Archive of Our Own

A cloying mist of cigarette smoke in the air and broken glass underfoot. Lights down low to hide the squalor, accumulated tar seeping from the poster covered walls and stains on the threadbare chequered carpet. Every surface replete with the traditional stickiness of a dive bar, accumulated by thousands of spilled drinks, blood and sweat. The drinking hole was cramped and packed with bodies, boozing and doing business in the cracked pleather booths that looked to be ripped straight from a strip joint. Cheap perfume, cologne, foul breath and untreated infections. A melange of people, from the dirt poor and corpos slumming it, to the augment-bedecked high tier operators drinking hard to forget their last gig or celebrate it. The Pig n’ Whistle’s uneven floored three storeys catered for them all, with drinks behind the sizable bars to sate every palate. The crowning glory was the music played so loud that it made the old, neon-lit walls vibrate and interrupted rational thought. Nefera loved it.

A sensible person would have stuck their nose into the former public house and run a mile, but not Nef. The merc was in her element, knocking back pints with clockworklike regularity. Drinking away her last gig’s earnings as if she already had a choice hustle lined up to refill her wallet. Nef was, however, out to enjoy herself. She’d already clocked a couple of drug pushers working the crowd under the watchful eyes of the bouncers. The usual, evidently management approved, dealers who she thoroughly intended to make use of once she’d got a sufficient enough buzz on. Nef was on the prowl for a good time, whether it be drink, drugs or a pretty woman. The first she had well in-hand already, the latter two would be a great way to spend the rest of her evening should a party girl slide into her arms. Or anyone else for that matter once she was high enough.

The mercenary was looking for a little unrestrained hedonism and the Pig n’ Whistle had rarely let her down in the past. It was still early though and for the moment the crowd was mostly tame. In an hour or two the fixers would leave their booths before things got too rowdy or shift to the exorbitantly priced back rooms. There was always business going on, but once the no doubt illegally constructed dance hall opened up it’d get a bit too feisty to conduct their work out in public.

For the moment Nef was free to drink and people-watch. She knew that when the DJ got their set going she’d be drawn to the dance floor like a moth to an advertising hoarding. Was rather looking forwards to losing herself amidst the sweaty press of flesh where she could find a pretty, lithe thing to grind up on. She was horny enough already. Seeking release in amorous passion, free from commitment.

As far as Nef was concerned, nothing beat the feeling of slick, naked skin against her own while riding high in an MDMA haze, except perhaps swapping spit with someone equally freed from the confines of an unadulterated mind. There was a cheap, no questions asked, guest house close enough a drive to the bar that served exactly such fleeting customers once they’d endured enough foreplay. Rooms that were soundproofed, frequently bug-swept and clean enough to fuck in without fear of catching tetanus. Nef had a multiply stamped loyalty card for it. One more night and she’d get a free stay and a bottle of cheap sparkling fizz.

The merc surveyed her hunting grounds with well-practiced, unnaturally green eyes. The augment embedded in the left providing her with an overlaid readout of names and basic information of punters who hadn’t scrubbed or spoofed their personal IDs. Nef had sensibly deactivated the threat targeting parameters. The only flickering light show she needed would come with the dance hall’s pyrotechnics. Besides, for all the rough and rowdy behaviour on display she wasn’t expecting a dust up to flare into life. The Pig n’ Whistle was ostensibly neutral ground and the bouncers were quick enough on the trigger to give the black and red-haired human a run for her money. Places where violence regularly broke out drew attention from the authorities and no one wanted that sort of thing. Bribes to the enforcement officers didn’t stretch to bloodbaths.

She flagged down a pusher when he made his way close enough. His data presented as a fuzzy and unreadable smear on Nef’s ocular implant, but that did not stop her from buying a couple of bags of good time before pocketing them and returning to her vigil. Leant up against an old wooden pillar covered in stapled flyers for bands and dollymops she was quite happy to work on her beer and watch. There weren’t many tempting options in yet. Although a very heavily augmented couple at the bar caught her attention as a possible source of a feverish night of passion.

