need to go hunting for new ones.”
“I like nightmares, bru. Always remind me my reality is something to be cherished. Happy Birthday Devil Dog.” Rowan came forward to give Dax’s bottle a clink with his own in a toast. “Semper Fi.” He wouldn’t try coax Dax again. He’d done what he’d come to do as is.
“And that’s why you’re fucked in the head, Ro.” Dax grinned and toasted the South African back with a hearty “Semper Fi” in return.
And so the two soldiers…warriors…men…friends would spend the next few beers reliving old memories, reviving fallen friends, and retelling old lies. For one it was a calculated conversation meant to stoke the flames of still smoldering coals while the other enjoyed an old camaraderie that the regular world just couldn’t replicate. Eventually the reunion wound down with a promise to reconnect when it all settled down. Dax had a celebration to get to and Rowan had to get back to the warehouses and check on Thumper’s progress.
“He’s in.” Rowan said into a burner phone as he exited the tattoo shop and gave a glance over his shoulder as the lights went out inside. “He don’t know it yet…but he’s in. Now...do we got a job or no?”
Approximately 1947 hrs local
“The problem is the heat, Ro.” Thumper challenged before taking a long, slurping pull on the straw of her extra-large slush puppie. Flavor? Grape. Of course. “That kind of job’s going to attract a lot more attention than just the underworld types.” The caution came from the young woman’s command center of computer banks, monitors and screens established in a corner of the open warehouse the group had commandeered for the time being. Her profile, as she swiveled in her chair to eye Rowan and Arno at a pool table, was illuminated by a kaleidoscope of colors form various news feeds, a video game or two, several security drones and even a layout of Rhydin city’s electric grid plus all the access nodes. She was a professional. No glowing keyboards, no distracting LED mood lighting. Her workstation was a temple and her goddess Technology. The only vices she allowed herself, in fact, was her slush puppie and her music. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons blared quietly from the left ear cuff of oversized headphones currently pulled back from her ear.
“Izzit now?” Rowan’s smirk was soft this time as he responded to Thumper and inhaled to explain. “The heat is the reason, Thump.” Rowan answered as he lined up his shot. The mercenary paused to give a triumphant look to Arno before putting the cue ball back within deadly sights. “Outfit that owns this particular contract doesn’t have a lead. And they hired me and my boet here to fix that problem for them, find our target and figure out what she knows. Extract her back home if necessary.” Rowan tapped the cue ball to send it in a smooth roll down the table. “Cause and effect.” He spoke as the cue nudged the 8 ball into the corner pocket. “We pull a kiff job…for free…steal us something valuable, maybe even someone, something these underworld types be wanting and then maybe we get networked in.” Rowan paused, still leaning over his cue to eyeball Arno. “Pay up.”
“Fuck you, Saffa.” Arno groused and pulled a stack of folded bills from his pocket. His thumb fanned them out as he counted before he just threw the lot of them on the table. “Great White bastard. Take your winnings and be done.” The grin indicated there was no real pain there…other than the lost money and ding to his pride. “But I want that added back come bonus time.” A point to indicate the cash with a cigarette clutched between his fingers.
“Rowan’s right though. We need to find us a choice cut so them skollies’ll think we’re a right bunch of invaluable criminals.” Tossing his cue on the table to indicate he was done, Arno drifted across the cold concrete floor of the warehouse to Thumper’s tech station so he could peer at the screens behind her, one in particular that was rapidly running through personnel databases…corporate, civil and legal files flipped through too fast to read, ID card photos as well for those that had them on file. “What ya listenin to there eh?” Cant of his head before he was drawn towards the moving screens again. “What we need is a corpo with a bit of larceny in his soul…not so important we bring down their wrath, but important enough to have access to some tech…some secrets that’ll have em frothin at the mouth.” Arno paused and dared to reach for Thumper’s mouse and was rewarded with a wide eyed and hard flick to the back of his hand. “Jislaaik!” The exclamation came with a shake of his hand.
“You know I love your accent, Arno…but touch a woman’s mouse without permission again and I’ll erase you. Permanently. With a single click.” Another long slurp on her straw as she stared with challenging eyes. “Vivaldi…the classics keep me calm.” She tapped off a series of keystrokes. “Now let me see…”
Rowan leaned against the table and counted up his winnings while ignoring the back and forth banter. Satisfied with the amount, he tucked the folded bills into a pocket and shifted his eyes to the small stack of crates and deliverables that Sandman had recently brought up the freight elevator. Arno was correct. That was just the type they were looking for, but Thumper was no operator, not in the traditional down range sense. The girl was competent, a terror with anything electronic, but she was no gunslinger. Sandman was too valuable behind the wheel. Man could defend himself in a pinch, but that really only left them with Rowan himself and Arno behind the guns. Rowan had learned from his time with the Recces that your people thrived when they could play to their strengths, individually and collectively. “We need another shooter.” He murmured to himself and set the pool cue on the table across Arno’s.
“What’s that?” Arno asked with a glance over his shoulder and still wore the grin from Thumper’s threat. The girl had a bit of spice. Arno liked spice.
Arno’s question drew Rowan’s attention towards the pair and his eyes sighted in on Thumper’s undulating snake tattoo. “I said we need another guy…another shooter. I think I know just the one too.” He pointed to the computer screens as he moved from the table to grab his jacket and pistol. “You guys stay here and find me a fuckin job to do.”
Arno simply shook his head and turned back to lean over Thumper and eye her computer screens again. “Ja nee, Ro. We’ll just have a jol of a time goin blind on screens.”
But Rowan had already departed the warehouse and Arno’s complaints went unheard.
Third Eye Tattoos, Rhydin City
Approximately 2143 hrs local
Rowan rolled upon the tattoo parlor on foot. He’d been away for a while and time was the unseen enemy. Places changed, memory was faulty and so the mercenary strolled the streets like a slowly prowling Great White lazily patrolling the waters of False Bay. One had to get out on the streets to feel the energy of a place, scent the environment and taste the air of it all. He casually flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the street as he came round the corner of the red bricked tattoo shop and pulled the Third Eye’s door open.
“We’re closing early!” Dax Kincaid called from deep within the narrow shop. Black latex gloves covered tattooed hands as they placed several tools of the trade in the steam sterilizer for cleansing. Dax couldn’t see the door but had heard the brass bell ring when the door was pulled open. “Just fair warning…got a celebration to get to.” Dax closed the machine and began to peel the gloves off with a snap of latex before pitching them in a waste bin as he came out from the back to spy the figure standing in the lobby and looking at the various designs on the wall. “What can I help you with, man? You pick something simple out, we can bang it out quick…consult is gonna have to be another night.”
“Was hoping to get a tattoo.” Rowan spoke without turning to look at Dax. “Eagle globe and anchor…you know the design?” The smirk gave way the setup but Rowan’s expression was turned away, so Dax remained in the blind.
“Yeah…I know it.” Dax answered and narrowed his eyes at the man’s back as he crossed arms over his chest. “I’ve got several of em myself. Thing is…we don’t just hand that out here.” Kincaid’s exposed forearms sported full sleeves which crept up beneath the fabric of his simple t-shirt. “Emblem like that’s gotta be earned…specially on the 246th anniversary. You serve or got family?” Dax had far too much pride to just stencil that design on anyone.
Rowan turned and exposed his left forearm to Dax to indicate that was the spot he was thinking. “Maybe here?” That smirk grew to reveal his teeth when he saw the recognition flash in Dax’s eyes. “Didn’t they call you Prophet, bru? Thought you could see it all coming, ja ne?” The smirk lifted to a grin as Dax flashed one as well. “Howzit been, Kincaid? Been awhile, no?”
“You Rainbow Nation motherfucker.” Dax grinned and instantly came forward to wrap Rowan in a hug that the mercenary briefly returned. “The hell you doing here, man? How’d you even find me? Last time we crossed paths was…what…in that Syrian shithole.” Dax gave a laugh and released the South African.
“Mmhm. Your three letter agency boys had gotten into a good pinch. Needed us former Recces to ride to the rescue.” Rowan answered, met the former Marine’s banter with ease and naturally fell back into the jargon and lingo of those who had lived life far out on the edge. “Place looks great, bru. Never figured you for the quiet artist type, ja? You were lethal last time I remember.” Rowan took a moment to feel out the former Marine. They were cut from similar cloth with how Dax had gotten sheep dipped by Direct Action guys and Rowan had ended up going off the reservation completely and into the murky world of a true soldier of fortune. It was a small world…and a smaller community.
“Yeah?” Dax glanced around with a clear note of pride in his eyes and on his features. It wasn’t much but it was his and that meant something to Dax given all that had forced him to leave the clandestine world behind. “I love it, Ro. The drawing…the art…it’s relaxing. Keeps the demons away, ya know?” Dax paused and brought his attention back around to Rowan. “You didn’t answer my question. And we didn’t need any help…just felt magnanimous, wanted to share the wealth that night.” A jut of his chin towards the mercenary above crossed arms. “You’re here on a job aren’t you?”
“I can see that.” Rowan answered with the appropriate level of empathy and understanding. He could also see the invisible scars on the Marine that no amount of ink could ever truly cover. It happened to a lot of them. Battle Fatigue, Shell Shock, PTSD…the names had changed over the years, over the wars, but men like them saw far too much of what shouldn’t ever be seen. For some, like Rowan, it had no effect. For others, the majority, it left signs as varied as those who dealt with them. Matter of fact, those reactions were the normal ones…it was the ones like Rowan that simply felt…nothing that bore watching. The mercenary was self-aware and had made peace with his lack of empathy years ago. Dax’s accusation produced a grin and a laugh. “Now there’s the Prophet that doesn't miss much.” Shoulders lifted in a shrug as he wouldn’t openly confirm or deny exactly what he was doing. “Thumper sent me. Said you’re the guy to talk to.” Knowing that would be enough of an answer for Dax to correctly surmise the mercenary’s reasons. “Show me about, ja? Get me a beer? Marine hospitality ain’t what it used to be.”
Dax let a wary eye linger on Rowan for a few moments after he mentioned Thumper’s name and refused to speak plainly. “I’m retired, Ro. Whatever you’re gonna ask…I’m retired. I lost too many friends, man. Left too big a part of myself scattered to fuck all and back. And I’m just now starting to put it all back together. Got me somebody I’m sorta seeing now too.” A jerk of his head back towards the back of the shop. “But I’ll have a beer with you, retell some old stories…old time’s sake…c’mon.”
“Thumper said you’d say all that.” Rowan improvised and chuckled as he followed Dax back to the break room where he tossed Rowan a beer from the old, beat up refrigerator. “Guess I had to see for myself, eh bru?” Rowan caught the bottle with his left hand and looked about for an opener.
“Church key’s right here.” Dax answered Rowan’s look about as he popped a top with the opener tied to the handle of the refrigerator. “So what’s the gig?” Dax fell into a reclined seat on a leather sofa and propped his feet up.
“Thought you were retired.” Rowan chuckled and popped open his bottle to sit opposite Dax. Men like them…it was just in their veins like a high-octane afterburner. The ones who thrived…the real ones…never truly put it out. “Running down a skiptrace for a client.” Rowan was careful to edit his language around Dax. The mercenary had a different moral compass than the Marine. “Next to no info so I’m looking to make a little noise here…get on some radars as an asset…me an Arno use another shooter…”
“But I’m retired.” Dax answered after a moment spent taking a long pull from the bottle.
“But you’re retired.” Rowan repeated though he could see the gears in Dax’s head churning. “You got a good spot here, Kincaid. I ain’t gonna try and strong arm you back in and have you hesitate cause you’re not all in on your own. But…if I see you round the way down range…” Rowan let the offer hang in the air for a long moment.
“You won’t.” Dax answered. “I got too many nightmares as is. I don’t need to go hunting for new ones.”
“I like nightmares, bru. Always remind me my reality is something to be cherished. Happy Birthday Devil Dog.” Rowan came forward to give Dax’s bottle a clink with his own in a toast. “Semper Fi.” He wouldn’t try coax Dax again. He’d done what he’d come to do as is.
“And that’s why you’re fucked in the head, Ro.” Dax grinned and toasted the South African back with a hearty “Semper Fi” in return.
And so the two soldiers…warriors…men…friends would spend the next few beers reliving old memories, reviving fallen friends, and retelling old lies. For one it was a calculated conversation meant to stoke the flames of still smoldering coals while the other enjoyed an old camaraderie that the regular world just couldn’t replicate. Eventually the reunion wound down with a promise to reconnect when it all settled down. Dax had a celebration to get to and Rowan had to get back to the warehouses and check on Thumper’s progress.
“He’s in.” Rowan said into a burner phone as he exited the tattoo shop and gave a glance over his shoulder as the lights went out inside. “He don’t know it yet…but he’s in. Now...do we got a job or no?”
-
Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Somewhere in the sprawling warehouse district, Rhydin City
Approximately 0537 hrs local
Rowan knew better than to wed himself to any singular idea or plan. The world, his world, was far too fluid and too full of setbacks and adversity for static thinking. A stagnant mind that didn’t evolve found itself dead and extinct…too often that extinction came violently as well. And Rowan was still upright, still breathing and thriving and evolving in a terribly unforgiving world.
The mercenary set a loaded rifle magazine to the side and plucked up an empty one to repeat the rhythmic, relaxing repetition of pressing round after round down into the magazine. Gloved fingers traced the magazine lip and pressed the round home without leaving prints or DNA on the brass. He went over the plan, the new one, in his mind for perhaps the sixth or seventh time. What had begun as a rip and run heist job had flamed out when Thumper had come up empty on her searches. The parameters were simply too constrained. The juicy jobs were too formidable with their limited timetable and manpower and the ones which could be done simply weren’t going to garner the right kind of attention. Rowan was a realist and simply wouldn’t commit time and resources unless he had a reasonable chance of success.
Another round pressed down on the first with a click against and beneath the metal follower.
And so they’d pivoted. Rip and run had become protect and serve and black hat had become…not quite white…but a shade grayer than before.
They’d hit the sweet spot with an up-and-coming corporation calling themselves Valkyrie Biotechnologies. Thumper had mined the dark webs and found the posting on one of the encrypted boards. The CEO, a wildcatter named Rafaël Draško, was a disrupter in the industry and was looking for a security escort from his private residence on the outskirts of Rhydin City to the heliport. Draško was brilliant but paranoid and never used the same company or contractors twice and didn’t have the funds just yet for his own private army.
Another round pressed down on the one before with a click.
But Draško was enough of a player that a job well performed would carry with it a word-of-mouth recco and put a bit of spending money in everyone’s hands. Not bad for half a dozen miles worth of work.
“Look at this lost little lamb I found wandering about outside.” Arno’s boisterous voice overpowered the freight elevator’s scissor styled gate as he tugged it open to reveal Dax Kincaid standing next to the older man with a duffel bag at his feet. “All round eyed like he’d just gotten out of boot.” Arno added with a clap on the back for Dax meant to usher him forward.
“More surprised you’re employing fossils, Hume. No wonder you were desperate for another gun.” Dax’s grin was genuine as he smoothly plucked up the duffel bag and walked off the elevator. “Glad to see you boys haven’t changed.” A smirk for Arno who calmly gave Dax the finger in return.
“Thought you were retired, bru.” Rowan set the half-loaded magazine to the side with a knowing grin. “Maybe me and the fossil back there don’t need the help no more.”
“I might buy that if your man back there wasn’t so overjoyed that I’d decided to tag along.” Dax answered and Rowan picked up on that demeanor shift. He wasn’t the resistant type he’d been at his shop. He’d shed that skin in exchange for the cocksure confidence of an operator once again. Course it hadn’t been an easy decision. Coming back never was, but Dax had realized he’d never really left it no matter how much he enjoyed the tattoo business. “Sup Thump. Tattoo’s lookin good.” Added as he stepped off the elevator and saw the flashing screens of her workstation.
“Don’t you go hurting those hands, Kincaid.” Thumper beamed with a toothy grin around the saw of her slush puppie big gulp as that snake tattoo slithered about her forearm in all its magnificence. “I got more ideas once we get paid for our little escort job.”
“You got it. You imagine it and I’ll ink it.” Before turning to cock his head Rowan’s way. “Escort?” Kincaid’s eyes sweeping over the stack of magazines and ammunition strewn about Rowan’s desk.
“Change of plans. Nothin you ain’t done dozens of times, bru.” Rowan answered and gestured to a side door. “Jock up…we’ll brief in an hour. Glad you came to your senses, Devil Dog.”
“Prophet…you’ll be in the lead vehicle with Draško’s daily driver, Anthony. Arno and I will be in the objective vehicle. Sandman’s driving, Arno’s in the front and I’ll have close cover on the principal in the back. Thumper will be our eye in the sky from here. Our guy is a corporate CEO…nothing major but a soon to be player if the rumors are true. Supposedly he’s the next big thing. We’re here to get him from home to the heliport. There’s been some low-level threat traffic…nothing major…nothing legit from our searches. Just your typical anti-corpo, anti-bioengineering talk.” Rowan gestured to the map of city streets and buildings spread out across the pool table. “We’ll exit the sublevel garage here…” Pointing with two fingers that pinched a cigarette between them. “Left turn out and follow the route as indicated. Primary is green, secondary is blue and tertiary is orange. Questions?”
They were keeping it low profile and light on this op. Just body armor with a kangaroo pouch for magazines and typical sundries. No helmets, simple ghost comms and civilian attire. Dax was in a t-shirt and jeans, a ball cap, and boots. Low profile didn’t mean impotent though as the former Marine had a short barreled HK416A5 hanging off his chest on a two-point sling. Dax stared at the map and committed the various routes to memory. Rowan was right. He’d done this sort of operation more times than he cared to remember. He reached to drag a finger along one of the indicated roads and mentally plotted out the intersections and stops. Hands hooked into the top of his plate carrier at his collar bones and rested there while chewing his gum and gave a little shake of his head as he internally debated a concern.
“What’s on your mind Prophet?” Rowan asked. He was similarly dressed to Dax though he preferred the tactical nature of cargo pants and long-sleeved collared shirt.
“Lotta civilians along these roads, Ro. Time of day we’ll be moving…shit pops off and…” Dax paused and pushed a particularly bad memory from his mind. “It’s gonna get ugly in a heartbeat.” Dax looked up and adjusted his black ball cap and pulled at the black multicam neck gaiter worn about his throat.
“Then let’s make sure things don’t pop off. We’re not taking anything for granted.” Rowan answered. “But it’s a single delivery with six miles of road to negotiate to the heliport. We don’t get to pick the time either.” Dax had raised valid concerns, but Rowan couldn’t mitigate them and so they were noted and quickly moved off from to continue the brief.
“Check.” Dax answered and eyes returned to the map. Dax knew the same. He’d giving his observation and would press with the mission in hand. Neither man need react with ego or insecurity.
“And what is this shit, bru?” Arno asked and reached out to pull at the stretchy fabric of Dax’s neck gaiter and lighten the mood. “Some sort of Gucci camouflage?”
“What?” Dax laughed and shouldered the groping hand away before pulling the offending gaiter up over his nose and mouth to hide the lower half of his face. “I’m a respectable businessman in these parts. Can’t have my face splashed all over the net alongside you disreputable mercenaries.” A grin as he tugged it back down and worked the gum from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Respectable businessman…you hear this guy, Saffa?” Arno laughed. “You’re a bad motherfucker back from the dead, Prophet.” Arno extended his fist for Dax to pound.
Dax returned the offered fist and laughed as Rowan smirked. “Glad you’re onboard, Prophet. Let’s move with a purpose and get this guy delivered.”
Approximately 0537 hrs local
Rowan knew better than to wed himself to any singular idea or plan. The world, his world, was far too fluid and too full of setbacks and adversity for static thinking. A stagnant mind that didn’t evolve found itself dead and extinct…too often that extinction came violently as well. And Rowan was still upright, still breathing and thriving and evolving in a terribly unforgiving world.
The mercenary set a loaded rifle magazine to the side and plucked up an empty one to repeat the rhythmic, relaxing repetition of pressing round after round down into the magazine. Gloved fingers traced the magazine lip and pressed the round home without leaving prints or DNA on the brass. He went over the plan, the new one, in his mind for perhaps the sixth or seventh time. What had begun as a rip and run heist job had flamed out when Thumper had come up empty on her searches. The parameters were simply too constrained. The juicy jobs were too formidable with their limited timetable and manpower and the ones which could be done simply weren’t going to garner the right kind of attention. Rowan was a realist and simply wouldn’t commit time and resources unless he had a reasonable chance of success.
Another round pressed down on the first with a click against and beneath the metal follower.
And so they’d pivoted. Rip and run had become protect and serve and black hat had become…not quite white…but a shade grayer than before.
They’d hit the sweet spot with an up-and-coming corporation calling themselves Valkyrie Biotechnologies. Thumper had mined the dark webs and found the posting on one of the encrypted boards. The CEO, a wildcatter named Rafaël Draško, was a disrupter in the industry and was looking for a security escort from his private residence on the outskirts of Rhydin City to the heliport. Draško was brilliant but paranoid and never used the same company or contractors twice and didn’t have the funds just yet for his own private army.
Another round pressed down on the one before with a click.
But Draško was enough of a player that a job well performed would carry with it a word-of-mouth recco and put a bit of spending money in everyone’s hands. Not bad for half a dozen miles worth of work.
“Look at this lost little lamb I found wandering about outside.” Arno’s boisterous voice overpowered the freight elevator’s scissor styled gate as he tugged it open to reveal Dax Kincaid standing next to the older man with a duffel bag at his feet. “All round eyed like he’d just gotten out of boot.” Arno added with a clap on the back for Dax meant to usher him forward.
“More surprised you’re employing fossils, Hume. No wonder you were desperate for another gun.” Dax’s grin was genuine as he smoothly plucked up the duffel bag and walked off the elevator. “Glad to see you boys haven’t changed.” A smirk for Arno who calmly gave Dax the finger in return.
“Thought you were retired, bru.” Rowan set the half-loaded magazine to the side with a knowing grin. “Maybe me and the fossil back there don’t need the help no more.”
“I might buy that if your man back there wasn’t so overjoyed that I’d decided to tag along.” Dax answered and Rowan picked up on that demeanor shift. He wasn’t the resistant type he’d been at his shop. He’d shed that skin in exchange for the cocksure confidence of an operator once again. Course it hadn’t been an easy decision. Coming back never was, but Dax had realized he’d never really left it no matter how much he enjoyed the tattoo business. “Sup Thump. Tattoo’s lookin good.” Added as he stepped off the elevator and saw the flashing screens of her workstation.
