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"For you?" Amanozako said as she got to her feet, resisting the urge to slam the slimy perv's face into the bartop, "Nothing" she stepped around him and exited the bar.
Hopefully that fool would not follow her out. She spotted the lorath and Gartigan and moved to the curb to hail a cab of her own.
What is your location? She silently transmitted to Desmond who had yet to respond to her.
Amanozako's rebuff had left the long-haired man just a touch annoyed, but after a snippy comment about her being something along the lines of a "prude bitch," he'd moved back to the bar and struck up a conversation with the bartender even before the Neko was out the door.
The streets outside were starting to swell with people as the evening drew nearer and the various foundries and factories nearby began to rotate their staff to the next shift. Many of the citizens walked with a tired, dead-eyed shuffle, although whether it was because they were exhausted from a long work day or because they were dreading going to work was probably dependent on the individual. Because they had gotten there first, Tam and Shrie flagged down a taxi surprisingly quickly; an amber-colored sedan whooshed up to the curb, its automated door opening with a hiss and an artificial, sterile-sounding chime.
Amanozako rolled her eyes as she caught the tail end of the guy's comments as she exited the bar. Had she not been on a mission and needing to keep a low profile she would have gone back in and slammed his face into the bartop a few dozen times till all his teeth were imbedded into it's surface as an appropriate response to his behavior. But, alas, she could not, so she kept to playing that scenario out in her mind as she watched the other two flag down a cab.
The traffic was getting thick, chances of getting another one asap were slim at best and she did not want these two to have a chance to slip away and possibly get reinforcements to bring down on Desmond. So she stepped forward, putting on her absolute best non-evil NMX neko face, a present and cheerful enough looking one even.
"Hi!" she said, interrupting the Lorath and Gartagan as hesitantly as possible, though with the state of urgency one would expect from someone not wanting to miss out on a lift. "It's getting awful busy, can I share this cab with you?" she asked with a polite bob of her head.
Tam looked at Amanozako and pondered while he had an internal running monologue going 'Neko, looks like prior NMX model 29, not as dangerous as a Nightmare but still a potential hazard, possibly working in conjunction with the pair that left the bar. Might be advisable to keep close instead of letting out of sight.' He replied, "I suppose, probably not a good idea for someone like you to be waiting around for someone else to show up."
Shrie nodded. Unlike Tam she had not way to discern Amano as a neko with her ears hidden by her hat. Tam had sense of smell for that, Shrie had no such thing. At best, Shrie could notice that Amano was very agile from the nekos body language, but as far as the lorath was concerned, Amano was a nepleslian gymnast. Or killer. There was no way to tell.
"We in hurry," Shrie replied to Amano. "Our address first. Hope you do not mind." She added as she climbed into the taxi.
"Thanks" she replied cheerfully. "And I don't mind my stop being second" she added in reply to the lorath. She thanked them again,then got into the cab, sliding over to the far side to make room for them and to place herself by a door if need be.
"I just appreciate you guys sharing your cab "
If they wanted to go to theur stop first,she was perfectly fine letting them show her another possible location for their target, or to be on hand in case they were going to the address Desmond had given.
The cab whirred to a slow stop on the curb in front of a dizzyingly tall, if decrepit and depressing in appearance, apartment high-rise several blocks away from the tavern. In front of it, foot traffic shuffled in either direction along the cracked sidewalk running along the street side. Tam easily recognized it as the residence of the gentlemanly patron from Klimmeck's Hole the previous night who had offered Sienna a place to sleep off her alcohol-induced stupor. Whether or not she was still there, Tam had no way of knowing for certain, but judging from just how drunk she was before, it was probably reasonable to guess that she would be in no shape to go many places for a while, depending on her metabolism and body chemistry.
A ragged-looking panhandler, an older man dressed in rags and a dirty red cap that gave off a horrible, gut-wrenching stench over a head of matted and tangled graying hair approached the cab, limping and dragging one foot behind him. His hands were outstretched, pleading for some act of charity with little more than unintelligible mumbles, as he positioned himself between the cab's open door and the entrance to the apartment block.
Shrie sat in the taxi as they rode. She had to unclasp scabbard with her sword and hold it between her legs, as it was hard to sit in a car with sword at your side. So as the taxi stopped, she was first to get your, with sheathed sword in her hand. She looked at the beggar who approached the car and at first, succumbed to her usual panic attack. She just stood there and watched the pathetic man who was asking for some money, he could most likely spend on booze so he would not feel so terrible. He would not feel anything at all. Self-pity. Shrie had her own experience with it. She knew that if she would give this man some money, it would not help him, it would not save him, it would just keep thing the same. Only one who could save him was himself.
