Private Kids With Guns

[Amea Virou]

Rain blanketed the large ceiling windows that overlooked parts of the Suicide Slums beneath. A small brook's worth of water sliding down the even incline and crashing down into the gutter, fed into a pipe that deposited it into a well down in the streets that bustled with life, low as it may be.

This penthouse apartment was in reality one of four located at the top of this particular rooftop, but by far the most secured one. A hidden turret, fingerprint readers embedded in the code panel… For all the right reasons, Amea had decided to build a fortress for her employees, and this particular evening was all about what it meant to work for her. There were no expenses spared. The food was good, the water was filtered, decontaminated, and stored through a reservoir kept safe within the apartment itself.

And that was not to mention the beds.

In Amea's hands rested a datapad with information over one of the ops she had authorized. A simple information job, or so she had thought. Lethe was more than capable of holding up her end of the bargain, but…

Well, they would talk about it once she got here. Until then Amea could afford herself a few more minutes by the fire as she stared at the pouring water outside her window.

Lethe Harrow​

 

[Lethe Harrow]

Amea Virou​

She didn’t have to wait long before there was a noise in the hallway. A clatter of something metallic on duracrete, a stifled curse and the sound of a heavy reinforced door being slammed shut against the torrential downpour.

Three auspicious things that heralded the arrival of Lethe Harrow, Tapani exile, mercenary at large, apparent semi-aquatic if the last hour beating a hasty exit through the watery deluge that was seven corner's slum district was anything to go by.

“Honey, I’m home.” Her voice confirmed her identity, the playful tone carrying with it a hefty dose of weariness both the job and the subsequent slog it had been through the slums. “Is it too much to hope dinner is on the table? I’m positively famished.”

The woman herself appeared a second later. A wet, bedraggled and thoroughly sodden approximation creature. Hair a dark, tentically looking mess, slathered to her scalp and forehead. Framing her hawkish features in a rather unforgivable and wholly unflattering light, further enhanced by the chill that had sapped colour from her lips while lending a ruddy glow to her cheeks.

“I take it you got my upload, yes?” She asked as she kicked off her boots, seemingly oblivious to the muddy footsteps she’d left in her wake. The drowned approximation of her favourite jacket was next, slung carelessly over the back of the couch as the mercenary pushed further into the room, making a beeline for the fire and the promise of warmth. Rubbing her hands together. “Marisko’s data should already been lining our bank accounts as we speak.”

Lethe gave herself an experimental sniff as she spoke and promptly regretted it. The rain might have done wonders to wash away the physical evidence of the aforementioned job, but it could do little to the sin itself. Nor could it mitigate the scent of smoke, blood and charged ozone that clung to her like a second skin. No wonder the slummers had opted to give her a wide berth as she had slogged her way through the alleyways below. Shey, she needed a shower.

Priorities first, however.

“Where do you keep the food?”

 

[Amea Virou]

The doors opened.

“Honey, I’m home. Is it too much to hope dinner is on the table? I'm positively famished.”

Eyes rolled and threatened to bleed as a groan scratched against Amea's throat.

"Why would you call me that?" She whined and continued to read the report. "And yes, I am not your cook."

“I take it you got my upload, yes? Marisko's data should already been lining our bank accounts as we speak.”

"Yes, it is." Amea's attention lifted from the report for a second, maybe two, before she fell back into it again. "Reads a bit different from the op you were presented with, but the bottom line seems to add-"

“Where do you keep the food?”

A deep breath swept through Amea's nose followed by a long exhale.

"It's a kitchen. Kitchens generally have foods in pantries and fridges. Try checking there, Mrs. Harrow."

...

"So, is the body count here is correct? Some new agents like to 'enhance' their results as if that would impress me."

 

[Lethe Harrow]

Amea Virou​

“Because you wouldn’t like to hear what I really call you behind closed comms.” Lethe replied from her position by the fire. Apparently just as glib half drowned as she was bone dry. If anything, she seemed a little on the edge of manic. A combination of the water, the cold and the vestiges of adrenaline coursing through her system. “And don’t let your lack of professional credentials get in your way. We all have to start somewhere, even accredited chefs.”

She turned to face Amea for the first time since entering, though really the motion was to let the fire work its magic on the other half of her body.

“Ms. Harrow?” Lethe echoed with an accompanying scrunchage of face. “I would say not even my mother calls me that, but: a) that would be weird, b) oddly an improvement from the usual ‘that ungrateful whelp I should have smothered at birth’, and… ”

She didn’t have a third, not really, but that didn’t stop the scrunchage from deepening.

