A High-Stakes Reckoning

‘One year later’
Flashes of light, coupled with sirens and the screams of her trapped brethren as they burned in the wreckage of the facility the specialist forces had just laid waste to, filled her head and for a moment she was walking that devastating scene again seeing, again, that soft hearted soldier who had picked her up and carried her into the trucks with him.
She sighed audibly as she waited on the corner for her ride into the city.
She had delayed this meeting with the last scientist nearly a year and all because some nosey officer had absolutely had to track her down and had even chased her to the scorched surface of the planet.
Some people just haven’t got any patience she surmised.
He had definitely not had any patience at all. After all he had, recklessly in her opinion, chased her to the surface without any protective gear. It was a shame really in his own way he had been cute such a shame he had been unable to reach the maintenance access before she had locked and gotten away.
The sound of a passing vehicle brought her out of her reverie. It was a soft pearlescent black colour and in it she could see her target. As they sailed past she tilted her head forward and smiled at him from under the brim of her dirty brown beret that sat on her head of pale red hair.
She never really paid attention to how she looked but to most people she fit the image of the young busty beauty. Standing, now, at 4’5 in height with soft, yet ample, curves and skin like coffee creamer she wasn’t hard to pick out of the crowds in the under-city but she set herself apart from them because when they saw her brilliant green and blue eyes set in deep in there sockets they saw that her eyes spoke the words “I CAN and I WILL” and generally she also preceded to do exactly that.
She knew she was generally described by the locals as being haunted or weighed upon.
The company she kept probably didn’t help that though.
They were known locally as The PackRats generally by the people who needed them. It bugged her that they were known as something so miniscule when they were nothing so meagre. She had stumbled onto them when she’d been on the run from the peace officers and discovered that all three of them were exactly the same as her. They had the abilities too.
First of all there was Bek. Bek was the only other girl than her and she had this ability to alter how her body affected what was around her. For example she could easily lift about 1 and ½ tonne by altering her electronic mass. There was Geran. Geran could essentially vibrate the particles that made up his skin generating a stative/static electronic charge that he could discharge at will.
Then there was the group’s name sake and her ride for tonight, Rat. Rat seemed to be a bit of an enigma. The others hadn’t a clue what his ability was because he had never used it but he was cute in a dark sort of grim way. He had wavy, sort of like an old surfers, haircut and a pair of delicate sea blue eyes. These paired with the scar through his right eye made him look as if he had been through a few wars and if that didn’t pull you in he had this wiry frame that rippled with musculature. He had an almost sculpted figure and pale tanned skin like he was from an island or similar exotic place.
In all honesty when she’d met them she barely knew how to control her power and now nearly a year after the incident in the alley she knew exactly what to do to get what she wanted and better yet how to get what she wanted from the people she hunted.
The bike stopping right in front of her pulled her attention back to the present moment. She looked up into Rat’s face and grinned at him, prompting him to smile wryly back at her as she mounted his bike and wrapped her hands round his thin waist.
“You ready then Ab’s”. Rat growled playfully.
“You bet” she hissed back softly giving him a just as soft squeeze.
And with smiles of grim pleasure in anticipation of their hunt off they went. The highway sped off in front of them and the bike ate at the road chasing their pray in to the encroaching sunset.
Not long after this they caught up with their pray as it pulled into one the under-city’s many industrial sectors and Rat pulled over into a nearby alley. After parking he turned to Abigail and softly said
“This is your stop”
“I know Rat” she snapped at him.
“Hey easy, Hine; Chill, you don’t need a clouded head right now”
“Sorry, Rat, you know how long I’ve planned this but it could still go wrong in so many ways”
“Don’t worry; you’ll be majestic as always”
“Thanks” she responded to him as she dismounted his bike. She stood beside him a moment then turned and looked back at him and lent forward towards him and kissed him on the lips and said “yours tonight”.
“O’course, Hine, see you there”
With this he took off on his bike out of the alleyway and back up to the high way.
Shaking her head softly she looked up at the maze of pipe work, fire escapes and ventilation gaps above her and jumped and grabbed the edge of the nearest one before propelling herself up rapidly until she reached the roof edge. Pulling herself over the lip, she brushed herself down, crouched as a takeout drone flew over her head and ran across the rooftop, racing to the edge and propelling herself out and over the fence work of the industrial sector.
Once she was over she looked around and saw her destination, an ivory white tower standing as high as a skyscraper in the business sector of town. As she watched she spotted her target entering the doors and heading for the elevators.
She watched this somewhat amused. He’d followed the same routine for as long as she had been watching him. She spotted off to the side the maintenance entrance and decided that, she wasn’t going to stick to the plan; she’d use the maintenance elevator instead.
Using the maintenance elevator would cut off some planning time but it also let her keep her hair straight a little longer and stop her smelling like a factory chimney from the smog outside.
After breaking the door lock off and hacking the elevator so it would take her to the suites at the top, she set off in the elevator for her ride to the top. Just before she reached her stop she took out her knife and checked it for any bits of dirt or damage. When the elevator stopped she focused for a moment and listened, drowning out any unnecessary noise from the rest of the building, she heard soft but deep and heavy breathing from inside the room and the occasional breathy moan. After listening to this for about a minute it stopped and she heard clearly the scientist say “thank you, my dear, you may now leave” and, of all things, his daughter’s voice say back “that’s okay dad” before hearing the slightly heavy footed fall of an android leaving the room.
That brought a smile to her lips. Softly she opened the door into the darkened room and sat just in front of his desk in the readily available seat and waited for him to turn around and look at her. He struggled with his trousers for a bit before managing to get them on and then he turned and looked her full in the face.
“Ahh” he breathed “that time is it”.
“Afraid so, sir” she answered softly. The only reason she used the term sir was because as her adopted mom would have said it pays to be polite.
“Would you like a drink” he asked presenting her with a range of various bottles inside of an antiqued wooden cabinet.
“No, thank you”
“I do hope this won’t take long”
“Not at all, sir”
“If it’s all the same to you I won’t watch” he said sadly spinning around in his chair and facing the windows
“O’course, sir” she said walking up behind her and placing her hand on the back of his head, slowly started to draw his memory out of him.
She didn’t like this part even when she’d started her little campaign against the people who had made her. The heat generated by pulling the memories out of someone liquidated their brain and burnt an imprint of the culprits hand into their head. The imprint, though, was imperfect and didn’t hold any finger prints or a genetic print. Even if the peace officers did find her genetic print they wouldn’t even be able tell if it was human, let alone a person living in the city.
Once she’d drawn out his memory she quickly examined them and escaped.
What she didn’t know was that watching her through a gap in the wall was the late scientists sister who watched her escape and kill her brother.

PS. "Hine" maori term for girl/female