A dark-haired elf and a blonde human, both sporting wedding bands on their armoured fingertips. The elf was dressed in fashionable baggies and had decorated her augments with cherry blossom stickers. By the way that the elf moved it was also clear that she’d swapped out her legs for cyberware, just as Nef had done with her left arm and right foot. One of the elf’s limbs dragged slightly behind the other, prompting Nef to tut into her lager. The woman was clearly behind on maintenance. Her laughing, blonde partner looked much more put together. Yet despite the smiles and cheeriness she exuded the don’t fuck with me vibe of a serious professional. It wasn’t simply the ‘tacticool’ chic aesthetic that she was rocking either. Game recognise game, thought the merc.

Nef set her gaze on the pair. For the elf her readout gave the name Dainafae Ayling, profession barista, but the human’s provided her with elaborate ASCII art of an extended middle finger and nothing else in response to her scan. They had once been, or still were, seriously heavy hitters. Not that Nef had seen either on the scene before. Military grade cybernetics aside, that alone told her that it wasn’t worth the risk, even if a threesome with a married couple was most definitely on Nef’s to do list. If she were to make a guess it would be that they were corpo affiliated assassins. Too much baggage came with that territory.

Besides, there was no need to jump at the first pretty women that she saw. Later, when everyone was loose and liquored up there would likely be easier pickings. Nef didn’t want a challenge. She wanted free spirited ecstasy and a slut who was just as eager to fuck as she was. Hookups for sex were part and parcel of a good night out in the city and there would undoubtedly be plenty of potential challengers for her rabid affections once the music started in earnest.

The interspecies couple dived on a booth when it opened up, quicker by a fair stroke than any other hopefuls. Nef quickly lost interest and resumed drinking, finally feeling the effects of fermentation tugging at her senses. Tipsy was a good state to be in. She needed to cut loose. Her last job hadn’t been hard, but it had produced an unusually sizable body count. While killing didn’t bother the mercenary in the slightest, it would have been odd if someone in Nef’s profession did care, she still desired to put it behind her. The merc was feeling flush, eager to lose every last credit she’d earned on unwholesome debauchery.

Nef sank another pint and bought another. She was still at the bar when a commotion caught her ear. Turning about, the human saw a gaggle of bouncers attempting to hem in a most bizarre figure.

The Pig n’ Whistle’s security were, to a soul, giant slabs of meat. Ex-jarheads and gym dominators with steroid infused muscles, but the woman they were surrounding towered above them all. A good seven foot of strikingly blue troll. Nef took a slurp of her fresh beer and watched on with initially amused interest as the stranger gesticulated wildly, a panicked expression upon her youthful features. She was causing a scene which was attracting the numerous heavies like sharks, alternating between shouting and pleading. Nef’s amusement began to rapidly fade as she saw the tears streaming down the woman’s cheeks. The troll didn’t look drunk and belligerent, nor was she tweaking. It was too loud to hear what she was trying to tell them, but the mercenary could still see that she was rather evidently in distress.

The smile bled from Nef’s lips and she paid a mite closer attention. Whoever she was, the troll looked like shit warmed up. Dirty and with ragged clothes that appeared to be just about falling apart. Had she not looked so unusual to Nef the merc might have taken her for a beggar escaped from a drunk tank. How she’d got into the Pig n’ Whistle at all was a mystery, one that the bouncers were evidently seeking to set right. As the security guards mobbed the blue woman and began to bundle her out, Nef’s curiosity got the better of her. Her ocular implant provided no data on the lanky rabblerouser, not even a scrubbed file, which was extremely curious.

