The Chill Between Them (CasualVelociraptor x Alisa_Perne)

[CasualVelociraptor]

The moment Beetle finished screaming his last, like a wounded animal being put out of its misery, Jane sighed and rubbed her forehead in annoyance while entering the penthouse.

“You’ve been sloppy before, but this is your messiest work yet,” Jane sighed. "Look, I know this isn't what you do all the time, I've killed way more people, in way worse ways, for America's 'freedom' and 'security,' so I have no high horse to sit on, and I've loved you for way too long to just throw it all away over one guy, no matter how much I thought I cared for him. I mean it when I said I want to marry you, and since this doesn't change that, nothing will. But, while I'm sure Beetle deserved to die...I knew he did this six months ago, loved him, held him in my arms as he cried over the colossal guilt he felt, broke up with him because duh, and completely understood his fear of coming forward. So now what? Are you going to kill me too for keeping his secret? Hm? Because we worried about that. But I always thought...yeah, maybe the old Yasmine would kill him, but that's in the past.

"Now, you might be having another kid. Did you think about the example you're setting them? What will they think when they see their mother pulling out a man's brain like an old car engine? Why did you have Erika see it? To terrify her? To make her think more carefully before ever saying something you don't like? Are people who leave bad reviews of your restaurants going to die now because they're betraying you? There are so many other things to consider...but the thing is, I would have just buried the body at sea and no one else would have been the wiser."

Just like all the others I've dumped in the ocean like I'm taking out the fucking trash. And now you've had your date with Erika and have started a war before I can safely get to really know you. Juuuust great, Yasmine, Jane thought to herself.

"I don't know where this is going. Just...next time you have to make an example of someone, clue me in first, alright? And maybe don't beat up an old lady? Just a thought," Jane said and hugged herself to Yasmine tightly. Never letting her go.

Erika, for her part, cried at the video. Not just because Yasmine had done the unthinkable, something that had only ever been rumored before. She mourned the loss of his mentor...the only man who'd sheltered her...who'd given her her friends. But also the ideal of Beetle, the father figure and noble dropper who could do no wrong in her eyes. They were both murderers, and they both deserved each other.

But she'd gotten a pregnancy test, and it was already positive. As long as this life grew inside her, there was still hope that the part of Yasmine that had held and loved her so thoroughly as her desire had been unleashed inside Erika was still in there. Somewhere.

She had to hope, because to not hope was to go mad.

Which, Shiloh was on the verge of doing. Months of being abandoned, months of losing everyone she cared about, and months of enduring all this alone made the young Irish girl want to snap the tablet in half and cry until she died. Because, apparently, she could do nothing right, everyone around her died, or sold out like Erika, and the only reminder she had of the person who had cared about her without condition was his sperm in an InfiniCool medical grade freezer in a can. Stupid, stupid, stupid little girl.

Instead, she tightened her free fist and punched a wall to get out some of her aggression, and to have the pain distract from the fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness threatening to bubble up again and consume her.

The only reason she'd gone along with Beetle's plan to bait her was because he said he had a brain tumor and was going to die anyway. But somehow, deep down, after Yasmine had bought the safety of everyone at Brona's and seemed to be treating Erika so well, with Erika genuinely in love with her from what she had heard down the grapevine, Shiloh hoped that Yasmine would prove her wrong. That she would choose mercy and justice over blind revenge. Perhaps that would have lifted the blinders from her own eyes.

Now? Now the war was on. This time for good. Shiloh sealed it with the scream of someone with nothing left to lose, and lightning flashed to reveal Deirdre in her armor.

"You're lucky I will never kill," Shiloh then said to no one, as her tears and the rain rolled down her face in equal measure. That was the One Rule she'd put on herself after watching the life drain from the Irish Irredentist Legion monster who'd killed her parents and tried to gut her while he laughed. "But I'll break every bone in your body, slowly, and make you wish I could."

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"HE WAS MY REAL FATHER DAMMIT! YOU KILLED HIM! You killed him like a monster!" Erika yelled, and kneed Yasmine in the crotch. Apparently she was a little crotch attacker when she got mad. "See? What did I tell you? Not to talk! And what do you do? You open your mouth and ruin everything!"

"You're feeling emotional right now. Just...we probably should all stop talking for a bit. Erika, can I bring you to my old room?" Jane wondered.

Erika nodded quietly, and then gave Jane permission to talk with Yasmine about what Erika and Jane privately discussed. Beetle had apparently had a fling with Haya, her mother and the future Mrs. Chambers, about a week before her father met her in Tokyo and got her pregnant. Erika had had no proof, and without a DNA test, there would be no way to know for sure, but when her mother told her that story, she had come to IceBurgh upon her death mainly to find him, and could see the possible family resemblance in his eyes...when he had eyes of his own, that was.

 

[Alisa_Perne]

Yasmine looked at the TV, reliving her horrible deed, over and over and over, and what she saw, she hated, she flew into a panic, reached into the bedside table, pulled out a gun and put it to her head. "Let me just give this city what they want." she said, "I'll just end it all now, give them all what they want." Her finger was on the trigger, "I've hurt those closest to me, I made my own flesh and blood seek a life outside of this one just because he thought I was a psychopath, I turned friends into enemies and enemies into friends I don't deserve to breathe the purified air in this tower anymore."

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

Jane was just about to scold Yasmine about being a coward like always, and how dare she leave Erika's child without a father, and Erika without closure (though, she ordered the DNA test by text message with her squad commander). Then a message came from an encrypted number.

"The Council had an emergency meeting about you, just now. They wanted to blow up your penthouse with a missile on live TV and then sprinkle your pieces at the North Pole for the few surviving polar bears to shit out, after which I'm sure Santa Claus's elves would make your shit covered pieces into toys. But I have good intelligence that the real threat isn't this little Deirdre girl that's playing dress-up, but someone in the Metro who's far worse. Far angrier. Far more willing to challenge power. All power. You're our biggest tenant, which is the only argument I could bring that persuaded the Council to stay their hand. The only way you stay alive in this city, and Erika and Jane don't get ripped apart to appease a mob, is if you do everything I say."

Three dots, and then another message. "Starting now, I- and by extension, the Resort Corporation- own you. Text me confirmation that you've terminated your security contract with the Neo Varangians and are awarding it to IceBurgh Resort Security." This was worth 50 million Burgh Bucks a year. "Then kick this exact account back another ten mil through wire transfer, like you spent on those hos." That was the purchase price of Brona's. "Or, I have no incentive to reveal who this mystery threat to you is, and I'll just enjoy watching and taking bets on the Dark Web about who will get you first: the Council, Deirdre, or the other masked vigilante."

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

Once Jane called Erika in, she proceeded to make her emotional state plain.

