The street was damp and dark. Only the occasional streetlight cast any kind of illumination. It was mostly quiet. Not surprising given the early hour of the morning. The rain has stopped, but the puddles were everywhere. The air was hot, humid and clingy. Steam cast strange clouds across the roads and alleys. Loud, heavy footsteps echoed off the concrete. The occasional splash accompanied them. Heavy, deep-panting breaths added to the strange orchestra of sounds reverberating down the alleyways between buildings. A man wearing a hoodie and jeans grabbed the side of the building at the end of the alley. He could hardly catch his breath. He snapped his head in all directions in a wild panicked motion. He was like a startled animal fleeing from some invisible prey. He scanned the shadows, hoping to see through them. He heard noises everywhere. He did not know if they were in his mind or if they were for real. He jumped several times when a crash or a thud echoed through the alleys. The echo made it impossible to know where the sound had come from, how close it was to him, or even who had made it. He was a bundle of nerves. More than just being out in the alleys in the pitch black was causing his anxiety. He had been out in similar circumstances before. This time the combination of the drugs he had taken and the feeling of being tracked left him with such deep feelings of fear. He pounded his fist against the wall of the building. The drugs were supposed to give him a high. Give him a buzz. They were being wasted on these damn feelings of paranoia and being chased. He pounded his fist into the wall again. A loud crash came from the far end of the alley. He snapped around like lightning. He pushed his back against the wall.
“Hello!” he screamed out hysterically. “Is there someone there?” he added with a shaky voice.
The sound of the crash slowly faded out. His heart would not stop racing. The steam on the street looked like demons floating at him. He was seeing monsters in the shadows. The drugs had never done this to him before. Then he was usually crashed at the side of the building like a zombie rather than running like a mad man through alleyways and streets. The alley was filled with smoke and steam. His adrenalin spiked again. He moved out into the middle of the street. His head was almost of a swivel. He was twisting his body in all directions, trying to allow him to see everywhere and everything. He stopped in the middle of the road. Light cast strange shapes across puddles and through the steam. A dark shadowy figure moved out from the end of an alley further up the street. It moved smoothly and quickly. With effortless ease, it slipped through the steam and the shadows like it was floating on air. The man was too busy looking in other directions. When he caught a glimpse of the shadow, he initially frozen, but then turned and started to run away from it in panic. He was hysterical. Suddenly two laser beams flashed through the darkness. The first beam sliced through his left leg, just below the knee. The second in a similar place on his right knee. He instantly lost the strength in his legs. He crashed down on to the wet ground hard. He flopped over on to his back. His eyes stared up into the dark sky as his lungs tried to recover. He tried to think. He tried to focus. He was finding it hard to breathe. Suddenly he found it even harder. A young woman, with auburn hair, tied into a tight ponytail slammed down on to his chest to pin him down to the ground. The man struggled to look at her on top of him. All he could see was tight figure hugging leather, fishnet stockings and a menacing expression on her face.
“You damn crazy nymph,” the man exclaimed with a wave of small relief. “I don’t have any money, so get off me, unless you plan on giving it for free,” he added more in hope than expectation.
The young woman slammed the palm of her right hand into his face. The single blow cracked his head back against the ground and broke his nose.
“Ouch, what the fuck?” he cried out bitterly.
The young woman dropped lowered and placed her forearm across his throat. The man started choking instantly. His eyes bulged as his struggles for breath got deeper, longer and harder.
“Make this easy on yourself,” the young woman said with a growling menace to her very sexy, slightly French-accented, tone. “Tell me where to find Cade and you can go on your merry way,” she added sharply.
The man struggled to comprehend what had just happened. His mind quickly focused. The pieces fell into place like an automated jigsaw puzzle. He had been shot in the legs while running, in the dark and from a distance, the look of the young woman, the accent and her manner. He gulped deeply. The depth of his trouble suddenly slammed as hard into his chest as she had done when she dropped on top of him.
“Listen Fox,” the man stammered nervously. “I’ve done nothing to you,” he added quickly as a pleading tone came to his voice. “I’m not a part of any street gang or anything,” he finished swiftly.
“I know that,” Larna replied playfully. “I’m not really bothered about you. It’s not you that I’m after. Just what you know,” she explained strongly. “Tell me what you know and I’ll let you go,” Larna finished firmly.