“Don’t you go hurting those hands, Kincaid.” Thumper beamed with a toothy grin around the saw of her slush puppie big gulp as that snake tattoo slithered about her forearm in all its magnificence. “I got more ideas once we get paid for our little escort job.”
“You got it. You imagine it and I’ll ink it.” Before turning to cock his head Rowan’s way. “Escort?” Kincaid’s eyes sweeping over the stack of magazines and ammunition strewn about Rowan’s desk.
“Change of plans. Nothin you ain’t done dozens of times, bru.” Rowan answered and gestured to a side door. “Jock up…we’ll brief in an hour. Glad you came to your senses, Devil Dog.”
* * * * * * * * *
“Prophet…you’ll be in the lead vehicle with Draško’s daily driver, Anthony. Arno and I will be in the objective vehicle. Sandman’s driving, Arno’s in the front and I’ll have close cover on the principal in the back. Thumper will be our eye in the sky from here. Our guy is a corporate CEO…nothing major but a soon to be player if the rumors are true. Supposedly he’s the next big thing. We’re here to get him from home to the heliport. There’s been some low-level threat traffic…nothing major…nothing legit from our searches. Just your typical anti-corpo, anti-bioengineering talk.” Rowan gestured to the map of city streets and buildings spread out across the pool table. “We’ll exit the sublevel garage here…” Pointing with two fingers that pinched a cigarette between them. “Left turn out and follow the route as indicated. Primary is green, secondary is blue and tertiary is orange. Questions?”
They were keeping it low profile and light on this op. Just body armor with a kangaroo pouch for magazines and typical sundries. No helmets, simple ghost comms and civilian attire. Dax was in a t-shirt and jeans, a ball cap, and boots. Low profile didn’t mean impotent though as the former Marine had a short barreled HK416A5 hanging off his chest on a two-point sling. Dax stared at the map and committed the various routes to memory. Rowan was right. He’d done this sort of operation more times than he cared to remember. He reached to drag a finger along one of the indicated roads and mentally plotted out the intersections and stops. Hands hooked into the top of his plate carrier at his collar bones and rested there while chewing his gum and gave a little shake of his head as he internally debated a concern.
“What’s on your mind Prophet?” Rowan asked. He was similarly dressed to Dax though he preferred the tactical nature of cargo pants and long-sleeved collared shirt.
“Lotta civilians along these roads, Ro. Time of day we’ll be moving…shit pops off and…” Dax paused and pushed a particularly bad memory from his mind. “It’s gonna get ugly in a heartbeat.” Dax looked up and adjusted his black ball cap and pulled at the black multicam neck gaiter worn about his throat.
“Then let’s make sure things don’t pop off. We’re not taking anything for granted.” Rowan answered. “But it’s a single delivery with six miles of road to negotiate to the heliport. We don’t get to pick the time either.” Dax had raised valid concerns, but Rowan couldn’t mitigate them and so they were noted and quickly moved off from to continue the brief.
“Check.” Dax answered and eyes returned to the map. Dax knew the same. He’d giving his observation and would press with the mission in hand. Neither man need react with ego or insecurity.
“And what is this shit, bru?” Arno asked and reached out to pull at the stretchy fabric of Dax’s neck gaiter and lighten the mood. “Some sort of Gucci camouflage?”
“What?” Dax laughed and shouldered the groping hand away before pulling the offending gaiter up over his nose and mouth to hide the lower half of his face. “I’m a respectable businessman in these parts. Can’t have my face splashed all over the net alongside you disreputable mercenaries.” A grin as he tugged it back down and worked the gum from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Respectable businessman…you hear this guy, Saffa?” Arno laughed. “You’re a bad motherfucker back from the dead, Prophet.” Arno extended his fist for Dax to pound.
Dax returned the offered fist and laughed as Rowan smirked. “Glad you’re onboard, Prophet. Let’s move with a purpose and get this guy delivered.”
-
Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Private Residence of Rafaël Draško, CEO Valkyrie Biotechnologies
0845 hrs local
Dax climbed into the front passenger seat of the blacked-out SUV and offered the driver a friendly enough smile as he adjusted the fit of his wrap-around sunglasses. The driver, a small man in his mid-50s, saw himself give Dax a weak smile in the mirrored polish of the former Marine’s polarized lenses. “Name’s Dax. Anthony, right?” Dax asked as Anthony cleared his throat and nodded.
“Yes sir. You do this a lot?” He asked and wiped his palms on his pants and regripped the wheel before looking at the man’s rifle and gear and the ease at which he seemed to carry it all.
“Too often. You?” Dax grinned as Anthony shook his head no. He was a private car driver, not a tactical wheelman. “Just keep her on the road, Anthony and we’ll be fine.” Dax offered with a reassuring pat the man’s arm. He reached up with his other hand to cue his mic. “Garage secure, Prophet is ready to roll.” Another smile for the driver as he pushed at the long sleeves of his t-shirt to give his forearms a bit of air to breathe and expose some of his colorful tattoos. Between the gloves, the plate carrier and rifle…it was already starting to get warm. “So, what kind of music you listen to, Anthony? You look like a jazz kinda guy to me.” Making small talk in the relative safety of the garage to try and keep the man calm. Dax leaned forward a bit and glanced in the mirror to see Rowan giving him the thumbs up as they stepped from the elevator.
“How’d you know?” Anthony answered with a small smile and seemed to relax a degree or two.
“Hey…one gentleman of culture always recognizes another, right?”
“Copy Prophet. Traveler is on the move.” Rowan answered with the codename for Draško as he walked the short space from elevator to waiting SUV. Sandman was already behind the wheel and the engine was running. “Thumper, how we looking at street level?” Keeping communications short and to the point as he opened the door for Mr. Draško as Arno walked around the front of the SUV to take up the passenger seat and Rowan moved around the rear to occupy the rear seat opposite Draško.
“Traffic patterns look normal, nothing out of the ordinary.” Thumper answered as she stared at her central monitor and the live feed from the Chimera drone hovering some 1500 feet above the private residence. There was a pause as several keystrokes could be heard over the radio. “And now you have all green lights for the next five to six minutes. Any longer and we’ll get snooped.” Thumper added after a quick hack. “You boys look good to go. Be careful out there.”
“Prophet, Green light. Start your roll.” Rowan spoke into his mic and adjusted the sling on his FN SCAR rifle so that it rested easier on his chest.
“Copy.” Dax answered and gestured for Anthony to put the vehicle in drive. “Nice and easy, Jazzman. Like you’re taking the wife to the piano bar.” Dax paused to activate his mic a second time. “Prophet is rolling.”
The SUV exited the parking garage ramp and turned left into the morning flow of traffic which, while congested, was still moving at a decent clip thanks to Thumper’s contribution. Dax disliked surface streets. Too many obstacles, too many lights, slowdowns, and other vehicles, too many structures, too many civilians…too many unknown variables. He kept his attention focused outward, kept his eyes moving and taking note of the mundane and dismissing it just as quickly in favor of new inputs, new information that might stand out as different and therefore dangerous. What he saw was ordinary. Street level shops of various kinds: Soulless coffee chains, earthy bodegas, clothing boutiques and so on. Trendy…mostly modern…almost all of it forgettable.
“Aw shit.” Sandman cursed as a sudden spurt of pedestrians cut off his exit from the sublevel garage and forced them to idle for several minutes before he was able to nudge his way out into the flow of traffic.
“Be advised, civilian foot traffic has us separated. We just made the turn…we’re about fourteen…maybe six cars behind you.” Rowan spoke into the mic as Arno did much as Dax did and kept his attention outside the vehicle.
“Copy.” Dax answered and twisted about to try and spot Rowan’s vehicle behind them.
“Is something wrong?” Anthony asked and looked towards Dax.
“Nah. Just a busy morning is all. We’re good.” Dax answered as he turned back around in his seat and returned his attention to what lay in front of them.
Rowan’s heart rate remained at a constant, steady, and slow rate as Sandman made his turn. He never got too high or too low in these situations and simply modulated his emotional spectrum like a DJ at a sound mixing board. When situations called for little to no empathy…down that switch slid, and that emotion or trait simply faded away and freed him to do whatever was necessary. The mercenary kept his attention evenly split between his side of the vehicle and Rafaël Draško who seemed unperturbed by it all as he casually scrolled through several feeds on a phone.
“Everything’s looking good, boys.” Thumper spoke as she maneuvered the drone along their primary route. Traffic seems to be getting thicker up ahead despite the lights, but it checks out with past intersection cameras and reports. Gonna be a bit of stop and go with turns from the side streets.”
“Understood, Thumper.” Rowan answered for the team and leaned to his left to get a better view through the windshield to spot the lead vehicle up ahead and in the left lane of their direction with two more of oncoming traffic to the left separated at times by a brief turn lane.
“Damn traffic, Saffa.” Arno grunted and shifted in his seat. “Like Jo-burg on a Monday morning.”
“It’s negotiable, boet.” Rowan answered and shared the same sentiment as all the others. High speed travel made it difficult to be followed and made it almost impossible for any tail to remain a hidden one. “But I’d much prefer a green street too.” Turning to glance behind them as Thumper’s start and stop observations began to hit them and the vehicles momentarily came to a stop.
In the lead vehicle Dax kept his head on a swivel and constantly kept an alert scan of the environment up and running. It started at twelve o’clock, the vehicle in front of them, and then rotated round the clock by way of direct visuals and use of mirrors to try and keep as good a situational awareness as possible. As his scan carried his eyes right, he took note of a large delivery vehicle gunning its engine to get going ahead of them at the two o’clock and behind that, directly at his three, was an extended cab pickup truck. Dax’s mirrored gaze lingered on the truck for a moment as both the driver and rear passenger seemed intent on peering inside their SUV as if trying to ascertain how many people were inside. They could just be curious what with the heavily tinted windows and aggressive styling of their SUV. He’d allow for that for a moment but knew something was off when he got that subconscious twinge in his stomach…the same twinge that tipped guys off about IEDs, wired doors and mountain ambushes.
“Something ain’t right.” Dax said to Anthony at first. “Just keep going straight.” He didn’t want to spook the man anymore and played it cool by returning his eyes forward. “Stay chill…keep it in this lane.” They needed to go straight, and the right lane bogged down with turning vehicles. Dax keyed his mic and flipped the safety off on his rifle as the delivery vehicle lurched forward and angled into the middle lane, cutting off the sedan in front of them. “Something’s off.” Dax informed Rowan on the radio. The pickup truck lagged, and Dax saw the cab had at least five…maybe six men inside and who knows what in the bed when he glanced over his shoulder. Horns blared ahead of them as the delivery vehicle continued to grind into the left-hand lane and used its size to bully itself into position. “We’re gonna take contact.” Drawing the neck gaiter up over his face as he reached a hand down to manually unlock his door. “Pickup truck, green, lane two…my five o’clock. Delivery vehicle, yellow lane one, my twelve.”
“What do you see, Prophet?” Rowan craned to see around Arno’s shoulder as Dax relayed the appropriate information. “Sandman, look to make the next left.” Rowan spoke to the big man behind the wheel before keying his mic. “Transition to Route Blue. Look to maneuver onto Route Blue.”
“Take the next left here and…shit, get the fuck down!” Dax’s instructions transitioned to an ordered yell for Anthony to get down as the back of the delivery van suddenly shot up to reveal six men in tactical gear and masks armed with a mix of automatic weapons. Dax leaned to his left to grab a hold of Anthony’s suit sleeve and pull him down as gunfire rippled across the windshield of the SUV. The armor piercing rounds tore through the bullet resistant glass of the windshield and fragmented the protective shield to shower down atop them.
“Fuck.” Rowan hissed as he saw the scattering of ambushes ahead of them. “Go Sandman, go go.” Rowan ordered and reached his free hand out to grab a fistful of Draško’s jacket and drag him onto the floorboard of the SUV. “Stay the fuck down and don’t move.” Rowan ordered as Sandman didn’t hesitate and took the SUV up onto the curb and sidewalk. Movement was life and Sandman kept them alive as they surged forward and around the traffic which had ground to a halt and sent people running in every direction as soon as all that automatic gunfire erupted.
“Get the fuck outta the way, move…” Sandman yelled, one hand waving away people and jabbing into the horn. He slammed on the breaks as the green truck disgorged its contents of ambushers and assailants to their right.
“Back up, back upbackup!” Arno called as rounds began hammering against the armor of their vehicle. Sandman shifted gears, ground them back into reverse and slammed on the gas. The SUV collided with a civilian vehicle that had sought to follow Sandman’s escape up on the sidewalk. The collision was hard, hard enough to shatter the rear window and incapacitate the car behind them.
“Fuck.” Dax grunted and saw that Anthony was already dead. He’d seen the look enough to know and instantly recognize the finality of it. That dead, empty stare of glassy eyes, the unnatural diameter of the pupils and the unmistakable death rattle when jostled all told him what he needed to know. He’d no doubt taken rounds as Dax tried to pull him down. He couldn’t dwell on it and instead kicked at the passenger door and exited the vehicle. He stood, hunched down behind the open door for concealment and lifted his rifle in the V of negative space created by the hinged door and car frame. Crisp pulls of the trigger broke shots downrange at the closest and most immediate of threats. Four…five…rapid shots and he was moving, crouched down, and moving again, this time to the rear of the vehicle.
“At least a dozen foot mobiles…North to East arrangement. Armor piercing rounds.” Dax spoke into his mic as he glanced behind him to see Sandman’s SUV lurching up onto the sidewalk. Dax shouldered his rifle and fired off three quick shots and downed one of the gunmen advancing on Rowan’s side of the vehicle and pivoted back in their original direction of travel and downed two more gunmen in quick succession as they came around the back of a small sedan. And then he was moving again, the low crouch keeping him hunched down below the roofline of cars and trucks. “Collapsing back on your pos.”
Thumper watched in a moment of distress as Dax exited the vehicle and began returning fire. She could see his muzzle flash, the bright, sun reflecting arc of brass ejecting from his rifle and the smooth, precise way he maneuvered from position to position. The paralytic sensation was a second or two, no longer, and she began maneuvering the Chimera drone about and calling out positions of hostile targets to the shooters on the ground, relaying reliable route information and what they could expect as the emergent firefight continued.
“Copy Prophet, rally on objective vehicle. Displacing to route blue as necessary.” Rowan acknowledged Dax’s relay of information. “Fuck this. Draško stay down.” Rowan growled as he regained his awareness after that hard collision. He shouldered his door open a moment before Arno mimicked him and the pair brought their rifles up to return fire. Rowan dropped two in quick succession as they attacked into the ambush with equal if not superior levels of violence. “Push out.” Rowan stayed with the vehicle and ordered Arno out further, the mercenary knowing Dax was bounding back and would link up with Arno to form a shaky perimeter. “Street rippers…they know Draško’s got something valuable in his head. No armor piercing rounds here…they want him alive. You’re just lucky Prophet.” A pause and wave to Arno. “Push out bru, push out!”
“Moving!” Arno yelled over the din and sprinted forward to slide onto a knee behind the engine block of a disabled electric coupe. Arno could see through a crimson splatter sprayed across the window that the driver was down with a headshot and was slumped over the wheel. He brought his weapon up over the hood and began to lay down some semblance of return fire to at least give their attackers something else to think about. He winged one beneath the arm and knew the man would bleed out even as two of his companions dragged him inside a store.
Rounds ripped into vehicles with the sound of a hailstorm upon a metal roof, skipped and ricocheted off the asphalt just feet behind Dax’s movement. Those deadly sounds joined a rising cacophony of screams and yells, of car alarms and blaring horns to form a bellicose symphony of destruction all about the former Marine. “Lucky…funny motherfucker.” Dax grumbled and took aim again. A rapid series of gunshots wounded one and dropped another before he was forced into a scrambling dive as two separate shooters drew angles on him from two different positions.
Shoot. Move. Communicate.
All three of them followed the basic ideology of small unit tactics as they had been trained, as they’d integrated together with years of experience in their various clandestine fields. It wasn’t that fear simply didn’t exist. Only that fear was simply not allowed to become a master. Dax dropped an empty magazine from his rifle and smoothly pulled a fresh one from his plate carrier’s pouch. He rammed it home into the well and slapped the bolt catch release with the base of his palm before coming up over the top of a brown and tan station wagon. When he looked to his right, he saw a cowering mother with two small children huddled in the back seat of the station wagon. The surreal sight played in slow motion as he took a double take and forced himself to focus and fired off three quick bursts that missed but sent his targets diving to the sidewalk. Dax lacked Rowan’s ability to modulate his emotions and knew he had to do something.
He had enough ghosts haunting him already.
Dax moved to the side of the vehicle and tugged on the handle and found the door locked. He banged a fist on the glass and gestured for the woman to open the door. “Open the door lady…c’mon…” He jerked the gaiter down off his face and shouted again, “We gotta move…” Gesturing for the door again and he jerked it open when the mother broke out of her fear and unlocked the door with a shaky hand. Dax’s OODA loop continued, and he naturally moved to the rear of the vehicle and fell to a knee to engage a target that had exposed herself to fire on Arno’s advanced position. A glance over his shoulder saw the mother pushing her young daughter from the car, her slightly older brother behind her. Dax reached behind him with a blind hand to find and guide the child back against the car behind him.
“Stay low and only move when I tell you to.” Dax shouted over his shoulder and paused to fire another burst. “Lady…grab the girl, stay low…” Glass shattered above them as several rounds tore through the station wagon’s rear window just inches above Dax’s head. He rapidly dropped a magazine from his rifle and replaced it with a fresh one and turned to point across the street to where a bus had crossed into oncoming traffic and created a barrier. “Make for the bus. Lady…look at me…” Dax pointed at his eyes with his off hand to ensure he had her attention and saw abject panic in her eyes. “You’re gonna be okay…you’re gonna be safe. Be brave for your kids, yeah?” He reassured her. “Just run for the bus when I stand up. Run as fast as you can. Ready?”
Dax got the hysterical woman to nod as she gathered up her daughter who was screaming while her son huddled up behind Dax with hands over his ears. The woman grabbed for his wrist with her free hand as Dax stood and pivoted his body in line with the line of their sprint for the bus. Bursts of suppressive gunfire rapidly moved from one target to the next as Dax backed up and provided both covering fire and shielding for the woman and her kids. A glance over his shoulder saw them safely round the bumper of the bus and as he turned back, he was rocked by two rounds which struck him in the chest just above his rapidly depleted magazine pouches. The heavy, ballistic impact staggered and dropped the former Marine to the asphalt between two cars.
Stray rounds ripped through the front window of a street level alchemist shop. One of those eclectic Rhydian traits was that modern constructs of steel, transparent aluminum and glass might neighbor a small shop dedicated to the selling of magical components and other baubles related to the practice of such arts. And those components didn’t always react well to projectiles. Several containers shattered, several jars broke, and the resulting fireball erupted through the broken window to engulf three of the ambushers.
“Prophet’s hit…Prophet is down.” Rowan yelled as he twisted down and away from the explosion. “Fuck.” He engaged the target that had fired on Dax and sent them staggering to the side as the arterial spray splashed against the white sign of a jewelry store. It was funny, he thought in that moment, the things you saw and remembered.
“Fuck.” Dax coughed and reached a hand beneath his body armor to find that the Kevlar wrapped ceramic plate had done its job and stopped the rounds. No blood, no sucking chest wound, no holes…but there was a hell of a lot of pain and lost breath. “Fuck this.”
Prophet is down…
“I’m good…” Dax relayed that he was still in the fight and coughed again. Each breath felt like inhaling fire. “Prophet is up…” Another burning breath as he pushed back up and into the fight. “Need to buy stock in this armor company though…fuck…”
The heat from the explosion rippled and seared the paint of the car Arno had ducked behind. He looked to his left to see Dax high crawling from wheel well to wheel well two car lengths down the road. “Two in the store, bru…he shows you a piece, put that fucker on his knees.” And grinned when Dax gave him a weary waggle of fingers as if they were on the beach catching waves. “I fuckin love this guy.” Arno laughed. “Ro…” Arno keyed the mic. We can’t hold here…they’re fortifying in the stores.” Looking back at his fellow mercenary as he spoke and watched as Rowan deftly dropped a magazine, fed a fresh one into his weapon and calmly switched shooting hands to fire left-handed around the back of Sandman’s SUV.
“Copy.” Rowan’s clipped answer before he crept forward and exposed himself to incoming fire alongside Sandman’s door. He banged a fist against the glass to get the man’s attention and began directing him with hand signals on how to free the SUV and get it mobile again. He pressed a hand to his ear to better hear Thumper relay that there was a side lot that opened to another street half a block behind them that would get them on a parallel route. Rowan gestured for Sandman to put it in reverse and walked alongside the vehicle, firing his rifle over the hood as Sandman threw it back in reverse. Metal crunched and tires squealed and smoked as the SUV pushed the blocking vehicle out of the way. Bullets sprayed into the redbrick of the building’s façade behind Rowan, peppered him with fragments of copper, rock and masonry and forced him down into a crouch back behind the SUV.
“Moving!” Arno called out and signaled Dax to stand over the car and lay down rapid amounts of suppressive fire to cover Arno’s bound back towards Rowan.
Dax turned when he heard the hard slap of a bullet hitting Arno between the shoulder blades and saw the mercenary drop as if someone had cut his strings. “Fuck.” Dax rapidly executed another reload and began to fire and creep towards Arno’s position while Rowan continued to provide cover from the target vehicle. Dax rolled Arno over and grabbed at his plate carrier to drag the man back towards Sandman and Rowan. “Arno’s hit…we gotta get the fuck off this street.” Dax puffed with labored breath, body exerted to the redline and at the point of momentary exhaustion as he got Arno around the SUV. “You put the one in the back too didn’t you…” Dax hoped out loud and checked himself again to make sure one hadn’t gotten through.
“Fuck that’s a mighty hurt, bru.” Arno grunted and rolled onto his side as Dax pushed to investigate the impact and, to his relief, found that the man’s body armor had taken the brunt of the blow. The sounds of sirens could be heard in the distance as law enforcement began to respond and the gunfire became more sporadic as both sides sought to disengage quick, fast and in a hurry.
