Ben and Sahir (A Nircean Tale)

Ben and Sahir

Ep. 1

  

 Nirce / Planet Side

 January 1st, 2229



All I thought was 'home sweet home' when I stood on the door step of my apartment building. It was a piece of work, but it was my piece of work. I remembered how happy Sahir and I were when we finally gathered the credits to afford the place, we had never earned anything legitimately before. I spent months driving a freight model for a local bread and wine shop in the city just to save up for the deposit and Sahir worked as a secretary for the same business so she could cover the first couple months of rent. The work itself wasn't something to take pride in, but knowing we earned it just as any other average Joe would, well, it was relatively fulfilling. Unfortunately, neither of us could make it stick. By the time we actually moved in, we were already poised to begin running guns like usual. We just didn't have the personalities that allowed us to work a nine to five and we had dreams bigger than a bi-weekly paycheck.

I backed away from the doorstep for a moment, lighting a cigarette. I didn't know if I was quite prepared to deal with reuniting with Sahir. The shrewish yet some how endearingly immature demeanor she carried was a tad abrasive and I was fairly confident that she'd be less than pleased to see me.

The evening sky was refreshing and the soft flakes of midwinter fell lightly all around me. It's almost romantic, I thought to myself. The simple setting of a street corner and a few inches of snow was far more beautiful to me than it honestly should have been. I grew to appreciate the world and its many natural distractions since I'd spent most of my life in captivity.

Leaning back against a nearby streetlight, I looked away from my apartment and off into the snow covered distance, the Appilane City skyline protruding into the sky only a few miles away from me.

The night reeked of spent fuel, stomach churning fast food and very faintly, the smell of regret hovering over the city skyline. The scent reminded me of everything I couldn't stand about the city itself. A.C carried a polished reputation, serving as a haven to the rich, powerful and the famous, though unlike most well developed cities, it wasn't surrounded by poverty stricken suburbs and drug laden streets. No, Appilane City was so financially set, so clean and flawless, that each citizen within and around it sold their soul to savor the taste of first world success and luxury. There wasn't any poverty or crime inside the "pearly gates", but it's angels had been stripped of dignity, creativity and will. Nothing but machines steered by a shadowy hand integral to the continuation of "progress".

"Are you OK?" I shuttered in surprise as an elderly woman approached me. I'd been too distracted with my own thoughts to realize she'd crept up.

          Â  "Yeah, why?" I thought I seemed OK, maybe my thoughtful expression conveyed pain rather than contemplation.

"You've got blood on you!" She said grabbing my wrist and pulling my hand up to show me.

"It's OK, it isn't mine." She froze for moment, in fear I supposed. "No, no, nothing like that, I work for the slaughter house." I lied through my teeth but the last thing I needed was the crone calling the APD. Escaping prison wasn't something that could have been done without violence, but I did my best to minimize it. In hindsight, I really should have wiped off my hands.

The old lady breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh my, you gave me a scare! Well, then you have a good night." She turned to walk then paused. "Smoking will be the death of you." She patted my arm and continued walking into the night.

I appreciated her worry, but I knew my death would be attributed to something far more violent.

I doused my cigarette on the heel of my boot, glancing at A.C once more and walked toward the front door, pushing it open slowly, praying that Sahir would be out or asleep.

"What took you so long, Benji?" She said, slowly edging her hand down her hip toward the leather holster housing her Broom Handle pistol. The weapon was a couple centuries old, but the two of us shared an affinity for the classics and regardless of its age, it killed men fairly efficiently. "I've been worried sick." Her tone suggested feigned worry and a hint of anger.

"I got pinched. It wasn't exactly part of the plan." I said, shrugging off the horribly irritating prison jumpsuit I'd hidden under a jacket that I nicked off a homeless man. "These things happen. You know, I tried calling you, sending you letters, all that depressing crap, and not one response from you. You can't be angry at me, I didn't abandon you."

"You could have been a lot smarter! You've been a criminal for how long? You should know how to NOT get caught. The crap you pulled was just sloppy. So, I blame you." She said condescendingly. "Besides, I've been working! Someone had to, cause if I didn't, you would have come home to a headless girlfriend." Though she didn't say directly, I assumed that Weiker, our beloved, albeit corrupt, lawman had threatened her life had she not kept up with our movement of illicit weaponry.

"While you were off playing butt buddy with a bunch of hoodlums, I got the bacon and kept my noggin. So forgive me for not writing letters." She withdrew her hand, not willing to draw, at least not that time around. Sahir had a nasty habit of pulling the trigger with her emotions and it consistently tried my patience.

"It's been three months Sahir. I bit my tongue and kept cool for our friends at the Appilane Police Department so you could continue to enjoy the open world, so please, scrounge around that twisted little mind of yours and show me some gratitude, or at the very least, a little compassion." She frowned, forcing me to feel bad about snapping at her, yet at the same time I knew how our relationship worked. "Now, please tell me you have something to show for it." I said dropping my clothes to the ground. 

"Oh, I think I do." Sahirs face lit up instantly, her mood shifting drastically. "But before I show it to you, drop your bull-shit Ben, I worked hard on this and I'll be damned if you take the piss out of it."