“Well, c) did I mention that would be weird? Just 'Harrow' will do.”

* * *​

“Honestly, I think I might have missed one or two off.” Lethe mused out of the disaster zone that was the safehouse’s kitchen. Pots, pans and cooking utensils scattered all around her in a pattern with seemingly no rhyme or reason, having been either discarded, used or stared at with unrepentant confusion before joining one of the former. And yet somewhere out of the chaos, though it cost many a box of pasta, a steaming pot of blessed mac and cheese had been sourced.

“There was that guy at the entrance.” She counted off on her fingers, jutting up her thumb.

​

He barely made a sound. His throat aquiver, yet nothing but a frothy, blood soaked gargle escaped his lips as the blade slipped between his second and third ribs. Vocal cords paralysed by the knuckle punch that had collapsed his trachea at the onstart of the confrontation. Baby blue eyes aghast at the surprise and sudden ending he was being dealt. Or perhaps that his final words were something to the unmemorable and undignified tune of “Gnngnghgh.”​

​

She closed his eyes before she moved on. A remarkable act of humanity in light of an equally unremarkable death.​

​

Index Finger. “Then there was that Rodian.”

In contrast to the first guard, this one had offered successive squeaking noises as they met their untimely demise. Hoots in a tongue she’d never cared to learn. Likely a protest or cry for help. Or one of simple agony. It didn’t really matter. They quickly stopped as she slammed its head in the door jamb with the metal security gate for the sixth or eighth time, but damned if it didn’t ruin her boots in the process.

She slammed it an extra time just for them.​

“The other Rodian,” they’d warranted the middle finger.

​

A blaster bolt whistled past her head. Just far enough to miss taking it from her shoulders, but close enough that the heat had threatened to blister her ear as she leaned out of cover. He shouted something defiantly in her direction, but like his comrade, the meaning of it was lost on her as she drew a bead and squeezed... ​

Ring finger for the “Weequay.”

Two shots created two craters. One to the forehead, the other to the liver. Killing shot and the security, just like she’d been trained. Gone before she had even reached his position, the light flickering out of his eyes as she stepped over his now vacant corpse.​

​

“And the… I think it was Klatooinian? It was kind of hard to tell after –”

​

The world went a vivid, searing variation of white. The kind that came with a high pitched tinnitus whine that set your teeth on edge even as it drowned out the roar. Two seconds, three seconds, four? It was hard to tell how long it lasted before the smoke cleared and she could stop flexing her jaw. Her hand patting her ears as she tried to force them back into cooperation. ​

​

“Well, that was decidedly unpleasant.” She murmured to herself, even if she wasn’t really capable of hearing it at that present moment in time. The guard that had been priming the grenade when her shot had caught him in the act now a garishly avant garde smear on the canvas/wall. An angry little number of vivid aterial reds and scorched soot blacks that would have had even the most hardened critics concerned for the artists wellbeing.​

​

“ - Well, after the thing." And the pinkie made five. "Of course, then there was…”

​

“Marishko!” She yelled, pushing forward on unsteady legs through the carnage. Kicking the few wooden splinters of the doorway aside as she stepped into the office. The grenade still had her rattled. Her nerves were on edge and she wasn’t about to take chances. It hadn’t started out personal, but damned if it wasn’t about to…​

​

She shrugged and spooned another mouthful of cheese sludged pasta directly from the pot. “You sure you don’t want in on this? It's pretty great.”

 

[Amea Virou]

Well, she was honest. As Amea looked at the numbers they seemed to add up. Marishko had for all intents and purposes been operating with a rather small crew, almost smaller than Amea's, but those that he had were just as loyal as those that Amea had under hers. Difference was that while Amea had been acting for the arguable greater good, Marishko had seen it fit to play both sides of the table in an attempt to bring another chair.

At one point, he had hired Amea for her services. At another he had tried to sell that information forward. Not one to take a slight sitting down or a contract breach lightly, Amea had seen it fit to send the one agent under her wing that would send the strongest message to anyone that would try to cross her again, and needless to say the message was broadcast loud and clear.

"I know, it smells delicious," Amea said and glanced over at Lethe with a grimace. "Ehhh, maybe next time."

She placed the datapad with the mission details on the table as Lethe seemed intent to eat.

