"What do you mean Sabbatical?" Esme barely looked up from the chaise longue she was lounging on, her attention mostly focused on putting an even second coat of electric green nail polish on. "Where would you even go? Back to Scotland? I've already told you, there's nothing for us there anymore."
Astrid let out a flummoxed sigh, "It really isn't any of your business where I end up going, that's kind of the whole point." She watched her elder sister with an almost predatory stare, keen to not miss a single expression. The silence hung in the air while Esme took a moment to examine her left hand.
"What do you think, too bright?" Esme held her hand out towards Astrid, in the way a mafioso might if they were offering a ring to be kissed.
"I think, I don't really give a fuck about whatever obnoxious ensemble you're preparing for." Astrid started to bounce her leg against the ground, trying and failing to be patient. "Yes, or no?"
"That's what I'm asking you, do my nails go with-"
"Cut the shit, Esme! I'm not talking about the nail polish, and you know it." She stood up, the force of which sent the chair she had been sitting in skittering across the ground. "Can I go on vacation and expect you to continue wiring money into my account? Or is this going to be the ballet lessons all over again?"
Esme frowned, giving her sister a concerned look, "I thought you made a lovely ballerina..." She wrinkled her nose and exhaled softly, "I don't suppose I can convince you otherwise?"
"No! I don't like dancing! At least not that kind of dancing, it's too stuffy and I feel like an idiot in those shoes." Despite herself, Astrid was smiling.
"I meant about the sabbatical."
"I know what you meant..."
Esme made eye contact with her sister. Despite being the older sibling, once Astrid was determined to do something, there was precious little Esme could do to stop her; it was partially why she was so valuable to their whole operation. Their siblings listened to Esme, but they looked up to Astrid. "Okay..."
"Okay?"
"Yes, okaay, fine. You can go on your sabbatical. Gods know you deserve it..." Esme put the lid back on her nail polish and took out a bottle of acetone from the basket by her feet. "You at least could have told how garish this green was first; saved us both a bit of time. When do you leave?"
"In the morning."
She uncapped the acetone, putting a cotton ball to the mouth of the bottle and upending it, "Don't leave without saying goodbye, I have a small parting gift for you. I'm sure the kids will want to see you one last time as well."
"You make it sound like we'll never see each other again."
"With this city? You never know."
Astrid eased up on the throttle just a bit, the Undercity slowing down just enough to make out street signs, or at least what passed for street signs in this part of the slums. Other bikers had started following her, no doubt intending to jump her and seize her ride for themselves; Esme had practically painted a target on her back by giving it to her, not that she minded. The turbine engine didn't so much as purr, as much as it droned; a nearly silent engine by virtue of its unique design. She grinned; at least life wasn't boring down here, and no matter what trouble she found herself in, it was, usually, due solely to her own actions.
Her speed continued to diminish as she waited for the miscreants to catch up to her, the sooner they were dealt with the better. The motorcycle lurched to a stop as she squeezed on the brakes and dug her feet into the ground. The first thug pulled up right next to her, in a practiced motion he drew the gun tucked into his pants and leveled it at Astrid's head. He kept the barrel steady despite the steady rumbling of the crotch rocket he was perched on; maybe he wasn't a total rookie, though his ability to case a target definitely still needed work.
Pretending not to notice him, she stared in the opposite direction, acting as if she were examining a building in great detail. "Am I even close to Northbridge?"
Her would-be assailant cleared his throat, thumbing back the hammer on his machine pistol, "Lucky for you, it's only a few days' walk."
"Thanks," Without looking at him she drawled out, "How long a ride?"
"Maybe the better part of a day? Too bad you don't have-"
Astrid interrupted him by grabbing the barrel of the pistol with her left hand and attempting to remove it from his hand; instead, the man came with the gun, his grip refusing to relinquish the weapon he was using to compensate for his own obvious inadequacy. Her lip curled up with slight disgust as she continued to pull him off his bike.
The wannabe thug hung just off the ground, his feet struggling to touch the street as she held the gun above her head. He turned back to the biker gang, "Hey guys! A little help?"
