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Narrative for AC
Sep. 21st, 2016 12:09 amNatasha’s superior is a shithead wrapped up in a YELLOW jumpsuit.
The way that he talks to her is nothing less than condescending, and although Natasha has a particular skill for keeping herself cool in undercover situations, this is a little different. She has no cards up her sleeve here, no friends in high places that she can utilize without risking their safety or reputation, and it takes more effort than she’ll admit to not punch him in his stupid smirking face. It’s barely 08:45 when she arrives for duty and he immediately sends her off to ‘make herself useful’, and when Natasha asks him exactly how he expects her to do that he replies with, “I don’t know, sweetheart, why don’t you go dismantle a secret society or something? Go on.” The look that she gives him is one that would make men back home wet themselves but he’s too busy laughing at himself while some prick in ORANGE giggles along with him. If she broke either of their legs she’d probably get some sort of warning, so instead Natasha turns on her heel and leaves. She has her mission, whether they think her able to accomplish it or not.
It doesn’t take her long. Natasha knows how these systems work; she’s infiltrated some of the deepest Black Market societies ever constructed. Although they vary in levels of abhorrence, they all have one thing in common, and it’s that they all operate in plain sight. She just has to look for the hidden flow, the people who look like they’re walking with the fear of being watched set deep in their eyes and body language, and by 10:12 Natasha is in an area of the Complex where she has strange men approaching her on the street in an attempt to sell her something she doesn’t need.
The real struggle is a moral one, because Natasha isn’t comfortable labeling someone as a traitor if they’re just trying to make a living for themselves. She moves in the crowd, eyes scanning across throngs of people and into run down buildings before she hears it; voices, angry and menacing beneath the static sound of city. She stops walking suddenly, ignoring the man behind her who collides with her shoulder from the unexpected halt, and Natasha’s gaze moves in the direction of the sound to see a narrow alley to her right. She moves deftly until her back is pressed against one of the buildings and she glances around the corner, listening close.
It’s three men, two of them advancing on the third. He’s older, perhaps in his sixties, and obviously frightened, his hands trembling as he holds them up in a weak plead for space as they back him against the alleyway wall. She can’t hear everything, but the words ‘owe’ and ‘respect’ get thrown around a lot. The older gentleman says something so quickly she can barely make out anything, but she catches the last part clearly. “Please, don’t.” That’s enough for her.
She’s suddenly running, blaster still strapped firmly to her hip. She doesn’t want to have to use it unless it’s completely necessary, and she can already tell that it won’t be by how one of the younger men look back and freeze in shock to see her advancing so quickly. She reaches him before he can even reach for the weapon at his side and with one solid swing she hits him in the head, knocking him back with enough force that he crashes into the alley wall and crumples to the ground. Her elbow comes back effortlessly to bash the second man on the jaw, and when he doesn’t immediately go down Natasha turns to face him so she can swing again for his temple, knocking him out cold. The elderly man is on the ground, and she’s unsure if it’s due to the fact that she’s frightened him or if he actually got knocked over in the altercation. Either way, she feels bad.
He winces when she approaches but Natasha gently takes him by the shoulder and elbow anyway, guiding him to his feet with a tender hand. After reassuring him that she’s only there to help he confesses that the two men are agents of the Free Enterprise, and he owes them a substantial debt after making a deal with them to get proper medication. He thanks her profusely, although Natasha suddenly feels as if she hasn’t done much at all – he still owes the money. They’ll just send more thugs after him, that’s how these systems work. She can’t do any more now, though, and even if she can, the victimized old man is too afraid to stick around, disappearing back into the crowd after thanking her once more. Natasha is left there to stare down at the two unconscious men with a sigh – Why did there have to be two? Transporting one is going to be hard enough.
She has to disappear deeper into the complex alleyways to avoid the crowd, dragging two grown men across the ground with her until she finally finds herself in a different sector of the city that she’s not afraid to call a Pick Up Transport to. By the time it shows up one of the men is slowly starting to wake, and Natasha knocks him out with the butt of her blaster before letting the bots take over to toss both assholes into the back of the Transport. Natasha herself walks her way back to headquarters to fill out her report, reaching it by 12:00, and when she sees Shithead In YELLOW she taps him on the shoulder until he turns to face her.
“I have this for you.” She hands him the report, hand calmly falling to her side when he snatches it from her with a sigh. He reads it with a look of distaste that slowly fades into a sort of bewilderment, and then he reads it again before looking at her doubtfully. “This says that you’ve apprehended two Free Enterprise agents.”
She nods.
“By yourself?” When she doesn’t add anything he scoffs. “That’s impossible.”
“That’s what my mission was, sir.” She’s getting daring, using that sort of tone, but Natasha’s delicate eyebrow raises in question as her head gives a small tilt to the side before he can state as much. “My superior wouldn’t give me an impossible mission, that’s setting the system up for failure and Friend Computer isn’t much of a fan of failure, isn’t that right? Sir.”