“I don’t know nothing,” the man protested quickly with a strong shake of his head.
“Really,” Larna said with disbelief. She reached down behind her and grabbed hold of the laser wound in the man’s leg. His screams filled the street. Larna pushed her finger sharply into the wound and ground it around with as much force and pressure as she dared. She did not want the guy to faint or pass out from the pain. “Remember anything yet?” she asked while continuing to work her finger into the wound. “Because, I remember watching you taking a number of girls into a club then coming out alone,” Larna pointed out firmly. “Those girls never came back out,” she added sharply.
“That wasn’t…” the man started then yelled out in agony as Larna started on the other leg’s wound. “…Okay, okay!” he panted in despair. “Cade runs that club. That’s all I know. I get paid to drop a girl off. That’s all,” he explained quickly as the pain continued to grow in his legs. “I’ve never seen the man, don’t know anything about his operations, just know he asks me to drop ‘em off and leave ‘em in the club,” the man added desperately.
Larna stopped grinding into the wounds. She locked her eyes firmly on to him. The man was writhing in pain below her. She rose back up to her feet in a slow, elegant motion. The man stopped writhing as much, but was still gasping on the ground. In the blink of an eye, Larna twirled out her gun and fired. The laser beam cut into the man’s head right between the eyes. His body jerked once violently then slumped motionless.
Larna glanced around the dark street. There was not another soul about. Since it had been discovered that the commander of police had been drugged by two crime lords and was secretly being controlled by them, the streets had been a hive for crime. Ordinary people did not dare to go out. Larna had lost everything during this same period. The place that she liked to call home had been burnt to the ground. The man, who had been the closest thing to her father for years, had been killed in the blaze. She was out on the streets with no place to rest. Not that she needed a rest or hiding place. The police were in a shambles. Both the chief of police and the best detective had been drugged or tortured by two sisters who called themselves ‘The I’s’. Turned out that the sisters were just working for a hidden party. A man by the name of Cade. Larna had spoken to him briefly, but had not seen his face. The web of connections that this Cade had, had slowly crept into most parts of the crime world. There was not that many crime bosses left. It was down to three or four. Larna had seen to most of the others being out of the picture. Cade was secretively growing a crime empire that could easily match that of the biggest boss of them all, Gary Shaw. Larna suspected that the man had more connections than Shaw at this point. The more that she rooted through the soft-top surface of New Arizona, the more it became obvious that Cade had an influence on things. Maybe not directly, but most certainly covertly. He had been manipulating all of the recent events from behind the scenes. Larna moved back into the shadows before anyone saw her standing over a dead body. At least her suspicions about the club had been confirmed, but she could not just go waltzing straight through the front door. Well, not at that point anyway. He was going to be taken down that was for sure. Larna was not going to let the man get away with what he had put her through recently. She never let anyone who wronged her away with it. Larna reached into her jacket pocket. She pulled out her little organiser. She had hacked it, so that she could get on to the city-net without her signal being traced. The organiser was about the size of a small mobile phone. She flicked through several of the options on the touch screen, before tapping on to the city-net option. She scrolled her finger down the screen to whiz through the advertisements posted. She had also set up an algorithm to scan through all posts on the city-net that could have any connection to Cade. One advertisement and one news article flashed up on to the screen in an alert fashion. Larna dropped out of the advertisements. She had been looking to see if anyone had posted a request to meet with the Fox, her standard method of introduction to mercenary clients. The Cade alerts were more important. Pleasure before business, always. Larna clicked into the advertisement. It was a simple one-line entry — get your companion for life, just the way you want them. Ask your friends. They will know. Get your CFL today. There was no contact information. Just the text line. Larna switched to the news article. The High Athena Academy for Young Women rescued by mysterious financial package. Larna did not read the details. There was no need. She was smart enough to understand how a criminal mind worked. That was what made her the best mercenary that New Arizona had. A girl’s finishing school was just the perfect cover for a crime boss to get all of the raw material needed for his CFL operation. She quickly went back into the city-net to see if there was any way of getting inside that school.