Turning to look at the kid, she felt a little bad. He couldn't have been any older than her little brother Cheng, and his crew definitely weren't doing him any favors by having him approach her first. With a grunt she planted her foot against his midsection and kicked him into the street; as he flew, his index finger pulled the trigger for a fraction of a second before he lost his grip, spraying several bullets wildly into the air.
The biggest of the biker gang got off his bike, taking a long stride towards her, "You have done and fucked up now, little lady."
"Little?" His words irked her more than she would have liked. Standing up, she put the kickstand down and stared at who she could only assume was their leader. Interlocking her fingers, she raised both hands above her head and stretched, "I guess I've got a few moments to spare." Putting a fist to her chin, she cracked her neck and smiled, "I'll be taking all the Clat you lot are worth though, consider it a fee for wasting my time."
The big man swaggered towards her, easily over three hundred pounds, probably sporting some heavy modifications; whatever it took to survive in the slums and rise to the top of a gang, even if it wasn't a particularly impressive gang. With a wild grin, she matched his gait, step for step, and when he cocked back his fist to swing, she mirrored the motion. Her fist collided with his, the impact pushing her back over half a foot, the skin on her knuckles splitting open and beginning to bleed as pain traveled up her arm. "Tá tú láidir," She conceded.
With a grunt of acknowledgment, the leader cocked the same fist back and threw another punch. Again, she mirrored his motion and slammed her balled-up hand into his cybernetic arm. This time, however, she gave it a little more 'oomph.' Blood pounded in her ears, her heart racing as her superhuman physiology took effect. A satisfying crunch was the only sound she could hear over the roar of battle, her punch carrying through the opponent's forearm, shattering whatever passed for a humerus on the big lug.
He screamed, perhaps in pain, or more likely, the pain receptors had been turned off in that arm and it was a cry of sheer outrage. Astrid let out a similar cry, her vocalization being one of thrill. Rising to his full height, the leader took a powerful step forward and snapped his free leg forward, it almost connected with her sternum, almost sending her to the ground. Instead, she sidled to the side ever so slightly and caught his leg underneath her left arm.
Twisting her body so that his shin was touching her chest, she drove her right elbow down through his knee, a visceral spray of synthetic blood decorating the pavement. "Ach tá mé níos láidre." Looking up, her attention turned to the rest of the gang as the leader fell to the ground, making various pitiful noises while his immunoblockers struggled to keep up with the sudden blood loss.
"So! How's gang morale? Anyone up for round two?"
In unison, the other fifteen or so bikers revved their engines and disappeared into the slums. The one she had kicked off his bike was last to leave, but just barely; the guy was a quick little thing when he wanted to run, he even left his glock behind. She had the sudden realization that it wasn't the only thing being left behind.
"Wait, wait, what the hell? You guys are leaving him?! Come back!" She started after them a few steps before realizing it would be pointless, "Please?" She stared down at the leader who presumably just lost his crew, along with a few limbs, "Good help is a bitch to find, huh?" He let out several more half-coherent swears while she commiserated with him. "Tell me about it. The only Ripperdoc that'll work on your sorry excuse of chrome charges an arm and a leg- er, no offense."
"Fifteen hundred Clat?! That arm was worth two thousand alone!"
"Yeah, it was, before you smashed it to bits. I'll be lucky to even pull intact wiring out of it. Not to mention you won't let me just zero his sorry ass, so I'm spending a fucking fortune on meds to keep a banged-up torso alive!" The Ripperdoc looked up from his work, cyber eyes gleaming with thousands of lenses, each one displaying a slightly different perspective; it made him look like a fly; even the way he tended to rub his hands together reminded her of the insects.
The ex-gang leader, on the other hand, looked so at peace; a profoundly at peace expression on his face, despite being an unconscious torso on an operating table. Every so often he wiggled his nose as if he might have just been sleeping, and not doped up on UltraMorphine and HyperEdoxaban. "How much do we save if you pull the plug?"
"At this point? I dunno, maybe seven hundred Clat?"
