Heirs of Humanity

Chapter One

Someone was getting shot at again.

That was the first, annoyed thought that penetrated the fog of interrupted sleep for Rei. Grumbling in displeasure the young man pushed himself up from his lumpy bed, and to his filthy window. He figured if some idiot could manage to ruin his rest by getting their ass shot off by the Leo’s, than at least he could derive some entertainment from watching.

Rei peered into the foggy darkness outside, the mist stained a crimson red by the sign of the strip bar beneath his dingy room. At first he saw nothing, but his quick eyes soon locked onto a stumbling figure. Like something out of a cookie cutter vid-show, that was when she happened to look up.

There was nothing generic about her face. Angelic would have been Rei’s description if it wasn’t for his dedicated belief that there was no such thing. Angelic, and even from three stories away he could tell her expression was a mix of terror and despair.

“To bad she pissed off the Leo’s.” He muttered, shaking his head. The distinctive sound of sonic stunners ripped the air, causing Rei to wince even from inside his apartment. The woman stumbled under the sonic assault of a near miss that blew an empty trash bin spinning across the street, a gaping hole blown in the polymer belying the lethal power of those so called “stunners”.

The girl stayed on her feet, which impressed Rei, and kept running clumsily along. Rei’s mental cheering for her turned to confusion as her pursuers appeared from the Undercity mists.

They didn’t wear the distinctive white and blue body armor suits of street Law Enforcement Officers, simply called  Leo’s by most, but instead were covered in the simple canvas greatcoats preferred by most Undercity dwellers. Indeed, he’d have mistaken them for street punks himself, if not for the hand artillery they carried. A civilian getting caught with one of those would find themselves summarily executed by a pissed off Leo at best, sentenced to a year of hard labor in the swamps at worse. Generally, carrying firearms of any sort was a quick way to commit suicide in the City.

The young man didn’t know what possessed him at that point. He found himself running for his apartment door, grabbing his own coat on the way out. He cursed himself as a fool even as his feet pounded down the rickety stairwell of the building, stopping only as his shoulder forced open the alleyway door.

“They probably already got her.” He muttered to himself as he slid to the corner of the building, pushing his back against the grimy concrete to hide his profile. Carefully he peered around the corner.

His eyes met those of the panicked woman’s who stood less than half a meter away. Instinctively Rei’s arm snaked out and grabbed the female, almost causing her to drop the awkward bundle she was carrying. Roughly he pulled her into the shadowy alley next to him.

She squeaked in surprise, any other sounds were blocked by his rough hand over her mouth. He held a finger up to his lips, shushing her quiet then turned back to the alley corner to listen, and he silently cursed at what he heard.

“Fuck. Where’d she go?” One of the men whispered in the distance. That immediately marked them as a cut above most. Even frustrated, Rei noticed, they were smart enough to remember how easily sound traveled. Most humans wouldn’t have heard the man at the distance they were still at.

His partner was just as cautious. “I saw movement towards that alley. Go!” Their footsteps, which had paused during their short conversation, began again but slower, quieter.

That revealed to Rei that they must know it was a dead end. Otherwise they’d be hurrying to catch the fleeing woman. “Fucking great.” Rei thought to himself. He turned back to the girl, and jerked in surprise at the extremely indignant glare she was giving him. Only then did he realize his left hand was still clamped around her mouth.

Rei shrugged to himself, figuring he’d apologize later, if he bothered remembering. “End of alley. Hurry!” He hissed even more softly than the goons had, while pushing her in the direction he wanted her to go. Rei watched just long enough to confirm she was moving, before turning his attention back to the street outside the alley.

The footsteps were closer; the men’s shadows were inky blotches in the light reflected by the wet pavement. They were too close for the young man to risk stealing a peek, so he instead pressed his back harder still into the wall. He slid his hands into the short, billowing sleeves of his coat.

One second, two seconds, three seconds… Rei counted them off silently as he listened to the men draw closer. At the count of five, when he felt they were where he needed them to be, he acted.

His hands slid free from the loose sleeves as he slid around the corner. The first man had no time to even notice Rei before a length of steel drove into his chest, quickly staining his shirt a dark crimson.

Rei, feeling the distinctive pulse in his knifes hilt as his victims heart tried desperately to beat around the blade buried in it, let that knife go even as he stepped towards the second man brandishing the other.

The young man once again took note of the shocking competence of the goons as that second man tried desperately to bring a gun to bear on him in spite of surprise. Unfortunately for him, skill could only make up for so much, and could not balance the advantage of Rei’s ambush and superior reflexes.

The first swipe of Rei’s knife took the man across the underside of the wrist, opening the flesh and sending the stunner spinning off into the fog. Stepping forward and into his target Rei followed up with a second slash, this one ripping the honed blade through the second goon’s throat, sending him gagging on his own blood to the pavement. The man's blood added a darker red stain to the brighter tone of the clubs light, as he shuddered and died.

Rei noticed a small device in the ear of his first victim, who had slumped against the wall. The young man pulled it off the corpse, and held it up to his own ear.

