Spray-back Time

Steffie felt the grass tickling her back as she lay under the grove of trees. She imagined herself as the lone white cloud slowly drifting across the sky, free from the constraints of the world. This was finally a break from having to look over her shoulder. But that meant she was left alone with her thoughts–specifically, memories of the past which chased each other around in her mind. One memory in particular was winning the battle, looming like a cat among mice.

Four years ago, she was back at the mural that completely covered the last brick wall in the Core, Horizon’s inner-city sanctum where they had converted everything solely to their selfish purposes. Well, almost everything. The mural still stood. Steffie didn’t blame the corporate machine cogs for the judgmental looks they gave her while passing at a noticeable distance on their morning commute to work. The city was definitely not without its share of dangerous inhabitants. However, she did blame the city dwellers for their ignorance and complacency, not one of whom gave the mural a second glance.

She purposefully chose this route to come see the art piece, displaying the best of human ingenuity, to give her some inspiration before her morning art class. And to make the cogs feel uncomfortable, of course. But suddenly, she was forced to jump back as a drone flew right past her face and started spraying industrial, black paint over the mural. It finished the job in under a minute despite Steffie’s attempts to stop it. The drone proceeded to install a holographic sign that read, “Horizon Property. Marked for destruction”. Steffie ignored the pain in her left hand, burned by the hot coffee that had slopped out of her cup. She felt her other hand curl into a fist, shaking in anger.

Steffie knew why she was angry. A hunk of metal devoid of creativity–the complete opposite of what the mural stood for–had just destroyed the last piece of art from the old world left in the city center. Horizon, again. She found herself on the roof of her apartment building sipping another cup of coffee, her liquid courage, as she thought of all the ways she could punish them. Infiltrate the organization and destroy it from the inside. No, that would be too slow. Also, I wouldn’t really know how to do that... Blow up Horizon offices around the city. No, no. I’m not a killer. Although I like the fireworks. She looked across the roofs at the nearby cluster of Horizon skyscrapers towering over her neighborhood. One was their science lab that had an ugly billboard on the roof with “Horizon. Serving you since 2000” written across it. That’s it. She knew what she had to do, and that she was going to make it happen tonight.

A revolution had to start somewhere, she thought as she looked up at the Horizon science lab, adrenaline coursing through her veins. The top of the building reached up, grasping toward the now dark, starless night sky. She couldn’t help but feel like a speck of dirt next to a mountain. But who said a speck couldn’t win? A virus could kill something a million times its size. She was a burning star ready to supernova.

Steffie covered her face with her hood and spray-painted the two security camera lenses. She twirled her hoverboard, her main form of transportation, checking to make sure it was in working order. An evolution of the skateboard, it was filled with chip-tech, built of lightweight metal, and equipped with hover thrusters. Although second-hand, it was in excellent shape. Steffie took immaculate care of it and even added some modifications herself. Satisfied, she set it to vertical movement and started hovering up the side of the building while wondering how to best give the billboard a makeover. A chance to turn their own message against them—to make a statement. She looked down. She was up higher than she had ever been. Panic welled up within her but she kept on hovering upwards; she had come too far to stop now.

She stood in front of the ugly billboard, heartbeat finally slowing down to its resting rate. Any creative doubt was wiped away as her brain started to channel images from the ether. Steffie lost all sense of time as a piece of art started to emerge from under her hands. The next thing she knew, the last few finishing strokes of the art piece were flowing out of her. It was complete.

Steffie stepped back to admire her work. She had graffitied a giant drill across the logo. The word Horizon was now encompassed by the shaft of the drill bit. A shadowy figure held a screwdriver over a city made to look like a graveyard, each building a screw-shaped gravestone. She read it out loud, “Horizon. Screwing you since 2000.” One of her best, she thought.

She snuck back to her room at her parent’s duplex; adrenaline still coursing through her. She grabbed her holo-keyboard and zapped on the screen. In no time, she was sucked down a rabbit hole of buried Horizon investigative journalism–it turned out she was not alone in her critiques of them. An encrypted forum caught her eye. Steffie was glad she had been forced to take that internet tech class at community college–it gave her just enough knowledge to get through the encryption. MaxTalk. The conversation was a gold mine–everyone here was slighted by Horizon in one way or another. And most of them were online. Right now.

She registered on the site with the user tag “Spray.” She liked the sound of that. She sucked in every piece of information she could from the forum. What if I could get the whole city to protest against Horizon? Okay, maybe not the city, but at least all these people who had their lives messed up by Horizon. In front of her graffiti. WHAT A GREAT IDEA. Steffie went down the chat list and started sending direct messages to every person in the chat room. She was going to make this happen—tomorrow morning.

Sounds of the city waking up filled the air as she downed a second cup of black coffee at her favorite café. It was time. She was back on her board hovering under the high-tech highway that led into the Core. Her heart started to beat faster. What if no one shows up? She turned the corner and her heart lifted–two blocks away, there was a mass of people outside the Horizon building. She saw people pointing up at her graffiti artwork still in full view of the world. They hadn’t yet covered it up. As she approached, she felt her mouth drop in shock with the size of the crowd. Protestors were yelling nasty things at the Horizon security line standing between them and the building. Is this what I wanted to happen? She asked herself.

