Strong Enough 1.5 (Patreon)

Solo 1.5

The red Saxie cup in Taylor’s hand bubbles with something carbonated. Meanwhile, a woman examines Taylor’s other wrist with fingers that sprout blades. 

“Deffo broken.” She snaps her bubble gum. “Here, I should be able to set it.”

Taylor stares at the sharp line between the woman’s dark chrome fingertips and lucent pale skin. Those fingers brace along Taylor’s wrist, pressing slightly. Taylor hisses at the feeling of the bones scraping back into place.

“There you go.” The woman, Sasha, smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. It makes her look like the cat that got the canary. “Take another hit of that BounceBack and you’ll be good by morning.”

Taylor takes another drag of the inhaler before pocketing it. “My mom always warned me about side effects.”

“Lotta meds have side effects.” Sasha’s smile turns the slightest bit sad, and she blows another bubble to cover it. “Still better than waiting for a month.”

“I guess.” She doesn’t want to wait a month before getting back on Maelstrom’s trail. She didn’t expect her second target—Brick—to drop into her lap, but she doubts the other three men on her list will be so easy to track down.

Taylor takes a sip of her drink, then pulls a face. “Did Rebecca really get me NiCola?”

“What’s wrong with NiCola, choomba?” Becca slips onto the bench next to Taylor like she’d been summoned. The lights reflect off the ‘electric-alice blue’ of her skin, leaving her pure white, like snow before it touches the ground. “Taste the love!”

Taylor hums, taking another sip of her drink. The carbonation bubbles pleasantly, but the sugar is like a shot straight to her overtaxed brain. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to taste anything after this.” She looks around the venue. “Is this your crew’s usual hangout?”

A few food stands ring a mostly clean patio area, with low-strung lights illuminating the scattered tables. Behind Taylor, Maine’s battered truck sits in the parking lot with its brights on for extra illumination.

“I keep telling them to upgrade.” Sasha giggles, pointing. “But those two like showing off.”

Maine and Dorio sit at another table, and Taylor finds her eyes drawn to Dorio’s washboard abs, tawny pale of her skin forming a pleasing contrast with the jet black of her jacket. Maine sits next to her, arm around the (slightly) shorter woman’s shoulders as they both laugh over their drinks. He’s a mountain of muscle and chrome, but next to Dorio, they look like normal people who live in a miniature world.

“I never understood the appeal of getting muscles chipped in,” Taylor admits.

“But you do now, right?” Sasha tilts her head, glossy black bob bouncing across her cheeks. “They’re good together! I love the open jacket look, but I’m not confident enough to steal it.” She runs her hands down the skintight fabric of her own outfit. Taylor finds Sasha a study in contrasts: blue-pink eyes and a fluffy, zip-up bolero jacket over a no-nonsense plug suit. Taylor is still figuring out how to reconcile her with the woman who had her claws wrapped tight around Taylor’s neck, ready to slice.

Becca takes a swig of her drink. “Just download some self-esteem, Sash.”

Sasha rolls her eyes, ever-smiling lips pursing slightly.

“Download?” Taylor raises an eyebrow.

“I’m a netrunner.” Sasha flutters her eyelashes at Taylor. “Get it? Download some RAM?”

Taylor opens her mouth, and then fills it with NiCola to avoid having to say anything. It’s a trick Emma taught her, and Taylor doesn’t know why she’s thinking of Emma right now; maybe because she feels washed-out next to these people, whose vibrancy and color near burn her.

She tries to drown that thought in cheap sugar and preservatives as well. It doesn’t work.

“What, you’ve never heard that joke before?” Sasha’s eyes widen. “Honey, what have you been doing with your life?”

Taylor hunches her shoulders. “I’ve been busy.”

“Not everyone’s as terminally net-addicted as you, nerd.” Becca sticks out her tongue.

“At least I don’t sleep with my guns.” The netrunner rolls her eyes, poking Becca’s cheeks. “Make sure to get that fancy revolver of yours back from this one before this one steals it.”

