A woman, neither young, nor old, sits alone in a booth made of glass and plywood. Light pours in over her features, reflecting a rich vermillion off a discolored eye, granting voluptuous black hair the quality of ink, it gave her sleeveless dress, an exotic pattern of creamy orange and silver, an almost otherworldly aura. She is completely radiant, and, from the looks of it, bored. Her legs are crossed, although one may not have been able to tell with the length of her dress. Her hands are crossed on her lap, only occasionally leaving their position to wipe an errant ball of sweat away. Her eyes are closed, only occasionally flashing open to glare at the wires lining the clear and beige walls of the booth. She’s beautiful. But she isn’t serene, she isn’t here to commune with the spirits, or meditate with the desert sun. How she shifts her weight on the bench makes it clear she is uncomfortable here. She’s only here to wait for... something. Her only companions in the booth are the wires and small contraption it houses. Outside, unseen, a Fire Dancer, a Wind Caller, and a Mute Guardian patrol the desert. A light sand storm churns waves of amber grain past the sides of the recently constructed rectangular cell. Already the elements, the glistening sands, appear to be consuming this structure, and the regal looking woman sitting comfortably inside. She knows this isn’t the case, she isn’t a native to this area of Dust, but even with her one good eye she can see that she and the sand share an eye of gold, and in the whipping desert sand’s case, it’s gleaming golden eye is larger than its stomach. The wind too erratic, the sand too indecisive to cause any real structural damage. This isn’t nature planning a reclamation of the woman’s lone booth, or the tiny town of Dead-End. This is the desert throwing a tantrum. From a distance, all that can be seen are dunes weakly changing position around the woman and her booth, while it continues to stand firm. Inside, she continues to wait firm. After a moment, which to her must have felt akin to an eternity, the radio sparked to life. Without wasting any time, the woman reached over to answer, wincing slightly at the movement in her arms. More sparks as she picked up the speaker and receiver. [center]<[i][b]*bzzt*[/b] Hello? Vladimira?[/i]>[/center] [hr] Vladimira for her part, did not have any guards. She was on a hill that had been chosen as both a radio broadcast location, and a sniper’s nest due to its height giving it clear air all around and a commanding view of the land for kilometers, even reaching out to the sea. She felt more than a bit exposed sitting up here fiddling with the aging shortwave. Some of the wiring was uninsulated and some of it frayed, all of them old, but the radio worked and that’s what mattered. She glanced around some, making sure nobody was sneaking up on her before turning the dials to the correct frequency. “He-o? Vladi-ra?” It was clearly Lucania’s voice coming through the radio, but not exactly clear. “Hold on a sec, just gotta… okay there we go, should work now.” She waited for a moment before clearing her throat, “So, hello.” [hr] The radio wave bounce from one island to another. Carrying the almsot giddy chatter of the two women, joined by a combined investment in Wintergold. A woman by the name of Lucania, former mafioso, current Prime Minister, sits in the outskirts of Dead-End. Her call had been sent out, and eventually, it came back to her, invisible frequencies weaving around amber sands. “Hello, Vladimira!” Instantly, her features changed, and Lucania found herself speaking into the radio with gaiety, “Are you well? Anything to report? Consider me mystified they managed to get you set up with a radio booth this fast, it took Dead-End’s sheriff nearly 3 weeks to organize the construction of this makeshift center… call me crass, but it looks like an outhouse! I’m honestly beginning to wonder whether purchasing this town is even a good idea anymore, they are such inefficient workers.” [hr] Ineffectually holding back a snicker, Vladimira continued fiddling with the dial on the radio, “Well it can’t really look like an outhouse, or you wouldn’t be sitting in it. I’d bet it’s closer to a sedan chair without the handles.” The haphazard generator she’d scraped together a few days back began to shudder and clank, to which she responded with an offhand kick. “And I’d guess your mystification is justified, I had to put this thing together myself. More attacks from New Syracuse mean Stinger’s got nobody free to help establish such luxuries as electricity or radio communication. Luckily they did have an old shortwave. Honestly it’s like the Old West here, all we’re missing are the… whatever they were called, Apaches, Comanches, Injuns? They’ve actually got a saloon with a cheesy name and watered down whiskey, still don’t know where they’re getting it from. The door to the place even has bullet holes from shootouts that weren’t quite at high noon but close enough. If you find any leather chaps on the mainland send them over on the next ship so I can complete things.” [hr] Lucania gave a slight nod, knowingly unseen, she was aware it meant nothing to Vladimira. “Of course…” Lucania pulled a notepad from a purse, “Production in Harlem has been rather slow as of late, I’m afraid. They’ve been facing the fire on both fronts, Motum Diversum has laid claim to half the city, and Forsaken death squads seem to be targeting the farms, which makes making leather less of a priority for a lot of ranchers, who need to sell half their herd just to pay for protection…” A knock came from the glass. Lucania, not quite startled, trailed off to turn to mute Englishwoman standing outside of the glass. [i]‘Five minutes,’[/i] Carmela held up a calloused, caramel, hand. Lucania only had five minutes-- she didn’t know what was coming, but something had found her-- a Forsaken assassin squad? Hollow stampede?