The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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IamLEAM1983
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The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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As usual, Archie had dozed off in his private oil pit, in the secluded garage of sorts that had been built off to the north side of the Hall. The large tank was gently heated and air nozzles pushed bubbles into the viscous liquid, which had the use of creating a meagre little current of sorts. Oil then generously seeped into every nook and cranny of his being, and he emerged usually only to rest his elbows against the side of the tank, letting out the kind of contented sigh you'd expect out of someone being treated to a full-course spa.

An old jukebox responded to its timer about forty-five minutes later, pushing out a mellow stream of chamber music. Suitably awakened, the old spy transferred himself into his sawdust cabinet. Two passes and a few moments under a strong fan, and he was both lubricated and cleaned.

This was a little ritual he'd usually reserved for himself before working alone. Making himself as supple as possible and as refreshed as could be made it easier for him to see connections, to forge plans and to generally play his expected part of the spymaster. He'd had the basic elements of his contact with Jameson in place for weeks, now - a by-proxy scouring of the FBI and Homeland Security's databases got him what he needed, and a pickpocketing round using unique facial elements had taken care of the rest. He'd jotted down notes, taking great care to record which nose and eyeballs he could no longer wear in the presence of this rather lively young woman - who, he could confirm, had her arm lock techniques rather down pat. Getting caught had been part of the affected character, but a stressed shoulder joint was still a stressed shoulder joint.

In any case, the drafting period was over. His plans were laid out, and it was now time for him to steer miss Jameson's life in the direction he required...

Most of everyone in town knew him as an antique, if sharp dresser. As much as he wanted to put on his best frock, this wasn't a formal interview. A persona needed to be achieved; this wasn't a matter of getting her to sit down with some tea and a few crumpets...

Grimacing, he pulled out the matching sweatpants and track suit from his wardrobe, along with these fairly horrendous modern sneakers he'd always told himself he'd never wear. As the current generation of chronic Tweakers from the Isles had taken to the Chav subculture, then that was what he'd look like. He added a matching flat cap and those old thick-rimmed glasses everyone seemed to like again if all they reminded him of was Groucho Marx, and gave himself another look in the mirror.

Yes, that was about it. Pair that with a matching Estuary slang and that obnoxious desire to show off counterfeit jewellery as if it meant something as a badge of status, and the disguise would be perfect...

***

It was all rather simple: C-Chavs, or Clank Chavs, professed the desire to dress in striking ways, to affect an odd, slightly thuggish appearance of high class. They couldn't keep up with Haute Urban Couture and their tune-up requirements - most of them were of the old guard and desperately tried to remain contemporary - so eventually, both attempts failed miserably. The end result was usually obnoxious, entitled, and absolutely riddled with the nervous tics and scratches of an addict on a comedown.

Luckily, being what he was, looking like he'd had his soul transferred around his twenties wasn't too hard. Staying in the mindset of a self-important ingrate all the way through to Jameson's religiously frequented restaurant on this Tuesday afternoon would prove to be quite the challenge. It took everything he had for him to avoid tipping his cap and spare a smile and delicate apologies. Being a jerk, it turned out, was an exact and demanding science.

All he could hope for was that she'd take the bait when he'd once he'd dangle it out.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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Although she lived in West Willowdale (as befits the CEO of a prosperous shipping concern), Marianna Jameson liked eating out across the water, and every Tuesday for the past two years she'd frequented Toni's Bistro, somewhere around three in the afternoon. She always had one of two things, alternating every week; a pair of loaded meatball subs, or Western-style spaghetti with real tomato sauce and extra garlic. It had gotten to the point that when the roar of her motorcycle could be heard, Toni started in on the food. Mary never had to ask about the quality of their ingredients, since H&J was their courier of choice; she could just verify the manifests for herself, if she cared to bother.

Mary didn't have many friends; she counted the older chef as one of them, and felt she had the short end of the deal.

"They said it'd cloud up," she muttered to herself, staring up at the pristine blue sky and the blazing sun. "Fuckers. Wouldn't know a bloody weather report from my boot up their arse..." With a sigh she pulled at her biking leathers, shivering as the silk lining slid over her skin; at first glance her outfit seemed more appropriate for erotic dancing or a night at the fetish clubs, what with the shiny black of the leather and the deep, sensuous red silk, not to mention the thigh-high heeled boots with the extraneous buckles and the hardware around her calves. And they'd be right, but that didn't stop her from having fun.

She reached behind and snapped her fingers, activating a transmitter in her gloves that lowered and locked the garage door, then she straddled her bike. It was a hell of a machine, one of the last petrol-burning Hayabusas Suzuki had ever made and still one of the fastest street legal rides available; Mary had had it modified and hacked, of course, for added speed and safety, and no one could catch her when she went all out. The engine came to life with a throaty roar, eager to let loose, and she gunned it gleefully before spinning out and tearing off for the diner.

When she really pushed it, really got up to speed, the adrenaline and euphoria almost matched what she got from freerunning with her implants active. Which was precisely why she so rarely pushed it that far.

