Apparently, she was right, but not for the reason she expected. She had been out for about fifteen minutes when she spotted a squad of women walking down the avenue. The clothing, the arrogance of their stride, and the armament they were carrying said they belonged to the Black Widows, so she followed along behind them, watching. They did not usually move around this area in such large numbers and it suggested they were up to something.
Of course, they might have been out on a bar crawl… Except that there were far more bars up in the northern part of the district, which was also more their natural territory. Maybe they were out picking up girls…
Well, they were up to something with the girls, but not propositioning them. Louise stopped as the group moved in on a couple of avenue regulars, their attitudes gaining in menace as they went. Louise stepped closer and the voices became clearer.
‘…so you’d be advised to move on,’ one of the Widows said.
‘This has been our patch since I started coming to the avenue,’ one of the street girls replied. Louise recognised her: Eleanor, or Lena to most. Lena had been there long before Louise, or even Sarah, had been around. She was black and beautiful, and she had all the attitude to pull off the look, but it was not having the desired effect on the Widows.
‘Well, now it’s our patch. We’re expanding and we need the space. You move, or we move you.’
‘You get this spot over my dead body!’
‘That can be arranged,’ the Widow replied, and the street lights glinted off a knife as she pulled it.
And that was when Louise shot her in the back. Both pistols out and at her sides, Louise walked forward as everyone’s attention turned toward her. ‘Let me make this quite clear,’ Louise said, ‘I am not about to let the Widows take over this part of town. And if you do decide to push ahead with this plan, I’m going to put so many of you behind bars that you won’t be able to hold the rest of your territory.’
Of course, the remaining Widows were not going to take that lying down, unlike their leader who was now very much lying down and unconscious. One of them went for a pistol, and went down before her fingers closed around the grip, quickly joined by another. The last two drew knives and rushed Louise, which just meant they skinned various body parts on the sidewalk when they fell. Louise rolled her eyes and handed her pistols back to her pod.
‘Louise?’ Lena asked. ‘What up, girl? I thought you got out of this racket?’
Louise closed the distance, grinning. ‘Off the street, but not off the avenue, Lena. Part of the deal was that I joined the LIPD deputy programme. Apparently, there aren’t many of us in Queens and I still live around here.’
‘Well… Looks like we might need someone to keep things to the status quo.’ Lena’s dark eyes were looking over the sleeping Widows and her brow was furrowed.
‘Maybe. Um, could you make yourself scarce for twenty minutes? I’ll try to get this lot off the street fast, but we probably don’t want the cops seeing you here.’
Lena sucked a tooth and nodded. ‘I could do with a coffee break anyway, hun. Be seein’ you around.’
‘Later, Lena.’ Louise put the call through to the local station as she watched Lena and her companion strut away. If this was the start of some sort of expansion by the Widows, things on the avenue might be looking a little dicey for a while, and it was people like Lena who were likely to end up suffering the most from it.
24/4/2117.
The call had come through on a blocked number late in the evening and Louise had more or less expected that it would be Alison’s voice on the other end. ‘I’ve got a job for you. A simple delivery job, not exactly what I’d normally put you on, but it’s short notice and I need someone in the area.’
When Louise had found out the details, she was a little perplexed. ‘You do know that I put five of her people in prison yesterday, right?’
Alison had not been worried about that. ‘Black Widow contacted me. She knows I’m sending someone and she knows what will happen if she does anything untoward to my operative. This is business for her. If she’s going to be mad at you for doing your job, she’ll be mad on her own time.’
Louise walked up to the converted hotel which housed the Widows’ main HQ, hoping that Black Widow had the same sense of etiquette as Alison. Inside, the lower floors of the building were now a nightclub, moderately discreet from the outside, but very loud within. It featured cage dancers in the more forward areas and things just got more naked and wild as you moved inside, but Louise was not interested in that aspect of the business. She walked up to the reception area with its staff of lower-ranking Widows, noting the narrowing eyes as she approached.
‘Black Widow is expecting me,’ Louise said to one of the girls. ‘I’m her courier.’
Someone, it seemed, had passed word down that the boss was expecting someone and that they would introduce themselves in that manner. Frowning, the girl behind the counter said, ‘Elevators are on the right. Press the button for the top floor. You’ll be met up there.’ She was reaching for a phone as Louise turned to head for the elevators.
As the car went up ten floors, Louise had her pod run a check on munitions. Her pistols were loaded with lethal kinetic rounds. If Black Widow was going to do something stupid, she was going to get a very forceful response. But when the doors opened on the top floor, there was no sign of an unwelcoming committee. In fact, there was no sign of anyone. Frowning, Louise stepped out of the elevator into a wide, dimly lit hallway. She suspected it was mood lighting, though dim was a better description. Not that it made much difference to her. The decoration was heavy and the dark reds were also moody.