"You know, despite the blood bath, I am actually, genuinely, impressed with your results." Amea said and began to nod at Lethe. "You took on an assignment, carried it out at your own discretion, and better yet didn't even try to sell me on a lie. That practically puts you miles above most newcomers."

"Of course, the information might have become a bit of a secondary objective after the first few shots had been fired, buuuut I got the results I wished for." Her fingers dragged the pad back into her grasp as she looked at the report again. "What about the actual secondaries? Did you find any dirt on the guy or his associates that I should be aware of? Or was his ship not as tight as he made it out to be?"

"Any loose ends we can exploit to pull his other business partners down with him?"

Lethe Harrow

 

[Lethe Harrow]

Amea Virou​

“It is delicious,” Lethe corrected with a pointed stab of her spoon. Clearly torn between being defensive of her limited culinary venture and content that she wasn’t about to lose half of it. There were few things better than a bowlful of cheesy carb-ladened comfort food.

She paused in her scraping of the bottom of the pot, chewing the inside of her cheek as Amea brought up the additional objectives. “About that, you should know there were some… Technical difficulties getting hold of his more classified files…”

[Blyuuurp]​

​

“Oh you stupid…” The terminal flashed an angry red lettered warning, seemingly unperturbed by the heavy handed slap the display received in return. Nor did it seem amused, or even affected, by the drive and the proprietary MI malware that was installed on it.​

​

She tried it again, removing and jamming it back into place.​

​

[Blyuuurp]​

​

The red lettered warning flashed again. In larger block capitals this time, as if to make the drive’s failure even more abundantly clear. ​

​

“Ugh,” she pinched the bridge of her soot covered nose. “Okay, fine, plan besh it is.”​

​

She glanced down at the concussed form of Marishko resting next to the desk, eyes travelling from his prone form to the knife in her hand before flickering up to the large window that dominated the office.​

​

They did say when life closes a door…​

“...So I had to get a little creative…”

THUD-DOON!

“You know, I’ve never defenestrated someone before. I have broken windows, shot through windows… Burst through windows… Which, I have to tell you, looks cooler than it actually is. So much drama, so much glass. Such a posery way to enter a room.” Lethe remarked almost boredly as she slung the infobroker into the window pane once more. And once more, watched as the poor man bounced off it with a resounding thud. Marishko had clearly spared no expense and gone for the premium package. That was what, the fourth time? Impressive really, but at least it seemed they were actually getting somewhere now.

It had been hard to see at first, what with the grease and blood smear Marishko left behind with each impact, but a fine gossamer of cracks had finally begun to appear. Now it was a question of which broke first; the info broker or the window.

“But never with someone’s body.” The mercenary continued and readied for another attempt at the window, grabbing poor Marishko by the scruff of his ill-fitting suit jacket and hauling him bodily to his feet. “How about it, Marishko? You want to give me the code to your files or do you want to be my first? What do you say?”

She leaned in, painfully yanking his head back as she whispered seductively in his ear.

“Wanna go all the way with me?”

“You’re a psychotic schutta!”

THUD-DOON!

“I hate that word. Schutta.” Her lips puckered as if the word itself carried a bad taste, “So derogative. So needlessly misogynistic. Like if you took toxic masculinity and distilled it into a word.”

She reached for Marishko again, brushing aside his feeble attempt to avoid another round of ‘tell me what you know or we find out how good this glass really is’.

“Use it again, and I become decidedly less civil about this.”

“Look, I can pay you. Whatever you want! Do you know who my father is?”

“Why, did your mother not tell you?”

“You leave my mother out of this, you Sch—”

THUD-DOON!

“...But it was nothing I could not handle.” Lethe finished, placing a drive onto the table with her freehand. The unapologetic bloodstains seemed to speak volumes to how exactly it was handled. Despite the temptation to do so, she hadn’t pried into the files herself, but she was fairly confident in their veracity. After an extended game of window roulette, she highly doubted Marisko had the stones to lie to her. And if he had, well…

She glanced around the safehouse, tapping her spoon on the rim of the pot thoughtfully. “You know what would go great with this? Hot sauce. You mind?”

 

[Amea Virou]

Lethe Harrow

The technical difficulties were listed. Amea flipped through the pages to scan each of them with a quick glance before she sighed. 'Getting creative' was a good way to say you did something rash. Amea got creative in most of her endeavors and as such perhaps she shouldn't have expected anything less from her agents. But then, was it really so unreasonable to expect your agents to be better than yourself?