Nevertheless she made very good time, staying off the heavily-trafficked roads and sticking to a maze of alleys and canal jumps she'd discovered long ago, the crowning moment of which was a long jump over the widest part of the dry canal that separated the two halves of Willowdale. She'd done stunts like this back in Hong Kong; navigating Hope was almost trivial compared to that.

Shortly after three o' clock the diner's patrons would hear the bike's revving, the screech of high-performance brakes, some moments before Mary herself came into view, power-sliding into her usual spot like always. "Three seconds off," she muttered crossly as she shut the bike off and locked it down, "gotta ease off the brakes next time." She slid off and tugged her helmet away, shaking her long black hair out and running a gloved finger through it, then lightly feeling across herself to make sure nothing was out of place. Especially the sword at her back, which looked like a normal katana but wasn't in the least normal.

Anyone who didn't know Mary would have assumed the diner was about to be held up when she walked inside, but the regulars didn't even glance up. "How's my girl?" the former cop called out cheerfully, making straight for her favorite stool. Her eyes slid over the place as she walked, sliding right over Archie like he wasn't even there; washed-up clanks were a dime a dozen even in this neighborhood, after all. Satisfied that things were as they ought to be, she slid onto her seat and leaned on her elbows, watching the familiar activity in the kitchen beyond with an eye for details.

When Archie had encountered her before, Mary had been dressed somewhat more normally and had not been obviously armed. Now, with an exotic blade across her back and dressed in something that wouldn't be amiss in a Dead or Alive game, he'd certainly get an eyeful; the way the "armor" was cut left very little to the imagination, which said a great deal about her self-confidence.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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Somewhere behind his disguise and the penne all' arrabiatta he'd ordered for himself, Archie allowed himself a few scandalized thoughts. He'd seen his lot of warrior women and contenders for Mata Hari's crown in his day, and none had been quite so... overt, before!

Still, he noted her familiarity with the locale, her relaxed, yet somewhat wary demeanour. The exosuit addiction still had to play for a part of it, at least, and her packing a sword in plain sight could be indicative of fairly monolithic trust issues. Probably the kind that would cause her to risk a jaunt in the local pokey for carrying a Paradise weapon around without the proper papers or authorizations...

As was his custom, he washed his meal down with some liquids (coffee would do fine for this fairly strapped cover) and then saw himself to the bathroom, where he availed himself of his naturally seldom-used evacuation mechanisms. A little water splashed in the ol' abdominal reservoir later, and he was back out. All told, they'd both been here an hour. He made sure to reach the cash register while displaying the right amount of tics and - just as he'd arranged for - Joseph Danvers' credit card came up short.

It was all in the show, the delivery. Sounding young, especially, was important. He needed to sound like some poor, previously awfully privileged kid from the boom-town era who'd used Daddy's money to buy himself immortality, only to spend the next two hundred years scraping by.

"Aw, come on, bruv - I've got this Paradise chit right here! Is' good money, right?
- Sorry, kid," replied the cashier - for which Archie almost felt like grinning pridefully - "either you pay up or I'll bury you in soapy water up to your elbows. See how you like them creaky arms after that."

Simulating this wasn't hard. He and his team had come up short in Saint Petersburg at least twice, long ago. Lack of food wasn't a problem for him, but he'd always insisted on being a fair team player. The idea that someone hadn't eaten properly while on his watch was the kind of thing that tormented him for a few days in a row. He tapped into that old panic, the old churning bowels he'd lost along with everything else of his organic self, and darted his eyes nervously around, spotting Mary as if for the first time.

A quick hungry, desperate and assessing look was given. What came out of his mouth was juvenile enough, naive enough, desperate enough. "Please, mum - I, uh, I owe people for me tune-up and I can't afford this meal. If I pay cash, the Ruskies'll do me in! You got some money you could spare?"

Worst case scenario, she'd drop him off at the first youth center she'd know of, having bought into his sob story a little too closely.

If everything went to plan, though, the sighting of a well-oiled if desperate vintage automaton being forced to confront the Russian mob might pique her interest...
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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Mary had spent the hour eating and chatting with Toni, when the chef could spare a minute, although considering it was the tail end of lunch that didn't come by too often. She had a word or two with the other patrons, but Archie would be able to tell that it was just for politeness' sake, that she hadn't really connected with them like she had with Toni. All in all, a rare quiet moment in her life.

She was just getting ready to leave when Archie started in on his lines. "Hm," she replied noncommittally, until she was addressed directly. Narrowed green eyes turned to assess the old clank, raking up and down his aged but well-preserved frame. What she saw apparently left her nonplussed, as with a vaguely annoyed sigh she gave the cashier the benefit of that emerald stare. "Put him on my tab, boy. I know desperation when I see it."

Again she turned to the clank, one hand compulsively checking her belongings. "Reds, you said? In this city the Reds amount to some uni-circuit lecturer and a few brutes over in Pikey Land. What's your real deal?"
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"I told you, mum," continued the false Chav, "I need what I've got on me for a tune-up."