Across the room, a pair of heavy doors opened. ‘You do get around, Gunwitch.’ The speaker had to be Black Widow. She was a moderately tall woman, though Louise easily had a couple of centimetres on her, with a skin tone which suggested some Hispanic ancestry: dusky, smooth, and distinctly attractive. That went with the rest of her: a tightly muscled body with fairly long legs and a moderate bust was heavily displayed by a skirt even smaller than Louise’s and a top which was basically a sports bra. The low waistline of the skirt allowed her tattoo to peek out, a black widow spider design had been drawn on the front of her right hip. She had black hair which fell down over her breasts, full lips painted a rich, dark red, and her one visible eye was a brown almost dark enough to call black. The other eye was hidden behind a patch; Louise had heard that the Widow had lost it in a fight early in the life of her gang. The visible eye was watching Louise, appraising.
Louise raised an eyebrow. ‘Gunwitch? Okay, if you like. I’m here to do this delivery job you contracted for, though I’m not sure why you need outside help.’
‘I can’t be seen to be directly involved in this transaction. It’s as simple as that. Come through. I may be… displeased with your recent activities, but that can be reserved for a later date.’ Black Widow turned, walking back into the room beyond the doors, and Louise set off to follow her.
It seemed that the leader of the Widows lived in some comfort. The first room in her suite was a large lounge with a lot of soft sofas and a large entertainment system, and a bar off to one side. The décor still tended to the dark reds and the lighting remained moody. One wall of the room was equipped with a huge fireplace in which flames from some sort of gas burner were dancing, and in front of that was what looked like a very thick fur rug. Louise imagined that the Widow made her own entertainment there, but right now, the woman was headed for the bar.
‘Not, you understand, that I’m going to let the matter rest for long,’ Black Widow said as she reached under the bar counter. ‘I can’t allow someone to interfere with my plans the way you have and get away with it.’
Louise slipped her glasses off and hooked them into her bodice. When the Widow straightened up and placed a metal briefcase on the counter, she found herself looking into Louise’s white eyes. ‘Since you brought it up,’ Louise said, ‘you have to understand that I don’t feel I can
let you push this expansion down the avenue. I know the girls down there and they won’t join you, or take being moved on well. Not everyone wants into your happy little girl’s club, but they do need to work. Push them off the avenue and they’ll be forced into Brooklyn and you know what it’s like in there on the street. Leave the avenue alone. If you don’t, I’ll have to do something about it. And if you come after me, well, you could stand to lose a few people. You come after any of my friends and I’ll take out your other eye.’
Not entirely sure what she should expect after her little speech, Louise was a little surprised when a slow smile touched the Widow’s lips. ‘I am not sure how things are going to work out between us,’ Black Widow said, ‘but I think it’s going to be fun finding out. I think I’m going to like you, Gunwitch. I’ll even reconsider the Industrial Avenue situation. I’m not saying I’ll stop… This is the package. The recipient knows the combination. You don’t need, or want, to know what’s in here. You know where you’re taking it?’
Louise nodded. ‘An address in Sky City.’
‘Right. Ask for Daz. And be careful. Another reason I’ve contracted this out is that I don’t trust him.’
‘You didn’t have to tell me that. If he tries to kill me, you might get me out of your hair without having to lift a finger.’
Black Widow’s smile broadened, revealing a lot of very white teeth. ‘Where would the fun be in that?’
Sky City District.
The address Louise had been given was on some sort of light industry park in the south-western corner of Sky City. Not the extreme south-west: as she exited the train, she looked to the west and the bulky shape of the Bay Park Fusion Reactor building which occupied the corner where the Sea Wall met the Bulkhead Wall. The buildings here were not the high-rise, glossy structures to the north. Here, the practicalities of life prevailed and someone had put up a lot of low structures for smaller businesses to work in, probably undercutting some of the rents in the Queens industrial zone to fill them.
There was no signage up on the building Louise had been directed to. There was a roller-shutter door which looked like it had never been used, and a human-sized door with a light over it. No windows, but there were cameras positioned at the corners of the building and one over the door. Louise figured that whoever was inside, this ‘Daz’ hopefully, was well aware that she was walking up to the door. It was locked, but there was an intercom buzzer beside it. Louise pressed the button.
‘Yes?’ The voice was male and sounded vaguely annoyed. Not a great sign.
‘I’m the courier,’ Louise replied. She lifted the case toward the camera. ‘I have a package for Daz.’
There was a short pause and then the door buzzed. ‘Right, come in.’ Pulling the door open, Louise stepped through the door and into an entrance lobby. The same voice spoke from an overhead speaker as soon as the door was closed. ‘Go through the door on your right. Daz will receive the package there.’
Louise looked to her right and spotted the door. It looked like a typical interior door, but her imaging system suggested that it was unusually thick and that the wall around it was the same. It could have just been insulation, or even something to ensure privacy, but somehow Louise thought that care was required. Black Widow did not trust Daz. Why she was doing business with someone she did not trust, Louise had no idea, but the cloak-and-dagger stuff going on here was making Louise think that trust was in short supply all round. She stepped toward the door, reaching back to take a stun disc from her pod as she did so.