“Ready up you big fucker.” Rowan laughed and hauled his companion up into a sitting position and then helped him back into the now freed SUV and on top of a petrified Draško. Gears ground loudly as Sandman finished the K turn and put it back in drive. The vehicle lurched forward, and Dax scrambled back. He threw open the rear door to the SUV and clambered into the empty space behind the back seat to provide rear security. “You in?” Rowan called out with a look back to Dax.
“Hit it.” Dax called back and reached back to grab a hold of the seat to keep from bouncing out of the vehicle.
“He’s good. Let’s move.” Rowan called out and climbed into the front seat of the SUV.
Sandman hammered the accelerator and drove straight through the chain link fence and then did it a second time on the other side of the small, private lot. Tires squealed as they took a hard right and wove in and out of traffic as sirens wailed and responded just a block over. The SUV chewed up the remaining miles and soon the heliport rose into view and offered both an escape for a shaken and panicked Draško and a successfully completed job for Rowan.
0845 hrs local
Dax climbed into the front passenger seat of the blacked-out SUV and offered the driver a friendly enough smile as he adjusted the fit of his wrap-around sunglasses. The driver, a small man in his mid-50s, saw himself give Dax a weak smile in the mirrored polish of the former Marine’s polarized lenses. “Name’s Dax. Anthony, right?” Dax asked as Anthony cleared his throat and nodded.
“Yes sir. You do this a lot?” He asked and wiped his palms on his pants and regripped the wheel before looking at the man’s rifle and gear and the ease at which he seemed to carry it all.
“Too often. You?” Dax grinned as Anthony shook his head no. He was a private car driver, not a tactical wheelman. “Just keep her on the road, Anthony and we’ll be fine.” Dax offered with a reassuring pat the man’s arm. He reached up with his other hand to cue his mic. “Garage secure, Prophet is ready to roll.” Another smile for the driver as he pushed at the long sleeves of his t-shirt to give his forearms a bit of air to breathe and expose some of his colorful tattoos. Between the gloves, the plate carrier and rifle…it was already starting to get warm. “So, what kind of music you listen to, Anthony? You look like a jazz kinda guy to me.” Making small talk in the relative safety of the garage to try and keep the man calm. Dax leaned forward a bit and glanced in the mirror to see Rowan giving him the thumbs up as they stepped from the elevator.
“How’d you know?” Anthony answered with a small smile and seemed to relax a degree or two.
“Hey…one gentleman of culture always recognizes another, right?”
“Copy Prophet. Traveler is on the move.” Rowan answered with the codename for Draško as he walked the short space from elevator to waiting SUV. Sandman was already behind the wheel and the engine was running. “Thumper, how we looking at street level?” Keeping communications short and to the point as he opened the door for Mr. Draško as Arno walked around the front of the SUV to take up the passenger seat and Rowan moved around the rear to occupy the rear seat opposite Draško.
“Traffic patterns look normal, nothing out of the ordinary.” Thumper answered as she stared at her central monitor and the live feed from the Chimera drone hovering some 1500 feet above the private residence. There was a pause as several keystrokes could be heard over the radio. “And now you have all green lights for the next five to six minutes. Any longer and we’ll get snooped.” Thumper added after a quick hack. “You boys look good to go. Be careful out there.”
“Prophet, Green light. Start your roll.” Rowan spoke into his mic and adjusted the sling on his FN SCAR rifle so that it rested easier on his chest.
“Copy.” Dax answered and gestured for Anthony to put the vehicle in drive. “Nice and easy, Jazzman. Like you’re taking the wife to the piano bar.” Dax paused to activate his mic a second time. “Prophet is rolling.”
The SUV exited the parking garage ramp and turned left into the morning flow of traffic which, while congested, was still moving at a decent clip thanks to Thumper’s contribution. Dax disliked surface streets. Too many obstacles, too many lights, slowdowns, and other vehicles, too many structures, too many civilians…too many unknown variables. He kept his attention focused outward, kept his eyes moving and taking note of the mundane and dismissing it just as quickly in favor of new inputs, new information that might stand out as different and therefore dangerous. What he saw was ordinary. Street level shops of various kinds: Soulless coffee chains, earthy bodegas, clothing boutiques and so on. Trendy…mostly modern…almost all of it forgettable.
“Aw shit.” Sandman cursed as a sudden spurt of pedestrians cut off his exit from the sublevel garage and forced them to idle for several minutes before he was able to nudge his way out into the flow of traffic.
“Be advised, civilian foot traffic has us separated. We just made the turn…we’re about fourteen…maybe six cars behind you.” Rowan spoke into the mic as Arno did much as Dax did and kept his attention outside the vehicle.
“Copy.” Dax answered and twisted about to try and spot Rowan’s vehicle behind them.
“Is something wrong?” Anthony asked and looked towards Dax.
“Nah. Just a busy morning is all. We’re good.” Dax answered as he turned back around in his seat and returned his attention to what lay in front of them.
Rowan’s heart rate remained at a constant, steady, and slow rate as Sandman made his turn. He never got too high or too low in these situations and simply modulated his emotional spectrum like a DJ at a sound mixing board. When situations called for little to no empathy…down that switch slid, and that emotion or trait simply faded away and freed him to do whatever was necessary. The mercenary kept his attention evenly split between his side of the vehicle and Rafaël Draško who seemed unperturbed by it all as he casually scrolled through several feeds on a phone.
“Everything’s looking good, boys.” Thumper spoke as she maneuvered the drone along their primary route. Traffic seems to be getting thicker up ahead despite the lights, but it checks out with past intersection cameras and reports. Gonna be a bit of stop and go with turns from the side streets.”
“Understood, Thumper.” Rowan answered for the team and leaned to his left to get a better view through the windshield to spot the lead vehicle up ahead and in the left lane of their direction with two more of oncoming traffic to the left separated at times by a brief turn lane.
“Damn traffic, Saffa.” Arno grunted and shifted in his seat. “Like Jo-burg on a Monday morning.”
“It’s negotiable, boet.” Rowan answered and shared the same sentiment as all the others. High speed travel made it difficult to be followed and made it almost impossible for any tail to remain a hidden one. “But I’d much prefer a green street too.” Turning to glance behind them as Thumper’s start and stop observations began to hit them and the vehicles momentarily came to a stop.
In the lead vehicle Dax kept his head on a swivel and constantly kept an alert scan of the environment up and running. It started at twelve o’clock, the vehicle in front of them, and then rotated round the clock by way of direct visuals and use of mirrors to try and keep as good a situational awareness as possible. As his scan carried his eyes right, he took note of a large delivery vehicle gunning its engine to get going ahead of them at the two o’clock and behind that, directly at his three, was an extended cab pickup truck. Dax’s mirrored gaze lingered on the truck for a moment as both the driver and rear passenger seemed intent on peering inside their SUV as if trying to ascertain how many people were inside. They could just be curious what with the heavily tinted windows and aggressive styling of their SUV. He’d allow for that for a moment but knew something was off when he got that subconscious twinge in his stomach…the same twinge that tipped guys off about IEDs, wired doors and mountain ambushes.
“Something ain’t right.” Dax said to Anthony at first. “Just keep going straight.” He didn’t want to spook the man anymore and played it cool by returning his eyes forward. “Stay chill…keep it in this lane.” They needed to go straight, and the right lane bogged down with turning vehicles. Dax keyed his mic and flipped the safety off on his rifle as the delivery vehicle lurched forward and angled into the middle lane, cutting off the sedan in front of them. “Something’s off.” Dax informed Rowan on the radio. The pickup truck lagged, and Dax saw the cab had at least five…maybe six men inside and who knows what in the bed when he glanced over his shoulder. Horns blared ahead of them as the delivery vehicle continued to grind into the left-hand lane and used its size to bully itself into position. “We’re gonna take contact.” Drawing the neck gaiter up over his face as he reached a hand down to manually unlock his door. “Pickup truck, green, lane two…my five o’clock. Delivery vehicle, yellow lane one, my twelve.”
“What do you see, Prophet?” Rowan craned to see around Arno’s shoulder as Dax relayed the appropriate information. “Sandman, look to make the next left.” Rowan spoke to the big man behind the wheel before keying his mic. “Transition to Route Blue. Look to maneuver onto Route Blue.”
“Take the next left here and…shit, get the fuck down!” Dax’s instructions transitioned to an ordered yell for Anthony to get down as the back of the delivery van suddenly shot up to reveal six men in tactical gear and masks armed with a mix of automatic weapons. Dax leaned to his left to grab a hold of Anthony’s suit sleeve and pull him down as gunfire rippled across the windshield of the SUV. The armor piercing rounds tore through the bullet resistant glass of the windshield and fragmented the protective shield to shower down atop them.
“Fuck.” Rowan hissed as he saw the scattering of ambushes ahead of them. “Go Sandman, go go.” Rowan ordered and reached his free hand out to grab a fistful of Draško’s jacket and drag him onto the floorboard of the SUV. “Stay the fuck down and don’t move.” Rowan ordered as Sandman didn’t hesitate and took the SUV up onto the curb and sidewalk. Movement was life and Sandman kept them alive as they surged forward and around the traffic which had ground to a halt and sent people running in every direction as soon as all that automatic gunfire erupted.
“Get the fuck outta the way, move…” Sandman yelled, one hand waving away people and jabbing into the horn. He slammed on the breaks as the green truck disgorged its contents of ambushers and assailants to their right.
“Back up, back upbackup!” Arno called as rounds began hammering against the armor of their vehicle. Sandman shifted gears, ground them back into reverse and slammed on the gas. The SUV collided with a civilian vehicle that had sought to follow Sandman’s escape up on the sidewalk. The collision was hard, hard enough to shatter the rear window and incapacitate the car behind them.
“Fuck.” Dax grunted and saw that Anthony was already dead. He’d seen the look enough to know and instantly recognize the finality of it. That dead, empty stare of glassy eyes, the unnatural diameter of the pupils and the unmistakable death rattle when jostled all told him what he needed to know. He’d no doubt taken rounds as Dax tried to pull him down. He couldn’t dwell on it and instead kicked at the passenger door and exited the vehicle. He stood, hunched down behind the open door for concealment and lifted his rifle in the V of negative space created by the hinged door and car frame. Crisp pulls of the trigger broke shots downrange at the closest and most immediate of threats. Four…five…rapid shots and he was moving, crouched down, and moving again, this time to the rear of the vehicle.
“At least a dozen foot mobiles…North to East arrangement. Armor piercing rounds.” Dax spoke into his mic as he glanced behind him to see Sandman’s SUV lurching up onto the sidewalk. Dax shouldered his rifle and fired off three quick shots and downed one of the gunmen advancing on Rowan’s side of the vehicle and pivoted back in their original direction of travel and downed two more gunmen in quick succession as they came around the back of a small sedan. And then he was moving again, the low crouch keeping him hunched down below the roofline of cars and trucks. “Collapsing back on your pos.”
Thumper watched in a moment of distress as Dax exited the vehicle and began returning fire. She could see his muzzle flash, the bright, sun reflecting arc of brass ejecting from his rifle and the smooth, precise way he maneuvered from position to position. The paralytic sensation was a second or two, no longer, and she began maneuvering the Chimera drone about and calling out positions of hostile targets to the shooters on the ground, relaying reliable route information and what they could expect as the emergent firefight continued.
“Copy Prophet, rally on objective vehicle. Displacing to route blue as necessary.” Rowan acknowledged Dax’s relay of information. “Fuck this. Draško stay down.” Rowan growled as he regained his awareness after that hard collision. He shouldered his door open a moment before Arno mimicked him and the pair brought their rifles up to return fire. Rowan dropped two in quick succession as they attacked into the ambush with equal if not superior levels of violence. “Push out.” Rowan stayed with the vehicle and ordered Arno out further, the mercenary knowing Dax was bounding back and would link up with Arno to form a shaky perimeter. “Street rippers…they know Draško’s got something valuable in his head. No armor piercing rounds here…they want him alive. You’re just lucky Prophet.” A pause and wave to Arno. “Push out bru, push out!”
“Moving!” Arno yelled over the din and sprinted forward to slide onto a knee behind the engine block of a disabled electric coupe. Arno could see through a crimson splatter sprayed across the window that the driver was down with a headshot and was slumped over the wheel. He brought his weapon up over the hood and began to lay down some semblance of return fire to at least give their attackers something else to think about. He winged one beneath the arm and knew the man would bleed out even as two of his companions dragged him inside a store.
Rounds ripped into vehicles with the sound of a hailstorm upon a metal roof, skipped and ricocheted off the asphalt just feet behind Dax’s movement. Those deadly sounds joined a rising cacophony of screams and yells, of car alarms and blaring horns to form a bellicose symphony of destruction all about the former Marine. “Lucky…funny motherfucker.” Dax grumbled and took aim again. A rapid series of gunshots wounded one and dropped another before he was forced into a scrambling dive as two separate shooters drew angles on him from two different positions.
Shoot. Move. Communicate.
All three of them followed the basic ideology of small unit tactics as they had been trained, as they’d integrated together with years of experience in their various clandestine fields. It wasn’t that fear simply didn’t exist. Only that fear was simply not allowed to become a master. Dax dropped an empty magazine from his rifle and smoothly pulled a fresh one from his plate carrier’s pouch. He rammed it home into the well and slapped the bolt catch release with the base of his palm before coming up over the top of a brown and tan station wagon. When he looked to his right, he saw a cowering mother with two small children huddled in the back seat of the station wagon. The surreal sight played in slow motion as he took a double take and forced himself to focus and fired off three quick bursts that missed but sent his targets diving to the sidewalk. Dax lacked Rowan’s ability to modulate his emotions and knew he had to do something.
He had enough ghosts haunting him already.
Dax moved to the side of the vehicle and tugged on the handle and found the door locked. He banged a fist on the glass and gestured for the woman to open the door. “Open the door lady…c’mon…” He jerked the gaiter down off his face and shouted again, “We gotta move…” Gesturing for the door again and he jerked it open when the mother broke out of her fear and unlocked the door with a shaky hand. Dax’s OODA loop continued, and he naturally moved to the rear of the vehicle and fell to a knee to engage a target that had exposed herself to fire on Arno’s advanced position. A glance over his shoulder saw the mother pushing her young daughter from the car, her slightly older brother behind her. Dax reached behind him with a blind hand to find and guide the child back against the car behind him.
“Stay low and only move when I tell you to.” Dax shouted over his shoulder and paused to fire another burst. “Lady…grab the girl, stay low…” Glass shattered above them as several rounds tore through the station wagon’s rear window just inches above Dax’s head. He rapidly dropped a magazine from his rifle and replaced it with a fresh one and turned to point across the street to where a bus had crossed into oncoming traffic and created a barrier. “Make for the bus. Lady…look at me…” Dax pointed at his eyes with his off hand to ensure he had her attention and saw abject panic in her eyes. “You’re gonna be okay…you’re gonna be safe. Be brave for your kids, yeah?” He reassured her. “Just run for the bus when I stand up. Run as fast as you can. Ready?”
Dax got the hysterical woman to nod as she gathered up her daughter who was screaming while her son huddled up behind Dax with hands over his ears. The woman grabbed for his wrist with her free hand as Dax stood and pivoted his body in line with the line of their sprint for the bus. Bursts of suppressive gunfire rapidly moved from one target to the next as Dax backed up and provided both covering fire and shielding for the woman and her kids. A glance over his shoulder saw them safely round the bumper of the bus and as he turned back, he was rocked by two rounds which struck him in the chest just above his rapidly depleted magazine pouches. The heavy, ballistic impact staggered and dropped the former Marine to the asphalt between two cars.
Stray rounds ripped through the front window of a street level alchemist shop. One of those eclectic Rhydian traits was that modern constructs of steel, transparent aluminum and glass might neighbor a small shop dedicated to the selling of magical components and other baubles related to the practice of such arts. And those components didn’t always react well to projectiles. Several containers shattered, several jars broke, and the resulting fireball erupted through the broken window to engulf three of the ambushers.
“Prophet’s hit…Prophet is down.” Rowan yelled as he twisted down and away from the explosion. “Fuck.” He engaged the target that had fired on Dax and sent them staggering to the side as the arterial spray splashed against the white sign of a jewelry store. It was funny, he thought in that moment, the things you saw and remembered.
“Fuck.” Dax coughed and reached a hand beneath his body armor to find that the Kevlar wrapped ceramic plate had done its job and stopped the rounds. No blood, no sucking chest wound, no holes…but there was a hell of a lot of pain and lost breath. “Fuck this.”
Prophet is down…
“I’m good…” Dax relayed that he was still in the fight and coughed again. Each breath felt like inhaling fire. “Prophet is up…” Another burning breath as he pushed back up and into the fight. “Need to buy stock in this armor company though…fuck…”
The heat from the explosion rippled and seared the paint of the car Arno had ducked behind. He looked to his left to see Dax high crawling from wheel well to wheel well two car lengths down the road. “Two in the store, bru…he shows you a piece, put that fucker on his knees.” And grinned when Dax gave him a weary waggle of fingers as if they were on the beach catching waves. “I fuckin love this guy.” Arno laughed. “Ro…” Arno keyed the mic. We can’t hold here…they’re fortifying in the stores.” Looking back at his fellow mercenary as he spoke and watched as Rowan deftly dropped a magazine, fed a fresh one into his weapon and calmly switched shooting hands to fire left-handed around the back of Sandman’s SUV.
“Copy.” Rowan’s clipped answer before he crept forward and exposed himself to incoming fire alongside Sandman’s door. He banged a fist against the glass to get the man’s attention and began directing him with hand signals on how to free the SUV and get it mobile again. He pressed a hand to his ear to better hear Thumper relay that there was a side lot that opened to another street half a block behind them that would get them on a parallel route. Rowan gestured for Sandman to put it in reverse and walked alongside the vehicle, firing his rifle over the hood as Sandman threw it back in reverse. Metal crunched and tires squealed and smoked as the SUV pushed the blocking vehicle out of the way. Bullets sprayed into the redbrick of the building’s façade behind Rowan, peppered him with fragments of copper, rock and masonry and forced him down into a crouch back behind the SUV.
“Moving!” Arno called out and signaled Dax to stand over the car and lay down rapid amounts of suppressive fire to cover Arno’s bound back towards Rowan.
Dax turned when he heard the hard slap of a bullet hitting Arno between the shoulder blades and saw the mercenary drop as if someone had cut his strings. “Fuck.” Dax rapidly executed another reload and began to fire and creep towards Arno’s position while Rowan continued to provide cover from the target vehicle. Dax rolled Arno over and grabbed at his plate carrier to drag the man back towards Sandman and Rowan. “Arno’s hit…we gotta get the fuck off this street.” Dax puffed with labored breath, body exerted to the redline and at the point of momentary exhaustion as he got Arno around the SUV. “You put the one in the back too didn’t you…” Dax hoped out loud and checked himself again to make sure one hadn’t gotten through.
“Fuck that’s a mighty hurt, bru.” Arno grunted and rolled onto his side as Dax pushed to investigate the impact and, to his relief, found that the man’s body armor had taken the brunt of the blow. The sounds of sirens could be heard in the distance as law enforcement began to respond and the gunfire became more sporadic as both sides sought to disengage quick, fast and in a hurry.
“Ready up you big fucker.” Rowan laughed and hauled his companion up into a sitting position and then helped him back into the now freed SUV and on top of a petrified Draško. Gears ground loudly as Sandman finished the K turn and put it back in drive. The vehicle lurched forward, and Dax scrambled back. He threw open the rear door to the SUV and clambered into the empty space behind the back seat to provide rear security. “You in?” Rowan called out with a look back to Dax.
“Hit it.” Dax called back and reached back to grab a hold of the seat to keep from bouncing out of the vehicle.
“He’s good. Let’s move.” Rowan called out and climbed into the front seat of the SUV.
Sandman hammered the accelerator and drove straight through the chain link fence and then did it a second time on the other side of the small, private lot. Tires squealed as they took a hard right and wove in and out of traffic as sirens wailed and responded just a block over. The SUV chewed up the remaining miles and soon the heliport rose into view and offered both an escape for a shaken and panicked Draško and a successfully completed job for Rowan.
-
Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Somewhere in the sprawling warehouse district, Rhydin City
Approximately 2230 hrs local
Low hanging clouds the color of tombstones slowly rolled in off the water and helped usher in a drop in the temperature. Their slow, undulating velvet twisted and unfurled about the district to settle like a woolen shawl about the various warehouses and industrial buildings of the docks. In the distance the low rumble of thunder sounded with ominous intent yet held its deluge in check for the time being as the coming storm lingered out over the water.
Dax reached up to pull his hoodie up over his head and shroud his face and watchful eyes from the light mist that had just begin to fall. Down the sleeves swept and covered up the colorful tattoos which marked his military service and eclectic artistic interests. The athletic fit hugged his lithe frame and kept the worst of the chill out for the moment. The miniscule droplets seemed to hover as the cloud deck descended to wrap the rooftops in its quarry-colored embrace. Pulling solitary guard duty was never what one might call fun, but the former Marine enjoyed the solitude that the warehouse roof provided even if the weather, as always, proved a fickle mistress.
“They said you were up here. Why aren’t you just watchin Thumper’s drones, ja?” Rowan announced his presence a moment after he brushed through the roof access door aside and stepped out into the chilly night. “Fuckin cold too, bru.” Rowan added as his breath fogged and he clenched the fingers of his free hand several times to fight off the cold.
“Don’t like watching things on a computer screen.” Dax answered with half a glance spared over a shoulder. “I know Thumper’s got her drones…” A shoulder lifted in a shrug. “But my senses can’t be hacked.” Dax paused to lift a plastic bottle to his lips so he could spit his dip. “And I’m not too much in the mood for company.” He said with a look Rowan’s way. “No offense.” Added as the bottle returned to his lap to rest against a thigh. Though he manipulated the bottle with his left hand, the right never strayed from the rifle which lay across his lap. “Hence why I’m up here. And you get used to the cold.”
Rowan watched with observant eyes for a few moments and studied Dax’s hooded profile. Like the former Marine, the mercenary had been through his share of shit show, of ops that went wrong in a hurry, of dead faces staring back at you. Sometimes they were friends, sometimes enemies and sometimes they were strangers…wrong place, wrong time, and all that.
“Beach bru like you sayin you get used to the cold.” Rowan chuffed a laugh and canted his head to study Dax again when he didn’t respond…when he just kept that detached stare going. “You still comin down off it all, Prophet?” Rowan asked after several more moments that saw Dax spit again and keep that observant stare off into the night from his rooftop perch.