Steffie stepped into the crowd, still not quite believing what she was seeing. For a few seconds, the sounds of the world shut off. She was the mastermind who had set all the dominoes in a row. Everything slowed down as she saw intense eyes, veins throbbing on foreheads, the spittle of angry words spraying forth, and fists held high above heads. Then a voice broke through, and the world fast-forwarded back to normal speed. “It’s her! Spray! She came!” How did they know who she was? A hacker. They must have found out her real identity through MaxTalk, which was a little unsettling but not entirely surprising considering the content of the forum. Whoever it was, at least they were on the same side.

Smiles flashed at her between angry shouts as well as assured looks of approval from those who didn’t want to stop their yelling. No one questioned her identity as Spray, despite having actually never confirmed the fact. All of the anger within her finally felt justified in a way that it never had before. A fire lit in her chest. She could feel the heat rising up through her gut and into her mouth, “DOWN WITH HORIZON!” A stranger’s hand holding a bright red sphere appeared in front of her face. Someone in the crowd had brought ripe tomatoes. The hand belonged to a big man, who spoke matter-of-factly, “You deserve the first throw.”

Steffie hesitated. She looked into the stranger’s eyes and saw comradery, which she had only before seen in a mirror. All of a sudden, she felt herself lifted into the air by two others in the crowd who were hoisting her up to give her a better angle. She nodded at the big man and accepted the tomato just as a company car was pulling up to the building. A Horizon bigwig. A perfect target, she thought.

Steffie cocked her arm with the practiced motion from her days of wall ball at the skate park and rocketed the juicy, red fruit at a Horizon suit exiting the limo. Splat. Red juice splattered the back of the woman’s head. Bullseye. She smiled with sense of accomplishment as her vision was filled with the red of flying tomatoes being hurled at the Horizon guard line. She felt a charge spark in the air–the energy of the crowd had changed. As a tomato exploded against a riot shield in red, blood-like spatter, the protestors charged toward the guards. They flowed around her, bumping her forward to the front line and the ongoing clash against the riot shields. The crowd yelled their frustrations for the world to hear. As she launched herself into the mass of bodies to pull a guard off a protester, a gap in the crowd opened up, and a sunray reflected in her eye. She looked up to see the woman she had hit with a tomato holding red-spattered sunglasses standing behind the guard line. Their eyes met. A familiar figure—her mother.

Steffie bolted from the crowd like a rabbit on the run from a pack of hunting dogs. Her mother was already directing some of the Horizon security guards to chase her. She engaged her hoverboard, jumped on and zoomed back underneath the highway. Steffie looked over her shoulder to see the two guards on hoverbikes gaining ground on her. She had one chance–to get to the safety of the boonies outside the city limits. The boonies were abandoned areas and towns that were torn apart by war on the edges of the city. Ruins with a thousand places to hide.

She made it into the disarray of City Minor and drifted past cramped streets of cafes, net bars, and small businesses, dodging pedestrians and chairs all the way. She diverted down an alley, an action that was quickly proceeded by the sound of a hoverbike crashing through a nearby café chair. Woot! One down, one to go. She felt a spark of hope building. Then in an instant, a delivery guy appeared in the street in front of her. She swerved to avoid hitting him, but set herself on a collision course with a hanging sign, bashing her head with a loud metal crack. She heard the approaching steps of heavy boots as her vision faded to black.

Steffie slowly regained her senses. The room smelled clean–too clean. She opened her eyes to the bright, white light of a sterile-looking lab of clean steel and lab equipment. This was no police station–they had not turned her over to the authorities. She shouldn’t be surprised. The cold metal of the seat beneath her had numbed her thighs. She tried to stand up only to find her head, arms, and legs bound, locked into an unwanted relationship with the chair. She wanted to blame Horizon for all of this, but she found her anger could only be directed at herself. Anger that she might be fulfilling her parents’ words–that she was worthless and a failure. This felt like failure.

“Steffie.” The word cut through the air like a knife. A familiar voice. The figure walked from behind her to sit down on a table directly across from Steffie. She spat her mother’s name out with venom, “Mae,” but all the came out was a “Mmmhh”. She now felt the tape covering her mouth. Her mother’s voice was strong and unwavering, “Don’t. It’s for your own good. You never did know how to shut up.”

For the first time in her life, Steffie let her mother speak. “It was you that graffitied the sign, was it not?” It wasn’t a question. For a terrible mom, she knew Steffie pretty well. You made yourself and all those people targets with that demonstration today. You do realize that? Horizon doesn’t take kindly to destruction of their reputation. They will come after all of you. You’re nothing but ants.” Steffie stared hard back into the mirrored brown eyes of the scientist across from her. “You being here right now is our gift to you. Your dad refused to come, despite arranging all this,” Mae gestured to the room and paused. “Look. You’re still my daughter. And I love you.” Steffie rolled her eyes. “However, you need to be held accountable for your actions. No matter how badly you behaved, I tolerated it. I saw your potential.” Mae’s eyes changed and a pure, visceral anger filled them, “But you will not destroy all our hard work.” Steffie was taken aback. Her mother had always been the more composed of her parents–she had never seen this darkness before. Darker even than her father, who had threatened to tie her to a chair on multiple occasions unless she agreed to their stupid plans. “And yet, we still chose to save your life. That’s all you’ll get. Nothing more. Unless you stop fighting us. Finally put all that talent within you to use and join us. Join Horizon.” Mae slid off the table with the elegant grace of a predator, “Last chance. Think about it.” She stalked out of the room, the door clicking behind to leave Steffie alone in silence. For the first time in her life, Steffie didn’t have anything to say and she had nowhere to run to.