Opening the door, Louise paused, scanning the room behind it. It looked like a small warehouse, complete with various packing crates littered about. But the external door to this area had looked unused and, when she checked, it seemed to have been entirely boarded over. So, the crates were there because… Because they made almost perfect cover for the men hiding behind them. Louise could make out infrared signatures, just about. She set her grenade to target one of the closer bodies, stepped in through the door, and let the grenade drop behind her. No one seemed to be watching her so the men were unlikely to know what she had just set loose, and they were unlikely to start anything until the door closed and she had moved into clearer space. She took three steps forward and heard the click as the door latched shut, saw the first stirrings of movement in the figures around the room, and let go of the case, reaching back for her pistols, and then her stun disc exploded in someone’s face, sending a flare of light out across the room.
There was a cry of ‘What the fuck was–’ but Louise did not wait for anyone to figure it out. She had targets, four of them, though one of those was currently blinded and reeling. She raised her pistols and turned, firing as her system indicated she was in position to hit a target. There was the sound of an automatic weapon firing, bullets impacted the ceiling and white powder began to float down. Four bodies hit the concrete floor and Louise turned, scanning for more shooters.
She was quite sure that Daz was not among this lot. He had been somewhere else, directing the operation through his cameras and speakers. At the darkened back of the storage room, Louise spotted a door and she headed for it, leaving the case and its mysterious contents behind her. She really did not care what was in there, or why Daz seemed determined to shoot the messenger: what she intended to do was make sure he never shot another one.
Raising her left pistol, she put three rounds through the locking mechanism on the door and then slammed her boot into it. Beyond was a corridor, a short one leading to another longer one which seemed to run from the front to the back of the building. Her guns swept up to either side as she reached the junction and she fired to the left as she got a target lock. Her head turned that way in time for her to see the man she had shot falling to the floor, a bullet hole in his forehead. Infrared suggested no other warm bodies in that direction and the walls in this part of the building looked thin. Louise turned to her right.
Still there was no one visible, but there was a void space toward the rear of the building. Thicker walls were screening one of the offices. Louise marched down the corridor until she found a locked door and fired three rounds into it. There was a sound like a cannon going off and a section of the door more or less vaporised under the impact of some high-calibre weapon fired from inside. The shooter had been firing blind, however, and all he succeeded in doing was making a hole big enough for Louise to toss a stun grenade through. It had not been targeted at anything and light flared through the hole in the door as it stabilised itself and immediately detonated. There was a rather high-pitched shriek from inside the room, and Louise kicked the door open.
Daz was a fairly well-built man in a very expensive suit. He was waving a big shotgun around, but since he could no longer see where he was shooting, it was not a major issue. Louise lifted a pistol and locked on, and paused. What was she supposed to do now? She had been attacked so she could probably have Daz put in Queens Prison for that at least. But then there would be a lot of questions about why she was there and what was in the case… And Louise got the feeling that, when she was working for Alison anyway, the police were not to be involved unless there was a specific directive to involve them. Louise pulled the trigger, ruining that expensive-looking suit, and then she put two more rounds into Daz’s head, just to be sure. And then she put through a call to a number she had been given ‘in case of emergency.’
‘Problem?’ Alison’s voice said before Louise was even aware the call had connected.
‘The recipient refused to sign for the package,’ Louise said. ‘He was quite forceful about it and I had to resort to being forceful back.’
Alison did not seem the least bit fazed by this. ‘I’ll take care of it. You’re secure?’
‘Currently, but I’d like to leave the area. What do I do with the package?’
‘Leave it there and go home. I’ll take care of everything.’
Louise turned and started down the corridor toward the front of the building. ‘Right. Is this sort of thing
going to happen a lot working for you?’
There was a pause, as though Alison was considering just hanging up without answering. ‘I doubt you’re going to be bored working for me.’ And then the connection was closed.
‘Yeah,’ Louise muttered, handing her pistols back to her pod. ‘I need to get this corset fitted out with armour.’
Queens District, 25/4/2117.
‘I don’t really know a whole lot about Black Widow,’ Sarah said from the bathroom door. She was watching Louise looking at her breasts again, even if she was attempting to look like she was just having a conversation. ‘I’ve seen her. I know the story of her founding the Widows and losing her eye and stuff. I don’t really know much about her. I’m not sure anyone does.’
Louise shrugged. ‘I just wondered. You know, since you’re standing there ogling me, I thought I’d see if I could find out more about her.’
‘I am not ogling! I’m…’
‘Staring intently at my boobs?’
‘Yes. No! I’m having a conversation. About local VIPs, not your boobs.’
‘Uh-huh. What do you think of them?’
Her cheeks turning scarlet, Sarah choked a little and then rallied. ‘They’re good. I mean, they’re a nice shape and D-cup is a nice size.’
‘You’re a D-cup.’
‘See? Good size.’
‘You don’t think I need implants then?’
‘God, no! Why on Earth would you need implants?’
Louise turned from the mirror and reached for her bra. ‘I don’t. Obviously. Black Widow just seemed a bit… weird. I mean, she said something about not liking me kicking her girls around and then, when I told her I wasn’t going to let her take over the avenue without a fight, she… seemed to like it.’
‘Huh? Well, maybe she’s not used to someone standing up to her. Or she likes a challenge. I mean, she left Manhattan and forged herself a new gang, exclusively of women. That’s gotta take someone who likes a challenge, right?’
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