"Yes, says here you 'got creative' in the bullet points too." Amea glanced at the butchery of a summary. "Windows, cracks, and blood."

"More surprised his reinforced glass took so little to break, but then maybe he cheaped out on it." Her eyes scanned the report again and looked up at Lethe with a confused face. "Right, yeah, the hot sauce is in the pantry where you found the packaging for the…" She circled around the pot. "That."

Without further delay, Amea grabbed the datastick between her index finger and thumb with a careful grasp. Not because it was fragile but because it was disgusting. This would have to be looked at later. Although if Amea was correct in her assumption it contained just about all of Marishko's operation collected in one spot, his 'single point of failure' which admittedly was a pretty big and bad one.

"Are you… Sure that food is healthy? You know we probably have better alternatives somewhere around here if you want to cook up something more… Elaborate in the future."

She exhaled.

"Well, anyway, overall I would say this mission went about as smooth as could have been expected when you send a single individual to do what would have taken anyone else a team of two or three to do."

"Good job."

 

[Lethe Harrow]

Amea Virou​

“You know, this is the first time I’ve had to write up an after action report on a job.” Lethe called over her shoulder as she retreated into the pantry once more. For rather glaringly obvious reasons, neither House Mecetti nor the Mecrosa Order had been big on keeping records of their sordid clandestine exploits. Today’s evidence had a rather predictable way of becoming fodder for tomorrow’s extortion. It felt like a cardinal sin putting it all down into writing. “Seems to be quite the day of firsts, now that I think of it.”

There was a rattle of bottles, a clamour of cans and the faint tinkle of glass breaking from the pantry followed by a moment of silence. An awkward pause that was punctuated by the distinctive scraping sound of something being brushed or kicked presumably out of view before the mercenary reappeared, hot sauce in hand, the veritable picture of innocence. Or the picture of someone that was making a semi-educated guess at what such a thing would look like.

“Truthfully, I am glad the window broke when it did.” Lethe confessed as she resumed her seat by the fire and promptly set about drowning her pasta dish in a thick, vibrantly pungent orange layer. Clearly creating a tenuous culinary balance in the process; skirting the line between eyewatering and mouthwatering. “Any longer and Marishko wouldn’t have been in a state to give his own name, let alone the codes for his files.”

Her eyes shifted pointedly towards the mystery laden datastick between Amea’s fingers as she spoke. Not for the first time in the last few hours wondering if she should have taken a look at the contents before passing it over. But then, she realised she didn’t actually care. The rantings of a mouthbreathing bottom feeder like Marishko barely held her attention in life. She doubted that would have changed in death.

She also had the distinct impression her employer would know in any event.

Crime was only fun when you were getting away with it.

“I burn a lot of carbs with my cybernetics.” The mercenary defensively shovelled a spoon of pasta into an indignant looking mouth. Her tongue practically having a seizure at the sudden influx of wildfire that scorched its way satisfyingly down her throat. A hand went for the hot sauce. “Besides, they say comfort food is good for the soul, yes?”

She wasn’t sure who ‘they’ were exactly, nor how food could do anything to salvage the irreperable state of her soul, only that they provided an ample and convenient defense against the judgemental gaze of the brunette.

“And puh-lease. Save your attagirls. It was child’s play. Simple snatch and grab. Men like Marishko, and I use the term 'men' lightly in this instance, are scarcely worth the effort.” She snorted and started to tuck in once more. “And his goons? Credit store rent-a-thugs at best. I mean, I used the front door. Practically walked straight in.”

 

[Amea Virou]

Lethe Harrow

"It's more of a formality than anything. I wouldn't be much of a boss, much less live for very long if I blackmailed my employees." Amea spoke with bemusement as she looked at the mess Lethe shoved down her throat. "I am not sure I would find comfort from something with that much hot sauce, actually."

A small chuckle burst through the corner of her lips for a moment before she cleared her throat and sat up straight. This was a welcome change of pace from the usual agent. Drinks, food, a lot more rigid in how they acted. Lethe was almost the polar opposite of the other agent she had hired for things that needed a less volatile mind.

Not that it seemed to matter, Lethe was content with the work it seemed. At least content enough not to kill Amea outright and actually fill the report out.

"There is nothing wrong in positive reinforcement, much less accepting it. Edge is, after all, not a valid alternative to small talk." She shook her head. "And besides that, you are overlooking the fact that you even planned to use the front door to begin with. Either you would get shot dead from the get-go, or you would shoot them from the get-go, and it takes nuts to even make that gamble. Big enough nuts that very few are willing to make such a play."

