The gun twisted in her hands, the force of the recoil almost knocking her enhanced physique off-balance. She felt the accelerators go into overdrive to keep her arms steady and her breathing steadier. Cassandra was not having a good time, but at least it was almost over. She didn’t like taking contracts this high up. In fact, she’d never been this high. The tenth floor, so close to the surface, was the most prestigious floor she’d ever seen. When you were outside looking up, it wasn’t immediately obvious, although there was less rain. But it was when you started to take in the architecture that you realized that people living up here loved to flaunt their opulence, or took pride in the fact that they could afford opulence but had chosen gleaming minimalism. The difference was the same. It was all corporations and elites up here. Well, not all.
Another shot rang out. Another robotic guard exploded in a shower of superheated steel. This was beneath her, but the rich up here had no idea of the value of money, or the value of work. Three months worth of payment, to do what? Disable a rival’s factory? Cass sighed and took another shot. The bots were slow, but well armed and even better armored. Enter large gun. It wasn’t elegant, but it didn’t need to be, and where the guards were all networked, their hearing was awful and they were dumb as bricks. There was a reason mass-produced robots weren’t popular. But they made okay guards. If nobody brought a gun big enough to take down an airplane. Which she had.
Guns like these were rare and hard to come by. Because of the separated nature of the floors, the distance between the individual blocks and the size of the airways, mechanized warfare was practically nonexistent, and the guardianship of floors being tightly controlled and regulated didn’t see a lot of armed aircraft stay both armed and airborne for long. But every once in a while, someone wanted someone else two blocks away and one floor down to stop existing really hard, and custom weapons were made. She pulled the trigger again, and another cube-shaped drone fell over ‘dead’. At least the pay was good.
Sure, there was a risk if she was caught, but if she went over the edge, there wasn’t an upper city lawbringer that would follow her down. And since her ticket up had been paid for, this was the closest she’d get to the surface for some time. She glanced up, as if she was going to see the city’s surface right through the factory roof. Sighing, Cassandra shot another bot. If anything, this was boring. But it was solid work, and the risk was pretty low. The corps were starting to rely more and more on these ‘heroes’, mercenaries like herself with exponentially higher budgets than her. A bunch of them also seemed to have magical potential, which was strange. It was a rare thing to be born with, and usually so limited as to not be useful. She knew a couple of people with some magical powers.
And now MRCo and their ilk were picking off mercenaries and turning them into hopped-up supercops. It was gross as all hell, and she hoped that the dip in well-paying contracts higher up wasn’t going to stay as deep because of it. She’d have to resort to working for lower-city warlords, and she knew of only a handful that were reputable. One more shot. One more bot down. She checked her scanner. That was the last one. Her job was done. “Coast is clear, operator. Send your man in,” she said into her headpiece, signaling her handler. She got an affirmative grunt in response.
She ended the call, took the headpiece off and tossed it aside. If it was traceable, it wouldn’t be traced to her. She carefully picked up the individual cartridges ejected by the weapon. Those could be traced back to her, and she wasn’t risking it. She stood up straight, casually slung the overly large weapon onto her shoulder and carefully made her way across the beams high above the factory floor. It hadn’t been too hard to find a vantage point up there; these factories were built for extravagance as much as anything else in the upper city.
She carefully placed the grate back where she’d pulled it out of its sockets, and walked across the factory roof. It wasn’t as dark up here, she realized. Sure, it was night, as it was everywhere in the city, and it was lit up by neon -- although more thought went into branding around here, less meat-flavoured beer -- but there seemed to be some very light background scattering. Now that she was outside, she took the time to look up. It was definitely brighter. How many years had it been since she’d seen the sunlight now? Did this world have sunlight? Something else? She wasn’t in a position to go check it out. In a cab she’d make it up maybe half a floor before she’d be shot down. On foot, she’d be fighting every step of the way. Security up here was tight without clearance passes.
She had a small bike, adorned with gold trims and some kind of synthetic ivory, that she’d been using for this assignment. It was ridiculous, but it worked well enough. Okay, it was pretty good. But she wouldn’t be seen dead with the thing around her neighbourhood. She’d be ridiculed and it would’ve been dismantled within minutes of touching down. She strapped the gun onto the vehicle’s side and got a small earpiece from a pouch. It took the signal a second to be routed through three dozen floors, and when she finally got a connection it was getting a lot of interference. Low level magic tended to hang in the air, especially up here. She turned up her nose.
“Yo,” the voice on the other side of the line said casually, slightly muffled by static.
“Sal, job’s done. Can you make sure these rich shartgibbons are good for it?” There was a pause on the other side of the line, and Cassandra smiled as she revved the bike. Every once in a while she liked to throw Sal a curveball, and he usually needed a moment.
“...Sure,” the answer finally came. Then another pause. “Holy fuck, Loke.”
“So that’s a yes?” Cassandra began to slowly taxi the bike down the side of the floor, broadcasting her movement permits, before she joined the vertical traffic lane. Not that it was busy. Nobody liked to admit that they had to travel downcity. Especially up here.
“Yeah,” Sal responded. “Have I ever told you you make too much?”
