R.I.P. Vile Rat

With my most sincere respect and condolences for family, loved ones and those who met him.

Strange Days Pt. III

 “All the best stories are but one story in reality – the story of escape.” – A. C. Benson.

Thanagherion slotted the fake id chip into the implant port on her back, the one that allowed her to scrub her current identity and assume whatever was on the chip. She closed her eyes for a second and reviewed the information. She was quite sure the net was tightening and she needed to get out of that station without raising suspicions.

With her new identity she bought herself a Rifter class frigate. It was fast and hardy enough to make a retreat, if she wasn’t identified. If she was, nothing could really stop the sort of firepower the Imperial Navy would bring to bear. And the Imperial Navy would be hunting her after killing at least one of their subjects.

She knelt by the girl again and got the sweaty blonde bangs away from her eyes.

‘Listen honey, I can get you out of here, but I need you to stay calm a bit longer, ok?’

The girl nodded and wiped her tears away, slowly getting up, but never completely leaving her defensive posture.

‘Ok, so this is how it is going to happen: This implant will wipe whatever identity you have now and set you up with a new one. I don’t think you have a backup of your original one, so know that once this is done, whoever you are will be no more, it will be gone, most likely forever.’

The girl looked defiantly in Thanagherion’s eyes and snatched the chip from her hand and slotted it in with no hesitation, a hint of a defiant smile blossoming on her lips.

‘What’s your name, honey?’

It took her but a few seconds to answer that, but Than could see her trying to come up with something new - ‘From now on? Moira…’

‘Ok, so… Moira… take this neocom. There’s a map there that will guide you through the ducts right to a ship. You’ll have clearance. Get on the passenger seats and lock the door!’

‘What about you?’

‘You run and don’t care about me… I’ll be there. Now go! Take the pistol, just in case… and give it to me when you get on the ship and say “green was always your color” to which I’ll reply “a pity I’ll need to change the grips”: it will be our password, ok? If that doesn’t happen just run and try to find yourself another way out. Sorry… this is all I can do. Now you have to do your part for your freedom’

Moira… That was her new name. She didn’t know where it had come from. It was just on the tip of her tongue. She also didn’t know why she should trust this stranger who, a few hours ago, was just going to help her master keep her in bondage. Maybe she didn’t, maybe this was just another test and her master would be waiting for her and would beat her senseless again, but she would take whatever chance she could get to be free, to get away.

After Thanagherion watched her slipping away into the ducts, she proceeded to rig the door with the explosive. This vanishing act would have to be timed perfectly… just a capsuleer dying while rigging a booby trap. Everything so damaged no one would go to the trouble of looking for a slave girl. The trick was clone jumping at just the right time, without her neocom. Rigging the dead man’s switch was the surest way to do it… still, it wasn’t fool proof.

She sighed and contemplated how strange was for her to leave it all to fate.

A few days later…

‘You’re free now.’ Thanagherion said, walking down the promenade on the Gallentean Station. ‘I’ll make sure that identity has no flaws and you are good to go, but… You know, you’ll need a job now… I could use an assistant. The pay isn’t bad as long as you can live with my quirks, so if you are up for it I can use someone who’s determined… and knows the weight of power.’

‘Thank you’ Moira replied shyly.

‘Is that a yes?’

Moira just smiled and walked with a light step, contemplating her new future.

Strange days - Part II

“Strange eyes fill strange rooms

Voices will signal their tired end

The hostess is grinning

Her guests sleep from sinning” – Strange Days by “The Doors”.

Two days earlier… 

Celeris was a paranoid banker first and a capsuleer second. She was the middle woman, the fixer: when people needed things done and didn’t want to get their hands dirty or know who got the shit end of the stick, they would call her. She would swoop down, always inconspicuous, always cautious… and always in person. Such attitude, combined with her gauntness, a face full of edges and angles and bleached blond hair, the impeccable long black dresses, filled with lace and feathers, made her look like a schizophrenic bird of prey, although, to be honest, such posture was not uncommon among capsuleers, so, as far as Thanagherion thought, she was only slightly eerie.