"These past three months have been...a rollercoaster to say the least," the Japanese courier said. "I hope you don't mind me piling on to your plate a little more by confirming that I'm pregnant. I didn't expect to see this side of you that I had an inkling existed so soon after opening my heart to you, but you didn't mean to hurt me with this, and I hope this news can lift your spirits, because it just seems as if you had a bad day, and that you have a temper, a quick sense of being threatened, and a lot of baggage. Who isn't a little short-fused in IceBurgh, though?" And who kills a guy with the very same temper? she thought as a counter to her own attempt to downplay this. She was still trying to process that fact, leaving aside the possibility that her father might be dead in the ground.

"Oh, Jane also told me"- while Jane had been licking Erika’s pussy until it almost went numb, which felt empty but allowed her to forget in the pursuit of hedonism- "that you're ordering a DNA test to confirm if Beetle really was my sire. Not father, sire. He didn't know he had a daughter, therefore how can I be upset that I don't have a father I never knew about? Still, I appreciate the gesture, and perhaps it'll give me closure, so I can move on someday and take these next months of my pregnancy to try to trust you, let alone have sex or be romantic." Again, Erika didn't expect this to happen on the very same day she'd consummated her love for Yasmine, which, despite everything, still burned brightly, if perhaps irrationally. "For my part, I'll work to continue to be understanding, to help you shoulder this burden, and get out there to help stop Deirdre while my body is still able to do so, before she manipulates us even more," Erika said, wiping away a tear that confirmed that she was still upset about it anyway, despite her attempts to keep the peace and her own turmoil about whether to terminate the pregnancy and run before any of this shit dragged her in further through a whirlpool of crazy.

"The only thing we can do is try to move forward. Perhaps you should seek therapy to get to the root of your insecurities and anger management issues, but now that you have someone- or someones- to change for, you can be a better mother to our little one," Erika continued, rubbing her belly. "The future, that we build together, is what matters here." She then leaned in to try to kiss her on the lips, but ended up landing a chaste kiss on the left cheek.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"No," Erika groaned from exhaustion, draping her arms around Yasmine as her remaining strength left her and sank into Yasmine's body. "But it's a start, because you're cute, you really love me, and I really love you. That's as good a starting point as any. Right now, though, I'm soooo fucking tired. I need you and Jane to hold me in our bed...once we have someone get it down from the roof." What she didn't say was that this was because she thought she might end up having nightmares.

"Looks like I didn't need to be summoned this time," Jane chuckled. "Let's get you to bed, babe. I'll be your furniture mover for tonight," she then said. Upon which she leapt onto the rope and hoisted herself up on the roof to do just that. Erika ended up crashing on the guest bed, so while Jane moved the main bed back into place, Yasmine snuggled Erika in her arms, then carried her to the main bed once it was restored to the bedroom. Then, as promised, both Jane and Yasmine spooned Erika until she fell asleep.

As that was going on, two very different people were plotting vengeance on Yasmine. Perhaps the knowledge that she had these enemies as shadowy threats would haunt Yasmine's dreams tonight, or perhaps her own sins would.

In any event, Shiloh's first night as Deirdre had been draining for her, and she was about to find an alleyway to curl up and hide in, perhaps in a nice dumpster like the one where she'd found the padded armor that she'd fixed up to make her costume with some of the money she’d gotten from Yasmine’s buyout of Brona’s. This money, in addition to securing her coworkers’ futures as planned, had helped her at least look like become a superhero like a comic book or some shit, only without any powers of her own.

Then, however, the unhoused Indian man who she had seen in the parking garage and had gotten beaten by Yasmine came across helped her find a secret, unsanctioned shelter to sleep in. He also spent his last pocket money on getting her tea and a croissant from a nearby French cafe. This simple gesture restored at least some of Shiloh's faith in humanity, and got Deirdre out in front of more people, many of whom recognized her from her bold actions on TV, but many of whom did not.

And then, unbeknownst even to Deirdre, who normally had her pulse on the dealings of the underworld, lurking in the shadows was a new figure calling himself Toussaint. He had styled himself after Toussaint Louverture, the famous Haitian general often known as the George Washington of the Caribbean who had spearheaded the Haitian Revolution against France in 1804. Even though he had none of the finery of that long deceased commander, he had studied the rules of war. One of which was that you let your enemies fight each other...

...and then pick off the weakened winner.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"No, I really can't get enough," Erika grinned. "And yes, I have."

"Well, I can think of one thing we can do. The test results for Erika's parentage came in...brace yourselves," Jane said.

Erika closed her eyes and held Yasmine tightly, hoping that this wouldn't change anything despite it already having threatened to.

"Bartholomew Mulgrave, age 43, New York, New York, blah blah blah...is a 50% genetic match to Erika Chambers," Jane sighed. Then silence purveyed the room as Erika stared off into space. "How are you feeling?" Jane then asked, her face sunken with worry.

"I...don't know, okay?" Erika wondered as she started crying. "What am I supposed to feel?"

"Whatever you need to," Jane said matter-of-factly.

"I need some air. No, more than air. I'm taking courier jobs again," Erika said.

"But the baby-!"

"Will be fine, I promise. I just, I need my own thing right now. Away from all this craziness, and away from the IBRS before they take over the contract and try to make me into a prisoner. If I don't keep running, I- I feel like I'll shrivel up from fear, grief, anger...so much. This is how I feel alive. How I've stayed alive."

And as she ran at increasingly high speeds (but kept the BioJack link online for Jane and Yasmine to at least know where she was, in addition to a Neo Varangians helicopter that would keep her safe for a few more hours), with a lot more screaming and grunting than usual, she couldn't entirely be mad at Yasmine. Yes, she killed Beetle, the man who Erika never got to tell was her biological father...but Erika understood why, and hated that she did. It would be so much easier to hate Yasmine, then terminate the pregnancy and slip away as a shadow, one of many in the courier line of work who would die, anonymously and alone, at the end of a needle or the bottom of a bottle if they were lucky enough to avoid a bullet.

Unlike Connor. And Michael. And hopefully not Shiloh.

She was in Japantown nearly an hour later when a woman in red armor came up on her feed, probably drawn by the sound of her crying, and asked in an electronically distorted voice, "Are you alright?"

"N-No..." Erika sighed. "Wait, who are you?"

"Deirdre," the masked woman said. "I'm...or I was, a courier, like you. I know how hard that life can be." Not any easier than punching cat burglars, would-be murderers and attempted rapists, Shiloh thought inside that armor as her knuckles throbbed through the gloves.

"No, that's not it. I'm pregnant, and I don't know if I want to be with the father," Erika lied in order to protect Yasmine's identity.

"Well, is he or she still around, and more importantly wanting you back?" the would-be heroine asked, knowing there were many women with such equipment in this town.

