Eye of the Monster

"What're you supposed to be?" the girl asked, her slurred voice going mostly into the bottle. Gin, claimed the label. Probably her finest meal in days by the look of her. "Some kinda cowboy?"

Dyne supposed he must look the part. His leather coat had been made by his mother's hands, his clothes with needle and thread rather than by a machine. You could still live that way in Fort Davis, though he worried about how much longer that might be true. The way people lived in cities... it only worked if they had places to take from. Dyne was not an educated man, but he could see the pattern in things as well as anyone else. Or maybe he was the only one who could see them and that was why they continued.

He said nothing, and it clearly made the girl anxious. "I'm called Bells. You work for Reymont before?"

Dyne hadn't, but Boone had. And now Boone was here in California, with a little room of his own in a place called Folsom. On Death Row.

He didn't respond and it clearly made the girl nervous. "This is my first job for him," she revealed. "Hoping it gets me into running the shadows professionally!"

Running the shadows. The same phrase his older brother had used. He had ran himself right into prison. Right into the chair, so Reymont warned. Unless Dyne did his dirty work tonight.

Bells sipped from the bottle again, which was almost empty. She said eventually, "Don't talk much, do you?"

Dyne thought most people talked enough that he didn't need to get involved, and anyway he suspected they wouldn't listen even if he did.

"Well," she went on, "I hope this is the start of a long and profitable career. Bottoms up, chummer!"

As she drained the bottle, Stapleton had an awful feeling that it would be anything but.

The ride was mercifully silent for a time afterwards. Bells tried the contents of different bottles, finding each more liberating than the last. Dyne stared silently out of the window next to him, wishing that his fool brother was free. Wishing he was home, away from this hell of false hope and broken promises. Eventually they pulled into a parking lot and alongside a second limousine, identical to the one they were in now.

This time the door was opened from the outside by a heavyset fellow in a cool dark-blue suit. Tattooed on his neck was Confederated American States flag, the star-spangled 'X' on red with a single white bar on the side. Each of his fingers save for his thumbs had rings that gleamed silver in the light of the comet in the sky. Dyne wondered how often he'd had to clean blood off of them. What mother or father no longer had a child because of what those rings had done to someone?

He emerged from the limousine and the man immediately spoke, extending his gleaming hand with fingers open. "Piece."

Stapleton stared at him blankly. There was no way he was giving his rifle to anyone else.

The moment stretched long, the only noise being that of Bells clambering out of the other side of the car, smacking herself in the face a few times in the hopes of shaking off the drink.

The man rumbled again, deeper this time. "Piece."

Before the tension could get any worse, the rear window of the second car slid down. A cloud of odorous cigar smoke escaped into the night and like the Adversary himself in a tale straight from the bible, Reymont's face appeared.

"It's quite alright, Duke," the man said before taking another drag. His next words were followed by tobacco-stained smile. "What harm is a rifle wrapped up in a bag? I daresay it is probably in pieces."

The bodyguard glared at Stapleton but stepped back, and a moment later the door beside where Reymont sat opened up.

Dyne got in first. Several seconds later, after she'd been searched when she claimed not to have a gun, Bells got in after him. The girl smelled almost as bad as she looked. A harder man would simply have been disgusted. Reymont probably was, though he hid it well. Stapleton wanted to weep for her, but he had to hide it too. It shamed him to share even one attribute with the devil across the car.

"I'm so pleased you could join me this evening," Reymont said with vile politeness. "It has been mighty difficult for me to find good help in these last several days but it is my sincerest hope--nay, my expectation that this terrible drought of capable hands will soon come to an end." His eyes shifted to Bells and she seemed to shrink slightly in the seat before regathering her courage.

"I trust that you sent the message that you were instructed to send?" She nodded and he continued. "And true to her nature, our inconvenient acquaintance is certain to respond in a fashion which facilitates a conversation of the nature that I would like to have with her." He swept his eyes back over both of them.

"To that end, what I ask is for you to subdue her. Injure if required but do not kill her, for an adversary who dies never having known defeat is in my eyes not truly defeated."

