The Zia'n Legacy

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Azabeth Siege searched the apartment. She was not in a very good mood. In fact, this was an understatement, as she was bloody furious. The evening had not gone well so far, and showed no signs of improving any time soon. She closed the last cupboard in the main room and made her way to the kitchen. It had been a long day, and a drink would do her good.

         ”Why can’t anyone just make my life easy?” she muttered to herself. “It’s always hide the valuables, install security systems. No-one leaves their sodding doors unlocked anymore,” she said, slamming the refrigerator door shut and taking a big gulp from the bottle of water she had found.

The journey up to the apartment had been a smooth one, however. Getting past the meagre security in the lobby had posed no problems. She merely had to waltz in through the front door. The sight of a five foot six woman dressed head to toe in black, startling silver hair cascading down her back such a contrast, had been enough to take the breath away from the two aged men on duty that night. When she leaned over the counter and asked whether the occupants of apartment 178G were currently available, the guards had been able to do nothing but shake their heads mutely.

Azabeth Siege was really rather attractive. Piercing emerald eyes stared out from a perfectly formed and beautiful face. When she smiled, her lips rose upward at the corners, the smallest of dimples in her cheeks making her appear nothing but angelic. Accompanying this most bewitching of faces was a body that could stop traffic, and had done on several occasions in recent history, providing it’s owner with some added humour to her day. An elegant neck lead down to a curvaceous pair of breasts, over a toned stomach, following into a shapely behind and finally, down a set of sylphlike legs. If she stood still for any length of time she would seem almost statuesque in appearance.

         ”No matter,” she had said to the guards. “I have the key-card, I’ll just go wait for them. They’ll be home soon.”

With that, she had flicked her head round, sending her hair flowing through the air, and sauntered off towards the elevators. The guards had nodded, the ability to actually speak only coming back to them some time later. Stepping into the lift, she thanked her parents once again for blessing her with such good looks. The trip up to the 38th floor was a swift one, taking all of three seconds. The doors had barely closed before they slid open with a hiss, an irritating ping informing her that she had reached her destination. Stalking down the corridor, noting the numbers on each door, Azabeth wondered why there were not more cameras or other sensors readily obvious in this building. Security didn’t seem a particular issue.

All this changed however, when she reached 178G. Kneeling down to examine the lock, she was taken aback by the sophistication she found. It had clearly been installed over the original lock, as nothing this hi-tech was usually seen outside TCC Council buildings. With a sigh she brought out a small card device and held it against the sensor. An invention of her own mind, the Geneti-Card had allowed her many an entrance to places she would otherwise be denied. It scanned the sensor before replicating a fake sample of skin from any trace DNA it found. This ‘skin’ surface it created was good enough to fool most security systems, and didn’t fail her tonight, the inconvenience of having to use it was annoying though. A simple access card lock would have been much more appreciated.

Hmm, a good sign. No one has this much security without something to hide, she though to herself as she entered the apartment.

It was incredibly dark inside, for which she was thankful. Being a thief since her early teens had trained her eyes to see just as well in the dark as in bright sunlight, if not better. This was useful, seeing as the occurrence of bright sunlight managing to break through the bleak cloud in Seventh City was rare, to say the least. Scanning around the room in which she found herself, she noted nothing out of the ordinary. Sighing, she resigned herself to the thought that she’d have to use traditional methods rather than being given what she sought on a plate.

She soon found that each and every cupboard, drawer and storage hole in the entire apartment had equally secure devices protecting their contents. What’s more, after searching the first couple, she was angered to find they held nothing but the usual miscellany of household goods, nothing remotely similar to that which she was looking for. As she continued the search, her mood only seemed to worsen, the occasional curse being heard in the otherwise silent apartment.

Finishing the bottle of water, Azabeth threw it into the waste disposal unit. There was a vacuous sucking noise briefly as the bottle disappeared down the ejection shoot, disintegrating into billions of pieces as it was broken down into it’s component atoms, ready for re-use. Although she’d searched the entire main room of the apartment, it was as if she’d never been there. She left nothing any way but that in which she found it. She couldn’t believe she’d not located the information yet.

         ”It’s only an address for Christ sake. Why isn’t it here? I suppose they could have taken it with them,” she sighed to herself.

An idea occurred, and she walked over to the comms panel in the wall.

         ”Online,” she said and the panel glowed to life.

Logging on to the system after bypassing the simple password checks, she scanned for any saved messages in the vain hope that the occupiers had been foolish enough to leave a message stored in the machine that could help her out. Nothing. She let out a deep sigh for what felt like the hundredth time tonight and decided to check for deleted messages. Touching different parts of the screen it wasn’t long before the engineer menu was accessed. Her fingers moved over surface so quickly, option after option scrolling across the screen almost too fast to follow. Finally finding the correct root tree directory on the system, she started to look for the deleted messages archive. It was then that she heard the footsteps coming down the corridor outside.

         ”Shit!” she exclaimed, tapping the off button on the console before shutting the door to the kitchen, blocking her line of sight to the entrance.

Azabeth knelt by the kitchen door, steadying her breathing and movement so as to be able to hear whoever it was in the corridor. This would not be a particular worry for her however, as the footsteps stopped just outside, and the apartment door was shoved open violently.

         ”Are you two in here? Why the fuck weren’t you at the rendezvous? Jimmy, Blake, are you here?”

From the sound of the footsteps there had not been only one person in the hallway, Azabeth thought. Her suspicions were confirmed a second later as a different voice addressed the first.

