VII. All In A Night's Work

Killers, Feds & Autocops...The Perfect Pregame For A Vacation

Art by Kevin John Jacob

If ever there was a night to remember, this was it. The night she blew out of town with one thing on her mind: her dear Nicky.

Lita was slamming together pint-sized suitcases full of the stuff she needed for a desert vacation. Her garb, some records she wanted to share, some utilities to keep the Red Devil going. She was saddled with the backwards problem of cramming it all into the boot of the Red Devil, the one where the pint-sized engine once sat. Not that she worried about making it all fit, not when her man was at the other end of the phoneline whispering all sorts of sweet-nothings into those dark gray ears of hers.

“Don’t forget Beautiful,” Nic growled in his husky baritone, “When you get done flooring that bad boy of yours, you and I are gonna take a ride like nothing you eva’ seen.”

She gave it all she had with her own ebony-soaked rasp. “When I get my fangs in ya Baby, you ain’t ever gonna believe what hit you.”

They could’ve kept it up all night, had it not been for the sudden, surprising ring of her other cell phone; The Hot Line. The Hit Line.

“Hang on Mountain Man,” she whispered, setting the private phone down. When she picked up the business line, she dropped her usual “Yello, who dis?”

“This the Avenger?” the voice answered, hushed but relaxed.

“Yeah. You ain’t fuzz or fucking with me?”

“When I tell you about the job, you’ll know why I don’t play with cops around here.” He was dead serious the way he spoke.

“Alright,” she answered coolly, “shoot the basics.”

“Meet me at 278 Webley. I want you to see me before I ask you to do this.”

Lita cocked an eyebrow. “Smells like a hit, you got five seconds to—”

“I’m unarmed and in a wheelchair. I want you to know why and what I want you to do about it. It ain’t a mail-order suicide either.”

The gray punk went stone silent. She pressed the business phone to her chest while she picked up the private line. “Nicky babe, looks like I got one last gig before I go. Real job this time.”

“Do what you always do Bitch,” he whispered in kind. “Nail ‘em to the wall.”

“Love you too” were her last words before snapping the business line back up to her ear. “Where you want me again?”

The mysterious contact gave her the directions, and in no time, the Red Devil was gassed up, loaded with luggage, and bolting for the Webley complex. She pulled up around back, and picked her way through the locks to get in. It was still inhabited, but there were no attendants or desk jockeys in the lobby. Not anymore. It looked like ACES had forgotten about this corner of the city.

Through the darkened halls she walked up the first flight of stairs, and soon enough, found herself at 278. She rapped on the door with her half-gloved hands before she swung back into her old code for clients. “Job need doing?”

“Unlocked” came the muffled reply. Sure enough, it was. The lights were on, though dim, when she entered. Room was the cleanest it could be in a joint like this. The client stared straight out the window, his weary eyes looking right up at Lita from the chair and through the glass.

“Won’t take long to sell you this.” he coughed.

He spun the wheelchair around. Nothing but a tank-top and a blanket over his legs. He was a black wolf, probably six even if he could stand. Those brown eyes were saying plenty already.

“Whoever they is, did this?” Lita inferred.

The hound scoffed. “If it was just this, I wouldn’t have called. It’s what they did to them.” He handed off a single photo from the bed. Within the faux-wood frame was her client in one of the Eastern District parks, standing tall next to a pretty gray. Cradled in her arms was a newborn, not far off from Lita’s own coat.

“Photo was taken just two weeks ago,” he continued. “The next week we got mugged. Elliot Graham, five-foot-ten with a snub-nose. Took her, took him, didn’t take me. I identified him right to the HPD attendants. They haven’t been able to find him for shit. So as you can see, Haven’s taking care of me just fine in the meantime.”

Lita’s eyes were glowing red in the half-light of the apartment when he handed her a folder full of other photos.

“Every shot they could find of him on surveillance.” he said dryly. “Let me keep them to ‘warn others.’ So I’m warning you.”

She thumbed through the shots. Some of them gave her a real good look at the tan-furred sonofabitch. “How bad you want it to hurt?” she asked.

