Chapter: 1  An Ordinary Day

*Beep, Beep, Beep*

The loud frigging noise of an alarm clock filled the small, somewhat cramped but well-furnished room, and from the bed rose a beautiful woman in her mid-30s. The woman was Helen Bacchus, a well-known veteran in that part of the town.

Helen was the orphan of a wealthy businessman and a military woman and spent most of her childhood on the move from one military base to the other. After the untimely death of her mother, she grew rather distant from her father, or rather her father moved on and remarried while she went ahead and joined the army.

A decision she came to regret when rumors of her mother's many exploits with other women became popular amongst the members of her batch. But she kept her focus and landed herself a place amongst the CBRN freaks and two years in, the Third Great War ravaged the planet Earth. 

It was during that particularly jarring time that she lost much of her voice from constant exposure to chemical weapons and nuclear wastes, leading to an early retirement with a medal that was worth less than half her monthly medical bills.

After being kicked out of the army, she decided to laze around a bit, her father had paid her quite a handsome sum not to go and tell his new family that he was a widowed man. However, that soon got boring and she decided to the involved with the... shadier, bit of the town. 

Eh, nothing much really... just smuggling in old movies from half a century ago and even longer before. This day was a rather important one, she had an important delivery coming in, a three movies long franchise, maybe even four. There was quite the rage for that particular stuff, it would fetch a high price in the right hands... her hands,

Waking up, she washed her face with ice-cold tap water and brushed her teeth, after a bit of cleaning up, she observed herself in the bathroom mirror and saw exactly the same thing she saw every frigging day. Standing at an abnormally tall height, close to 6'6 or an astounding 2 meters, was a somewhat handsome woman with eyes the color of lapis. Not to mention she had quite a desirable body as well, lean but not overly muscular, with the proper curves in the proper places... all was good except for the dark throat. Her throat was a gory detail of poison traces and burns, a souvenir from her time in the army,

Her gaze traveled down to the picture of her days as a recruit, and she fondly remembered how they had coerced their Drill Sergeant into taking a picture with them... admittedly, fifteen laps around the camp had been a small price to pay. 

While dozing off into distant memories, she made herself a modest breakfast. Nothing fancy, two cans of B-ration and canned meat along with a healthy mug of coffee... no one lives without coffee... not after being a soldier. The caffeine was one of the few good things about being a soldier, service to the country was somewhere down there too but never made it above coffee.

It was with a sigh she realized that her day's quota of water had just been exhausted... not like it was anything new, it was always exhausted before the morning could begin. Such was life, everything ends, she would too and so would her memories.

She dressed in loose-fitting cargo pants, and a black tank top, and put on her overcoat which might have been of navy blue color once. Silently, she made her way down the stairs and prepared herself for a hectic day ahead.

Work that day was rather uninteresting... almost dull, she took a bus downtown, stopped at a diner, and stood outside its door, listening to the old song 'Sunlight' blaring within. With a sigh of 'I hate doing this,' she pushed in the door and looked around to see a deserted diner... deserted save for a pair of women sitting at the bar. 

"If it isn't Miss Bacchus, how nice of you to join us!"

Greeted the owner with a drone in her tone.

Helen nodded, she wasn't much of a talker... more like she couldn't be.

"Cut her some slack Jully, the woman's been busy tying up loose ends."

These words came from the leftmost corner of the diner, where an elderly man in his late sixties maybe? Was finishing up his coffee while reading his newspaper.

 The loose ends were a couple of stragglers from her last job, a pair of boys wannabe blackmailers who contacted her client to 'borrow' a couple of thousand credits. It was safe to say there were two more corpses in the crematorium that were unidentified, not with their heads blown to bits.

'Howdy Frank, good to see you on your feet!'

She spoke in sign language that the old man caught from one corner of his eyes and with a huff, he placed his newspaper on the ebony coffee table and whirled his wheelchair around to face her,

"Very funny."

The barista chuckled along with the owner but one sharp glance from the old coot sewed their mouths shut,

"I am serious here, Helen, our... credibility was jeopardized because you overlooked a couple of teenagers! What were you thinking!?"

Helen's eyes remained glued to the wall behind the bar, not like she had anything to be ashamed of, she took care of her mess on her own. 

"Look, I understand there's nothing for you to lose here, but that's not the case for us!"

And the old man droned on and on about all the veterans his 'less than legal but more than criminal' business was supporting... utter bullshit! He was simply providing for his goons.

"Anyway, try not to mess up today's job, will you?"

The old man finished his monologue once he realized that it was time for the diner's regular 'customers' to arrive.