“Told you before, Ro. I got enough ghosts staring back at me.” Dax spoke with a hollowed-out detachment that matched his equally distant stare. “I didn’t need that shit to go the way it did.
No matter the hour or the weather the warehouse district and adjacent docks were a hub of ongoing activity. Laborers, travelers, merchants, mercenaries and the like all moved through the streets like blood through vital arteries. Commerce and crime kept the city going and in the distance ships of all types, ocean and space and everything in between, would be coming and going. Every once in a while the rumble of engines competed with that of the thunder and a bloom of blurry light would illuminate the clouds as a ship rocketed towards the fringes of the atmosphere.
From his vantage point, the man they called Prophet could keep eyes on an intersection of streets and the surrounding buildings. The architecture was simple…functional. And old. The brick was worn on the facades of several street level entrances, the wooden walls greyed and warped and rusted nails no doubt stuck up through the roof like a minefield. Dax could assume because he’d had to dodge several just to get where he now sat on his own roof. Rusted iron framed the windows, the rectangular panes blurred by a thick layer of grime that would no doubt cling to the fingers for several days if one touched it.
But Dax wasn’t too focused on the buildings. He’d already surmised which ones were occupied, which ones were vacant and who looked like they belonged as part of a routine. He had earned his reputation within MARSOC and later as a clandestine contractor by delineating the lethal from the harmless. Instead, he kept his eyes, shrouded by the hood of that nondescript hoodie, on the flow of souls along the streets. They weren’t trying to be too covert, but they also couldn’t completely guarantee that whoever had done the ambush wouldn’t come looking to get some get back either.
“Bad guys? Fuck em, bru.” Rowan chuckled and sipped from his steaming cup. “Those boys were righteous scumbags and they woulda done you…me…and everyone in between. Righteous targets, bru. Righteous targets.” Rowan answered and challenged Dax’s view. The mercenary did not want him slipping into the doldrums of depression. Not when there was still work to be done.
“C’mon, Ro.” Dax’s smirk a ghostly sliver which cut across a somber expression. “You know I don’t give a fuck about smoke checking bad guys. I ain’t thinking about them.”
“Well good. Cause you put in lekker work.” Rowan chuckled and came to lean alongside where sat Dax and against the parapet which lined warehouse’s flat roof.
“Talkin about everyone else.” Dax spoke before Rowan could sway the conversation away as he was wont to do when it benefited him. “Talkin about Draško’s driver, Anthony.” Dax physically looked away to try and shift the memory of those dead eyes staring at him upside in the front seat of the SUV. “Talkin about however many others were just trying to go to work or whatever.”
“Wrong place, wrong time, boet.” Rowan’s dismissal conveyed his general lack of empathy and disconnected nature as he produced a cigarette from the pack, he kept in a breast pocket and went through the ritual of striking a match and lighting it. “We didn’t pick the gunfight…we were running security. They were soeking with us.” Spoken through the gunmetal grey exhale of smoke and breath. “We don’t drop the hammer an its more dead than what are…you’ll get lost in that maze of a mind thinkin bout this, Prophet. You’ll get lost and never come back.”
“Yeah.” Dax’s noncommittal answer came with another snapshot stare of eyes. He did not know how Rowan firewalled it all off so easily, how he cut out and cauterized things like empathy and regret. He envied the South African on one hand but internally chaffed against the concept at its core. “How’s Arno?” Asking to ensure the man was okay and to change the subject.
“Milking it and the attention he’s getting from Thumper. She’s been waiting on him hand and foot. Got a bad bruise and a couple cuts from where the armor fragmented on the inside. He’s a tough bird…probably regretting skipping cardio right now though.”
Which made Dax grin as he pictured the big man putting on an act for a little Thumper TLC. “He was running pretty slow.” Dax agreed. “And that big motherfucker was a bitch to drag.” Another lift of the spit bottle and he turned his eyes to a trio of men loitering at the intersection cattycorner to their present position. They were just indefinite shapes in the weather, but on a quiet night like this, with the fog hushing all the ambient noise, one could almost make out the quiet conversation down below.
“You alright? Saw you take at least two playin hero.” Rowan casually cheated his body in the direction Dax was staring.
“Yeah.” Dax answered as the trio lingered for a few minutes. The former Marine fell silent and just watched until the group turned and began shuffling in the direction of a dockside bar several blocks to the east. “Armor held with nothing but a bruise.” The audible click of Dax flicking rifle’s safety back into place chased the words. “We got any word on anything, yet? I’m fuckin cold and I hate waitin on someone else.” Added after another moment. Maybe Rowan was right that Dax had too much big wave beach in his DNA to ever embrace the cold no matter how well he endured it.
“I know, boet. Downtime’s the worst. You remember Cameroon?”
“Stand by to stand by.” Dax answered with a chuckle and shook his head. He’d been contracting for a three-letter agency then and the leash had been fairly short. Glorified guard dogs as they had been described by one officer. Hired help by another. “Not that you and the boys had to listen to any of that shit. You just did what you wanted.” Dax’s time there had been brief, simple training operation, asset protection and babysitting though the story on Rowan’s mercenaries had been one of direct action and assassination. Mercenaries could be disavowed.
“Did what we were paid to do. Sides…we liked having you agency ghams come clean up anyway.” Rowan joked and turned his attention away from the street and back to Dax. “Soldiers of Fortune, Dax…not soldiers of free.” Rowan’s smirk held as he dug into the front pocket of his pants and produced a slender thumb drive. “Speaking of…here’s your cut from the Draško gig. It’s in crypto so you’re protected.” He tossed it at Dax who caught it with his dominant hand and bounced it a couple times in his palm as he spit into the bottle. “Bunch more once we get picked up. Draško’s singing our praises on the deep nets and boards. Should get us some looks, even picked up.” Rowan paused and shrugged with a knowing grin. “And fuck em if they don’t. Ain’t the only stick in the fire. I ain’t one to wait.” A gesture to Dax’s spot. “And neither are you if I remember, Prophet. Check your head. You were fuckin lekker out there…that’s all that matters. Finesse don’t work…” That Great White grin showed itself. “There’s always brute force.”
“Yeah.” Dax answered after a moment that saw Rowan push off towards the door and the stairs that led down into the warehouse. “Something like that.” Rowan had said a lot and Dax’s brief answer could have been in response to several things. Dax dropped the thumb drive into the pocket of his jeans and shifted about as he felt the cold begin to seep through and settle in his muscles and joints. “I’m a Marine, Ro. We are brute force.” The grin was a forced one, tissue thin and papered over a series of soul scars that never seemed to fully heal.
“Don’t freeze your balls off, bru. Come inside and have a beer. Let the tech do the work in this soup. Lest you got them eyes glassed with infrared, Devil Dog.” Rowan tossed over a shoulder with a laugh and disappeared back inside.
Which left Dax alone on the rooftop with only a heavy conscious and the ghostly, empty stare of a married, scared, and dead jazz lover for company.
Approximately 2230 hrs local
Low hanging clouds the color of tombstones slowly rolled in off the water and helped usher in a drop in the temperature. Their slow, undulating velvet twisted and unfurled about the district to settle like a woolen shawl about the various warehouses and industrial buildings of the docks. In the distance the low rumble of thunder sounded with ominous intent yet held its deluge in check for the time being as the coming storm lingered out over the water.
Dax reached up to pull his hoodie up over his head and shroud his face and watchful eyes from the light mist that had just begin to fall. Down the sleeves swept and covered up the colorful tattoos which marked his military service and eclectic artistic interests. The athletic fit hugged his lithe frame and kept the worst of the chill out for the moment. The miniscule droplets seemed to hover as the cloud deck descended to wrap the rooftops in its quarry-colored embrace. Pulling solitary guard duty was never what one might call fun, but the former Marine enjoyed the solitude that the warehouse roof provided even if the weather, as always, proved a fickle mistress.
“They said you were up here. Why aren’t you just watchin Thumper’s drones, ja?” Rowan announced his presence a moment after he brushed through the roof access door aside and stepped out into the chilly night. “Fuckin cold too, bru.” Rowan added as his breath fogged and he clenched the fingers of his free hand several times to fight off the cold.
“Don’t like watching things on a computer screen.” Dax answered with half a glance spared over a shoulder. “I know Thumper’s got her drones…” A shoulder lifted in a shrug. “But my senses can’t be hacked.” Dax paused to lift a plastic bottle to his lips so he could spit his dip. “And I’m not too much in the mood for company.” He said with a look Rowan’s way. “No offense.” Added as the bottle returned to his lap to rest against a thigh. Though he manipulated the bottle with his left hand, the right never strayed from the rifle which lay across his lap. “Hence why I’m up here. And you get used to the cold.”
Rowan watched with observant eyes for a few moments and studied Dax’s hooded profile. Like the former Marine, the mercenary had been through his share of shit show, of ops that went wrong in a hurry, of dead faces staring back at you. Sometimes they were friends, sometimes enemies and sometimes they were strangers…wrong place, wrong time, and all that.
“Beach bru like you sayin you get used to the cold.” Rowan chuffed a laugh and canted his head to study Dax again when he didn’t respond…when he just kept that detached stare going. “You still comin down off it all, Prophet?” Rowan asked after several more moments that saw Dax spit again and keep that observant stare off into the night from his rooftop perch.
“Told you before, Ro. I got enough ghosts staring back at me.” Dax spoke with a hollowed-out detachment that matched his equally distant stare. “I didn’t need that shit to go the way it did.
No matter the hour or the weather the warehouse district and adjacent docks were a hub of ongoing activity. Laborers, travelers, merchants, mercenaries and the like all moved through the streets like blood through vital arteries. Commerce and crime kept the city going and in the distance ships of all types, ocean and space and everything in between, would be coming and going. Every once in a while the rumble of engines competed with that of the thunder and a bloom of blurry light would illuminate the clouds as a ship rocketed towards the fringes of the atmosphere.
From his vantage point, the man they called Prophet could keep eyes on an intersection of streets and the surrounding buildings. The architecture was simple…functional. And old. The brick was worn on the facades of several street level entrances, the wooden walls greyed and warped and rusted nails no doubt stuck up through the roof like a minefield. Dax could assume because he’d had to dodge several just to get where he now sat on his own roof. Rusted iron framed the windows, the rectangular panes blurred by a thick layer of grime that would no doubt cling to the fingers for several days if one touched it.
But Dax wasn’t too focused on the buildings. He’d already surmised which ones were occupied, which ones were vacant and who looked like they belonged as part of a routine. He had earned his reputation within MARSOC and later as a clandestine contractor by delineating the lethal from the harmless. Instead, he kept his eyes, shrouded by the hood of that nondescript hoodie, on the flow of souls along the streets. They weren’t trying to be too covert, but they also couldn’t completely guarantee that whoever had done the ambush wouldn’t come looking to get some get back either.
“Bad guys? Fuck em, bru.” Rowan chuckled and sipped from his steaming cup. “Those boys were righteous scumbags and they woulda done you…me…and everyone in between. Righteous targets, bru. Righteous targets.” Rowan answered and challenged Dax’s view. The mercenary did not want him slipping into the doldrums of depression. Not when there was still work to be done.
“C’mon, Ro.” Dax’s smirk a ghostly sliver which cut across a somber expression. “You know I don’t give a fuck about smoke checking bad guys. I ain’t thinking about them.”
“Well good. Cause you put in lekker work.” Rowan chuckled and came to lean alongside where sat Dax and against the parapet which lined warehouse’s flat roof.
“Talkin about everyone else.” Dax spoke before Rowan could sway the conversation away as he was wont to do when it benefited him. “Talkin about Draško’s driver, Anthony.” Dax physically looked away to try and shift the memory of those dead eyes staring at him upside in the front seat of the SUV. “Talkin about however many others were just trying to go to work or whatever.”
“Wrong place, wrong time, boet.” Rowan’s dismissal conveyed his general lack of empathy and disconnected nature as he produced a cigarette from the pack, he kept in a breast pocket and went through the ritual of striking a match and lighting it. “We didn’t pick the gunfight…we were running security. They were soeking with us.” Spoken through the gunmetal grey exhale of smoke and breath. “We don’t drop the hammer an its more dead than what are…you’ll get lost in that maze of a mind thinkin bout this, Prophet. You’ll get lost and never come back.”
“Yeah.” Dax’s noncommittal answer came with another snapshot stare of eyes. He did not know how Rowan firewalled it all off so easily, how he cut out and cauterized things like empathy and regret. He envied the South African on one hand but internally chaffed against the concept at its core. “How’s Arno?” Asking to ensure the man was okay and to change the subject.
“Milking it and the attention he’s getting from Thumper. She’s been waiting on him hand and foot. Got a bad bruise and a couple cuts from where the armor fragmented on the inside. He’s a tough bird…probably regretting skipping cardio right now though.”
Which made Dax grin as he pictured the big man putting on an act for a little Thumper TLC. “He was running pretty slow.” Dax agreed. “And that big motherfucker was a bitch to drag.” Another lift of the spit bottle and he turned his eyes to a trio of men loitering at the intersection cattycorner to their present position. They were just indefinite shapes in the weather, but on a quiet night like this, with the fog hushing all the ambient noise, one could almost make out the quiet conversation down below.
“You alright? Saw you take at least two playin hero.” Rowan casually cheated his body in the direction Dax was staring.
“Yeah.” Dax answered as the trio lingered for a few minutes. The former Marine fell silent and just watched until the group turned and began shuffling in the direction of a dockside bar several blocks to the east. “Armor held with nothing but a bruise.” The audible click of Dax flicking rifle’s safety back into place chased the words. “We got any word on anything, yet? I’m fuckin cold and I hate waitin on someone else.” Added after another moment. Maybe Rowan was right that Dax had too much big wave beach in his DNA to ever embrace the cold no matter how well he endured it.
“I know, boet. Downtime’s the worst. You remember Cameroon?”
“Stand by to stand by.” Dax answered with a chuckle and shook his head. He’d been contracting for a three-letter agency then and the leash had been fairly short. Glorified guard dogs as they had been described by one officer. Hired help by another. “Not that you and the boys had to listen to any of that shit. You just did what you wanted.” Dax’s time there had been brief, simple training operation, asset protection and babysitting though the story on Rowan’s mercenaries had been one of direct action and assassination. Mercenaries could be disavowed.
“Did what we were paid to do. Sides…we liked having you agency ghams come clean up anyway.” Rowan joked and turned his attention away from the street and back to Dax. “Soldiers of Fortune, Dax…not soldiers of free.” Rowan’s smirk held as he dug into the front pocket of his pants and produced a slender thumb drive. “Speaking of…here’s your cut from the Draško gig. It’s in crypto so you’re protected.” He tossed it at Dax who caught it with his dominant hand and bounced it a couple times in his palm as he spit into the bottle. “Bunch more once we get picked up. Draško’s singing our praises on the deep nets and boards. Should get us some looks, even picked up.” Rowan paused and shrugged with a knowing grin. “And fuck em if they don’t. Ain’t the only stick in the fire. I ain’t one to wait.” A gesture to Dax’s spot. “And neither are you if I remember, Prophet. Check your head. You were fuckin lekker out there…that’s all that matters. Finesse don’t work…” That Great White grin showed itself. “There’s always brute force.”
“Yeah.” Dax answered after a moment that saw Rowan push off towards the door and the stairs that led down into the warehouse. “Something like that.” Rowan had said a lot and Dax’s brief answer could have been in response to several things. Dax dropped the thumb drive into the pocket of his jeans and shifted about as he felt the cold begin to seep through and settle in his muscles and joints. “I’m a Marine, Ro. We are brute force.” The grin was a forced one, tissue thin and papered over a series of soul scars that never seemed to fully heal.
“Don’t freeze your balls off, bru. Come inside and have a beer. Let the tech do the work in this soup. Lest you got them eyes glassed with infrared, Devil Dog.” Rowan tossed over a shoulder with a laugh and disappeared back inside.
Which left Dax alone on the rooftop with only a heavy conscious and the ghostly, empty stare of a married, scared, and dead jazz lover for company.
-
Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Somewhere in the sprawling warehouse district, Rhydin City
1315 hrs
“Found her!” Thumper called out; her cherubic face illuminated by the multi monitor display she practically lived in front of as she turned over a shoulder to make the announcement. Index and middle fingers rapidly circled over a holographic display and corresponding images circled and ripped across the screens as she mentioned what she already knew Rowan would want to see.
“Where?” Rowan’s attention was entirely captured by those two syllables. His lean frame curled inward as he brought his feet down off the coffee table and stood up to come to a stop behind Thumper’s chair. The throbbing, bullet to the head bass beat which came through Thumper’s headphones today pulled a glance of cool, marbled blue eyes down towards the crown of her head. “Can we turn that down?” Rowan stated, accented words had been sculpted in the shape of a question but delivered in a tone that ordered rather than asked.
“There.” Thumper pointed triumphantly and spared a narrowed stare up at Rowan. “You’re looming again.” The spitfire with some of the fastest slices and hacks was not about to be intimidated. She even held Rowan’s stare for a second longer than she had silently promised herself before she pulled the headphones off her head and killed the beat. “You can be a real buzzkill, you know that Ro?” She draped the headphones around her neck where it loosely trapped her black and orchid purple ponytail against her neck.
“I pay well though.” Rowan answered with a preoccupied tone as he leaned forward to squint at Thumper’s central monitor. On the left-hand side of the curved screen was the picture his handler, Riptide, had sent him of Vail. Those eyes still look haunted…still seen too much…maybe even more at this point. Rowan always fixated on the eyes. Hair color and length could change and make up could transform a face but not even colored contacts or a black-market lensing could change the look behind someone’s eyes. It was an imprint of the soul that just could not be counterfeited. “Still running, eh bok?” Echoing his words from the first time he had felt that magnetic pull within the digital image.
“Debatable.” Thumper groused and gave a long slurp on her quickly emptying slushie as if to imply something about how Rowan paid for services rendered. Cash might be king but a good slushie was priceless. “That’s the picture you gave me.” And that…” A few quiet clicks on her keyboard brought up a grainy image that began to sharpen into focus to reveal a three-quarter snap of Vail’s face and body as she stood outside the Supersonic eatery on Twilight Isle. “Is her outside her job three days ago. The roller skates are a dead giveaway. Been there a couple of times. Their slushies aren’t half bad.” Thumper tried hard to keep the pride out of her voice. She was all about the tech and the work but finding a needle like this had not been easy. She’d had to trojan horse two different databases, slice into a corporate message board on the tertiary web and ghost piggyback the main trunk of traffic in a region known for all kinds of various magics, mages, shamans, and the like. “She looks guarded…like she’s expecting someone or something to be after her.” Thumper added while the software compared the two images and kicked out a 96% match rating. “We’re not here to do anything bad…are we Ro?”
“Lekker job, Thump.” Rowan answered with an amused shake of the head. “Just need to find out what she knows…if anything. Link in the chain we’re running down for Riptide.” Rowan lied with such silver-tongued ease that there were times he nearly believed them himself. “Where’s this at exactly?” Arms crossed as he indicated the Supersonic on screen with a bantam point of a forefinger accompanied by a nod.
Thumper kept her eyes on Rowan for a moment or two longer before returning her attention to the screens. Fingers dipped into the holographic wheel once more and she rotated the image around, zoomed it out so Rowan could see the entire block. “Twilight Market…Aurora Avenue.” Thumper pointed at the screen with a cheeky grin up for Rowan. “Told ya you didn’t need to go shooting up the place to get what we needed.” She just couldn’t resist.
“Ja. Seems like it was a waste of time. It was fun though.” Rowan answered with a casual lift of a single shoulder as he defined what fun looked like to him. “Paid too.”
“We in business, Saffa?” Arno asked as he joined Rowan with a bit of a limp. He had taken a hard hit on the hip during the altercation during their escort job and, contrary to the scurrilous rumors Rowan was spreading, was not milking the injuries for attention. He did well to hide the grimace and lean on Thumper’s desk when he stepped up and felt that twinge of pain blossom like a forking bolt of lightning down through his leg.
“Half of us are, boet.” Rowan answered with a clinical up and down inspection of Arno’s posture. The movement caught the golden shards flecked within the starry swirls of midnight blue of his eyes. “Gonna need to sit this one out till that hip’s good to go.” Triaged tone delivered with surgical precision sans concern for emotions. “Someone needs to protect the brains here…” A bump given to Thumper’s chair; smirk as sharp as a steel as he looked back at a disappointed Arno. “And I’m gonna need you in my ear, bru.” Tapping his right ear to indicate Arno would be up on comms watching their back.
“Copy that, Saffa.” Arno sighed with clear and obvious chagrin. He knew he was a liability until he was back to one hundred percent, but that knowledge did not dull the disappointment any.
Rowan held the man’s gaze for a moment longer to see if Arno would buck but when he saw the big man begin to deflate, he turned back to Thumper. “I want everything you can get on that place. Ownership, management, employees…everything. Send it to me once you got it.” Rowan was a natural autocrat and gave orders easily. He pulled his phone from a pocket and tapped a former Marine’s callsign in his phonebook.
“You want me to drive?” Sandman asked. He had been present the whole time but just silently flipping through a Captain Vance: Space Pirate graphic novel. He did not even look up when he asked and just casually thumbed to the next page of the graphic novel where Captain Vance blasted a member of an alien race to pieces and added a cool one liner for good measure.
Rowan took one look at Sandman and just chuckled. “Think I got this one, Sandman.” Before lifting the phone up from his jawline to his mouth when the former Marine on the other end picked up.
"You're the boss." Sandman grunted and flipped to the next page without issue.
“Pick us up a slushie, yeah?” Thumper called after Rowan with a roll of her eyes for Arno that communicated her annoyance with the Great White shark of a mercenary.
Supersonic, Aurora Avenue, Twilight Market District
0145 hrs local
“I know a girl who works here.” Dax Kincaid squinted as the headlights of a departing Jeep swept along the avenue when the vehicle turned from the lot of the Supersonic. “Comes into the shop every now and then for a tattoo. Evie.” Dax pulled the name up from the recesses of his memory. “Should be one more vehicle left on the site.” Dax communicated to Rowan who sat alongside him. The former Marine rolled his head to the right and rolled the window down an inch or two more. He wanted to glean what he could from whatever sounds filtered their way and mine the relative silence in equal measure…both could communicate so much to those who knew how to listen.
