A Winding Road to Revenge

Bloodstains and Beautiful Women

Rowan entered the Den after putting on a clean shirt, not that showing up with blood on her clothes would surprise anyone in the room. The rest of the crew assigned to the next mission had dragged chairs over and were all huddled round the screen, waiting for her before they started the briefing.

The Den was the main communal area of R.A.I.G's (Rich Assholes are In Government) headquarters. The group had taken over an abandoned industrial estate on the outskirts of the city as their numbers were increasing and they could no longer all fit in the old garage that they used to convene in. It was a connected line of four large warehouses and they had slowly converted most of the space to make it functional to live and work in.

The Den was based in the third warehouse and connected most of the corridors to the other areas. It had a large screen on one wall and the rest of the room was filled with old sofas, chairs, two pool tables and various other bits of furniture that had been scavenged off the streets or out of skips.

Other areas of the third warehouse were old offices and storerooms that had been turned into bedrooms. There was a large office upstairs that housed most of their surveillance equipment and most of their other computers.

There was a gym with a firing range below it in the second warehouse which was used for training, the leftmost one was used as general storage for various equipment and weapons. The dining hall and kitchen area were in the fourth one which was directly connected to the Den and housed several items of mismatched garden and dining furniture where the group would all eat meals together, cooked by whoever was on the kitchen rota.

There was of course also the basement below the leftmost warehouse but very few people went down there, it was Rowan's territory. No one saw what went on but they could sometimes hear it and the poor unlucky souls tasked with clearing up the mess she left behind could figure out fairly clearly what had occurred. They usually skipped dinner afterwards.

There was nothing obvious about the building's inhabitants from the outside, the four vans parked outside were the only evidence that anyone was there at all. There were several small radio towers surrounding the premises which had been Keels' idea -they emitted a signal that messed with the programming of the Police's drones. It kept them safe from unwanted attention. There were also several fences and gates to keep out any unwanted visitors, not that many people ventured that far out of the city. Most had no means to travel that far, cars were a luxury few could afford and neither the buses nor the Skytrack train service ran anywhere near them.

Rowan held a wad of paper out to Keels and he smiled as he took it. "Knew you could get it," he said.

"When do I ever let you down?" she replied and Keels just held his hands up in surrender. "Better." A small trace of a smirk formed on her lips.

Rowan took a seat in a folding chair at the front as he loaded up the information to the screen and read the paper, giving Rowan a brief glance as he noticed the bloodstains on it.

It wasn't her fault that the bloke's nose had bled on it. Well, maybe a little.

The chatter died down a little as the others prepared for the briefing. Zetta, who was perched on a table next to her, elbowed Rowan and she turned, arching a questioning eyebrow.

"You got blood on your chin," Zetta said, pointing to her own chin. Rowan wiped it hastily with the back of her hand.

"Thanks," she muttered.

Zetta Brookes was loud and annoying most of the time, very rarely kept her mouth shut for more than ten minutes, yet somehow Rowan constantly found herself wanting to keep Zetta around. She could tell everyone else thought it was for her combat and interrogation skills - her methods were slightly questionable but highly effective. She was a terrible flirt and consistently wore outfits that were not suitable for the activity at hand - only Zetta could kill a man with her bare hands whilst wearing stilettos and a neon green mini skirt.

The real reason she let her stay was something only Rowan knew and that was something she would take to her (probably rather early) grave.

"That kind of day huh?" Zetta said with a knowing gleam in her eye.

"It would seem so." And Rowan let her eyes linger on the other woman a second longer than they needed to.

"Right everyone, now Rowan's here let's get started," Keels announced. He pointed at the screen and swiped his arm in the air to bring up the image of an email. "This is the details of a supply shipment that we intercepted five days ago. As you can see it states that the shipment will be travelling from the East docks to the Eden colony tomorrow." Keels made the swipe gesture again and brought up an image of a van.

"The goods will be transported in the Xe-400 driverless model. Fortunately, Orchid and me have developed a virus to break the programming and allow us to gain control of the vehicle and drive it ourselves." Keels then brought up a city map.

"All we needed to know was the route that the transport is going to take in order to find the best spot for interception. Which is where our guest comes in." He began to draw out the route that Rowan had given him.

"You mean the guy Leon dragged out from the basement in a body bag like five minutes ago?" Shaun asked.

Keels' shoulders dropped slightly and they turned to Rowan with a frustrated look. "Again?"

She just shrugged. "He was an arse and I'd already got what we needed."

"Can't argue with that I suppose," Keels replied and continued to draw out the route. Once he was finished he stepped back to allow the others to take a proper look. "Any suggestions for where we should intercept?"

"If we strike before it passes through the Market Central then we can use the busy morning crowd as cover to get away," Aila suggested.

It was a perfectly sensible suggestion but one which Rowan decided to turn down because the thought of the square packed with people made her stomach churn.

"It's a good idea but it won't take long for the police to notice the vehicle's gone offline and when they catch onto us they won't care about creating a couple of casualties in order to find us," Rowan said. " I don't want to risk the lives of all those people." There were murmurs of agreement. R.A.IG were known for their violent tactics but they really tried to avoid civilian casualties where possible. Their fight was with the upper class, police, and the government - not everyday people just trying to survive.

The Dòchas police were brutal and gaining more and more power every year. Every run-in with them was risky as most officers were rather trigger happy - they were legally allowed to kill on-site if they deemed suspects a threat, which they did more often than not. If by some rare chance they didn't kill, spending time inside the Dòchas central prison was just as bad. Or possibly worse.

It wasn't nicknamed the 'Ninth Circle of hell' for nothing.

"I think interception, as the van comes into Baker's circle, would be our best bet," Zetta said, pointing to the location on the screen. "It's got more alleyways than any of the other places it passes through which would allow us to disperse in different directions and it's usually rather quiet."

"Exactly, they can't catch us all," Shaun said.

"Well they can try," Keels replied. "Rowan?"

She studied the map. Bakers Circle was actually going to be her suggestion. "I think that's as good a place as we're going to find."

Zetta leant back on her hands and smiled widely. "You're welcome, everyone."

Rowan turned to Zetta with her eyebrows raised. "When you've finished gloating I suggest you go change your current footwear.". Her eyes trailed down to Zettas tiny, spiky heels swinging under the table. "I'd rather not have you nearly breaking your ankle trying to run in them."

"Whatever you say, ma'am," Zetta said with a wink.

The tips of Rowan's ears grew strangely warm.