[color=92278f][h1]JULIETTE GAGNEUX[/h1][/color]

[hr]

[h2]Recorded Time of Death [color=ed1c24]00:29[/color][/h2]

Music rattles in Juliette’s teeth as she dives under the table, narrowly dodging the jagged glass. Bastien broke the bottle shoving her across the counter and seems rather intent on doing a hell of a lot worse than that now. He brandishes the neck of it like a knife. For all of his flaws, he always was a resourceful son of a bitch. The lights of the club refract garishly through both the glass and his glasses. Speaking of flaws—who wears their glasses in a bar fight?

[h2]Recorded Time of Death [color=ed1c24]00:23[/color][/h2]

“Stop!” yells Helen. Her voice is drowned out by the music. “Jesus Christ, you guys, [i]stop[/i]!”

Juliette scrambles out from under the table, grabbing a chair by the leg and flinging it at Bastien. It barely scrapes the tabletop before clattering to the ground. He smirks. She swallows. Shit. Shit. Stupid cheap-ass chairs! He vaults over the table and swings again. She ducks, but not fast enough—the bottle catches in her hair, snagging and ripping out a curly red chunk. It takes all her will not to scream.

[h2]Recorded Time of Death [color=ed1c24]00:12[/color][/h2]

Before she can even react, he grabs the back of her head and slams her face into the wall. Once. Twice. Helen is definitely screaming now—Juliette isn’t sure if it’s the pounding of blood in her ears or the howling of her best friend, but she can’t hear the music anymore. Deliriously, she laments this. And then finds it funny. And then laments it again. Bastien cracks her head against the wall again. A hysterical laugh fizzes in her chest; it is trapped when he starts to choke her.

[h2]Recorded Time of Death [color=ed1c24]00:04[/color][/h2]

The moment his hand closes around her throat, a horrible noise rips through her skull. Worse than the screaming, worse than the blood, worse than the, ha, music—it reaches a fever pitch in seconds. Brutal microphone feedback. She meets Helen’s eyes over Bastien’s shoulder. They’re both screaming now, Juliette’s voice trapped, Helen’s rushing free, and for a moment she can imagine they’re singing together. Just like the old days. Just like. Just…

[h2]Recorded Time of Death [color=39b54a]00:03[/color][/h2]

Silence. Perfect silence while her senses fade in, processing stimuli one at a time. Pressure to the neck, numbness of the lips, sweat running down her forehead—blood flow to the brain is being cut off. She brings her knee up into her attacker’s balls, hard, and he cries out. Doesn’t release. Okay. He hasn’t restrained her hands. She shoves a finger into his eyeball, carving towards her with the nail. Another scream. Still doesn’t let go. Who is this guy? 

[h2]Recorded Time of Death [color=39b54a]00:10[/color][/h2]

She goes limp for a moment, grimacing at the extra pressure on her neck, but achieves a better angle from which to headbutt him. Which she does. That gets him off her. Air rushes through her, forcing a coughing fit. She falls to her knees and tries to recover, tries not to feel like she’s going to cough up a lung, and surveys the scene before her. Looks like he hit a chair on the way down. Probably not dead. Not that she’s going to wait around to find out. Then there’s a touch at her back—she whirls around, swinging blindly—

“Stop! For the love of God, Jules, stop, it’s me!”

She blinks hard, eyes watering. A final cough or two. The woman before her is tall, dark-haired, and blurred by a slimy sting of melting mascara. Juliette wipes the black gunk from her eyes and meets her gaze.

[color=92278f]“Sorry,”[/color] she says. It sounds hollow, even to her.

[hr]

The cold drum of rain is a blessed reprieve from the club. That many bodies packed into one place is suffocating—dancing produces just as much body heat as fighting. A pleasant shiver runs through Juliette as she drops her bag next to a bass guitar. It’s smothered in cat stickers. Charming. Helen—that’s the woman’s name, revealed through some questioning that was sure to convince her Juliette was either crazy or concussed, hopefully the latter—is saying something again. Juliette turns to her, watching her lock the door to the apartment with more force than is strictly necessary. [color=92278f]“Sure, just, um, give me a minute. I have to go to the bathroom.”[/color]

Helen looks at her like she is, in fact, crazy, but that’s a problem for after briefing. She shoots her an apologetic smile that melts immediately into a wince. Yeah, she definitely needs to check on her jaw.

Setting out into the tiny apartment, it’s easy enough to locate the door to the bathroom and lock it before being questioned further. She fishes through the pockets of her jeans—black, bootcut, and covered in rhinestones. Tacky as all hell, but… well, at least her host knew how to catch people’s attention. Not that it worked out for her.

Locating a smartphone in her pockets, she unlocks it with the fingerprint scanner. It doesn’t take long to access the Director’s forum. She’s hopeless with technology, but she can follow directions. Strings of code flow from her mind to the screen in steady taps. Not so different from sequencing DNA, at the end of the day. The display goes black. Then, bright, warm, galvanizing:

[color=f26522]"Welcome, Traveler 3599. Arrive at the coordinates 45.715103, 4.830390 to receive your first mission."[/color]