Steffie’s spiral of loathing thoughts were interrupted when static sparked in the room. A female voice spoke, “Spray? You’re Spray, right?” Steffie looked around for the source, a speaker on the wall, “Who the heck are you?” The female voice replied on cue, “I’ve been watching you. I’m breaking you out.”

Steffie let the images of her past fade, the memory had come to an end. The sparks of anger felt just as fresh as if the memory had happened today. She saw a blimp digitize into existence in the sky, completely destroying the realism of her forest virtual reality experience. Text was plastered on the side, “Dreamz™ brought to you by Horizon.” Who do they think they are? She ripped her VR headset off, tugged on her hoodie, and stamped her way out of the VR café door cramped in between two convenience stores. She maneuvered through the familiar crowds of City Minor, people clad in a diverse array of colors, styles, and outfits suited to the multitude of jobs and industries in the outer tier of the massive city. She passed a group of rich kids from City Major, an unwelcome reminder of her old home and roots, who were trying to haggle down a shopkeeper for sport just to show their status. It didn’t improve her mood. She was fully aware that the only thing she could afford to buy these days, even in this lackluster neighborhood, was a one-hour virtual dream escape from reality, and she had wasted it re-living her past.

Heavy metal and old school rock were still playing in her ears as Steffie entered the boonies, far from the new, post-war city population center. She looked over her shoulder to see the skyline of cold, steel spikes of the city’s skyscrapers in the distance, Horizon headquarters looming over them in the afternoon sun. She could see the initial skeletons of more skyscrapers under construction on the far edge of the city. The builders were busy planting seeds for the expanding steel jungle. Restoring the city to its former glory, as they claimed.

Steffie spotted signs of new human activity at one of the row houses as she walked down the deserted street. Despite the fact these areas were supposed to be empty, deemed “too dangerous” to inhabit by Horizon and the city government, she was not too surprised. She wasn’t the only one hiding from something. Steffie walked into a bombed-out house whose border fence was still intact, strolled through the exposed living room, and unlocked a newly installed metal door that led into the rest of the house. She descended into the basement, expecting to see her purple-green-dyed, dreadlock-braided roommate behind the bunch of computers and holopanels in the corner. But it was dark and quiet.

A year ago, when she met Moco Ortega in an abandoned museum, she’d never imagined the girl would become her roommate. But now, she lived with her in the boonies, both of them working jobs to fund new tech swag for their house–mostly for a new computer setup for Moco and a new-generation, untraceable hoverboard for Steffie. Living at her parent’s place was no longer an option–not that she would ever accept that living situation again, regardless of her “wanted” status with Horizon. She finally had a reason to leave City Major and her parents behind forever.

Moco was a genius programmer whose talent Steffie could only dream of–Moco could hack anything. Steffie found that out the day she was locked in that Horizon lab. Moco had opened one closed door after another, shepherding Steffie the entire way through a neutralized guard’s earpiece. She even rendered all the security cameras useless to the control room. In the end, Steffie strolled through the entire building, took an elevator down 25 floors, and walked out the front door without even having to break a sweat. It was impressive. And not many people had impressed Steffie.

Steffie still didn’t feel she really knew Moco, besides the fact that she was a native of the city. Moco never liked to talk about her past. But what she did know was that Moco did not like Horizon. She was ready to use her skills to take them down. Steffie couldn’t take Horizon down alone–and now she wouldn’t have to. Moco was her partner in crime.

Steffie tiptoed into the dark room, scoping it out for movement. It seemed Moco had indeed stepped out for a moment. Steffie finally had her chance. She groped through the dark, messy corner of computers, wires, and panels until she found a holotop – a newly acquired, new generation laptop that packed the punch of a computer mainframe equipped with the newest screen projection technology. Steffie opened up the device and a holographic screen engaged asking for a username and password. The glow illuminated the room revealing a shadow leaning a few feet away against a wall. Steffie screamed the highest pitched scream she’d ever heard and almost peed her pants. “Moco, what the hell! How long have you been there?” Steffie managed to yell after catching her breath.

“I was here the whole time,” Moco said matter-of-factly, “You are way too predictable. And I told you, I’m not giving you the information. It’s too dangerous.”

“You’re so creepy!” Steffie shouted back. She hated how in control she always seemed to be. However, she trusted her–she owed Moco her life after all. But still, way too creepy. “Moco, you’re impossible! I should have never let you save me from Horizon that night! I would be way better off on my own!” Steffie gave her a piece of her mind before stomping up the stairs and back out onto the street. She needed some fresh air.