After she made contact with a prospective client she would pass on the information to one of the people on her little black address book for a cut of the profit. Unless you had a banking account with her… then she would just hold on to your isk. It was like having a loan shark lending you your own money: a strange arrangement, indeed, but one that worked between them because of the trust which existed between the middle woman and the mercenary. They shared more history than any of them cared to admit.

The capsuleer/banker looked her usual eccentric self. Sitting in the corner of the high class bar, she was clearly in her element, wearing a bright red dress and knee high, stiletto heeled boots. Her pose was that of a queen: back upright, black mascara, hands crossed on the table, dark grey nail polish and a ring with a gleaming red stone. It was all topped off by a glass of red wine, the real deal, not some cheap, space made, imitation.

Thanagherion walked in, sporting a flowing brown and gold dress and high heels, asked for cold sparkling water, with a twist of lemon, which elicited a cocked eyebrow from Celeris.

‘What?’ – Thanagherion asked, as greeting.

‘Won’t you join me?’ – she replied, clicking her nail against the glass.

‘Not really…’ – Thanagherion answered, retrieving a steel cigarette case and a lighter from her purse.

‘You are not going to light that up, are you?’ – Celeris asked, the tone in her voice indicating the remark was more than a simple a request.

Thanagherion simply grinned mischievously, opened the brushed steel case, pulled a cigarette and lit it, in a single fluid motion.

‘So… what’s the deal?’ – she said, sipping on her water.

‘I may have something. This one’s supposed to be easy but I’m not vouching for the man.’

‘That doesn’t really answer my question.’ – she replied.

‘It’s a simple smuggling run. Apparently the client needs cargo moved and he would prefer if it wasn’t scrutinized by customs.’

‘How much?’

‘A few hundred thousand…’ – Celeris replied nonchalantly, while sipping on her wine.

‘Sounds like too much trouble for not enough pay.’

‘I won’t argue with you to take this one. I’m just the messenger.’ – With that she got up, not before sending her a mail with the contacts and details - all in a quite literal wink of an eye - lingering just long enough to smile, steal Thanagherion’s cigarette with a sleight of her hand over the smuggler’s and leave, her heels clicking like the hammer of a revolver on an empty chamber.

The next day, at dock eight, Corween Mosoon appeared, his security man behind him, armed with a heavy battle rifle and 10 women - slaves, every single one of the pretty little things. She felt sick. Slavery was a fact of life in Amarrian space and had a strong tradition, but she still couldn’t understand how someone could do that to a fellow human being. She could kill someone upclose and personal – in fact she had done so a few times – she could destroy property, she had done damage to people’s lives on a scale it was hard for even her to comprehend… but this she couldn’t understand. It wasn’t, however, for her to care. It was business, pure and simple, so she kept her peace. It was perfectly legal for her to take this contract… that was, of course, up to the moment she crossed into Gallente Space… There it became illegal and the simple notion of slavery was frowned upon, but her moral views were as adaptive as a nano membrane and she prided herself on that, so she just ignored her gut and the feeling she would need a long shower after this run.

She also noticed the armed security and the way her client tried to hide the small pistol he kept in a belt holster away from view. The term was “polite carry”: he wasn’t concealing it, just keeping it from view. It was a statement of power: neither of them should be allowed to carry a piece in this particular part of the station, yet authorities overlooked that little infraction. Than hated to admit it, but it worked: the sight of her client armed and unworried made her feel exposed, especially considering the contents of her backpack would get her hard time on some forsaken Amarrian prison.

She studied every girl, the way they moved and how easy it was to simply compare them to robots, moving without volition, their only purpose spoon fed to them by their master. It was a freak show, in a sense, no matter how well groomed and pampered they seemed. One of the girls however blinked fast, trying to keep the tears away, before looking at the pilot who would be flying her away. Corween’s hand was gripping her arm so tight it would probably leave a bruise. She was the tough one of the bunch and Thanagherion could see a fierce hatred burning in the depths of those green eyes, a rage that fueled her and never died. She thought she recognized a piece of herself in that. The pilot could see the resolve in the way she tried to resist through even the simplest of motions.

