<b>Darion</b><br/><br/>Kal gave Darion a glance as he told him to move on up without him. His reaction was to urge caution, but the man pulled a knife - and not one of those cute little shanks some dreg trash liked to pull to act tough. It was a real knife, back end serration, grooved for balance and weight, blade textured and coated.<br/><br/>But it was the look about him that gave Kal pause, stopped him from disagreeing. Kal knew that look, knew how he held that fucking blade. He knew the look on his face. Kal knew it only too well.<br/><br/>"Right..." He whispered. "Right." He started up the stairs.<br/><br/>The Dregbanger had the lead on Darion by a few floors. It didn't take too long before the footsteps left the stairwell. There was no point in checking the second floor, time it took the punk put him below it. That meant first floor at least. When Darion hit the ground floor, he heard metal scraping and screeching.<br/><br/>A quick look out the stairwell put the punk in his sights. He had his back turned, was wearing only his pants. His right arm was clearly prosthetic. It read 'Fuck You' in glowing red letters, English. He was pulling a steel bar off of the front door to the building - explaining why the entry was unusable. He pushed open the door and stepped out onto the street, flooding the floor with the sounds outside.<br/><br/>A couple of nobodies were leaning on the building across the way. One of them was waving to a hooker - the same hooker, in fact, that Darion had seen earlier. She was ignoring them, sizing up the Skullbanger. He gave her a hazy glance, looking around the block for a moment before heading west - toward the alleyway.<br/><br/>He stopped at the alley, looking around for a moment, his eyes eventually looking down the narrow lane between the buildings. He paused. Noticed the glass on the ground. It took him a moment to start piecing it all together.<br/><br/>"The fuck...?" He mumbled, starting down the alley.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><b>Valerie / Nikki</b><br/><br/>Valerie saw Kal cautiously lean out of the stairwell. He didn't bother asking where anyone was. The sound gave it away. He glanced down the hall, then slowly started making his way toward the room with all the commotion going on. Valerie's camera shot limited her view to the main hallway, and as Kal to its end, he disappeared beneath the view angle of the east camera, and around the corner out of the sight of the west. The cameras had motion, though whether the servo mechanisms were still in working order was unknown.<br/><br/>The man on Nikki was getting close. He was sweating as he fucked her, his aggressive pumping coming to a climax. He closed his eyes, feeling the peak coming...<br/><br/>And suddenly he couldn't breathe. He was yanked backwards, painfully separating from Nikki as a cold forearm crushed down on his windpipe. He tried to shout in surprise but he couldn't, All he managed was a gurgled, choking cough. Kal yanked him backwards, but he grabbed Kal's arm, tried pulling it off him, struggling madly.<br/><br/>His teeth grinding in a grimace of pain and rage he reached back, grabbing at Kal's face, forcing him to pull his head back. The gang-banger threw his head back, catching his jaw, shocking him just enough that the man got his footing, kicking off the ground, throwing his weight backwards.<br/><br/>The two men went down, smashing into the wall, the old counter breaking as they hit it. Collapsing. Kal lost his hold. The gangster threw an elbow backwards, Kal jerked as he caught him in the ribs. The gangster fought to get up, saw the rifle a scant few steps away. He scrambled across the floor, his foot sliding on a piece of debris from the counter. Kal grabbed the back of his pants, the force of the man's lung carrying them both forward as he once more hit the ground. The gangster swung his arm backwards, trying to hit Kal, reaching with the other to grab the assault rifle on top of the short fridge.<br/><br/>He shouted in pain as Kal hoisted himself up and drove his left below down on his kidney, making him recoil, his fingers missing the weapon. He rolled, grabbing Kal by the throat and squeezing, saliva spraying from the gangster' teeth as he exhaled sharply. Kal felt his windpipe close, his face reddening as he grabbed the man's wrists. The gangster threw him down, the two tumbling on the floor.<br/><br/>Kal's left hand closed around the man's wrist and pried it off him. The man growled like an insane animal as he tried to keep a hold on Kal's throat, but he couldn't overcome the load-limit reducers in the prosthetic. Kal snarled as his bared his teeth, the muscled and tendons in his neck tight. He drove his knee up into his attacker's exposed genitals, sending a momentary spike of pain across the man's face, weakening his grip.