Moco had recently been diving through the dark web and the multitude of secret forums and covert intelligence transactions, looking for weak links into Horizon’s firewalls, security systems, and for ways to affect the perfect image they showed the public. Then they found a lead–a post from an anonymous sender that had only one simple statement, “Help.” Despite the encryption, Moco traced the message to an old factory district, but without precise coordinates. Steffie had wanted to check it out immediately. Moco was afraid of field work–being a homebody, she thought it was too risky. But Steffie knew they would never really know what was up unless they went out and saw it for themselves. Technology could only do so much. Still, Moco insisted on doing her “due diligence” and locked the information in a file on her holotop so Steffie couldn’t access it. That was four days ago.

Moco was a creature that could survive just on food, water, and internet. She could sit in one spot for years, growing old while only absorbing data streams for sustenance. Steffie had a very different philosophy. She needed to physically be in action, right in the middle of the trouble so she knew exactly what she was dealing with. Four days was too long.

Steffie hoverboarded to check on a friend she hadn’t heard from in a while. It was a good excuse to get some breathing room away from Moco and figure out another way to find the source of the message.

Steffie’s music bumped in her ears to distract her from her own thoughts. She knocked on the door mimicking the song’s bassline, but there was no answer. Fortunately, she brought her spare key–a lock pick–with her everywhere. Steffie decided to wait inside and hopefully not give her a heart attack like the one Moco had just given her. But the door swung open–it was already unlocked. Odd. Steffie left her hoverboard by the shoe rack and headed upstairs to double check she wasn’t hiding away somewhere. Halfway up the stairs she heard two unfamiliar male voices from the back of the house. She froze when she heard the knob of the backdoor jiggling before being forced open. These were not friendly neighbors. She regretted not bringing her modified baseball bat that would have given these guys the shock of a lifetime.

Two bulky figures walked through the living room dressed in mercenary fashion of no clear allegiance. She saw hard-angled items dangling at their hips. A clunk of metal almost made her gasp in recognition. Handguns. They were definitely mercenaries. She overheard their conversation, “Let’s be quick about this. Make sure we didn’t miss anything.” They had been here before. Steffie quietly snuck up to the second floor out of their line of sight. She had to get out of there.

Steffie had a plan. Jump off the second floor balcony and the get the hell out of there. She could come back later for her hoverboard. She had just entered the upstairs bedroom when a ringing from her pocket broke the tense silence. Who was calling her now?! She quickly muted the device but the damage had been done–she heard the mercenaries already moving with urgency downstairs. Steffie started drafting a message to Moco. “Situation: BAD.” Mercenary boot steps echoed from the stairs closing in on her–she was out of time. She had just stepped onto the balcony when the two men entered the bedroom. She smiled and said, “Bye guys,” before hopping the rail, dropping and perfectly executing a tactical roll. She popped up only to find a third mercenary waiting a few feet away. She held her phone behind her back, trying to blindly type out the rest of the message while she distracted him with small talk. But when he raised his gun up toward her she was forced into action and sprang, tackling him to the ground. She scrambled up, knees and elbows scraped, and headed for the street. “Not so fast,” another mercenary’s voice said from behind her. She felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. Her vision started to fade to black. Not again! My poor head… Her thought was left unfinished as the last thing she saw was the pavement rushing up to her face and her phone bouncing away into a bush.

Steffie opened up her eyes to darkness. She turned her head to check her surroundings only to have to close her eyes again from the throbbing pain from the back of her head.

“Hello, stranger,” a male voice spoke out softly from the other side of the wall that separated their cells.

Steffie jumped back, her back hitting cool, steel bars, “Who’s there?”

The voice replied in a dejected voice, “If you’re wondering where you are. I don’t know. They’ve been kidnapping people for months and holding us here. I don’t know what happens to them. I just know I never see them again. I thought you should know.”

Steffie was about to reply the stranger when the sound of fluorescent lights at the far end of the hallway flashed on sequentially toward them–like a red carpet rolling out leading towards the gates of hell. She stuck her head between her cell bars to see a row of prison cells. Steffie could now see her prison. The cells were on a basement level, and were a lot more technologically advanced than the lighting system would suggest. Arms and heads of other captives stuck and peered out, looking toward the open doors at the far end of the hall. A group of armed men walked down the long corridor holding tech rifles with the swagger that only came with men who had power, but were bored with their lives. Steffie clenched the bars in a death grip. Horizon. AGAIN. They were going to pay. Hurry up, Moco. Use your magic and get me out of here. We have work to do. They were going to pay so hard.

Steffie had been sitting on the hard-concrete floor of the prison facility for hours and hours, waiting for a moment to break out, but none came. The guards made sure of that, administering tranquilizers every six hours. Her anger burned as she watched Horizon’s hired mercenaries take other captives one by one through the far door to an unknown fate. She sat imagining all the terrible things Horizon could be doing to these people, and soon–to herself. The anger burned so hot that water streamed from her eyes. They were not tears; I never cry. All of a sudden, Moco’s voice emitted from an overhead speaker. Though she barely processed the words, she knew what they meant. Steffie was flooded with relief at the thought of breathing freedom once more but also simultaneously annoyed that she needed Moco to save her for a second time. Steffie was the one who was supposed to be doing the saving.