As she was led to the door of the container, Than sensed all that defiance coming to a head and it was like watching two interceptors, microwarpdrives burning, crash head on in slow motion: she jerked her arm away and tried to run, but didn’t quite manage to escape her master’s grasp. The guard snickered, with a contemptuous look, as the young girl spun and screeched propelled by Corween’s back handed slap.

On the back of her mind Thanagherion could only hear herself thinking all this was none of her business and she shouldn’t get involved… she could hear herself clearly, as she stepped between them. She knew then she was in for a world of hurt… and that her moral code wasn’t as flexible as she had always assumed.

The Security guy’s face twitched as he fumbled with the rifle, while the thought which crossed the mercenary’s mind was “Amateur”, as she blocked Corween’s wild punch with her left arm and relieved him of his pistol with her right hand. The Amarrian widened his eyes in surprise as the mercenary’s arm sprung to grab him on the back of his head and pull him against the metal container.

She aimed at the guard and fired her stolen pistol. The uncomfortable grip made it hard to aim and the shots came off too low and to her right as a result: instead of hitting the man square in his forehead, the first bullet shattered his collarbone and the second clipped him on his elbow. Hurt but not dead.

The Amarrian’s head hit the container with a satisfying wet thud and he just crumpled to the ground. The security goon tried to level the battle rifle with his one working arm. He was tough, Than conceded to herself, but with his injuries he only managed to spray wildly until the magazine was empty. The old fashioned slug thrower was perfect for this sort of combat: it wouldn’t damage the equipment, just the unarmored personnel. Thanagherion however wasn’t unarmored and the clip wasn’t loaded with hundreds of caseless slivers of metal, just the standard 30 rounds. Still, the two bullets that did hit her felt like being rammed by a pack of slaver hounds, as she fell under the fierce impact and ragdolled across the floor.

The grunt stumbled over to her, as she groaned under the seemingly endless weight of her bruised ribs. He was a dead man walking, but he still managed to score a glancing blow on her left eye with the butt of the rifle. He hadn’t count on Than rolling her head at the last minute and shooting him in the face, which blossomed in a crimson explosion of gore and pieces of bone.

The blonde girl was crouched by the container, crying and keeping her hands over her head. Two of the other girls were dead, ripped apart by stray bullets, the rest were just running away, scared for their lives. Than just got up, tucked the gun of the small of her back and grabbed the girl by her arm.

-The station guards will be here soon. We need to go. Now! – She said, as she shoved her towards the back alleys of the docks.

In the back of her mind she was scanning maps and paying for a room to hide for a few hours while she planned their escape.

Strange Days Part I

“Ninety percent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves.” – Sydney J. Harris.

YC110.09.19, 22:00

The image on the mirror did not reflect the picture Thanagherion had of herself.  It was strange she felt that disconnection between her mind and her physical self. Her body… her clone… hadn’t changed in a very long time, so it would stand to reason it was the most familiar thing in her life. To be precise, it should be the only familiar thing in her life. However, at that precise moment, she was not familiar with that face, that body or the way she felt. Even her thoughts sounded alien to her, like there were two sets of voices inside her skull: a perfectly calm and rational one, working through all that needed to be done, and a screaming one, amazed at how that strange being worked. She slowly blinked and that motion appeared to stretch to eternity as a drop of sweat mixed with some blood, dropped from one of her eyelashes and crashed on the cheap polycarbonate sink with an almost imperceptible sound.

She was battered, bruised and exhausted. Her left eye was almost swollen shut. The cracked ribs made breathing a chore and her knuckles were bruised and scrapped. The pistol tucked on back of her jeans was still warm from the recent gunfight. She mentally counted how many rounds were left, while moving and examining her hands to make sure she retained a full range of motion, taking note of a slight numbness on her left middle and ring finger. The capsuleer gingerly touched the cut on her scalp and wiped the dried blood away, happy to see it had stopped bleeding.