“Just kill the fuck.” he bitterly replied. “So long as he’s dead, that’s all that counts. Rest is up to you. How much?”

Lita went to pull a figure out of her head, but her eyes fell back to the first photo. “Let’s put it on the house. I got places to be anyhow.”

The weary hound nodded. “This the last time I see you then?”

Lita shook her head and jotted down a number; her private line.

“If you ever need anything,” she said. “Call me here. Let me know how you’re doing. I’ll check in every now and then. Gotta name?”

“Call me Varrick,” he replied softly. “And…thanks. Means a lot.”

She left him with a smile and a “Be seeing you” before walking out. Once she was back behind the wheel, the game was on.

Enough of the photographs’ metadata pointed her to a particular part of the District. It was a block nicknamed Southpaw by most of the local street fighters, the reason being that it was the only way to fend off thugs like Graham when you didn’t have a peacemaker handy.

She pulled the Bug into an alleyway and killed the lights; didn’t want the bastard to see him when she hit him. Even if her first stabs at it were long shots, Lita always left the door open for fate to give her a chance. Unfortunately, her fed managed to sneak through the cracks too. And he wasn’t subtle about it.

"Evening.” came a sharp synthetic voice. From where was anyone’s guess, but she could hear it clear as day.

Then she felt the Bug jolt. Whoever it was, they had jumped right on his hood. She slammed her paw down and felt the creep roll over the top and onto the ground behind them. When she jumped out to see who had decloaked, no one was there.

Curious, Lita drew her Wildey and squeezed off a shot of dark green right where she figured the body had landed. The shot hit the cracked asphalt with a zap; nothing.

The second she was back behind the wheel, she heard the voice again. “Evening.”

At first, she didn’t know what to do, but having realized she just made her first hideaway of the night a marked spot, she chose to play it cool. She pulled the Red Devil onto the street and took him for a drive around the block. Maybe she’d catch her target on the prowl and could run him down.

Her first few laps were both fruitless, yet fruitful. She couldn’t find Graham anywhere on the beat. No hooded tan wolves to speak of, not even a shady character to mistake him for. There were others out walking the night, but they weren’t thugs. She could sense it in every set of eyes she saw. Drifters, street-dwellers, a few ladies of the night, but no thugs.

What she did find was where the mechanical utterance had come from; it was isolated to that first alleyway she had parked in. Along with the utterance of “evening” came the distant, low rumbling of hover-engines, the silver nose of the machine poking out from behind the brick of the alley,

“Just my luck” she muttered, driving past for the umpteenth time. It was time to give up the beat for now, and reorient herself.

Out came the phone and a smooth “Yo Malten, s’Lita.”

“Hey Urbie, what’s up?” came the biker’s gruff reply. She shook her head at the nickname before carrying on.

“Working on a quick case before I dip, I need eyes peeled for an Elliot Graham. Tan, five-seven, rocks Chucks, black denim, and a hoodie, packs a Colt Cobra. Pretty little thing he used to kill a mama and her babe during a mugging. Crippled the husband. I want his ass before I leave.”

“You got it Hoss.”  he said. “Will keep you posted. Sending some of the cats out to prowl for you.”

“Right on brother man.” she grinned. “Right…oh shit!”

The fuzz bristled at the sight of the Red Devil, bearing down on him at full throttle. One from the alley, one from up the side street, and one dead ahead. And all three manically screaming in that wretched voice she knew too well.

“LITA DARLING! IT’S YOUR FAVORITEST GOD MIC IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!” 

With cackling mania, the fed’s voice rushed at the Bug, the silver autocops ready to crush the car in a kamikaze frenzy. Lita gunned the Red Devil for the opposite side of the street. Just as the Bug leapt forward

CRASH!

The front and side hovercraft nicked the Beetle as he made his escape. The force shot the car down the street, bucking and swerving wildly as Lita fought for control. Manic behind the wheel, she tried to get him back on course. When her eyes snapped up to the rearview, she caught an all-too familiar sight; the third hovercraft had cleared the wrecks of the other two.