"No," she said to him simply. "You must help yourself." She left a cryptic message, slipped by him and wait onwards to the door. She put her sword back on the belt, hiding it under her cloak and waited for Tam by the door.
Amanozako saw that they had pulled up at the address Desmond had sent her. These two were working with their mark for sure. She woukd wait till they got out, then have the cab pull around the corner and let her out.
They just arrived outside. Be prepared. She sent to Desmond's comm via her wireless as she took note of the begger outside the csb and how the Lorath delt with him.
The beggar remained insistent, either not hearing or ignoring Shrie's rebuff, but he kept just outside of arm's distance as the Lorath and the Gartagen debarked. Although he was clearly desperate enough not to let a single refusal dissuade him, he apparently knew better than to make anyone he panhandled feel threatened enough to have an excuse to attack him.
Tam looked back into the cab at Amanozako, lightly thumping the roof of the cab with his palm. "Enjoy your evening, miss," he said in a curt farewell, and turned to catch up with Shrie, brushing shoulders with the panhandler as he passed, who followed him a few steps with outstretched arms before sagging dejectedly, and shuffling on down the sidewalk. "Come on," the Gartagen said to Shrie, reaching for the door. "The apartment is upstai--"
His words cut off when he pulled on the door handle, and realized it was locked, and wouldn't budge.
Another chime inside the cab sounded as the door hissed closed and sealed with a dull thunk, leaving the Neko alone inside, and merged back into the traffic.
"Let me off just around the corner here" Amanozako said to the cabbie as soon as the door was closed and the vehicle had pulled away from the curb. Then she dialed up Desmond via her wireless again and thought him message, "They are out and on their way up to the apartment. A Gartagen and a Lorath. I will be shadowing them up. Better make yourself scarce or prepare for their arrival"
Shrie frowned as the door locked. She spent few seconds looking the doors over to see if there was another way to open them. There was no chance for her to open them without violence though. That was easy to see. Shrie has no knowledge of opening electronic locks, not even mechanical locks. She was more of a battering ram kind of girl. Or maybe shaped charge and she had none of those. Not to mention she was in a city and Orisec would not be happy to see those kind of things.
"Try open it," Shrie said to Tam. "I will look. Another way in." With that she left tam and went around the building looking for any mean of entry. Side entrance, window, fire escape or maybe window to cellar that someone would left open if there was even a basement. They had to get in fast, just to be sure that captain was fine.
As Desmond pushed the door open, the distinct smell of blood was the first thing he noticed as he swung the pistol everywhere he looked, even before his eyes registered the residence's interior. The lights were still on, cheap exposed bar bulbs mounted in the ceiling and droning with a dull, almost inaudible hum. The ceilings themselves were not terribly high, perhaps eight feet overhead, and spackled with low-grade plaster that matched the drab off-white color of the walls. There was nothing in the way of an entry foyer; just beyond the door and off to the right was a spartan pressboard dining table with three very basic, blocky chairs arranged around the edge of the rectangle, and a fourth knocked over onto its side a few feet away. Beyond that, a three-seater dark teal couch sat against the wall of what evidently served as the living room, despite being technically the same room as the dining area, and a vidscreen was mounted on the opposite wall, next to a tall, thin double-doored cabinet of dark wooden construction. Straight ahead, the light from a moderately-sized window shone through thin curtains that were drawn closed. The floor was covered in threadbare, low-pile eggshell-colored carpeting.
Save for the furniture, the light colors of the residence's interior didn't make it difficult to spot the smears of blood trailing in an arc from the door along the carpet. Next to the door was a much more obvious set of haphazard crimson streaks, as if someone had wiped the blood from the soles of their boots rigorously on the carpet before leaving. The blood trail led around a waist-high countertop that divided the living/dining area from a tiny area that was sized and decorated more akin to a ship's galley than an apartment's kitchen, aging metal appliances crammed in to make the most of the little space there was available. Desmond couldn't see the floor over the little bar. A narrow hallway led off to the right beyond the kitchen.
The bounty hunter's expression twisted into a scowl as he took in more of the carnage. He had obviously been late for something. He lowered the silenced pistol down until it was a little bit under his chest, but still pointed at where he was looking as he started walking, pressing himself against a wall as he did so; the last thing he wanted was for someone to grab for his arms while he rounded a corner. He also tried not to step on the blood as he did so.