Trolls were rare enough and it was unusual to see them outside of the east of the city where they’d set up small, destitute communities. Yet this poor thing looked nothing like any of the meta-humans Nef had come across before. She stood as straight as an arrow and beneath all the grime there was no sign of calcified growths or heavily pigmented blemishes on her skin. The young woman’s horns were elegant and swept back over her long orange hair, rather than presenting as unruly tangles of lumpy tissue as was traditional. So too did she sport markings that suggested a magic user about her eyes. Complex lines and curvilinear patterns that could easily be mistaken for tattoos by the uninitiated or ignorant. Something wasn’t right about the scene at all, not that anyone else rubbernecking at the confrontation seemed to care beyond the novelty of the spectacle.

Nef watched on with precious little pleasure as the bouncers bum-rushed the flailing troll and bundled her away towards the entrance. Clearly whatever she was selling, they weren’t interested in buying. The merc clicked her tongue in disapproval. A decent bouncer supported a woman in such a frantic state, they didn’t toss her out on her arse. There was a world of difference between someone in need of help and someone who had simply drunk too much and picked a fight with their misplaced confidence. Not that help ever came for free. Perhaps that was why the troll was being unceremoniously tossed. Didn’t look as though she had a pair of credits to rub together.

With a sigh the merc turned back to the bar, ignoring the jostle of other customers as she nursed her beer. Something didn’t seem remotely right about what she had just witnessed and deep down in the pit of her stomach there was an anxious knot forming. Whereas every other punter seemed to instantly forget the confrontation, Nef found that she couldn’t let it go. She was too curious about the uncanny woman. Perhaps even moved by the look of fear in her eyes as she was dragged out of the bar. The merc spat a curse under her breath and downed the last of her beer in a single, determined gulp. Lacking a gag reflex often had its benefits.

Before Nef knew it, her feet were carrying her out the door. What had promised to be a wild night of unhinged, drug-laced revelry had been soured. Ruined by a mixture of intrigue and worry. What could have possessed the troll to come in like that, looking like she did. Getting into scrapes with the security. Making a palaver. Was she an idiot or desperate enough for something that she’d risk the sanctity of a place like the Pig n’ Whistle to get what she needed. Nef had to know. With any luck she could tick off the nagging concern quickly and get back into the bar before the DJ hit their stride. Dab a little of the bitter MDMA on her tongue and slide into comfortable ecstasy as she had been intending.

The pistol in her hip holster was suddenly feeling extremely heavy though. As if it were expecting to be used. She knew it was just her imagination, but when the merc got that feeling it was hard to ignore. Just like the gravitas she awarded to her personal armaments before a job was about to go down. It was foolish to get involved, unpaid, in the business of others, but Nef was more than capable of a little foolishness when she set her mind to it.

Once outside the human merc fished out a cigarette and nonchalantly lit it. For a moment or two she stood with the others getting their nicotine fix away from the heat of the indoors. Clouds of sickly sweet vape smoke and more traditional tobacco aromas swirled about her as she grew accustomed to the icy embrace of the night. It definitely wasn’t the weather to be dressed as the troll had been. Her ragged crop top and cut-off jeans wouldn’t do a lick against the chill in the air.

Professional instincts kicked in immediately once away from the bustle of the drinking hole and Nef scanned the street outside for the woman. Not that there was hide nor hair of her to be seen. It would have been very easy to simply shrug and venture back into the Pig n’ Whistle, but Nef did not. Mayhap it was the icy bite of the air, or venturing away from thunderous electronic music, but returning to those comforts seemed impossible. Instead she sauntered casually over to the doorman, cigarette hanging from her lip. There wasn’t a queue yet, nor had the cover charge booth opened. Still too early.

‘Hey Nef. Want back in?’ grunted the gargantuan bouncer. The merc still wasn’t sure it was a positive thing that her frequent patronage of the bar had led the staff to know her by name.

‘Yeah, but also nah. Want more than anything to get drunk and get laid, but you know how it is. Duty fucking calls and all that bullshit.’ said Nef honestly. She lifted her mechanical fingers to her lips and took a drag on the cigarette, filling her lungs with the acrid smoke to feed her nicotine demon. ‘Say, did ya see where that weird troll went after she got bounced?’

