You will save your city, or die trying.
Only Human (A Second Superhero Quest)
- Thread starter Dapperlad1
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Midnight Decisions 1.1
- Location
- Albania
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Its a cigarette-smoke sundown. Orange and dirtied with brown air from a lifetime-more, more than a lifetime of smog and fog pumping up from chimneys that once fuelled the heart of a city. The smell of rot is heavy in the air, like a solid wave of assailing scent which hits my senses as an unlucky person calling Yarport home.
Stone obelisks they call skyscrapers punch up past the clouds, ripping the white, fluffy things open with filthy concrete and steel, bright and shiny lights come out of the buildings, calling to the floating zeppelins, a relic from yesteryear that the city still desperately clings on to, glitz and glamour long long gone in the passage of years and the rotting of once shining foundations.
I breathe in on a rooftop, it's home here, it's always been home. I take another breath, and taste smog and rubber as someone's tires squeal an echo down the streets which pings off every surface to hit my ears. It's a familiar sound, though now oddly distant, like a fond, old memory of yesteryear. This place used to be better. I raise a cigarette to my lips, the taste of lemon sparking on the tip of my tongue and flowing with smoke all the way back.
A heavy scent of diesel rises from the handwrapped cigarette, and I again intake the city.
The ping of medical machinery is what I most easily hear in a dull, cold hospital room, colder than the rainy night outside. It's a part of the place though, more clinical that way, more controlling and more observatory. Keeps everyone sharper than warmth would, comfort would. Less mistakes. The two people, a man and a woman cut out of fancy clothes and intubated immediately are the swarming centre of attention.
I'm small here, Looking over the lip of a window to stare at them as the clicking, hissing and pinging gets louder, the doctors a little more frenzied, a little more worried. Every second a panic growing while snaking pulse-trackers jolt up and up and up like they're reaching for a sky they'll never get to before, with a jolt, they slow, stop.
It takes ten minutes for the doctors to give up. Time of death, 02:16 on March 18th, Two thousand.
Lets go back to home, miss." It's another voice, from someone tall, grown up. They're in blue, a police cap on their head and a tired, utterly tired look in their eyes. Even at this age, I understood that. They have kind features, the sort you'd get at fifty or sixty from age and life. They seem far too young for those. Officer Cooke, he's been around the whole time.
"Yes sir." It's an automatic response drilled in by years of living in a place where those words are seen as cute, nice and polite from a young girl. He leads me to a squad car, front seat, not back, and then drives home. Through silent streets in the mid-morning cold and rain, drenching the windows and doorways with their torrent, wiped away by the wipers and yet coming down nevertheless.
It's a blur, a heady blur, my chest gets choked up. Everything comes down on me. Tears intermix with rain.
Pieter is on a knee. He's my doctor. Has always been. It's another test result, "Miss Garner. As your guardian, I must ask that you apply yourself in schooling. I know it is a hard time for you, but we can't let life pass us by." Pieter is kind, nice and always supportive. Despite that, I glare at him from the edge of the bed, new makeup on my face and an X on my forearm.
"The hell does that matter? I've got a trillion-dollar company the day I turn eighteen!" My voice comes out rough and tired and angry, last night wasn't a night I slept much. And the bitter taste of tabs is still on my tongue. Hopefully he doesn't notice the reactions I'm having to it.
"Only if you aren't arrested before then. Excursions like this have to stop. Penelope, listen to me." His voice isn't rough, angry or tired. Its subtle twang of Afrikaans inside is layered with concern. It's worse somehow.
I stand up and push past him. He could stop me easily enough, he's not much taller than me, but exercise isn't exactly my favorite activity. He doesn't. I leave the room, storming free of the place in an angry huff and puff of distaste and anger. The world outside doesn't help it. Makes the venom worse. Makes it crawl up to my throat, threaten to spew out at everything and everyone.
It's a board of directors, all older men with friendly eyes and killer smiles that'd love to have what I have. That'd love to have anything really. Their intense greed falls off them like a curtain of filthy air, like the city air is nowadays.
"Miss Garner, welcome!" One speaks, a name drifting from my mind like a shadow, slinking away as unimportant somehow, "Happy birthday first of all!" He's jovial, affable, fat. Like an over-fed snake, trying to shed its skin but being unable to slip out.
"And second of all?" I bite back, the fancy suit and business skirt I've been dressed in sitting wrong, annoying and the atmosphere of barely concealed greedy slime and hungry stares making any act feel like a defensive one.
"And second of all, we'd like to congratulate you on your new ownership of Garner and Associates." Another voice, similar to the first in every respect except vocal. It comes from a woman, one of three here, somehow more sharklike than anyone else, more honed by competition. "And would like to recommend a new course of action!"
The woman is pale, sallow and thin, the sort of thin that plastic surgery over and over and over can provide, a moneyed thin, an artificial one, borne of the scalpel and the pump. It makes me immediately hate her. Hate her like everyone else in the room.
"What's that?" The benefit of the doubt is often too much, but I still offer it, at least for now.
