"Well, how are you doin' tonight, Mau-Mau?" Estella asked Maureen.
Maureen glanced at the new girl on the street, who was walking back to her lamppost just outside of Don's Snack Shoppe, "It'd be better if the competition wasn't around!"
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Y'know what really irritates me, though?"
"What?"
"Her tricks come out looking so damn satisfied!" Estella shook her head, "How many of those 50% refunds do you think she's handing out?"
"Fewer this morning than this afternoon, I'll bet. She looks like a quick learner. Looks a lot more confident now than she did this morning."
"Well, just wait 'til Ricco comes for his take!"
"HEY! My ears are itchin'! Did someone speak my name?" A blonde man wearing sunglasses walked up.
"Ricco! How nice to see you!" Maureen said in a tone of voice that indicated exactly the opposite.
"Helloooo ladies!" He slicked back his thickly gelled hair, "Time for the nightly collection!"
Estella and Maureen dourly counted out their proceeds and handed a large fraction over to Ricco.
"What's this?" he counted the money, then shot an ugly look at them, "You girls holdin' back? This is chicken feed! It's not nice holdin' out on Good Old Ricco, Ya know!"
Estella jerked her thumb over the shoulder, "New slut! Undercutting us by a third, AND handing out half off refunds to boot!"
"Ooohhh! Nice addition to our company!" Ricco lowered his sunglasses to glance at the girl appraisingly, "You Ladies'll now see and appreciate the benefits accumulatin' to bein' associated wit me!"
Yvette walked up, a huge grin on her face, "She's gonna get it now!"
"Know the routine?" Estella asked Maureen.
"By heart!" Maureen replied gleefully. "Ricco walks up to her and says."
From across the street, the women saw Ricco walk up to the girl, eye her up and down, then begin to speak.
"Hey baby! You lookin' good!" Maureen said, since he was too far away for them to hear.
The girl spoke back.
"Why thanks." Estella spoke for the girl. Yvette chuckled at this long distance commentary.
"Say, what you doin' on my street?" Maureen dubbed.
"What do you mean, your street?" Estella added while the girl spoke back to Ricco, standing up straight and waving her hand in their direction.
"All the girls work for me on this street." Maureen dubbed as Ricco talked to the girl, "You're a girl. You're working this street. You work for me."
The girl shook her head, "Not for you, slimeball." Estella dubbed as the girl spoke, adding, "Ricco slaps her right about now."
Ricco slapped the girl across the mouth, "OW!" Estella faked receiving a blow.
"Bingo. We sure know Ricco, don't we?" Maureen added. She then dubbed as Ricco talked to the girl, "You give me a third of your proceeds, plus auditions when I-"
The girl spun around and seemed to rise in the air. A leg shot out of the whirl, hitting Ricco in the chest and sending him flying against the wall.
"HEY! THAT'S NOT IN THE SCRIPT!" Yvette protested.
The girl landed on her feet, advanced, and rammed the heel of her hand against Ricco's mouth and nose as he bounced off the wall and came back toward her. He flew back against the wall again and stuck there for a long moment before slowly sliding down it, legs splaying wide.
The girl then advanced and kicked him hard between the legs, lifting him back up onto his feet.
"OOOHHH! I hear THAT hurts!" Estella gasped.
The girl tugged on the hem of her dress as Ricco slowly backed away, obviously muttering threats. He pointed a finger at her, yelling loud enough to be heard by the women "BITCH! I'M GONNA GET Y-"
The loud POP and Ricco's scream as the girl grabbed his index finger and jerked it into an unhealthy angle could also be heard from across the street.
"DAMN! I've gotta hear this!" Maureen started across the street. The other two hurried to catch up with the tall woman's long stride, joining the small crowd gathering around the two combatants.
Ricco was on his knees, still screaming as they got within earshot of the girl's words.
"-these women alone. You hear me?" the girl was stating matter of factly to him.
"YESSSS!! YESSSS!" Ricco nodded frantically.
She jerked at the finger warningly, "The money you've been taking from them. Hand it over! Now!"
He fumbled at his pockets and dumped the bills onto the sidewalk.
Her lips pursed angrily, and she jerked the finger violently, "ALL OF IT FROM THIS WEEK, BASTARD!"
He fished out a large roll of bills and dropped it onto the sidewalk too.
"Now you just get out of here and never show your face on this street again!" She released his finger.
He spat into her face, turned, and tried to run. In a flash, she was after him, one hand between his shoulder blades, the other at the small of his back. She began pushing him, running to force him to run faster. She then shoved hard. He flew down the street, legs and arms whirling like a windmill, obviously out of control. He stopped only when he hit the street light post at the corner, making it ring with a loud "BONG!" He staggered for a moment, then collapsed at the foot of the light.
She pulled her dress down again, wiped her face, then returned to the astonished crowd of prostitutes and street people, combing her black hair back into place with her fingers.
No one had dared touch the pile of money that Ricco had emptied out of his pockets. She just bent down, picked it all up, undid the roll, and counted it.
When she finished, she looked at the crowd, "Who worked for him?" she asked quietly.
Seven women either raised their hands or nodded.
"You don't any more. At least you don't as long as I'm here." She stated simply, "If he bugs you, let me know. Okay?" she glanced at the large wad of bills in her slim hands, "I'll have to split this up evenly, since I don't know who made what. Is that okay?"
They nodded blankly. She distributed the money as equally as possible, using a little of her own money to make it even rather than having to make small change.
When Maureen received her money, instead of thanking her, she said, "You know something? You're a really stupid bitch."
Everyone inhaled sharply, glancing between the girl and Maureen, expecting an explosion.
She didn't flinch, "I know I'm a stupid bitch. That's how I got here." She replied quietly as she pulled some small bills out of her pocket to even up Maureen's share.