Cass grinned to herself. “You might have, once or twice. And I’m still not sure this kind of job is worth it, Sal,” she said, dodging a cab that seemed to be experiencing some technical issues. It hung still and was slowly rotating horizontally. The passengers looked bored out of their minds, and Cass failed to push down a barked laugh. “Sorry,” she added. “That wasn’t at you.” She heard the Satyr clear his throat.
“All right then. Anyway, why wouldn’t it be worth it? With this kind of money you could just, like, buy the bar.” He paused. “Please don’t, I quite like owning it.”
“Because it’s boring, and it feels dirty,” she said, and jumped lanes. She was halfway down floor fourteen, with a long way to go before she was close to anything resembling home. At least the city was getting its proper shade of darkness back.
“You’ve killed people! Why is this money dirty but taking downstairs contracts clean?”
“Because those were bad people, Sal. This is just… corporate espionage and property damage. Makes me feel like a pawn in games I am neither able nor willing to play.”
“Fair enough. Weirdo. Come here and cash your cheque. And don’t be weird.”
“Fuck you, I’m not weird. I’m never weird,” Cassandra said with a grin. “You’re the one who bleats when--”
“Alright. Fuck, you are a handful. I can’t believe I dated you,” Sal said. Cassandra laughed again and steered the bike to a roof on floor seventeen. That was the drop-off for the fancy vehicle, and it didn’t have the necessary permits to go down any more floors.
“You better believe it, Sal. If I remember correctly, you were the one hitting on me,” she said, chuckling. “Anyway, I think I’m done with high-brow work for a bit.”
“Yeah, I can believe it. What’s next, sitting comfortably for a couple of weeks?”
“Sal. Honey. Sweet cheeks. Goatboy. You know I can’t do that. I live for this work.” Sal bleated softly in feigned protest while Cassandra landed the bike and hopped off. There was a tarp with a symbol stenciled on just a few feet away. “I just don’t want to do meaningless work for rich assholes.”
“I can respect that. But you’re also not in the mood for casual murder, yeah?”
“You know me, hun.” She threw the tarp aside, revealing her own bike. It wasn’t fancy, and the engine kicked harder than she did, but it had survived no less than three crashes and that’s what she’d paid good money for. “If I’m hunting, live captures only.”
“None of those on the bulletin board, I’m afraid,” Sal said. “I’ve got a couple of raids, a couple bots gone full murder on eighty-four, assassinations, and… uh… a private escort.”
“Like, a sex worker?” Cassandra had just started her own bike, which had jumped forward, as if happy and eager to fly, but she held off on taking off for a moment.
“No, uh, I mean that someone needs to be moved with a guard. That kind of escort. I didn’t think you’d be interested, but you’re mentioned by name.”
“Weird. I might be interested. I could do with something a little more low-key. Who’s the client?” Cass finally took off and began her descent, faster this time. Past twenty-five she could accelerate properly. Nobody stopped a flier in freefall. After all, what kind of weirdo wanted to go down that desperately? Most vertical traffic was automated; Deckers didn’t get permits, and the top floor high-society snobs wouldn’t lower themselves. The advantage, of course, was that nobody asked questions and the lower she got, the clearer she could hear Sal.
“Uh, hold on.” There was a quiet moment. “Huh. This is a pretty high-end contract, Lokes. Like, this is coming from the Queen.”
“Black-62’s warlord? Fuck, that’s pretty fucking rad.” She bumped the boosters and the bike began to slow down. She was in the high thirties now and still descending, albeit more slowly. A bit further and she’d be getting somewhat close to home. “Who’s the client? I mean, the person escorting. Not the Queen herself, I’m assuming.”
“Yeah, no, she wants this one done quietly, that’s why it’s just you. No team, no backup. Well, just you and me, I guess, and even then there’s not a lot of information here. No information on the ‘package’, and just the destination, which is ‘around forty’. You’ll get more info if you take it.”
Cassandra took a turn and spiraled the bike towards the apartment block that was her home. It wasn’t fancy, but she didn’t need it to be. It was just her and her overly talkative cat, and he wasn’t allowed to have visitors. Not anymore. Not only was Mort apparently a bottom, but he was loud, too. If he wanted to ‘make new friends’, he was going to have to find sentient cats somewhere other than the apartment.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “Send me the contract, and I’ll reply after I take a shower and wash the smell of rich people off me.”
“Will do. See ya soon, Loki. Lyra says hi.”
“Tell her I’m not going out picking up girls with her again. I’m just gonna take this contract, take it easy, and lay low for a couple of days. I’ll see you around, Sal.”
Cassandra hung up. This kind of contract was going to be good for her. She needed to relax, and a simple walkalong was exactly what she needed. Besides, working for the Queen seemed like it could only be good for ‘Tore’s’ reputation. She looked forward to a good bath, and then a simple, easy mission to cap off a productive week.
Thanks for the chapter! So this is what she was doing before she met Tee.
"Simple easy mission" yeaaaah totally
another great cass/loki chapter :3 i love hearing about her life of merc work
Eh he he I don't really think it's going to be as simple add you think Cassandra
Heckin called out *bleats softly*