Futuristic Reptiles (In the city under a radiation storm)

[Jodyguru]

Signor’s eyes widened a bit. “Oh no no. Mia madre! Hurting their soldiers will only provoke a response. I want to shake them at the foundation. Ricardo knows what I’m talking about.” He looked at Reggie and smiled.

“I-I do.” Reggie said raspily.

“Well good then. So, I must ask you again Ms. Octavia. Will you protect my boy?”

 

[Joyeful]

She didn't bother to correct him. It was better than what her parents had called her.

And thank all things holy.
Dammit, Adam is dead. Deal with it, Jax.

"I'll try my best, Signor. If not torture, what is the task?"

 

[Jodyguru]

Signor grumbled and cleared his throat. “My boy will handle that part. I will let him run his mouth while you get ready to leave tonight.” Signor stood up and patted crumbs off his suit.

“I must go now, regretfully. Stay, eat, enjoy yourselves. Be my dutiful soldiers.”

 

[Joyeful]

She nodded slowly, noting that she was fairly dry.
That usually doesn't happen. Guess I wasn't horrifyingly nervous?

"Alright then..."
Jax turned to Reggie, lowering her voice to an angrier tone. "You're going to have to give me an explanation."
She had always hated being confused. Some things could become royally screwed over with the right dose of a lack of attention to detail, or just with people not knowing what in hell was going on.

 

[Jodyguru]

Reggie nodded. As the Signor passed by, he stuck a ringed hand towards him. Reggie reached and kissed the man's hand. The Signor left with a couple men in a car that drove off.

"An explanation of what, why he gives people weird names, or what he expects me to do? Because fuck if I know. I need to use the wash room." Reggie got up and left without looking at her. He had been quiet all day, not even saying good morning. He needed some time alone to collect his thoughts and come up with a plan. He already had a small idea of what the boss wanted, it was just a matter of making it happen.

There was a small panel of wood covering a hole in the men's bathroom. Reggie approached it and knocked a couple times.

"Whossat?"
"Its Snake. Cough it up."
"What you want?"
"Cherry Tinge. I've got some work to do."
"Fine, but we're even now."
"Alright"

The panel opened and a sickly yellow hand placed a dose of colorful red glass in Reggie's palm. Reggie pocketed it, took a dump, and cleaned himself up before returning to Jax.

"I've got the workings of a plan, but we need to visit a fixer." Reggie said. If they were going to pull off a job, they'd need some equipment.

 

[Joyeful]

Jax wanted to snarl a few very, very choice words, but she refrained, settling for a death glare instead, and a tone that broadcasted exactly how pissed off she was.

"Fine. For what."
So what if she was being snippy? She had a right- Reggie had lied to probably the most supportive and monetarily affluent, yet eternally terrifying, person in the city. If her ass was served on a plate thanks to him, she'd make sure he got dished up first, that was for sure.

Besides. Adam was still on her mind- which, what the fuck? She had compartmentalized. But apparently dead people loved showing up in her mind, which was fine, as long as they weren't people she cared about.

 

[Jodyguru]

Reggie looked around the place. It was fairly empty, plus there was free food on the table. He sat back down and looked at Jax.

"We'll need body armor and some good ammo, some infiltration gear like glass cutters and rope, and I'll need at least five pounds of plastic explosives."

The words of Signor echoed in his mind. "Shake the foundations". A destroyed building was a lot more definitive than some dead cops.

"So do you know a good fixer? I'm pretty short on money and favors at the moment."

 

[Joyeful]

She rolled her eyes. "Congratulations. But yeah. I know people. I'm a thief, you think I sit on my ass all day?"

Maybe she was unjustifiably upset, but holy shit, walk into a building without a plan, why wouldn't ya'? Not like it would get anyone killed or anything.

Jesus, Jax, get Adam the fuck out of your head. Looks like someone needs to just give you a nice coma so you can forget about him, and move on. Hell, kiss Aliya, at long last. How 'bout it?

 

[Jodyguru]

Reggie sighed. “Look, I don’t know what your fucking problem is. I’m not the bad guy in this, I’m just taking the hits as they come, same as you. We got all day to work this out, so give me a break and help me come up with something.”

 

[Joyeful]

Jax rolled her eyes. "At long last, an idea that makes sense. So, you clearly have some kind of a plan that involves exploding something, most likely a building, if you're talking glass cutters and plastic bombs. Get the floor plans of whatever building it is. Breaking in will be easier that way."

She was definitely being too snippy. Tone it down, dammit. Stick your thoughts into their boxes, and shove them back in.

 

[Jodyguru]

Reggie thought a moment. “Floor plans eh? Does a hacker live in your little thievery circle? If so we should pay them a visit.”

 

[Joyeful]

"Yeah. One does. Wynd, unfortunately."
Oh, she was going to slap her as hard as she could once she found her. And then maybe one more time, for good measure. "She's the only one I know of."

 

[Jodyguru]

“Fuck” Reggie said and put his head on his hand. “Well she’s a Talon informant, so no chance there. I guess my guy will have to do, but it won’t be cheap. I hope you’re sure about this. We can always find a couple guys and go in hot and loud.”