It did not take her long to find a lead. Larna was not just a good killer, but she knew how to dig through information quickly to find something that could help her. Her late husband had taught her more than just six martial arts. He had taught her how to survive. She was naturally instinctive and intelligent, but the training she had been given, just added to the power of her capabilities. She was able to think on her feet, react to given situations and find a way to solve problems quickly. The combination of all of these skills had made her the best mercenary the streets of New Arizona had. That of course came with its own problems, but as the police force was currently a mess, Larna was taking the chance to do a bit of street cleaning of her own. One thing about Larna was that she was just as ruthless as she was clever. She would use people anyway that she felt like to obtain the end result that she was looking for. The majority of the time those innocents suffered, but Larna did not care as long as she succeeded. That dark side of her character came from losing everyone that she had ever cared about and being raped by someone she trusted when she was a young girl in foster care. She hoped that she could use this innocent before she lost the opportunity. The young woman she had found would certainly fit the profile of someone that Cade would target. Larna had been following his activities for a while. There was a pattern to the victims that went into that club and never came back out. Larna figured that it was more than a coincidence that this woman had just got a job at the High Athena Academy. It was still dark. There was nothing that she would be able to do until the early morning. Larna lent against the wall with her arms folded across her chest. Her mind was still working through things. Cade was like a phantom. He was like this ghost-figure bathed in light. He was safe and out of reach at that moment, but Larna figured that his confidence would get that better of him in the end and he would make a mistake. It would only take one mistake and she would make him pay. If that meant she had to go through every single member of his organisation to get to him then she was more than willing to go through him or her.
The light of the morning dawn slowly rose to bathe the city in a strange red glow. Larna stood across the street from a large apartment block. The glass windows towered high up into the early morning sky. These places always made her feel uncomfortable. She was not the best at dealing with people and preferred the back alleyways of the New York sector to the high-rise people boxes that made up the majority of the other sectors within New Arizona. A lot of people lived and worked in this alpha city and living quarter. The city was divided up just like the old map of the United States with sectors representing the old cities of that nation. Sectors had come to represent different things. Like New York was crime, Chicago was entertainment and Las Vegas was gambling as examples. The majority of sectors just formed living and working areas for normal every day people trying to earn a credit for food. Work and you ate. Simple laws. Since losing her base of operations and office, so to speak, she had been forced to meet potential clients in these types of places. This time was different. It was not a potential client she was here to meet, but more of a way to get inside the school and find out what was going on. Larna had been working on a plan of how to approach this for hours during the night. She had not slept during the night, but that was not unusual. Larna had gone without sleep for days on previous occasions. Granted, this was not the only lead that she had, but it was the one that made more sense to follow at this point. She figured that someone would still pay a visit to the medical centre to dispose of Ice and Inferno. There was also the club that she had been watching. At this point, she wanted to keep her options open and it was best to strike on this opportunity before it was lost. She quickly moved across the street. She did not exactly blend in with the others around. Full body support suits, the standard work uniform in the city, did not exactly mix well with leathers. Larna slipped inside the building quickly to avoid being noticed too much. She went to the apartment registry screen and entered the name of the person she was looking for. After taking a note of the apartment number, she went straight to the lift. The doors to the lift opened to reveal the young woman she had come to see standing in the corridor waiting for it. Larna smiled at her quickly.
“Are you Abby Lowe?” Larna asked softly.
The young woman dressed in a plain pink body suit with a thin pink woollen cardigan looked up and down the figure speaking to her. Her face crinkled as she fought back the deep horror and revulsion at the appearance of the woman before her.
“Who are you?” Abby asked bluntly in a tone that was far from the friendly persona that her outfit portrayed.
“I understand that you are going to be starting work today at the High Athena Academy for Young Women,” Larna checked calmly.
“What concern is that to you?” Abby snapped back in frustration.
“I think you need to hear what I have to say, then decide if you want to help me uncover the truth about that place,” Larna replied cryptically as she slipped out of the lift and made her way down towards Abby’s apartment.
Abby glanced into the lift. She looked at the strange woman walking away from her. Her mind was torn. She did not really want to be late on her first day at work.
“Your life could depend on the decision you make, Abby,” Larna said without stopping or turning. “What’s taking five minutes of your time to listen to what I have to say, compared to going into that place blind?” she added cleverly.
That made Abby’s heart sink. Getting the job offered to her had been a surprise. Connecting that to the takeover and now this strange woman, Abby’s head was spinning in all directions. She moved away from the lift to trail after her strange visitor.