"Alright, alright. I'm sure I can contain myself, dear. Just get me some clothes." 

Sahir skittered off and disappeared into the back bedroom and returned a few moments later, throwing a shirt and a pair of jeans at me. In seconds I was dressed and prepared for Sahirs surprise.

Not even a kiss huh? I thought to myself as she turned away from me.

"Ready yet?" Two minutes home and she seemed like she was already annoyed with me. If that were the case, I started to wonder just how long exactly it would take for her to shoot me.

Sahir led me down the hallway and opened the walk-in closet's door at the back of the apartment to reveal what she described as, "the end all, be all game plan."

"How ya' doin' Detective Weiker?" Sahir said as she looked back at me, her eyes screaming how proud she was of herself.

I grabbed my face and rubbed my eyes. "This is some fucked up poop babe." This wasn't the welcome home I expected, nor wanted. Not only was I now an escaped convict, I was also an accomplice to the kidnapping of a state agent. "We're gonna have APD so far up our asses we'll taste their fucking shampoo! What were you thinking?" As thrilled as Sahir was to have a well-known, high profile government detective tied up and bloodied in my apartment closet, I didn't feel the same way. On the other hand, I couldn't help but be incredibly impressed with her. Before I got jammed up with Johnny Law, Sahir had been known to perform infiltration jobs and robberies, however, in light of the recent events, it would have seemed that she stepped up on improving her wrap sheet. "Why is he covered in blood?" 

"I needed answers." She said smiling at me again.

"Answers to what?" I said in confusion, being unable to come up with any reason she would need to interrogate the man.

"I don't know, I guess I really just did it to do it." She shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Are you even impressed? I captured a fucking operative from R-Sec during broad daylight! Are you at all curious about how exactly I accomplished this amazing feat of human ingenuity?" 

"Sahir, I just jumped from a nineteen story watch tower this morning without a very soft landing, played tag with the APD and upon my arrival, you show me a beat up 'suit' tied up in our closet. Where do you think my stress level is at?" She didn't respond, knowing my question was rhetorical. "If I seem a little edgy about all of this, please, forgive me." I thought she was about to lose it and give me another bullet wound, however,  she closed the closet door on the detective, unbuttoned her shirt, and took me by the hand.

"Let's get you fixed up chief."

 __________________



"That was fun. Not long, but you know, fun." Sahir took only seconds to get out of bed and throw on clothes. "Meet me in the kitchen." She said, leaving the door open behind her as she strutted out of the bedroom. Of course I wasn't going to be long, I spent a few months in prison.

I sat up in our bed and checked out the room, it looked just as mediocre as it did when I last saw it. The same thin and cracked wooden panels peeled off in random and various places of the room, the windows were replaced by plywood, and the shit-brown colored carpet had a very distinct odor, of which was exclusive to itself and incomparable to anything else I've ever smelled. Sahir wasn't the 'Martha' type so I didn't expect that she'd make an attempt to spruce up the place. Instead, she was content sitting in the dark watching holos when she wasn't robbing someone or committing some other felony. While I was gone, she let the garbage pile up, bills go unpaid and neglected the over-all well-being of the apartment. The only thing we owned that was earned honestly was falling apart because she didn't care about it.

I rolled from the bed to find my jeans and shirt just off the side. While slipping into them I realized they smelled just like Sahir. She showed little to no compassion toward me, but she missed me while I was gone, she had to. Otherwise she wouldn't have worn my clothes. I also could have just been thinking optimistically. In any case, I liked to believe she cared about me more than the apartment.

"Hurry up Ben!" She called out from the kitchen. There were many times, however, where I had an almost uncontrollable urge to throw her through a window.

I made my way into the kitchen and found Sahir making coffee. "You do realize its eleven o'clock at night, yeah?"

"I don't care; I'm not going to sleep and neither are you." She said cupping her mug and sipping from it. "We've got things to do and the sooner we do them, the sooner we get clear of APD." From the way she was talking, I assumed she had already come up with a plan long before I came home to her.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that our little friend behind the door has something to do with this plan of yours?" I too grabbed a cup and started drinking. It was obvious that the night had a few more hours tacked on to it.

Sahir nodded and placed her hand on my shoulder. "We're using him to ruffle some feathers and shoot for the big time." She said, smiling blissfully. "We're going to the top baby." Her lips curled into a plotting grin as she bat her eyelashes at me.

"Wait, what are you talking about? Big time?" I was genuinely confused.

"Aren't you tired of being mules? Of running this package here, and this, there? C'mon," She whined, "I don't want to be anybodies bitch anymore." 

"And we're going to change our live's status overnight?" I asked, my hesitance was clear.

"We pull off my little plan then we run away to Her Majesties Plains for a few weeks and wait for things to die down a bit before moving forward. But after we carry out my little plan, we'll be rock stars, I promise you." She seemed so sure of herself, I couldn't help but take the bait.

"Ok, what's the plan?" I asked, giving in.