And then words start flooding, spreadsheets and power points and numbers that seem to represent something inane. Something that means something. Money maybe? Property? Power? It represents people most of all, a little header on every page that keeps the company aware of the near-infinite wealth Garner and Associates commands.
It's hell.
It's cold on a mountain top. It's a fairly logical thing to think, but it doesn't really make sense until I'm there. Howling wind dragging vestiges, little frangible chunks of warmth free into the air behind, equipment and money buying time, not safety. White snow deeply inhales the life from my boots, and when the winds stop, the false-warmth of outside being colder than my body is a comfort to enjoy, but not fall into.
The cavern I've found shelter, the cavern that lets the wind stop is still cold, it'll still be my doom, so I grit my teeth behind a thin sheet of cloth that tries to keep my lungs warm enough to breathe here, and haul myself free of ice and stone, ignoring the long-frozen corpse of a climber of years, decades or even centuries previous, preserved in water-crystal.
Up and up and up, pitons slam into ice, drill through stone, picks provide quick holds. And then something happens, something unpredictable, a stroke of probability outside the ken of mortals to manage. The ice cracks, the block comes apart into a spray. A gasp leaves me.
The snow isn't soft.
Waking up with my back to stone is...well not the worst place I've woken up. Feeling like half the bones in my body are broken isn't too unfamiliar either. Actually having them broken is new, and a movement makes the shards crackle against each other and shred through flesh by the micrometer, drawing another pained gasp from me.
"Calm, please, calm." An accented voice, asian, local, comes along. It's someone in a coat in green, looks like an ancient model, at least fifty years old in make, some soviet type. Or maybe PRC type thing.
"Fuck off," I grumble, still feeling the sliding chunks before I stop moving with a huff of pain. The man comes into my line of sight, he's tall from where I'm laying, but that's not saying much, bald head, reddened ears from the cold and dark brown eyes that seem black in the dim lighting of what feels like a temple, "Where am I?"
He shakes his head, "Sorry miss, get translate!" The man says, trying to fiddle with a phone, tapping up an app that briefly reminds me of Google Translate. It is, that's exactly what it is.
I sigh, and repeat myself, slowly, loudly and clearly. "Where, am, I." The app intakes it, a loading circle repeatedly spinning before it translates, he reads it and then speaks into it in...Mandarin. I think. Maybe. It sounds like the Mandarin I heard finding my way through Manchuria.
The screen is turned towards me, the app says, 'Greater Hinggan'. Oh, well, that's the mountain I was climbing just...a bit ago. The next question slips free from me without much thought, "Today's date?" The man has to scramble to tap the app's voice recognition button, getting to it too late, forcing me to repeat, "Today's date?"
He looks at the translation, while that's happening, I glance around at stone walls, the engravings on them being in Russian, or Cyrillic, whatever the difference is. This looks and feels like a bunker. Its air is that stale sort, rarely exposed to air and life, a common sight for urban exploration in parts of the world that are more torn up and broken than the good ol' US of A.
Light hits my eyes, they dilate, the screen says Friday. I was climbing Monday. And judging from the crackle of broken glass in my back pocket, I'm freshly short of my own phone. *Fuck*.
Snow shoves at my legs, having to dig through the thigh high layers of the stuff in an aged and ragged hiking outfit is hellish. Still, there's a goal here, someone to track down, to meet, my lungs heave and stinging with cold air slipping into them. Siberia is a painful mistress, and this winter is particularly bad, howling blizzard and all.
*Should have stayed with the damned Buddhists*. Runs through my head as I stumble and nearly fall before continuing. Muscles aching and bones only recently healed enough to move. In the distance, salvation, a town. The town I was looking for. Through the white haze of snow and ice, little squares that *look* like a building-well, a set of them.
Its only a small subjective icy eternity before I *shove* through the door, it barely moves, but it does, and I fall into what feels like boiling heat after the cold outside. My head nearly bounces off the hard concrete flooring and I let out a breath of relief. Or maybe a groan of utter spent exhaustion. My mouth feels frozen and yet warm.
After some amount of time, I look up and over, trying to find who I'm looking for. Roughs and toughs from across the criminal world all coming here to roost. *There.* He's sitting still with absolutely no interest in me, hands scarred at the knuckles and palm riddled with scabs from decades of conflict.
"You! I'll pay you! Train me." I croak out loudly to him in broken Russian, my best.
He stares at me.
I'm sweating my life out in the cold, droplets turning to steam off my face as I *suffer* under tutelage. He didn't want money, I don't even know his *fucking* name. Just the fact that he's decided to physically *murder* me by way of training.
"Up, the log." He calmly barks like a bulldog, and I rush forth to a log, stumbling, bashing my face into it and lifting the thing, groaning with a nose that's almost assuredly broken. Blood spatters onto the snow I move.
The little tumblers and mechanisms of a lock are interesting, well, they would be if any mistake in the picking method wasn't rewarded with a harsh *smack* on my back with a baton, "Again, faster, you don't have time." My trainer barks.
