“Hey,” Cora said, turning to the woman beside her. Given the absence of Kyra and the lack of Hawk’s presence in her HUD, Cora gathered Hawk was waiting her turn. “Fuck was that ‘YOU!’ business earlier? We were gonna murk those guys either way, I think, but woulda been good to have some goddamn warning.”
For the umpteeth time today, Hawk looked at Cora like she was the idiot.
“Obvious, right?” She asked, “knew the fucker. Was there when the Street Wolves went down for good.”
“You sure?” Cora asked, recalling that the man had looked appropriately surprised to see 350 lbs of muscle mommy steaming towards him, but it hadn’t looked like the surprise of recognition. And with her Reactimax, she’d gotten a damn good look. “I mean, didn’t seem like he knew you.”
Hawk scowled at her, face darkening in its unique, lightning fast way.
“Lemme tell you something about me, Miss Misstress,” Hawk hissed, “I’m good with exactly one kind of face. That’s the kind of face that ends up on my fuckin’ shit list. That motherfucker’s face was on my shit list. Now, it's on the street, and I think some of it's probably still on my knucks.”
That didn’t really do much to convince Cora that Hawk had really known the guy. In her experience, fury didn’t necessarily sharpen memory. Although trauma did, so maybe that point worked in her favor.
Regardless, it did make her disinclined to press the issue further. Like she’d said, they were gonna kill ‘em anyway, and god-forbid she end up on Hawk’s ‘shit-list’.
The light above the door clicked off, and a moment later, Kyra walked out, new tech gleaming behind her ear.
Unlike Cora, she was moving on her own power and didn’t even seem disoriented.
“How quick is that implant?” Cora asked, then frowned. “For that matter, how long did mine take? How long was I out?”
“Yours took about an hour,” Iain answered, while Kyra just glared. “Ye been usin’ the bigg’un there as a pillow for the better part of an hour since then, though.”
“And you, Kyra?” Cora asked, trying to engage the woman. She was buoyed by Iain’s tacit buy-in, and was willing to push her luck a bit, instead of the ‘try and make Kyra forget I exist’ strategy she’d been employing. “Easy-peasy?”
Kyra glared for a moment longer, then sighed, closing her eyes. When she opened them back up, she was looking at Hawk, not Cora.
“It was fine,” she said, then gestured to her face, giving the fakest smile Cora had ever seen. “And look! Still pretty! So, you can stop delaying, you big fuckin’ baby.”
“I was just lookin’ out for the boss!” Hawk protested, though her bravado sounded a little more forced than usual.
“Really?” Cora asked, “You’re scared of a little surgery? You’ve got metal in your arms!”
“Ain’t got none in my fuckin’ skull,” Hawk grumbled, then flashed that devilish grin Cora’s way. “And c’mon, if you had this face, would you risk it for anything?”
Cora giggled, despite really trying not to. Part of her was starting to hate that she found the ex-raider so charming. Over the course of the day, she’d realized that getting into each other's pasts on the 2nd date would be like walking into a minefield with a map that someone had lied to you about showing a safe path.
“Certainly wouldn’t want to make things any worse, no,” Cora said, voice low, lip caught between her teeth bretraying those words to be a lie. Hawk ran her eyes slow over those lips, and Cora felt every moment of her attention.
Fortunately, it looked like Hawk was the kind of gay that meant not looking lame in front of a pretty girl was the ultimate motivation. As Jonah peeked out of the door to see what the hold-up was, Hawk hopped up, confidently approaching the Techgraft!
“Miss Tagliari! I was beginning to wonder! Come, come, won’t take but a moment!”
They could continue to hear Jonah chatter as he led Hawk down the hallway, slowly fading into an awkward silence fueled by animosity that still rolled off Kyra in waves.
Welp. Here fuckin’ goes.
[SYNC REQUEST SENT TO <KYRA LIGHT>]
What the fuck? Light?
[SYNC REQUEST REJECTED BY <KYRA LIGHT>]
Cora groaned, glaring at Kyra’s self satisfied smirk.
C: Iain? Little help?
I: Oh, I dinnae lass, why don’cher give it one more go?
Cora grit her teeth.
[SYNC REQUEST SENT TO <KYRA LIGHT>]
Kyra’s smirk evolved to shit eating grin, then, with a sassy little eyebrow wiggle: [SYNC REQUEST REJECTED BY <KYRA LIGHT>]
Oh you fuck-ing brat, Cora thought, trying to keep circumstances in mind. It was this, or a karambit instead of a voicebox.
“Kyra,” Cora said, voice just as pleasant and level as she could fucking make it, “I promise this will be beneficial to you as well. Will you please accept the sync request?”
