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Roland awoke to the sounds of fighting. It was a sad testament to the nature of his existence that this did not cause him undue alarm. His mind was foggy, and his body fairly vibrated with a dull ache that long experience told him was a few billion nanobots rebuilding large sections of his body. He glanced down and saw that he was still connected to the interface plug and swore quietly under his breath while he began the undocking sequence. Twelve seconds later, the visible section of the plug began blinking red and Roland pulled the device out of his abdomen and resealed the port cover. Free of his electrical nursemaid, the big man stood quickly and strode with purpose through the archway that separated the living room from his main foyer to investigate the matter.
He was so focused on the sounds of brawling that he nearly stepped on the unconscious man sprawled just inside the opening. Roland was heavy enough to smash a man’s guts out through his mouth if one was stupid enough to get underfoot, so it was only through the divine benevolence of providence and the hyper-fast reflexes of an army cyborg that the sleeping man was not killed outright.
Roland looked up from his awkward stumble to see Lucia locked in a savage scrap with a very large man in a very cheap suit. The man was over six feet tall and probably tipped the scales close to the three-hundred-pound mark. To see Lucia’s lithe, athletic one-hundred-thirty-pound mass trading strikes with a behemoth like that was frankly comical.
It should not have been comical, of course. Lucia’s opponent, at more than twice her mass, would have been an obstacle impossible for her to overcome under normal conditions. If one connected, a single blow from a man that size could severely injure or even kill the small woman. But it was apparent that there was virtually no chance of any blow connecting. The man in the suit was certainly big, and he was obviously very strong. Roland even felt charitable enough to allow that he may in fact be rather tough, too. It wasn’t hard to imagine that the shaggy-haired goon was a scary guy most of the time.
But it didn’t really matter because Lucia was pure magic.
An entire childhood spent training in assorted martial arts coupled with the most sophisticated neural upgrades in the galaxy made Lucia Ribiero a nearly untouchable fighter. Watching her smack around an oversized Dockside mook was like observing a mongoose kill a snake.
Roland grunted in approval. Yeah, if the snake was swimming in molasses and the mongoose was hopped up on amphetamines, the cyborg adjusted his assessment to better reflect the reality.
Lucia was dressed in regular street clothes, so she was unassisted by her normal Level II body armor or her much-beloved PC-10 gauntlets. While Roland was suitably fascinated and furthermore captivated by how her snug pants and fashionably tight top accentuated her natural athletic beauty, they offered her little protection from the giant paws of her determined assailant. Worse, without the gauntlets adding a damaging electrical charge to her punches, she was left with only her own mass and strength with which to retaliate.
But she was very strong and more to the point; she was blindingly, stupidly, preposterously fast. Not just her body, but her mind and her reflexes as well. Her balance was flawless, her agility superhuman. She was out-striking the man seven-to-one; and no quantity of mass or strength was going to overcome a deficit like that. On top of it all, and fully ensuring the ignominious defeat of the poor, stupid, hapless bastard that had made the mistake of angering her was the fact that Lucia was much smarter than he was.
Roland could already tell that she wasn’t even trying to damage the man’s body or knock him out. It was clear that while she was very strong she simply lacked the mass to do that. No, one look at the leaking and mashed mess of cartilage and blood in the middle of the man’s face told Roland that Lucia had worked the nose over more than once already. This forced the man to breathe from his mouth, and every time the stupid thug opened his maw to gasp for air, Lucia would drive an elbow into it. Through the prodigious swelling and fountains of blood Roland saw numerous indications that this trick had been worked more than once during the fight.
Roland winced at the thought of how many teeth the man was already missing and hoped that the stupid bastard wised up before he was forced onto a liquid diet forever.
I hope his dentist is top-notch, cuz’ that is gonna be one ugly smile if he doesn’t button up his defense.
Eventually the bleeding goon caught on and tried to protect his ruined face with his arms. Lucia used this opportunity to kick him three times below the belt in a staccato knee-groin-knee pattern that dragged another sympathetic wince from the giant soldier.
With a yowl, the goon looped a haymaker left hand at the tiny woman which never had a prayer of making contact. Lucia was under the massive limb and arcing her own blow into the exposed throat of her opponent before his arm even reached full extension.
Her tiny fist sank into his neck and drew a gurgling cough that sprayed blood and teeth all over Roland’s floor. Lucia’s fusillade was only starting, though. The hand withdrew to fire four more blows like tiny blades into his ears, eyes and then back to the ruined fleshy pulp of his nose. A nasty cut opened above the man’s left eye and blood leaked in great red rivulets into the socket and down that ruined face. The man howled again. “Fucking bitsch!” he slurred through ruined teeth and swollen lips. Another lurching punch missed its target by a wide margin, “Sthoopid fugging cunth!”
Roland’s eyes went wide, “Oh, you poor dumb bastard!” He breathed softly and forced himself to watch what happened next.
