[right][h2][color=9e0b0f]Memory File v3219-667: Firefights, Boredom, and a little Booze [/color][/h2] [color=9e0b0f][b][/b] [/color][/right] [center]~✦~✦~✦~✦~✦~[/center] [color=9e0b0f] >init. save function >processing >init. capture >recording... [/color] Tatiana paced back and forth, tapping out a muted staccato rhythm on the carpet of the room. It was a rather nice carpet, plush and soft, well cleaned too. However, it did make tapping her foot impatiently somewhat less satisfying. She far preferred tiled floors or some nice hardwood, had a much more pleasant feeling to it. She could always tsk tsk, but that didn’t work unless someone had performed disappointingly. At least she had a beer and a phone to pass the time until the boy who thought himself a man arrived. She’d received a rather unpleasant surprise a few days back, informing her to arrange a meeting. The man certainly had a flair for the dramatic… [color=9e0b0f] >init. memory callback >Searching... >init. playback >Playing memory file v3213-78 [/color] [center]~✦~✦~✦~✦~✦~[/center] [i]It was morning. Mornings were evil, had been evil and, despite her lack of prophetic skills, she was confident they would continue being evil for the foreseeable future. She lay there for a moment, basking in the warm light of a small lamp by her bed. She didn’t have any windows - that was hard to do in a secure location, and besides, windows were weak points an SAS team would just love to rappel through. Or KSK, GIGN, really any special operations force would probably be happy to kick in her door. She was quite happy to just lay there for the moment, relax for a while, maybe sleep in late today. Maybe she’d head down to the bar, put on some makeup so any opportunistic upstanding citizens didn’t start a fuss. It’d been a while since she’d plied her hand at luring unsuspecting innocents into her lair. She giggled to herself for a second as she remembered the last time. Who knew inexperienced virgins could get so kinky so quickly? A loud [b]THUNK[/b] from the main room jarred her from sleep, she lept out of bed, not bothering to dress properly as she grabbed the revolver laying on her nightstand and racing for the door. She peered out from behind a reinforced wall, seeing no immediate threats. Her front door seemed perfectly intact. She quirked an eyebrow, lowering the gun and slowly walking further into the room. Her vision flickered and came back a moment later in infrared, everything seemed normal… except… a big blob by her door, completely motionless. She frowned, moving over to the door with the gun raised again, aimed at the space right in front of the doorframe as she sidled up to the side of it, fiddling with the handle with her free arm. The door slowly creaked open, and Tatiana held her breath, waiting for some would be assassin to burst through. One second passed. Another second. Cautiously she peeked out from behind the doorway, scanning the area before she realized there was a body spread-eagled on the ground, right in front of her. She bent down, examining the corpse with mounting apprehension. This was one of her men, practically a boy. Fresh off the boat from America. He had a neat round hole in the front of his skull - high velocity rifle projectile by the looks of it. The back of his skull was… conspicuously absent. She grimaced, that kind of damage was all too familiar. Wedged in the man’s mouth was a sealed tube, with an overly ornate wax detail on the end. She quirked an eyebrow as she pulled it out of his mouth to examine it, smirking to herself despite the situation. The overly dramatic and flamboyant method of delivering this message - she presumed it was a message - made it immediately clear that this one would be fun to deal with. He was probably new to the shark tank, decided to go after the biggest shark of them all to look scary. A small pen knife on a desk nearby proved more than adequate for opening the tube, and she pulled out the roll of paper inside, unrolling it and quickly skimming through the contents.[/i] [center]~✦~✦~✦~✦~✦~[/center] [color=9e0b0f] >Err. >init. playback override [/color] Tatiana started from her jaunt down memory lane, jerking her head upright to face the man who had just entered the room. She sized him up - shortish man, baggy black trench coat, crew cut, chest like a barrel, and two goons backing him up. All in all, she wasn’t impressed. “So, what brings you here, oh dramatic one?” She raised her beer to him, “Oh and, do tell, what made you feel the need to put a bullet through poor Robert’s head and stuff that… flattering missive in his mouth before throwing his corpse at my door? Surely there are better ways of telling me you want to meet up somewhere? He had a girlfriend you know. And a family back in America, nice guy actually, it’s a shame you didn’t get to know him before putting what I’m guessing was a 5.56 through his skull.” She took a sip of her beer, “I would offer you a drink, but I find it in poor taste to give drinks to people who murder my minions. Though whether it or the actual murdering of said minion is in poorer taste is a matter of debate. Seriously, you could’ve sent me a letter. Nobody ever sends letters, nooooo. Gotta have all that drama and flair to look oh so badass.” She narrowed her eyes, “News flash, kid, it doesn’t work. Just lets everybody know you’re new.” Reclining in the chair, she continued, looking him over again. “Now, I have my suspicions on just why you called me here, but I’m in no rush today. Pull up a chair! Tell me what your name is! I’ve got time, and now so do you!” The man remained standing, to which Tatiana frowned at