Whilst internally I have *plenty* to say, externally, it seems a bad idea. Instead, I replace the pins and push the tumbler around, it wiggles, I count, *four, five, six, seven--* The tumbler clicks, the test door of some ancient shack swings open.
I don't get hit.
"So *why* are you hanging around some *nobody* village?" I ask, more than a little *non-sober* courtesy of the freely available *hard* Kombucha around here, the tangy flavour bouncing on my tongue, "And *what's* your name? It can't *actually* be Bogatyr!"
Its been awhile, a year I think? I'm covered in the tiny scars of training, and the large ones too. He stares at me, six feet and a few extra inches of some sort of slavic, Russian I think, based on accent, but that might an affectation.
"You don't need to know." He answers, and the scar that consumes half his face of burnt, gnarled flesh twists and turns oddly as he does. "You are done." Bogatyr states suddenly, and then points to the door.
"What?" I drunkenly ask, blinking.
"You are done. There's nothing to learn that I can teach. Go home." He repeats himself, a rare fact. I freeze, a little icicle of uncertainty entering me as I consider that statement. There's no reason to be nervous, however, I recall plenty of lessons on what nerves get you.
"Fine." I sober fast, its time to brave the blizzard. "I won't see you again."
"If you've luck." He answers, and then. The elements confront me.
"Miss Garner! How are you!" An older looking man in a business suit states warmly. Then another repeats his sentiment in another slightly similar set of words, then another, then another. A harpy-swarm of special interests that see me as their golden ticket, a little wine, a little dine and suddenly they'll be able to manipulate me somehow.
Its a lost cause, "I'm doing great! Back in the saddle already! I've got a few ideas for the company direction, I was looking to take the Boards opinions under advisement!" The wording makes their faces imperceptibly fall. The next hour is even less pleasant for them.
I'm by far the majority shareholder, one last gift from mom and dad. The last they'll ever give me. The city is slick with rain outside of a plate-glass window that forms the left wall of the meeting room. A colossal round table filled with the shouting distaste of former millionaires.
"And with that, ladies and gentlemen, you'll all find your new positions, as per state law, mailed to you. Equivalent in salary of course, *though*." I indulge, letting a wry, if modest smirk enter my features. They *explode.*
"You can't *do this!*" One shouts, and *that* gets on my nerves. It strikes a point of my mind that's been untouched for years.
"*Yes.* I can. You're leeches, parasites, filth-soaked animals that've been scavenging at the *heels* of your betters. Titans that built this city with their *own, two, hands.*" I *glare* at him with every ounce of violence I can muster, a tidal wave compared to the *human rat* across from me, fat and turgid with the filthy wealth, wearing a suit that's cheap, because even his comfort isn't worth his health.
Some sputter escapes him as I continue, "I am *letting* you keep your positions, your comfort, because despite my personal distaste for *most* of you, this place was still supported partially by your filthy labours. Your *awful* efforts." My voice is acidic, even I can tell I've gone into verbal violence with a gusto.
"So *get out*, go home, *wait* for *my word*. And be thankful for it." I finish my growled statement and firmly guide them with a pointed finger towards the door. The sleek black gloves cover up any scars there, letting me seem just eccentric, not violent.
A year here, a year at this place. Charity programmes, work recovery for the recently incarcerated, drug rehabilitation regimens free of charge. Employment and educational opportunities. They've all helped, changed lives. But the truth of the matter is that the rots not in the *people*. Not the criminals, not the thieves and not the users.
Its in the pushers, the dealers, the worst creatures of the world. Organized crime and its white-collar companions. Its in the systems that the police have to handle. But even they are infested, filthy in their own right, watching crime and punishment pass them by, watching, waiting and not interfering with anything but the most minor of excesses, the most tiny of intrusions.
I *have* to intervene, I must, the world has no place for these people and yet they live anyways. I contact my lawyers. The route of law, I have money, I have power, they shouldn't be beyond me, they *shouldn't* be beyond me at all.
*Months* of nothing, no results, no achievements, nothing at *all* except the constant ringing ,"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do." From *dozens* of sources, from hundreds of them. Mayor and DA. Police Chiefs and municipal directors all just... don't care enough.
It spikes a white-hot rage that is left to coil incessantly inside me, unending and fueling itself from the scraps of *doubt* I had over them, the benefit of the *doubt* I gave the city, its leaders, its people.
"Ma'am, you've not slept in days." Pieter's been a near permanent fixture of the old manor ever since I stopped keeping a sleep schedule or an eating schedule, or a medication schedule. Or really any schedule that wasn't glaring, growling or commanding. "The human body has its limits." He wisely says. The very thought bringing that white-hot coil to the surface again, powering me with anger.
"I'm fine," I growl at him, though he's mostly unimpressed judging from the absolute lack of motion from the bald man's face.
"I'm going to restrict you from driving, and running on any moving machines ma'am." He speaks in his position of doctor, as if I can't fire him. Though the thought of doing that carries with it an anxious and uncomfortable edge that I don't want to consider.