Helen nodded her head, pleased that he was finally out of her hair, and walked out of the dingy pillbox-turned-diner. It was the same with most of the buildings in the town, former fortifications now home to a bunch of self-sufficient settlers. 

Her destination for the day was a bus stand... or it was a bus stand when there were buses that were still operational. After the War, people learned to walk and fuel was used only to trade with other towns and cities, at least those that were willing to trade.

The 'bus stand' was half a mile down the diner, not distant enough to be impractical and not close enough to be suspicious, just the right distance. About a quarter of a mile down, she encountered an outpost, nothing much, just a pair of men, sitting at a coffee table, playing poker... visibly armed with pistols and a shotgun. 

A brief nod was all that she exchanged with them, they knew better than to annoy the drunken giant early in the morning. She had been known to shrug off 9mms and bash people's heads in for doing exactly that, although, stitching the flesh wounds had been a pain in the behinds... taking out the rounds had been even more so.

Soon, she reached her destination and waited behind the so-called 'bus stand,' perfectly out of view or rather as out of view as her large body would allow her to be... and she was pretty sure most people would consider her a pillar rather than a human.

She waited and waited... that's what she was being paid for, and waited and waited... for six whole hours she stood there like a mannequin. Best way to hide in plain sight, don't move at all, you would look like a fragging statue.

A man came stumbling down the road and appeared to be drunk but Helen was not fooled in the slightest. Her hand reached for the holster strapped to her waist, a classic spot to keep one's weapons strapped to, her choice of weapon was an M17, an old but well-maintained automatic pistol, with 17 rounds magazine capacity. But of course, she only carried 12 rounds, no point in carrying too many bullets when she could bludgeon someone to death with the pistol alone.

The man suddenly stopped and... fell face-first on the gravel road below, maybe breaking his fracking nose or something, she wouldn't know for sure until she turned him over with the hell of her boots,

"You alright Charles?"

Charles groaned on the road,

"Pro'ly... 'lright mate."

Quite the charmer... naval intelligence. Spooky bastards,

'You have the disks?'

Charles, still rubbing his nose, managed to pull out a small, sealed package from his coat pocket. He handed it over to Helen, who inspected it carefully before nodding in approval.

'Good. Payment?'

She signed, her lapis eyes narrowing slightly.

Charles fumbled with another pocket, pulling out a small, silver card. Helen took it carefully, inspecting its silvery surface before sliding her thumb across its surface, her towering frame casting a shadow over Charles as he coolly awaited her approval.

'Seems right,'

She signed, her movements deliberate. Charles let out a sigh of relief, seemingly unbothered by the blood now dripping from his nose.

"You're more cautious than usual, Helen. Something bothering you?"

He asked with a crooked smile.

Helen raised an eyebrow, a silent acknowledgment of the understatement. The recent encounter with the wannabe blackmailers had indeed left her more alert, if she could help it, she would not have any more blood on her hand... or maybe not, she simply didn't want to put in the extra hours.

'Just being thorough, Charles. The business's not as forgiving as it used to be,"

She signed, her face expressionless.

Charles nodded in understanding, wiping away the blood with the back of his hand.

"I'll keep that in mind. By the way, Frank wanted to remind you not to mess up today's job. Try not to mess up again."

Charles said, his tone a mix of caution and amusement.

Helen scoffed, she didn't quite get the spook's sense of humor, and she wasn't fond of being lectured by a man who operated in the gray areas of legality himself.

"Tell him not to worry too much. He might get a stroke,"

She signed with the hint of a smirk on her face.

With a nod, Charles stumbled away, leaving Helen alone at the bus stand. She watched him disappear into the distance before turning her attention back to the sealed package in her hands.

The package contained valuable information... was what she would like to say but it simply had a couple of old movies that were lost quite permanently along with much of the internet's database of entertainment goods. Good business.

Helen tucked the package securely into her coat pocket and made her way back home, not the diner but instead her own house. She could always deliver that damned disk another day.

The journey back home was uneventful, save for the occasional glance over her shoulder to ensure she wasn't being followed. As she approached her house, she couldn't help but take in the tattered hospital that had been repurposed as her home... meh, it was good enough.

Entering her home, Helen locked the door behind her and made her way to the living room. She tossed the package onto the coffee table and collapsed onto the worn-out couch, letting out a weary sigh.

With a groan, she groaned heavily, pushing herself up from the couch, she made her way to the kitchen. She needed a drink, something strong to calm her nerves. Rummaging through her cabinets, she found a bottle of whiskey and poured herself a generous glass, relishing in the burn as it slid down her throat... well... not really, her throat always burned.

After she had a drink and something to eat, she made her way to the bed and before long, she was fast asleep.

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