“But how do I know it’ll be beneficia,l Linnea?” Kyra cooed, voice sweet, sugary poison. “Why don’t you do something nice for me first?”
“Okayyy,” Cora said warily. “Like what?”
“Oh, just something you like to have me do for you when you get bored. Thought you might want to try it out yourself, us being equals now, and all, it's only fair hmm?” Kyra continued, sweet as pie.
“And that is?” Cora asked, concerned that this was sounding like the setup for a porno. One she would have watched, honestly, but not one she was willing to act out in this waiting room, or with this woman.
The slick black carapace of Kyra’s suit retreated up her calves, revealing her feet, which she wiggled mockingly at Cora.
“Oh, you remember Linnea. You’d be doing whatever it was you did, I’d be standing in the corner, facing the wall, and you’d just yell ‘Footrest!’ Good times, right?” her voice stayed sweet, but her eyes flashed with rage.
Honestly? Thought that would be worse. I mean, I get it’s degrading, but…
Fuck it, I’ve done more embarrassing shit for worse reasons in Sandler movie cameos.
Cora sighed, looking blankly at Kyra, then to the empty chair next to her. She sighed, then stood, starting to walk over to Kyra.
“Ah ah ah!” Kyra cooed, “you remember what you said, right Linnea? Footrests don’t walk! They crawl.”
There was a lot of challenge in Kyra’s eyes when Cora met them. She did not think Cora would do it.
C: Iain, is she fucking with me?
I: Oh no, were one of yer favorite things, bitch as ye were.
Cora sighed, then fell to her hands and knees.
She heard Kyra whisper ‘What?’ as she crawled over to her. She didn’t put on a show for her or anything, but she did get close, then turn sideways to present her back as a pedestal.
Kyra took a moment to actually do it. When Cora felt her feet rest on her back, they were shaking.
Linnea, I hope you’re still awake somewhere in here, and can feel this.
It really wasn’t that bad, for Cora. She wasn’t into it, but honestly, it felt a little good to help Kyra get even a little revenge against the woman who’d hurt her so badly.
She let Kyra enjoy it for a few moments, before:
[SYNC REQUEST SENT TO <KYRA LIGHT>]
A beat, then:
[SYNC REQUEST ACCEPTED BY <KYRA LIGHT>]
Thank god.
[TEAM CHAT REQUEST FROM <KYRA LIGHT>]
[ACCEPT?]
Yes.
K: stay there for a bit.
Cora grumbled, but progress was progress.
K: good girl.
C: fuck you, none of that.
K: howed you change your name? I want to get Light off of mine.
C: didn’t change it, don’t think you can.
C: why is your last name Light?
K: it fucking isn’t.
K: they don’t give born and bred bedslaves family names. Just slap the house name on them when they’re sold.
Phew, at least this relationship was just terrible, not terrible and fucking weird.
C: oh thank god
C: i was worried we were sisters or something
K: please, bitch, you think your busted ass shares genes with me?
Cora laughed, and would almost swear she heard Kyra giggle above her.
C: honestly? Looking at Hawk, i’m sort of questioning everything I know about human genetics
K: she is a specimen isn’t she?
“You can get up,” Kyra said, and Cora groaned as she did. She didn’t lead the kind of life that meant she spent a lot of time on her knees, and while thanks to her [End], they didn’t hurt, her pride sure did.
“Does she show up as ‘Cora Casanova’ for you, too?” Kyra asked Iain.
“Aye, that she does,” Iain answered, eyeing the two with obvious glee. “Beginning te think more ‘n more that may just be the lass’ real name at that.”
Kyra looked back at Cora, hard. Cora could see emotions war across her face. The second she’d even looked at Cora, at Linnea, her lip had curled in rage, and her nose wrinkled in disgust. But when she finally met Cora’s eyes, those famous Casanova blues, the darkness threatening to consume her face halted for a moment. She held Cora’s gaze for a moment, searching, before she sighed, and looked away.
“Listen, Li–, C–, you,” Kyra said, “I’m not 100% on your ass, by any means, but you can stop worrying about a knife in the back for now. Linnea wouldn’t have done what you just did without a gun to her head. Maybe not even then.”
“Yeah, well, not like I loved the experience either,” Cora said.
“It… I don’t know, the first moment, seeing Linnea like that… that was nice,” Kyra sighed. “Then what I just said occurred to me. She never would have done that. Definitely not with me. So it felt like it was someone else, especially not looking at your face, and that… that felt kind of icky.”
She is so much different, when not actively imagining my death every second. Kind of innocent? Hope there’s more of that in the future. That Kyra seems…. nice.