"Yes, but..."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not trying to tell you what you should do, one way or the other. It's your body, and your life, my friend," Deirdre said, and placed Erika's head on her shoulder. "But I've seen too many people not have a choice, and have to raise a baby alone, or give them up for adoption, or get cut open by baby farmers who then turn around and sell them on the black market." This was a choice that, unbeknownst to Erika, Deirdre- nee Shiloh- was contemplating placing upon herself as a last resort with the last remnants of Bartholomew Mulgrave, with the genetic material that Shiloh didn't know would make Erika's half-sister or brother if allowed to grow within her.

"I...uh...I'll really think it over, so that whatever decision I make is the right one," Erika said.

"I'm sure you will. Now, stand. Us couriers always stand. And run until you can't any more..."

"...because your body is a weapon, and the key to using any weapon is practice and focus," Erika said. "I remember the spiel. Every dropper gives it to new runners."

"There's something else I've learned. No matter how many times life- or Yasmine Legato, in my case- knocks you down, you have to get up. I will die on my feet fighting her with every last breath, rather than live at her feet. That is a promise. Now promise me that you'll find someone who loves someone as gorgeous as you in the way you deserve, whether that person is your baby daddy or not," Deirdre said, cradling Erika's chin.

"I promise," Erika said, closing her eyes and letting a tear loose, feeling touched by Deirdre's sympathy even if she couldn't hate Yasmine. Then Deirdre was gone.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

Jane had coffee printed out for her, and got her jacket without a word. She then begrudgingly let the IBRS bring a helicopter rather than her guys and gals in the Neo Varangians, feeling powerless as she couldn't tell them where to go, only suggest where they should drop the two of them off. All she could do was call Erika and ask her to meet them there, with urgency in her voice; for her part, Erika reluctantly agreed. And then, once they were gathered in the same place, they all descended down a secret IBRS elevator away from the public to sneak into the morgue.

And then Amaranta, wearing a bikini (since she'd come from a tanning salon) and grinning seductively at Yasmine, explained the whole story of how she heard that Brona got a lot of money, figured out from watching her videos that she looked suspiciously like Shiloh, her ex-partner in crime, and then confronted her and got into a brawl for her efforts (minimizing just how one-sided that fight had been, or that Erwin and Amaranta had tried to blackmail her). Then her smile turned to anger and grief as she pulled off the sheet to reveal a face that looked very much like Brona and Shiloh to her, and angrily recounted how Shiloh tortured her and Erwin and left him to die at the hands of the Romanian mafia to try to bury the truth; Amaranta herself had only lived by playing up the innocent, battered woman card and then sleeping with one of the mafiosi, and shuddered as she related that.

Then she chuckled that she was glad Shiloh was dead, and concluded by asking for the million BurghBucks reward, an assertion to which Erika responded by yelling, "I loved her, you piece of shit!" and then started swinging her fists at the taller woman as the IBRS soldiers that Erika had opposed for so many years watched, faceless and unmoving.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"Uh...belay that order, Yas! Antonio's KIA," Jane cried, as Antonio was shot clean through the head and slumped against the column. Then Darya got shot in the gut and laughed as blood streamed out her mouth and down the breasts and body that some had called too fat to be attractive. But then she smiled as bullets whizzed by her, thinking of the two who had treated her like a human being, worthy of being intimate with.

"This is for Brona and Yasmine, you bastards!" Darya yelled, then pulled the pin on a frag grenade filled with metal ball bearings as crude shrapnel, charged behind enemy lines while screaming at the top of her lungs, and took out three of the Romanians with her when the explosive went off, blowing massive holes in their bodies and the attackers' numbers.

This inspired Erika to take a machine pistol, scramble up a column, and then jump and wall-run between columns as she rained death on the Romanians, further sowing chaos.

And then the remaining half dozen Romanians were backed into a corner and huddled by broken down concrete barriers, where a shadowy figure lay in wait in the rafters, and then knocked them out with a series of punches and kicks that chained into each other at lightning speeds. The Deirdre Division laid down their weapons to avoid shooting the hero that inspired them to mobilize to clean up the underground in the first place, while the Resort Security were in awe of her raw power and studied her tactics, wondering if perhaps they were dealing with a super soldier like Jane. Erika, meanwhile, confirmed that Deirdre had been a courier, as speed and precision melee strikes, preferably from a great height, were the weapons of choice for those who parkoured through the shadows of the underground and across the glossy mirror's edge of the surface.

"It's over. Cease fire, everyone," Deirdre now said as one remaining IBRS bullet landed in the wall behind her head, and the surviving, distrustful Resort Security troops leveled their guns at her while the Deirdre Division pointed their own guns back at the fascist enforcers of the corporate police state they despised.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't paint you across the wall for threatening my fiancee and our family, you self-righteous fuck," Jane snarled as she finished reloading her machine gun, which would tear anyone to shreds in under a second.

"Because, as you saw through my eyes, Deirdre showed kindness to me when I was in a dark place," Erika said as she stepped between Deirdre and Jane, knowing Jane wouldn't risk harming Erika, as well as her and Yasmine's fetus.

"It was no problem," Deirdre's mechanized voice said beneath brown hair and brown eyes. "But that's not what I was going to point out. Whatever our differences, I will never hurt anyone innocent in this, like Erika, or kill anyone. Now, we need to get to the surface, or at least to an inhabited Bummock neighborhood, and fast."

As the commotion from the gunfight died down, everyone heard hungry growling from...something. Or some things. It was hard to tell, but no one wanted to find out what had been drawn to the sounds of death and the smell of human blood.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"Let me be clearer with you," Deirdre said. "I don't kill anyone, or want you to die. If I did, you'd be dead already, and the world's entire military wouldn't be able to stop me," Deirdre fumed with the rage of the massive geothermal furnace that warmed the entire IceBurgh. "I want you to live with the pain you've caused so many others, who are suffering in silence. I'm just the first person to try to do something about it by hurting your precious wallet, and by calling you out in public for it."

"And she's already suffering in turn!" Erika cried. "She'll have to live with the fact that she killed Beetle, that she drove Connor and Shiloh away. She's trying to change, for me, for our child. What more could you possibly want from her?"

"From the woman that has everything, has been privileged all her life, and exacts retribution on anyone who crosses her?" Deirdre asked after pausing for a moment to alter the equation now that her beloved best friend was pregnant with what would be Connor's half-brother. To say the situation was messier than she'd thought when she decided to work with Beetle to create Deirdre was an understatement. But the stubborn Irishwoman in her refused to go easy on them.

"That's not true! We both grew up poor in North Carolina as kids," Jane said.

"So? Now she's wealthier than almost anyone or anything in this crapsack world save the billionaires who lit it on fire to fuel their greed like she has, and the Resort Corporation that continues to hold us all prisoner. Do you think that I care about her backstory, when she's trampled over thousands of people to get where she is, and has used her power and wealth for hardly anything but self-aggrandizement? Her little 'Gaia Park' playground, a PR move dedicated to a world that people fucked over long ago, is driving people underground. Her apartments were built off the ruins of the only affordable housing in the city. Her mall crushed small businesses under its boot."

