Jandice Levenson
She stands in front of the bay window, eyes drifting out into the storm as it races across the Sound. Sometimes they come so fast that the hawkers and vendors hardly have a chance to close up shop and race away into the dark recesses under the ferrocrete giants and plasteel skyways that have replaced the skies in their world. Their world. She can't see them from here even if she wants to, over a kilometer's worth of trains, roads, and walkways from her spartan 100 square meters of leased living space. The truth is she's never seen that ground even though the trid has shown her the romanticized details of life under the skyway. Everyone thinks of the barrens as some far away place, kilometers away from downtown. If anyone bothered to look under their feet once in a while they'd find a far more personal kind of barrens right there maybe ten meters under their front steps.
The name on the lease is Jandice Levenson. The SIN comes up as a twenty seven year old mid-western woman, college educated with a degree in anthropology and human studies. Her only living relative is a brother named Carl Levenson who owns a ranch in a small town in Kansas. The SIN shows her as having served for several stints as an administrative assistant to a low ranking Colonel of the UCAS army in various locations including Northern Africa and the Amazon.
Jandice Levenson died on a Thursday morning, July 15th, 2032. She was alive for 17 minutes and 46 seconds. The UCAS government forgot this fact, or was made to forget. Carl Levenson is actually a decker who usually goes by the name Travis Sparks, though no information on his true identity is available. Colonel Thomas L. Johnston is in fact a retired Colonel of the UCAS army and consistently recalls how helpful, friendly, and effective Jandice was whenever he is asked. "She was a good employee." "Effective", he usually repeats unconsciously.
She turns from the window as the blackened, angered clouds roll in. The sheet of rain racing across the dark, surging waters, now blocking out the rest of the bay. She is on her way to the tiny kitchen unit to get a glass of real orange juice when the precision low-pass filters in her ears select out the notable thumping of footsteps outside of her door. Two, three ... the number four comes up in the right side of her display. Her eyes rest longingly on the refrigeration unit for a moment longer before she has to cede the cause. A slight pout dances across her lips at the admission as she fishes out the largest steak knife the living unit came with and then lithely slips herself into the false ceiling of the kitchen. She carefully positions herself against the retaining wall so their thermals won't immediately pick her up and then waits.
They breach quietly, professionally. This is a pricey building and to even get this far past the security they had to have an in and the owners would only accede if given strict assurances no other units would be disturbed. That means silenced, semi-automatic, low caliber weapons that won't go through too many walls. It also means they'll have backup.
She switches to pure thermographic for this one and watches as one figure passes below her from the small entrance area. She frowns as the figure approaches the refrigeration unit. He could have Orange Juice if he wanted right now but she'd ensure his death would be slow for that mistake. The figure passes into the living area and she remains unnoticed. A second comes in and this is the one she is waiting for. He'll have the bio-scanner which will inevitably reveal her location. She makes a quiet enough descent but she's obviously not the only one here with augmented hearing. The man begins to spin but the steak knife finds itself in his exposed throat. She doesn't pull it out in order to keep herself clean. Her display quickly updates and the large number "4" falls to "3". Additional details about the man's Colt rapidly come up. The display can't decide if the Manhunter has a smartlink or a gas vent system but it thinks the gun is modified. With a smirk she picks it up and her smartlink updates the display. The display now reads the manhunter with 16 shots and has the external silencer, smartlink Mark 1, and Improved gas vents icons next to it. Decent enough gun, it probably hardly kicks. Her display also picks up on two flashbang grenades on the man's belt, the armored vest under his coat, and the bio-sensor on his wrist. The others will already know he's dying.
The display records her indecision about the flash bang as 342 milliseconds, she's been trying to keep it under 250 but its been hard to focus lately. At 343 the electrical signal to "dive" is superconducting down her synthetic spinal cord at .9C. Her body dives out of the small doorway and rolls up into a shooting stance in the small hallway by the door. She knows she can out-run them but the chase will make a larger scene than she wants. The man at the end of the hallway is just starting to turn to his left towards her but she's already instinctively got the Manhunter up. The smartlink's feed has the reticle just to the left of his spine. The display lists a ghostly image of the projected positions of the heart, lungs, and spine. This shot will pierce the lower end of his left lung and more than likely slice open the left ventricle of his heart. The display lists average time to full system shock as 2380 milliseconds. She drifts the reticle just slightly up to the pulmonary artery and Aorta. The value drops to 1274 milliseconds. 17 milliseconds from her decision to fire the display updates that this man is 98.7% likely to be wearing a kevlar reinforced armor of some kind. 338 milliseconds later the man has a 6mm hole in the left side of his neck and a 16mm hole in the right and his legs will be buckling in 1400-1700 milliseconds. She didn't want the throat shot, it's too messy and that bullet might now deflect into some other apartment unit where innocent people ... innocent children ... may live. The large number on the right side of her display drops to "2".
Nineteen seconds, six hundred and forty-five milliseconds later the number is flashing "0". She's standing on top of the rapidly descending elevator that she's sent down to sub-level three. They'll be waiting at -3 while she's escaping through -2. She's thrown on the raincoat to cover up the gash in her left shoulder where the bullet had burrowed through her meat and bounced upward off of the ceramsteel sheathe around the bone of her shoulder. It was a stroke of luck, really. Her display has already informed her that an inward bounce from that angle had a 47.2% chance she would have been down a lung which would slow even her down and a 17.3% chance of a fatal pulmonary hit. Already the wound is closing up, it will not bleed much. They never do. The pain is manageable for the moment but she has a stim in her right cargo pocket if she needs it. She is again unarmed so that she can make it through the security sensors unmolested. She is counting on them picking up her pursuers, the automatic security tasers will ensure the final part of her escape. She looks up the elevator shaft and can't help but pout thinking about that orange juice. She's quite tired of milkshakes.
Eighteen blocks away Ari is feeling the adrenaline rush pass as the man before him musingly asks "How is it that you are made of stone?"
