Page 9 of Reclaimed

"Heading back out?" Slade asks, adjusting the strap of his rucksack on his shoulder as I walk past him into the parking garage.

I shrug. "When you're actually good at your job, you get contract bids," I say, my metallic grey Raptor glowing to life when I hit the unlock button on the key fob. "Not just the pity ones Chief Pierce assigns you."

"Fuck off," he chuckles, slamming the tailgate of his Jeep Wrangler shut and striding closer. "Some of us just have a more specialized offering."

"I wouldn't classify being able to fist a bitch with one hand while decrypting a mobster's phone with the other as much of a specialty." I yank open the driver door, tossing my duffle onto the passenger seat and turning to face him.

"I wasn't just decrypting it," he scoffs. "I was bypassing military-grade encryption at gunpoint, asshole. And it still takes more skill than blowing out an eyeball from eight hundred meters away."

"Nine hundred," I correct, climbing into the cab and switching on the ignition. "And that's all I need for these pricks to keep bankrolling my cabin project."

"The same cabin you never have time for because you're a workaholic?" Slade snorts, pulling his phone from his pocket and studying the screen. "Looks like Sergei needs my basic-ass skills," he mutters, typing out a reply.

He glances up, a rogue smile spreading across his face as he tips his chin, "Want to make it interesting?"

I raise a brow. “What you got in mind?”

"Last one done with their assignment buys the drinks at Eleventh House?" he suggests.

"You're on." I throw it in drive, tires squealing against the pavement as I stomp on the gas.

He flips me off as I tear past him and peel out of the garage.

Slade isn’t my only friend, but the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. Hell, I’d claim him and his dad, Chief Pierce, as blood over the narcissist who brought me into the world.

I was never one of her priorities. Wasn’t even an afterthought. I was an inconvenience that she kept shoving behind locked doors.

Chief Pierce didn’t ask what I could do for him. Didn’t question whether I was worth saving. He just threw me in his truck, took me back to the compound, and gave me a life.

Turning towards the city, the highway disappears into the night as my headlights cut through the darkness. My phone connects to the truck, sending a heavy bass beat pulsing steadily through the speakers. The rhythm builds, distorted vocals layering in, and my focus sharpens into something primal.

I switch over to the GPS, a light blue circle encompassing a shitty neighborhood in the Fringe that I tracked A311 to earlier. My tech abilities may not encompass attracting infamous Russian crime families like Slade's, but I can hack and code better than most.

Better than anyone at The Registry.

When that Lieutenant shot at A311, he hit the primary transponder in her cuff, killing its direct feed to The Registry. Those lazy idiots never even bothered to check if the GPS receiver was still functional, but I did. It's been pulling satellite coordinates and using the nearest cell towers to relay her position, mapping out the little stray's trail across Northbrooke. It won't report an exact location anymore, but all the towers downtown made it goddamn child's play to hone in on a quarter-mile radius.

The tracker has been pinging from the same area for the last six hours. A little house pet like her isn't used to covering twelve miles on foot through the slums and overgrown lots, so she's likely exhausted, if not injured. Probably both. So unless my coordinates are wrong– which they fucking aren't– she's stopped moving.

Splitting off from the highway, I follow along a stretch of cracked blacktop into the outskirts of the Fringe. East of here, where I was with Wade, that's the closest you'll get to a suburb; blue-collar workers and struggling businesses going on about their days to the best of their ability. The West side though, it’s seedy as fuck. The Registry's Enforcers even steer clear of this place.

Once upon a time, they'd planned to build another data center out here. Came through, bought up property, forced people from their homes, and got as far as starting demolition. When they realized the infrastructure was not only old, but couldn't support the demands of the center, they did what they do best– fuck it all up. Instead of upgrading the systems, they just increased the outputs to force it all through the existing systems and– fucking shocker– it failed. They backed out, relocated, and started over again, leaving this place a shell of what it once was.

Squatters moved in, gangs made it their headquarters, and the few average folks that were left learned to survive amongst the riffraff. After a few Enforcers came back with missing limbs, The Registry stopped patrolling altogether. Over the years, more people that were hard up migrated here too, claiming what they could and trying to start over. Technically, The Registry still owns most of the properties, but once they realized that leaving the lights on was keeping the low lives out of the city, it became a tax write-off.

The coordinates take me to an ominous-looking area with just a few working streetlights, the boarded-up houses and buildings left to rot in the shadows. Deciding it'll be easier to hunt her on foot, I ease off to the side of the road and kill the engine. Reaching for my duffle, I drag open the zipper and pull out my handgun. The familiar weight of the Glock settles into my palm as I rack the slide and holster it at my hip. The contract said to bring her in alive, but it didn't say I couldn't subdue her with a little bit of lead.

Giving the GPS a refresh, I slide out of my truck and pocket the keys. Lucky for me, the signal still shows her in the same area, so she must be holing up here– unless she's already fucking dead.

That’d ruin all my fun.

Broken glass crunches beneath my boots as I continue down the street with my head on a constant swivel. Raiders and strung-out douchebags don't scare me, but I'm not in the mood to waste time with their bullshit, especially now that Slade upped the ante.

In my peripheral, light leaks from between a row of boards haphazardly covering a broken window. I pause, watching as a few young guys linger near the entrance of a rundown structure, the cherry of a cigarette glowing brightly as they lean back against the bricks. At the same time, a middle-aged man holds open the door for a couple of kids. Evidently, that shithole is one of the livable apartment buildings.

The perfect spot for a stray Asset.

I can't decide if she's smart for running to the west side or just goddamn dumb. No one out here has the means to help her. And even if they did, they wouldn’t. Everyone is here for their own self-preservation. But if she knew that, and just slipped in and kept to herself, they'd disregard her completely.