‘You wanting to white knight this? Nef, seriously? Just gutter trash. Go back in, spend your cash. Have a good time. Can’t believe Mo let ‘er in to start with. That troll’s got trouble written all over her. Best to stay well clear. Management agreed. Came in and started pestering folks for something without seein’ a fixer first. Can’t be having that. Ain’t the way it’s done. Everyone knows that.’

‘Maybe she ain’t from round here. Maybe she’s desperate.’ sighed Nef between drags. ‘Would that I could just forget it and go get fucked up, but you know me. Got a huge bleeding heart. So why not just point where she scarpered to so I can set my soul at ease and get right back to it, yeah? Don’t tell me I need to slip you a few credits just for a direction.’

‘If it were anyone else. Look, if you wanna get snarled up in street trash problems that’s your business. Just don’t bring it back here and we’ll be golden, a’ight?’

‘Yeah, yeah. You’ve got my word. I might be dumb, but I ain’t stupid my man.’

‘A’ight. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya. Went that way.’ said the bouncer. He gestured towards a side street. Unlike the main drag which was glowing with innumerable bright advertising hoardings vying for punters’ attention, it was extremely poorly illuminated and narrow. Hemmed in by ancient red brick row buildings with precious few lights on. A squatter’s paradise. ‘She weren’t alone though.’

‘Oh? Found some friends after all?’ mused Nef, the pistol on her hip feeling even heavier than before.

‘Yeah, “friends”. One of them drifters what have been hanging about trying to go fixer legit. Elf goon with a pink mohawk. Don’t reckon they’re motivated by hearts as soft as yours Nef.’

‘And you didn’t do bugger all to stop ‘em?’

‘Ain’t my concern. Off property. Let the CDU deal.’

‘When did you last see the “Cids” round here, huh? Eh, whatever. Thanks. Hopefully I’ll be back later and you’ll let me cut the line, eh?’

‘Sure Nef. Yer on my personal VIP list. Don’t worry.’

Nef took a final drag on her cigarette, feeling the heat of the dog end against her lips, then tossed it to the kerb. The gloomy side street looked far from inviting, but Dreg Town was full of such places. Perfect for when no one could wait for a guest house’s small comforts or unsanctioned deals. Also perfect for less savoury intentions.

She waited for a break in the traffic then cut across the road in a hurry. Leaving behind the garish neon thoroughfare for dim and flickering streetlamps. The local council wouldn’t care about repairs until some developer bribed enough officials to buy up the whole street. Until then it would continue to fester and attract scum like an open sewer.

Once into the relative darkness the merc popped the catch on her holster. She doubted that she would need her iron, but it paid to be overly cautious when venturing into an unknown situation. The street itself was familiar enough in presentation to Nef. Full of trap houses and highly illegal chem stills behind nondescript doors. Places where the real down and outs settled in rotting doss houses to get high and forget about their plight until they eventually overdosed and were tossed into the gutter by their replacements, or sold for whatever body parts weren’t ruined by drugs and cheap booze.

She skirted mounds of trash and the twisted carcasses of burnt-out cars and occasional smashed corpse drones. The dumb things still trundled into such rows laden with armoured boxes filled with liquor and smokes. A prime target for anyone with a sledgehammer and a will to get wrecked. What could have possessed the troll to stroll into such a dismal place was lost on Nef, but the merc suspected that it likely had more than a little to do with the drifter that the doorman had casually mentioned without an iota of compassion.

It wasn’t as though the filthy street was deserted, but the people who were present were no help to anyone. Least of all themselves. Swaying zombies with heads bowed, or sprawled out on flattened cardboard with ligatures about their arms and needles strewn about. Nef was thankful that her boots had thick soles. The Civil Disturbance Unit didn’t bother with such streets. What was the point of filling cells with the living dead when there were simple drunkards to extort? She could well imagine the operator hanging up and laughing if someone tried to call in an incident. No, Nef was on her own. Just as the troll was. She just likely didn’t realise the danger she was in yet.