Lucia’s face went grim for just the briefest fraction of a second before she rotated hard on her left foot and chambered her right leg as far back as she could. Then, uncoiling like a spring, that right leg whipped around in an arc so rapid that the air snapped as her foot knifed through it.
When her shin made contact with the now-doomed man’s left leg, it did so on the outside of his knee. The sound, Roland had to admit, was a little bit sickening. The noise was reminiscent of carpet being torn up from an old wooden floor. It was a tearing, popping, cracking sound that was only eclipsed by the escalating screams of a man who moments before, had been the owner of two healthy and functional knees.
“Timber,” Roland drawled with an eye roll while the large, stupid, weeping thug crashed to the floor like so much cordwood.
All fight fled from the broken puddle of flesh sobbing and bleeding in Roland’s foyer. Gone was the swaggering braggadocio of professional street muscle, and all that remained was a badly beaten man leaking pride and fluids onto the carpet. This seemed to satisfy Lucia’s temper, and she straightened calmly. She spared a moment to reassemble her hair from its dishevelled state and forced her face into a facade of regal calm while she adjusted her clothing.
“That is no way to talk to a person!” She scolded the man with mock severity, “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“What mouth?” Roland joked, startling her, “I think you killed it. He’ll be dining on milkshakes for a year now.” The man on the floor only whimpered louder. “You shut the fuck up and stay down,” Roland barked, “Unless you want to do a round with me next.” Roland rolled his shoulders as if to loosen them and the defeated thug raised his hands in surrender and leaned back against the wall.
“Good boy,” Lucia snickered, “Now stay!”
She turned to look at Roland, “Was that too much? Too hard? Should I not have done that?” Her role as part of the Dockside population was very new to Lucia, and she often worried about how to handle the more exciting aspects of its unique culture.
Roland assured her, “Nope. You did right. He was too big to risk holding back.”
“Good,” she sighed, “I tried working the body, but it was like punching a tree.”
“Nose was a good call. No way to work out the nose. Once it’s busted breathing is a real bitch. Wears big guys down fast,” Roland had more than a little experience with that.
“Yeah, Rodrigo always told me that if I couldn’t hurt them to the body, go for the nose or the eyebrows,” she gestured to the gash above her downed opponent’s left eye, still bleeding profusely into his eye socket, “Kill the eyes, kill the breath, then work ‘em to death.”
Roland chuckled, “I think I’d like Rodrigo. He still teach?”
Lucia ducked her head, “Still has a gym in the Sprawl, yup.”
A throat politely cleared behind them, and the pair turned to acknowledge the sound; faces painted with bemused expectation. The man who Roland had nearly tripped over was standing with his hands raised in a show of surrender. He was an excessively average sort. Not tall, not short, not fat, not thin. He had dark hair in a neat part and an olive-tan face just starting to show the lines of middle age. His right cheek bore the purpling imprint of a size-eight woman’s casual shoe.
Roland spoke first, “yes?”
“First of all, I would like to apologize,” the man began in a thick Malldown accent, “My associate and I seem to have given your woman the wrong impression...”
Lucia’s teeth clenched and her eyebrows began the long trek up her forehead. Roland suspected that the man was about to receive a matching set of facial bruises if the conversation could not be redirected. He tried to salvage the interaction, but conversation was not his forte, “I would re-evaluate your assessment, Mr... uh?”
“Timmons, sir.”
“Mr. Timmons. Yes. Well, it would help us all move along from our initial misunderstanding if you would take some care in how you address Ms. Ribiero. She is faster than I am and I can’t promise she won’t maim you before I can restrain her. Honestly, I may not even try. Namely because I don’t want her to maim me either.” Roland smiled, “Wiser men than you have learned this, and tougher men than him”— Roland jerked a thumb toward the injured man on the floor— “have suffered worse for their ignorance.”
“I... see,” Timmons acknowledged slowly, “My apologies again, Ms. Ribiero. We were obviously unaware of your... relationship to Mister Tankowicz.”
“Holy shit that is the worst apology I have ever heard,” Lucia half-snarled, “But why don’t you take this opportunity to explain to”—she gave Roland an epic side-eye—“Mr. Tankowicz, why you tried to force your way into his apartment. Through me, I might add.”
Timmons paled, “I really am sorry about that. Our instructions were not to take ‘no’ for an answer, and I am afraid that Mr. Holhouse”—he gestured to his downed associate—“was not retained for his creativity or interpersonal skills. He chose a rather inopportune moment to display initiative.” Timmons spoke as if he only barely understood the words he was using. This was a man who wanted to sound smarter than he actually was, and rarely fooled anyone.
Holhouse made a rude gesture to Timmons and Timmons smiled back, “Ms. Ribiero appears to have handled his oversight with uh... admirable... dexterity, so I don’t believe we need to escalate that matter any further, right?”