Moco implemented some of her tech magic, evidenced by Steffie’s cell door swinging open, setting her free. Steffie stumbled out into the hallway, only able to appreciate the freedom for a second before she remembered all the other cells and their inhabitants who she needed to save too. She yelled at the captives still sitting in their cells; none of them even attempted to leave. What was wrong with them? Eventually, she convinced them to follow her–she had to be the courage they no longer had. Steffie followed Moco’s path of lights leading outwards. She trusted Moco to know what she was doing. Then something even more unexpected happened. Echoes of gunshots could be heard in the distance above them. Someone else was also here and they seemed to be fighting against the Horizon mercenaries.

It turned out the new entrants were neither heroes nor saviors. The group proceeded through the chaos to capture her and Moco. As they were being blindfolded, a gruff voice told them, “You two just put our entire operation at risk. We will talk about this later.” Shortly after the fighting subsided, they were transferred to another location. Now she was sitting on a relic of the past–a pleather, potato of a sofa that had the indents of bum cheeks imprinted into the padding from years of use.

The sofa was Steffie’s first clue as to who their new captors were. They were no government agency and definitely not part of any tech corps’ security crew. So, definitely not Horizon. For the last ten minutes, she could hear muffled arguing through the door in the next room. Steffie thought she heard four different voices.

Steffie looked over at an exhausted-looking Moco sitting on the couch next to her, “They’re not Horizon, maybe we’re on the same side.”

Moco replied in surprise, “You’re kidding, right? You want to be friends with those killer mercenaries?”

Steffie locked eyes with Moco, “They’re not mercenaries–they’re vigilantes. And you saw what Horizon was doing, kidnapping people for who knows what kind of experiments. They kidnapped me for Pete’s sake. Twice. That’s seriously messed up.”

Moco surprised Steffie with her reaction. “Just because you have a hero complex doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. I know you’ve had to fight your battles alone your entire life, but guess what? You aren’t alone anymore. Our lives are tied, like it or not. Look where your actions got us. Not to mention these vigilantes just kidnapped you too.” What bug had flown up Moco’s nose?

Steffie could feel anger flash in her eyes–she had failed to acknowledge that obvious fact. But she knew Steffie was ultimately the one in the right, “Moco, you are the smartest person I’ve ever met, yet you can be so stupid. You chose this path when you decided to save me. You chose to tie our lives together–we’re just as much vigilantes as they are. I’m on Horizon’s bounty board. They’ll kill me without a thought, like one of their lab rats. Sorry that me being alive is such an inconvenience to you.”

Moco sighed and dropped her head, “You know I didn’t mean it like that. Did you forget I’m wanted by Horizon too?”

Steffie could feel her anger subside into a low burn, “You don’t know what we’re capable of. And we’ll never know if we don’t try.” Steffie watched Moco’s thoughts pass behind her calculating eyes. Maybe she finally sparked a little flame in the tech wizardess. Let it burn. We will turn that into a fire yet.

The old, electronic door on the other side of the room slid open with a crunch of rusted metal as four figures entered the room. A nondescript black woman with long-braided hair and a leather jacket sauntered in and leaned against the wall near the door. The following figure to enter was a man armed to the teeth with outdated weaponry. The long, greying beard and piercing brown eyes added to the leadership aura he gave out–an aura that commanded Steffie to listen and be wary. Two other men walked in behind him–one whose muscles threatened to tear his shirt apart, the other scarred and holding a pistol. But her eyes gravitated toward the leader–he was the one she would have to do battle with. Steffie waited for him to speak. He was close enough now that Steffie could smell a breath of mixed mint and tobacco, “Well, let’s get right to it, who are you and what do you want?”

Never show weakness. Her mother used to say. She hated that her mother was right. She forced a face of steel grit, determining to stay silent. “This would be a lot easier if you just answer the questions. We would hate to use… force to make you talk.” The man grabbed Moco by the collar and threw her into the grasp of the muscled, wrestler-looking member.

Steffie didn’t have time to make any decisions; she was a spectator as her body reacted on its own. She watched her body fly at the leader, right arm cocked back, superman punch connecting with his jaw–the man’s eyes widening in surprise. As he was reeling back, she had already jumped up in a two legged-kick that knocked the wrestler backward, breaking his grasp on Moco and smacking him into the wall. She saw the third male cock his pistol at her head with an aura of military calmness as the other two got back up. Moco put her hands up in self-defense and turned toward Steffie, “So you do love me.” Steffie didn’t have the will to give a decent comeback, “Oh shut up and get your fists up.”

“Put your weapons away,” the leader was already calmly brushing himself off. “You can lower your fists, girls. We just had to be sure you weren’t Horizon. No Horizon agent would fight for another with that kind of passion. And although I like your spunk, your fighting skills are going to need some work.”