-- it didn’t quite matter to her. She knew the time she had, she’d use it effectively. Lucania turned to speak into the mic. “Can you think of anything else you may need?” [hr] Vladimira paused, whipping her head around at the feeling she was being watched. Seeing nothing, she turned back around, but kept one side of her head away from the radio to better hear anything that might be trying to sneak up on her. “Well, if you could clone fifty veteran Rangers and send them over here with magic wands. Failing that- ammunition, food, water, spare parts, diesel… oh, and sandbags.” She had a great feeling of unease, like someone was… She ducked, at the same time something whizzed by overhead, but there was no crack of a gunshot. Not wasting breath on swearing, Vladimira grasped for her pistols- she hadn’t bothered to bring a rifle, the heat was clearly getting to her- and pulled them from their holsters. The two guns were so heavily modified at this point that they couldn’t really be called TT-33’s anymore, more like Frankenpistols. Flicking off the safeties, she advanced slowly, crawling in the dirt as she watched for any sign of her assailant. Shuffling forward, she sheltered behind a piece of metal sticking up from the ground. She couldn’t see her assailant, but she did know which direction they were shooting from. A vicious grin came to her face as the trenches dug during several months of fighting came into her view. Those would do nicely, a long rifle wouldn’t be much use in those, and chances where the foolhardy sniper was in them as well. What concerned her was that it had come from their side, not that of New Syracuse. Putting her guns away for a second to don her mask in order to muffle her breathing, she stopped in her tracks. Somebody was around the corner, they’d shifted and the distinct sound of a bolt being racked met her ears. She pulled one of the Tokarevs out, her left hand flexing as her pockets flew open and their contents concentrated around her hand, forming into a wickedly pointed stabbing-arm-thing. This would be fun. The bottom of the trenches was littered in dropped weapons, ammunition, and even a grenade with a pin that had never been pulled. She scooped that up, yanking the pin out and tossing it around the corner, reflexively sheltering behind a crate even though there was at least a meter of dirt between her and the explosion. Giving whoever was on the other side no chance to recover, she dashed around the corner and opened fire, before her eyes widened as at least five well armed men wearing the insignia of mercenaries from New Syracuse who’d somehow remained unscathed responded in kind. Miraculously, she wasn’t hit and wasn’t in the mood for pressing that miracle any further, and dove behind the cover of the dirt wall. Heart jackhammering in her chest, she frantically looked around for something to turn the tide. They would almost certainly be- a grenade landed at her feet, its pin prominently missing. Her first instinct was to run, but that would’ve just killed her a bit more painfully -from blood loss, and probably gang rape knowing how things worked in the shithole of a city they apparently came from-. Instead, she grabbed the chunk of metal and lobbed it back as quickly as she could, ducking down all the same as it exploded in mid air above the heads of the mercenaries. Resuming her frantic searching, her eyes alighted on a particular weapon and flashed in giddy excitement, despite the circumstances. She slid over and grabbed the PKM, giving it a rapid check to make sure it wouldn’t explode if she started shooting, and dashed over to the wall. She paused for a moment and listened- moaning, and heavy breathing. One voice whispered a bit too loudly about pulling back and leaving her alone. It was adorable really, did they think she would fall for that? Suckers. Shouldering the machine gun, she rounded the corner with a malicious smile painted on her face. The men -there were three standing, one lying still, and one moaning on the ground, who the others had circled and begun what looked like first aid- looked up and scrambled for their weapons. “This is what we do to mean people in the trenches,” she began, but before she could finish her statement she was already shooting. Firing in short bursts, the weapon tore holes in the first man’s chest, to say nothing of what came out the back, and he crumpled without a sound; the next went down just as quickly, a slightly longer burst riddling him with bullets. The third however, had his submachine gun up and aimed directly at her. They opened fire at the same time, the 7.62x54R rounds of the PKM tearing straight through whatever armor he might’ve had, while the much weaker rounds of his own weapon slammed ineffectually into her DIY plate- with the exception of two that slammed home into the fleshy part of her thigh. Both of them dropped to the ground, albeit Vladimira’s was considerably more controlled. She was confident she wouldn’t die of blood loss, the bullets hadn’t seemed to hit anything major, just