She cleared her throat and broadened her shoulders, as if she were unveiling a cure for cancer. "We walk Weiker back into R-sec, ransom him off and leave rich." She said.

"That's it? Kidnap for a ransom? Your remember Lonnie Mars? He did the same shit and they just shot him. He's dead now." I said, immediately dismissing her idea.

She rolled her eyes and slapped me somewhat softly, more so in a playful manner. "That's part one, you simple little man." She giggled as if she thought of a joke that only she understood. "We ransom him off, fly two miles, into the heart of A.C, drop the ransom off at this point," She said holding a notepad out with coordinates written on its front page. "Then go here," She pointed at the next set of coordinates. "that's where our package is. Then finally, we go here and set if off." Lastly, she pointed at her target.

"You've got to be kidding me." My jawed dropped as I stared at the notepad, wondering if Sahir's mind had finally crumbled. "The Ascent??"

The Ascent was one of two land-to-orbit rails on Nirce and was owned and used only by  the Nircean government and APD forces. The other, known as The Staircase, was for commercial use.

"That's right, we're gonna blow up the Ascent!" She shouted, making explosion sounds and giggling.

"So we're terrorists now?" I asked angrily.

"What?" Her giggling ceased abruptly. "No! When we drop the bomb, it activates an emergency signal to the rail which forces all traffic off before it detonates. No body should be hurt, not even the rail operators." She explained reassuringly. "I promise, nobody will be hurt."

I tapped my chin, considering the ramifications, primarily, I tried to see her angle. I couldn't guess why the destruction of a multi-billion credit space rail would make the two of us "rock stars". "What do we gain?" I asked finally.

Sahir smiled. "We direct ALL traffic through one rail. We want credits and other valuables, we can rob civilians traveling on holiday. If we want weapons or other high grade contraband, we rob military convoys. No matter what we want, we can take it. We've been traveling that space way for years and know each route by heart. Not only do we get our score, but every other pirate in the Nircean sector can get in on it."

Her plan was by far the most damaging, expensive, risky and underhanded plan she'd ever hatched. I lost three months in jail, meanwhile, she became a full blown comic villain. "But why Her Majesties Plains?"  I questioned the reliability of a space colony the size of a medium moon with little to no real strategic advantage.

           "We go there, they'll never get their hands on us, it's a neutral colony and they want nothing to do with Nirce, so I doubt they'll let any of our pursuers touch down as long as we sneak in quietly." She said cooly, her attitude reflecting her confidence.  "Not to mention you're a wanted man for an abundance of different reasons, most recently for your jail break and aid in the kidnapping of a lawman. Fortunately for you, The Plains tend to ignore extradition, So we need to get off-world fast and I don't see any other option." She was confident, but part of me knew it was mostly because she thought it'd be a cool 'adventure' and she wasn't likely to back down at that point.  "The APD will be here by morning looking for you and their agent, so we have to work quickly. Detective Weiker is our bargaining chip for getting us started." She was right and I couldn't think of any other escape plan, let alone one that would keep the APD off our asses for as long as we needed. "What do ya say chief?" she smirked. That fucking smirk, I thought. It got me in more trouble than all my crimes together.

"Wait, hold on, how do they even know to come here? It's not on record that I live here and how could they know this is where their detective is being held?" I asked, wondering why it was so inevitable that the APD would show up on our doorstep.

"I captured the guy and got away, I never said I did it discreetly." She said folding her arms once more.

"Holy shit Sahir." The two of us paused and just looked at one another in awkward silence.

"Well let's get to it." She said smacking my ass as she walked past me.

There was a sick pleasure I got from knowing she had something devious up her sleeve. I loved the danger she brought into my life, as if to say I didn't welcome enough trouble as it were, she had a special brand of danger, for there were no boundaries to her actions and even when I considered myself to be one, she proved me wrong. I had a star shaped scar on the left side of my rib cage as evidence. The gunshot wound aside, I had a wicked attraction to her evil exploits.

"Fine, I'm in." I said caving, but in my mind I was swearing at both her and myself. We were going to Hell by choice and my biggest concern was that we'd never make it out. The APD was notorious for using a man's vice against him and unfortunately mine was going to be walking at my side the whole way through. Not only were we poised to paint magnificent targets on our backs, but we fully intended on exploiting those targets. 

Sahir dropped her cup in the sink and went back toward the closet, swinging its door open and grabbing the detective by the collar. "By the way sweetie," Her hands were tight on Weikers collar as she turned her eyes to me. "What's your new year's resolution?"

"I was thinking about ridding myself of you, maybe adding a few years to my life." I said walking over and placing my arms in Weikers sweaty pits as Sahir grabbed him by his feet. The detective was in rough shape, there was no telling how long Sahir kept him tied up in the tiny closet. Although, I didn't care as long as he was still alive. He would have been worthless to us dead.

"You dork, you wouldn't last a day without me." She then giggled and leaned across our hostage and kissed my cheek.          

The two of us lugged Weiker down the hall and out the front door. The sky was dark and peppered with gleaming snowflakes that fell on every surface and the distant hum of the busy city became the symphony of a couple of birds flying the coup.