NEON AND YVONNE WERE GOING batshit stir crazy. It was Neon’s idea to leave Shig’s anteroom and wander outside. From all reports, the big fish was back in its grotto, although Milo, Ramses, Kichi and Foom stayed nearby it on the ships just to be sure; this Buford asshat was on lock down; Atlantis was a no-fly zone and, lastly, not a single enemy or faction had made a peep the last several hours. Stars exist in multi-dimensions, and Atlantis’ portion of the sun slid down the color spectrum into citrus blasts, the sky’s last bits of blue becoming umber. The only other quiet evening they’d spent in Atlantis had gotten them attacked by vampires.
They both had cross-checked the packs on their backs and the guns on their belts. Tata and For Now. Full breach gear, no ass to kick.
They knew not to wander far. Matter of fact, leaving the facility hadn’t occurred to them. It was large and open enough that it felt like outside. The hallways of the government building glittered in places, catching strategic bits of light along walls which gradually darkened and lightened. The air was too perfect not to be filtered. Abstract installations of art, plants, or a combination of the two sprouted at every juncture.
They knew not to bother the angels. That left one person: Shig Empa. In a very soft way he was one of the strongest people the ladies had ever met. Just being around him would offer comforts as they waited for the crews to return.
The Atlantidean might have characterized himself as a minor functionary but it was never hard running into someone who knew precisely where he was.
A man cloaked head to toe in a gauzy black burqa pointed them in the direction of a meditation chamber. For a government building it was littered with those chambers. Neon couldn’t quite imagine Congressmen meditating.
The rooms were windowless, unmonitored, soundproof and built for one though large enough for two or three.
Yvonne knew meditation wasn’t necessarily a non-physical thing.
The doors were clear glass; this one had darkened to obsidian, which meant a chamber was occupied and the occupant wished to be disturbed only in extreme emergency. It was not locked. Doors in Atlantis rarely were. Courtesy was not optional.
The fact that they were in Atlantis counted as an emergency, so unless Shig was in there wanking furiously he was about to have company, maybe even show them a few techniques, meditative or otherwise.
They walked in. Shig’s assistants, Giselle Jira and Wither Ween, were with him. Wither was on top of him; mostly her knee was. It was in his back. A piece of clothing served as makeshift garrote in the clenched hands she pulled with. Shig, the stubborn bastard, wouldn’t stop moving. His face led his body through contortions. Giselle was half naked and unmoving.
Wither jumped off and tried to run but there was only a doorway, the two out-Blanks, and hardly space to get to decent ramming speed. Yvonne palm-struck Wither hard in the left shoulder, knocking her off balance and in position for a left hook. She expected the Atlantidean to go down. They seemed so soft and fragrant, like babes whose bones never fully hardened under tender, perfect skin.
That punch, instead, ignited a sudden influx of rage in the Atlantidean’s eyes.
Neon saw this. She backed a step into the doorway to give Yvonne room. Yvonne read Wither’s stance as that of a fighting person, a smaller one who would realize a flurry attack was her only viable option, but who would realize from Yvonne’s stance that Yvonne would be aware of this and counter with in-close fighting coupled with—judging from the near blinding throb from the previous blow—solid, definitive punches. Plus there was the woman behind Yvonne.
Suicide it was then. That or massacre. No three ways about it. Wither met Yvonne’s eyes.
They began.
Wither clawed, drew blood but not as much pain as she’d hoped.
Yvonne followed with a perfectly synchronized backhand swipe, catching Wither across the chin.
Wither backpedaled, stopping short of tripping over the unconscious Shig, then quickly shot her lithe body forward, feinting left, trying for a leg sweep right. Yvonne raised her leg, allowing Wither’s foot to pass under, then spun with a solid elbow to the jaw.
Her turn now to corner the Atlantidean. If Shig’s attacker had a weapon she’d have used it by now—she’d have used it on Shig—so up close and personal would see this fight over before the smaller woman could land any decent blows. Yvonne tried a strike which Wither easily parried, blocked a strike from her, meant to thrust a knee in a groin but instead left her own midsection exposed, into which Wither delivered two quick punches, knocking Yvonne’s breath out in an explosive whuf!
Yvonne grabbed one of Wither’s punching arms and twisted, whirling Wither face first into the nearest wall. Hard.
She bent the woman’s arm behind her back pressed close. “I’ve got three more walls to choose from,” she said.
The struggle went out of Wither, who tried to go dead weight. Using the split-second lack of tension Yvonne hauled Wither into the air into a body slam.
Wither was done.
Yvonne rolled the limp woman over. “Tata,” she said.
“For now,” Neon added perfectly, her heart bathed and crazed in adrenalin. She opened Yvonne’s pack for restraining coils.
“Let’s never quip again,” said Yvonne.
“Agreed.” Neon checked Shig while Yvonne applied the restraints. “He’s not dead.” She checked Giselle. “Alive.” She stepped outside the room. Still quiet and deserted. She pulled her comm out. “Raffic? We have a situation.” She hit video on the comm and swung it around. “They attacked Shig.”
“Sit tight,” he said from his post guarding Buford.
“You can’t leave. He’ll escape or something,” said Neon.
“Hardly.”
“Yvonne can bring her to you.”
“I’m not dragging this woman through the hallway.”
Neon shushed her. “I can take care of Shig and the naked man. Send whoever you need to down here. Meds, police, whatever.”
“Done,” said Raffic. “Anything else?”
“No.”
He signed off.
“She weighs less than your hips,” said Neon.
Which is how Yvonne DeCarlo Paul came to be carrying Wither Ween over her shoulder toward Raffic the Mad Buddha deep in a detention center in the heart of Atlantis. If that wasn’t worth a future memoir, thought Yvonne, nothing was.