A response dies in my throat as I yawn, Damnit, and slump into the couch. A lightning crackle outside booming as the four day storm begins to die. "Fine." I acquiesce.
Sleep and rest at least helps, though it's mostly a chemical sleep, melatonin not helping past the first few days. That and exhaustion. Days of calls culminating in a new form of exertion-torment in the gym cooked up by my mind and a half dozen textbooks on sports science just to see how many more inches or performance I can wring out of myself. Pieter keeps watch, vetoing the most extreme options annoyingly.
My fist strikes the bag, the leather depresses as it recoils, firing back and swinging heavily, the chain straining on its mountings as I send another strike low before pivoting hard and twisting to ram my heel into the leather, making the concrete groan up above, dust falling from it.
There's no answer to my calls. The dismissals are getting rote, the lack of evident evidence commonplace. A knee strikes the bag, the shock of impact rippling through me as I think. Another strike, another whip of sweat and feel of reverberating force.
I need to stop them myself. It's a crazy thought, taking it all into my own hands. I shoulder the bag and train a clinch, Find the worst, know their names, investigate it myself.
But that's crazy, I'm alone, I'm trained, but a bullets a bullet. And these are violent people. All of them, from the least mafioso to the most successful boss and most powerful politician make their living off violence. Bloodshed alone can't do it, there needs to be more.
It's odd, a hoodie, a balaclava and a gun is all I've got on me to conceal my identity. I feel light. Like I'm flying through the streets. Hunching to hide my hunt. Most people don't recognize me without makeup, with the scars not being hidden by foundation and concealer.
I see them. The news knows their name. James Rivas, a mafioso of some family or another. Unimportant for now. What is important is that he's currently slinking away.
Dark, that's the first clear thing I can sense about where he's moving to smoke. The red cherry ember of it ignited in the alley, smell of must and filth radiating from the back of the space, where the dumpsters are. Cracked concrete and asphalt intermixes with the slickness from rain that's only recently stopped, though the sky is still growling every so often with the threat of another downpour.
Now's the time, as I stare at him from just around the corner. The barrier of moving is a little more durable than I first thought it'd be. Like a weight in each of my limbs. Still, one step, then another. I creep up slowly as he's turned towards the alley to ash his cigarette.
I'm upon him, trying to lock in a choke immediately, but he's not a training dummy, and this isn't a spar. His head bucks into mine near immediately, the back of it bouncing off my forehead as training has me lower my head and present the hardest part at the barest of movement.
The impact is harsh, our skulls clack together and I nearly lose the choke. Forcing myself forwards, I push through his shoddy defence despite stomping feet and elbows that spear into my sides, shooting pains, almost stabbing ones radiating from the impacts, though adrenaline starts to muffle the sensation.
"W-who the h-" Some barked out demand is strangled when I lock in the choke, and he starts to slow his struggles. Then, a few seconds later, he slumps in my arms. Zip ties come out of a pocket an I drag him to the alleys end, behind the dumpsters there.
It's barely a half minute before he jolts awake, but any volume is dead in his throat when the black gunmetal barrel of a pistol's down his line of sight. "That's about enough. You'll be answering questions now." I try and growl it out, and the adrenaline helps, making the words almost violent as they escape me.
"Alright lady, calm down, whatcha need answered?" James placates me, the movement of his hands in a conciliatory fashion makes me nearly pull the trigger as nerves fray. He notices and gets a lot more careful.
"What's your boss's name?" I quietly demand, not shouting, not needing to yet. James shakes his head.
"Ma'am, if I knew that, I'd tell ya'. But I ain't got no boss, I'm just workin' on the side on my lonesome." His answer seems truthful, but he's a practised liar, especially under threat, his many appearances in court prove that.
"Your memory better freshen up." As I point the gun higher, towards his head. He breathes in, and then out.
"Ma'am, I've done plenty a bad stuff in my day, but I don't got no boss." He repeats.
Damnit.
[X] Leave. There's nothing here that I can get without resorting to means. (Keep the fire inside)
[X] He'll talk. I'll make him talk. (Control the fire)
[X] Pull the trigger. Maybe the next will be more cooperative. (Let it burn)
Stone obelisks they call skyscrapers punch up past the clouds, ripping the white, fluffy things open with filthy concrete and steel, bright and shiny lights come out of the buildings, calling to the floating zeppelins, a relic from yesteryear that the city still desperately clings on to, glitz and glamour long long gone in the passage of years and the rotting of once shining foundations.
I breathe in on a rooftop, it's home here, it's always been home. I take another breath, and taste smog and rubber as someone's tires squeal an echo down the streets which pings off every surface to hit my ears. It's a familiar sound, though now oddly distant, like a fond, old memory of yesteryear. This place used to be better. I raise a cigarette to my lips, the taste of lemon sparking on the tip of my tongue and flowing with smoke all the way back.
A heavy scent of diesel rises from the handwrapped cigarette, and I again intake the city.