Steffie froze, her prepared insults caught in her chest. The woman leaning against the wall smiled broadly over at her ex-military counterpart, who was pocketing his comms device with one hand and un-cocking his pistol with the other. “I bet him you guys were vigilantes; he thought you were Horizon pawns sent to infiltrate us, who he wanted kill for knowing too much. So… are you going to tell us who you are?”

And with that, the tension in the room relaxed visibly and Steffie hesitantly lowered her fists. As the others got comfortable around the room, she lowered herself back down into the bum-imprinted sofa, making sure all of this was real. Questions flashed through her mind. Were they hardened criminals? Vigilantes who’d seen too much? Either way, it was time to tell them her story.

Steffie felt the electrostatic energy of excitement in her limbs as she delved into her hate of the monster corporation and how it had overshadowed her life ever since she was a teenager. She told them about the destruction of the original neighborhoods of the city which Horizon replaced with their own new neighborhoods to better serve the Core. She told them how they covered up the blast that had destroyed half of Middle Park–although she didn’t really know what happened there. And she told them how she had graffitied one of their buildings, started a rally, got captured in a hover chase, and was about to get sent to be a lab rat before Moco broke her out of that mess. “Respect,” said the big bulk of a man. “We were wondering who was behind that graffiti. I’m a fan.” She smiled despite herself; she hadn’t expected the compliment. But it was nice that someone noticed.

Steffie clapped her hands together, conveniently leaving out the fact that she was a captive at the facility–it was a non-essential detail. She was about to grill these guys on their setup here when Moco spoke up, “Steffie here was captured by one of the Horizon kidnapping vanguards. That’s what brought me to the facility. I have a certain set of skills that help break people out of things.” Steffie turned her head slowly with her mouth gaping to look at Moco. Moco just shot a knowing look back. You did not have to tell them that. We will talk about this later.

As Moco reluctantly told her own story and her issues with the tech powerhouse, Steffie felt a feeling welling up inside of her… could it be hope? Hope that there were enough people out there to bring down Horizon? No. Crush that–hope just led to disappointment. The grey-haired vigilante leader spoke up once Moco had finished, “The two of you are welcome here–if you so choose to join us. But before you make any decisions, I do believe you have earned the right to know who we are. We call ourselves the Mambas.”

Soon after their initial meeting, Steffie had learned everything there was to learn about the Mambas and what they were capable of. Their leader was named Gregory. The muscled man was Tomas, his son. The mysterious woman was named Phoebe. And last but not least, the ex-military guy was Rico. All of them had ties to Horizon in their pasts. They were a small but well-organized group that had dedicated themselves to taking down Horizon following the destruction of individual freedoms and continual power-grabbing within the city. She could get behind that. They had even released all of the captives at the facility in which she had been locked up.

Steffie waited weeks, then months. It had all seemed promising, but despite becoming a member, they didn’t trust her. They didn’t let her participate in any of their missions. She was only allowed to combat train and read reports. She was getting stir-crazy.

But finally, she was brought on a mission.

Steffie sat in an abandoned house deep in the northern boonies far away from the city limits. She watched the rain flutter down between the crumbling wall of the house and the newly built steel-walled building across the street. She was acutely aware of a tapping emanating from a few feet to the right of her. She turned to look at Moco sitting at a table, arms crossed and her left leg nervously bouncing on her toes. Steffie didn’t think Moco even realized she was fidgeting. Moco didn’t want to be here, especially not on the front lines. But her need to take down Horizon got the better of her.

Gregory hadn’t initially wanted Moco on this mission, but Steffie convinced him otherwise. Steffie had accepted the invitation to join the Mambas immediately, but Moco didn’t want to be tied down to some organization—any organization—and refused to join. She wanted freedom. It was another thing she didn’t get about Moco. To reach your goals, sacrifices need to be made–this is what was needed to take down Horizon.

Regardless of her membership status, the whole plan was possible only because of Moco. Moco had received a message from an anonymous sender, “KatOfAna: Looking for information. Willing to trade. Horizon must fall.” Moco had dismissed it as Horizon catfishing for dissenters, but Steffie insisted it was something different. If this user was an insider, it was worth the risk. They replied and the mysterious user answered within the same day. So, it transpired that the informant would give them confidential information on a secret lab, and, in return, require them to hack into specific companies and projects–seemingly unrelated to Horizon. Only after the job was done would the informant give them the mystery information. Steffie shared these details with the Mambas, much to Moco’s chagrin, but Steffie knew they would need their resources. Almost immediately, Gregory had asserted his power and was taking full control of the project.

Steffie turned back towards the cracked window and caught her reflection in the glass pane. Her artic blue lock of hair was swept across her right eye, the rest of her hair hanging at ear level. She had cut her hair short for this job—a new beginning. Her eyeliner was smeared with the rainwater that had streamed down her face an hour ago on their trek to the eastern boonies. She was only twenty-two but the bags under her eyes made her look ten years older–she barely recognized herself. The past few weeks had been stressful. Moco had reluctantly finished the job, the informant fulfilled their promise and Steffie and the Mambas prepared for an infiltration mission. Now they were at the location marked on a map the informant had sent, waiting for a guard change so they could get in and hack their servers. The informant promised what they found would be big.

Steffie blindly threw her arm backward to smack Moco’s nearby leg, “It’s time.”