"She's bought and refurbished Brona's and Domna Despina, taken in Erika when she threatened to kill me, and protected and loved Erika and me for months," Jane replied.

"Mere band-aids on the wounds Yasmine has left. Besides, it seems that Yasmine's MO is to use money to buy her way to being a good person. Buying a couple small businesses, bribing a courier with money and sex to sell out her friends, and making a baby to replace the son she lost are not enough to wipe the slate clean."

"So what are you saying?" Erika demanded, as she stood back, stunned at Deirdre's accusation. "That she sell off her entire company? Resign as President and CEO?"

"No, because she would still have more money than God whether she got a golden parachute from the Board of Directors or some of the proceeds of any sale," Shiloh said. "If she gives up Legato Industries without taking a cent of the blood money she's earned, then that's a start. But she would still need to actively find and address every wrong she's ever done, and that will take a long time, and I will watch her carefully."

"Then how will we live?" Erika asked, clutching her stomach in fear.

"You were a courier once, and you can be again," Deirdre said, trying to encourage Erika.

"That's no life for anyone," Jane objected.

"It was for Connor, and Michael, and Shiloh, and you Erika, and me, and every other courier that the rest of the IBRS is attacking and killing in cold blood right now in Yasmine's name, looking for me in order to put my head on a pike and enforce the status quo. It was a poor life, but these couriers are and were free, and just trying to make a simple, illegal yes, and also hard, but honest life for themselves and those they shared their hearts with," Deirdre riposted, anger rising in her voice as she remembered her little family of misfits, just trying to survive in the margins.

"Besides, Jane, you make your own money as the commander of Neo Varangians; probably more than enough to live comfortably, Even though your mercenaries have blood on their hands and have acted brutally before, and I will watch you and them closely, they aren't the worst PMC I've ever heard of either, so I could be persuaded to leave you alone if Neo Varangians became the only source of income for the three of you and the child, and Yasmine put in an honest day's work and continued to not just apologize, but show her contrition with actions. Then, perhaps, Erika would have a choice about whether to be a full time mother or a courier, or both, or take some other job."

That left Jane without any words, while she mulled over the terms of Deirdre ceasing hostilities.

"I will conclude this conversation by saying: Yasmine, you have to decide what's more important. Your money, or the people you so claim to love. Either you give up your empire voluntarily, or I will tear it down piece by piece. At some point, on a day of my choosing, after observing your actions, I will convene another meeting with you to hammer out the terms of the surrender, and if I don't like your answer, I restart this war. Am I understood?"

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"Oh, boo hoo. If philanthropy from enlightened capitalists was enough to fix the world, we wouldn't need to live on an artificial iceberg. I've lost people I've cared about because of you, and no amount of charitable contributions is enough to change that," Deirdre snarled gruffly, even as she felt for Yasmine, remembering how Connor said his father bore the pain of his mother's tragic death. "Anything illegal that I destroy is basically an insurance and tax write-off for you that allows you to launder your ill-gotten gains. Even your legal enterprises are built off the backs of many an underpaid worker. And even if you could build more of the city in a better manner than you have before, this city is fundamentally corrupt as long as a corporation motivated only by profit'- meaning the Resort Corporation- "rigs the entire system in its favor and those of its allies, into an oligopoly. And they control many more IceBurghs than this one."

It was the legal business that would suffer due to demand for Yasmine's products, goods and services dropping from fear of a Deirdre attack until Yasmine truly changed, Deirdre briefly thought, but the jobs of those who shared in Yasmine's wealth, and thus were complicit in every single one of her crimes, were not her concern. However, as she was going to go into more detail about all that, she heard the distinctive "YAROOOOOO!" of a pack of lurkers as they began feasting on the flesh of the dead, and the rapport of gunfire in a rearguard action by Deirdre's Division and the IBRS, working together to survive.

"We'll discuss this when we're not being hunted," Deirdre said. Then she picked up a double-barreled shotgun from a Romanian and blasted away a frog-tongued lurker. "Yeah, I said I wouldn't kill, but that only applies to people. These are animals- worse, monsters that understand nothing other than the craving for human flesh. It's them or you, and as long as you're still human, I choose you. Now, let's get out of here, shall we?"

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"Oh, wow. More talk! Don't you think we've tried?! It takes sustained bombing to break those things' armor, and we can't do that repeatedly or risk destroying the entire city. If we haven't exterminated them by now in the ten years that this city's been in operation, what makes you think you'll fare any better?" one of the IBRS soldiers retorted as the alligator delivered the killing blow to the giant bat's throat, and began rampaging towards everyone else. More out of a sense of revenge at the tiny creatures that had made it this way rather than any hunger, for it could feast on the bat for weeks on end, the heating gland in its belly substituting for the poor amount of sunlight in aiding digestion.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Jane snapped. "Inside, everyone."

But once Deirdre, Erika, Jane, Yasmine and a couple IBRS soldiers were inside the elevator, despite there being plenty of room still, the elevator door AI glitched under the immense stress of its connection to the power grid and therefore the server being rattled by the immense footfalls of the alligator and closed prematurely, then began calculating the trip to the surface without any user input.

"Open the goddamn door right now, you fascists!" Deirdre demanded.

"I can't, idiot. It's locked me out!" one of the IBRS guys exclaimed while pounding on the console in frustration. Still, at least Deirdre gave credit to the other one, who shot out the plexiglass in the door as the standard IceBurgh AI voice belted out "WARNING: PHYSICAL INTEGRITY ERROR" and tried to find any kind of manual override, or at least offer people the option of crawling in through the window. She then ordered everyone to stand back and blasted the door with the last of her shotgun slugs. It dented the titanium significantly, but didn't break it, so she threw it to the ground in fury. And any more ammunition used inside from the rifles threatened to ricochet.

But a nonbinary individual in the Deirdre Division yelled, "Go! We'll hold it off as long as we can."

"But..." Deirdre tried to plead.

"GO!"

And go the elevator did of its own accord, with no one saying anything further. Once it reached the surface, Deirdre dropped a smoke grenade, clocked the guard that had called her an idiot in the head with the empty gun, and then punched the door off, disappearing into the crowd while the remaining conscious soldier tried to scan through the smoke with an infrared scope on his rifle to find her.

"Stand down. She's in the wind," Jane said, and he listened; even though she wasn't technically his commanding officer, she had the gravitas of one.

Back underground, despite being slowed significantly by the annoying beestings the humans called bullets, the alligator killed most of the remaining Deirdre Division and IBRS members in minutes, and per IBRS protocols, their armor combusted to protect proprietary Resort Corporation data and patents, destroying their BioJacks in the process. But one IBRS girl was left alive, for now, and she didn't know why as she held her intestines inside and blood slowly filled the one eye that could still see.