Rounding the end of the partial countertop, Desmond noticed distinct footprints in the streaks of drying blood. While most of it was somewhat dry and darkened, some of the most heavily concentrated blotches still had a wet shimmer to it. Whatever had happened here didn't seem to have happened very long ago, perhaps a matter of hours at most. The footprints crisscrossed one another in erratic patterns, suggesting a struggle, which came as no particular surprise to him. One set of footprints were large and more pronounced, almost certainly belonging to a big-framed male humanoid. The other set was slighter and lighter, and belonged to a more slender foot, probably a woman.
He had barely turned the corner when he saw who the larger set of footprints likely belonged to, slumped against the refrigerator with his chin in his chest. Trails of blood ran liberally down from his trachea, permeating the white T-shirt pulled taut over his large chest and abdomen. One of his long legs was sprawled out in front of him, and the other one bent awkwardly beneath his haunches at an angle that, had this poor sap not had the bigger problem of being dead, he might have found anywhere from uncomfortable to excruciating. Splattered blood dotted the white walls and was pooled around the floor, and several of the tiny kitchen's drawers were ajar, a few of them yanked from their places and various cooking and eating utensils were strewn about. The dead man's hand lay only inches from where a carving knife had fallen from his grip, but there was no blood on it save for what was pooled around it. The walls were marred and dented in several places, and the upper door of the refrigerator was wide open.
Desmond grunted something inaudible at that as he looked around the scene before moving closer to the body. Although he didn't expect the man to be alive, that didn't stop him reaching over with his free hand and checking for a pulse. When he got closer, he could see evidence of several stab wounds in the man's abdomen that had been hidden amongst the copious amount of blood soaking his shirt. His palms were covered in blood as well. To cap it off, his throat had been slashed entirely from one side to the other with a single swipe; most likely the coup-de-grace after whoever had done this had gotten whatever they wanted from him after leaving him in agonizing pain from the first wounds. The entire scene was nasty, he didn't go out quickly, and he found it quite hard to believe someone lighter could have overpowered him, unless it had been a neko - and all evidence suggested it wasn't. Once he confiremd that the man was indeed dead , the bounty hunter got on his haunches and started to go through the dead man's pockets, turning him over on his back once he had checked the front ones.
The man proved to be somewhat difficult to move, as heavy as he was, and rigor mortis was starting to set in. Desmond took all that in, helping him guess the time frame that person had died. The pants he was wearing were little more than a pair of lounge pants, and his feet were only covered in bloody socks. Nothing was in his pockets. More than likely, this man lived here. Or had, before today, anyway.
The bounty hunter seemed unfazed by that, if not a little frustrated. He had gotten up and was starting to head to the other parts of the apartment when he got the neko's message, and reached up two fingers to jab at the comm-piece on his ear. "Got it, I'll call you if I need backup," he said, turning back around to glance at the body. "There's a stiff here, not entirely sure who did it," he added, and started to look more around the room; he didn't particularly care much about what had killed him, but he did care about getting any clue that pointed where his bounty would be next. That she had or hadn't killed him only vindicated him more.
The carnage around the kitchen didn't tell him anything he didn't already deduce yet, and looking around only yielded more cutlery and flatware, pots and pans, dwindling food supplies, the usual things one expected to find in a kitchen. There were no obvious clues as to what had prompted the murder, but the hallway leading away from the kitchen, behind a wall that seperated it from the living room appeared to lead to a bathroom and adjacent bedroom. The lights were off back there, prompting the bounty hunter to ready his gun again and creep towards it, keeping his back pressed to the wall opposite to the bathroom.
Approaching the bathroom, the only sound he heard was the quiet hum of the lights in the rest of the apartment. Glancing down, he noticed that he had accidentally stepped in a tiny section of wet blood, and was tracking a little bit along the carpet as he moved. It was barely more than a tiny crescent along the heel of his boot, but it would give him away to a skilled forensic analyst nonetheless, he knew.
The bathroom was tiny, with barely enough room for a narrow shower stall, a toilet, and a sink mounted on the wall beneath a mirror cabinet. The walls themselves were almost too close together for Desmond to be able to stand inside and extend his arms out to either side. As for the bedroom, it was pitch black other than the dim light coming from behind another set of drawn curtains on the far wall, so he simply stepped inside as quick as he could, sidestepping to the corner so that he could see the rest of the room.