Abby showed Larna into the basic apartment. All of the apartments were of similar design. They were basically a two-room apartment. The living and kitchen area and the bathroom. The decoration was mostly white. Some people did add a little colour, but not much. Larna was familiar enough with the inside of an apartment in these types of buildings. She did not really want to be any more familiar with the insides of them than she was. Larna found them small and a little claustrophobic for her tastes. She had been living on the streets too long. And they reminded her of her late-husband’s place.
Abby quickly closed the door behind her, “I am running late for my job, so please, make this quick,” she insisted firmly as she shuffled nervously at the door.
That nervous fidget did not go unnoticed. Larna thought it a little strange. Anxiety of facing the first day or perhaps it was something else. She could not really be sure without delving a little deeper.
“I am investigating rumours of the disappearances of several girls from the school and the connection between them and the recent financial rescue,” Larna said without holding back. She was bluffing and jumping to wild connections from very little information, but she always tended to throw a rock into a pool and see what chaos the ripples caused.
Abby’s mouth started to drop open. She did not know what to think of that statement. She had never heard of anything so ridiculous. Abby had only ever heard good things about the school. The High Athena Academy had a glowing reputation for introducing excellent young women into society. Abby had been honoured to get the invite to join the school. Surprised, for sure, but no less honoured. She found it astonishing that someone would be trying to ruin the reputation of such a place. More than astonished, she was horrified a little.
“I was wondering if you would be able to keep me informed of what is happening inside the place. You are bound to see things that look out of place or out of the ordinary,” Larna insisted positively.
“I’m not sure,” Abby stammered nervously.
“You know that something isn’t right with the place,” Larna pointed out picking up on the anxiety and again leaping in to test the reaction.
“Maybe,” Abby admitted solemnly. “It just does not feel right giving out information about the place when they have been so good to offer me a position,” she explained reluctantly.
“Perhaps there was a hidden motive to them giving you the position?” Larna bit back instantly in a casual tone after picking up on the — been so good — comment.
Larna watched the reaction on Abby’s face. It lost all colour. Her thoughts were plain to read on her expression. She was horrified at that thought, but could easily see how that could be the case. Horror and realisation was a blatant reaction to be seen.
Larna glanced back to the window, “I haven’t got time to explain completely,” she urged calmly as she handed Abby a small card with a contact address on. “That is my contact information. Send me details of anything that you think doesn’t fit. Okay,” she pushed then moved to the door of the apartment.
Abby felt like she had just been thrown into a washing machine and put on full spin cycle. She did not know what was going on. Her hand holding the card trembled. Larna glanced at her. She was not convinced that this option was going to work, so she would have to fall back on to the option and hope that someone showed up at the medical facility. Abby could not stop shaking. She heard the click on her apartment door without realising that Larna had left. Her eyes lingered on to the card in her hand.
‘What if the job was a set up from the start?’ she thought to herself with dismay. She could find herself walking into hell rather than a school. She slipped the card into her bag then made the move to leave.
Larna stood outside, back across the street opposite the apartment block. She had no idea whether that cover story would work. Abby had not really look convinced that anything was wrong with the school. She backed into the shadows when she saw Abby come out of the front entrance of the apartment block. Larna did not want the young woman to know that she was being followed. Abby looked extremely distracted. Larna figured that her story, along with the seeds of doubt, were starting to spread through her head and was leaving her with a lot of questions. Abby was nervous. She was visibly jumping when people walked passed her. It was a different woman to the confident one standing at the lift entrance. This Abby was timid, shy and racked with confidence issues. Larna lowered her head with disappointment. She had been expecting a strong character, but this woman was going to be uncovered before she could give her any information. That lead was a dead end. Larna glanced back over her shoulder. That left her with two other options, the club and the hospital. Larna decided that she would give Abby a day. She decided to follow her to the school and wait outside to see what happened. There was nothing else that she could do at that moment. Going to the club was the wrong move. That would easily give Cade her location and that was something Larna wanted to keep hidden for the moment. He would find out where she was, when she was standing over his tortured body as she fired the final shot between his eyes.
An underground crime boss is secretively building an empire based on supplying his clients with the perfect companion. Pity he messed with Larna in the previous story. Now, she is hunting him down.