"Good boy, Robespierre," Toussaint grinned, though it wasn't visible through his mask, as his remaining forces fanned out through the tunnel and executed the remaining Romanians, as well as anyone else playing dead. "Now, if you don't want to tell me where Deirdre is going- and that's strange, considering that she's your mortal enemy- renounce your ties to the oppressive Resort Corporation, and join the Jacquerites, then that's fine. I'll just BioJack you and then you can serve the revolution in death."

"I'm not telling your revolution shit, terrorist." Toussaint had killed too many of her friends before to schmooze her.

"Terrorist is a word used by the weak to discredit those who do what is necessary to earn true freedom," Toussaint knelt down to her level to hiss, as his pet alligator opened its cavernous jaws to threaten her.

"Go to hell," she said and blew her brains out with her pistol, destroying any information a BioJack might have provided as her suit disintegrated her body.

"BioJack anyone whose brains are still intact and see what you can find," Toussaint said. "She'll retreat back here eventually."

"And then we're going hunting."

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"All the more reason to beat Deirdre and/or render her crusade moot quickly," Erika explained, "and make her see that we're actually in the right here. Or trying to be, anyway. The longer she draws our attention to her with her attacks on your operations, the less time we have to find out who this unknown person or persons are before they make their move."

Jane quickly interjected. "Also, I can see why you thought differently, but I think that mysterious messenger was more speaking metaphorically, in that he, she or they 'owns' you through the leverage gained by their persuading the Council not to assassinate you when you...you know"- she didn't want to say, for Erika's sake- "as well as dangling the carrot of giving you the identity of yet another mysterious person who..." Jane said, making finger quotes over the word 'owns,' but then thinking better of finishing that sentence, since Yasmine already knew that a lot of people were gunning for her.

"My love...if anyone comes for my queen, they best not miss. Even though you frustrate me a lot sometimes, I'm with you to the end of the line," Erika said. Again, she was still wrestling with how to deal with the loss of so many people she cared about prior to falling like an asteroid into Yasmine's orbit, but if she was going to be a satellite, then she was determined to be her Moon- shining brilliantly through her darkness- alongside Jane.

"Ditto, Yas. Like I keep saying, you're not getting rid of me that easy," Jane smiled and ruffled Yasmine's hair like she used to when they were dirt poor kids from North Carolina named Jane Duvall and Nathaniel Legato and all they had was the stream they liked to play in and each other. Nothing more needed to be said by her, nor was she so inclined. And so, as they did many nights, they had a mind-blowing threesome, got high, and ordered traditional Irish fare such as corned beef, cabbage and potatoes delivered by drone, which they used to get every St. Patrick's Day and for Shiloh's stated birthday of May 25th, in honor of her best friend and Sapphic flame. (Erika wanted to ask Yasmine if she would help her legitimize couriering as an art and business in the age of drones, and in opposition to the Resort's monopoly on delivery, but that would have to wait for when she wasn't stoned out of her mind.)

Once Yasmine's two lovers fell fast asleep from the cornucopia of drugs and hefty pub food in their bellies, Yasmine got another message from the mysterious number.

"I AM ALWAYS WATCHING. You're not allowed to just take your ball and go home, Yasmine, not after the rest of the Council and I looked the other way while you thought you were getting away with so much shit. For now, we need your entire organization intact to use as bait to trap Deirdre and the terrorist who threatens to bring everything down on our heads. Now quit your whining and take whatever losses they inflict on your bank account like a good girl."

Meanwhile, in the abandoned restaurant mere blocks from the Irish restaurant, the exhausted Irish girl who her best friend thought dead, who now bore the heavy mantle of Deirdre cried herself to sleep, alone and shivering in the fetal position on a goddamn concrete floor. It seemed that the deeper she went into this life, the more the warmth she'd felt Connor, Erika and Michael faded away, the more she was having to spin a web of lies to cover her tracks. For instance, Sandra, who had been her best friend in the Irish mafia and an advocate for her peaceful exit, had been gunned down by the Romanians after being summoned to that cafe on false pretenses by the mask she called Brona, and then was rewarded by having her corpse deceptively turned into another mask that a bribed official had rechristened Shiloh.

All to support...what exactly? Shiloh's rage against a woman who was trying to be atone for her sins? A hunger for notoriety as Deirdre, someone feared and adored but who would never be, could never let herself love? A vendetta against the life Erika wanted, because Shiloh was angry she hadn't shared her zeal for revenge, or because Shiloh was now too far gone into scarred over grief that she picked at relentlessly out of self-hatred while treading the waters of madness (with a vow never to kill again the only thing keeping her afloat) to have it for herself? At what point would this all be worth it? Would she be free to breathe again? Would running hold the allure and escape it used to, instead of serving as a means of distracting from her demons? All these questions weighed her down, such that she didn't even dream that night.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

The Councilperson wasn't too worried by this minor setback, so he had a drone drop off a message with their next delivery of food the next day- even as Erika was conversing with Jane and Yasmine in fluent Japanese (after something reawakened inside her brain, and she got BioJack upgrades for them), making it harder to decipher what they were saying- that said, "I'm still watching. XOXO, Puppetmaster." The next day, Erika persuaded Yasmine to hire couriers for all her mail, food, etc. instead.

Despite their speed, couriers normally couldn't compete with the speed and efficiency of the Resort Corporation drones that had a monopoly on all legal delivery, but couriers still delivered nearly everything in under a day, and were valued for their discretion. (Plus, for many people, it was the only contact they had with another human, or the only good contact, anyway.) Over time, as she swelled with life and began listening to and talking with younger, not pregnant couriers about routes, parkour strategies, etc., Erika also realized that she might make a good dropper. It saddened her to think that she wouldn't be able to run the way she used to after giving birth, even once she lost the baby weight, due to lessened muscle tone. However, she could guide and mentor someone else like Beetle had. Jane then talked Yasmine, several weeks later, into darkening her windows, turning the bedroom obstacle course into a permanent fixture, as well as adding a zipline and harness from the parking garage level straight to the roof so that couriers could enter and crash on the guest bed if need be...or perhaps join Erika, Jane and Yasmine in their bed if they were so inclined.

As long as everything else proceeded according to plan, along with whatever else was necessary to protect this city of petty, selfish morons from the larger geopolitical collapse going around them was done, the Councilperson didn't care if Yasmine was pissy. This would also be revenge for their mother, the elderly Black woman who had chosen to live on the streets with her evicted friends rather than take her retirement against the Councilperson's advice, had been beaten and belittled by Yasmine on live TV for sleeping in the wrong garage, and later froze to death in the exposed Arctic air despite the IBRS's best efforts in locating her since most of them had been busy hunting Deirdre.

And the best revenge, like an old photograph in a darkroom, took time to develop.

And oh, would this photograph be beautiful. And deadly.

*****

Six months after Connor's death...

