Earth Singer

Chapter Five

'Hold it!, Not another step!'

Fuck me. That would be right, Vesta thought as a cold barrel pressed between her shoulder blades. Of all the rooms in the Vigile's Castra to break into, she picked an occupied one. It was late-evening. The dormitories ran in shifts with whole floors rostering on days or nights together. The atrium and the hallways on this level had all been empty save Vesta's careful footfalls. She had passed a dozen sleepy doorways before deciding on this one. Bad decision.

The room was black as the void. Still, she knew there was no hope of escaping into the darkness. She could feel the weapon, pushing into her with shaky authority.

'Hand's where I can see them slag-shifter!' The voice was jumpy. Vesta mouthed another silent curse. If there was one way she didn't want to die it was an accidental shooting by a jumpy recruit. At least if she had to go, let it be on purpose.

'Ok, ok. My hands are coming up.' She spoke in a measured tone. Raising her arms slowly, trying to ignore the increasingly jittery weapon at her back.

'Y-ou k-keep going Brute-shagger, hands on your head!'

As Vesta fingers carefully laced themselves together over her thick mulberry-red braid, she emptied her lungs in a noiseless sigh. There was little else she could do. She couldn't explain why she was there, nobody could know. Not until she was sure. It would be the end of her career. Possibly her life.

An unconvincing shove of the weapon returned her thoughts to the figure behind her. Vesta had a code. As dirty and questionable, as the work of a Vigile might be, she always did what was right. She knew she had to be better. One person doing better, that's how the Empire became better. She couldn't remember whether it was her father or her mother's voice she should remember those words in. But she remembered.

Apart from that, just try not to kill or maim any bystanders on the job. Sure, the second mantra wasn't as poetic as the first. But life can't always be a work of art. Besides, the marriage of simple and profound suited Vestra just fine.

Still, she always knew deep-down she would wind up violating this code sooner or later. She had hoped it would not be this soon. But there was no other way out that she could puzzle her mind through. Well, she had dwelled on it long enough. It was now or never.

In the space of a breath Vesta folded her body almost perfectly in half at the waist. Her head and arms shooting towards the ground, feeling a blast of hot air glancing over her shoulder from the weapon at her back as she went. At the same moment her hands reached the floor and took her weight, her boots shot skyward in unison, collecting her captor on the chin and lifting them off their feet. Still balancing in her handstand, she pushed downward with her arms, throwing herself into the air landing with her knee to the now floored figure's neck. Twisting the assailant's own arm towards their temple before closing her eyes and squeezing the trigger.

Another blast of hot air.

'What the void!' The figure choked through a swelling face, 'Vesta?!'

'Dali?'

'Get off me! Lights!' The room was suddenly awash with sterile white light, and Vesta could see in full relief Dali's reddened face squirming beneath her knee and... what appeared to be a hair-dryer. Still blasting hot air across her face.

Vesta raised herself to her feet, extending a hand to her colleague as she did. Dali took it without protest, abandoning her 'weapon' as she did. she rubbed at her jaw as she rose.

Dali was shorter than Vesta, her head terminating about where Vesta's nose began. She had curves that filled out her figure into a more feminine shape than Vesta could ever achieve. Curves which were all the more noticeable as it appeared Dali had not had time to dress before getting the drop on her intruder. Something they both seemed to realise at the same time as Vesta made awkward eyes at the ceiling and Dali retrieved a towel that must have been shaken loose by the strike to the jaw. The whisper of dali's metallic leg augments filled the awkward silence as she covered them self-consciously with her towel. It hurt Vesta in her stomach whenever she noticed Dali hiding that part of herself. They had met on the first day of training and Dali was one of the best and brightest Vigiles Vesta knew. But no amount of aced exams or training exercises could hide the thin chrome exoskeleton that traced along the outside of her thighs down to her feet. She was always headed for desk work. Evidence and analysis over heretic hunting or contraband busts. Probably a good thing. Vesta knew her friend was the best of the best, but she had always been a lousy shot.

'You shot me!?' Dali offered in an offended tone. Vesta's eyes looked up to Dali's as she finished tucking her towel self-consciously around her chest.

'You shot me first,' She responded, 'How's the jaw?'

Dali stroked it self-consciously, more hurt that she had been so easily disarmed than from any swelling.

'Never mind that, why are you in my room? And why do you look like a slagger?'

'Your room?' Vesta cursed herself again. Moving through the darkness of the empty dormitories, she had decided on this room of all rooms to go looking for a what she needed. She must have been led here in the dark by mere habit. Or maybe it was something more. She needed help, and she always came to Dali when she did, just as Dali always came to her. They weren't fresh bumbling recruits anymore, but perhaps fate had brought her here of all places. Vesta smiled at her friend.

'Don't suppose I could borrow your ID card for a bit?'

'My ID, what do you need that for?'

'You wouldn't believe me if I told you...' Dali choked on her own pathetic attempt at a casual laugh. A laugh summarily ignored before the guard in front of her.

                                                                                              +++

DOWEEP.

The gate unlatched with a familiar sound. The ID panel switching from red to green without Dali even having to press her badge against it. Or finish the elaborate cover story she had come up with for returning to the precinct mere hours after having finished her shift. She hesitated before the young Vigile manning the desk. She had spent the last hour walking several laps of the route from the Dormatorium to the Castra itself. Perfecting her story for the disinterested little brute-shart in front of her.

She wanted to wring his neck for not following procedure. Dali knew every one of the department protocols, even those reserved for the cleaning staff. She reacted involuntarily when she saw rules being ignored. It twisted her insides and was about the only time she entertained violent thoughts. These were always filtered into meek reminders her colleagues ignored by the time she expressed them. Just then, she was picturing herself beating this particular Vigile bloody with the ID panel he never bothered to look at.

Filtering herself as she always did, Dali managed not to make a scene and instead stifled her indignation into a single 'humph' as she strode through the gate. Vesta could have walked right in with Dali's stolen Badge after all, she begrudgingly admitted to herself. That was a waste of an argument.

Still. Vesta did seem to have other things on her mind she wanted to follow up on. Dali knew that look, and Vesta had not tried nearly hard enough to dissuade her from her idea to go to the Castra herself. In any case Vesta was not... 'gifted' when it came to paperwork. That was Dali's strong suit. What she lacked in physical speed she more than made up for navigating the thickly bureaucratic record systems of the Regnum. By the time they parted ways in the Dormatorium gardens, Vesta had already made plans to head back to the streets by the North Pit.

Dali crossed the grand hallway, avoiding as many glances as she could and cutting her way past the elevator before ducking into the side stairwell. Nobody took the stairs. She would definitely avoid any awkward conversations this way. She was kidding herself about her motivations being conversational of course. Dali had never done anything like breaking the rules of the Vigiles before. Vesta was a friend. And she didn't believe the rumours that she was having a break-down. But stealing evidence?

Shelooked up at the swirling stairs disappearing in the distance above her andthought about the real reason she had avoided the elevators. The longer shetook to climb those stairs, the longer it would be before she herself became acriminal.