The mercenary was only a quarter of the way down the dismal row when she heard a voice that most definitely did not belong. It was erudite. Clipped. Most assuredly not the low run speech patterns that she was familiar with. Nef slipped into the shadow of a heavily graffitied wall and strained her ears. She still couldn’t quite make out what was being said by the crisp, terrified female voice, but it was easy enough to pinpoint the origin. A rancid looking two-storey dwelling that might have once been the home of a prosperous family in ages past. Motheaten blankets had been strung across smashed windows, but the front door yawned open to spill dim light into the street.

Then the voice was cut off abruptly by thumping industrial electronica. The merc’s brow furrowed. The people inside the ruined house clearly did not want anyone to hear what was going to happen next, as if any of the other spaced-out residents could have given the remotest of cares. Nef knew what that meant and didn’t like it one bit. Extortions and shakedowns were one thing. That was simply the trade you made when living in Dreg Town. Rape was something else entirely and it boiled the merc’s blood.

Yet Nef did not see red, despite how much the rage inside her was building. She was a merc. A good one. She hadn’t made it in the profession by losing herself to baser instincts in the moment, at least not when she didn’t know what to expect inside the grotty habitation. Best to slip in quiet and deadly violent and go loud when there were no better options. Besides, she only had one spare magazine for her automatic. Violence had not been on her agenda for the evening after all.

She took a deep breath, cracked her knuckles and then flexed the fingers of her cybernetic hand before walking up to the entrance. They had even made it easy for her by leaving the door open. Confident enough that no one would be interrupting their sport. Nef was determined to make them rue that decision, albeit very briefly. Inside, above the pulsing music, she heard laughter and crying both. Time was of the essence now.

The mercenary pulled the door open gently, just wide enough to slip in and found herself in a narrow hallway with a flight of stairs directly ahead of her. Every surface was strewn with trash. Plastic ready meal detritus, cigarette butts, chem inhalers and empty bottles. She would have to watch her footwork in such a foul place. Not that there were any of the prospective gangers in sight. These animals were never going to have made it as mercs with such sloppy security. The evening’s entertainment had evidently drawn in their lookout, if they had actually bothered to post one.

Nef had little difficulty threading her way deeper into the ruin. The floorplan of the property was predictable enough. She’d been in enough of such row houses in her time to know them inside and out and they rarely varied. To her right there would be a living room and beyond the stairs a kitchenette, with an overgrown garden out back. The voices were coming from upstairs, but that did not mean that the ground floor would be free of threats. She did her due diligence and swept the lower rooms first, not wanting to receive an unexpected surprise once fists started flying.

The living room was a mockery of a once comfortable family home. A couple of broken sofas and mattresses laid out on the dirt encrusted floor. Where there had once been a fireplace was now evidently a repository for trash, for it overflowed with used needles, beer cans and broken bottles. A television lay face down on the ground with a portable lamp atop it and what looked to be a small, reeking pile of used condoms. Nef clenched her teeth as she hurriedly surveyed the squalor. She did not want to think about what the bucket in the corner might contain. The smell was bad enough from the doorway. Satisfied that there was no one within, Nef shifted her focus towards the rear of the property.

There she found her first drifter. He was slumped over a yellowed kitchen table piled with old pizza boxes and undoubtedly stolen tools. A voice cried out, loud enough to be heard above the music from the first floor, but it did not rouse the passed-out man. Nef had no confirmation that it was the troll making such doleful noises, but even so she was moved to violence by the sound that was far too clear to have been some violent movie being played too loud. Steeling up to the slumped would-be ganger she brought her mechanical elbow down upon the back of his head with a sickening crunch. He didn’t even twitch as the blood pooled about his face. Guilty by association. His near silent demise did not bother the mercenary in the slightest.