him. Rude. First, he shot her employee, interrupted her rest, and now he ignored her hospitality. “Now now,” she smiled cheerfully, “there’s no cause for such frigidity! Tell me your name at least?” “Miles.” The man grunted. He still remained standing, everything about him seemed stiff and uptight. “Tatiana Vladislavovna Kuznetsova, the Merchant of Death, yes?” He walked closer, trying his best to look intimidating she could tell. “Last time I checked anyway.” She beamed back at him, taking another sip of her beer. “Now… Miles… that’s kind of a boring name really. Can I call you Edgy the Short instead? Since we’re going for nicknames here.” She flashed him a winning smile, “Now, Edgy, I can tell you have a nice speech rehearsed about how scary and badass you are, correct? Good, just like every TV crime boss ever, truly you are a fountain of originality.” She set her beer down, sitting upright and folding one leg over the other, “Can you perhaps skip the verbose diatribe/speech/self pep talk and just tell me what you want? If you really want to you can give me the speech but I can’t promise I won’t just sleep through it.” Miles, or Edgy the Short as he would henceforth be known, took a small step back before clearing his throat. She reckoned he was trying to salvage his no doubt wonderfully eloquent speech. “That’s very cute, Kuznetsova, but you are nothing but a fake, a paper tiger, a façade of a woman overblown into urban legend. Your domination of the European arms trade is at its end. I’ve done my research and gathered my assets - unlike the stories would have the gullible believe, you can’t breath fire and bullets do not, quote, ‘[i]bounce off your hide[/i]’ like you would have us believe.” He continued, raving on at her, “You may be the queen, but I’m here to depose you! Your share of the arms trade is mine now. I have very favorable terms to offer, you may take them or pay with your life!” He took a breath, aviator glasses somewhat askew with the energy he’d put into his rant. “Lucas! Bring me the payment!” A small, mousy man nervously scurried into the room, carrying a briefcase with him. Edgy the Short took the case and popped it open, revealing what was easily a small fortune’s worth of gold bars inside. “Accept the purchase and these are yours. Deny it and I’ll keep them and let Phil and Boris here do what someone should’ve done to you years ago.” He smirked triumphantly, looking down at her only for his swagger to drop like a stone as a loud snore met his ears. “Dammit bitch! Did you hear anything I just said?!” He demanded, dropping the tough guy act. He stormed over to her, face suddenly red as a beet. Tatiana’s cybernetic arm shot out, fingers crushing his windpipe as she smiled the same innocent, saintly smile. “Oh, I heard you perfectly. You’re giving me this great big briefcase full of gold out of the kindness of the empty hole where your heart goes!” She had her revolver out, aimed at “Boris” and “Phil” as she maneuvered herself behind the chair. “You two gentleme-” She ducked as bullets started flying, the one who she guessed was Boris unloading his weapon at her, the wall behind her, and all the other walls adjacent to it. So that was how it was going to be. Tatiana grinned, it’d been a while since she’d had a good firefight - her vision blinked into infrared showing… five glowing blobs. There was one more waiting just outside, presumably to ambush her. They just had to come prepared didn’t they? It wasn’t enough to inconvenience her with a little kerfuffle, she would actually have to fight to get out of this - which suited her just fine. A quick peek in infrared again let her know that “Phil” was circling around to get at her side, which just wouldn’t do at all. Rolling swiftly, Tatiana pinned him against the wall, behind an alcove “Привет, мудак.” With her free hand she pulled a knife from her coat, some cheap piece of garbage that had cost her a pittance, jamming it into his throat and into the wall behind him. She leaned out, braving the bullets to call to Boris, “They told your friend he could be anything he wanted. I made the choice for him. He’s a wall hanging now. Not very tasteful though.” Ducking back as a hail of bullets met her artistic criticism, she lined up a shot through the wall. “Boris” stood there, rifle aimed at the wall, clearly waiting for her to make the first move. Why he wasn’t just shooting through the wall she wasn’t sure - he was probably as inexperienced as Edgy the Short had been, which suited her just fine. A series of sharp cracks rang through the room as he crumpled to the ground, three fragmenting rounds planted solidly in his chest from behind the wall. Which just left the sneaky guy waiting to ambush her. A bullet to the head through the wall solved that problem. She turned to the only other living being in the room, the man Edgy had called Lucas. “Lucas, right?” She offered him a hand. “Whoever’s second in command, I suggest you alert them that they work for me now. Your former employer has paid generously for me to take his stake off his hands.” She beamed at him, “And with that I’d like to go and take a nap. You’re welcome to finish my beer if you want. It’s the good stuff.” Holstering her gun, she walked out of the room without another word. That had been quite the little bit of exercise really, she’d forgotten how much fun the occasional firefight was. Big messy ones not so much, those built up a lot of stress, and not the kind that could be easily “worked off” like the kind of stress paperwork caused. She would probably take a nap after all though. Later tonight though… she grinned. Later tonight was going to be fun.