★ ★ ★
The ping of medical machinery is what I most easily hear in a dull, cold hospital room, colder than the rainy night outside. It's a part of the place though, more clinical that way, more controlling and more observatory. Keeps everyone sharper than warmth would, comfort would. Less mistakes. The two people, a man and a woman cut out of fancy clothes and intubated immediately are the swarming centre of attention.
I'm small here, Looking over the lip of a window to stare at them as the clicking, hissing and pinging gets louder, the doctors a little more frenzied, a little more worried. Every second a panic growing while snaking pulse-trackers jolt up and up and up like they're reaching for a sky they'll never get to before, with a jolt, they slow, stop.
It takes ten minutes for the doctors to give up. Time of death, 02:16 on March 18th, Two thousand.
★ ★ ★
Lets go back to home, miss." It's another voice, from someone tall, grown up. They're in blue, a police cap on their head and a tired, utterly tired look in their eyes. Even at this age, I understood that. They have kind features, the sort you'd get at fifty or sixty from age and life. They seem far too young for those. Officer Cooke, he's been around the whole time.
"Yes sir." It's an automatic response drilled in by years of living in a place where those words are seen as cute, nice and polite from a young girl. He leads me to a squad car, front seat, not back, and then drives home. Through silent streets in the mid-morning cold and rain, drenching the windows and doorways with their torrent, wiped away by the wipers and yet coming down nevertheless.
It's a blur, a heady blur, my chest gets choked up. Everything comes down on me. Tears intermix with rain.
★ ★ ★
Pieter is on a knee. He's my doctor. Has always been. It's another test result, "Miss Garner. As your guardian, I must ask that you apply yourself in schooling. I know it is a hard time for you, but we can't let life pass us by." Pieter is kind, nice and always supportive. Despite that, I glare at him from the edge of the bed, new makeup on my face and an X on my forearm.
"The hell does that matter? I've got a trillion-dollar company the day I turn eighteen!" My voice comes out rough and tired and angry, last night wasn't a night I slept much. And the bitter taste of tabs is still on my tongue. Hopefully he doesn't notice the reactions I'm having to it.
"Only if you aren't arrested before then. Excursions like this have to stop. Penelope, listen to me." His voice isn't rough, angry or tired. Its subtle twang of Afrikaans inside is layered with concern. It's worse somehow.
I stand up and push past him. He could stop me easily enough, he's not much taller than me, but exercise isn't exactly my favorite activity. He doesn't. I leave the room, storming free of the place in an angry huff and puff of distaste and anger. The world outside doesn't help it. Makes the venom worse. Makes it crawl up to my throat, threaten to spew out at everything and everyone.
★ ★ ★
It's a board of directors, all older men with friendly eyes and killer smiles that'd love to have what I have. That'd love to have anything really. Their intense greed falls off them like a curtain of filthy air, like the city air is nowadays.
"Miss Garner, welcome!" One speaks, a name drifting from my mind like a shadow, slinking away as unimportant somehow, "Happy birthday first of all!" He's jovial, affable, fat. Like an over-fed snake, trying to shed its skin but being unable to slip out.
"And second of all?" I bite back, the fancy suit and business skirt I've been dressed in sitting wrong, annoying and the atmosphere of barely concealed greedy slime and hungry stares making any act feel like a defensive one.
"And second of all, we'd like to congratulate you on your new ownership of Garner and Associates." Another voice, similar to the first in every respect except vocal. It comes from a woman, one of three here, somehow more sharklike than anyone else, more honed by competition. "And would like to recommend a new course of action!"
The woman is pale, sallow and thin, the sort of thin that plastic surgery over and over and over can provide, a moneyed thin, an artificial one, borne of the scalpel and the pump. It makes me immediately hate her. Hate her like everyone else in the room.
"What's that?" The benefit of the doubt is often too much, but I still offer it, at least for now.
And then words start flooding, spreadsheets and power points and numbers that seem to represent something inane. Something that means something. Money maybe? Property? Power? It represents people most of all, a little header on every page that keeps the company aware of the near-infinite wealth Garner and Associates commands.
It's hell.
★ ★ ★
It's cold on a mountain top. It's a fairly logical thing to think, but it doesn't really make sense until I'm there. Howling wind dragging vestiges, little frangible chunks of warmth free into the air behind, equipment and money buying time, not safety. White snow deeply inhales the life from my boots, and when the winds stop, the false-warmth of outside being colder than my body is a comfort to enjoy, but not fall into.
The cavern I've found shelter, the cavern that lets the wind stop is still cold, it'll still be my doom, so I grit my teeth behind a thin sheet of cloth that tries to keep my lungs warm enough to breathe here, and haul myself free of ice and stone, ignoring the long-frozen corpse of a climber of years, decades or even centuries previous, preserved in water-crystal.
Up and up and up, pitons slam into ice, drill through stone, picks provide quick holds. And then something happens, something unpredictable, a stroke of probability outside the ken of mortals to manage. The ice cracks, the block comes apart into a spray. A gasp leaves me.