The bedroom itself was somewhat as uninteresting as the rest of the apartment, furnished only with a double bed that looked barely big enough to accommodate the large dead man in the kitchen, assuming it was in fact his. The sheets and pillows were rumpled and tossed about, twisted in some places, and a thin blanket lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed, off to the side towards the back wall. The faint, sickly sweet smell of sweat lingered in the air still. On the wall across from the bed, in front of the doorway, was a long chest of drawers and a tall mirror piece set in its center. All of the drawers were closed, and aside from the bedding tossed about, the room was mostly barren with nothing else out of place, the walls unadorned by frames or decorations of any sort.
Before he decided to move on, something on the dresser caught his eye. A small, palm-sized recording device of some sort, lying on its side near the window. That caught his attention most of all, prompting Desmond to walk towards the device and pick it up. It was an older piece of technology, but not so old that he didn't recognize it for was it was - an audio-visual recorder of sorts. It was quite thin, and easily concealable. On the side opposite the lens and microphone was a touch screen that took up most of its surface, and for the moment it appeared to be deactivated. The bounty hunter's fingers traced a pair of nocks on the top and bottom, likely clasp points for a mounting bracket or clamp of some kind, and it didn't take long for him to find the bracket it moored up to mounted on the side of the tall mirror, facing the bed.
Desmond's gaze went back down to the device, and he flipped the small screen open and started to check the recordings, from the most recent to the oldest. It was relatively simple to work out the controls after a moment of fiddling with it, and soon enough a recording began to play back. The tiny screen displayed a view of the bedroom, centered on the bed, by appearances activated on motion, as it picked up right as the lights in the room clicked on and a pair of shadows stumbled in from the doorway. The first to appear fully in frame was the large-framed man he'd seen in the kitchen, and the arms of a smaller woman locked around his neck as they drunkenly staggered in. After a few seconds of awkward tittering and a few soft moans, the pair turned slightly, offering a better view of the woman as they toppled over onto the bed. Even with the tiny screen, it was easy to tell who it was. Short auburn hair, lithe, athletic build, roughly the correct height. It was their mark Sienna, and Desmond's expression set once again in a determined frown.
The couple landed hard on the mattress, bouncing a few times as Sienna laughed an inebriated, uproarious laugh before she pinned the larger man on his back, straddling his waist and proceeded to push his shirttail up off of his torso. It didn't take much imagination to realize what was going on in the frame, or what purpose the recording served, making Desmond suppress a laugh; maybe that had been one of the reason the guy was dead, even though that seemed too much of a stretch. The bounty hunter tapped a button on the device and just fast forwarded through it, until it ended or he saw anything that could serve any purpose. The explicit scene of animal lust and no small number of intriguingly exotic displays blasted past in comically fast motion until it reached a marker of sorts, automatically stopping the fast-forward process and began a new scene, much like the first, only with a different woman in Sienna's place. It seemed that this man enjoyed watching his own shows, and it may have finally caught up with him, but the bounty hunter just watched the recording intently. It played out much like the first scene, only with a different variety of equally depraved actions, taking advantage of the impaired judgment of a drunken companion. A third scene followed it, and a fourth, on and on. He had an entire catalog of videos for his sick viewing pleasure, it seemed.
The bounty hunter closed the small display once he had seen enough, and pocketed the small device into one of the baggy side pockets of his pants. That hadn't told him nothing about where the bounty could've gone, except that she had been there the previous day and had possibly offed the man after spotting the camera; given the info on her, that didn't seem impossible. Desmond turned to make his way back to the living room in order to continue looking for clues. Something int the back of his mind still bothered him, preventing him from making sense in all that: how no one could have heard any scuffle given how tightly packed the apartments were.
Shrie looked, but there were no other obvious means of ingress on that side of the building. Perhaps there would be something of a service entrance elsewhere, but she couldn't see any overt signs of one from the sidewalk.
Tam looked around, checking to see if anyone was watching. "Stand over here," he asked of Shrie, pointing to a spot on the ground a couple of feet behind him where the tall Lorath would block a passerby's view of him from most angles. When she was in place, the Gartagen clasped the door handle with both hands, and with a sharp, brutal tug, he yanked the door with superhuman force, shearing the latch bolt off in place. Without further effort, the door swung open. "Let's go, quickly," he said, stepping inside. "Someone will discover the broken latch very soon, and we shouldn't be here when they do."
Cab - Streets
The taxi whirred to a stop around the corner from the apartment building's entrance, as instructed, and the door whooshed open to allow the Neko to disembark. She barely had time to set foot on the ground before the warning chime sounded, closing the door behind her. Just like that, the automated taxi sped away, leaving her to her own devices.