Astrid scoffed, "Seven hundred Clat isn't worth my soul, thank you very much. Keep him hooked up." Standing up, she stretched her legs slightly. Sitting on her right foot had proven less than ideal, and as she rose telltale tingles and pinpricks told her that it had fallen asleep. "Whatever," She dropped the Clatter into her backpack, "Getting more and more difficult to make a living down here. If I had known how much the Horde skimmed off the top I might have stayed topside."
"You know Astrid, if you're looking to make some real coin, rumor has it JAHANNAM has been making moves recently, and they're looking to recoup their numbers."
"JAHANNAM? That Jazzercise place on the fourth street?"
"You're kidding, right? The fastest-growing gang in the Undercity? That favorite Corpo scapegoat when things go south? They control all of Northbridge." He gave her an exasperated sigh, "Lockdown's crew?"
Astrid shrugged.
The Ripper let out a cacophonous peal of laughter, "Oh-ho-ho, you're too much Astrid. What have you been doing down here? Swinging first and asking questions later?" Her blank stare was all the answer he needed, "Well if you do end up asking around or looking into it, Megahertz is the person to talk to, she should get your foot in the door at least."
Shoving her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, Astrid started out of the Doctor's office, mumbling to herself, "Usually just kick the door down anyways."
Northbridge loomed below her, the under-cityscape had started subtly changing a few miles ago until the stark contrast became impossible to ignore, a green haze hanging over the depths of the city proper. She was headed into gang territory now, all of Titan's Fall was gang territory, in a sense, but this was gang territory. A no man's land separated the area from the rest of the Undercity, a perimeter of land that no one saw fit to claim; not that she could blame them, from what she had heard the past few days, even the Halcyon Horde had a working agreement to stay out of their turf. Respect like that was bought the hard way.
Leaning against her bike, Astrid snaked the last half of the haggis sandwich she had bought out of her bag and tried once more to discern what type of sauce they had used. The taste was familiar, but something she hadn't tasted since childhood. How quaint she would run into the flavor again while wandering the American slums. Washing it down with a freshly opened box of nutrient juice, she got back on her bike and raced down the hill into the cloying fog.
Pushing three hundred kilometers, the metallic skeletons of fallen buildings rose up on either side of her, red and blue lights descending from the sky in the distance. Patriotic snowflakes of light dappled the shadowy sky as they intruded upon the underworld. Frowning, she wondered briefly just what was causing this sudden incursion from the surface. Any further time she might have spent pondering the notion was cut short; upon hooking a turn she found herself speeding into a police blockade. "What the f---" Pulling back on the throttle, the bike's engine roared to life, her words lost to the wind as it tore past her.
"Turn back! This part of Northbridge is closed to civilian traffic." The police got into formation, one of the more enterprising ones even threw out a spike strip, not that it would've stopped her. "Three seconds to comply, then we do this the hard way." The bike sped up. "Three! two!" The police sergeant swallowed hard, slum dwellers were all batshit insane. "One!" The squad opened fire, a hail of bullets, laser shots, and plasma bolts tearing through the undercity.
With a grin, Astrid entered her breaker form and slammed on the brakes, sending the back wheel soaring into the air as she pulled a stoppie. In a practiced motion, her hands outstretched overhead, catching herself and her bike as they started to collide with the ground. Circuiting her strength through her arms, she bent at the elbows and then threw herself up and forward, soaring over the blockade as she did a ten-eighty flip.
Her left leg extended slightly as she fell, touching the ground and transitioning into a slide, bike still between her legs. The moment she saw her chance, she let the bike's still spinning tires touch the ground; they found purchase and her body was yanked along after the bike, speeding away from the blockade. The rest of the city was crawling with police as well, there'd be hell to pay for that at some point, the Undercity didn't take kindly to interlopers.
In fact... She didn't take well to interlopers, and assuming everything went well with the main Boss, this was to be her turf for the foreseeable future. Stabbing her hand into the ground, the bike pivoted around it until she let go, sending the bike rocketing off in the direction she had come from. The first cop got a bead on her, unfortunately, he was on her side of the barricade and there was nothing between them. At the last second, she pulled the bike up onto its back tire and jumped off, letting it collide with the man. Looking around she tried to think of the easiest way to deal with the rest.