some of the extra curve she’d put on her thighs in the months she’d lived in considerable comfort in Russelgrad. Regardless, she tore a strip of bandage and wrapped it tightly around the wound, she’d have Pinprick take a look at it later. For now… Two of the men were still moving, the last one to go down, and his comrade wounded just prior by the grenade she’d thrown back. Neither seemed long for the world though, but she was determined to get what she could from them. “Name, and who hired you?” Growling at people was fun, she would admit, and the effect it usually had when coupled with serious injuries and stories of how she would make them talk usually had most people genuinely shaking in fear. This guy however, scoffed, “You can’t do anything, bitch. Five minutes at most and I’ll be dead. Not telling you shit.” She spoke sweetly, “Is that so?” Hurling the man into the wall of the trench, she grabbed him by his collar and hoisted him aloft, he was considerably taller than she was, and to get his feet off the ground she had to reach fairly far, but she managed it. “I may not be able to keep you alive for months and slowly extract what I need, but I can make those five minutes a lot more painful, so why don’t we make things easier on everyone?” He spat, landing a glob of blood and a tooth square on her cheek. “Fine, bitch, the name’s Wyatt, and someone wants you alive, for, y’know…” the man -Wyatt- grinned a bloody grin, missing a few teeth now, and reached down to grope her chest. Catching the offended hand in her own, Vladimira gathered some scrap around it and slowly began squeezing. “Wrong. Move.” As she crushed his hand to a pulp, she brought him closer, hissing into his face, “Who?” Wyatt smirked again, and then went limp. She looked at him -or rather, his corpse- and dropped it. Maybe the other woul- “Dead was an option if we had to, and right now…” she heard a faint mumbling, a whirled around to see Wyatt pointing a pistol at her with a crazed look in his eyes, “me.” She didn’t have enough time to react, she could’ve just ripped the pistol out of his hand from afar, but she had been caught off guard. It was so stupid really, she should’ve expected someone would play dead. The man fired, the crack of the pistol going off only once before she’d pulled it from his hand, but she still felt the bullet hit her ear. It was numb really, things tended not to hurt until a few seconds after, when one’s body finally realized part of it had been shot, or cut, or stabbed, or whatever. All she really cared about at that moment was that a few centimeters to the right, and she’d be dead. She crammed it all in the back of her mind, letting spur of the moment reflexes take over. She pulled her own pistol, putting a bullet into Wyatt’s head, then the heads of the other bodies laying around, and the other wounded man, she wouldn’t take any chances. Just in case though… Her arms were coated in blood not her own by the time she’d made it back to the radio. “Vladimira here, if you’re still present. I need you to see who in New Syracuse might have the resources to send bounty hunters after me- me in particular. They wanted me alive for someone who apparently wants to do some things to me that I’d rather not think about, tried hitting me with a tranquilizer rifle before I started hitting them with bullets.” She paused, “And maybe a helmet with some hearing amplification, I just took a bullet in my left ear and I can barely hear shit out of it.” [hr] One second, Lucania was speaking with Vladimira, the next, all she could hear were the explosions and gunshots coming from Vladimira’s end. Crossing her legs and resting her hands upon her knees, Lucania waited patiently for the conflict to end. This was becoming a regular occurrence. By the time Vladimira has dispatched her problem, Lucania found herself humming the tune of Blue Velvet in her booth. Snapping herself out of the trance as Vladimira finished, she felt an odd mixture of anticipation and concern answering again with little more than an audible nod. The more she considered Vladimira’s words, the more anxiety she found herself filled with. Lucania sighed and signed off, telling Vladimira that she’d look into it as soon as she could. The truth of the matter was she had been putting off disturbing the hornet’s nest that was the traitor owned Hedon territory until now. She knew she’d have to eventually, the two forces were too great, too conflicting in ideologies to [i]not[/i] eventually come to bear open arms against each other. It wasn’t like Paolo hadn’t been sending his spies and assassins after her from the get go-- he could afford to, he had all the bargaining chips-- he had the power, he had the Forsaken alliance, and he had her sister. In terms of possible actions, she felt paralyzed. The man was tumor she couldn’t do anything about… [i]...not directly, at least...[/i] The door to the booth opened, Lucania took the hand of her sworn guardian, the evermute Carmela, and found herself being led to a heavily armored limo by an Immortal entourage. Taking a seat in the back, her mind began to wonder, towards how she could deal with Forsaken, towards how she could cement an alliance with the Aqueous, towards the growing threat of the Sanguinous Papacy, towards… In a bit of a daze, Lucania looked towards the window, and the passing horizon, to see the threat she was narrowly avoiding. An approaching black mass on the horizon-- a hollow swarm. She smirked. [i]Called it.[/i]