There were a couple of other buildings looming overhead between her and the apartment where Desmond already was, but she wasn't far enough away to make navigating back to it a problem.
Apartment Block 98 - Ninth Floor
The muted ding of the bell within the walls thunk-chimed as the elevator doors slid open noisily, revealing the pair of humanoids. "It's this way," Tam said to Shrie, leading her out into the hall and to the left. They hadn't made it but a few steps before they saw that the door to Tim's apartment was wide open, and the Gartagen's nose picked up the scent of blood, sending a wave of alarm through his system. "This doesn't look good," he mused quietly, looking back over his shoulder. "Be ready for anything."
Amanozako made her way quickly back to the apartment complex, but not so quickly that she would attract any unwanted attention. She frowned deeply as Desmond's reply came. She hated this whole playing backup thing and was going to express her displeasure once this mission was done.
Arriving at the complex, she went in and found the stairwell, quickly traveling up to the floor below where the apartment Desmond was in was located. She woukd wait there for his distress call, close enough to be able to go up and assist quickly, but far enough to stay out of sight.
On that floor she switched through to the infrared visual spectrum, allowing her to see heat signatures through solid obstructions. She looked for Desmond, the Lorath and Gartigan on the floor above to see where things lay.
Shrie was a bit unhappy that they had to damage the doors, but if captain was in danger it was needed. As Tam moved in, she went after him looking around for signs of danger. A short ride in elevator later, they came to the entrance to the apartment. With Tam's warning Shrie unholstered her Standary Energy Pistol, setting it on stun. With the weapon in hand she moved to the doorway and leaned in, pistol in her hands held closer to the chest. That was it was hard fro someone standing on the other side of the doorway to grab her gun.
Without a sound, Tam stepped over the threshold to the utilitarian-looking apartment, scanning the blood spattered and smeared on the walls and floor, his gauss revolver clasped tightly in his hand, sweeping across the room in a steady, slow arc. Despite the deep concern growing within him at the sight, he maintained a deathly stoic exterior, hoping against hope that they would not find the captain present. The sound of shuffling and what seemed to be the tail end of voices were emnating from a back room that he couldn't see, and once he affirmed to himself that the common area was clear, he trained his weapon on the hallway that led away from the kitchen behind the countertop to his left. Nodding for Shrie to follow him, he tiptoed over the crimson streaks in the carpeting, his digitigrade feet enhancing his stealth.
Still inside the bedroom, Desmond drew the silenced pistol once again, and pressed his back against the wall besides the doorway. Although he hadn't heard anything, he knew that if the Gartagen and the Lorath from the bar already weren't in the building- even the apartment, they were very close to it. As if on an afterthought, he quickly reached for his side pocket with his free hand and took the recording device. With a flick of his wrist, the display screen was open, giving the bounty hunter time to select the first video in the list, set the recorder to the maximum volume and then throw it on the bed. There were a few seconds of silence before the recording began to play back, gradually escalating back into the sounds of Sienna's drunken titters and soft moans, along with the various other sounds of clothing, bedding, and the bed frame shuffling about.
Out in the common area, Tam stopped dead in his tracks, looking back over his shoulder at Shrie with a puzzled expression.
Shrie could hear sounds as well. Muffled sound that was hard to recognize, but it sounded like moans or maybe sighs of pain. The living room ahead seemed clear. There was some blood, but no one was there. Shrie looked at Tam and then pointed at him, and then forward towards the hallway. She then pointed at herself and then left to wherever that doorway led. She then gave Tam a nod to see if he understood.
Tam remained still for a moment, partially paying attention to the Lorath, but also quite obviously listening to the sounds coming from down the hallway. The puzzled frown on his face deepened as he turned his head back in the direction of the darkened hallway, almost forgetting to nod his agreement with Shrie's direction, and tiptoed slowly towards the wall, just around the corner from the hallway. It was then that he noticed the corpse lying slumped against the refrigerator in a pool of blood, and his eyes widened with recognition.
Shrie herself started silently shuffling forward, ready to move into the kitchen. The lorath tried to be as quiet as possible, moving inside the flat. She was not sure if anyone was still in, but it was more than possible. She held her SEP close to her body, so it would be hard for someone to grab in and moved in. If there was nothing to be seen as she would round the counter, she moved fro the bedroom in the same manner.
