P R O X I M O

We walked calmly. Slowly. We held drinks and false faces. We smiled at the rebels that were celebrating this night. Celebrating that the Division's leader was rumoured critically injured or presumed dead.

The music was loud and the lights low in this shit hole I would soon bring to its knees.

Makayla nodded her head easily and leant the back of her elbows on the bar dressed in foreign gear that matched those around us. Our vanguard's completely invisible and superior to anything they wore. Unconcealed weapons were at her hips and a lazy smile on her lips as a buffoon lectured her on how to assemble a fusion rifle correctly. She played the game better than I gave credit for.

With one quick dip of my head she broke from the bar and trailed behind me. We slipped through the crowds of rebels in the underground bar that teemed with cheap liquor and false hope. The faces we wore were originally generated, non trackable and no back story needed. Faces that could blur into the crowds under rebel colours.

Dazz was either here or she wasn't. It mattered little for now. 

Now was the time to get our own intelligence on these scum. To break them from the inside. She may have the weapons codes–the Silver Sun tools, but it meant little if she had a fusion round through the head.

I hit a man's shoulder, deep in thought and gave him a false apology with an easy grin. The soldier dismissed me with a bottle salute. Yes, smile while you can...

I led us to the edge of the cavernous room and pressed a palm to the wall key. A virus went straight from my wrist comm into the security system. The keypad flashed green and the door slid open.

"It's almost unfair." I muttered. Striding through and glancing at the cameras above that now showed a looped feed of the corridor. The door slid shut behind us and the music was muffled in heavy beat against the walls. 

Makayla drew a pistol from her hip and secured a suppressor to the barrel–then a blade under it. I pulled a fully automatic plasma rifle from my back and did the same. Untraceable weapons. But they would know exactly who dared such a thing.

I met her eyes that were not her own. She met mine.

"Every person beyond those doors is an enemy of Division 52. We move quickly and silently. The building only needs to know we're here when we've hit the sidewalk again. Clear?" 

"I expect nothing less, Second." She retorted with a level look.

I nodded and moved forward to the corridor end. "We're here for intelligence. Anything else is a bonus." I growled, palming the wall again and the doors opened to me. 

Music from a different set of speakers was loud and the room was filled with cigar smoke. I couldn't have asked for better conditions. A group of them sat around a poker table with nano chips splayed all over. I lowered my hand and we dropped into crouches ducking behind a sofa. The bass was heavy and you couldn't even make out the sound as the doors slid shut behind us.

A man shouted something in victory and threw a bottle against the wall.

I marked two fingers on my hand. Makayla understood and dropped me a nod. I moved quickly to dart behind a set of weapons crates with our brand on the metal sides. It only made what happened next more satisfying.

I tightened a fist and we both stood from cover. Two shots each. Four targets neutralised.

No more conversation.

A chip still spun on the table from a fool's hand. I walked to the table, rifle on my shoulder while Makayla watched the door. I seized a corpse's wrist holo and activated the sweep. His identity was now mine. His files. His role. All of it. I took three more and let the final hand drop against the table. The music beat on.

I pointed two fingers at the next set of doors.

Makayla palmed the security lock. It flashed green and revealed a dozen of the clueless heathens pawing through another load Division 52 weapons crates. The first two were already dead before her eyes could widen.

Makayla tore a crypto grenade from her hip and lit up the rest of the room before they could even find the trigger of their guns. They did not even have time to fire blindly. 

The room fell silent when the last body dropped.

"Less that fifteen seconds. Not bad." I noted out loud.

"Anything to get me out of here faster. I can already feel Scorpion's anger from here." She muttered, checking the guard's bodies. Her face was calm. Nothing of the hesitation or remorse I expected took her over. Civilians felt these things. But she was no longer one to sit on the sidelines. Maybe Scorpion had trained her properly.

I snorted as I scanned the crates.

"She gave them the information to seize this didn't she?" She asked suddenly. 

My gaze cut to her now eyeing the much more powerful weapons within. I flexed my jaw and tore my eyes from it.

"She won't be giving them more for much longer." I murmured low, knowing she referred to my traitorous sister. If she could even be called that anymore.

"What were they planning to do with this much..." She began, incredulous. "They can't have the numbers–"

"They don't." I interrupted flatly. "It just means weapons that do not go to us. Cutting our supply is just as bad."