“Oh, what the hell?” she grimly chuckled.

With another autocop on her tail, Lita rammed the throttle down, claws out and dug deep in her worn-out sandals and the leather of the wheel. The Bug screamed down the road with the silver law machine hot on his wheels. Up the needle went, clearing 60, 70, 80. She shifted, ready for 100 to roar from that monstrous V8 of his.

They were at 95 when it happened.

From out of nowhere, a wolf darted into the road. She didn’t have time to nail the brakes down when the body slammed into the front and spun over the car like a rush of leaves. When she did finally stop, she swung the car around to see who she had hit. And to her surprise, so too did the autocop.

Every part of him was bloodied from the neck down, but the caved-in face told her plenty; she had gotten Elliot Graham. Just like that, from out of nowhere. The question of who he was running from was answered when a small team of bikers cruised away, leaving her and the silver machine to survey the body.

“GODDAMNIT!”  her fed roared from the hovercraft’s PA system. “He wasn’t supposed to get killed until later. And you weren’t supposed to do that you fucking speed demon! Why’d you have to go and do that? Jesus FUCKING H!”

“You telling me the gig was all planted?” she scowled.

There was silence at first, then a disgruntled sigh. “No. We just let him keep running around killing until he got in your sights.”

When the dark gray punk looked up from the killer she had slayed, her crimson eyes were afire with rage. Sickened by the thought of this bloodied trash heap being set loose, revolted by the tact of her “friendly neighborhood agent,” and above all else, still thinking about Varrick in that cold, clammy apartment.

“I know you ain’t in there.” she growled, half-gloved hand on her Wildey, “But I hope you fucking choke on this you goddamn PIG!”

With the fierceness of a Wild West gunman, she drew and hammered into every one of the hover engines with her .357, the arcs of green laser fire thrashing the machine into a volcano of sparks as the beast dropped to the road with a mighty crunch. It didn’t detonate immediately, not that she cared by now. Lita simply turned her back, climbed back into the Red Devil, and dropped the hammer.

On her business phone, she chose to leave a text; “Graham dead. All wrapped up.” On her private line, she had received one from Malten: “Scumbag’s worth 120 points. 10/10 form.” It lightened the mood enough for her to go in on her favorite post-job past-time: hitting a blunt. With each drag, she felt some of the bile leave her as they drew nearer and nearer to the Haven border.

There was one thing branded her mind though, even with the plumes swirling about her: she wanted this hound on her ass dead. She wanted him worse than dead. If she couldn’t make Graham suffer, he wanted this bastard to feel nothing but a heaping pile of pain in his gut for a full week before she put him out to pasture. She wanted this fed flambeed.

Her claws were out just thinking about everything she’d do to him when she made it to the border. The tall, chain-link wall was frayed in this section, the top of it peeling off like a tattered poster. Hopefully the nanotech wasn’t in the middle of refortifying it.

“Alright,” she sighed. “The way that sucka’s built, should be like tissue paper now. Sic ‘em, tough guy!”

The Bug surged forward, barreling for the border with every horse galloping under the hood. She shifted to keep the momentum up, the chain link drawing nearer and nearer until

CLINK!

“You gotta be shitting me!”

The Bug bounced right off like a basketball, and no matter how many layups she went in for, it didn’t seem to budge.

As with any problem, when running it down didn’t work, she tried gunning it down. Lita swung her head out, Dragunov in hand, and worked the sniper rifle up and down her chunk of the border in a radiant display of blue beams and white sparks. She knew she’d catch the eyes of the border patrols shortly, so with a quick toke, and all fingers crossed, she whipped the Red Devil back.

“Alright,” she growled. “If this don’t do it, we drag the mutha apart.”

She threw him into gear and set him loose once more. Tires pounding pavement, her feral snarl at the sight of the infernal barrier, the engine screaming like a raving mad lunatic.

It was just what they needed to break free of the City, and into the desert. Next stop: Doc’s Oasis.