The Gartagen stared at the corpse for another few seconds, and the frown on his face morphed into one of grim determination. He recognized the voices coming from the bedroom, and one of them belonged to the dead man on the floor. Something was very wrong here. Very gently he leaned just enough around the corner to peek down the hall, noting the dim light coming from a window he couldn't see in the bedroom, and he remembered that the door on the left side of the hallway led to nothing more than a bathroom. Quickly, he assessed his options. If someone was back there, they were most likely trapped, unless they had a means of leaping out of the only window in the room and surviving a nine-story drop. He had them cornered, but he had no idea how many there might be, nor whether or not they were armed, or with what. Glancing the other direction to Shrie, he waved one of his taloned hands to get her attention, and pointed insistently down the hallway before turning back in its direction, staying concealed behind the corner.
"I know you're back there," he called in a gruff, threatening voice. "You've got nowhere to go. I'm not interested in a fight, but I will if you force me. And believe me when I say you don't want that."
Inside the room, Desmond smiled. He had one hand on the pistol and the other on the earpiece, all he had to do was press it a couple of times and Amanozako would know there was trouble, and then they'd have the two of them in a crossfire. "No, it's you who don't want a fight. Not when I have five of my buddies here with me," he called out.
Tam bared his teeth at no one in particular, still leaning right against the edge of the corner. "I've seen the size of that room, friend," he sneered. "There is no way you have that many. Come out quietly, and let's discuss what you've done with my captain."
"Come and check it out then," the bounty hunter suggested.
Shrie meanwhile rounded the counter and saw the dead body. She did not know who the man was and was glad it was not the captain, but it was still bad. And death was bad. By that point, Shrie heard the talk between Tam and some other man. She frowned and moved towards the bedroom, she still had to check it out, but first she listened to the unknown voice trying to pinpoint the location better.
"Where is Captain Shelton?" Tam repeated with practiced evenness, ignoring the bounty hunter's taunt.
So they didn't know either, Desmond thought. He would have to capitalize on that. "That is an excellent question,"
Tam glanced at Shrie, putting one talon to his lips, then pointed down the hall, suggesting she try to sneak down the hall and surprise their mystery guest while he kept him busy. "I'm not going to play this game with you," he called back. "I can have ORISEC here in a matter of minutes, and they won't hesitate to haul you in for murdering our friend out here--"
"Look at the blood, idiot, he's been stiff for hours," the bounty hunter replied, cutting the Gartagen off. By this point, the pleasured moans and sighs coming from the recorder were beginning to ramp up in intensity.
Shrie nodded back at Tam and moved forward, sneaking through the hallway. She was still unsure how to get a drop on the voice, but at least he probably did not know about her. Still the bedroom only had one entrance and the man would be aiming at it. That mean it would be a suicide to rush in without a stun grenade. She could fire blindly at the voice, but that was unlikely to hit. This was a lot of trouble.
"For all I know, you've been here the whole time waiting on us," Tam shot back. One of Sienna's squeals belted out from the recording device.
"Then you are an idiot," Desmond replied, reaching for his bag with his free hand.
"Charming," Tam replied, looking insistently at Shrie, and nodding down the hall. "What is it you want?" That was when the Datajockey flew out of the open bedroom door, bouncing off the opposite wall and landing squarely on the hallway floor. The screen was still turned on, showing the info on Sienna's bounties, as well as her 'crimes.'
Shrie moved behind the wall from where the voice could be heard and inspected it. This was a low rent apartment, if the wall would be frail enough, she could burst through that. She was a fyunnen after all.
"Your captain is the murderer," he said, emphatically. He could hear the wooden floor creaking right outside, and assumed that was the Lorath moving while the Gartagen kept him distracted. Tough luck. The bounty hunter took one step back from the wall and pointed his pistol at it.
==TRANSMISSION RECEIVED==
Origin: Urtullan Colony, HX-24 System
Re: Bounty - Violation of Indenture
Sender: Office of the Magistrate - Reisor District
Be it known that SIENNA AUDREY SHELTON has unlawfully departed the planet in violation of his/her indenture with contract holder OLAF EDMOND PANGRE. She was last seen boarding a military shuttle with a Star Army of Yamatai crew after assisting in the murder of a lawful agent sent to collect her. Orbital trackers detected the shuttle docking with a Plumeria-class gunship and jumping away. Current whereabouts unknown, presumed to have fled to Yamatai space.
A description of the fugitive is listed below. Other crimes committed include MURDER, THEFT OF PERSONAL PROPERTY, DESTRUCTION OF GOVERNMENT RESOURCES, RECKLESS DISREGARD FOR PUBLIC SAFETY. She should be considered armed and dangerous.