Attacking Yasmine quickly became no fun for Deirdre anymore. There was barely any security in most of the areas she raided, so the fights were all unchallenging. They didn't make for great livestreaming either, and her audience, which numbered 20,000 live viewers on average and nearly 100,000 on-demand subscribers from all over the world across all social media platforms shortly after her emergence, grew bored of her smashing up defenseless counterfeiting machines and meth labs and started to unsubscribe. So then she turned her attention to more pressing matters like protecting a Metro community from mutants, collaborative discussions and heroics with adoring members of Deirdre Division, bringing the beatdown on overzealous IBRS officers, fighting off would-be serial killers, and more.

She told herself it wasn't mainly for the attention, or the money, but she got a rush when she finally killed that stupid mutant alligator by luring it into an old tunnel, then caving it in on its head using pre-placed dynamite, and nearly 125,000 people cheered as they watched live or (in more extreme cases) bought LiveJacks to step into her shoes as she was fighting it to the death. The next day, her subscriber count peaked at a million, and more than 250,000 bought the BioShare film to watch when it became available to download into their minds, allowing them to relive the titanic battle from Deirdre's perspective as many times as they wanted. Sometimes while touching themselves to her as she got increasingly dirty and sweaty and her armor cracked to reveal more skin, which Deirdre didn't want to know about despite some fans sending in pictures of dicks, breasts, and other body parts to her tip site.

Then she got a 4% royalty check from the company that made the BioShare (off of nearly BB7,500,000 in sales) of 300,000 BurghBucks made out to a shell account, which made her eyes pop because that was more than she'd ever seen in her life. Even when her parents had that kind of money, she'd never really been allowed to have money of her own. With that, she bought a nice enough one-bedroom flat on Triumvirate Circle and enough food and drugs to last her a while, gave the rest to charity anonymously, and then went dark. There were no new updates to her social channels for weeks, and many grew worried about whether she'd been killed. As she slowly bled subscribers, she might as well have died in the short attention span of the public.

But Shiloh needed a break from Deirdre, badly. She was still angry with Yasmine for killing Beetle, immediately thinking that she was responsible for Connor's death, and stealing Erika from her, among other things. But it had cooled to embers; hot embers still, but not strong enough for the white-hot flame of rage that had kept her going, after seeing how Yasmine made it too easy to bust up her operations, almost like she wanted Deirdre to be yet another wrecking ball for her, and how Yasmine had apparently made her suite into the nicest and most talked about courier safehouse in the entire city. Without the boogeywoman of Yasmine over her, bringing a cloud of darkness but also, oddly enough, comfort, Deirdre had begun to feel like a dancing monkey, putting on a show for everyone, only to come back to an empty apartment and only have the company of weed, pizza and mountains of empty entertainment.

She still enjoyed running, but even that had become a more practical matter so she wouldn't gain weight and be unable to fit into her armor. Before she donned this armor, she had made a promise to herself that she'd give up this life once it felt hollow to her. That she'd mix drugs and alcohol and go to sleep forever, and no one would care until her corpse stunk up the place. And she was getting close to that ultimate retirement; but Deirdre had one last card to play before she exited stage left.

One day, as she wiped away tears so it wouldn't stain the business card she was writing on the back of, she wrote the following:

"Connor did say something to me on the last night of his life. Come to this address if you want to hear them, and maybe bury the hatchet. -D"

Then Deirdre had it sent (by courier of course), showered, shaved and touched herself for the first time in days, washed out the hair dye to change Deirdre’s brown hair to Shiloh and Brona’s silver, felt beautiful for the first time in six months in her fanciest, yet still very modest dress (minus the uncomfortable boots that had come with it), and rallied her strength to confront Yasmine in a different way than she'd ever thought she would have to, for the hardest night of her life.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"The bizarre thing is, a little part of me started to fall in love with you too. Then I smothered it because I felt disgusted with myself for it since you're Connor's mother, even though I know now that you're not the monster that I made you out to be and I just let it all build and build... Not that it matters, because I've hurt you too much with all my lies and my anger and I deserve to die for it," Shiloh said, on the verge of tears. Then she said as her breathing became more labored, "Anyway...Connor's last words to me before we embarked on the last leg of that run were, 'See you on the other side, Little Clover'."

Then the waterworks burst forth as Shiloh started crumbling in front of Yasmine. "Little Clover was his pet name for me. I should've known he loved me, even to the end. If I could go back, I would've kissed him then, but I was too much of a scared little shit for brains. And I am still, to this day. I...I...oh God, I've fucked up so much. How could anyone have ever loved me? How can you ever forgive me?!"

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

After a little bit more dancing to think it over, Shiloh stood up on her tiptoes to kiss Yasmine, then grinned, "Yeah, I remember. So...fuck me like you love me?" Even if it didn't entirely make sense. Even if it was mixed with anger, like a potent cocktail. But she couldn't deny that part of her any longer. Or how much her body needed Yasmine.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

It had been so long since Shiloh had been eaten out by anyone, especially this well (since Beetle admitted he wasn't good at that stuff and she didn't need that level of intimacy from him anyway, just his sperm...so probably since Erika went down on her last, more than six months ago) that she didn't even have time to rest her legs on Yasmine's surprisingly firm and muscular back before she got close to the razor's edge of pleasure.

"Oh, Yaaaaasssmmmph, I LOVE YOU TOO!" Shiloh then screamed into a pillow a few minutes later as she gave in and climaxed. "Well, I guess we're even, then," she winked. At least, they were when it came to not lasting as long as pornstars.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"What the hell does that even mean?" Jane asked.

"It...it means that while we have some work to do to put all the events and misunderstandings of the past six months behind us, I'm willing to try. Because I'm in love with Yasmine, and have been for a few months, even if I only admitted it out loud tonight," Shiloh said.

"Ah, there it is. Shoulda known you'd stick your dick in crazy vigilante cooch, Yas," Jane chuckled.

Shiloh tried to pretend she hadn't heard that, but then Jane slapped her on the right shoulder with a palm that could break concrete, leaving Shiloh a mite sore there, and said, "Just teasing, hun. We need all the help we can get, frankly. I'm just not so sure Erika will see things your way."

Minutes after they cleared the airspace around Triumvirate Circle, half a dozen Custodians - part of a highly skilled and ruthless black ops unit called Project Icarus within Resort Security full of cyberninjas who were experts at parkour, were not allowed to be contracted out by anyone other than the Council (to prevent situations like the main IBRS force being sent on wild goose chases in the Metro and Bummock Sectors from assuring an iron grip on the city, or any of the other IceBurghs) and had no names, records, or even fingerprints- sliced open the apartment window with their electrokatanas and breached on behalf of Yasmine's blackmailer, who had thought this a perfect time to capture Deirdre and Yasmine now that they'd apparently buried the hatchet and beat a little sense into them, perhaps even BioJack them until their brains were fried if they refused to cooperate.