Maureen shook her head and walked back to her spot.
"Hey Ramba! Welcome to our street!" Estella said nervously, receiving her share. She glanced at Maureen, "Don't worry about Maureen. She's upset some of her tricks went with you today."
"I'm a new face. New thrills." The girl said matter of factly, shrugging,"I know I'm not charging as much as you. I'll raise my prices soon, and we'll be even then."
"Yeah." Estella agreed, "Thanks!" she added, "I can pay the rent with this, it looks like!"
"Good. Maybe we'll talk later."
"Sure" Estella said, thinking "Too bad"
as she mentally compared the new girl to
herself and the others. Life on the street, with drugs and beatings an
almost daily ritual, left many of the women battered and bruised looking.
The new girl was unscarred, unblemished, fresh-faced and healthy looking,
proud and unbent as she walked back and leaned against her lamppost. Her
hair gleamed in the light as if she was a princess wearing a tiara. "What
a waste." She thought as she returned to her spot on the street, wondering
what the girl would look like in a
few months.
--------------------
Elaine stepped up to the open window and
looked out over the rooftops across from her new apartment. She inhaled
the night air and made a face, "Damn city stinks of car fumes, rotting
food, and shit of all types."
She missed the clean air, the greenery, and the relative quiet she enjoyed as part of her job monitoring the re-introduced wolves at Yellowstone National Park. Some of the wolves had gotten used to the slight odor of car fumes from all the visitors, but the majority had their ranges deep in the back country. She didn't blame them, being unable to imagine any member of the canine family enjoying the act of reproduction if they had to stand the smell of burnt rotted prehistoric plants.
The spandex jumpsuit she wore expanded as she converted to her lupine form. She quickly leaped out of the window onto the roof opposite her apartment before anyone saw her long ears against the light of her apartment. Her ability to turn into something vaguely familiar and nonthreatening with great speed, strength, and mobility made her the perfect choice for monitoring the backcountry packs. Not that anybody other than her family and the wolves knew. She filed her reports, brought back incredible pictures, and kept her bosses happy. They were sorry to let her go on indefinite leave for family reasons, as were the rangers who replaced her. Some parts of the back country were wild and beautiful, with the emphasis on wild. She fancied they were thinking right now about all the pleasant times they had spent with her while they were thrashing around "out back".
"One day," she thought as she ran along a long factory roof, "One day all these roofs will be covered with black cloth, drinking in the sunlight and storing it in batteries no bigger than a footstool. Then the factories, houses, cars, trucks, and motorcycles will be driven by the sun, and the power plants will no longer be needed." The string of arcane equations for her piece of the solution came to her mind's eye, in letters burning like the first fire that started mankind on its upward path. All that was needed was for these to be joined with similar letters and schematics of fire that burned in the minds of five of her siblings, "Then, the world will start to become fresh and clean again."
It felt good to hold part of the solution to a great problem.
She leaped from roof to roof, trying to work out the cottony feeling all Cyber-derived beings got in their muscles if they had been inactive for more than 40 hours. At the same time, all her senses were alert, looking for suspicious activity. The wandering Cyber or Cybers in Meridiana would have the same nagging feeling, and most likely work it out in exactly the same way. Hopefully, she'd catch sight of them first and be able to get close enough to make the appeal for them to come home.
It was the only good time she could do it. The Cybers were masters of disguise and stealth, so there was no telling what they looked like during the day. That they all had the white, fair skin of their mother was not motivated out of racial bigotry, but of practicality: It was simply easier to make light skin dark than to lighten dark skin. They had their father's dark hair, and a grandparent's large, black eyes and relatively slender build, so they looked rather ordinary and didn't stand out like she did. Everything else was subject to change, either during their design or by application of their skills.
She paused on a rooftop to wipe back the long locks of red hair she still had in her lupine form. She got that from her mother, and felt rather proud, pleased, and grateful at the same time. SHE didn't mind standing out!
She glanced around. Amazing what the subconscious makes one do. She'd just happened to have wandered near the Trodden's mansion. She leaped around to the side, went through the known vunerable spot in the security system, and alighted in a tree in the back garden. Her eyes went to the nursery window, but it was dark. She imagined Bethany snug in bed as she turned and leaped back out the same way.
Something black flitted behind a chimney out the corner of her eye. "Of course! A cyber, wandering or not, would be attracted to their only niece like flies to honey!" She changed direction as she leaped toward the chimney.
"YES!" she thought as she saw the slim, black shape leap away the moment she touched down on the roof, "WAIT!" she called, regretting the hoarse voice that couldn't be helped: this form had a bigger throat and relatively less cheek skin to soften and modulate the sounds. She leaped after the figure, "WAIT!"
"A Cyber all right! Damn! This one's good!" she thought as she ran along one rooftop. Like all specials born of the tank, she had taken the appropriate Cyber training classes, and had barely passed the ones not related to her specialty. One thing she'd gotten out of Tracking class was a healthy respect for her Cyber brothers and sisters. Another was the conviction that she didn't want to take the Hand-to-Hand combat courses that were also offered, " WE NEED TO TALK!"
She couldn't see anybody any more. She stopped, panted for a few seconds, then yelled, "WE LOVE YOU! PLEASE COME HOME!"
She transformed back to her human form and waited, panting, heart beating, hoping that the prodigal would appear, ready to give a kiss and heartfelt embrace. To welcome him or her back out of the cold night of lonliness into the warm comfort of the family.
Nothing. Only the cold wind.
"Damn you Cybersix!" she muttered, sagging to her knees, eyes welling with tears, "Why the hell did you kill yourself and leave us with a ragged, bleeding hole in our hearts as big as the moon?"