“Haven’t lost that touch have you, Prophet?” Rowan asked with a grin and glanced up from his data pad as the Jeep full of teens rumbled off into the distance. Dax could take his pick as to the meaning behind that compliment. “Such a small world could prove useful.” Rowan tapped the screen and brought one of several small video feeds forward into larger focus. “One vehicle left.” Rowan confirmed on video what Dax had committed to memory.
The pair sat in a nondescript sedan half a block down Aurora Avenue and had been there for the past several hours marking vehicular traffic, who came and went, who stayed, who fit…who didn’t. Recce work, as both men knew, was all about establishing patterns and predictability and then looking for deviations worthy of exploitation should interrupting the routine not be an option.
“Thumper…” Rowan placed a hand to his earpiece which kept comms with the talented hacker. “Confirm one vehicle remaining and only the one skater plus manager?” Thumper had linked Rowan’s data pad to the hacked feed of security cameras which monitored the Supersonic.
“Confirmed.” Thumper answered and slurped on her slushie as she watched the same video feeds that Rowan did. “Don’t forget me and Arno’s slushie.” Added after a short pause.
“Just part of the DNA.” Dax answered with a mildly amused smirk from the passenger seat and glanced down to the data pad when Rowan angled it his way. “Sure are a lot of cameras for a run of the mill fast food joint.” Dax observed and returned his eyes to the neon glow of the fast-food establishment. Rowan had been pretty light with the details, but it wasn’t anything new for the former Marine and contractor. Still…despite that familiarity…it had yet to settle and sit well with him as they staked out a waitress at a fast-food joint. He stifled a yawn and looked to his watch to check the time. Dax knew better than to bitch about the time or the hurry up and wait aspect of the job. Bitching about time was like bitching about the weather…didn’t do a damn bit of good to make the former go faster or the latter suddenly clear up.
“Who says it's run of the mill, eh bru?” Rowan asked and tapped another video feed to zoom in on a brunette rolling up to a sports coupe. The mercenary’s attention was entirely on her. He’d had nothing but a static picture, a single face and expression to memorize. Seeing her move about revealed a deeper level of knowledge and understanding which greatly intrigued him.
1315 hrs
“Found her!” Thumper called out; her cherubic face illuminated by the multi monitor display she practically lived in front of as she turned over a shoulder to make the announcement. Index and middle fingers rapidly circled over a holographic display and corresponding images circled and ripped across the screens as she mentioned what she already knew Rowan would want to see.
“Where?” Rowan’s attention was entirely captured by those two syllables. His lean frame curled inward as he brought his feet down off the coffee table and stood up to come to a stop behind Thumper’s chair. The throbbing, bullet to the head bass beat which came through Thumper’s headphones today pulled a glance of cool, marbled blue eyes down towards the crown of her head. “Can we turn that down?” Rowan stated, accented words had been sculpted in the shape of a question but delivered in a tone that ordered rather than asked.
“There.” Thumper pointed triumphantly and spared a narrowed stare up at Rowan. “You’re looming again.” The spitfire with some of the fastest slices and hacks was not about to be intimidated. She even held Rowan’s stare for a second longer than she had silently promised herself before she pulled the headphones off her head and killed the beat. “You can be a real buzzkill, you know that Ro?” She draped the headphones around her neck where it loosely trapped her black and orchid purple ponytail against her neck.
“I pay well though.” Rowan answered with a preoccupied tone as he leaned forward to squint at Thumper’s central monitor. On the left-hand side of the curved screen was the picture his handler, Riptide, had sent him of Vail. Those eyes still look haunted…still seen too much…maybe even more at this point. Rowan always fixated on the eyes. Hair color and length could change and make up could transform a face but not even colored contacts or a black-market lensing could change the look behind someone’s eyes. It was an imprint of the soul that just could not be counterfeited. “Still running, eh bok?” Echoing his words from the first time he had felt that magnetic pull within the digital image.
“Debatable.” Thumper groused and gave a long slurp on her quickly emptying slushie as if to imply something about how Rowan paid for services rendered. Cash might be king but a good slushie was priceless. “That’s the picture you gave me.” And that…” A few quiet clicks on her keyboard brought up a grainy image that began to sharpen into focus to reveal a three-quarter snap of Vail’s face and body as she stood outside the Supersonic eatery on Twilight Isle. “Is her outside her job three days ago. The roller skates are a dead giveaway. Been there a couple of times. Their slushies aren’t half bad.” Thumper tried hard to keep the pride out of her voice. She was all about the tech and the work but finding a needle like this had not been easy. She’d had to trojan horse two different databases, slice into a corporate message board on the tertiary web and ghost piggyback the main trunk of traffic in a region known for all kinds of various magics, mages, shamans, and the like. “She looks guarded…like she’s expecting someone or something to be after her.” Thumper added while the software compared the two images and kicked out a 96% match rating. “We’re not here to do anything bad…are we Ro?”
“Lekker job, Thump.” Rowan answered with an amused shake of the head. “Just need to find out what she knows…if anything. Link in the chain we’re running down for Riptide.” Rowan lied with such silver-tongued ease that there were times he nearly believed them himself. “Where’s this at exactly?” Arms crossed as he indicated the Supersonic on screen with a bantam point of a forefinger accompanied by a nod.
Thumper kept her eyes on Rowan for a moment or two longer before returning her attention to the screens. Fingers dipped into the holographic wheel once more and she rotated the image around, zoomed it out so Rowan could see the entire block. “Twilight Market…Aurora Avenue.” Thumper pointed at the screen with a cheeky grin up for Rowan. “Told ya you didn’t need to go shooting up the place to get what we needed.” She just couldn’t resist.
“Ja. Seems like it was a waste of time. It was fun though.” Rowan answered with a casual lift of a single shoulder as he defined what fun looked like to him. “Paid too.”
“We in business, Saffa?” Arno asked as he joined Rowan with a bit of a limp. He had taken a hard hit on the hip during the altercation during their escort job and, contrary to the scurrilous rumors Rowan was spreading, was not milking the injuries for attention. He did well to hide the grimace and lean on Thumper’s desk when he stepped up and felt that twinge of pain blossom like a forking bolt of lightning down through his leg.
“Half of us are, boet.” Rowan answered with a clinical up and down inspection of Arno’s posture. The movement caught the golden shards flecked within the starry swirls of midnight blue of his eyes. “Gonna need to sit this one out till that hip’s good to go.” Triaged tone delivered with surgical precision sans concern for emotions. “Someone needs to protect the brains here…” A bump given to Thumper’s chair; smirk as sharp as a steel as he looked back at a disappointed Arno. “And I’m gonna need you in my ear, bru.” Tapping his right ear to indicate Arno would be up on comms watching their back.
“Copy that, Saffa.” Arno sighed with clear and obvious chagrin. He knew he was a liability until he was back to one hundred percent, but that knowledge did not dull the disappointment any.
Rowan held the man’s gaze for a moment longer to see if Arno would buck but when he saw the big man begin to deflate, he turned back to Thumper. “I want everything you can get on that place. Ownership, management, employees…everything. Send it to me once you got it.” Rowan was a natural autocrat and gave orders easily. He pulled his phone from a pocket and tapped a former Marine’s callsign in his phonebook.
“You want me to drive?” Sandman asked. He had been present the whole time but just silently flipping through a Captain Vance: Space Pirate graphic novel. He did not even look up when he asked and just casually thumbed to the next page of the graphic novel where Captain Vance blasted a member of an alien race to pieces and added a cool one liner for good measure.
Rowan took one look at Sandman and just chuckled. “Think I got this one, Sandman.” Before lifting the phone up from his jawline to his mouth when the former Marine on the other end picked up.
"You're the boss." Sandman grunted and flipped to the next page without issue.
“Pick us up a slushie, yeah?” Thumper called after Rowan with a roll of her eyes for Arno that communicated her annoyance with the Great White shark of a mercenary.
* * * * * * * * *
Supersonic, Aurora Avenue, Twilight Market District
0145 hrs local
“I know a girl who works here.” Dax Kincaid squinted as the headlights of a departing Jeep swept along the avenue when the vehicle turned from the lot of the Supersonic. “Comes into the shop every now and then for a tattoo. Evie.” Dax pulled the name up from the recesses of his memory. “Should be one more vehicle left on the site.” Dax communicated to Rowan who sat alongside him. The former Marine rolled his head to the right and rolled the window down an inch or two more. He wanted to glean what he could from whatever sounds filtered their way and mine the relative silence in equal measure…both could communicate so much to those who knew how to listen.
“Haven’t lost that touch have you, Prophet?” Rowan asked with a grin and glanced up from his data pad as the Jeep full of teens rumbled off into the distance. Dax could take his pick as to the meaning behind that compliment. “Such a small world could prove useful.” Rowan tapped the screen and brought one of several small video feeds forward into larger focus. “One vehicle left.” Rowan confirmed on video what Dax had committed to memory.
The pair sat in a nondescript sedan half a block down Aurora Avenue and had been there for the past several hours marking vehicular traffic, who came and went, who stayed, who fit…who didn’t. Recce work, as both men knew, was all about establishing patterns and predictability and then looking for deviations worthy of exploitation should interrupting the routine not be an option.
“Thumper…” Rowan placed a hand to his earpiece which kept comms with the talented hacker. “Confirm one vehicle remaining and only the one skater plus manager?” Thumper had linked Rowan’s data pad to the hacked feed of security cameras which monitored the Supersonic.
“Confirmed.” Thumper answered and slurped on her slushie as she watched the same video feeds that Rowan did. “Don’t forget me and Arno’s slushie.” Added after a short pause.
“Just part of the DNA.” Dax answered with a mildly amused smirk from the passenger seat and glanced down to the data pad when Rowan angled it his way. “Sure are a lot of cameras for a run of the mill fast food joint.” Dax observed and returned his eyes to the neon glow of the fast-food establishment. Rowan had been pretty light with the details, but it wasn’t anything new for the former Marine and contractor. Still…despite that familiarity…it had yet to settle and sit well with him as they staked out a waitress at a fast-food joint. He stifled a yawn and looked to his watch to check the time. Dax knew better than to bitch about the time or the hurry up and wait aspect of the job. Bitching about time was like bitching about the weather…didn’t do a damn bit of good to make the former go faster or the latter suddenly clear up.
“Who says it's run of the mill, eh bru?” Rowan asked and tapped another video feed to zoom in on a brunette rolling up to a sports coupe. The mercenary’s attention was entirely on her. He’d had nothing but a static picture, a single face and expression to memorize. Seeing her move about revealed a deeper level of knowledge and understanding which greatly intrigued him.
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Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
((The following was written in collaboration with Vail Chambers. Thank you for continuing to write such great stories with me!))
“Chocolate sundae with extra chocolate and a caramel drizzle. Two spoons. Supersonic Special” Vail Chambers forced a one dimpled smile on her work wearied face as she smoothly rolled up on the canary yellow sports car. She tipped one skate back to catch the knobby brake and slowed herself to a stop with practiced ease. She plucked the sundae up off her tray and handed it to the man behind the wheel who promptly swiveled it across the center console to the woman sitting in the passenger seat.
“Good?” He asked his date who nodded with a smile that split lipsticked lips as she made gimme hands with alcohol tainted coordination.
“You’re the best, doll.” The driver casually turned back to Vail and waved a twenty at her. “Keep the change.” He added when he saw the tired look in the brunette’s blue eyes. He rolled the tinted window up as soon as Vail took the offered money and revved the high-performance engine once before dropping it in reverse. The car lurched back, stopped and a stomp on the accelerator made the tires squeal and nearly spilled the sundae all over the blonde as it shot forward.
Vail caught the license plate as the car peeled out on the avenue. 2X7V-B021N.
Snap. Click. Stored
“Vail! Quit flirting…daydreaming or whatever that pretty head does and hurry up in here to get your side work done and cash out. I ain’t got all fucking night.” Charlie barked from the open door which led to the kitchen and attached office.
Vail muttered something that sounded distinctly like asshole under her breath as she turned a circle on her skates and pushed across the concrete towards where Charlie’s squat, rotund frame loomed in the angled slice of glaring white light as it spilled form the kitchen.
“Swear it’s like you forget who you work for here.” Charlie continued to grumble as Vail neared and then he placed a chubby hand on the small of her back so those short, thick fingers could take an unwanted roam across her hip. “That’s a good girl…roll that pretty ass on in here.”
Vail choked down her discomfort and stepped across the threshold with a little extra speed to carry her away from that revolting touch. Why was it always so cold in this kitchen? Charlie said it was because of the fryers, but Vail and the other girls had their own thoughts as to why as that blast of frigid air hit her square in the face and chest. “It’s late. Do you have to be a dick right up until I clock out, Charlie?” Vail’s patience was frayed, and that sharp tongued temper slipped out with that biting remark. She glared his way and felt another wave of disgust roll over her whenever she saw the series of sweat rings under his arms on his short-sleeved button up. Vail and Evie joked that they could tell the age of the shirt by the number rings. The cigarette ash stains on his brown polyester pants that had been forced to stretch a size or two larger than when he’d bought him…the way the man’s sweat dampened his hair over his eyes and beaded on his upper lip…all of it made her shudder and wish she could forget at least some things.
“When you fuck around more than you earn, you’re gonna get what I give you and smile while you’re taking it. Only reason your tight lil’ ass is still here is cause I like looking at it and you bring in the customers and manage to not fuck up the orders.” Charlie barked back and lunged to grab at Vail’s wrist and snap that little rhinestone bracelet in the process. “How bout you get on your knees and work for your last tip of the night eh?” Charlie had a way with the girls that kept turnover high, questions to a minimum and money coming in…which meant corporate was happy and seemingly all too willing to turn a blind eye towards certain…overtime…activities. And that meant the man felt free to get grabby and try and take what he wanted. He was protected in that way.
“Get the fuck away from me, Charlie.” Vail hissed and pulled her hand back as the bracelet scattered and skittered across the slick floor of the kitchen. She fired off a rapid slap across the man’s thick jowl and stepped back on her skates. That eidetic memory made sure she stepped over the loose tile in the floor and didn’t slip as she sought to put a bit of space between the two of them. It didn’t help that he was blocking the only exit.
“I like a filthy mouth, Vail.” Charlie growled. “Even when it’s a pain in my ass.” He hand fought with her for a moment, the pair slapping at one another before plump fingers slipped through to grab and rip at the strap on her shoulder. She scratched with her nails along his forearm in retaliation and he shoved her back against the wall with enough force to blast the air from her lungs and leave a nasty bruise that would be visible for days.
On instinct Vail turned on her skates and grabbed one of the empty frying baskets still submerged in the roiling oil. She always dropped a basket of fries right before closing so she had something hot and crispy to snack on while closing up. The fries would be a waste, a small sacrifice tonight, as Vail heaved the wire mesh container, the fries, and a hefty amount of boiling oil Charlie’s way. Charlie was fortunate, if one could call boiling oil cascading over one’s face, shoulder, and arm fortunate, that the basket wasn’t a bucket full of the stuff.
Still…Charlie screamed as fryer oil splashed on exposed skin to sizzle and pop and burn its way into nerve endings buried beneath the skin and fat. He grabbed at the half of his face that took the brunt of the spill as orthopedic shoes slipped on the still soft fries beneath.
“You fuckin’ bitch.” The large man howled, his entire right arm trembling as his one good eye took in the extent of the burns.
He lunged towards her then, hands catching a shocked and shook Vail by the throat just as an apology was beginning the quick climb up from her lungs. Charlie choked it to death in her throat as he seized her and drove her back into the wall in a pain fueled rage. Vail clawed at the man’s hands, her skates kicking and rolling out at nothing as Charlie used all that weight to his advantage and leaned in on Vail to limit her options.
“Eina! I bet that smack stung.” Rowan chuckled as watched the fight unfold on their hacked video feed. It wasn’t just entertaining to the mercenary who so easily modulated things like empathy and compassion. Rowan studied the way Vail moved, the way she defended herself. She was not a complete novice when it came to a fight…she had clearly been in a scrape or two before…maybe even had a bit of training.
“Ro…” Dax cautioned and felt his abdomen tighten as he and the mercenary watched the fight play out. “We should get in there man.” Dax, at his core, was a protector and a defender of those who struggled or were incapable of defending themselves. He had joined the Corps, in part, to do bad things to bad people and protect those who weren’t. Despite his unease, he continued to watch the live feed with a tactical detachment and studied the placement of the door relative to the rest of the room and how the various pieces of equipment were arranged should he have to force entry.
“Easy, Sheepdog.” Rowan cautioned and put a restraining hand on the Marine’s forearm. “Let’s see how she handles herself first, ja? She looks like she might have a bit of wolf in her after all.” Rowan’s face screwing up into an amused and admiring grimace as he watched Vail hurl the fries and oil at her boss. “Jo that’s gotta burn, eh?” Rowan grinned as he angled the data pad Dax’s way. Rowan did not particularly care to see Vail beat on; he just knew letting her fight her fight a bit more wouldn’t bring permanent harm to anyone. “She’s holdin her own, Prophet…ain’t no harm to watch a bit more…cept maybe to the boss man.”
“Damn. You go rollergirl!” Thumper chimed in over the comms. “She’s beating the fuck outta him in skates. Fuck yeah. Pig deserves every bit of it too by the look of things.”
Dax ignored Thumper’s commentary and stared at Rowan for a long moment as he sought to keep him in the car and watch the struggle continue when they could easily put an end to it. He knew the mercenary wouldn’t let it go too far…but the man they had called Prophet because of certain feelings he’d get around ambushes and IEDs could not shake a similar feeling that the Rowan was enjoying the fight a little too much.
“Guys…” Thumper’s worried voice crackled on both their earpieces as Vail struggled against the tightening grip of Charlie’s hands around her throat. All the humor she’d possessed just a few moments before had drained out of her. “Do something…he’s gonna kill her.” Pleading with the pair of them as she watched the same feed that they did.
“I ain’t gonna be party to a fuckin snuff film, Ro. Fuck this.” Dax hissed and twisted free of Rowan’s grip on his tattooed forearm to throw open the passenger side door. He pulled his compact pistol from an appendix holster and moved with purpose towards the Supersonic lot a half block ahead of him. He carried with one in the pipe and was instantly ready for a gunfight…one sided or otherwise.
“Dax don’t…” Rowan called out as he leaned to try and grab at and restrain the Marine. The mercenary sighed as Dax ignored him, and his trust in Vail, to get out of the car and clearly intervene.
“Go. After. Him. Rowan.” Thumper chastised over their secure comms but didn’t realize Rowan had pulled the earpiece free and was no longer listening. Thumper couldn’t hide her relief as she saw Dax moving across the lot to weave his way around the ordering stalls enroute to the kitchen door. She could see he had his pistol in his hand too. That relief came out in a heavy exhale of breath, but what she saw on another camera feed caused that relief to stick in her throat. “Oh no…”
“Chocolate sundae with extra chocolate and a caramel drizzle. Two spoons. Supersonic Special” Vail Chambers forced a one dimpled smile on her work wearied face as she smoothly rolled up on the canary yellow sports car. She tipped one skate back to catch the knobby brake and slowed herself to a stop with practiced ease. She plucked the sundae up off her tray and handed it to the man behind the wheel who promptly swiveled it across the center console to the woman sitting in the passenger seat.
“Good?” He asked his date who nodded with a smile that split lipsticked lips as she made gimme hands with alcohol tainted coordination.
“You’re the best, doll.” The driver casually turned back to Vail and waved a twenty at her. “Keep the change.” He added when he saw the tired look in the brunette’s blue eyes. He rolled the tinted window up as soon as Vail took the offered money and revved the high-performance engine once before dropping it in reverse. The car lurched back, stopped and a stomp on the accelerator made the tires squeal and nearly spilled the sundae all over the blonde as it shot forward.
Vail caught the license plate as the car peeled out on the avenue. 2X7V-B021N.
Snap. Click. Stored
“Vail! Quit flirting…daydreaming or whatever that pretty head does and hurry up in here to get your side work done and cash out. I ain’t got all fucking night.” Charlie barked from the open door which led to the kitchen and attached office.
Vail muttered something that sounded distinctly like asshole under her breath as she turned a circle on her skates and pushed across the concrete towards where Charlie’s squat, rotund frame loomed in the angled slice of glaring white light as it spilled form the kitchen.
“Swear it’s like you forget who you work for here.” Charlie continued to grumble as Vail neared and then he placed a chubby hand on the small of her back so those short, thick fingers could take an unwanted roam across her hip. “That’s a good girl…roll that pretty ass on in here.”
Vail choked down her discomfort and stepped across the threshold with a little extra speed to carry her away from that revolting touch. Why was it always so cold in this kitchen? Charlie said it was because of the fryers, but Vail and the other girls had their own thoughts as to why as that blast of frigid air hit her square in the face and chest. “It’s late. Do you have to be a dick right up until I clock out, Charlie?” Vail’s patience was frayed, and that sharp tongued temper slipped out with that biting remark. She glared his way and felt another wave of disgust roll over her whenever she saw the series of sweat rings under his arms on his short-sleeved button up. Vail and Evie joked that they could tell the age of the shirt by the number rings. The cigarette ash stains on his brown polyester pants that had been forced to stretch a size or two larger than when he’d bought him…the way the man’s sweat dampened his hair over his eyes and beaded on his upper lip…all of it made her shudder and wish she could forget at least some things.
“When you fuck around more than you earn, you’re gonna get what I give you and smile while you’re taking it. Only reason your tight lil’ ass is still here is cause I like looking at it and you bring in the customers and manage to not fuck up the orders.” Charlie barked back and lunged to grab at Vail’s wrist and snap that little rhinestone bracelet in the process. “How bout you get on your knees and work for your last tip of the night eh?” Charlie had a way with the girls that kept turnover high, questions to a minimum and money coming in…which meant corporate was happy and seemingly all too willing to turn a blind eye towards certain…overtime…activities. And that meant the man felt free to get grabby and try and take what he wanted. He was protected in that way.
“Get the fuck away from me, Charlie.” Vail hissed and pulled her hand back as the bracelet scattered and skittered across the slick floor of the kitchen. She fired off a rapid slap across the man’s thick jowl and stepped back on her skates. That eidetic memory made sure she stepped over the loose tile in the floor and didn’t slip as she sought to put a bit of space between the two of them. It didn’t help that he was blocking the only exit.