Steffie sprinted across the dark street, raindrops pelting her face. She tightened her fist in justified anger only to feel the gun given to her by the Mambas in her hand. Heavy, metallic, and alien. Gregory had promised that if everything went according to plan, she would never have to use it. The beeping of Moco’s holotop sounded the successful shutdown of the security system. Make your plan. Execute that plan. She felt like that quote was incomplete. As they approached the room marked “X” unimpeded, Steffie felt her hair stand on end as her senses heightened–Moco’s braids made small thwacks on her shoulders, the army-issued boots of the muscled Mambas member, Tomas, thumped on the tile floors and a harsh, white glow emanated from the room. The sight that met them on the other side of the doorway was nothing they could have prepared for. Four human-shaped bodies were floating in some liquid in tanks along one wall, all in various stages of development–some fully formed, some blobs. Steffie moved in tandem with the group as they took defensive positions around the room. The training they gave Steffie was paying off. As Moco hooked up her holotop and began hacking the system, heavy, security boot steps started approaching from the other side of the room. Steffie remembered the rest of the quote, Make your plan. Execute that plan. When the plan hits the fan. Make another plan.

The scene was chaos. There were many more security guards than the informant had let on. Steffie felt the cool of the concrete wall on her back as bullets zipped through the air. She saw Moco in the reflection of a glass wall, sitting under the terminal desk protected from battle, holotop in her lap, fingers tapping away with a determined look on her face, oblivious to the mayhem flying around her. How did she do it? How do you stay so calm? Steffie was supposed to be the agent of chaos that was going to take down Horizon. But Moco looked way more comfortable in the pandemonium than Steffie felt.

All of a sudden, she caught a quick movement in the corner of her eye. A Horizon guard had flanked around them and had just raised his rifle up at Gregory, who was unaware, and firing at the far side of the room. She saw the muscles in the guard’s arm tense, and with a practiced motion that she didn’t know she was capable of, she pulled her pistol up, aimed, and pulled the trigger. Bam, bam. She saw the guard collapse to the ground as a mixed sense of thrill and malaise torrented through her. Steffie saw Gregory grab his side as red spread and darkened his blue shirt. I only pulled the trigger once. The guard had gotten a shot off before she got him. No! She would not lose her best chance to take down Horizon. She stepped out from behind the wall, arm still raised and shot blindly at the far end of the room. Click. The sound of the slide on her pistol locking back, signaling her empty magazine, echoed in the now silent room. She flinched when a warm, sweaty hand held her arm firmly. “Enough,” Tomas said with understanding eyes and a firmness that mirrored his grip on her arm.

Steffie rushed through the rainy night, the group navigating the empty streets back to the Mambas’ base. A stray bullet had hit the main computer terminal and cut Moco’s data transfer as well as their mission short. The group ran silently, not knowing how much information they had actually acquired. Steffie tried not to think about having gone through all that trouble to end up with nothing.

Steffie could feel the soles of her shoes wearing down as she paced waiting for Moco’s program to decrypt the information from the Horizon terminal. If we got anything at all. She walked by Gregory’s room where he lay recovering from the gun wound. He would live, but the guilt of letting him get shot drove her to want to say something, maybe even possibly an apology. She had just stepped into the room when Moco yelled out from the other room, “It’s done!” Steffie would tell him another time. Gregory had already slid out of bed, clearly in pain–she gave him her shoulder as a crutch and hobbled him into the tech room where everyone else was assembling. Silent expectation and tension coursed through the room.

A screen was cast up on the wall. The main folder was labeled: PROJECT BERMUDA. Moco clicked it open and two images materialized. The first was a bird’s eye view of some island. The second pictured a young girl in a yellow tracksuit running in what looked like a track and field race. The subtitle read: “Potential: High. Target location: Bermuda”. She looked like an innocent girl that had never seen hardship in her life, running track and field like the war had never happened. Moco turned and met Steffie’s eyes; the same burning question echoed in their gaze. “Who was this girl and what did she do to cause Horizon to go after her?”

Steffie pondered her situation as she stared at the metallic gun on the table left untouched, thoughts racing around the autobahn in her head. Moco couldn’t find a geolocation for this island, Bermuda. Much of the information had been corrupted beyond recognition after the terminal blew. It was a dead end. Steffie had also shot a man. Who would have killed Gregory if I didn’t. That scene replayed in her head and had repeatedly woke her up with night sweats in the past month. She didn’t understand why her brain wouldn’t let it go.

She suddenly remembered the tattoo gun lying in front of her. She stood up, crossed her arms and pulled her hoodie along with her t-shirt up over her head. The cool evening air was energizing across her now bare stomach and shoulders. She looked into the mirror at herself. Her tattoos covered half her torso, shoulders, and upper arms under her sports bra. It was time to add to the mural. Her body was a canvas–a canvas for all the reminders of all the lessons she had learned, problems she had overcome and big events in her life. Beautiful reminders. Nothing ugly goes on this body. With a click, she felt the familiar buzzing of electromagnetic coils vibrating through her hand.

