14 – Alley

The lightning sphere drew a glowing curve in the air, slicing through the darkness of the alley. It blew up on the floor and scattered electric sparks. Then another one hit the wall and raised chunks of bricks and dust clouds.

The young woman used her arms to shield herself; debris particles splattered her face, and she almost tripped over some garbage cans. She regained her stability and continued her desperate marathon. The space to move was limited; her attacker was snapping at her heels, and she had only one direction to go: straight ahead. There was no turning back, and the passage where she was in promised her a dead end.

She pierced through pockets of mist coming out of the drainage gutters, reaching up like spectral claws searching for her ankles and glimpsed the finishing point: The rear wall of a warehouse and its backdoor, lit by a flickering light bulb; above that, nothing but the blackness of the night.

“Hit the damn breaks, babe!” said a man. “I’m tired already!”

Driven by adrenaline, she continued to make her way down the narrow path between layers and layers of moisture and smelly waste; until she reached the door. Tried to open it, but it was locked, as she expected. Could have forced it, but she didn’t. Like her pursuer, she was exhausted too.

And there, standing still for the first time in the last few minutes, she felt the ravages caused by the electric shock she’d received at the start of the chase. The energy grenade had hit her right shoulder, just above the strap of her T-shirt. She reached back and held back a grunt of pain. The bruise burned… a lot. The dampness she touched could be sweating, but no; she knew it before looking at what was on her fingertips. It was blood.

How could she have been so foolish to let them surprise her from behind again? Hadn’t she learned her lesson before when she got attacked at the nightclub?

You should be ashamed, gal, she told herself. If her father had been present, he would have been so humiliated to see his daughter caught in such a foolish way that he himself would have handed her over to the enemy. Juzo, on the other hand, would never have done that.

“Juzo…” she called him silently.

She wanted her partner by her side. Damn, did it hurt to not have him around! Tears welled up in her light blue eyes. Then she imagined what Juzo would have said in that case: ‘Don’t be weak! There’s no place for crybabies in this world!’

Very well. It was time to drop the crybaby role.

Besides, she’d already checked what she wanted to know. They had gone through the port area and the city’s slums and no other hunter had joined the hunt. Indeed, her attacker was operating alone, and now, under poor lighting and the shadows of night, she was alone with him.

And as she turned to her enemy, she put her foot on the gutter grate that was to one side of the door. Click! it sounded; inadvertently, with the heel of her boot, she’d detached it. A good warrior knows how to cope with what is at hand, she told herself. Now what she needed was for him to make a mistake, and then she could give value to the wound on her shoulder.

“Hell, Malin,” said the man, “how can you not kiss the pavement with those beautiful red lips of yours every time you run with those heels?”

“Would you like me to lend you my boots, Simon?” she said. “That way, you can take away the doubts for yourself.”

Out of the shadows, a man dressed in an old military uniform came walking; though more than a soldier, he looked like a car mechanic who had not yet tasted the pleasure of a shower after a week of hard work. He wore his combat jacket fully unbuttoned with no shirt underneath, exposing his hairy chest, and with the sleeves folded up to his elbows. His face was lean, full of a half-grown beard and thick dark mustaches that covered his lips. Simon was one of those guys who always gave the appearance of smelling bad, and that no one would dare present to society.

“You like high heels, sweetie?” she provoked him. She wanted him to come closer. “It is never too late to experience new things, y’know?”

But Simon kept his distance.

“You’re still the same whore who wouldn’t shut up even when sitting in the electric chair.”

“And you’re still the same nobody who once betrayed Juzo and me,” she said. “A piece of garbage.”

Simon ran his hairy arm across his face, wiping off the sweat.

Malin fixed her eyes on the black chrome bracelets he wore on his wrists: Auriga, just like the ones she had lost—they looked more like prison shackles on him than the sophisticated equipment they were, though.

“I told you before, and I’ll tell you again.” Simon’s eyes gleamed lustfully. “I can look the other way and pretend I never saw you if you… You know.” He licked his mustaches. “C’mon! I’m gonna treat you like no one ever treated you, you’ll see.”

Malin smiled again. Give me that mistake I’m waiting for, you prick.

“I must first congratulate you because you learned a new concept: to treat someone,” she said. “Second, a beer-breath kiss or a pool game at one of those sleazy bars you like to hang out in doesn’t count as a treat.”

Simon bared his teeth. Good, Malin was doing it.

“I’m gonna shove a Fotia up your throat to shut you up, bitch,” he threatened, and contracting his left hand’s fingers, he formed an energy grenade and fired.

Malin dodged it easily. Rain of sparks by her side.

Simon created another grenade with the same hand and shot it. Malin ducked it again.

“Huh! Always with the same hand,” she pointed out and scoffed. “I forgot you only have one implant! Don’t feel bad, boy; the morgue is full of bastards who didn’t interrupt treatment early. At least you were honest and said, ‘Thanks, but I’m fine with this’.”

Simon was fuming.

“Look, I’ll show you how we the strong do it.” Malin extended both arms, activated the ‘trigger’ command with the movement of her fingers, and created a sphere of power in each hand; then, with a few slaps, she disintegrated them. “See, Simon? How does it feel that I, a woman, have resisted the full treatment, and you, being so macho, have been left with half?”

“I am gonna kill you!” Screaming in rage, Simon lunged at her, clutching a Fotia in his left hand and ready to strangle her with his right hand.

Malin hit the loose grate of the gutter with her heel and made it hop. Simon tripped over it; it wasn’t enough to make him fall, all right, but it was enough to distract him and leave him exposed so she could…

Malin threw a quick kick and sank her heel into his crotch, right there. Simon’s Fotia dissipated.

Writhing in pain, Simon fell to his knees. Malin wasted no time, took him by the hair, and pulled him back.

“I don’t understand how you can be so stupid,” she told him, and with her palm open and covered in energy, she delivered a shock to his bare chest. Flashes of light painted the alley blue. “If I don’t respond to your attack from the get-go, it’s because I have something in mind.”

Simon gave one last groan and fell to the ground, spasming slightly.

Malin regained her lost breath.

“Just look at yourself; like a roach kissed by poison.” Taking him by the arms, she detached his dark bracelets. “That’s more like it… I couldn’t risk damaging these beauties with one of my Fotias.”

Malin clasped the Auriga around her wrists and fled, leaving Simon in the alley to get lost in the night.