A bounty of 3000 KS (or equivalent) is offered for her return ALIVE and in GOOD HEALTH. No payment will be awarded if the fugitive is critically harmed in any way, including but not limited to dismembered limbs, missing organs, brain trauma, paralysis, etc. Relatively minor injuries such as moderate bone fractures may or may not void the bounty, depending on circumstance.
Height: 175.26 cm
Weight: 60.78 kg
Eyes: Green
Hair: Lt. Brown
Age: Early 20s
((Two close-up photos of Sienna, one from the front and one in profile like a mug shot, are attached to the message))
Tam didn't move from where he was hiding, but the Datajockey landed face up close by enough for him to clearly see the dossier with none other than Sienna's mug shot attached to it. The puzzled look returned as he read through the rap sheet, and involuntarily glanced at the mangled body of his captain's one-night stand. He had suspected that Sienna had something of a sordid past, but he certainly hadn't expected anything of this caliber. Shaking his head, he blinked as if it were little more than a hallucination. "You're full of it," he barked back, some of the calm bleeding away from his voice. "Where did you get this crap?"
"If you believe that, then you're just an accessory, and fair-game to me," Desmond replied, still with his free hand on the open bag, and still with the pistol pointed squarely at the hallway.
Shrie decided to intervene. She was supposed to be silent, but it did not matter by now. He was behind the wall and so was she. If she wanted to attack, she could do so any time. Instead she looked at the datajockey on the floor.
"Lies," she simply said. "Fabrication. Captain. She saved me."
There was no reply from inside. Tam stared at the dossier for another few seconds, then looked at Shrie, gauging what she made of this new revelation. He held his eyes on the Lorath as he addressed the concealed bounty hunter from around the corner again. "What legal authority do you have here, anyway?" he snapped. "Last time I checked, ORISEC ran the show on Dawn, and if this backwater has any legal claim to the Captain, then they would have gone after her already."
"Then feel free to call them," Desmond replied, clicking three times on the earpiece. The recording playing on the bed was getting ever louder and more intrusive.
"Indentured servitude. Not legal here." Shrie internved herself. Indentured servitude meant slavery. Shrie had a lot of experience with that. If Sienna was a slave on the run, Shrie would do everything to help. "If you grab Captain. ORISEC will get you." Shrie decided to go along with Tam's plan to talk the man inside the bedroom down. Bounty Hunter with not legal power behind him was just a thug.
Tam glanced at the dead body again. "What proof do you have that Sienna killed this guy?" Tam called back. "She was all over him last night."
"I bet she was when she saw he recorded everything," Desmond replied.
The Gartagen's eyes widened in Shrie's direction again, and a pang of anger rushed through his veins. At least that explained the sounds coming from the bedroom, and why they sounded familiar.
Shrie's eyes got suddenly wider. "Then, the murder?" She asked towards the room. "Is it recorded too? Also she would delete it after. Stupid reason to kill."
The bounty hunter didn't say anything else. All evidence was already right in front of them, and they had simply chosen to deny it.
"I will check the body," Shrie said to Tam and slowly shuffled back towards the kitchen. She aimed at the doors just in case. Shrie knew her way around blades, she knew how tall and strong Sienna was. She wanted to check the wound on the dead man. See for herself if it could be Sienna or not.
Much like Desmond had found before, Shrie could see enough evidence of a struggle, and the bloody footprints circling one another on the floor were of quite different sizes. One obvoiusly belonged to the big man on the floor, and the other set belonged to someone significantly smaller and of lighter frame than he was. The narrow width of the boot prints suggested a woman, and the repeated stab wounds to the abdomen didn't look like the work of someone who was being precise, or even someone who was particularly calm when they did it.
Tam stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds, taking it all in. He remembered hearing whispers of the captain murdering a former crew member in cold blood when he crossed her one time too many, something he had never given a second thought to until now. He still didn't want to believe it. But the evidence was all right there in front of him, and he began to wonder, if this bounty hunter before them was correct, when she might lose her temper one one of them. And even though she wasn't a trained killer or built like a soldier, now he was beginning to wonder if she was more dangerous than he'd initially thought.
Shrie frown as she looked at the body. There was nothing distinctive, nothing that could say that it was or was not Sienna. She was in the flat for sure and she spent the night with the dead man. There were small footprints, that most likely belonged to her. Still it did not mean that this was a murder, it only meant that it could have been a murder.
Shrie got up and returned to Tam. "Could have been self-defense." Shrie said and looked at the gartagen. She was starting to be unsure of the situation herself. "Maybe we call police? We came to look for friend. Found this..... I don't know. What do we do?"
