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Strideo
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The condition of the room was like most of the five story building in Northeast Vespertine. It was falling apart. The building was mostly a concrete and steel skeleton filled with graffiti, junk, and dust. The crumbling walls showed exposed rebar and pockmarks from the target practice of previous visitors.
The room, on the third floor, made a decent hide-out for the time being. It was hard to get to. Most of the transient denizens of Vespertine would settle for the easily accessible ground floor.
In one corner of the room a broken down robot lay propped up, its head tilted to one side. Its cylindrical torso had a shirt and tie painted on it making the unserviceable automaton look like some sort of parody of a business man. The robot’s optical sensors were framed in dingy white circles so that the beady black lenses in the center gave it’s “eyes” a cute cartoonish appearance.
If the machine were still functional it would be looking at the bedroll in the opposite corner of the room where a woman was awakening from her nap. It would be watching her brush away the reddish hair from face and stretch her arms, it would witness her checking the time piece on the floor by the bedroll, and it would record but not appreciate her shapely form rising to stand in just her underwear and a tank top.
While the robot was incapable of noticing her, she couldn’t be bothered to notice it. Twilight was near and it would soon be time to do her job. She felt a bit of anxiety coming on. It would be dark soon. She just needed a moment to relax.
She went to the square cloth where her supplies were laid out. Supplies she had brought up early that morning before the sun came up. Supplies . . . and two luxuries. She retrieved the first from a soft cooler, still cold, a bottle of champagne. How decadent, how out of place. Most residents of Vespertine would be drinking swill: cheap vodka or rough corn mash whiskey, if they were drinking anything tonight.
With a soft pop the bottle was open and the woman poured herself a glass. She sat on the bedroll holding the glass in one hand while hugging her knees to her chest with her free arm. She gazed at the bubbles in the fading light and thought to herself “What am I celebrating? Hmmph, more like a funeral than a celebration.” Then she took a sip “But, you don’t drink champagne at a funeral.”
After two glasses she moved to fetch her second luxury. She paused after opening the small case exposing a violin. It could attract unwanted attention. She hesitated a moment longer, then “Fuck it!” She picked up the instrument satisfied that she would have this moment, besides she had only gained access to this corner of the crumbling building by a grapple hook and rope.
Once again her actions were mismatched to her surroundings as she began to play a hauntingly beautiful, and melancholy tune. The kind that no one in these parts played. The kind that the plebeian folks below would scoff at “It’s too fancy, too delicate” they would say. Too classical perhaps, but it was exactly what the woman needed. She put her emotions into it, let it cleanse her soul and soon it was dark. The sun had gone down.
She put the instrument aside and turned on her electric lamp, dimming it to just what she needed in order to prepare. She slid into a pair of tight black pants. She put on her leather boots, soft and flexible except for the dull metal shin guards. She strapped her belt around her waist loaded with some handy tools and an empty holster on her right thigh. Her black gloves slid up to her elbows, like her boots they were soft and flexible except for dull metal arm guards. The right glove had holes that exposed her finger tips. She flexed her arms in their gloves then she picked up her blade, a rapier, long and thin and girded it where it hung from her hip on her left. She bent to pick up a precious 9 millimeter hand gun from beside her bedroll and retrieved her time piece as well. She holstered the gun and slipped the small time piece into a pocket.
As she tied her hair back she looked upon the violin wistfully not knowing when or if she would ever play it again, not knowing if there would even be a chance to return to this spot and retrieve it. She gulped down another glass of champagne, quickly this time. There was still some left, but anymore at this point would be a hindrance rather than a help. One last glance as she picked up the rope and she pondered “Funny, how my name sounds so close to the things I’m good at, Violet, violin, violence . . .”
It was time to go, the job was waiting.
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051026
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