Rebecca blushes, which is something Taylor did not expect to see on her pale, off-white skin. “Wasn’t gonna steal it, just polish it up a little for Scarlet.”

Taylor has so many questions, so no surprise when the one least related to the current topic comes spilling out of her lips. “Wait, netrunner?” She narrows her eyes at Sasha. “You were why I couldn’t activate my implant the second time?”

“Whoopsie?” Sasha bops her head with two knuckles, sticking out her tongue in some over-manufactured cutesy pose that Taylor’s only seen on holovids. “To be fair, you were trying to blow Maine’s head off at the time, so I thought that was fair play.”

Taylor grumbles, but can’t argue the point.

“Speaking of, you need some better ICE.” Sasha fixes her with a serious look, cat-like eyes narrowing. “It took me less than two seconds to crack your protocols, and even gonks like Maelstrom have some decent runners.”

Taylor winces. Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics, colloquially ‘ICE’. It’s something she never gave much thought about. As ‘ganic as she was even two weeks ago, a netrunner like Sasha could barely hack her phone. Now, if someone shut down the Sandevistan entirely, they could literally cut Taylor’s legs out from under her.

“More eddies down the drain.” Taylor rubs her face with her good hand. “Don’t think I can afford your gun-cleaning services, Rebecca.”

“Told ya to call me Becca, Scarlet.” The petite woman slugged her in the shoulder. “And I’m sure I can cut ya a deal for saving my ass.”

“Why are you calling me Scarlet again?”

“Cause you didn’t give me your handle, and your eyes are red,” she replies.

Taylor continues rubbing her face. “I told you why I picked it already.” 

Becca shrugs. “You wouldn’t pick a color you hated as your eye color, choomba.”

Yet Taylor had done exactly that. She’d picked the same shade of red as Emma’s hair, a color no one will ever associate with Taylor because it’s the exact opposite of what she would ever pick.

Not that she can explain her cleverness without giving up the trick.

“It’s not the name I would have picked,” she says instead.

“What’s your handle then?” Sasha leans forward, resting her chin on an upturned palm.

Taylor blinks, grasping out for something to say. Her brain, useless thing it is, serves up an image of the world while she uses the Sandevistan, all in shades of black and white.

“Monochromatic.”

She clamps her mouth shut, trying to ignore the way Sasha and Becca look at each other and silently judging her.

“Scarlet is better,” Becca says.

Sasha nods. “Scarlet.”

They turn back to Taylor. “Nice to meet you, Scarlet!”

Taylor grumbles. “You don’t even have a handle. Everyone here just uses their names.”

“I’m a runner, of course I have one.” Sasha smiles, framing chin with her hands. “I just don’t care if people in meatspace know my name.”

Becca leans towards Taylor. “Because she kills them.”

“Oh stoooop.” Sasha pops a bubble. “If anyone here is a homicidal maniac, it’s Maine. He’s been eyeing some fuck-off grenade launcher mod for his arms.”

Becca pulls a face. “I got enough weird arms in my life already.”

Taylor raises an eyebrow. “Thought Becca was gonna be the homicidal one.”

“Nah.” Sasha wraps an arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders and nuzzles her hair affectionately. “If our little Becs zeroes you, you deserve it.”

“Damn straight!” Becca raises her cup, clinking it against Taylor’s empty one. “So, you don’t have a crew of your own then?” 

Taylor clears her throat. “No. I’m a solo.”

“Me too.” Becca takes a swig of her drink. “Sometimes. Maine didn’t used to let me come on the real jobs.”

“How many jobs have you been on?” Sasha’s question sounds innocent, but Taylor swims with sharks on a daily basis. She can see the calculating gleam in her eyes. 

She can’t pass herself off as an old hand, so instead she goes for a slightly more believable lie. “A few. I actually took out that stash house the first time around.”

“You did?” Becca’s red and gold eyes widen.

Sasha tilts her head, blowing a bubble.

“I went back to check out if they’d cleaned the bodies yet.” Actually, she went back because she didn’t know where else to go looking for work, so her feet took her back to that first den. “Lucky you.”

Becca giggles. “We’re not bad in a shootout, ey, Scar?”