"So what now?"

I grabbed the nearest wrist holo and absorbed their data. "Now I extract what I can get and we push on. A server room. A data centre. Anything to get us some god damn advantage and location on these fuckers." I stated in a tone bordering near boredom.

"You seem... really calm."

I glanced at her. She wore the same unfamiliar face with red hair. Knives on her hips and arms crossed watching me.

"Always."

"Why?" She blurted.

I smiled slowly and dropped the dead man's wrist. "Because I can think faster. Act logically. And do my job better than anyone else in the room."

"Were you always so good at it?" She asked slowly as I pulled up the next holo.

"You know I was."

"I know you had a lethal history with your last employer before Scorpion killed him. I don't know what you were before that." She pressed.

My defences roses as sharply as my eyes did. One question too far.

"As I do not know your history, Miss Xavier." I said quietly, it made her frown. "Your existence came to our knowledge very late. A concealed royal birth. Quite a sweet story."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you can never fully know a person. No matter how good at your job you are." I stated pointedly. I glanced down at the new data in my wrist. "We're done here." I finished, answering two questions at once.

"You might be damn good at your job Proximo, but you're a shitty friend." She stated, turning on her heel and raising her gun again. I smirked at her back regardless.

"I do not collect friends, Makayla." I drawled.

She sighed heavily ahead and moved to the next door. "Friends aren't a collectible item. They're an asset. You'd see that if you trusted another human being."

My smirk turned into a savage grin now. I took the other side of the door across from her as she rolled her eyes at me.

"Friends are for people willing to expose their backs. I'd rather cut the shit and stab them in the front."

"Glad I know where to stab." She uttered sweetly.

"Take your best shot." I responded easily, raising my weapon and palm.

She pulled back the hammer in response and threw me the most Makayla look I had ever seen since I had met her. One that said I'm tempted to put a shot in your back once this is over. One that said I'm only wearing this dress to embarrass the family name at a later point. One that said she never truly conformed to anyone's wishes in her entire life. It almost made me smile. Almost.

"Past the bullshit, ice cube act you like me, Prox." She noted casually. "Or you wouldn't have hugged me on that landing pad."

I threw her a cool look over my rifle hovering my palm over the security access.

"Focus, Makayla." I muttered.

My palm hit the pad and the doors opened to us. They opened to reveal the face value problem to all of it there and then. The very woman that set my mind raging and clawed fear at me. For what I had to do. What I came here for.

There Dazz was. Feet propped on the desk, headphones over her ears and as carefree as she was coding in her bedroom at fourteen. Now a woman on the wrong side. Now a woman I had to send a plasma round through. I didn't take the next breath. I froze for the first time in all my time serving as the Division's Second in command.

* * * * *

Makayla was a step ahead staring at me expecting something. Staring like I was meant to do something here. In this dark room with the holo screens glowing...

I was just an adolescent again. Anger fuelled and hot headed. Parents were a distant memory like many in the furthest sectors of Merridian. We had no school routine to dictate our lives. Dazz kept the credits rolling from hacking contracts I didn't care to understand. I worked nights at Kuzo's on the security shift. He knew I was underage but my size was already domineering for sixteen.

"Kid, do you wanna make double scratch tonight or what?" The security head barked down my comm. It was a night that would change the paths of both our lives.

Dazz sneered in disgust and wheeled back to her screens. We had long ago disagreed on our lines of work. To her I was another rat guarding a "misogynist's whore house". I didn't even know what a misogynist was but I hadn't given her the benefit of another eye roll. I knew my strengths and she knew her own. 

So I politely told her to shove her thoughts up her own ass and I told that security head–

"I'm in."

That was the night I met him. Lazuras.

As much of a sweating pig as his reputation preceded. Women at his sides all too young. His guards threw glares at anybody within a 20 foot proximity. Only that didn't matter that night. It was 3:45am on another cold shift when he stumbled from that bar. When the doors slid open and he didn't throw the bouncers a second glance. He didn't need to. He was an Underworld ruler. One of the five most feared men in Merridian. Lethal when provoked. Damn right unthinkable when angry. 

But I did not know any of that then. Only that he was an important rung in the ladder I needed to climb.