But it was not the damage that made her feel different or unrecognizable. No, she had been through some bad scrapes and came out in worse shape than this, so it wasn’t the dents and kinks on the chassis, so to speak, that worried her or made her feel like a stranger to herself. What made her feel different was the realization that she had changed in the past two days. Her outlook had changed, her behavior, the way she thought about herself. Or had she suddenly come to some sort of realization about herself and who she really was?

She checked if the door to the dingy room was locked and then proceeded to hardwire the door lock to only open from the inside, no matter what anyone tried. The lock effectively became a standalone mechanism with a physical trigger. 

«Good luck opening that with anything other than a cutting torch» – she thought. The mercenary in her would have even smiled, if that option was out of the realm of the reasonable. Unfortunately, she knew better than that: when they found them, they would bring all they had.

After taking care of the lock, she pushed the metal cupboard against the door, to provide an extra barrier of protection. Only then, did she slid to the floor and sat down. She pulled out the snub nosed pistol and looked at it. Its owner would miss such a piece, with its zydrine laced grip, if he was still alive. The contoured grip sat uneasily in her hand. It has not been made for her so, after a fashion, the gun fought her grip.

Her time in the Gallentean Special Forces would serve her well for the next few hours. If it served well enough, maybe she could do what she had set out to do… if she lived up to the corps finest ideals, she might even survive this day.

The room felt claustrophobic. The air recycling was working poorly in this forgotten corner of the station and so were the environmental controls. It felt like a tropical jungle: warm, damp and sticky. The top clung to her skin and made her feel trapped. She wished she was on her capsule and could simply brush this problem away with that instinctive flick of her fingers which operated the blasters. Unfortunately, she was trapped and her body was meat, not metal, and she was going to have to plan this accordingly.

The next step in her plan was not pleasant. She rummaged through her backpack until she found the small flask, not much bigger than her hand and placed it on the corner of the sink, before reaching into her right combat boot and pulling her knife out. It was a nice blade, with a serrated edge on one side and a wickedly sharp edge on the other.

Her fingers probed her hip bone looking for the place where she kept a hidden identity chip, just in case. Usually she wouldn’t have to resort to such extreme measures, but considering she had to smuggle someone else out, she was going to need the extra one. A deft cut and the small capsule where the chip was contained popped out. She pressed a bit of cloth on the cut to staunch the bleeding, before applying some healing paste to close the cut.

She picked up the flask from the sink and took a deep swig. The water inside was warm and didn’t do much to quench her thirst. She simply poured what was left into the sink and proceeded to pry the fact bottom open and remove the small hidden explosive pack. It wouldn’t make much damage, but it would be enough for her plans.

‘Honey…’ – she whispered, with an uncharacteristic softness and sweetness, to the little bundle of stubbornness who was the reason she was in this mess to begin with. - ‘I need you to get a hold of yourself, if I am to get you out, can you please do that?’

Then a pair of green eyes looked back at her, filled with pain, fear and despair, she realized she had ever been what she thought.

Rebirth

“We weren’t the nice boys they thought we were. And we weren’t nice boys, we were fucking little bastards… and we still are” – Sid Vicious

Waking up in a new clone left Thanagherion blind, nothing but a helpless child suspended in warm fluid, in the claustrophic embrace of a glass coffin where sound could not reach her. She kept her eyes closed, although it made no difference whatsoever: she couldn't see anything even if she were to open her eyes wide. Besides, when awaking in a new clone the simple fluttering of eyelids took so much effort, she had learned to conserve all her energy.