"Sure." Roland spoke for the both of them, but a point needed to be made, “But be advised, Timmons. Ms. Ribiero is a kind-hearted sort, and she currently adheres to the silly philosophical premise that all life has value and thus homicide should be avoided. She is perplexingly flexible when it comes to inflicting grievous bodily harm, I’ve noticed. But she does tend to avoid killing.”
“I do not have any such philosophical compunctions,” Roland’s voice was capable of hitting a rumbling base pitch that could be felt inside the chest. He used it now, “So please understand that violating the sanctity of my home has been the cause of death for more than one mid-level capo. You were fortunate that it was Ms. Ribiero who answered the door, and you are fortunate that she is unharmed. Do I need to elaborate?”
Timmons bowed his head politely, “Your message is received, Mr. Tankowicz, and again my apologies to Ms. Ribiero.”
Lucia rolled her eyes again as the man was still talking only to Roland. Roland shrugged in exasperation, “Why don’t you just tell me why you are here so I can throw you out before Ms. Ribiero loses her temper and you lose a testicle?”
Timmons managed to look relieved and terrified simultaneously. Lucia lost her battle with a snort of laughter and Timmons’ face turned red with embarrassment, “Well, I represent Rodney McDowell and he...”
“THE DWARF?” Lucia guffawed while Roland slapped a palm to his forehead. Timmons did not think it was funny.
“Mr. McDowell prefers people not call him that...”
Roland interrupted, “You couldn’t fill a goddamn thimble with how much I care about what Rodney wants. Just go down there and tell that pint-sized bastard that I will come and see him first thing tomorrow. Tell him that sending goons to my house has put me in a very bad mood. If I find out that the reason Ms. Ribiero has to soak her knuckles in Epsom salts tonight was anything less urgent than the goddamn apocalypse of Revelations, then I am going to rip his other arm off.”
Timmons blanched, “Mr. McDowell was very clear that your presence was not required at...”
“GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE!” Roland’s voice rattled the floor boards and cowed Timmons like a whipped dog.
“B-but I have to...” Timmons did not get to finish his thought because Lucia grabbed him by the ratty lapel of his shabby suit and hurled him against the door. She slapped the release, and the panel slid open behind the stammering man.
“Take your pet asshole and go.” Her voice was calm, but stern. Timmons realized that the situation was unsalvageable and looked blankly at the mutilated face of his broken companion.
“Come on, Holhouse.” His voice was heavy with defeat, “Lurch your way up so we can go. Try not to fuck this up any more than you already have on the way out.”
The lumbering goon shuffled to his feet with much grunting and gasping. Timmons helped support him as his wrecked knee was not likely to accept any weight for a long time. Together, the two wobbled precariously through the door and began the terrifying descent down the stairs to a waiting AeroCar.
Lucia watched them enter the vehicle and waited for it to pull away before she punched the door latch. When the door slid closed, she turned to look up at Roland, “Sorry about that, big guy. You OK? How are you doing with the uh... healing?” She shrugged. It was as good a word as any for it.
“How long have I been out?” He asked, “My clock was shut down with the rest of me.”
Lucia checked her watch, “Going on fifty-five hours. We were going to wake you at forty-eight, but Dad said to let you stay down as long as possible, and Dockside wasn’t falling apart yet.” She shrugged again, “So we let you sleep.”
“I unplugged to investigate your little party out here, so I don’t have the numbers, I figure my internals are probably half done with the repairs, call me eighty percent whole or so.”
“Is eighty percent good?”
“Lady, eighty percent of me is plenty,” he gave her a wolf grin.
The lady was unimpressed, “I’m serious. Dad says not to let you out until you are eighty-five percent and even then, I’m not supposed to let you, uh... exert yourself until you are over ninety-five.”
The big man sighed, “Don worries too much. I took on a whole ship full of pirates at the Discovery Gate when my internals were less than fifty percent back in forty-one. I can handle Dockside at eighty, no problem.”
“Roland, don’t be a jackass.” Her eyes betrayed deep concern buried beneath her sharp tone, “It’s not Dockside that scares me.”
The bald head ducked a nod, "I get it. And you are right. A couple of those assassin ‘bots or a squad of mercs would be a real problem right now. I get that. But fifty-five hours is a goddamn eternity in Dockside. I need to know who’s moving and what’s going on out there."
“And now we have to go see what the goddamn Dwarf wants. But it’s OK. I’ve got you to watch my back now.” He smiled, gesturing to the new cuts and scrapes adorning the knuckles of her tiny hands, “Better grab your gloves, though. Can’t have you ruining your manicure pulling my weight for the next couple of days, can we?”
“You want a busted nose, too, smart guy?”
“Just try not to heel-kick Rodney in the face this time, OK?” Roland remembered the last trip to the Hideaway, less than two months prior. The Dwarf’s erstwhile lair had only just re-opened in the previous two weeks, such was the damage Roland and his partner had left in their wake.
Lucia snorted, raw derision creasing her face, “No promises.”