"SECURE LINE ESTABLISHED," the ninja's phone said.

"Area clear of all targets," they then explained.

"No worries. Proceed to secondary objective," the blackmailer replied.

With that, the apartment was turned inside out, and the ninja hung up the phone and cleaved the fridge doors like butter.

Seconds later, he found the vial of Beetle's frozen sperm and said, "Package has been secured."

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

Once Shiloh was helped down the rope, and realized just how stunned Erika was, she also knew that Erika had lost all capacity for words and that Shiloh would need to be the one to do the talking. At least for now. And so she did; she explained how she was feeling at their last meeting, how the dealings with Amaranta and Erwin fell through, how she became Brona, how she had to disappear again, and how she fell ass-backwards into being Deirdre.

"You really did leave a man to die? And faked your death using your old friend, after getting Beetle killed, while letting me mourn you along with Connor and Michael, after the last words you ever said to me were full of anger? AND you were in the Irish mafia? Who the hell are you, Shiloh?!" Erika cried before slapping Shiloh across the cheek, causing her emotionally exhausted friend to stumble back and fall onto the couch.

"Just be glad you don't have nards," Jane smirked, trying to lighten the mood by making a reference to the infamous stab and then kick to Yasmine's crotch, but failing.

"Your soul friend...who loves you...who is deeply sorry...who is IN love with you...if, you, um, don't hate me," Shiloh said, referencing the words Mo Anam Cara that she'd said to Erika many times.

Erika sat down next to her, kissed her, and finally said the words she'd always wanted to- "Hajimete ata tokikara sukidata"- while stroking her forehead.

"I've loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you," Erika then explained. "That's not going to change just because you've been stubborn, and selfish, and a liar. I know, deep down, that you thought you were fighting for what was right. Just...try to do better in the future. Helping Yas fight this evil blackmailer and protecting my baby is the first step."

"Same. And I promise I will, for you, but more importantly for all of us," Shiloh sighed, her brain much too flattened by the events of this night. She was initially wanting to beg off anything and go to sleep, but then Erika kissed her and stroked the back of her head like old times, and Shiloh hungrily pulled down Erika's nightie and sucked her nipples once she was naked, like nothing had ever changed (apart from Erika's pregnancy, Shiloh thought).

"I think I see where this is going. Help it along, Yas. I'll jump in when the time is right," Jane winked.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

Erika and Jane walked out of the room quietly, stunned by what happened, guilty about getting carried away and pushing Shiloh into something that she seemed ready for and consented to but clearly was not actually ready for, and feeling like Shiloh and Yas needed some space to talk.

“Fuuuuck. I’m so sorry, Yazzy,” Shiloh said, as she plopped on her back from exhaustion. “I love you, and I want to love you, and I…I need a win. You know? Like, no interruptions, no soldiers, no fighting, none of that…just you and me, being totally free and honest with each other and having fun. But apparently I’m still not sure deep down if I’m worthy of any of it, and for a while there I wasn’t sure if I deserved to live. And I guess six months…hell, years of feeling alone, feeling like such a drain on everyone, and blaming others for my problems as well as running away or sabotaging myself when things get hard…doesn’t just go away like that. I guess we can’t BioJack until I feel a little bit more solid mentally, but…I don’t think I had a problem with regular sex with you, so I didn’t realize this would happen. I’m so sorry, and I can’t believe I fucked up when you’ve done nothing wrong tonight. Ugh! So frustrating!”

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

“And who am I, really? I’ve had so many faces, so many names, it’s hard to find the real person anymore,” Shiloh sighed as she slumped back a little bit into the arms of the woman she loved. She had her own ideas, but wanted to hear Yasmine serenade her sweetly, like she’d secretly craved for months.

 

[Alisa_Perne]

Yasmine was too lost in the moment to consider the fact that his could get Shiloh pregnant, she was too lost in the feelings of anger, and regret, and sadness, and then the overwhelming joy to even remember that she would in fact get her pregnant if she did this. Instead she got into a rhythm with Shiloh and soon enough their bodies were moving in tandem with each other almost as if they were one. No words, just noises, grunts, and moans, and then one final yell of orgasmic high as Yasmine fulfilled Shiloh's request, and painted her walls with her seed.

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

“Ohhhh…fuck, baby,” Shiloh panted. “That was, that was…I don’t even know what that was. But you were amazing. I love you so much, and I can’t wait to be on that big, comfy bed with all of you every night."

That remained top of mind for Shiloh as she actually showered off this time, borrowed one of Erika’s black silk kimonos that fit her very well (that Erika, true to form, later complimented her on), and accepted profuse apologies from both Erika and Jane for pushing her into a foursome when she wasn’t ready (and in fact rebuffed them, since Shiloh hadn’t even known that she’d be overwhelmed by it all, so how would they?) Shiloh then expressed just how glad she was to finally be able to rest, and smiled in the middle of the bed as Yasmine spooned her softly from behind that whole night, both women sleeping on their left sides. Jane, ever one for military training, slept with one eye open on her right side just in case. And Erika was sprawled on her back, though a little less than she would like

And yet, all of Yasmine's lovers went to bed with worries on their minds. Jane wondered whether she'd be able to protect her fiancee, when they would be able to get married in all this craziness, if they would live to be able to do that, and if she'd ever have a normal, comfortable relationship with Yasmine in public. Erika was determined to keep running as long as she could, and yet feeling more tired than she ever thought possible, and that made her then start to wonder if she'd ever be useful again, as she'd put her. She knew she was going to keep the baby, but she also wondered whether she'd made a mistake bringing up a new life here, in this terrifying hellscape. And yet, the whole world was coming down around their ears; so where, exactly, would ever be safe enough for their family?

Shiloh's state, however, was the worst of out of the three. At least Erika and Jane were able to sleep at all; Shiloh's ears were acutely aware of all the city's noises, and her mind raced with the faces of everyone she'd ever encountered as her thoughts became all the potential comments from fans upset and concerned about her disappearance, and the dark ceiling was alive with flashes of the things she'd done, and the people she'd had to fight to survive. How could she ever face them if she sought comfort instead of justice? Who was she if she hung up the armor of Deirdre, after all this time? Just a toy meant to please Yasmine? All that anxiety meant her eyes were wide open for most of the night, and yet she didn't move in order to not bother Yasmine while she pleasantly slumbered, and she only lost the battle with sleep because her eyelids were crushed by the weight of her exhaustion.

Then, in the morning, instead of Shiloh, Yasmine would find a note lying on the pillow to her left.

"My dearest Yasmine,

I want you to know, before you read anything else, that this is not goodbye. I realized last night how deep and true my buried feelings for you are, and that is still the case.