Glancing beyond the filthy windows above a sink filled with unmentionable matter that looked to be on the point of gaining sentience, Nef espied less a garden and more a scrapheap beneath a propped-up tarp. In the darkness she saw that it was filled with the wreckage of numerous corpse drones. Realisation hit the merc. She was in a chop shop. The drifters were scavengers, making a living by stripping the dumb corporate drones for spare parts and their contents. As if executed prisoners’ existences weren’t made miserable enough being used to control the simplistic robots, these animals were tearing them apart for what measly credits they could fetch for copper wire and articulators. It didn’t get much lower than that.

As there was no one outside and the overflowing downstairs toilet was giving off an odour so foul she doubted anything could survive within, Nef shifted her murderous attentions upstairs. She had to be careful, however. She was short, barely over five foot, but her augments added a surprising amount of weight to the merc’s slight form and the stairs looked absolutely treacherous. Not least for the sound trap that they represented, with crushed cans and broken bottles littering them. Nef was hardly the tidiest of people, but how others could tolerate such unmitigated squalor was beyond her. Still, she ascended. Drawn to the cruel voices and music, one hand hovering above her pistol just in case.

As she neared the top of the flight, bright light spilled into the landing and the volume of the music surged. A door had opened and someone exited, laughing bitterly. The merc shrank back against the wall, then heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps heading towards the front of the house and a zip being pulled down. Then, awfully, liquid splattering.

Nef cleared the last of the stairs and found herself upon a ruined landing. The outline of a human with his hands upon his dick at the far end. She crept forwards, thankful that the man had clearly been keeping up with his hydration, then surged into action. In one swift motion the merc grabbed the scavenger by the back of his shaggy hair and drove his face hard into the frame of the window three times. He collapsed, wheezing, into the puddle of his own effluence and Nef kicked him the face for good measure. Bubbles of blood formed about the mess of his shattered features, but only a pathetically quiet keening sound came from his throat. He wasn’t going to be bothered anyone else for a while.

She quickly cleared the other rooms. More bedrolls, an ersatz liquor still and more filth were all she found along with so much encrusted muck, excrement and degradation that it made Nef regretful to have owned a functional nose. How anyone could live in such conditions and why the troll would have entered such a shithole willingly was increasingly hard to fathom. However, it was clear enough to that there were no unwelcome miscreants lurking in the shadows. They were all in what was once the master bedroom, save for the two that the merc had handily dispatched already.

Nef was confident in her abilities and doubtful that such low rung mortal detritus would be armed with anything more threatening than a knife. From what she had already witnessed they seemed more like bottom-feeders than potential operators and to afford a license to carry for gig work, well that seemed most unlikely. Besides, they were clearly distracted and she had the element of surprise working in her favour. All that remained was whether she chose to go in hard or fast, or give the remaining bastards a chance to end the night without any broken bones. A woman’s shriek from within the bedroom made her decision for her.

Normally for breach and clear Nef would have tossed a flashbang through the door before performing a rather explosive entrance, but she’d packed for a night out and not orchestrated violence. With a mental twitch the merc activated the tracking sensor in her optical augment and then applied boot to door.

Rotten plastic and fibreboard disintegrated in unexpectedly spectacular fashion and the barrier flew from its weakened hinges with a loud clatter. Beyond was revealed the exact sort of scene that Nef had been dreading.

The absolutely terrified troll was sprawled across a bed that had long since devolved into something that could barely be called a mattress. Her stained crop top was ripped and cut-offs yanked down about her thighs, leaving her sorely exposed to the elf and human pinning her down, each with unzipped flies yawning. Unfortunately that wasn’t all, not by the half of it. Two sofas had been drawn up like those before a television in a normal home, each sporting two human drifters apiece. Scrawny things with bad tattoos and the lean aesthetic of the drug addicted. They were frozen in place with beer bottles raised to their lips and shocked expressions on mean, rattish faces.

A fatalistic grin broke out on Nef’s own lips as she brought her fists up into a fighting stance. Six wasn’t great odds, but she’d faced worse. It was about to get extremely messy.