The snow isn't soft.
★ ★ ★
Waking up with my back to stone is...well not the worst place I've woken up. Feeling like half the bones in my body are broken isn't too unfamiliar either. Actually having them broken is new, and a movement makes the shards crackle against each other and shred through flesh by the micrometer, drawing another pained gasp from me.
"Calm, please, calm." An accented voice, asian, local, comes along. It's someone in a coat in green, looks like an ancient model, at least fifty years old in make, some soviet type. Or maybe PRC type thing.
"Fuck off," I grumble, still feeling the sliding chunks before I stop moving with a huff of pain. The man comes into my line of sight, he's tall from where I'm laying, but that's not saying much, bald head, reddened ears from the cold and dark brown eyes that seem black in the dim lighting of what feels like a temple, "Where am I?"
He shakes his head, "Sorry miss, get translate!" The man says, trying to fiddle with a phone, tapping up an app that briefly reminds me of Google Translate. It is, that's exactly what it is.
I sigh, and repeat myself, slowly, loudly and clearly. "Where, am, I." The app intakes it, a loading circle repeatedly spinning before it translates, he reads it and then speaks into it in...Mandarin. I think. Maybe. It sounds like the Mandarin I heard finding my way through Manchuria.
The screen is turned towards me, the app says, 'Greater Hinggan'. Oh, well, that's the mountain I was climbing just...a bit ago. The next question slips free from me without much thought, "Today's date?" The man has to scramble to tap the app's voice recognition button, getting to it too late, forcing me to repeat, "Today's date?"
He looks at the translation, while that's happening, I glance around at stone walls, the engravings on them being in Russian, or Cyrillic, whatever the difference is. This looks and feels like a bunker. Its air is that stale sort, rarely exposed to air and life, a common sight for urban exploration in parts of the world that are more torn up and broken than the good ol' US of A.
Light hits my eyes, they dilate, the screen says Friday. I was climbing Monday. And judging from the crackle of broken glass in my back pocket, I'm freshly short of my own phone. *Fuck*.
★ ★ ★
Snow shoves at my legs, having to dig through the thigh high layers of the stuff in an aged and ragged hiking outfit is hellish. Still, there's a goal here, someone to track down, to meet, my lungs heave and stinging with cold air slipping into them. Siberia is a painful mistress, and this winter is particularly bad, howling blizzard and all.
*Should have stayed with the damned Buddhists*. Runs through my head as I stumble and nearly fall before continuing. Muscles aching and bones only recently healed enough to move. In the distance, salvation, a town. The town I was looking for. Through the white haze of snow and ice, little squares that *look* like a building-well, a set of them.
Its only a small subjective icy eternity before I *shove* through the door, it barely moves, but it does, and I fall into what feels like boiling heat after the cold outside. My head nearly bounces off the hard concrete flooring and I let out a breath of relief. Or maybe a groan of utter spent exhaustion. My mouth feels frozen and yet warm.
After some amount of time, I look up and over, trying to find who I'm looking for. Roughs and toughs from across the criminal world all coming here to roost. *There.* He's sitting still with absolutely no interest in me, hands scarred at the knuckles and palm riddled with scabs from decades of conflict.
"You! I'll pay you! Train me." I croak out loudly to him in broken Russian, my best.
He stares at me.
★ ★ ★
I'm sweating my life out in the cold, droplets turning to steam off my face as I *suffer* under tutelage. He didn't want money, I don't even know his *fucking* name. Just the fact that he's decided to physically *murder* me by way of training.
"Up, the log." He calmly barks like a bulldog, and I rush forth to a log, stumbling, bashing my face into it and lifting the thing, groaning with a nose that's almost assuredly broken. Blood spatters onto the snow I move.
★ ★ ★
The little tumblers and mechanisms of a lock are interesting, well, they would be if any mistake in the picking method wasn't rewarded with a harsh *smack* on my back with a baton, "Again, faster, you don't have time." My trainer barks.
Whilst internally I have *plenty* to say, externally, it seems a bad idea. Instead, I replace the pins and push the tumbler around, it wiggles, I count, *four, five, six, seven--* The tumbler clicks, the test door of some ancient shack swings open.
I don't get hit.
★ ★ ★
"So *why* are you hanging around some *nobody* village?" I ask, more than a little *non-sober* courtesy of the freely available *hard* Kombucha around here, the tangy flavour bouncing on my tongue, "And *what's* your name? It can't *actually* be Bogatyr!"
Its been awhile, a year I think? I'm covered in the tiny scars of training, and the large ones too. He stares at me, six feet and a few extra inches of some sort of slavic, Russian I think, based on accent, but that might an affectation.
"You don't need to know." He answers, and the scar that consumes half his face of burnt, gnarled flesh twists and turns oddly as he does. "You are done." Bogatyr states suddenly, and then points to the door.
"What?" I drunkenly ask, blinking.