Not for the first time, Dyne wondered what kind of person would make an enemy of Reymont. Were they someone fouling up his plans, making him look bad... Or someone who was somehow even worse? He had no desire to engage in the terrible mathematics required to compare the value of the life of a stranger to that of his older brother but it seemed he had no choice.

That was how they lived, here. Taking choice from each other in turn. A house of cards, his Pa had called it once. Dyne saw now that there was no house and even if there was a mind to build one, wasn't nowhere near enough cards to go 'round.

Bells spoke. Too eager to speak, she was. "Who's the target?"

His eyes fell on her alone again. "A woman who has vexed me to no end," he explained. "She has outlived her usefulness to this fine city and its people and now she is an obstacle to the restoration of peace and safety in these uncertain times."

The frown etched across his bearded face explained he wasn't interested in answering more questions. They had their instructions, and he had made clear what was intended for the woman.

"The other driver will take you to the Monument, where you will find this aforementioned vexing woman. Do this for me and I will give you what I've promised you."

Dyne doubted that would be all, but he could see no other way to save his brother from the chair.

Bells pulled herself out of the limo as the bodyguard opened the door. Before Stapleton could do the same, Reymont raised one hand to stop him.

"If you're even half as good with that rifle as your brother says you are," he rumbled, "Then you won't miss when the time comes." The unspoken implication: You won't miss if you want Boone to ever see the light of day again.

Dyne said nothing and Reymont seemed to take the silence as agreement, so he nodded and gestured towards the open door.

More cigar smoke followed him back out into the evening air. As he shouldered his bag, Stapleton watched Reymont's bodyguard produce a pistol from inside of his suit and hand it handle-first to Bells. The girl took it with poorly hidden hesitation.

This wouldn't end well.

= = =

Salesforce Tower had once been the tallest structure in San Francisco. The ideal location to preside over his domain, believed the Protectorate-General Keiji Saito. The light-emitting diodes at its top had been arranged to resemble the flag of Imperial Japan and its pristine, high-tech interior which once had been no more sinister than any other office space in the sixth world had become a command center where was plotted the final solution to the metahuman problem. It became his fortress, his palace, his symbol of Japanese exceptionalism. And with the backing of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies--an almost undisguised proxy for the Yakuza--Saito conducted his reign of terror from a position of obscene luxury.

From the driver's seat of the Firebird Dawson surveyed the remnants of the building, now little more than the skeleton of the first two floors. The most unstable of the debris had been cleared away after the explosion that had shattered the building and what was left offered no shelter from the elements. No one had ever determined exactly what caused the explosion... Knight Errant had drawn up plans to lay siege to the structure and force the Protectorate to surrender but three days before the operation was to launch, someone set off a series a bombs inside, annihilating the building and everyone inside of it.

Maybe it was the Yakuza, who were tired of Saito's repeated defeats at the hands of resistance fighters and Knight Errant. Maybe it was the Metahuman People's Army enacting vengeance for the death camps and the random acts of brutality the Protectorate's marines perpetrated. Maybe it was Saito himself, doing the honorable thing and ending his own existence to erase his shame. The man had not been seen since so the truth wasn't likely to ever be known. And the beleaguered people of San Francisco at the time didn't miss him enough to look into it much.

The Protectorate had all but collapsed overnight after that. Halfway through the occupation Dawson had signed a special contract at Gaines' insistence: fight here until the problem was solved. He admitted freely at the time that Knight Errant had only drawn up the terms because the life expectancy for firewatch teams was so horrifically low. They expected her to die. And oh, how she had wanted to.

Yet here she sat now, looking at the monument again. From her right, Instinct spoke.

"When's the last time you were here?"

"It's been a few years," Dawson replied. In fact it was sixth months before Pickers and his goons robbed Applied Reactions while Megiddo was opening a man's throat hoping to find stock tips in his blood. She'd been wondering if it would be a good place to end it, if it came to that.

Instinct placed a hand over Dawson's lap. It should have been unsettling for someone to know what she was thinking at every moment but instead it was everything she needed in every moment. "The sixth world needs you," she reminded her. "The girls need you. I need you."