“All teams report. Who has that woman in sight?” A voice, which demanded answers more than it asked for them, barked through the compact communicator. Rei cursed again, silently, and dropped the ear piece into a nearby sewer grate before wrenching his dagger free of the first body with a grunt, turned, and dashed back down the alley and the woman.

When he found her she gasped, staring in horror at his blood stained hands and knives. “I don’t know how or why you managed to get InSec after you, but I better get both of us gone before they arrive.” He barked sharply, pulling her after him as he jerked back open the supposedly secured door he’d earlier exited through.

He felt the woman shift her bundle, whatever it was, in her arms and follow him. Quickly they were back up the stairs and in his one room apartment.

Rei pulled off his coat, causing the woman to yelp and turn around with a blush at seeing his nakedness. He chuckled in spite of the crap situation he’d found himself in, and pulled on his pants and a black t-shirt he’d worn the day before. Shoving newly socked feet into his boots, he grabbed the bag he always kept packed and headed once more for the door.

“Come on.” He ordered, walking quickly out of the room he planned to never see again. Part of him sincerely hoped she’d hesitate to follow him long enough that he’d loose her at the stairwell, but she didn’t. His sensitive ears heard her follow behind him, and hesitate when he passed the downward stairwell in favor of the roof access.

“Why are you going up?” She asked her voice soft as if she feared drawing her hunters’ attention.

“Because they’ll be here any second, if they aren’t already, and I have a way to avoid them completely.” He replied, not bothering to stop or look back. She hurried to follow, and managed to slip out the jimmied roof door, tight on his heels.

Rei didn’t slow his pace as he walked towards the back of the building, to a foot wide plank of polymer construction strut that he’d bridged the gap with long ago. It crossed the fifteen meter deep canyon of an alley, to the roof of the building behind his. “We’re lucky we’re close to the arcology wall.” He commented softly. “Near a district center half or more of the buildings don’t have roofs, since they’re supports for up-town. You go first.”

“Go… you mean you want me to cross that?” The woman asked, obviously appalled. “You’re crazy! I’ll drop…”

Rei’s frustration at the situation, and impatience with the woman who’d brought it to his doorstep, took him. He grabbed the bundle out of her arms, and growled “Go, or I’ll drop it for you!”

She looked terrified at the thought, but shut up and obeyed, walking carefully across the chasm. While she inched across Rei scanned the ceiling of Undercity, the artificial cavern’s roof was the haven of law enforcement patrol and administrative gondolas, but he was relieved to see neither spotlights nor shadows moving above them. When she was across he quickly followed after her.

He rolled his eyes at the angry expression she was giving him. “Here’s your purse, lady.” He muttered while pushing the cloth wrapped bundle back into her arms. “Now come on.”

Quickly he pulled the building strut across the gap after them, leaving it on the rooftop as he led the reluctantly following woman across. They reached the opposite end of the roof, which was an arcology wall. Two meters above that rooftop was the distinctive inset shadow and glowing red keypad of a public transportation maintenance hatch.

The woman watched him start up the minimalist ladder made of rebar, towards the hatch. “You can’t mean to go in there! You need an access code to open one of those!” She cried.

“Yes.” He replied, punching in the code that a month ago he’d watched a maintenance worker tap in. “Fortunately I know one.” He commented, thanking a nonexistent god once again for bureaucratic laziness.

If he’d had to pry the console open and hack it, it would have taken at least ten minutes, and they more than likely didn’t have it.

The pad blinked from red to green, and he pulled the door open with a hydraulic hiss of internal mechanisms. Slipping into the cylindrical tunnel, he dropped to a knee and held out his hands. “Give me that, and get up here.”

Reluctantly, she lifted her bundle up to him, and followed. He moved back, letting her climb into the cramped, one and a half meter wide tunnel. “Close the door.” He said, watching as she obeyed.

Rei sat down, gesturing for her to do the same. “Catch your breath. It’ll take them at least half an hour to think of checking up here, if they ever do.” He watched her settle, staring at the bundle he was holding but he could tell she was too tired from running, chased by men with guns, to resist the call of even a moments rest.

“I’m Marigold.” She said, sighing. “Thank you.”

“Rei.” He replied, ignoring her thanks. Instead he took the chance to look her over carefully. Beautiful, in an old world sense, she had the slightly asymmetrical features of someone who came across their looks honestly. Granted, only someone like him would notice the subtle imperfections, but for most surface folks these days that very beauty would cause most people to avoid her. As for him, looks accounted for little more than aesthetics.

The cut of her dress, a very modest cut, were the height of fashion in the Uppercity. The same was true of her hairstyle, which in spite of the wet, and obvious stresses of the night, remained a severe and painful looking bun to Rei’s “unrefined” eyes.

“So why…” He started to ask, when the bundle in his arms moved. He looked down and unwrapped the bundle, ignoring Marigolds cry, and her attempts to get up and stop him in the tight, curved workspace. Rei stared down as his hand revealed the face of an infant, its skin the pale white of new paper. The baby yawned, and opened its eyes. Bright pink orbs gazed up trustingly into Rei’s own brown. His blood ran cold. “This… this is a Siren baby… You stole a baby? Who does that?” He stuttered.

“Shit.” The word seemed inappropriate from Marigolds innocent looking lips, but summed things up nicely.