Only one vehicle had dropped from the sky to pick him up. They often liked to be discreet–after all who was mad enough to threaten him? It was why it was the last place I expected my mind numbing job for Kuzo to become difficult. To become dangerous.

The shot rang out before anyone could fully process. A guard slapped the pavement in a heavy slap and the street became chaos. The girls screamed and lunged away from him. Instinct drove anyone sane away. But no, that wasn't me that night...

They emerged with shouts and unconcealed rage as his guards returned fire into the shadows. A guard took one to the leg and then through the chest. His remaining guard stared in calculation. And just like that, he ran off. 

I was already moving before the coward could find the shadows. I rolled forward and took the dead man's gun from the ground and levelled it at the two attackers with efficiency only hours at the gun range for months on end could provide me. Only with spending my earnings in that place reloading, firing and missing until I didn't miss anymore.

I was still on one knee with my gun raised when the last assailant fell.

A hand landed on my shoulder and I froze.

"Do you have any idea who I am, boy?" That low rumble demanded with a thick hand ringed in platinum. 

"Yes, sir." I stated.

"Get in the craft. You have a new job." He dismissed plain as day.

I swallowed and lowered the weapon slowly, presenting it towards him carefully. There were only so many ways you could bring a weapon near an Underworld leader–

"Stop holding that thing like your dick in my face. Holster it and get in the damn craft you're wasting my time." He snapped, whirling on his heel.

Just like that. My job outside bars and clubs died. Just like that I was on the personal guard of one of the most lethal people in Merridian. But it was the most lethal person. That came later...

When I returned to Dazz the next day she couldn't believe my stupidity. That I could have sunk so low. The argument was long and heated. She was a hypocrite and I was a power grabbing narcissist. It didn't end for many hours until she punched one of her screens and shouted rather than asked if I wanted a drink.

In all of our time nothing she had done had made me laugh as much as that had. The situation. The timing. The ridiculousness of the notion.

We went from death threats to tumblers full of whiskey in minutes and joked about my new future. Despite all the sneering I think she had been a proud older sister if only for a moment. We were never one to spew our feelings all over the place even with excessive alcohol. But I thought we had an understanding of each other. Only for a moment.

Makayla's hand ripped my collar towards her face as the world came back into motion. The time. The place. I was a fool.

"I cannot kill her." I grit out hating myself.

"What?" She hissed, darting between my eyes.

"Dazz–my–I cannot kill my sister." I growled low, glancing at that head that bobbed oblivious to an unknown beat in front of the screens. No telling what havoc she wrecked on the world from that keyboard.

"You cannot leave her–Proximo you know we cannot trust–"

"I know." I rumbled, grabbing her shoulder hard and trying to reach that calm that stole me so easily. Her eyes softened making want to tear my own out through the sockets.

"Do not. Pity me." I snarled, releasing her and checking the gun in my hand.

"We can't leave her here." She repeated.

I stared at that blue hair that was no longer disguised. She was truly comfortable in this space. This dark enclave where she ruled the world. I made the decision in the next second without any room for hesitation. If I didn't she would be dead before the week's end.

I strode quickly and unconcealed from the shadows. Her head stopped bobbing the moment the sound came to attention behind her and she whirled with a hidden dagger on me. But her time behind the screens and whatever training she thought she had was nothing to my own. I twisted her wrist and she cried out in pain dropping it before I snapped the butt of my rifle into her temple with enough force to knock a man twice her size out cold.

"Perfect. And we're waltzing out of that club of rebels with one of their leaders on your back?" She asked in a tone casual but dripping exasperation. 

I ripped my heavy jacket off and pulled the hood over her head. Then I slipped my arm around her waist and dragged her alongside me like she were a drunk not my lethal sister on the wrong side of a war that was about to break the city apart.

I levelled Makayla with a calm look. "That's exactly what we're doing. So shut up and get the door, Xavier."

She stared at me wordless for two beats. Then finally shook her head and went for the keypad.

"I'm dead either way when Scorpion sees me again so what's one more addition." She muttered.

The three of us left that dark room and the weight of another death behind us. Giving up on Dazz was like giving up on a dark part of myself. The most hideous part of it all was that I wasn't sure she would do the same for me any more.