"You're all so needy," Dawson muttered, eyes sliding away from the monument to meet those of her creature. "My life is mine to spend as I choose. Isn't it?"

"No," Instinct said sharply. "Your life is ours. Just as ours are yours."

"Did Tranquility feed you that line?"

"She only feeds me her milk. I have a few original ideas, unlikely as it may seem."

The corners of Dawson's mouth curled up slightly. "I'm so glad you're here. I don't know what I would do without you."

Instinct's commpad beeped from its position sitting on the dashboard, beyond which laid the empty parking lot they were sitting in. As she reached for it she said, "Feelings mutual."

Dawson's attention returned to the building. Why would anyone want to meet here? It was thought of as cursed, locally. In Berkeley there was a persistent rumor that the ghost of the protectorate-general haunted the ruins. If there was any truth to that then such a ghost would be most able to appear with Halley's Comet in the sky again. How strange that it should shine again on this city, in another time of turmoil. She was beginning to think that fucking rock was bad luck. Or perhaps it was merely Dawson that was the bad luck.

"Fuck!"

Instinct sat up in the passenger seat immediately, taking the commpad in both hands.

"Fuck! Fuck!!"

Dawson grasped the creature's shoulder. "What? What is it?"

"Someone I know is in trouble," she said, tapping furiously on the commpad and then storing it in her jacket. She reached for the button on the door to open it up.

"I have to go! Now!"

The first thing which came to Dawson's mind was But I need you with me, and then she gelt a stab of guilt for having that line of thought. The second thing was We'll both go but if this lead was genuine, she needed to follow up on it.

Instinct looked at her as the door was opening upward and they both spoke at the same time.

"Impulse, please be careful! I can't lose--"

"Take the Firebird."

Her mouth was open for a moment without speech and then she started to scramble across the middle console into the driver's seat. Much as she wanted to share space with her creature, Dawson tapped the door control panel on the driver's side and stepped out into the cool night air. A moment later Instinct grabbed her by the face and pulled her into a series of quick, noisy kisses on her mouth, nose and cheeks.

"If you die," she warned, "I'll eat what's left of you. This is a threat and it means more than I have time to explain."

It should have been alarming but it made Dawson breathe laughter. Instinct breathed her own into her open mouth and for a moment the rush of mutual attraction made everything else distant.

Then she was stepping back as the car started, skidding off just a few seconds later, out into the street and away as fast as could be managed.

Well, Dawson thought, Guess this is a good time to see what there is to see.

Stalking across the empty street at midnight was something Dawson had more experience with than most people in her profession. As she walked she checked her coat: some Lone Star scrip in one pocket, balisong in the other. Inside pocket had an extra cylinder for the Accelerator holstered on her hip. Commpad in the opposite pant pocket.

As ready as she was going to get.

She neared the deserted building and walked through what was once the grandest facade in all of San Francisco. The night was silent save for a distant siren and the faint sound of the drone rotor blades, lending an air of half-sacred and half-abandoned solitude to the place.

By decree of the new government after the occupation ended, no one owned the ground that Salesforce Tower had been situated on. It had always eluded Dawson exactly who benefitted from that and it wouldn't surprise her if that facet of California Free State culture was one day quietly discarded to allow someone to redevelop this plot of land. Until then it was known simply as the monument.

Soon she was standing in the center of what was once the building's lobby. The financial services that had once been performed here likely were not far from crimes but they paled in comparison to the genocide that had come afterward. All of the sixth world practiced imperialism in some form or another but only a few groups had the devastating hatred in them that was required to attempt extermination of anyone who was different.

Mothers of Metahumans and a few other rights advocacy groups had scrounged together enough nuyen to have erected a simple marble pillar with a solar panel on top. It served as a grave marker for all the people the Protectorate had killed during the occupation. The solar panel connected to a small, cheap computer and a display screen set into the base of the stone, where when prompted one could find a scrolling list of names that visitors could add to, along with a short message of remembrance.