         ”You check the bedroom, I’ll check the toilet, they must be here somewhere. Dumb fucks probably just forgot where they were supposed to be delivering the guns.”

         ”Ok,” replied the first voice as more footsteps indicated movement beyond the door.

Probably just forgot where they were supposed to be delivering the guns, wondered Azabeth. I haven’t got all night to search this damn apartment; I think it’s time I made my exit. And these two might just have saved me some more work.

As she stood up, Azabeth heard the two talking in the room adjacent again.

         ”Nothing in the bedroom or the toilet, I guess they’re not here after all.”

         ”No shit, you’re a bright one aren’t ya,” snapped the first man. “Check the kitchen, they could’ve choked on their food at the table I suppose.”

Azabeth readied herself. Just as the handle started to turn, she leapt at the door, extending her leg in a wide arc, smashing the door open and straight in to the face of a considerably larger man than herself. Without missing a beat she lashed out, the side of her hand connecting with the man’s throat, causing a loud cracking sound. His face was full of surprise from being hit by an apparently inanimate door seconds earlier, but now changed to a rather shocked terror as he collapsed to his knees, holding his throat and gasping for air.

         ”What the-“ Shouted the other man, as his friend fell to the floor, but Azabeth was already on him.

She leapt over the fallen man, leg snapping out at the second as she came. She saw his face contort in pain as her foot shattered his nose. Hearing him yell as he dropped, Azabeth was already moving again toward the far window.

         ”Bitch! I’ll kill you for that!” shouted the man as he drew a pistol from where he lay on the floor.

Sprinting across the apartment, bullets streaking past her, Azabeth thanked herself for kicking the man in the nose so viciously. His mouth full of blood and eyes streaming with water, not one shot hit its mark, only causing the window beyond to fracture further with each impact. One last jump as she reached the window and Azabeth Siege erupted into the night, the window completely destroyed as she smashed through it. Flattening her arms against her body, the woman plummeted downward, picking up speed as she headed for the street below. Falling much faster than the continuous rain around her, she noticed a car parked down an alley nearby that hadn’t been there before she entered the building. Steam poured off the bonnet, a sure sign the car was recently used. Angling her head and arching her back slightly, Azabeth sliced through the air heading for the alley.

Closing her eyes and spreading her arms wide, Azabeth visualised herself in her mind’s eye. Flying through the air, long silver hair rippling out behind her like a comet’s tail, arms wide like the wings of a bird, she saw herself. She watched herself pull her arms inward, crossing them across her chest, legs bending and curling upward. Doing a forward roll in the air, she slowed drastically, the ground rushing up to meet her. Seeing herself uncurl from the roll and extend her legs downward, arms spreading again ready for the landing, she concentrated hard. There was a sudden rushing feeling and then silence. Then the rain returned, battering her from every angle.

When she opened her eyes she was knelt in the alley. Raising her head she looked around to make sure no one had seen her, then she glanced back up at the window she just left. Glass was still falling and landing on the ground around the apartment building. There was no sign of anyone at the window, however, looking down toward the lobby, the security guards were rushing around, a blue pulsing light barely visible from this range. She assumed one of the other patrons had triggered an alarm of some kind upon hearing the gunshots.

Standing from her crouch, she turned to face the car spotted earlier.

Right, lets see if we can save this evening from becoming a total loss.

Rummaging around in one of the pockets on her belt, Azabeth brought out a tiny device, no bigger than a old style coin, and pressed the one and only button on it’s surface. Walking over to the car, she knelt and reached under the rear bumper. A faint click told her that it’d attached itself firmly to the rough metal under the car. Standing and taking one more look around her, she started walking in the direction of the nearest subway. Just before disappearing below street level, she checked a small screen on her wrist, a little red dot blinking metronomically, moving further away from her as she walked. She smiled to herself and jogged down the steps to catch the train.

* * * * *

         “Who in God’s name was that?” coughed one of the men, still clutching his throat.

         ”I’ve no idea, but I tell you this, if I ever see her again I’ll skin her alive.”

         ”How very nice of you.”

One of the men stood up, blood still pouring from his nose.

         ”We got to get out of here.”

As if on cue, a small siren sounded and shouts were heard from the hallway. Both men left the apartment, walking slowly and purposefully down the corridor. The elevator doors were still open from when they had come up, so both men strolled in and the lift started downward.

* * * * *

         “Whoa, we got personal alarms going off from four different apartments on floor thirty eight.”

         ”Wasn’t that where that lady and those two guys were going earlier?” replied the other guard, rising from his seat behind the desk.

         ”Yeah, that’s where they said they were going, 178G I think,” said the other, reaching across and triggering the alarm, which was wired direct to the local law enforcement building.

A blue light flashed in to life on the ceiling of the lobby as a siren sounded for the first time.

         ”Let’s get up there, something’s going on.”

Both men unlocked the small cabinets below their desks and took out a small firearm each. They ran over to the elevator just as the display above showed it arriving at the ground floor. Both guards were surprised when, as the doors opened, they were shot unceremoniously through the chest. As they fell backward, the two men in the elevator fired another three shots each into the guards before stepping over their twitching bodies and making their way out into the street. Looking around, the men noticed the glass scattered around below the apartment they had just come from.

         ”I wonder where she went?” asked the first.

         ”Surely she couldn’t have survived such a fall... No matter, probably just a petty thief, she’s not a problem any more. Lets get back to the mansion, we have to tell the boss the guns he bought aren’t going to be coming.”

Walking towards the car, both men scanned the area for any signs of trouble approaching, but none became evident. As they got in the car and started on their way, the tracking beacon sent its signal unfailingly into the night.