"So yeah, you're welcome." Amea then shrugged. "What about Marishko? What did you do to him or… What was left of him?"

 

[Lethe Harrow]

Amea Virou​

“Nostalgia. When I was a child, when they trained me on Nyssa, they used to heavily season the food like this.” Lethe replied between mouthfuls of the messy orange concoction. Her expression alternated between micro-wincing at the bitter, acrid heat and something a little more… quite frankly alien in the honesty it contained. A wry smile that verged on something oddly real from the Tapani mercenary. “Helped cover the taste of poison, you know?”

It was framed with all the pretenses of a rhetorical question, or perhaps even a throwaway joke, but there was a faint flicker of interest in those burnt amber eyes. A subtle probe to see if there was any glint of recognition from the infobroker. Testing to see just how far and how deep their resources and background checks extended.

“Mhm, Marishko. You know he offered quite the sum for your head?”

For a man that had broken before the window, there was an awful lot of confidence burning behind that baleful gaze. Making no attempt to disguise the utter look of contempt he leveled in her direction. A bruised, battered and blooded man, after giving up the codes, she supposed he had little use for subterfuge now. Instead contenting himself by trying to envision a variety of brutal ends for her as she continued to seal his life’s work, one keystroke at a time.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll start to think you have a crush on me.” The data pillage slowed a touch, the woman’s head cocking to one side. “And, quite frankly, I'm not sure who would have the worse end of that equation."

“I can pay you.”

And there it was, the predictable return to begging for his life. Appealing to her capitalistic greed. Not an entirely terrible ploy.

“Double what that She is offering.”

Her fingers hovered over the keys.

She toyed thoughtfully with the spoon in her hand, twisting and turning the utensil before settling it in an almost knife-like position between her thumb and fingers. That vicious smile widening in the silence that she let linger for a few moments before she resumed eating. “Unfortunately for him, we had something of a… Breakdown over terminology during the negotiation stage.”

“Triple.” She countered, “You’d need to triple her offer.”

“What? That’s ridiculous!”

“Triple.” Lethe repeated, turning in her seat to face him. A man, even one resembling the human stain that was Marishko, that had the pure audacity to haggle over the price of his own life warranted a touch more attention. She held up two fingers, waggling them in turn as she added up her calculated price. “That covers not only the cost of your life, but the cost of hers and the damage to my reputation for breaking a contract. A bargain really.”

“Fine! Hell, I’ll quadruple it! Just promise me that when you kill that schutta, you’ll do it slo—”

She interjected with a raised hand. The motion causing him to flinch despite the fire and vitriol in his voice. “And there’s that word again. I did warn you what would happen if you used it. Shame, really. You were doing so well up until that point.”

“You could say the whole deal went out the window after that.” She didn't smile at her own half-hearted attempt at a joke. Not really. That would've been crass. Instead she gave a rather please, cat with the cream vibed shrug before continuing a touch more soberly. "By the way, he made several threats regarding his father before the end. Made him sound vaguely important. Some sort of upper eichlon of CorpSec."

It had sounded like a lot of empty words from a man about to meet his maker at the time. Clutching at any plausible sounding excuse to buy himself another few minutes this side of a cracked reinforced pane of glass. Nothing she hadn't heard countless times before. She wasn't worried, and made that abruptly clear.

"I don't know if it is something you should be worried about or not."

 

[Amea Virou]

"Neither of us would be in this business if we were afraid to ruffle the wrong feathers, Lethe." Amea chuckled and let a hologram flash before her for a few moments longer of a plan that Amea herself was constructing on the now-dead thug's dad. "Either he knows I am coming or he doesn't, either way we are overdue for a reunion soon enough."

The hologram disappeared as a thick black miasmic fog covered it and withdrew it seemingly into her hand to disappear from view.

"If CorpSec was something to be worried about, then organizations like Darkwire and those… Weird spandexmen out in the streets wouldn't be around." She shrugged. "When the people you hire only speak the language of money and greed, then you'll more often than not find that their ideals are just as malleable as their wallets."

"Marishko's father has taken notice of our play but knows well enough not to retaliate unless these files you handed to me were to… Somehow reach the hands of his closest rivals."

"In the end the message is the same." Amea exhaled a mock laughter. "Don't cross me again."

Lethe Harrow