She moved with the celerity of a hardened street fighter and delivered a brutal kick to the face of the closest man before he had a chance to rise. It connected with a satisfying crunch and drove his beer bottle into his teeth, shattering jaw and glass alike as his head snapped back with distinct finality. The drifter didn’t rise, but Nef was already moving onto her next target. She had to move fast if she were to take them all down. Stay in one spot too long and they’d corner her and no amount of cyberware would help prevent a severe beating or worse. Real life wasn’t like the movies where a skilled operator could take down a drove of goons without breaking a sweat and the shock of her calamitous arrival was only going to get her so far. Violence of action was the only thing that would keep her from joining the whimpering troll on the mattress.

Thankfully drink and drugs were slowing the reactions of her adversaries, but not enough for Nef’s liking. Still she was onto her next target. He scrambled upwards, swinging his bottle awkwardly. The merc’s implant tracked the projected angle and she raised her machine arm to block it. Glass smashed against metal, only for her to grasp the man’s wrist and twist it back. Servos whirred as pneumatically assisted strength snapped his bony limb into an unnatural angle. He screamed in agony, his cries at perfect timbre to match the deafening music. Yet breaking his arm did not stop the scavenger from driving his left fist into Nef’s ribs. The blow caught her by surprise. Whatever cocktail of liquor and chems that was coursing through his system was evidently covering a lot of the pain he should have been feeling.

She whipped him to the side using her augmented arm, dislocating his gangly limb and sending him flying towards his now risen compatriots. It bought her a few more seconds as they struggled to extricate themselves from his agonised flailing. The implant’s projection flashed red as a fist was thrown towards her from the elf. She briefly noted that his clothing and dyed mohawk hair was almost respectable. The face of the group, maybe their leader. Nef cursed as she barely dodged the blow and then span about and drove her weight into him. Over extended and unbalanced by the merc’s advance, he fell and received the privilege of being Nef’s launching pad for her next attack.

The mercenary hurtled towards the elf’s unzipped friend and took his nasty double body-blow in her stride before driving her knee into his crotch with brutal force. Something popped and the man issued a high-pitched shriek and doubled over into Nef’s unwelcome embrace. She bit down on his ear and wrenched her head to one side with fearsome effort, feeling flesh tear and a fresh scream flourished.

Nef spat the gristle at the first of the sofa occupiers to rise and then punched the side of the emasculated man’s head before shoving him at the advancing scavenger, sending the pair who had just managed to dislodge their unconscious compatriot right back into the couch. The legs of the ancient piece of furniture gave out, further complicating their ability to get into the fight. It would have been amusing, if only the elf hadn’t come from behind again and driven his fists hard into her kidneys several times.

That she did feel and stumbled in agony, only the find the bastard’s arms hook beneath hers. The elf hefted her into the air, but Nef was wise to that. Bruised and hurting bad, the merc snapped her head rearward and drove the back of her skull into his nose.

The effect was instantaneous and Nef was dropped as the snappily dressed elf wheeled away, clutching his gushing nose. There was no escaping how much pain she was in from the nasty strike he’d delivered to her however. The elf had known exactly where to punch to knock a lesser woman on her arse, but Nef’s blood was up and she was most definitely not a lesser woman. She resisted the urge to draw her pistol. One misplaced shot and the poor troll she’d swept in to save would suffer an even more ignominious end.

Nef dug deep and, confident that the elf was distracted enough with his broken nose for the moment, closed on the two drifters yet to feel her wrath. Three down, three to go.

A flicker of silver glimmered in the poorly lit room as one of would-be rapists drew a knife from somewhere. It was hardly the most imposing blade in the world, but it did not need to be. The merc took a step back, not in fear, but to clear a little distance between the two of them. Her implant and ears told her that the elf was still struggling to get over his newfound deformity as he spat garbled curses at her. Good enough. Time enough. She began to circle the wreckage of the room, not letting the unarmed goon get behind her.