"I don't know," Tam replied after a brief hesitation. "I don't see them looking favorably on this, whether or not the captain did it." He looked back at Desmond menacingly. "But either way, you aren't taking her back as a slave."
Desmond sighed. He had indulged the two of them long enough. He had already gotten the two of them to hesitate, and that was good enough; he wasn't about to stand there and wait for ORISEC to show up. The bounty hunter withdrew his hand from the bag, pulling out the telephone-sized cilinder of the flashbang as he moved towards the doorway. He didn't even lean out to see where the intended targets, and simply tossed it down the hallway barely after letting the spoon fly off it.
Before either Tam or Shrie could react, the flashbang burst with a spectacular pop, leaving both the Gartagen and the Lorath staggered, blind, and deaf. Tam stumbled backwards into the countertop and nearly toppled to the floor before he caught himself, and both of Shrie's hands shot out to either side of her, barely managing to grab hold of both sides of the bathroom's door frame to steady herself as she stood there, her eyes clamped as tightly shut as they could.
Without checking, Desmond sprang out of the room, dodging the disoriented Lorath as he ran towards the exit. Tam offered no resistance either as the bounty hunter bolted past him, and out the door.
Shrie held onto the doorframe, knowing all too well that there was nothing else to do. She just hear her ears ring and could not see it. She knew that this would go on for several minutes and by that time the bounty hunter would be long gone. At the moment, she could just hope for him not to shoot both her and Tam in the heads.
What seemed like an eternity passed before either of their senses cleared enough to make out their surroundings with any reliability, but the images in their eyes stayed doubled-up and spinning for a moment, and the ringing in their ears remained. "Shit," Tam muttered, still steadying himself on the countertop, desperately trying to clear his vision. "Are you all right?" he asked Shrie.
Shrie blinked several times as her eyesight was coming back. It still hurt, but thanks to cybernetics in her eyes, she could already see well enough. Her head turned to Tam and she frowned. "Yes," she responded simply. "Do we call Orisec? The recording, we should watch the end. Maybe more than sex on it."
"Yes," Tam replied, but when he looked at his feet, he noticed that the Datajockey on which Sienna's dossier had been displayed was no longer there. His eyes darted to the bedroom, and running a hand along the wall, he stumbled back that direction and began to search the dissheveled bedroom for the recorder. Shrie follwed in him, looking for the recorder as well. Or maybe it was recorded throug hidden camera, which might still be around along with the data on it. However, after several moments of frantic searching, the only thing either of them found was the bracket on which the device had been mounted, moored to the mirror on the wall opposite the double bed. The device was nowhere to be found - the bounty hunter had obviously taken it with him. "Damn, damn, damn," Tam swore under his breath. Thinking for a moment, he looked urgently at Shrie. "We need to go, find the Captain. Now."
"All right," Shrie would still rather called the ORISEC personally, but at the time like that, it was better for other to make decisions. Other people whose brain worked at 100% percent. "Captain. I think she did not do it. Not until there is true evidence."
"I hope you're right," Tam replied, nudging the Lorath out of the door. "But until then, we can't be sure of anything. Either way, it's best if we find her before ORISEC does. And especially before that bounty hunter."
"Yes, let's go," Shrie said, turning away and leaving the flat.
======================================
Apartment Block 98 - Hallway, 9th Floor
Soon after leaving the apartment, Desmond darted through the hallway, stopping to put the recorder and Datajockey inside the bag, before turning his head towards the stairs. He wasn't about to sit there and wait for the elevator. As the bounty hunter started to resume his run towards the stairs, he hesitated again, then raised the pistol at the elevator's panel and fired at it once, then twice, until the small metal square shorted itself out with sparks. He holstered the gun and made his way towards the stairwell, where the neko was waiting, nearly barreling into her in his run.
"This was a bust," he said to Amanozako, holstering the pistol right under his armpit, concealed by the jacket he wore. "Let's get out of here and find out what the other two found out," he added, already making his way downstairs.
Upon hearing the gunfire Amanozako started up for the floor above, meeting Desmond as he was coming down. She was about to draw one of her HHG's,but held back.
"What the hell happened up there?" she demanded. "I heard gunfire" she added as she too started down the stairs.
Desmond was already down the first flight of stairs before he heard the neko. He wasn't expecting the two back in the apartment from having recovered from the blast, or for them to rush after them in the stairwell. "Nothing good!" He shouted back, jumping down four steps at a time as he made his way down. "We're getting out before ORISEC arrives!" He added.
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