All of a sudden, the airflow in the room changed, “Stef…” She turned around to see Tomas standing in the door–Moco must have let him in. She felt the red creeping up her face, her half-clothed torso and tattoos now revealed to the handsome man. Her mother’s voice echoed, “Show weakness and the world will eat you alive.” Tomas just stood there with owl eyes and his mouth gaping open.

“What, you haven’t seen a tattoo before?” she said as if she didn’t care.

The normally even-toned man stuttered. Steffie couldn’t help but smile at his discomfort.

He turned his back to her, still standing in the doorway and said over his shoulder, “Gregory wanted to see you back at the base.”

What bad timing, “You couldn’t have just called? I need an hour. I have a tattoo to ink first. Don’t wait up.”

Tomas was on the couch waiting for her. She was tempted to smack him on the head. She was a grown woman, she didn’t need a man to escort her. But the truth was, she kind of liked that he stayed. He was capable and also nice to look at. Steffie allowed him to walk with her, “So what’s this plan about?”

Tomas continued to stare straight ahead as they walked down the deserted street, “My father is a ruthless man. He will ask you to do something at great risk to yourself. It’s not my place to tell you what the plan is, but I think you should know–you have the right to say no.”

Steffie was a little surprised with the honesty, “If I think it’s the right thing to do, I’ll do it.” Tomas finally looked down into her eyes with concern mixed with a whole bunch of other emotions she wasn’t able to put her finger on, “I’m just saying, don’t get yourself killed.”

The room was stuffy, almost suffocating. Or maybe it was just her anxiety from waiting for Gregory to speak. “The Mambas are going to launch a joint rescue mission and you will be leading us in the field. This is a test run to see if we can work together from a distance, and whether you are able to handle the pressure, Steffie. When we find wherever the hell this island of Bermuda is, we are going to need our combined resources to succeed.” Steffie stood frozen in place, unsure if she had heard Gregory correctly. She’d been with the Mambas for more than a year and they had shut her out from every mission apart from the lab raid. They thought she wasn’t ready. This was too good an opportunity to pass up regardless of the unspoken dangers attached to it. “I’ll do it.” She said with finality. “But I’m bringing Moco with me. And you’re not…” Gregory interrupted waving his hands, “Yes, fine, bring her. I had no doubt you would ask.”

Gregory still wasn’t happy that Moco continued to refuse to join the Mambas. The Mambas had always wanted Moco more than they wanted Steffie. She wasn’t stupid. Moco had an unrivaled expertise–she could break in to any machine or place. Steffie ground her teeth together thinking about it. Moco always seemed to outdo her, but now she had a mission. Her mission. She’ll show them what she was capable of. She’ll show them all.

“Are you crazy?!” Moco yelled across the room at Steffie.

Moco looked like she might actually come over to her and punch her in the face. Good. Finally some real emotion–she’ll need that on the mission. Moco was not happy that she had volunteered her to go on a mission with the Mambas, but Steffie was going to need her.

“You think this new puzzle will be too complicated for you to solve?” Steffie threw out the bait.

Moco furrowed her brow with an angry look–but Steffie knew it was because she had hit home, “You can be so manipulative, Stef. All to go on some dangerous journey that doesn’t promise anything but trouble.”

Steffie knew she had Moco on the hook, “I’m not manipulative. And I’m going to stop trouble, not create more of it… So, you’re not coming.” She made that last part a statement.

Moco scoffed and shook her head with disgust, braids twirling through the air, “There isn’t any puzzle I can’t solve.” Hook, line, and sinker.

The days flew by quickly. Two weeks of preparation for this mission felt like two days. Now they were on the road in a sports car from three decades past whose stylized coat of paint Steffie had sprayed on herself. Her hair whipped around her face like a mini-tornado. It mimicked the feelings in her chest. She was going to crush this mission, but the butterflies flew nonetheless. She passed a decaying billboard on the old interstate depicting a faded man in a suit reminding drivers to buckle up, “Take control of your life before the road does.” She was doing just that.

She looked over at Moco sitting in the passenger seat, eyes darting back and forth, dots attached to her temples. The girl was constantly connected to the internet–sometimes it felt like she was more attached to the digital world than the real one. Steffie felt a pang of annoyance; Moco didn’t know how to drive a car, but she could take down an entire power grid in a few keystrokes. Moco seemed to read her mind despite her immersion in her internet dots, “Stop staring at me. I told you, I took an online course. I can drive–you just won’t let me.”

Steffie scoffed, “An online course can’t teach you to drive! You need real, on-road exp-”

A deer suddenly pranced across the abandoned highway from the tree line. Steffie slammed on the brakes, controlled the spin-out, the car coming to a halt broadside across the road. The innocent doe was frozen in fear, not three feet from Moco’s window. Steffie met the doe’s eyes for a brief second before it dashed back off into the trees. Moco turned to look at her with an almost identical innocent expression–the most intelligent girl she’d ever known, but she could only see the world in equations and puzzles. Steffie knew better; you had to plan for the unexpected, irrational, and human factors that made the world run, “Can you drive like that? I didn’t think so.” Steffie pulled the car back into the lane. She knew she was going to have to be Moco’s protector in this dangerous world.

THE END