"You are done. There's nothing to learn that I can teach. Go home." He repeats himself, a rare fact. I freeze, a little icicle of uncertainty entering me as I consider that statement. There's no reason to be nervous, however, I recall plenty of lessons on what nerves get you.
"Fine." I sober fast, its time to brave the blizzard. "I won't see you again."
"If you've luck." He answers, and then. The elements confront me.
★ ★ ★
"Miss Garner! How are you!" An older looking man in a business suit states warmly. Then another repeats his sentiment in another slightly similar set of words, then another, then another. A harpy-swarm of special interests that see me as their golden ticket, a little wine, a little dine and suddenly they'll be able to manipulate me somehow.
Its a lost cause, "I'm doing great! Back in the saddle already! I've got a few ideas for the company direction, I was looking to take the Boards opinions under advisement!" The wording makes their faces imperceptibly fall. The next hour is even less pleasant for them.
I'm by far the majority shareholder, one last gift from mom and dad. The last they'll ever give me. The city is slick with rain outside of a plate-glass window that forms the left wall of the meeting room. A colossal round table filled with the shouting distaste of former millionaires.
"And with that, ladies and gentlemen, you'll all find your new positions, as per state law, mailed to you. Equivalent in salary of course, *though*." I indulge, letting a wry, if modest smirk enter my features. They *explode.*
"You can't *do this!*" One shouts, and *that* gets on my nerves. It strikes a point of my mind that's been untouched for years.
"*Yes.* I can. You're leeches, parasites, filth-soaked animals that've been scavenging at the *heels* of your betters. Titans that built this city with their *own, two, hands.*" I *glare* at him with every ounce of violence I can muster, a tidal wave compared to the *human rat* across from me, fat and turgid with the filthy wealth, wearing a suit that's cheap, because even his comfort isn't worth his health.
Some sputter escapes him as I continue, "I am *letting* you keep your positions, your comfort, because despite my personal distaste for *most* of you, this place was still supported partially by your filthy labours. Your *awful* efforts." My voice is acidic, even I can tell I've gone into verbal violence with a gusto.
"So *get out*, go home, *wait* for *my word*. And be thankful for it." I finish my growled statement and firmly guide them with a pointed finger towards the door. The sleek black gloves cover up any scars there, letting me seem just eccentric, not violent.
★ ★ ★
A year here, a year at this place. Charity programmes, work recovery for the recently incarcerated, drug rehabilitation regimens free of charge. Employment and educational opportunities. They've all helped, changed lives. But the truth of the matter is that the rots not in the *people*. Not the criminals, not the thieves and not the users.
Its in the pushers, the dealers, the worst creatures of the world. Organized crime and its white-collar companions. Its in the systems that the police have to handle. But even they are infested, filthy in their own right, watching crime and punishment pass them by, watching, waiting and not interfering with anything but the most minor of excesses, the most tiny of intrusions.
I *have* to intervene, I must, the world has no place for these people and yet they live anyways. I contact my lawyers. The route of law, I have money, I have power, they shouldn't be beyond me, they *shouldn't* be beyond me at all.
★ ★ ★
*Months* of nothing, no results, no achievements, nothing at *all* except the constant ringing ,"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do." From *dozens* of sources, from hundreds of them. Mayor and DA. Police Chiefs and municipal directors all just... don't care enough.
It spikes a white-hot rage that is left to coil incessantly inside me, unending and fueling itself from the scraps of *doubt* I had over them, the benefit of the *doubt* I gave the city, its leaders, its people.
"Ma'am, you've not slept in days." Pieter's been a near permanent fixture of the old manor ever since I stopped keeping a sleep schedule or an eating schedule, or a medication schedule. Or really any schedule that wasn't glaring, growling or commanding. "The human body has its limits." He wisely says. The very thought bringing that white-hot coil to the surface again, powering me with anger.
"I'm fine," I growl at him, though he's mostly unimpressed judging from the absolute lack of motion from the bald man's face.
"I'm going to restrict you from driving, and running on any moving machines ma'am." He speaks in his position of doctor, as if I can't fire him. Though the thought of doing that carries with it an anxious and uncomfortable edge that I don't want to consider.
A response dies in my throat as I yawn, Damnit, and slump into the couch. A lightning crackle outside booming as the four day storm begins to die. "Fine." I acquiesce.
★ ★ ★
Sleep and rest at least helps, though it's mostly a chemical sleep, melatonin not helping past the first few days. That and exhaustion. Days of calls culminating in a new form of exertion-torment in the gym cooked up by my mind and a half dozen textbooks on sports science just to see how many more inches or performance I can wring out of myself. Pieter keeps watch, vetoing the most extreme options annoyingly.
My fist strikes the bag, the leather depresses as it recoils, firing back and swinging heavily, the chain straining on its mountings as I send another strike low before pivoting hard and twisting to ram my heel into the leather, making the concrete groan up above, dust falling from it.
There's no answer to my calls. The dismissals are getting rote, the lack of evident evidence commonplace. A knee strikes the bag, the shock of impact rippling through me as I think. Another strike, another whip of sweat and feel of reverberating force.