There was absolutely no light inside that glass womb. The only images that assaulted her in there were those of her most recent demise. A battle, a big one at that and the world appearing to go into slow motion as the first enemies came pouring through the gate. She could still hear the chirping sound of the first few locks and the gentle rocking of her Drake-Class Battlecruiser as a couple of volleys took flight. Next thing she knew, she was floating on a pod. Shortly after that people were locking her… and then a blank, a crimson and white burst that left a psychological afterimage which was vivid enough to make her try to fill her lungs and scream, to no avail.

She felt her muscles tense up as the fluid which suspended her drained and the chamber opened, her world exploding to crescendo of white light and cold air. She tried to stay up, but her knees buckled under her own weight and she just clattered to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. The memories of her body weren’t really up to par with the use this clone had. She was a newborn and it would take a few hours until she could break it in and get her normal strength and reflexes back. No matter what everyone told you, walking into a new clone wasn’t exactly seamless. Than cursed hoarsely as her arm hit the metal railing with a loud wet crash. The only sharp, jagged thing in this particular room and she had to hit it. “Typical”, she couldn't help thinking. She eyed the blood trickling down her forearm, pressed her hand to the gash and sighed, enjoying the cold air and the feeling of being alive, all the while trying to staunch the bleeding and ignore the pain. She had better success at the first one, truth be told, but she didn’t allow more than a low groan pass her lips. She heard Moira come into the hall and running to her.

-You know, you could just wait for help. Damn it: that's going to leave a scar and you should have a few stitches.

-Since when you became a medical doctor? It's ok Moira. It's just another dent. Pity, it’s a brand new clone. I’m going to have to live with this one for a while… - she neglected to say she didn’t think “a while” would be that long this time. It was getting serious out there.

-Why do I sometimes get the feeling you do this to yourself on purpose?

-Can you get me my cigarettes? - Than replied, changing the subject and focusing on trying to stand up on shaky legs.

-You should take a shower.

-I know. I just need a bandage and I really need a cigarette and shot of bourbon. Then I'll take a shower to get this gunk off... - She didn't add the "when I'm able to stand" thought which crossed her mind.

Moira sat on the floor beside her boss and brought the Neocom with the appointments for the day. Business as usual was the way to handle Than on moments like this: she did not handle vulnerability well.

-Just cancel everything – she said quietly, stopping Moira before she had time to glance at the information on the blue lit pane.

-What do you mean? – Moira asked, taken aback by the out of character way Than reacted.

-War. War is coming. Now, help me up…

Moira looked at her, eyes widening in amazement.

-Please… Help me, I need to get into an interceptor and try to rejoin the fray. – Thanagherion asked again, a hint of hidden pain in her eyes.

Moira had never seen her boss like that. She was used to the obnoxious, ever joking and an overall infuriating impersonation of a human being… she wasn’t used to seeing her ask for help. She wasn’t used to think of her like a real person.

-How bad? – Moira managed to say, putting the Neocom on the floor, between the two of them.

-Bad. Here, - Than keyed a few commands that gave Moira access to battle reports and comms, while she fumbled with the lighter – see for yourself.

Moira glanced at the data, gently took the lighter from her boss’s hand and lit the cigarette, then proceeded to take one from the pack and light it up herself.

-We can beat this. We will beat this. You guys are survivors, after all – she replied, after a minute of silence.

-Yeah, well… not if I stay here sitting on my ass. By the way, that cigarette is comin’ out of your paycheck.

Now, that was the obnoxious Thanagherion she knew and hated.

Smuggler's run

“Though I fly through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no Evil, for I am at 80,000 feet and climbing.” - At the entrance to the old SR-71 operating base Kadena, Japan*.



Than rolled out of bed, her eyes bleary and unfocused. The ceramic floor felt cold to her naked feet and she upped the heating to a more comfortable 22º. She tried to run her fingers through the tangled mess of her hair to no effect and quickly gave up. The lights were mercifully dim and warm, so she could actually tolerate them without making the headaches worse.

This wasn’t the worst hangover in her life, but it was bad enough to rank in the top hundred.

