If grays were easier to oppress, Beretta was sure they would be. They were different. To most, unsettling. To more still, they were viewed as inhuman killing machines. And then there were the crazy ones who believed that the avenue to true enlightenment was through genetic and cybernetic enhancement. Beretta had been approached before by digi-cultists and gee-gnomes who wanted her to lead them to their promised land, to their singularity, to... whatever bullshit they thought would save them from the miseries of the universe. It was all ridiculous and it didn't change the fact that grays were apart from the rest of humanity. It wasn't even because of their skin tone. It was because of what that skin tone represented. They were built to be killers, wolves among sheep with no way to hide themselves.<br/><br/>Beretta had become accustomed to her differences early on. She'd been only fourteen when she'd received her augments. There was certainly an adjustment period but she enjoyed the power and control it gave her. It definitely fed her ego and superiority complex but for good reason. She would live longer and remain healthier than any normie. It was easy to detach in the face of all that, easy not to regret murder when you felt you were better. In moments of clarity, the horror of it all made her sick. But normally she tried to ignore it.<br/><br/>The tram trundled to a stop and people began to stand to disembark. Beretta was first off the train, brushing past the older woman and her son without even looking at them even when the woman tried to thank her. She didn't want to acknowledge her own gut instinct to protect the kid. It would make everything harder if she started to think like a human being.<br/><br/>This level was more residential, less neon and holograms. She made her way to a complex called Brier Ridge. It was nothing to gawk at, a plain, slate gray building with no architectural flare of any kind, its name emblazoned over the main door in faded white letters. There were no briers or ridges anywhere in sight. She'd long ago stopped pondering its name. This was home.<br/><br/>She made her way inside, taking note of a blip on her wrist-link. She tapped the flat screen of the watch like device to get the noise to stop. It had clocked a heartbeat signature that seemed to be following her. Not good.<br/><br/>She took the stairs quickly, keying open her apartment door and stepping inside. It was not a large apartment but it was much bigger than the barracks she'd gotten used to during her first tour with NervStrike. She'd shared a room with seven other grays, four men and three women. She'd been sixteen, the greenest member of the team. They'd quickly become her family and the room, and her tiny bunk in particular, became her world when she wasn't on deployment. She'd lost her virginity in that bunk. Had her second go of it two hours later in the bunk above with a different guy.<br/><br/>Her apartment was dark and she didn't turn on the light, instead walking over to take her coat off, laying it over the back of a chair. She sat down in that chair, her gun across her thighs, lighting a cigar and leaning back, facing the door and waiting. She keyed a command on her wrist-link and her door slid open again with a hiss, inviting her stalker in.