[b]Elsie Detchkiss/The C.E.[/b]

Downtown Urban City sprinted down Gotham Boulevard like one of those endless corridors only found in dreams. Skyscrapers moved aside near the end of the boulevard to make way for Metropolis Square, still cordoned off from Lady Asyr's fight. Elsie was sweating beneath the bulky white hardsuit, trying not to think about the state of her hair. Helmet hair was bad enough when she didn't have to lug the damn suit over half of Urban City chasing after an arms deal. Her specially-modified (i.e. doorless) Saab convertible (white, of course) lay blocks away. 

"Should've stayed in the frelling car," she muttered, clomping her way down yet another random alley. The White Text had pointed her in this direction half an hour ago, but there wasn't anything [i]here[/i]. "Frelling White Text. Frelling job. At least you knew when things were going to Nar-Sie on the space station." The energy gun and plasma cutter whapped against the hard suit with every step she took. Elsie was very near the panicked crowd now. Their dull murmur was cut through by mechanically augmented police voices, insisting everyone remain calm. 

The alley ended in an intersection. Trash piled up high in the dirt-covered asphalt near the corner. Deep ruts ran the length of the cross-street; clearly the garbage truck ran through this alley. It must not have had a chance to get here yet; not surprising with the crowd. The fight had made Elsie concerned, but at this point, she just wanted to find the alley where the arms deal was supposed to be taking place. To the right, the alley opened straight into Metropolis Square. All Elsie could see was the back of a police cyborg. It reminded her of the space station's cyborgs, of watching halves of researchers getting dragged along a corridor to medical bay by efficient hovering white machines, of seeing ropes of alien green through her mesons, hearing nothing but her own breath as she hacked gooey holes into the blob with the plasma cutter-

[i]{"Oh, Nar-Sie,"}[/i] she said. She wasn't sure when the hallucination had turned from flashback into the clean white text boxes. Right now, she didn't care, she just had to leave the intersection before the buildings closed in like corridor walls. [i]{"Come on, just stop it! I don't need this right now!"}[/i] she shouted into the alley. The White Text stayed in front of her vision. Elsie ran blindly forward, trying to make out the wireframe in the back of her mind. 

At this point, Elsie felt a sudden urge to stop. She really did feel like taking a rest, and maybe collapsing against the wall in a heap.

But Elsie kept running anyway, despite the White Text's best efforts to keep her from- the hallucination stopped abruptly, and a concrete wall filled her vision. With a plastic smack, she ran straight into the wall, stumbled back, and sat dazed. On the wall opposite, a woman was fumbling to zip up a backpack, hands trembling. It took a moment for the scene to come into focus. Elsie checked her watch. It had been a full two hours since she'd first started looking for the gun deal. Clearly it was too late for her to do anything about it.

And damnit, she didn't care any more, her face was dying and some annoying stray piece of hair kept finding its way into her mouth, so she took off her helmet. It wasn't like the other occupant of the alley would recognize her, or even care, probably. She pushed up the Mesons, revealing her violet eyes. She could tell that her face was a mess; even though the suit internals had an atmos cooler built in, it was still a lot of work to move around in.

"Sorry," she said, "It's just I couldn't really breathe anymore and..."

That's when she looked at the woman across from her properly and saw the bruises and cuts. Elsie shut her mouth. Whoever the woman was, she'd been beaten. Recently. Elsie suddenly felt inadequate. If Lady Asyr were here, she wouldn't be complaining. Lady Asyr probably would have immediately seen and helped this poor woman, gun dealers be damned. Even so, Elsie wasn't sure what to say. She could try and find the (husband? boyfriend? lover?) person who'd done it, but that didn't seem like it would help. Elsie just wanted to take the woman back to her crowded little apartment (smaller, crowded quarters felt more like home to Elsie) and make her some tea.

"Listen," Elsie started, "I, um, have a..." (but what if the woman was some deranged junkie?) "...thing about my face, so don't tell anyone what I look like, hey?" she finished lamely. How did Lady Asyr make this look so easy? Well, she couldn't just leave the woman like this. Elsie grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen from a pouch on her suit. "I don't know what happened, or whatever," (come on, just spit it out!) "but if you need... something, I guess you can call me. Uh, Elsie. That's my name, I mean. Oh! Don't tell anyone my name's Elsie." She left the scrap of paper with her number under a rock. "Damnit," she mumbled. This was [i]hard[/i].

She sighed in defeat, clambered to her feet, and started the long trek back to her car, equipment still whapping her with every step. It had been a [u]very[/u] bad day. She remembered to don her helmet, hiding her identity again, at the last second.