But we can't be together. Not yet. Not in the way that I so desperately want us to be. Not as long as that (likely fat and old) Councilperson continues to track our every move. If they suspect that I'm suddenly not attacking your businesses, then he'll throw everything he has at you. At Erika. At Jane. I can't put you all in danger just because I want to spend every night in your arms, making all my shit up to you. And, besides, I'm more useful out there, tracking down who this person is, who this 'Toussaint' I keep hearing about is, and what if anything they want from us.

I should emphasize that this does not mean I'm out of reach...just try not to find me until I let you know it's safe. I have my BioJack up still, and will broadcast where I am when I would like to rendezvous with you. And I'll still try to sleep on this bed when I can, because seriously?! It's so fucking soft. Like, how? I digress.

One last thing...I've been thinking a lot about Connor. About what he meant to me, to everyone. At first, I was a little fixated on whether it would indeed be wrong to pursue you, and whether I'd made a mistake. The thing I realized, though, is that you and I both know that Connor always put others before himself. He made life in a cold, abandoned construction project not only bearable, but full of life and laughter for all of us, because he was only ever concerned with whether the people he loved were happy. I think, if he were alive, he would be ecstatic for us...after a great deal of trademark Connor teasing and innuendo!

The most important thing is that this city snuffed out his light, and that the only way we're going to be able to happy, and finally, truly grieve for him in peace, is if we stop these people, any people who seek power to the exclusion of all other goals from taking any more Connors away from any more families. I thought you were one of those people once, but you proved me wrong. So let's prove them all wrong.

-S"

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"So, are you marrying her now?" Jane asked, partially sarcastic, but partially feeling a little pushed to the side and slightly unsure of her place in all of this now that Shiloh had come in and stirred everything up.

"I trust Shiloh too, even though I'm worried for her and would've pleaded with her not to go, but I need to find a way to fly too," Erika said, ignoring Jane's crack after reading over the letter some more. "I'm sick of feeling sick, of constantly peeing, of having my feet swollen...if she's out there, trying to help, I need to track down what I can too, for as long as I can."

"You decided to get pregnant," Jane said. "All that shit comes with the territory, or so I hear."

"Yeah, but like...I don't know..." Erika sighed.

"There may be a spare exoskeleton I can give you. But there's something else...something I'm keeping an eye on," Jane said. "Have you heard of HOMV-51? A respiratory disease also known as Hominid Flu. It's just spread like wildfire across Africa in the past month, killing thousands of people and gorillas, and leading to lockdowns more aggressive than anything seen during COVID-19 in an attempt to combat it. My guess is, with their civil war going on, it'll hit the US next, and Europe from there, and you know how air travel goes. So just, if you do go outside, try to limit contact with people as much as possible."

"That should be pretty easy with how barren the rooftops I want to visit are. And besides, we're pretty isolated from the rest of the world, aren't we?"

"We can be, if they lock down the island's borders, but it's extremely expensive, as a lot of the economy of all these IceBurghs depends on tourism. So the Council might decide it's more prudent to sacrifice a few thousand of our citizens for some extra money. With how the Councilperson attacking Yasmine has been acting, I wouldn't be surprised."

 

[CasualVelociraptor]

"You are the biggest dork in the North Atlantic IceBurgh...then again, you were the biggest dork in the South when we were kids, too," Jane said, only mildly annoyed at Yasmine for her sarcasm. "Can I tell you something? I...I wanted Connor to be mine. And now I can never do that for you. Now I just hope we can get married tomorrow without incident, and I can pretend for just a second that I didn't waste half my life running away from you, when I should have run to you before she did." It was pretty clear who she was referring to without naming her, however. "And as much as I adore Erika and Shiloh, they basically feel like my kid sisters. Yeah, I'll diddle 'em, and I do love 'em, but it's...different with them. What you and I have- I know that's rawer. Realer. Older. More scarred over, perhaps, but is it weird of me to think that the scars of our past make us more beautiful?"

*****

Meanwhile, in Aurora Bay...

"I should've known you'd find me here," Shiloh whispered, since she was standing on someone else's balcony, overlooking the tiny white seabirds the rich called sailing yachts puttered around the placid water. Neither sleet, nor rain, nor unprecedented snowstorm, nor the brink of climate change induced apocalypse would keep those who had the means from being above it all, it seemed to Shiloh. Even if every remaining city went underwater right now, the haves would continue having until they gave humanity's last party.

"You always said that one day you wanted to buy an apartment here, to live your days in peace," Erika said, the mechanical legs still whirring in protest from how hard she'd pushed them in order to keep up with Shiloh's more consistently honed skill and her freaking grapnel line! (No fair.) "I...I always imagined that I'd share that apartment with you. When I saw that you'd come to us and bonded with Yasmine, I was so overjoyed. It wasn't the place you wanted, but now you had a home again, with me, and them. And then you...you got so scared, and you took off in an awful hurry. What's wrong, Shiloh? Baby, please, I love you. Talk to me."

"Look around you, Erika!" Shiloh hissed, still under her breath. "This city is bleeding and dying. Every minute that I'm not out there trying to protect the innocent is time wasted."

"You can't save everybody by yourself. We need you here, Shiloh. I need you."

"What good would it do for me to wile away the hours being plowed by...by a criminal who somehow tricked me into falling in love with her!" Shiloh declared. "If I give up my freedom to be with her, am I any less subject to her will than the thousands of people who she trampled on in her quest for riches?"

"You don't...really believe all that, do you, Shi?" Erika asked, rubbing her shoulders as her dearest friend began to cry into her freckled hands.

"I don't know what to believe," Shiloh said. If she'd been more composed, she would have added, I HATED HER for six months for taking you away from me. For killing Michael. For blaming me for Connor with no proof. For planting Connor's little brother inside you, which, why, no...guh, that's disgusting! But none of that seemed relevant, and Shiloh was determined to continue working it out with Yasmine while they continued to pretend to be enemies in public, but not to bring Erika in the middle of it. "If she's a better person, then I've fallen from personhood by comparison. I've strayed so far from the light now. I don't deserve you, or her, or any of it."

"You are a human being, dammit! You deserve happiness and love! You deserve me..." Erika said. "But you better buy this exact apartment, because I want to let my little boy- yeah, it's a boy, I just got his embryonic fluid tested at the DNA level!- visit his other mother here. Visit...my wife."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying- oh, wow, this is harder than I thought!" Erika gulped. "Anyway, when we're not in fear for our lives, will you marry me?"

"YES!" Shiloh yelled, loudly enough to shake the glass in the windows, and maybe even cause a ripple on the water. The tired courier ended up accidentally rousing the grumpy old owners of these apartments, who called the IBRS on her with haste.

"Okay, I may not be as, well, vocal as you," Erika said as they started to vacate the scene, "But I'm just as happy as you, nonetheless. Let's get home, and then tell the old hens." Who, she figured, had the same deep, long-lasting trusting friendship that blossomed into a relationship. Erika was just glad that she'd been spurred to action by the fact that she'd believed Shiloh dead.