I need to stop them myself. It's a crazy thought, taking it all into my own hands. I shoulder the bag and train a clinch, Find the worst, know their names, investigate it myself.
But that's crazy, I'm alone, I'm trained, but a bullets a bullet. And these are violent people. All of them, from the least mafioso to the most successful boss and most powerful politician make their living off violence. Bloodshed alone can't do it, there needs to be more.
★ ★ ★
It's odd, a hoodie, a balaclava and a gun is all I've got on me to conceal my identity. I feel light. Like I'm flying through the streets. Hunching to hide my hunt. Most people don't recognize me without makeup, with the scars not being hidden by foundation and concealer.
I see them. The news knows their name. James Rivas, a mafioso of some family or another. Unimportant for now. What is important is that he's currently slinking away.
Dark, that's the first clear thing I can sense about where he's moving to smoke. The red cherry ember of it ignited in the alley, smell of must and filth radiating from the back of the space, where the dumpsters are. Cracked concrete and asphalt intermixes with the slickness from rain that's only recently stopped, though the sky is still growling every so often with the threat of another downpour.
Now's the time, as I stare at him from just around the corner. The barrier of moving is a little more durable than I first thought it'd be. Like a weight in each of my limbs. Still, one step, then another. I creep up slowly as he's turned towards the alley to ash his cigarette.
I'm upon him, trying to lock in a choke immediately, but he's not a training dummy, and this isn't a spar. His head bucks into mine near immediately, the back of it bouncing off my forehead as training has me lower my head and present the hardest part at the barest of movement.
The impact is harsh, our skulls clack together and I nearly lose the choke. Forcing myself forwards, I push through his shoddy defence despite stomping feet and elbows that spear into my sides, shooting pains, almost stabbing ones radiating from the impacts, though adrenaline starts to muffle the sensation.
"W-who the h-" Some barked out demand is strangled when I lock in the choke, and he starts to slow his struggles. Then, a few seconds later, he slumps in my arms. Zip ties come out of a pocket an I drag him to the alleys end, behind the dumpsters there.
It's barely a half minute before he jolts awake, but any volume is dead in his throat when the black gunmetal barrel of a pistol's down his line of sight. "That's about enough. You'll be answering questions now." I try and growl it out, and the adrenaline helps, making the words almost violent as they escape me.
"Alright lady, calm down, whatcha need answered?" James placates me, the movement of his hands in a conciliatory fashion makes me nearly pull the trigger as nerves fray. He notices and gets a lot more careful.
"What's your boss's name?" I quietly demand, not shouting, not needing to yet. James shakes his head.
"Ma'am, if I knew that, I'd tell ya'. But I ain't got no boss, I'm just workin' on the side on my lonesome." His answer seems truthful, but he's a practised liar, especially under threat, his many appearances in court prove that.
"Your memory better freshen up." As I point the gun higher, towards his head. He breathes in, and then out.
"Ma'am, I've done plenty a bad stuff in my day, but I don't got no boss." He repeats.
Damnit.
[X] Leave. There's nothing here that I can get without resorting to means. (Keep the fire inside)
[X] He'll talk. I'll make him talk. (Control the fire)
[X] Pull the trigger. Maybe the next will be more cooperative. (Let it burn)
- Location
- Albania
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'll nab this
- Location
- Albania
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And this, good to go!
Princess Scribe
A swelled-headed, gossipy, coquette gadabout.
- Location
- Venus
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We don't really have a way to let the next guy know this guy didn't cooperate if we kill him. We need to set a base line expectation of being let go if you cooperate.
[X] He'll talk. I'll make him talk. (Control the fire)
however
If he continues to be uncooperative, [X] Pull the trigger. Maybe the next will be more cooperative. (Let it burn)
[X] He'll talk. I'll make him talk. (Control the fire)
however
If he continues to be uncooperative, [X] Pull the trigger. Maybe the next will be more cooperative. (Let it burn)
Oh, did not expect antihero. I'm not sure how confident I should be that this guy actually knows something.
Princess Scribe
A swelled-headed, gossipy, coquette gadabout.
- Location
- Venus
- Pronouns
- She/Her
True, but if we don't hit him, are we really a hero?
i mean, by the original greek definition yeah. violence is the best solution to all lifes problems
[X] He'll talk. I'll make him talk. (Control the fire)
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] He'll talk. I'll make him talk. (Control the fire)
Princess Scribe
A swelled-headed, gossipy, coquette gadabout.
- Location
- Venus
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nah, break his kneecaps. Spine is for second offenders.With just one broken spine, we could change a life
Princess Scribe
A swelled-headed, gossipy, coquette gadabout.
- Location
- Venus
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Say it louder for the scum in the back.
👏 Second👏 Offenders👏 will 👏 get 👏 the 👏 chair 👏
Wheel chair that is.
Cuz we took your spine.
👏 Second👏 Offenders👏 will 👏 get 👏 the 👏 chair 👏
Wheel chair that is.
Cuz we took your spine.