“I like a filthy mouth, Vail.” Charlie growled. “Even when it’s a pain in my ass.” He hand fought with her for a moment, the pair slapping at one another before plump fingers slipped through to grab and rip at the strap on her shoulder. She scratched with her nails along his forearm in retaliation and he shoved her back against the wall with enough force to blast the air from her lungs and leave a nasty bruise that would be visible for days.
On instinct Vail turned on her skates and grabbed one of the empty frying baskets still submerged in the roiling oil. She always dropped a basket of fries right before closing so she had something hot and crispy to snack on while closing up. The fries would be a waste, a small sacrifice tonight, as Vail heaved the wire mesh container, the fries, and a hefty amount of boiling oil Charlie’s way. Charlie was fortunate, if one could call boiling oil cascading over one’s face, shoulder, and arm fortunate, that the basket wasn’t a bucket full of the stuff.
Still…Charlie screamed as fryer oil splashed on exposed skin to sizzle and pop and burn its way into nerve endings buried beneath the skin and fat. He grabbed at the half of his face that took the brunt of the spill as orthopedic shoes slipped on the still soft fries beneath.
“You fuckin’ bitch.” The large man howled, his entire right arm trembling as his one good eye took in the extent of the burns.
He lunged towards her then, hands catching a shocked and shook Vail by the throat just as an apology was beginning the quick climb up from her lungs. Charlie choked it to death in her throat as he seized her and drove her back into the wall in a pain fueled rage. Vail clawed at the man’s hands, her skates kicking and rolling out at nothing as Charlie used all that weight to his advantage and leaned in on Vail to limit her options.
* * * * * * * * *
“Eina! I bet that smack stung.” Rowan chuckled as watched the fight unfold on their hacked video feed. It wasn’t just entertaining to the mercenary who so easily modulated things like empathy and compassion. Rowan studied the way Vail moved, the way she defended herself. She was not a complete novice when it came to a fight…she had clearly been in a scrape or two before…maybe even had a bit of training.
“Ro…” Dax cautioned and felt his abdomen tighten as he and the mercenary watched the fight play out. “We should get in there man.” Dax, at his core, was a protector and a defender of those who struggled or were incapable of defending themselves. He had joined the Corps, in part, to do bad things to bad people and protect those who weren’t. Despite his unease, he continued to watch the live feed with a tactical detachment and studied the placement of the door relative to the rest of the room and how the various pieces of equipment were arranged should he have to force entry.
“Easy, Sheepdog.” Rowan cautioned and put a restraining hand on the Marine’s forearm. “Let’s see how she handles herself first, ja? She looks like she might have a bit of wolf in her after all.” Rowan’s face screwing up into an amused and admiring grimace as he watched Vail hurl the fries and oil at her boss. “Jo that’s gotta burn, eh?” Rowan grinned as he angled the data pad Dax’s way. Rowan did not particularly care to see Vail beat on; he just knew letting her fight her fight a bit more wouldn’t bring permanent harm to anyone. “She’s holdin her own, Prophet…ain’t no harm to watch a bit more…cept maybe to the boss man.”
“Damn. You go rollergirl!” Thumper chimed in over the comms. “She’s beating the fuck outta him in skates. Fuck yeah. Pig deserves every bit of it too by the look of things.”
Dax ignored Thumper’s commentary and stared at Rowan for a long moment as he sought to keep him in the car and watch the struggle continue when they could easily put an end to it. He knew the mercenary wouldn’t let it go too far…but the man they had called Prophet because of certain feelings he’d get around ambushes and IEDs could not shake a similar feeling that the Rowan was enjoying the fight a little too much.
“Guys…” Thumper’s worried voice crackled on both their earpieces as Vail struggled against the tightening grip of Charlie’s hands around her throat. All the humor she’d possessed just a few moments before had drained out of her. “Do something…he’s gonna kill her.” Pleading with the pair of them as she watched the same feed that they did.
“I ain’t gonna be party to a fuckin snuff film, Ro. Fuck this.” Dax hissed and twisted free of Rowan’s grip on his tattooed forearm to throw open the passenger side door. He pulled his compact pistol from an appendix holster and moved with purpose towards the Supersonic lot a half block ahead of him. He carried with one in the pipe and was instantly ready for a gunfight…one sided or otherwise.
“Dax don’t…” Rowan called out as he leaned to try and grab at and restrain the Marine. The mercenary sighed as Dax ignored him, and his trust in Vail, to get out of the car and clearly intervene.
“Go. After. Him. Rowan.” Thumper chastised over their secure comms but didn’t realize Rowan had pulled the earpiece free and was no longer listening. Thumper couldn’t hide her relief as she saw Dax moving across the lot to weave his way around the ordering stalls enroute to the kitchen door. She could see he had his pistol in his hand too. That relief came out in a heavy exhale of breath, but what she saw on another camera feed caused that relief to stick in her throat. “Oh no…”
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Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Vail’s eyes bulged, and her lungs burned for air as Charlie’s corpulence leaned against her and his swollen fingers squeezed around her throat. She clawed ribbons of skin off his forearm with her nails but all that seemed to do was enrage him further. She felt an eerie calm settle over as if a certain part of her was accepting the serenity of the moment while the other part of her raged against Charlie.
”Most guys are always gonna be bigger than you, Dragonfly. Which means if they get their hands on you it’s gonna be trouble.”
Vail heard Viktor’s voice in her head and the lesson he’d given her about defending herself in a world she’d yet to fully understand at that point. She could certainly appreciate it now.
"So always carry a knife on ya if you can. People are afraid of knives and most of them big cowards’ll back right off then and there. But in case they don’t…you give em a stick or two and then they will."
Vail could still remember the way he smiled in that moment…as if he’d had to do that himself when serving in Vietnam. She hadn’t had the opportunity to learn much hand-to-hand self-defense from the old Marine, but he’d shown her a thing or two about knives, at least, before he passed on.
Skates kicked and rolled as she struggled for balance before that photographic memory fired and gave her the memory she needed to extricate herself from this fatal situation. Vail could never explain what it was like…how her memory worked…but sometimes she could see a past scene like she was rewinding one of Viktor’s old war movies he kept on VHS cassette. Vail saw the scene rewind, saw Evie, her friend and coworker, racing around the kitchen, backwards of course, and then when she arrived at the necessary scene, she hit play on that particular memory and saw Evie cut herself on a knife while slicing limes. Charlie had yelled at her that she was bleeding all over the place and chased her out of the kitchen…but she’d left the knife on the cutting board…
Vail’s right hand slapped out and fingers curled around the white plastic handle of the knife just where Evie had left it. Limes scattered to the floor as Vail gripped the weapon and heaved her hand in a wide arc and drove the knife into Charlie’s side once…twice…three times…all in rapid succession. The first stab plunged into the insulating layer of fat, there was so much of it, to do nothing but stun and hurt, the second chipped off a rib and glanced wide of the target Viktor had shown her. But the third split the intercostal space between the fourth and fifth rib, a blow meant for the heart and a blow that found its intended target. Rage and a need to survive powered the stabs, forced the weapon through the shirt and skin, deep into fat and muscle. Bright arterial blood spattered and splattered across Vail…she could feel it hot on her skin…as Charlie yelped, grunted, and then gurgled out a rasping rattle. He’d tried to back pedal and slipped on the oil and limes, tripped on that loose tile, and collapsed in a heap with one hand over the wounds and the other trying futilely to pull his weight towards the distant door.
Now who’s bleeding all over the place?
Vail couldn’t move as adrenaline seized her body and the lizard brain’s flight or fight completely took hold of her. She still held the knife, kept it between her and Charlie as the large man tried to push with legs that were losing strength as quickly as he was losing blood. She’d gotten him off her the only way she could and, in a moment, she’d remember later, all she felt was relief. Glorious relief. She sucked in a burning breath of air and her throat felt like it was on fire. The ragged inhale left her a bit lightheaded on her skates as she reached up with her free hand to feel the quickly bruising skin of her neck and throat.
Now what?
Dax approached the Supersonic’s kitchen door with the leading-edge energy of a Pacific cyclone. He was the eye of that storm; a storm fueled by anger and a hard-wired need to protect. And so, when Dax booted the kitchen door open fully, he came through the fatal funnel with violent intent and intensity. There was no hesitation as he came into the kitchen, pistol up and ready to rapidly assess the room, the situation and what had transpired in the moments since he’d left the car. He fixated first on Vail as she stood opposite him in the narrow kitchen, bloodied and knife in hand before his eyes swept to through the kitchen. Charlie reached a bloodied hand up in a silent plea for help which Dax glanced at and immediately dismissed for the moment.
“Who the fuck are you?” Vail’s voice still held that eerie calm, though the adrenaline was still pumping through her system as she held the knife at the ready with threatening intent.
“Easy…easy…I’m a friendly.” Dax came to a stop after just a few steps and held his hands up, the pistol pointed towards the ceiling in an open and relaxed grip. “Friend.” He repeated and moved to slowly put his pistol away. “I’m a friend.”
Vail watched as the man moved, held his arms up and took note of his numerous tattoos which wrapped around his exposed forearms and peeked out from beneath the short sleeves of his t-shirt.
Snap. Click. Stored.
She noted the ones on his left arm in particular and saw the familiar Eagle, Globe and Anchor imagery of the Marine Corps. Viktor had had something similar on his forearm though his didn’t have any color and had started to fade into a dark green blob by the time Vail had met him. Still…she recognized it and knew its meaning.
“Yeah? Well who the fuck are you…friend? Are you cleaners for the Corporation?” Vail still held the knife out and forced herself to steady her hand to keep it from shaking thanks to the adrenaline tremors.
“Dax Kincaid. I’m a friend of Evie’s…done some of her tattoos. We heard the shouts…” Dax still had his hands held up and open in front of him as he stepped to the side to force her eyes to follow him and not fixate, to get inside and break her Loop. “You okay?” She had a decent amount of blood on her and Dax, from his current vantage point, couldn’t be sure whose it was. “I’m just gonna…” Nodding down to Charlie as he slowly sank to a knee alongside the man. “Yeah?”
“We? Who is we?” Vail stabbed with her words though she found his calm demeanor and easy way of speaking to be a touch soothing. She followed him with her eyes as he took a knee alongside Charlie, and it all came crashing back down on her in that moment. “Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
Blood was pooling out beneath the large man’s body and Dax had seen enough of it to know when the volume was too much, when the wounds were just too much to overcome. He was terminal and Kincaid triaged him as such.
Fuck him.
Charlie wasn’t one Dax would have nightmares about.
But the body didn’t know it just yet and Charlie still wheezed and stared up at Dax with glassy, rheumy eyes that were bloodshot and ringed with Death’s calling card of obsidian around the iris. Dax had seen it take upwards of an hour if one didn’t accelerate the process. The Marine looked from Charlie up to Vail and allowed himself a moment to truly take her in now that things had seemed to calm down a bit.
Vail swallowed hard as Dax pinned her with that look. She could see a certain vulnerability there…carefully hidden away…in the corners of his eyes. Viktor had had a similar look whenever he drank, and the old stories would surface. They were the eyes of a man who had seen too much of what he now knelt over. “Is he?” She repeated the question, this time quieter and with a tinge of regret on her tongue.
“I’d say he’s done for.” Rowan’s accented words sounded from the kitchen door and his lean against it. He admired the handiwork with the blade as he canted his head to the side and scratched a thumb down the line of his jaw. “Lekker stick though, Bok.” He tried out the term of endearment as he laid eyes on her in the flesh and found that it fit even better than that leather skirt.
”Most guys are always gonna be bigger than you, Dragonfly. Which means if they get their hands on you it’s gonna be trouble.”
Vail heard Viktor’s voice in her head and the lesson he’d given her about defending herself in a world she’d yet to fully understand at that point. She could certainly appreciate it now.
"So always carry a knife on ya if you can. People are afraid of knives and most of them big cowards’ll back right off then and there. But in case they don’t…you give em a stick or two and then they will."
Vail could still remember the way he smiled in that moment…as if he’d had to do that himself when serving in Vietnam. She hadn’t had the opportunity to learn much hand-to-hand self-defense from the old Marine, but he’d shown her a thing or two about knives, at least, before he passed on.
Skates kicked and rolled as she struggled for balance before that photographic memory fired and gave her the memory she needed to extricate herself from this fatal situation. Vail could never explain what it was like…how her memory worked…but sometimes she could see a past scene like she was rewinding one of Viktor’s old war movies he kept on VHS cassette. Vail saw the scene rewind, saw Evie, her friend and coworker, racing around the kitchen, backwards of course, and then when she arrived at the necessary scene, she hit play on that particular memory and saw Evie cut herself on a knife while slicing limes. Charlie had yelled at her that she was bleeding all over the place and chased her out of the kitchen…but she’d left the knife on the cutting board…
Vail’s right hand slapped out and fingers curled around the white plastic handle of the knife just where Evie had left it. Limes scattered to the floor as Vail gripped the weapon and heaved her hand in a wide arc and drove the knife into Charlie’s side once…twice…three times…all in rapid succession. The first stab plunged into the insulating layer of fat, there was so much of it, to do nothing but stun and hurt, the second chipped off a rib and glanced wide of the target Viktor had shown her. But the third split the intercostal space between the fourth and fifth rib, a blow meant for the heart and a blow that found its intended target. Rage and a need to survive powered the stabs, forced the weapon through the shirt and skin, deep into fat and muscle. Bright arterial blood spattered and splattered across Vail…she could feel it hot on her skin…as Charlie yelped, grunted, and then gurgled out a rasping rattle. He’d tried to back pedal and slipped on the oil and limes, tripped on that loose tile, and collapsed in a heap with one hand over the wounds and the other trying futilely to pull his weight towards the distant door.
Now who’s bleeding all over the place?
Vail couldn’t move as adrenaline seized her body and the lizard brain’s flight or fight completely took hold of her. She still held the knife, kept it between her and Charlie as the large man tried to push with legs that were losing strength as quickly as he was losing blood. She’d gotten him off her the only way she could and, in a moment, she’d remember later, all she felt was relief. Glorious relief. She sucked in a burning breath of air and her throat felt like it was on fire. The ragged inhale left her a bit lightheaded on her skates as she reached up with her free hand to feel the quickly bruising skin of her neck and throat.
Now what?
* * * * * * * * *
Dax approached the Supersonic’s kitchen door with the leading-edge energy of a Pacific cyclone. He was the eye of that storm; a storm fueled by anger and a hard-wired need to protect. And so, when Dax booted the kitchen door open fully, he came through the fatal funnel with violent intent and intensity. There was no hesitation as he came into the kitchen, pistol up and ready to rapidly assess the room, the situation and what had transpired in the moments since he’d left the car. He fixated first on Vail as she stood opposite him in the narrow kitchen, bloodied and knife in hand before his eyes swept to through the kitchen. Charlie reached a bloodied hand up in a silent plea for help which Dax glanced at and immediately dismissed for the moment.
“Who the fuck are you?” Vail’s voice still held that eerie calm, though the adrenaline was still pumping through her system as she held the knife at the ready with threatening intent.
“Easy…easy…I’m a friendly.” Dax came to a stop after just a few steps and held his hands up, the pistol pointed towards the ceiling in an open and relaxed grip. “Friend.” He repeated and moved to slowly put his pistol away. “I’m a friend.”
Vail watched as the man moved, held his arms up and took note of his numerous tattoos which wrapped around his exposed forearms and peeked out from beneath the short sleeves of his t-shirt.
Snap. Click. Stored.
She noted the ones on his left arm in particular and saw the familiar Eagle, Globe and Anchor imagery of the Marine Corps. Viktor had had something similar on his forearm though his didn’t have any color and had started to fade into a dark green blob by the time Vail had met him. Still…she recognized it and knew its meaning.
“Yeah? Well who the fuck are you…friend? Are you cleaners for the Corporation?” Vail still held the knife out and forced herself to steady her hand to keep it from shaking thanks to the adrenaline tremors.
“Dax Kincaid. I’m a friend of Evie’s…done some of her tattoos. We heard the shouts…” Dax still had his hands held up and open in front of him as he stepped to the side to force her eyes to follow him and not fixate, to get inside and break her Loop. “You okay?” She had a decent amount of blood on her and Dax, from his current vantage point, couldn’t be sure whose it was. “I’m just gonna…” Nodding down to Charlie as he slowly sank to a knee alongside the man. “Yeah?”
“We? Who is we?” Vail stabbed with her words though she found his calm demeanor and easy way of speaking to be a touch soothing. She followed him with her eyes as he took a knee alongside Charlie, and it all came crashing back down on her in that moment. “Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
Blood was pooling out beneath the large man’s body and Dax had seen enough of it to know when the volume was too much, when the wounds were just too much to overcome. He was terminal and Kincaid triaged him as such.
Fuck him.
Charlie wasn’t one Dax would have nightmares about.
But the body didn’t know it just yet and Charlie still wheezed and stared up at Dax with glassy, rheumy eyes that were bloodshot and ringed with Death’s calling card of obsidian around the iris. Dax had seen it take upwards of an hour if one didn’t accelerate the process. The Marine looked from Charlie up to Vail and allowed himself a moment to truly take her in now that things had seemed to calm down a bit.
Vail swallowed hard as Dax pinned her with that look. She could see a certain vulnerability there…carefully hidden away…in the corners of his eyes. Viktor had had a similar look whenever he drank, and the old stories would surface. They were the eyes of a man who had seen too much of what he now knelt over. “Is he?” She repeated the question, this time quieter and with a tinge of regret on her tongue.
“I’d say he’s done for.” Rowan’s accented words sounded from the kitchen door and his lean against it. He admired the handiwork with the blade as he canted his head to the side and scratched a thumb down the line of his jaw. “Lekker stick though, Bok.” He tried out the term of endearment as he laid eyes on her in the flesh and found that it fit even better than that leather skirt.
-
Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Vail’s eyes snapped to the sound of the man’s voice at the door. She noted the relaxed posture and the easy way he leaned against the doorframe. She blinked when his words…the meaning behind the man’s slang…didn’t immediately register though she was fast enough to come to a rough understanding. “Yeah?” She asked and shifted the knife his way and away from the tattooed one kneeling over Charlie. “Then you know you shouldn’t come any closer then.” Viktor had taught her to always sound calm no matter how livewire her nerves might be, and she sounded deadly calm when she spoke to him now. She felt cornered and caged and that was when she…and they…were their most dangerous.
“Let’s not get carried away with ourselves, ja?” Rowan answered as he finished with that stubborn itch along the edge of a stubbled jawline and revealed his teeth in a wolfish sort of smile.
“Oh you got jokes now too?” Vail stared incredulously between Dax and Rowan though her eyes lingered on the man at the door. Even under the sterile neon light Vail could see he lacked the emotion that had lingered at the edges of the other man’s eyes. His gaze was a dark and impenetrable labyrinth of sooty onyx that Vail had to force herself to look away from after several moments spent beneath its weight. “Maybe I should call the watch…” Vail knew that wasn’t a viable option given what had just transpired. The slip…and the way the knife twitched towards Charlie who wheezed another wet gasp from his chest and then to Dax who still knelt alongside him revealed she might not be in as complete control as she projected. “You never answered my question…you from the corporation?” She’d heard things, snippets of phone calls, snap shots of emails from across the room that hinted at Charlie’s darker connections. She knew enough to know that if they were she’d need more than a knife.
“Nah nah, Bok…this don’t concern the watch less you wanna explain more of what happened here. And if me and me bru there…” Rowan gestured towards Dax with a nod, “were a corpo goon squad doubt we’d be having this conversation, eh? Doubt me bru would be ready to handle that little situation down there for ya, ja?” Rowan hadn’t left his lean though an amused smirk surfaced. “As for jokes…Prophet down there’s the joke teller.” Rowan refrained from thrusting Dax completely into the spotlight like that though it was clear that the Great White enjoyed a certain amount of chum in the waters.
“I’m not…” Dax began and just shook his head when Charlie wheezed again and reached down to turn the man’s head to the side and direct the sound away from Vail. Life was still persistently and stubbornly clinging to the man. For now. “We’re not from a corporation. We just happened to be outside and heard the fight.” It wasn’t a lie.
“Jus now…comin from up the way.” Rowan agreed and picked up on Dax’s story. He’d purposefully withheld his own reasoning for them being just outside at just the right moment lest it conflict with something Dax had already told the girl. “More importantly…” Rowan gave a nod for Dax towards the freezer door and then looked back to Vail. “Come have a smoke, ja?” Rowan had a way of making a command sound like an invitation and the easy blend of vowels into the lyrical flow of his accent seemed to turn up a bit as he played into the charm of it all. He gave Vail a nod for her to join him as he angled away from the door. “Bring your knife if you want…” He added as he rolled his back around the door frame to disappear into the covered service area out by the first row of parking space stalls.
“He really think I’m just going to go out there?” Vail asked Dax who was turning Charlie’s chin back his way and inspecting the man’s eyes. “Just like that?” A look at Charlie again and she once again felt a rise of distaste and dislike threatening to erupt within her. “What about the paramedics?” Realization was replacing adrenaline.
“Won’t matter at this point.” Dax gave a dispassionate glance over his shoulder and then chuckled with a one shoulder shrug. “Like he said…you stuck him good. And yeah…he’s like that.” There was a brief pause as Kincaid shifted the topic back to Vail. “So yeah…you can stay here….” Dax added after a second when he looked towards the freezer door. “Help me if you want…” Dax pushed up from his crouch to move towards Charlie’s feet and grabbed the man by the ankles.
“It’s my mess.” Vail answered calmly. “I can clean it up myself too.”
The response gave Dax pause and he fixed the woman with a long stare. She was all hard, sharp edges but he could sense just at the boundaries she tried so hard to protect a vulnerability and softness there, a kind of innocence that stubbornly clung on despite having been forced to make some tough choices. “It won’t be pretty…” Dax said through an exhale as he locked both the man’s ankles under his arms and began to drag the rotund figure back towards the freezer. “Or enjoyable…” The tug made Charlie groan and force a fresh pool of dark crimson up from between his lips. “It ain’t the kind of karma you want on your soul.”
“What about yours?” Vail asked softly in return though the door and the exit began to look more and more appealing.
“It got dirty a long time ago.” Dax grunted as he put a shoulder into the freezer door and dragged the dying weight with him.
Vail lingered for a few more moments caught in indecision though she knew what awaited her in the freezer. What awaited her outside was unknown. Decision made she pushed off the wall to set her skates rolling forward. Careful to avoid the blood…and the memory she could never forget…she headed for the door and the offer of a calming cigarette beyond.