“First Scarlet and now Scar?” Taylor shakes her head. “Buy me dinner first.”

“I’ll buy you breakfast in beeeeed~” 

Taylor coughs, cradling her broken wrist to stop it from jostling.

Sasha pops her bubble. “Most solos know better than to break their hand shooting a gun.”

Taylor stiffens, covering with another cough as a thread of disquiet winds up her neck. It tightens around her throat, squeezing so tight she can’t find the words to say. Directionless babble rises up against the block, threatening to spill over.

Fire rushes up her spine, and the world spins to gray.

Once again, she doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. It’s that lack of air that brings clarity, a bolt of lightning filling her up with the crystal clarity of monochromatic time. She still thinks it’s a good name.

She exhales, and time comes crashing back over her. The sounds of the party resumes, and Taylor pats her chest once, clearing out the last of the cough.

“Sorry, Becca got me.” Then, without pausing, she adds. “It’s a new gun. Thought I needed something a with a bit more punch.” She shrugs, letting one shoulder do most of the work of projecting her disaffected mein. “I was fine firing it with both hands at the gun range. Not so much in a shootout.”

“Ooh, what’s your normal iron?” Becca holds out her hand. “Show me! Show me!”

Taylor pulls out her first pistol, slipping it into Becca’s waiting fingers as if she isn’t secretly watching Sasha from the corner of her eye. The other woman tilts her head back the other way before shrugging and leaning in to catch an eye of Taylor’s iron.

“Eh, a dinky little Unity?” Becca spins the gun over her finger in a way that has Taylor leaning back, and that’s before she ejects the mag and locks the slide back, catching the one round that comes popping out. “Eh, it’s not in bad shape, but I see why ya wanted an upgrade. Specially for ‘strommers.”

“Half the time bullets just bounce off.” Taylor takes the gun back, checking the safety just like she’s practiced before reloading and slipping it back into its holster. She holds out her hand, and Becca pouts, eyes growing wide.

But Taylor’s heart has been twice ripped out by women whom she loved with her whole being. She is immune.

With a sigh, Becca slips over the chromed-up revolver. “Still think you should let me clean it.”

Taylor holsters the gun on her opposite hip. “You make it sound like we’re gonna be spending a lot of time together.”

Becca shrugs. “I mean, you’re pretty cool. Plus, you’re lookin’ for a crew, ain’tcha?”

Taylor’s first instinct is to reject Rebecca outright. She doesn’t want other people looking over her shoulder, she doesn’t want people slowing her down, and when she flames out hunting down the last three of her mother’s murderers, she doesn’t want people mourning.

Not like she mourns.

She opens her mouth to say ‘no, I gotta delta’, when Rebecca holds out a shard.

“Here’s your cut, by the way.”

She takes it, flipping the shard over and watching the light flicker gold over its surface. “My…cut?”

“Of the gangoons, duh.” Becca rolls her eyes. “I’d just transfer the eddies, but you have auto pay turned off.”

Taylor slots the shard into her neck port, and blinks as her bank account balance ticks up by one and a half grand. “They were carrying that much on them?”

“Well, once we stripped the guns and sold off anything of value, duh.” 

‘Even the drugs?’ Taylor wants to ask, but there is something she cares about much more. “Any data on their shards?”

“I pulled a bit,” Sasha says. “Why’re you interested?”

“Oh, is this about that low prio job for strommer data?” Becca folds her arms proudly. “I thought we could snag a little extra on that, but stupid fixer lady just says ‘the case is closed’ and blows me off.”

Taylor does not appreciate her job being ‘low prio’, but she already knew that fixer ripped her off. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that she left home today for two things, a source of income, and a way to find the rest of her targets. She did not think to find both. She cannot discard them now that she has.

“They killed a person,” Taylor says. “I cared a lot about that person, so I’m going to kill them.”

Rebecca leans to the side. “Jeez. That’s dark, Scar.”

Taylor shrugs with both shoulders this time. “You still want to recruit me?”

Sasha smiles; it’s an expression too sad for her pixie-like features.

“I think we can work something out.”