Dawson stopped at it and took her hands out of her pockets to tap the screen, bringing it to life. She brought up the search function and typed out a last name. The list scrolled up quickly and settled on the one she'd searched for.

Victor Reyes - Knight Errant Special Forces. To the right was the customized message from the one who had put his name in.

I'll make them pay, Vic. I'll make them all pay.

She turned away from the display screen just in time to spare it the tears falling from her face. Dawson whispered, "Oh, Jason."

The screen started to scroll again for lack of being touched and Dawson knew if she stood here she would read the names and feel the terrible weight and anger of those years start to well up in her again. She could spend a lifetime mourning the lost, not just those lost to the Protectorate's brutality but its members themselves and especially those whose lives she'd taken and thus denied the chance to ever find redemption.

Turning around and exhaling a deep breath, Dawson looked up at the sky where Halley's Comet hung.

Fucking thing. She wished it had stayed in the past, or across the galaxy or wherever the hell it had come from.

Movement on the shattered second floor caught her eye. A figure, thin of build, darting back into cover after spying on her. The informant? Almost certainly. But why hide? Were they waiting to see if she was alone?

Well Dawson wasn't in a waiting mood. There was a single surviving set of stairs to the second floor, which was only a ruin of shattered stone, half caved-in hallways and debris-filled offices. Without a roof this place was no better to squat in than an open field... That combined with the rumors of ghosts and the general feeling of melancholy it invoked kept things feeling desolate.

As she climbed the faded and uneven steps, Dawson observed that the farther into the past the occupation got, the easier it would be for people to forget it. One day the crucible of her life would be just a footnote in history. If there was even a world left to remember history.

The sound of movement to her left at the top of the stairs brought her to where she'd spied the figure lurking near an ancient water fountain, now little more than a pile of rust and dry-rotted hoses. She took only a few steps in that direction when the figure broke cover, scrambling out from a doorway and into view. By the light of the comet and the moon she could see the dirty and tangled brown hair, the datajack below it and the cyberdeck hanging over her back.

She could also see the Colt America L36 in her hand.

"Hold it right there," the girl said. Her breathing was heavy and her forehead was beaded with sweat. She was nervous. A stone's throw from panicking.

Dawson said calmly, "Did you message me? About Ivan Ionfist?"

The girl grinned. "Yeah, that was me, pawn."

That made Dawson narrow her eyes. She wasn't fond of that slang for Knight Errant enforcers, for more than one reason. "Do you know how to use that thing?"

Gritting her teeth, the girl pointed emphatically with the weapon. "You want to find out?"

"Do you know where the safety is?"

The look of panic in her eyes suggested she didn't. "Don't frag with me!" she shrieked. "I know what I'm doing!"

Determining that the best course of action was to humor her, Dawson put up her hands. "Alright, so tell me what you want. Do you have information to sell?"

That earned a lopsided grin, showing a missing tooth. She was young so it was probably from violence, rather than decay. "'Fraid not," she said shakily. "I'm just gettin' paid to get you here. Someone important wants a word with you, 'n I don't think you're gonna like what he has to say."

Dawson whispered below her breath, "Fuck." A god damned dead end, and a trap on top of that. "Let me guess," she said at a normal volume, "Kane Reymont put you up to this."

The girl was visibly taken aback at the name, which was as good as an admission. Dawson continued speaking before she could compose herself.

"He tell you I'm a detective, for Lone Star? Did he tell you that you're an accessory to a crime against an enforcement representative for the corporate court? If you take anything from me, California will give you the death penalty."

The girl was visibly shaking. "Shut up! I know what I'm getting into... And what I'm getting for this. Ten-thousand nuyen, more money than I've ever seen on one credstick before... Going to buy some new clothes, and real food. What Reymont does to you has nothing to do with me!"

In the past this is when Dawson would have charged the prospective shooter, taking advantage of their nervousness to disarm and neutralize them. But the savagery of her past years was slow to answer, stuck in line behind her compassion. So as her expression softened, she spoke more quietly.

"I can help you."

There was moisture around the girl's eyes. "Don't need your fragging help, pawn. I can take care of myself!"