She quickly glanced at the bourbon bottle on the table, trying to piece together the previous evening. She didn't remember bottles being so small. There was no way she had downed that bottle and didn't remember it. No, she wasn’t drinking that much, Moira was simply getting smaller bottles to mess with her head. She quickly rummaged through her jacket pockets, producing the faithful pack of cigarettes and lit own, pulling a long drag that almost made her sigh.

A quick check via link confirmed her pistol was on the vault and hadn’t been fired – not bad. She didn’t feel any bruises or scrapes, so, the evening couldn’t have gone too bad. Nothing on the newsfeed indicated she had done anything wrong – if she did she didn’t get caught or got captured on camera. So far, so good!

Her assistant snored softly on the couch, sleeping wrapped in a yellow wool blanket. She didn't quite remember how Moira ended up there either, but her brain wasn't really working yet, so she decided to chalk everything up to lack of sleep and the terrible hangover. Postponing any complex form of thinking was as good an option as any other, when considering the way she felt.

-Bet this is pretty much what being part of Sansha’s Nation is like – she whispered to herself, her voice coarse and dusty.

She ordered the pot to start brewing some coffee, while establishing a connection back to her home station, trying to get in touch with the Corp brass. Her left hand shot to a bottle of cold water, while her right fiddled with comms volume and cut the visual feed. Everything sounded louder than it should, so she kept dialing it down until the echo inside her head subsided to manageable levels. Impatience was mounting up and the long wait for coffee wasn’t helping.

-It’s a Zombie Than! – greeted Kasumi after hearing her first words, if you could call whatever noises she had made “words”.

Then the discussion about the run – wait, what run?! – started. Eyeing the floating hologram of her active ship, everything clicked into place, just as the coffee pot sent her a warning that her breakfast was ready. If the Strategic Cruiser was out there – and she actually craned her head towards the hangar to make sure it was - waiting for her, then she was running cargo back home. Working as a smuggler again: after all these years, she was back where she started: only the degrees had changed.

It served her right for getting her Typhoon blown up over a communications distraction – she made a mental note (again) never to have an argument with someone while flying in combat, even against rogue drones. The truth was, she needed all the ISK she could get and the easiest way to do so was going back to a job she knew quite well. Also, that Marauder Class skill book hadn’t been cheap, so she definitely wanted to amass ISK fast, considering the hull would be more expensive than her Carrier.

A hint of a smile blossomed on her lips. It was funny how History seems to repeat itself: she had met Moira in one of her smuggling runs and couldn’t really leave the young slave child in the clutches of that Amarrian, so she ended up smuggling her away. She was just a teenager back then and watching her sleeping like that, peacefully, brought those memories back: in a way she still looked like a child to Than.

She was suddenly yanked back to reality by the sound of Ice’s voice calling a status report on the location of all the goods. The slight edge in his voiced hinted that it hadn’t been the first time he’d asked.

-My contacts are finishing the pickup runs and dropping it at the staging point. I’ll be ready to run the pipe in a few hours – she replied, looking down to the

-Do you trust these people? – Ice asked.

-Does she trust anyone? – Wulf jokingly asked.

-I trust these people as much as I trust myself.

-Great! – her CEO replied with not so discreet sarcasm. - Either way, do not get ganked! There’s a lot of money riding on that run.

-Is that supposed to make me relax? – She groaned, while stretching her arms and hearing her shoulders pop.

-No, Kasumi’s threats of a kneecapping by battle-axe should do that.

-Yeah, yeah…

A few hours later, Than was slinking away through low-sec and null-sec, her Strategic Cruiser invisibly heading back home, with a grumpy Moira cursing at her, while trying to ignore her own headache.



*OOC – I couldn’t really verify if this quote was ever there. Granted, I only made a cursory check, but considering I like to use quotes which are as accurate and verifiable as possible – and preferably good literature, but this last piece I sometimes overlook – I’d like to note that I couldn’t really confirm this one. It is still good, so even if it is an urban legend, it’s a good one and I wanted to use it for so long I’ll just snatched it.