 

[Joyeful]

Jax chuckled a bit. "I told you earlier that Aliya fights for herself. She owes me more than a little bit of money, believe it or not- I'll bet Talon probably helped her clear some of her other debts. Besides, thick as thieves is a phrase for a reason."

 

[Jodyguru]

Reggie folded his arms and stared at her. To him, thick as thieves was a very temporary arrangement.

“Let’s go.” He said, getting up and walking out of the restaurant. Once they got clear of the place, Reggie decided continue the conversation.

“I have a question. Are you familiar with post-traumatic stress? Some people see visions of people who died. Others block out the stress object completely. I ask because last night you yelled at me about whimpering in my sleep. I’m still confused about the whole thing, but I know one thing for sure: I wasn’t having sweet dreams.”

 

[Joyeful]

Jax sighed, running a hand through her hair, letting it become apparently greasy.
"PTSD, yeah. If you have some kind of traumatic memory fucking with you... I'm just used to whimpers being associated with sex. Sorry, I guess," she shrugged. This was definitely something she didn't want to talk about- she remembered the amount of times she'd woken up screaming in the months after Aliya had pulled her from the wreck of her old life.

Jax really, really didn't want to address that shit- why else would she compartmentalize?

 

[Jodyguru]

Reggie wasn't sure why he brought it up. Her apology didn't give him much comfort, though it seemed like the only appropriate thing for her to say. He slowed his walking pace so that she would start to pass him.

"Sex with me wouldn't cause whimpers. More like screaming. Horrible screaming. Nobody gets too close to me, because they might get stuck with venom."

 

[Joyeful]

Again, she shrugged. "Reg, do whatever the hell you want involving sex and screaming and venom or whatever. If something goes horribly wrong, I can chuck a body damn quick. Just keep it to yourself, alright?"

It was such an apathetic thing to say, Jax almost apologized. But... why should she? Reggie was Reggie. And his life was his. She didn't need to know about it.
Still, she slowed down a little. "You in pain or something?"

 

[Jodyguru]

Reggie wasn't in pain, but the coldness he felt coming from Jax's answers didn't sit well with him. Talking about screaming and venom only made him feel colder. "N-no... no I'm not. Jax, are you alright with asking this chick for help? She might get the wrong idea and try something again. In every crew I've been in, we had a code word for when it was time to, uh, take a teammate's share. You know what I mean?"

Looking at him, Jax could see he was pale and sweaty. It was a humid day and he was wearing a lot of clothes, but he sounded nervous.

 

[Joyeful]

Jax looked extremely uncomfortable. She didn't want to deal with this, whatever it was- for the moment, she'd shove it off as withdrawal, though she knew that wasn't right.

"Blast, I guess? It can be put iito a normal conversation," one about drugs, because that was a normal conversation, "And Aliya, for all her skills, is pretty clueless to code. She's no hitman, I'll say that much."

 

[Jodyguru]

Reggie shook his head. “Her being loose like that is exactly what worries me. Blast is okay, but a bit too easy to come up in conversation. We’re planting a bomb after all. How’s about ‘sneaky bandits’. It’s an old phrase Signor loved to use”

Reggie walked behind Jax the rest of the way until they’d eventually reach a place where Jax thought they’d look for Aliya.

 

[Joyeful]

"Should work," Jax shrugged, eyeing the shop they'd arroved at up and down, scanning for clues, or marks, anything. "Yeah. She's been here."
She didn't explain how she knew- Reggie didn't need to know that. They weren't exactly friends, despite the fact that she called him by the nickname.

Jax enjoyed pretending, enjoyed being in control of a situation, and the old thrill was back as she pushed open the door, walking in and glancing around.
"Not much has changed, I see..." she murmured, looking over what seemed to be a variety of dreamcatchers, beads, and other decorations from before the world died.

 

[Jodyguru]

Hand woven relics draped themselves over Reggie’s face as he walked through the shop. He felt something about this place, like coursing energies flowing downward from the ceiling. Like how one could tell a refrigerator was on by the low hum, Reggie felt like a great amount of power was passing through here.

“There’s definitely someone working here. I think they’ve got computers hooked up in the basement. I can hear generators.”

 

[Joyeful]

"Well, Derek has always been kind of a tech guy," she shrugged. "Downstairs is where all the real stuff is. This is just to make side money, for him."

She breathed in the scent of the place, seeming to reminisce for a moment, before walkwalkingto a back wall, where quite a few doorknobs were displayed.
Scanning over them, Jax smiled as she found one and turned it.

 

[Jodyguru]

Derek was laid back in his computer chair with headphones on. He had one foot on the seat and the other dangling off the floor. Derek was a smaller guy and noticeably thin. His pallid complexion made him appear sickly, and in many ways he was. Aliya had finished nagging him about getting his work done, but he'd told her many times that the data was compiling, and there was nothing left to do today. Truthfully, he was halfway finished with the work. Mining data was boring. Since he was the code monkey, he could say ´compiling´a hundred times a day and get away with it.

¨Hey Aiya, someone´s coming downstairs. Might wanna deal with it, just saying.¨

Jax and Reggie walked down a spiral staircase that was lit by a small glowing butterfly on the wall. On the other side of the door was a mattress with a familiar woman sitting on it, holding a loaded gun to the door.