Written in collaboration with the lovely Vail Chambers
“Let’s not get carried away with ourselves, ja?” Rowan answered as he finished with that stubborn itch along the edge of a stubbled jawline and revealed his teeth in a wolfish sort of smile.
“Oh you got jokes now too?” Vail stared incredulously between Dax and Rowan though her eyes lingered on the man at the door. Even under the sterile neon light Vail could see he lacked the emotion that had lingered at the edges of the other man’s eyes. His gaze was a dark and impenetrable labyrinth of sooty onyx that Vail had to force herself to look away from after several moments spent beneath its weight. “Maybe I should call the watch…” Vail knew that wasn’t a viable option given what had just transpired. The slip…and the way the knife twitched towards Charlie who wheezed another wet gasp from his chest and then to Dax who still knelt alongside him revealed she might not be in as complete control as she projected. “You never answered my question…you from the corporation?” She’d heard things, snippets of phone calls, snap shots of emails from across the room that hinted at Charlie’s darker connections. She knew enough to know that if they were she’d need more than a knife.
“Nah nah, Bok…this don’t concern the watch less you wanna explain more of what happened here. And if me and me bru there…” Rowan gestured towards Dax with a nod, “were a corpo goon squad doubt we’d be having this conversation, eh? Doubt me bru would be ready to handle that little situation down there for ya, ja?” Rowan hadn’t left his lean though an amused smirk surfaced. “As for jokes…Prophet down there’s the joke teller.” Rowan refrained from thrusting Dax completely into the spotlight like that though it was clear that the Great White enjoyed a certain amount of chum in the waters.
“I’m not…” Dax began and just shook his head when Charlie wheezed again and reached down to turn the man’s head to the side and direct the sound away from Vail. Life was still persistently and stubbornly clinging to the man. For now. “We’re not from a corporation. We just happened to be outside and heard the fight.” It wasn’t a lie.
“Jus now…comin from up the way.” Rowan agreed and picked up on Dax’s story. He’d purposefully withheld his own reasoning for them being just outside at just the right moment lest it conflict with something Dax had already told the girl. “More importantly…” Rowan gave a nod for Dax towards the freezer door and then looked back to Vail. “Come have a smoke, ja?” Rowan had a way of making a command sound like an invitation and the easy blend of vowels into the lyrical flow of his accent seemed to turn up a bit as he played into the charm of it all. He gave Vail a nod for her to join him as he angled away from the door. “Bring your knife if you want…” He added as he rolled his back around the door frame to disappear into the covered service area out by the first row of parking space stalls.
“He really think I’m just going to go out there?” Vail asked Dax who was turning Charlie’s chin back his way and inspecting the man’s eyes. “Just like that?” A look at Charlie again and she once again felt a rise of distaste and dislike threatening to erupt within her. “What about the paramedics?” Realization was replacing adrenaline.
“Won’t matter at this point.” Dax gave a dispassionate glance over his shoulder and then chuckled with a one shoulder shrug. “Like he said…you stuck him good. And yeah…he’s like that.” There was a brief pause as Kincaid shifted the topic back to Vail. “So yeah…you can stay here….” Dax added after a second when he looked towards the freezer door. “Help me if you want…” Dax pushed up from his crouch to move towards Charlie’s feet and grabbed the man by the ankles.
“It’s my mess.” Vail answered calmly. “I can clean it up myself too.”
The response gave Dax pause and he fixed the woman with a long stare. She was all hard, sharp edges but he could sense just at the boundaries she tried so hard to protect a vulnerability and softness there, a kind of innocence that stubbornly clung on despite having been forced to make some tough choices. “It won’t be pretty…” Dax said through an exhale as he locked both the man’s ankles under his arms and began to drag the rotund figure back towards the freezer. “Or enjoyable…” The tug made Charlie groan and force a fresh pool of dark crimson up from between his lips. “It ain’t the kind of karma you want on your soul.”
“What about yours?” Vail asked softly in return though the door and the exit began to look more and more appealing.
“It got dirty a long time ago.” Dax grunted as he put a shoulder into the freezer door and dragged the dying weight with him.
Vail lingered for a few more moments caught in indecision though she knew what awaited her in the freezer. What awaited her outside was unknown. Decision made she pushed off the wall to set her skates rolling forward. Careful to avoid the blood…and the memory she could never forget…she headed for the door and the offer of a calming cigarette beyond.
Written in collaboration with the lovely Vail Chambers
Last edited by Rowan Hume on Wed Jul 05, 2023 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
Dax smirked when Vail made her choice and rolled out. He couldn’t blame her. A final heave twisted Charlie fully into the freezer and there, flanked by ice cream, frozen fruit mixes, chicken fingers and beef patties he’d finally meet his end. Ignominious and with only an uncaring Marine for company. “Better than you deserve.” Dax whispered the reiteration for good measure and wiped the back of his hand across one corner of his mouth. The forensics of everything were already fucked. Dax could do little about it and focused on what he could control instead. A simple gunshot would do the job nice and easy but that wouldn’t jive with the knife wound Charlie already had. Dax reached beneath his shirt and pulled out a small fixed bladed dagger. Crafted from a single, monolithic fiberglass laminate, the blade was as strong as steel yet wouldn’t ever get flagged by metal detectors or security wands. Go into a bar and surrender your weapon…well…Kincaid never believed in truly being unarmed. Ever.
Two rapid stabs near Vail’s original strike and then a finisher to the neck made it look like the blows had come from the front and had been delivered wildly and without a high degree of proficiency. No slipping the blade between the right ribs to neatly, and fatally, cleave the heart. He wiped the blade clean on Charlie’s shirt and then Kincaid twisted the dead man onto a side so he could reach for and take the man’s wallet and rifle through his pockets for any valuable information. He’d developed intelligence on a hit, knew how to sweep and clear a target of any valuable information. It was scary how easily one could fall back into bad habits…well-trained habits…how often they were the same thing. Next Dax reached up to rip a shelf down and over Charlie’s expired body and spill a bag of frozen hotdogs onto the floor. Another shelf was tipped to the side and caused several bags of ice to crunch against the slippery tiles. Kincaid moved quickly, but efficiently, as he began to stage the scene to look as much like a robbery gone bad scenario as he could.
He shouldered through the freezer door in search of the office first. The mess on the desk was swept aside with a ransacking sweep of an arm, the drawers yanked out and tossed about with abandon as he continued his clean sweep through the small office. Kincaid glanced at the small screens behind the desk, a pair of them, that were divided into four smaller screens and displayed the security cameras’ field of view. On one of the screens, in grainy black and white, he could see Rowan standing outside and Vail rolling out as well. He didn’t’ have time to play voyeur and the security disks and any backup tapes were pulled and pocketed. Maybe the place didn’t rate for offsite digital storage. Thumper could hopefully take care of that if it became an issue. If not…it was a short adventure.
The register was popped and pried open with the small blade, the simple locking mechanism overcome with brute force. Dax stuffed the handful of cash into a pocket and left the drawer open to mimic the hectic nature of this impromptu smash and grab number. It wasn’t his first-time doing site sterilization either. The signs of a struggle were already clearly seen in the kitchen where Vail had defended herself…nothing more he needed to do here. A glance at the simple, but reliable watch on his wrist to check the time. Hopefully Rowan will prove just as efficient.
Rowan, for his part, was far more sedate and still than his companion currently ransacking the inside of a fast-food eatery. The mercenary had relaxed into a fainéant lean against the edge of molded plastic table outside and beneath the covered breezeway that allowed customers to eat outside of the cars if they were so motivated. In the time it’d taken Vail to make her decision, Rowan had made sure no unfortunate car had swung in looking for a late-night treat and had sparked a cigarette that casually dangled between fore and middle fingers down by his side. When he heard…and then saw…Vail rolling out the door and his way the halo of exhaled smoke puffed with a chuffed laugh and seeped through the amused smirk on his face. “Thought you looked like you’d prefer a smoke to what’s goin down behind ya.” She’d just killed a man…in a pair of roller skates no less. It wasn’t how he envisioned their first meeting going down. The experience revealed she was full of surprises. “You bring your knife?” He asked when he got her in the crosshairs of his eyes. His posture and demeanor indicated he wasn’t concerned either way though the slight tip of his head indicated she should roll a little closer for that cigarette as he reached into the interior of his jacket for the unique aluminum case.
Vail, rather than come to a stop, kept her movement going as she slowly skated a circle around the table that Rowan had claimed. She didn’t want to be still. To be still was to be targeted…to be targeted was to be attacked. Viktor had taught her that moving targets were much harder to hit. He’d claimed to have rescued her…well…claimed to be the friend of the man that had just saved her. This one seemed more like an amused spectator to the fight for her life. She’d been in the company of dangerous men before, was on the run from even more, and one look at Rowan…Snap. Click. Stored. as she settled her eyes on that sharklike smile of his and those equally dark and unfeeling eyes…one look warned her to be very careful. “Better him than me.” Vail answered with a lift of a slender shoulder that was far more easy breezy than she felt, though she sold it well in that continued circle. Somewhere deep inside she knew better than to let this one scent any fear. “My version holds up…cameras will show that too.” She had to get those discs. A mental note made before keen blues kept their focus on Rowan. “And yeah…I still got the knife.” Vail answered after a moment when she realized she was still holding it low and ready down by her side. She’d almost forgotten she was still holding the bloody thing.
“Ah..ja ja…” Rowan nodded as he tracked her in that slow circuit around his table. Did he feel surrounded? He kept her in vision till he lost her over one shoulder, let his ears keep track of the sounds of the skates behind him till his eyes picked her orbit up once more on the other shoulder. Had the hunter just become the hunted? Rowan relinquished the cigarette case to her on one of the passes as Vail plucked it from his fingers without breaking her continued loop. He took a slow drag off his own and allowed the smoke to slowly drift from his nose and mouth on the exhale. The fact that she took three out of the case did little to dent his attention or humor. The mercenary withstood the previous scrutiny as only a man utterly comfortable in his own skin, owning who and what he was entirely, could. “Not questionin whether the pig deserved ta get stuck…” Rowan paused as Vail tucked two cigarettes behind an ear for later. Unlike him to lay off the trigger— yet those forget me not blues with their arresting vulnerability stayed his hand…for now. She hid it well, but trained eyes knew where to look. “Doubtful the watch’ll even come lookin for ya.” He gave a nod down to the knife in her hand. “You thinkin of having a go at me next, eh? Might find me a bit more of a challenge than the one you already put down.” Rowan’s words came with another slow drag and subdued smile. The expression camouflaged the man’s lethal nature and that easy going accent disarmed any threat that might have lay hidden within the words.
Vail’s work uniform hardly gave her much of a place to stow the knife and she sure as hell wasn’t about to voluntarily disarm herself in this stranger’s company…Yeah…sure…they’d helped her, but fortuitous white knights didn’t just happenout of thin air in these parts without a quid pro quo that most likely included one’s first born. “Thought crossed my mind.” Vail answered and gave the man a one dimpled smile. “You got a light? Or am I gonna have to spark one off my skates?” She asked as she rolled another orbit around the man on her skates to get more of a panoramic view.
Snap. Click. Stored.
The quick answer earned an approving smirk as sharp as the knife she still wielded. “Well…you are pretty fast in those skates.” Lyrical concession delivered in that accent came alongside an amused smile. Up went the charm as Rowan purposefully modulated his emotions and set them specifically for the audience and the scene. “Name’s Rowan…me bru back inside cleaning up the mess there’s Dax.” Vail had her hands full, and Rowan wasn’t looking to shake hands with a knife so the introduction would stop there. A little bit of honesty to settle any lingering nerves that might be about. “Don’t trust much do ya? That’s a good girl.” Rowan asked and praised. He could see the distrust in her eyes still, the way she kept her body moving with a certain amount of speed that would give her breakaway velocity should she need it. Little things added up on the abacus of the mercenary’s mind.
Vail smirked at the layered meaning of his compliment. “You’re not too slow yourself…Rowan.” She tried on the name, tasted the two syllables, and came away…curious. “…and Dax.” Vail added with a glance over her shoulder as she rounded the mercenary once more. Uncommon names were easier to remember, and Vail filed the pair of them away, mentally scrawling the names on the bottom of each of their pictures in that eidetic memory. “Look—if you wanted him dead, I did you a favor.” Vail never stopped trying to size up the why behind their arrival. “And judging how long it’s taking your fixer friend to clean up the mess, I think we both know I’m not very good. And save that kind of praise for pretty pets who need it.” The expensive case of cigarettes was tossed back on the table as she pushed around her circle with a bit more force. Three would do.
“Pleasure to meet you…” He let the obvious offer for her to extend her name in return hang for another circuit. “Why do you think I want a fast-food manager dead?” The mercenary asked straight faced. “Me and me bru have that corporate look, eh?” Rowan shrugged as smoke slipped past his lips. She hadn’t given up her name, didn’t seem the type to slip up and do so accidently either…and didn’t have a name tag either. Clever. She’d had some kind of training…street level or otherwise. And she had an attitude to go along with that training. Street smarts and a smart mouth could be a dangerous combination. “Don’t be harsh on me, bru. He’s a Marine. But he’s thorough, ja? He’ll get the job done now now.” The mixture of British, Dutch, Afrikaans and tribal safaried their way through his words and exhaled smoke to spice the air between them. Rowan’s smile was disarming and far from insulting to Dax. Or Vail. When she rounded in front of him again, he casually tossed her a simple black plastic lighter and took another slow drag from his casual lean against the table. “Good girl…bad girl…” Shoulders lifted in a shrug. “If we were corporate hitters…we’d have either bonused you for the work or done you right alongside him for being a witness. Yet…you’re still rollin.”
Vail smirked as he so obviously assessed her. No. She wouldn’t be giving her name. Nice try. Despite that he played whatever he was cool and to the vest. She’d give him that. And the bit of humor was disarming, and Vail had to catch herself before she was giving him both dimples. Maybe she did want to stab him a bit more then. “Shouldn’t be so harsh. They’re a tribe with a long memory. And pretty proud about it too.” She spoke from experience even if Viktor hadn’t talked much about it. The carhop didn’t typically smoke, but the nicotine would take the edge off and—after the night she’d had—she wanted to keep it off for as long as possible. She caught Rowan’s testing toss without a stumble and cupped a hand against the wind to get the cherry lit at the tip. “Who knows. He was a widely known asshole…maybe corporate had finally had enough and wanted to get ahead of the bad publicity by—‘restructuring’ their current management team to something that is more in alignment with their public policies.” Vail answered with a wave of her hand and an exhale of smoke over her shoulder. She gave a glance to the cigarette in her hand after that first drag. Treasurer London Black. Snap. Click. Stored. “London. These must be hard to come by here. You from there? Originally?” Innocent question as she sought to interrogate him just a bit. She had people that would want to know as much as possible about them.
“London?” Rowan gave a shake of his head. “From Efrica, luv South Efrica.” The lilt of his specific style of speech melted the initial vowel sound down and forged it into something entirely different. “Long way from this, eh?” He gestured about the space and took another slow drag from his cigarette. The black paper had burned down almost to the gold leaf wrapped filter. He chuffed a laugh as she called out the manager for being a widely known asshole. “As for them corpos…friendship doesn’t really go either way.” It wasn’t a lie. He was cross with several of the corporations here in Rhydin. And…on retention of several others. “Sounds like you did everyone a favor…including them restructuring types, eh? Hope they don’t put you on a list. Me and Dax…we can’t be everywhere. Don’t look well suited to be on the run, bok.” Rowan’s last observation a revealing one…maybe. He was here with a guy nicknamed Prophet.
It was that last line that caused Vail to come to a sudden stop in front of him. Not that she hadn’t heard…or memorized…what he’d said about his homeland and his relationships with the various corporations. Vail stabbed the toe brake down into the concrete and stared, knife up and held at the ready now. “The fuck anyone said about being on the run? Who the fuck are you? And I was ambushed…you should know…you just watched it happen.” Vail shot him such a look that was a shutter click away from hostile.
Rowan slowly finished the last drag of his cigarette and casually flicked it away into the empty parking lot. The remnants of smoke were forced down from his nose. “Easy luv…easy…” Hands held up to try and calm the knife wielding carhop. “Not everyone just jumps to accusing people of being corporate hitters…lest they know a thing or two about them.” Rowan pushed up from the table and shifted the focus of his eyes over Vail’s shoulder to the door behind her. “We good bru?” Calling out as if Dax…who was still cracking open the register…was standing at the door.
She had been ambushed. By an amateur. And then she never saw the next one coming.
Rowan waited for Vail’s attention to shift just slightly. All he needed was the beginning of a glance behind her. Once he got her to look, he took advantage to surge forward and strike like a coiled viper. His hand struck her wrist, clamped around it and jerked her towards him. He’d targeted the hand with the knife, the roller skates made it practically impossible to resist the pull and, suddenly, Vail found herself jerked forward against the mercenary. Rowan pulled the knife hand past him and pinned it with a clenching elbow that caught her forearm against his ribs. “Howzit goin now, bok?” Rowan asked as he grabbed at her other wrist to prevent the burning cigarette from ending up in his eye. “Still think pointin that knife at me was a good idea, eh?”
“You takin her to go, Ro?” Dax spoke through a set frown that put tension in the man’s jaw. He’d finished the cover up inside and it was past time to make their exit.
Dax had certain rules that Rowan didn’t.
Written in collaboration with the lovely Vail Chambers
Two rapid stabs near Vail’s original strike and then a finisher to the neck made it look like the blows had come from the front and had been delivered wildly and without a high degree of proficiency. No slipping the blade between the right ribs to neatly, and fatally, cleave the heart. He wiped the blade clean on Charlie’s shirt and then Kincaid twisted the dead man onto a side so he could reach for and take the man’s wallet and rifle through his pockets for any valuable information. He’d developed intelligence on a hit, knew how to sweep and clear a target of any valuable information. It was scary how easily one could fall back into bad habits…well-trained habits…how often they were the same thing. Next Dax reached up to rip a shelf down and over Charlie’s expired body and spill a bag of frozen hotdogs onto the floor. Another shelf was tipped to the side and caused several bags of ice to crunch against the slippery tiles. Kincaid moved quickly, but efficiently, as he began to stage the scene to look as much like a robbery gone bad scenario as he could.
He shouldered through the freezer door in search of the office first. The mess on the desk was swept aside with a ransacking sweep of an arm, the drawers yanked out and tossed about with abandon as he continued his clean sweep through the small office. Kincaid glanced at the small screens behind the desk, a pair of them, that were divided into four smaller screens and displayed the security cameras’ field of view. On one of the screens, in grainy black and white, he could see Rowan standing outside and Vail rolling out as well. He didn’t’ have time to play voyeur and the security disks and any backup tapes were pulled and pocketed. Maybe the place didn’t rate for offsite digital storage. Thumper could hopefully take care of that if it became an issue. If not…it was a short adventure.
The register was popped and pried open with the small blade, the simple locking mechanism overcome with brute force. Dax stuffed the handful of cash into a pocket and left the drawer open to mimic the hectic nature of this impromptu smash and grab number. It wasn’t his first-time doing site sterilization either. The signs of a struggle were already clearly seen in the kitchen where Vail had defended herself…nothing more he needed to do here. A glance at the simple, but reliable watch on his wrist to check the time. Hopefully Rowan will prove just as efficient.
Rowan, for his part, was far more sedate and still than his companion currently ransacking the inside of a fast-food eatery. The mercenary had relaxed into a fainéant lean against the edge of molded plastic table outside and beneath the covered breezeway that allowed customers to eat outside of the cars if they were so motivated. In the time it’d taken Vail to make her decision, Rowan had made sure no unfortunate car had swung in looking for a late-night treat and had sparked a cigarette that casually dangled between fore and middle fingers down by his side. When he heard…and then saw…Vail rolling out the door and his way the halo of exhaled smoke puffed with a chuffed laugh and seeped through the amused smirk on his face. “Thought you looked like you’d prefer a smoke to what’s goin down behind ya.” She’d just killed a man…in a pair of roller skates no less. It wasn’t how he envisioned their first meeting going down. The experience revealed she was full of surprises. “You bring your knife?” He asked when he got her in the crosshairs of his eyes. His posture and demeanor indicated he wasn’t concerned either way though the slight tip of his head indicated she should roll a little closer for that cigarette as he reached into the interior of his jacket for the unique aluminum case.
Vail, rather than come to a stop, kept her movement going as she slowly skated a circle around the table that Rowan had claimed. She didn’t want to be still. To be still was to be targeted…to be targeted was to be attacked. Viktor had taught her that moving targets were much harder to hit. He’d claimed to have rescued her…well…claimed to be the friend of the man that had just saved her. This one seemed more like an amused spectator to the fight for her life. She’d been in the company of dangerous men before, was on the run from even more, and one look at Rowan…Snap. Click. Stored. as she settled her eyes on that sharklike smile of his and those equally dark and unfeeling eyes…one look warned her to be very careful. “Better him than me.” Vail answered with a lift of a slender shoulder that was far more easy breezy than she felt, though she sold it well in that continued circle. Somewhere deep inside she knew better than to let this one scent any fear. “My version holds up…cameras will show that too.” She had to get those discs. A mental note made before keen blues kept their focus on Rowan. “And yeah…I still got the knife.” Vail answered after a moment when she realized she was still holding it low and ready down by her side. She’d almost forgotten she was still holding the bloody thing.
“Ah..ja ja…” Rowan nodded as he tracked her in that slow circuit around his table. Did he feel surrounded? He kept her in vision till he lost her over one shoulder, let his ears keep track of the sounds of the skates behind him till his eyes picked her orbit up once more on the other shoulder. Had the hunter just become the hunted? Rowan relinquished the cigarette case to her on one of the passes as Vail plucked it from his fingers without breaking her continued loop. He took a slow drag off his own and allowed the smoke to slowly drift from his nose and mouth on the exhale. The fact that she took three out of the case did little to dent his attention or humor. The mercenary withstood the previous scrutiny as only a man utterly comfortable in his own skin, owning who and what he was entirely, could. “Not questionin whether the pig deserved ta get stuck…” Rowan paused as Vail tucked two cigarettes behind an ear for later. Unlike him to lay off the trigger— yet those forget me not blues with their arresting vulnerability stayed his hand…for now. She hid it well, but trained eyes knew where to look. “Doubtful the watch’ll even come lookin for ya.” He gave a nod down to the knife in her hand. “You thinkin of having a go at me next, eh? Might find me a bit more of a challenge than the one you already put down.” Rowan’s words came with another slow drag and subdued smile. The expression camouflaged the man’s lethal nature and that easy going accent disarmed any threat that might have lay hidden within the words.