<br/><br/>His eyes glazed as Kal hit him across the temple, shoving him off. Kal ran for the assault rifle. He didn't need the weapon, but sure as fuck didn't need the dregbanger asshole to have it either. The man wasn't stunned for more than a moment, though and threw himself at Kal, throwing the two men down the hall, away from the weapon.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><b>Spook</b><br/><br/>A woman appeared before Spook's cell. No armor, no gun. She waited as the solid, transparent cell wall/door rose into the ceiling.<br/><br/>"You've been claimed." She informed the nude woman. "Please follow me to processing."<br/><br/>The WatchTower woman took a step back and waited for Spook to follow her. She led the woman down the halls of the retention cells, past the black armed guards on their patrols, past dozens of cells. She looks she got from inside them were contemptuous at best.<br/><br/>She was led to a large room. On its back wall was an enlargement of the WatchTower logo, silently glowing. Inside, sitting at a terminal was a man with a clean cut, a few prosthetic flourishes along his hairline. He had one of those large nodes plugged into his neruoport. Next to him stood a black armored woman - the same woman from the street, Spook quickly surmised, given the identical rank markings on her arm. She wasn't wearing her helmet, and Spook got a good look at the woman underneath. She was dark skinned, hair cut in an angular bob. Her eyes glowed with a mauve tinting.<br/><br/>But, it was the third person in the room that caught Spook's attention the most directly. A man wearing a suit. The two behind the desk were looking at him with a restrained disdain. He stood there, tall, straight, hands in his pockets, completely calm. When Spook entered, he looked at her. A frown crossed his handsome, early thirties, face.<br/><br/>"What is this?" He looked at the two behind the desk.<br/><br/>"Your claim." The technician answered.<br/><br/>"I know who she is. I want to know why she's being paraded around without clothes on." He stared at the tech. The commanding look in his eyes made the man at the terminal shift uncomfortably.<br/><br/>"Standard operational procedure for an unemployed violent offender." The ranking woman answered, arms crossed.<br/><br/>"Well she's not unemployed. She's my employee. Give her clothes." The suited man turned his razor sharp gaze on the woman. "Or will I need to levy a complaint with your parent company? Michaels, perhaps... or Otawa?"<br/><br/>The ranking unit sneered, then looked at the woman that had brought Spook in and disappeared back into the cells, reappearing moments later with a simple white two piece. It was loose fitting, and the same thing Spook had noted many of the prisoners wearing.<br/><br/>"Are we done here?" The man in the suit asked.<br/><br/>The technician made a few keystrokes on an invisible input. "Yes."<br/><br/>Spook's escort left. The man turned his attention to her, smiling. "Come on." He gave a nod of his head. "I've got a car waiting."<br/><br/>He walked with Spook through the facility, though Spook couldn't have completely sure it was even the same one she had seen when she arrived. It was different outside of the retention wing. People sat and talked at tables in a wide open cafeteria, a large window overlooking the Edge. Beyond she could see aircraft crossing the sky, sunlight filtering in. Two guys bullshitted at a railing, a woman commented on her son's recent academic decisions, three units in half in armor emerged from an elevator commenting on a deployment.<br/><br/>Spook's new friend walked with calm ease. It was all normal to him, all perfectly acceptable, normal. "It's Spook, right?" He asked, looking at her. (Cantonese)"Or Cantonese, if you prefer?" (Mandarin) "Or Mandarin?" (Japanese) "Japanese?"<br/><br/>He lead her out of the entrance hall of WatchTower. Pillars supporting a hundred-foot ceiling were ringed with advertisements of WatchTower, every one of them tagged with the logo of APTS Cybergenics. Receptionists sat behind circular desks, speaking with non-WatchTower personnel, the inhabitants of the city, whichever part of it they were in. They looked reasonably well off, for whatever it was worth.<br/><br/>Her escort opened the door for her and they stepped out onto a wide, descending stone stair leading down to the street. A very expensive car waited before the building. The man in the suit lead Spook to it, opening the door for her.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>Nikki / Darion / Valerie Environment Map<br/><div class="ToggleTriggerAnchor bbCodeSpoilerContainer">
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