The way she sees that flicker of tension in his jaw satisfies Natasha so much that she actually smiles.
The way that he talks to her is nothing less than condescending, and although Natasha has a particular skill for keeping herself cool in undercover situations, this is a little different. She has no cards up her sleeve here, no friends in high places that she can utilize without risking their safety or reputation, and it takes more effort than she’ll admit to not punch him in his stupid smirking face. It’s barely 08:45 when she arrives for duty and he immediately sends her off to ‘make herself useful’, and when Natasha asks him exactly how he expects her to do that he replies with, “I don’t know, sweetheart, why don’t you go dismantle a secret society or something? Go on.” The look that she gives him is one that would make men back home wet themselves but he’s too busy laughing at himself while some prick in ORANGE giggles along with him. If she broke either of their legs she’d probably get some sort of warning, so instead Natasha turns on her heel and leaves. She has her mission, whether they think her able to accomplish it or not.
It doesn’t take her long. Natasha knows how these systems work; she’s infiltrated some of the deepest Black Market societies ever constructed. Although they vary in levels of abhorrence, they all have one thing in common, and it’s that they all operate in plain sight. She just has to look for the hidden flow, the people who look like they’re walking with the fear of being watched set deep in their eyes and body language, and by 10:12 Natasha is in an area of the Complex where she has strange men approaching her on the street in an attempt to sell her something she doesn’t need.
The real struggle is a moral one, because Natasha isn’t comfortable labeling someone as a traitor if they’re just trying to make a living for themselves. She moves in the crowd, eyes scanning across throngs of people and into run down buildings before she hears it; voices, angry and menacing beneath the static sound of city. She stops walking suddenly, ignoring the man behind her who collides with her shoulder from the unexpected halt, and Natasha’s gaze moves in the direction of the sound to see a narrow alley to her right. She moves deftly until her back is pressed against one of the buildings and she glances around the corner, listening close.
It’s three men, two of them advancing on the third. He’s older, perhaps in his sixties, and obviously frightened, his hands trembling as he holds them up in a weak plead for space as they back him against the alleyway wall. She can’t hear everything, but the words ‘owe’ and ‘respect’ get thrown around a lot. The older gentleman says something so quickly she can barely make out anything, but she catches the last part clearly. “Please, don’t.” That’s enough for her.
She’s suddenly running, blaster still strapped firmly to her hip. She doesn’t want to have to use it unless it’s completely necessary, and she can already tell that it won’t be by how one of the younger men look back and freeze in shock to see her advancing so quickly. She reaches him before he can even reach for the weapon at his side and with one solid swing she hits him in the head, knocking him back with enough force that he crashes into the alley wall and crumples to the ground. Her elbow comes back effortlessly to bash the second man on the jaw, and when he doesn’t immediately go down Natasha turns to face him so she can swing again for his temple, knocking him out cold. The elderly man is on the ground, and she’s unsure if it’s due to the fact that she’s frightened him or if he actually got knocked over in the altercation. Either way, she feels bad.
He winces when she approaches but Natasha gently takes him by the shoulder and elbow anyway, guiding him to his feet with a tender hand. After reassuring him that she’s only there to help he confesses that the two men are agents of the Free Enterprise, and he owes them a substantial debt after making a deal with them to get proper medication. He thanks her profusely, although Natasha suddenly feels as if she hasn’t done much at all – he still owes the money. They’ll just send more thugs after him, that’s how these systems work. She can’t do any more now, though, and even if she can, the victimized old man is too afraid to stick around, disappearing back into the crowd after thanking her once more. Natasha is left there to stare down at the two unconscious men with a sigh – Why did there have to be two? Transporting one is going to be hard enough.
She has to disappear deeper into the complex alleyways to avoid the crowd, dragging two grown men across the ground with her until she finally finds herself in a different sector of the city that she’s not afraid to call a Pick Up Transport to. By the time it shows up one of the men is slowly starting to wake, and Natasha knocks him out with the butt of her blaster before letting the bots take over to toss both assholes into the back of the Transport. Natasha herself walks her way back to headquarters to fill out her report, reaching it by 12:00, and when she sees Shithead In YELLOW she taps him on the shoulder until he turns to face her.
“I have this for you.” She hands him the report, hand calmly falling to her side when he snatches it from her with a sigh. He reads it with a look of distaste that slowly fades into a sort of bewilderment, and then he reads it again before looking at her doubtfully. “This says that you’ve apprehended two Free Enterprise agents.”
She nods.
“By yourself?” When she doesn’t add anything he scoffs. “That’s impossible.”
“That’s what my mission was, sir.” She’s getting daring, using that sort of tone, but Natasha’s delicate eyebrow raises in question as her head gives a small tilt to the side before he can state as much. “My superior wouldn’t give me an impossible mission, that’s setting the system up for failure and Friend Computer isn’t much of a fan of failure, isn’t that right? Sir.”
The way she sees that flicker of tension in his jaw satisfies Natasha so much that she actually smiles.
