The Vanguard Vixen

The Black Pearl (One)

Lewis couldn't hide the disbelief in his voice. "We're staying for the night?"

"There is someone I need to see here. They might be a very important piece of this puzzle if they agree to help us."

The three were standing across the street from a bar of sorts with a huge neon sign that read "The Black Pearl" hanging over it.

 "If? You're asking us to bet our lives on a possibility?"

 "Look on the bright side."Vivian then looked down to where Lewis and Turana were holding hands. "It's a great place for a first date with someone like her."

"Wait a minute," Turana interrupted. "

Who said anything about a date?"

"So it isn't a date?" Vivian questioned.

"No," Turana replied.

"It isn't?" Lewis repeated to himself.

"I just met you," Turana said, nonchalantly. 

Vivian smiled and walked on ahead. Along the way, Turana had shared a bit of her story with Lewis; telling him that she had worked as part of the security detail for the Vanguard president. Vivian had been listening and knew that wasn't true, although it also wasn't exactly a lie. The original Turana was part of the private Presidential security, one of the best too. Probably why the clones had been fashioned from her.

 At the entrance to the Pearl, there was a checkpoint. A man was taking weapons from those going in.

"No weapons inside! No weapons past-"

He had seen her.

"V169. Is that you?"

"Harold. It's been a while."

Harold looked at Lewis and Turana. "Are you sure about bringing them in?"

"They're under my protection. I think they will be fine."

"Fine then. Your gun."

Vivian handed him M48, quite willingly from Lewis' point of view. Either she trusted him that much or she trusted herself. Lewis knew which it was.

Harold examined the gun. "I don't even know how to grade this. I don't understand why someone like you has to carry around this much firepower."

"You've seen the magnitude of trouble I get into Harold."

"You shouldn't be allowed in here. I'm sure even that silky dark hair is lethal. Why are you here?"

Vivian lowered her voice. "I have to speak to your general."

Harold stared back at her in silence for a while then motioned to Lewis and Turana. "Who watches over them as you talk to him?"

 "Zhirkov promised to keep his people under control while am here."

"That will be difficult. Between you and him, there are over five million credits. The men and women in there are hounds. And they are not the same kind."

Vivian's voice was cold as she replied.

"Neither am I."

Harold waved them in, and all the attention was turned to them. All the noise faded to whispers and murmurs all of which Lewis couldn't hear but wished he could.

 "He's in the back; I'll keep an eye on these two."

Lewis was starting to say he didn't need a babysitter but Turana stomped on his foot to quiet him. Harold led them to the table nearest to the exit just in case.

Vivian stopped to talk to Turana.

"Once things go south, call me and then get as far away from here as you can. Probably somewhere without people carrying guns that want to kill you."

Lewis interjected. "The whole place is filled with exactly those people."

"Harold will take you to a safe spot till I come to get you."

The buzzing conversations that had been going on in the bar fell into silence as Vivian walked across the room to the back. Right at the end, just when she thought everyone in the bar wasn't drunk and stupid, she was attacked. Or rather he attempted to and she didn't flinch as the glass bottle he had thrown missed her by a mile. He rushed at her, this time getting his bearings right but she moved a bit to her left which allowed her to hold his head under her arm and snap his neck. She had promised Zhirkov she wouldn't fire any bullets and she didn't need them to make a statement.

The guards at the door to the backroom let her through without any hassle. It was a small room with only one window, the walls covered with pictures of the general with several other people Vivian didn't recognize. He sat on a large spinning chair that looked much more comfortable than the wooden chair on the other end of the table. Vivian didn't sit, choosing to lean against the wall in the corner; away from the window and with a full view of the room.

"Imagine my surprise when I heard that V169 was passing through the dark route. We don't have time for niceties, what do you want?"

"That's no way to welcome an old acquaintance, is it?"

 The general spun halfway round and then faced Vivian again.

"Not when that 'acquaintance has a bounty of three million credits on her head. Very few of the mercenaries here earn even half a million credits in a year, and you decide to waltz in and dangle five years' worth of pay in front of them. What are you thinking?"

 "I only intend to stay here a night. But you do owe me a favour, and I intend to cash in today."

The general laid both hands on the table, twiddling with his thumbs. Vivian saw his eyes twitch to the window every once in a while. She knew that he had been a general of the Vanguard but lost his place when he was caught as part of a gun-smuggling operation. You didn't just become a general in the Vanguard, and neither did you just stay one. This man had lost all the qualities of a Vanguard general the moment he sold his soul to the dark route. Here he had some respect and fear as everyone knew just how dangerous Vanguard generals could be, but Vivian couldn't see any of that in him now.

"The Mainstream army is coming after me, most probably joined with some Vanguard soldiers. I am not asking you to fight them, but only to hold them off till I get some distance on them."

"There never has been a direct conflict with the Vanguard army and the dark route. Only standoffs and threats till a virtual agreement for both sides. The circumstances in those situations were much different because this is the highest bounty in the history of the five territories. How can I be sure they won't come looking to force their way through?"

"They won't if you hold them off."

He closed his eyes for a moment to weigh his options but when he opened them, she was gone. He immediately started panicking as he looked out the window; above and below but there was nothing. If she found out that he had placed two snipers in the building opposite to keep an eye on her she would most likely kill them, and him. There also was a chance that she was bluffing and waiting for him to expose himself, so he sat back down. 

As a general in the Vanguard, he had access to some of her files, although they were not very detailed. He didn't get to see any mission reports but he saw the briefings and seeing her coming out of each operation against devastating odds with success scared him more than it impressed him. He remembered to have been glad that there was only one of her to watch out for, and even she was the kind you couldn't keep your eye on for long.