Something shot her in the back of the head, metal ringing on metal as it collided with her skull, turning around she sighted a burly man with a semiautomatic rifle. "Wǒ láile," Arching her arm back, she raised one foot straight into the air as if she were pitching, then her leg came down, her arm extending forward as her hand formed into a metal sphere. She flew forward, propelled by the several hundred-mile-per-hour fastball, fist colliding with the man's head as it created a satisfying crunch. Upon impact, her free hand grabbed his rifle and her mutable form coalesced around it so that she knelt in a firing position.
Putting two shots into the nearest deputy's center mass she stood back up and slammed the butt of the gun into the face of the officer running up behind her. Her would-be assailant's hand went to his face, clutching at the blood pouring from his helmet. "Déan aithrí!" Grabbing him by the head she charged forward, bullets riddling his body as the rest of his squad vainly tried to slow her advance. His body slammed into the first of the firing squad, her free hand forming into a blade that swung horizontally through the rest of them. The strike stopped two men short of bisecting them all, her arm catching on a riot shield.
The riot cop gave her a smug grin, "Tinkertech, not even a brute like you can get-" Her arm disfigured and wrapped around the man, squeezing him tight to the shield. Spinning on one foot, she worked up centrifugal force. Once, twice, three times, four times around, before releasing her hold on the man and sending him soaring into the distance. The last member of the firing squad raised both of his hands, dropping the laser rifle he had been holding. "P-please, I have a family. I didn't ask to be deployed down here, just... Just let me live."
Her eyes scanned his face, he was about her age, inexperience plastered across his face. Whatever post he had been working on prior to this assignment, he was still relatively green, but could she really afford to show mercy? Her decision was made for her as something exploded above her, launching a weighted net straight down, electricity coursing through it. As it landed, a lethal voltage coursed through the man whose life she had just spared.
The sergeant turned to the only other surviving member of the assault, "Anti-Brute technology, it's all a simple matter of having the right tools for the j-" A silvery metal spike exploded up from the ground, impaling the man and exiting through the center of his clavicle. Astrid poured out of the ground until her body was standing below the sergeant, holding him suspended in the air on a forked branch of metal.
She looked up at him, "You killed your man back there. He had a family depending on him, and you sacrificed his life, for what? To encroach on someone else's home? You corpo rats are all the same."
The sergeant didn't respond, or perhaps he tried to but couldn't with several metal spikes piercing vital organs. The last member of the blockade group fumbled for his sidearm, clicking the safety off and aiming it at her, "D-drop him or I shoot."
She didn't move for a second, then her head slowly turned until her eyes met his, contempt filled her gaze, lips turning up in a sneer. "I wouldn't if I were you."
He fired three times, each shot ricocheting wildly off of her, the fourth shot hit an unfortunate angle and the bullet bounced off of her and back into his leg. With a swear he dropped his gun, clutching at his leg while blood spurted wildly out of the wound.
With a snort she released the sergeant, letting him fall to the ground, riddled with holes where the metal had been protruding out of him. Taking a few steps towards the last surviving member of the group she squatted down next to him so they were at roughly the same height. "Tough break kid, looks like you hit an artery." She gestured towards the blood pooling around him. "See? It's almost a black color, which means it's lifeblood. You're going to bleed out if you don't do something."
"Fuck! W-what should I do?"
Her shoulders moved in a half shrug, "Got a med hypo?"
"O-O'Malley does, the one with the Tinker shield, he was squad medic."
"Sorry to hear that." Standing up, she dusted herself off, "O'Malley went flying about a mile that way." She pointed to the east, "Even if I felt obliged to help, you'd be a corpse before I got there." Walking to her bike, she picked it up and got back on, "In your next life, when you are picking something to fight for, make sure it is also worth dying for." She revved the engine, "Suaimhneas síoraí."
"W-where are you going? You can't leave me here, fucking slum bitch!"
Her bike carried her away from the carnage and deeper into Northbridge.