He reached inside his tracksuit and pulled his baggy Nike tee-shirt off of his left shoulder. Some coarse sand and leftover oil had done the trick, as he'd purposefully clogged part of his gears to give himself a credible alibi. Mary wouldn't have to lean forwards that very far to hear the mechanisms near the upper left torso whining and straining with undue effort. A few days longer, and one of the cogs would break, endemic failures would spread, and Joseph Danvers' life would be in jeopardy.

"I owed rent and food money, the bloody clinic's over in Sandhill, and I can't pay for me bus fare without eating into this," he said, holding up his debit card.

He sighed, panic coming onto him rather naturally. "I can take the bus to Brickston Road, yeh, but the Reds'll do me in if I don't pay in full. I can run, but they'll find me... Oh cripes, I knew I should've let Da pay for some sort of weapon rack!"

The distressed C-Chav slid down to the sidewalk. "I just - I wanna go back. Back to when this was simple. If I pay them back, I'll have time for free classes," Archie kept saying, in the tone of a disenchanted and distressed youth trying to give himself hope. "I'll have time to maybe get a trade for meself. A job. I just - I want this to end, miss. I've learned me bloody lesson, I'll go back to rehab - but this has to end, first."

Archie had known and helped enough urchins to be familiar with the entire catalogue. Not all of them were young and adorable little things too early on life's path to have lost faith in fairy-tale goodness. Some of the lads he'd helped around the American South had been old and embittered, or desperate and fragile - dead from frost or hunger a day after having pleaded to him for assistance. Channelling their pathos was always a bit heartbreaking for the Clank, and it imprinted well on his performance.

He certainly knew which strings to pull. Not even the most augmented or addicted of all humans would remain insensitive.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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Mary found herself sympathizing against her will, and rubbed at her left temple with two fingers. "What kind of a trade do you think you could learn?" she asked, mostly to stall for time. "Pickpocketing? Carjacking? ATM fraud?" In the next second she waved her hand dismissively. "No, don't answer that, it was rhetorical."

She knew she would help him out, the thought of not helping him grated against some deep-seated remnant of civil servitude inside her. First she had to squash the lecturing instinct; he'd likely heard it all before, she had no guarantee it'd stick this time even if she helped him out. The best thing to do, of course, would be to take him to a youth center and refer them to a reputable robotics preservation garage, then go "pay a visit" to these so-called Reds.

But no, she had to keep an eye on him. That meant escorting him to the Russians, making sure everything was at least pretending to be above board, maybe kicking some ass if necessary...

"Why are you asking me, anyway?" she asked, adding, "and don't give me any obvious answers either," after a moment. "And what's your name, again?"

"Here ya go, Miss J," the cashier interrupted, handing Mary a short receipt. She took it, glanced at it, grunted impatiently and shoved it into her bag before giving Archie her attention again.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"Joseph, mum," replied the Clank, hanging her his debit card by way of business card. "Joseph Danvers. Everyone calls me Joey, though. Never got used to this immortal thing, Joseph sounds too old, 'cos I was made in me seventeenth year. Third-generation American."

Naturally, that had been too early for him to lose the Old Country's inflections, and it sounded like a second trip back across the Atlantic had frozen them in place for a few centuries longer.

Without any beard or moustache appliances, his snap-on covers looked like brass pimples of a sort, adding to the juvenile impression he gave.
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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Mary quirked an eyebrow up when "Joey" mentioned he'd only been seventeen at the time of his soul transfer, but didn't press the issue. She glanced at the card and handed it back, not really interested in it for itself. "I'm Marianna, by the way," she replied offhandedly, "Marianna Jameson. But call me Mary. And don't call me 'mum', I am far too young to be a mum."

Her accent wasn't as pronounced as his, but still noticeable. Not exactly a British English accent, though.

"So when's your appointments with these Russians you're so fond of?" she went on, glancing about the diner briefly and once again running a hand over herself and her stuff. She did it so often, it had to be an ingrained habit, which would fit with what Archie would already know about her if he'd done his homework. "And what's your deal with them? Is there papers involved, have you signed any agreements? Or is it all below the tables and ain't no bobby gonna give a damn?"
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"No papers, no," confirmed Joey, the spy confirming Mary's gestures to fit with his profile her, behind his mask. "This is kinda me last resort, see? Credit report's in the pits, I've already filed for bankruptcy - I couldn't even pay for one of 'em unlicensed frame jobs the gas-bag alien sells in Mertown. If there's a receipt, I'm toast. It's this or I, well..."

He looked away in dejection, even as he stood back up. "I lose the arm, I guess. Maybe die. It's - I dunno. I'm scared o' the Russians, yeh, but only when things matter again, see? I've got this to pay and I'm scared, but I've met you and I'm on my way, so..."

He shrugged, the gesture more thoughtful than dismissive. "Thanks, I guess," he said, "For believin' me. Nobody ever does."
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Re: The Razorgirl's Five Hundred Suitors

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"I know the feeling," Mary replied, a bit more earnestly than she'd meant. "We all have our problems, kiddo, and all anyone needs is a strong hand and a sympathetic ear." Goddamn, she hadn't said any of that in years! Once a cop, always a cop, she figured.

She stole a glance at the wall clock. "But when do you have to see these idiots? Don't make me ask again," she warned, her voice lowering slightly.
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