Vail’s work uniform hardly gave her much of a place to stow the knife and she sure as hell wasn’t about to voluntarily disarm herself in this stranger’s company…Yeah…sure…they’d helped her, but fortuitous white knights didn’t just happenout of thin air in these parts without a quid pro quo that most likely included one’s first born. “Thought crossed my mind.” Vail answered and gave the man a one dimpled smile. “You got a light? Or am I gonna have to spark one off my skates?” She asked as she rolled another orbit around the man on her skates to get more of a panoramic view.
Snap. Click. Stored.
The quick answer earned an approving smirk as sharp as the knife she still wielded. “Well…you are pretty fast in those skates.” Lyrical concession delivered in that accent came alongside an amused smile. Up went the charm as Rowan purposefully modulated his emotions and set them specifically for the audience and the scene. “Name’s Rowan…me bru back inside cleaning up the mess there’s Dax.” Vail had her hands full, and Rowan wasn’t looking to shake hands with a knife so the introduction would stop there. A little bit of honesty to settle any lingering nerves that might be about. “Don’t trust much do ya? That’s a good girl.” Rowan asked and praised. He could see the distrust in her eyes still, the way she kept her body moving with a certain amount of speed that would give her breakaway velocity should she need it. Little things added up on the abacus of the mercenary’s mind.
Vail smirked at the layered meaning of his compliment. “You’re not too slow yourself…Rowan.” She tried on the name, tasted the two syllables, and came away…curious. “…and Dax.” Vail added with a glance over her shoulder as she rounded the mercenary once more. Uncommon names were easier to remember, and Vail filed the pair of them away, mentally scrawling the names on the bottom of each of their pictures in that eidetic memory. “Look—if you wanted him dead, I did you a favor.” Vail never stopped trying to size up the why behind their arrival. “And judging how long it’s taking your fixer friend to clean up the mess, I think we both know I’m not very good. And save that kind of praise for pretty pets who need it.” The expensive case of cigarettes was tossed back on the table as she pushed around her circle with a bit more force. Three would do.
“Pleasure to meet you…” He let the obvious offer for her to extend her name in return hang for another circuit. “Why do you think I want a fast-food manager dead?” The mercenary asked straight faced. “Me and me bru have that corporate look, eh?” Rowan shrugged as smoke slipped past his lips. She hadn’t given up her name, didn’t seem the type to slip up and do so accidently either…and didn’t have a name tag either. Clever. She’d had some kind of training…street level or otherwise. And she had an attitude to go along with that training. Street smarts and a smart mouth could be a dangerous combination. “Don’t be harsh on me, bru. He’s a Marine. But he’s thorough, ja? He’ll get the job done now now.” The mixture of British, Dutch, Afrikaans and tribal safaried their way through his words and exhaled smoke to spice the air between them. Rowan’s smile was disarming and far from insulting to Dax. Or Vail. When she rounded in front of him again, he casually tossed her a simple black plastic lighter and took another slow drag from his casual lean against the table. “Good girl…bad girl…” Shoulders lifted in a shrug. “If we were corporate hitters…we’d have either bonused you for the work or done you right alongside him for being a witness. Yet…you’re still rollin.”
Vail smirked as he so obviously assessed her. No. She wouldn’t be giving her name. Nice try. Despite that he played whatever he was cool and to the vest. She’d give him that. And the bit of humor was disarming, and Vail had to catch herself before she was giving him both dimples. Maybe she did want to stab him a bit more then. “Shouldn’t be so harsh. They’re a tribe with a long memory. And pretty proud about it too.” She spoke from experience even if Viktor hadn’t talked much about it. The carhop didn’t typically smoke, but the nicotine would take the edge off and—after the night she’d had—she wanted to keep it off for as long as possible. She caught Rowan’s testing toss without a stumble and cupped a hand against the wind to get the cherry lit at the tip. “Who knows. He was a widely known asshole…maybe corporate had finally had enough and wanted to get ahead of the bad publicity by—‘restructuring’ their current management team to something that is more in alignment with their public policies.” Vail answered with a wave of her hand and an exhale of smoke over her shoulder. She gave a glance to the cigarette in her hand after that first drag. Treasurer London Black. Snap. Click. Stored. “London. These must be hard to come by here. You from there? Originally?” Innocent question as she sought to interrogate him just a bit. She had people that would want to know as much as possible about them.
“London?” Rowan gave a shake of his head. “From Efrica, luv South Efrica.” The lilt of his specific style of speech melted the initial vowel sound down and forged it into something entirely different. “Long way from this, eh?” He gestured about the space and took another slow drag from his cigarette. The black paper had burned down almost to the gold leaf wrapped filter. He chuffed a laugh as she called out the manager for being a widely known asshole. “As for them corpos…friendship doesn’t really go either way.” It wasn’t a lie. He was cross with several of the corporations here in Rhydin. And…on retention of several others. “Sounds like you did everyone a favor…including them restructuring types, eh? Hope they don’t put you on a list. Me and Dax…we can’t be everywhere. Don’t look well suited to be on the run, bok.” Rowan’s last observation a revealing one…maybe. He was here with a guy nicknamed Prophet.
It was that last line that caused Vail to come to a sudden stop in front of him. Not that she hadn’t heard…or memorized…what he’d said about his homeland and his relationships with the various corporations. Vail stabbed the toe brake down into the concrete and stared, knife up and held at the ready now. “The fuck anyone said about being on the run? Who the fuck are you? And I was ambushed…you should know…you just watched it happen.” Vail shot him such a look that was a shutter click away from hostile.
Rowan slowly finished the last drag of his cigarette and casually flicked it away into the empty parking lot. The remnants of smoke were forced down from his nose. “Easy luv…easy…” Hands held up to try and calm the knife wielding carhop. “Not everyone just jumps to accusing people of being corporate hitters…lest they know a thing or two about them.” Rowan pushed up from the table and shifted the focus of his eyes over Vail’s shoulder to the door behind her. “We good bru?” Calling out as if Dax…who was still cracking open the register…was standing at the door.
She had been ambushed. By an amateur. And then she never saw the next one coming.
Rowan waited for Vail’s attention to shift just slightly. All he needed was the beginning of a glance behind her. Once he got her to look, he took advantage to surge forward and strike like a coiled viper. His hand struck her wrist, clamped around it and jerked her towards him. He’d targeted the hand with the knife, the roller skates made it practically impossible to resist the pull and, suddenly, Vail found herself jerked forward against the mercenary. Rowan pulled the knife hand past him and pinned it with a clenching elbow that caught her forearm against his ribs. “Howzit goin now, bok?” Rowan asked as he grabbed at her other wrist to prevent the burning cigarette from ending up in his eye. “Still think pointin that knife at me was a good idea, eh?”
“You takin her to go, Ro?” Dax spoke through a set frown that put tension in the man’s jaw. He’d finished the cover up inside and it was past time to make their exit.
Dax had certain rules that Rowan didn’t.
Written in collaboration with the lovely Vail Chambers
Last edited by Rowan Hume on Sun Sep 24, 2023 12:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Rowan Hume
- Junior Adventurer
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:45 pm
Re: Eidetic Polaroids
The shift of eyes caught themselves halfway over a shoulder. Vail was no novice, no uninitiated angel with no dirt on her halo. It’d take more to fool her than a few words and a glance. What she hadn’t expected was the speed of that Great White attack. Vail hissed and silently cursed him a fraction of a second after Rowan struck. He was so fast. One moment she had him at knife point and the next she was yanked nearly out of her skates to find herself pinned against his lean frame where she could feel tightly coiled muscle beneath the fabric of his designer shirt. She knew it was senseless to resist yet the stubborn carhop had been forced to fight almost her entire life. She had Timothy to think of and wouldn’t go out without a struggle now and bucked against Rowan’s iron grip, tried to twist her knife hand for a cut to his side…anything to get free. “Shoulda stuck it in you like I did Charlie when I had the chance.” The words were a hissed whisper against the man’s ear.
“Maybe…” Rowan answered with a soft smirk. “Course then you’d be missin out…” Kincaid’s question cut through on Rowan’s reveal and the mercenary let his eyes drift from the woman to the former Marine. The sheep dog in Dax wouldn’t let Rowan’s wolf play with its food and the South African could appreciate that…on a certain level. “I dunno bru…you don’t fancy a bit of take out? After all, you did the heavy liftin in there, eh?” Rowan teased, that Great White smile sharp like shattered glass over Vail’s shoulder as he continued to keep the woman pinned in proximity against his lean frame. He’d gotten an inhale of her scent. Dew drops freshly beaded on orange blossoms were beholden by an ultimate triad of temptation: sirens of night blooming flowers which seemed to weave an uncanny aura around the woman’s skin, allowing him to dissect the pleasant apart from the sickly-sweet sodas and deep-fried oils which never seemed to touch her despite the scents lingering heavily upon the air. Vail’s struggle against his grip heightened the scent. It drove the mercenary to a moment’s distraction as his attention returned to Vail and abandoned Kincaid.
“Lost my appetite.” Dax answered after a moment and knew his humorless tone would add to the flat line stare he fixed Rowan with. It was time to go. He had the register’s contents and a set of the Super Sonic’s security disks stuffed into a paper sack held low in his left hand. “C’mon…no doubt the Watch or upper management’s already on the way. Don’t think any of us want to be answering those kinds of questions tonight.” Kincaid kept his dominant hand free and near where he kept his pistol. Rowan was a wildcard and always kept the man known as Prophet guessing. “Right?” The single syllabled prompt framed as a question had been aimed directly at the mercenary.
Rowan went with Vail’s struggles, the tidal ebb and flow of her attempts to jerk her hand free, kick out with a skate or shove him back rocked him to and fro yet did little to dislodge herself from her current predicament. “Ja ja…” Rowan sighed and put a painful twist to Vail’s wrist meant to test the woman’s thresholds and force a weakened grip around the blade so he could knock it free before releasing her without warning when she hissed in pain and tugged hard. “Lot to explain, eh? Or you want to call your Knight in the pickup?” Oh yes. He’d noticed. He kept his eyes on Vail, right down to the now blood stained little “V” necklace at the hollow of her throat and gave a swipe of his foot to send the knife skittering back towards where Dax stood.
Dax stopped the blade against the heel of his raised shoe as Vail pushed back to free herself from Rowan. Her wrist hurt after that violent manipulation, but she’d be damned if she gave him the satisfaction of a wince. “Makes two of us.” She eyed him warily, though kept her hand in check. She wanted to cock back and slug him, slap that superior smirk from his coolly composed face. No. She didn't just have that thought. “I won’t miss a thing…Rowan. Never do.” She added and shaped his name round that single dimpled smirk in return. It wouldn’t be easy to forget. Nor would the way he continued to look at her. Equally detached and disinterested as it was— hungry. It filled her with something she couldn’t quite name and didn’t dare try the moment.
Vail wheeled away when Rowan answered her with only a grin and a smirk, a calm reach for another cigarette and a spark of his lighter. Her focus fell to Dax instead as she rolled up on him and glanced to where he had stepped down on the knife. “I worked hard for those tips so unless being a good Samaritan means charging a fee…” Vail held a handout for the paper sack. She had every intention of returning the money in the morning…even showing up for work as if nothing had happened, if only to prove to these two and whoever held their leash that she couldn’t be so easily rattled. “ You put the recording disks in there too?” Vail knew he was resourceful, smart even, so her question came in the form of an observant statement. He wouldn’t have left any evidence that linked him to Charlie. “Maybe I’ll stop off at the Watch station on my way home too…”
Dax eyed the carhop as she rolled towards him. Retreat wasn’t in his DNA, so the former Marine held his ground as she braked before him and rounded to a stop on those skates. “Whole order's in the bag." Dax confirmed with a hint of humor though it quickly evaporated when Vail hung the threat of the Watch out there. "Doubt you’ll be doing all that though.” Dax answered the threat about the Watch. His tone conveyed his belief wasn’t a threat.
“No?” Vail tipped her head, those forget-me-not blues narrowed. She didn’t take kindly to being told what she would or would not do.
“You're no snitch.” Dax answered and tossed her the bag of cash that also had the disks inside. “Got a look of one that doesn’t trust authority for shit.” He added as Vail caught the bag and took a moment to peek inside as she backed away to make sure she was getting what she wanted. “You tell Evie I got the next one.” He meant a tattoo but didn’t explain. “And the one after that if she brings you round for one too.”
Vail looked up from the bag as he answered her empty threat, and it gave her a moment’s pause. She hadn't meant and somehow he'd instantly known. “Both of you…how do you drag those egos around all day?” Vail deflected rather than focus on the part of his answer that caused her to hesitate. “You mind?” She nodded down towards the knife that Dax still pinned. Vail waited for Dax to back off several steps before nimbly negotiating the lean in her skates to nearly pluck the knife from the ground. “I’m gonna roll out…my way…you two are gonna go your way…” She held up the bag as she spoke and glanced towards the devil haloed in freshly exhaled cigarette smoke. “And you’re not gonna follow me…”
“Probably be easier if I was on skates.” Kincaid’s nonchalant aside had been uttered with amusement that the wry little grin only confirmed.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Bok.” Rowan’s accented words prowled across the space between them like a lazy lion trekking across the savannah. Amusement lingered for a few moments as he watched the interaction between her and Kincaid . “Me and me bru just happy to help.” He’d kept those watchful eyes on her as she negotiated the bend for that blade and adroitly kept her skates beneath her. The view hadn’t been bad either.
Vail skated backwards from the pair as Rowan moved from his lean to join Dax. She watched them both beneath the buzzing neon lights till the darkness reached out for her and she turned to skate away into the night.
“You really think she’ll keep all this from the watch?” Rowan asked Dax with an amused laugh that puffed out the exhalation of smoke from the recent drag. It didn’t matter to him either way.
“She coulda called em when I was finishing the fat man in the freezer.” Dax answered as he watched Vail turn and skate away. He finally smirked when he looked Rowan’s way, a bit of relief that things hadn’t gone sideways surfacing from the reefs of his eyes. “She didn’t. She's not dumb...that woulda been the time if she was going to.”
“I like her.” Rowan answered as he pulled his phone free of a pocket and dialed up Thumper. “Howzit Thump…” Rowan pushed right through the greeting before Thumper could inevitably spill her own thoughts about everything that had just happened. “ Ja…she’s fine…she just rolled out…be seein her south o’here now now. Stay on her, eh? And pull the video feed from the joint too…Kincaid let her make off with the disks. Lekker job Thump.” And Rowan terminated the call and tucked the phone away with a teasing smirk for Dax. “C’mon bru…let’s chase. We can double up back to the car.”
Dax shook his head and sighed. He reached behind him and pulled a disk from his back pocket to toss Rowan’s way. “You think this is my first smash and grab, Ro?” Dax paused and looked back at the way Vail had escaped. It didn’t sit well with him leaving her to own devices out on the street like that. But there was little else he could do. And it was time to go.
Rowan’s smile split wide like the Great Whites that patrolled off the coast of Cape Town as he caught the disk. “My bru…”
Written in collaboration with the lovely Vail Chambers
“Maybe…” Rowan answered with a soft smirk. “Course then you’d be missin out…” Kincaid’s question cut through on Rowan’s reveal and the mercenary let his eyes drift from the woman to the former Marine. The sheep dog in Dax wouldn’t let Rowan’s wolf play with its food and the South African could appreciate that…on a certain level. “I dunno bru…you don’t fancy a bit of take out? After all, you did the heavy liftin in there, eh?” Rowan teased, that Great White smile sharp like shattered glass over Vail’s shoulder as he continued to keep the woman pinned in proximity against his lean frame. He’d gotten an inhale of her scent. Dew drops freshly beaded on orange blossoms were beholden by an ultimate triad of temptation: sirens of night blooming flowers which seemed to weave an uncanny aura around the woman’s skin, allowing him to dissect the pleasant apart from the sickly-sweet sodas and deep-fried oils which never seemed to touch her despite the scents lingering heavily upon the air. Vail’s struggle against his grip heightened the scent. It drove the mercenary to a moment’s distraction as his attention returned to Vail and abandoned Kincaid.
“Lost my appetite.” Dax answered after a moment and knew his humorless tone would add to the flat line stare he fixed Rowan with. It was time to go. He had the register’s contents and a set of the Super Sonic’s security disks stuffed into a paper sack held low in his left hand. “C’mon…no doubt the Watch or upper management’s already on the way. Don’t think any of us want to be answering those kinds of questions tonight.” Kincaid kept his dominant hand free and near where he kept his pistol. Rowan was a wildcard and always kept the man known as Prophet guessing. “Right?” The single syllabled prompt framed as a question had been aimed directly at the mercenary.
Rowan went with Vail’s struggles, the tidal ebb and flow of her attempts to jerk her hand free, kick out with a skate or shove him back rocked him to and fro yet did little to dislodge herself from her current predicament. “Ja ja…” Rowan sighed and put a painful twist to Vail’s wrist meant to test the woman’s thresholds and force a weakened grip around the blade so he could knock it free before releasing her without warning when she hissed in pain and tugged hard. “Lot to explain, eh? Or you want to call your Knight in the pickup?” Oh yes. He’d noticed. He kept his eyes on Vail, right down to the now blood stained little “V” necklace at the hollow of her throat and gave a swipe of his foot to send the knife skittering back towards where Dax stood.
Dax stopped the blade against the heel of his raised shoe as Vail pushed back to free herself from Rowan. Her wrist hurt after that violent manipulation, but she’d be damned if she gave him the satisfaction of a wince. “Makes two of us.” She eyed him warily, though kept her hand in check. She wanted to cock back and slug him, slap that superior smirk from his coolly composed face. No. She didn't just have that thought. “I won’t miss a thing…Rowan. Never do.” She added and shaped his name round that single dimpled smirk in return. It wouldn’t be easy to forget. Nor would the way he continued to look at her. Equally detached and disinterested as it was— hungry. It filled her with something she couldn’t quite name and didn’t dare try the moment.
Vail wheeled away when Rowan answered her with only a grin and a smirk, a calm reach for another cigarette and a spark of his lighter. Her focus fell to Dax instead as she rolled up on him and glanced to where he had stepped down on the knife. “I worked hard for those tips so unless being a good Samaritan means charging a fee…” Vail held a handout for the paper sack. She had every intention of returning the money in the morning…even showing up for work as if nothing had happened, if only to prove to these two and whoever held their leash that she couldn’t be so easily rattled. “ You put the recording disks in there too?” Vail knew he was resourceful, smart even, so her question came in the form of an observant statement. He wouldn’t have left any evidence that linked him to Charlie. “Maybe I’ll stop off at the Watch station on my way home too…”
Dax eyed the carhop as she rolled towards him. Retreat wasn’t in his DNA, so the former Marine held his ground as she braked before him and rounded to a stop on those skates. “Whole order's in the bag." Dax confirmed with a hint of humor though it quickly evaporated when Vail hung the threat of the Watch out there. "Doubt you’ll be doing all that though.” Dax answered the threat about the Watch. His tone conveyed his belief wasn’t a threat.
“No?” Vail tipped her head, those forget-me-not blues narrowed. She didn’t take kindly to being told what she would or would not do.
“You're no snitch.” Dax answered and tossed her the bag of cash that also had the disks inside. “Got a look of one that doesn’t trust authority for shit.” He added as Vail caught the bag and took a moment to peek inside as she backed away to make sure she was getting what she wanted. “You tell Evie I got the next one.” He meant a tattoo but didn’t explain. “And the one after that if she brings you round for one too.”
Vail looked up from the bag as he answered her empty threat, and it gave her a moment’s pause. She hadn't meant and somehow he'd instantly known. “Both of you…how do you drag those egos around all day?” Vail deflected rather than focus on the part of his answer that caused her to hesitate. “You mind?” She nodded down towards the knife that Dax still pinned. Vail waited for Dax to back off several steps before nimbly negotiating the lean in her skates to nearly pluck the knife from the ground. “I’m gonna roll out…my way…you two are gonna go your way…” She held up the bag as she spoke and glanced towards the devil haloed in freshly exhaled cigarette smoke. “And you’re not gonna follow me…”
“Probably be easier if I was on skates.” Kincaid’s nonchalant aside had been uttered with amusement that the wry little grin only confirmed.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Bok.” Rowan’s accented words prowled across the space between them like a lazy lion trekking across the savannah. Amusement lingered for a few moments as he watched the interaction between her and Kincaid . “Me and me bru just happy to help.” He’d kept those watchful eyes on her as she negotiated the bend for that blade and adroitly kept her skates beneath her. The view hadn’t been bad either.
Vail skated backwards from the pair as Rowan moved from his lean to join Dax. She watched them both beneath the buzzing neon lights till the darkness reached out for her and she turned to skate away into the night.
“You really think she’ll keep all this from the watch?” Rowan asked Dax with an amused laugh that puffed out the exhalation of smoke from the recent drag. It didn’t matter to him either way.
“She coulda called em when I was finishing the fat man in the freezer.” Dax answered as he watched Vail turn and skate away. He finally smirked when he looked Rowan’s way, a bit of relief that things hadn’t gone sideways surfacing from the reefs of his eyes. “She didn’t. She's not dumb...that woulda been the time if she was going to.”
“I like her.” Rowan answered as he pulled his phone free of a pocket and dialed up Thumper. “Howzit Thump…” Rowan pushed right through the greeting before Thumper could inevitably spill her own thoughts about everything that had just happened. “ Ja…she’s fine…she just rolled out…be seein her south o’here now now. Stay on her, eh? And pull the video feed from the joint too…Kincaid let her make off with the disks. Lekker job Thump.” And Rowan terminated the call and tucked the phone away with a teasing smirk for Dax. “C’mon bru…let’s chase. We can double up back to the car.”
Dax shook his head and sighed. He reached behind him and pulled a disk from his back pocket to toss Rowan’s way. “You think this is my first smash and grab, Ro?” Dax paused and looked back at the way Vail had escaped. It didn’t sit well with him leaving her to own devices out on the street like that. But there was little else he could do. And it was time to go.
Rowan’s smile split wide like the Great Whites that patrolled off the coast of Cape Town as he caught the disk. “My bru…”
Written in collaboration with the lovely Vail Chambers
Last edited by Rowan Hume on Sun Sep 24, 2023 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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