twiststheblade (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
twiststheblade) wrote2006-06-10 01:08 am
twiststheblade) wrote2006-06-10 01:08 am
Angels: Act Two
from here
Yokohama.
Japan's biggest port city.
Hub of trade, export, and import.
Modern, classical, new and ancient. If a thing is new 'it was done first in Yokohama'.
It is late by the time the two bikes purr through the suburbs, heading for the heart of the financial district. Late, and the rain has stopped. The surfaces are slick with water, lights reflecting off anything and everything, a shifting kaleidoscope.
The buildings are an odd mix. Darkened office buildings, except for the odd window where a worker is up late into the night. Bars, restaurants, the odd shop, spill light and sound and smell out into the streets.
Eventually, Miho waves an arm, slows, and pulls over to the side of the road. She hops off, braces the bike, and smoothly uses her entire body-weight to lift it onto the stand. She pushes her visor up, and smiles.
"Well, this is it."
There are two buildings that stand out. One is rounded, almost like a tower, stabbing up into the night. Next to it, seperated by only a narrow alleyway, is a mirrored tower-block, curved frontage, glass elevators running up the outside of the building. It has an enourmous lobby, brightly lit, edged by small shops, and a few restaurants.
"That's the one we want," she says, pointing to the rounded building. "And this is the one I thought we could go across from."
She grins.
"Anyone for sushi?"
Yokohama.
Japan's biggest port city.
Hub of trade, export, and import.
Modern, classical, new and ancient. If a thing is new 'it was done first in Yokohama'.
It is late by the time the two bikes purr through the suburbs, heading for the heart of the financial district. Late, and the rain has stopped. The surfaces are slick with water, lights reflecting off anything and everything, a shifting kaleidoscope.
The buildings are an odd mix. Darkened office buildings, except for the odd window where a worker is up late into the night. Bars, restaurants, the odd shop, spill light and sound and smell out into the streets.
Eventually, Miho waves an arm, slows, and pulls over to the side of the road. She hops off, braces the bike, and smoothly uses her entire body-weight to lift it onto the stand. She pushes her visor up, and smiles.
"Well, this is it."
There are two buildings that stand out. One is rounded, almost like a tower, stabbing up into the night. Next to it, seperated by only a narrow alleyway, is a mirrored tower-block, curved frontage, glass elevators running up the outside of the building. It has an enourmous lobby, brightly lit, edged by small shops, and a few restaurants.
"That's the one we want," she says, pointing to the rounded building. "And this is the one I thought we could go across from."
She grins.
"Anyone for sushi?"
no subject
"X-ray. Yes. One of you, or both of you, just put your goggles back on and press the left hand button. You should be able to see part-way through the door. Then just twist the dial clockwise and anti-clockwise until you line up each disc's indentation under the latch mechanism."
"Simple."
She takes one of her guns back out and retreats towards the rubble-strewn corridor.
"I'll watch your backs."
no subject
no subject
Now that? That's pretty neat.
"Miho, you have lovely bones."
The other girl seems to be doing an admirable job of lining up numbers, so Alanna just watches with a grin on her face. Not that anyone sees it.
no subject
"Are we good?"
no subject
She steps through, and looks around curiously. The vault's neither huge nor particularly small - lined with shelves, on which are, for the most part, files - box files, lever arch files, document wallets, pocket files, expanding files, legal wallets. Filing cabinets. Archive boxes stacked up to ceiling height.
She doesn't see the swords, but there are plenty of places they could be.
no subject
"Would they be in something?"
She gives a filing cabinet a thoughtful look.
no subject
Good thing too. If the sprinklers had activated and got Goldy wet again, there would have been hell to pay.
She glances back absently.
"Come on! Two big ass swords can't be that hard to find."
no subject
There actually, now she comes to look, isn't anywhere they could be. This is all. . . paperwork.
"Fuck."
no subject
"Where else could they be?"
no subject
From the street below, the distant sound of sirens can be heard.
"I think my pyrotechnics may have attracted some extra attention," she notes hastily. "If they are still here somewhere, we had better hustle."
She's a lot of things, but she's not a cop killer.
no subject
"Come on, let's get out of here."
She turns on her heel, and heads out of the vault. She pauses in the doorway, and blinks for a moment, allowing Alanna to pass her. Then, without so much as a change of expression, she returns to the vault, tips a pile of papers ouf of a filing caninet and into the middle of the floor, kicks them up, and sets fire to them.
Once the little blaze is steady, and spreading, she nods to herself, and leaves.
Behind her, blackmail material, crooked accounts, details of traffic in human flesh become so much ash.
no subject
Dulled shouts join the sirens outside. Tearing her gaze away, Alanna starts down the hallway.
"We're about to have company." She squeezes Miho's shoulder as she pulls level. "We'll find them."
no subject
"We have to go back. We do anyway for my door, but. . . I know where the swords are."
no subject
"Back it is then. Let's blow this joint."
She catches the worried glances from her companions.
"Not literally!"
And with that, the three women start jogging off down the corridor. Goldy's griping can probably be picked out as they disappear into the mist of the overhead sprinklers.
(Act 3)