Working in the mercenary’s favour was the knife-wielder’s obvious inexperience with a blade. He was holding it all wrong. Likely familiar with using it as intimation, rather than ever actually having to wield it in anger. Still, he remained the biggest threat of the last three and would need to be dealt with first. Nef did not much fancy the idea of bleeding out in a rancid chop-shop, especially without being paid for the risks she was taking. Much to the merc’s relief she saw a smear of blue dart away out of the corner of her eye, then a grunt as a kick was delivered to the elf’s shin which sent the man right back down. With that the troll was gone and Nef was free to focus on her remaining foes.

Thankfully the idiot made the first move, driven by extremely unearned bravado. When he thought he saw an opening in Nef’s defences he lunged for her. It was child’s play to weave out of the way and let his own momentum carry him forwards. She grabbed him by the shirt and swung him right into the path of the haymaker being thrown by his friend and almost giggled as the idiot took the full force of it to the clavicle. A bluster of apologetic swearing flared up, but the merc wasn’t done. Nef lashed out with a boot and struck the knifeman in the side of his knee. The leg snapped like a twig with a sound that would never grow old to her, but he remained a threat so long as the blade was still in his hands. She grabbed his head and twisted. There was a soft scrunch and he dropped like a stone. Two left.

Retaliation came swiftly. The final uninjured drifter came for Nef like a hurricane of fists. Like most of his compatriots he lacked any sort of nuance, but there was no avoiding his wild strikes. A sensible man would have fled, but he was enraged and the merc was forced back, taking hit after hit to her arms and stomach. He screamed victorious obscenities at her, spurred on by the elf spitting up blood on the floor beside the bed. It was clear to the battered mercenary that he thought that the pain he was inflicting was going to see him prevail, but pain and Nef were firm friends. She absorbed it, then spat it back out in a series of rapid blows that swiftly reversed the course of their tussle.

Nef struck him thrice in the gut with her right hand, then delivered a fearsome blow with her mechanical fist. It did not simply break his ribs, but under its adulterated strength pulverised them. The drifter slumped and slid down Nef’s front, scrabbling at her faux-leather jacket as he collapsed to the floor. For good measure the merc kneed him in the face, then tossed him to the side. She wheezed and panted heavily as the adrenaline began to fade, suddenly feeling every little agony that had been inflicted upon her. Warning icons were being projected across her vision, but as with so many times before, the mercenary dismissed them. She didn’t need her cyberware to tell her what she already knew. She’d taken a beating, but had prevailed with nary a shot fired. All that remained was one last act of street justice.

The merc staggered over to the fallen knife and picked it up. Its blade was burnished and nicked, but the point was still sharp. It would do perfectly. Knife in hand, Nef turned her attentions to the fallen elf. The dapper man was struggling to get up, his face a mess of blood and mucus. The merc squatted, then drove her knee into his back to force him right back down against the filth-encrusted floorboards. She gripped his mohawk with the cybernetic hand and yanked the scavenger’s back so that she could look into his weaselly eyes.

‘I don’t know if this is the first girl you’ve lured back here and done unspeakable things to.’ said Nef, suddenly feeling a soothing sense of calm in spite of all the violence she had doled out and brutally taken. ‘But she’s going to be the last.’

‘Fuck you, bitch.’ spat the elf through a froth of gore.

‘You should be so lucky.’

Nef drove the liberated knife through the man’s ear and buried it in his skull, twisted the blade to turn his grey matter to slurry and felt nothing. She dropped him, stood up and then sighed. There were a few groans coming from the broken abusers, but it was entirely obvious that the threat that they presented was over. Every limb hurt, save for the mechanical one. Drained of adrenaline she was exhausted. Physical exertion immediately dogging the merc. She had pushed herself and it was showing. Still, she perked up. The troll was safe for the moment and had wisely hightailed it. She turned off the speaker and was glad of it. A little peace in the wake of so much violence.

It was then of great surprise to Nef to find the woman clinging to the rickety banister as she left the scene of carnage. Big black eyes staring fretfully at the merc’s bloodied and bruised form outlined in the doorway. Nef froze, caught by the utter disbelief that someone could be so dense as to still be in the miserable hovel.