Targets

"Are you sure you want to do this?" whispered Abe as he walked Lizard to her pod. He wasn't able to meet her at her apartment this day due to a meeting, so he, in his usual overly controlling way, met her at the purple building.

A floating hologram trailed them, giving them unnecessary informantion about Gold Week and The White Arc. It seemed like her robotic voice never stopped.

"Even if I didn't want to, it's too late now, I signed the contract."

He grabbed her by the arm and twisted her to face him, an intense expression under thick brows. For a moment her instincts kicked in, and she nearly twisted his arm. Before she could warn him he said in an aggressive whisper, "Gold Week isn't just a simulation."

"I know," Lizard said, not bothering to whisper. The hologram had said this a million or so times: when Earth VII exploded, people escaped by boarding White Arc. In order to support the life of so many people, half were put to sleep. Studies showed that humans gradually lost brain function in stasis if their mind wasn't active and so on and so forth.

"No, you don't. They-"

"Are we talking about conspiracy theories?" interrupted Nadine's soprano.

The two looked behind them to see the usual hologram replaced by one of Nadine, looking up at them with fiery eyes.

Abraham froze and said nothing as if his words were caught in his throat.

"I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it," said Lizard.

"I'm sure," she said, throwing a final dirty look "Spreading lies is a silly way to lose a job."

The Nadine hologram walked out ahead of them and guided Lizard to what they jokingly called the teleportation room. One of he employees guided her to a pod and attatched the neccesary contraptions. This pod was considerably different than the one Lizard had broken out of last year. It was membraneous still, but sleak, and with a fuzzy chair waiting for her. After several tests were run, a transluscant subsance, like the mask she wore before, closed over her. A gel began to fill the pod, and the last thing she saw before drifting off to sleep, was Abraham, waving bye.

Why would he do that?

She awoke with a start, in the center of the glass forest.

"Can you hear?" asked Nadine's songbird voice.

Lizard suddenly became aware of a puddle nearby, the moderators voice permiating through it.

"Is this the big boss speaking? I feel so special-"

"Remember, your first mission is to locate Tank, a glitch with substantial power."

"Send me coordinates."

"That's the issue. Her glitch is one that makes her impossible to track."

"Do you have any pictures, a preferred weapon, anything that'll make her stand out?"

"No images. No information like that. But she's been causing a bit of a stir. Even the civilians talk about her."

Lizard sucked her teeth. Did they expect her to wander around until she ran into her?

"Ok," she said despite her irritation, "what do you want me to do when I find her?"

"Check your mirror."

Lizard did.

"There should be an infinite number of tiny lights."

Like gold glitter.

"Find a way to get some in her body. A single one will be enough."

"Fine. What's her name again?"

"Tank."

........................

The Monster circled New Langit, one of many flying cities, trying to decide what would be more beautiful: a flaming decent to earth that was halted by a lovely array of colors, or a beautiful sky island suddenly sucked into the abyss. She went  for neither. She knew how to make the most out of her raids. Her only problem was their forcefeild.

She hoped to bait them by flying around the city. They'd want to attack eventually right? They'd atleast want to send their merchant out, right? That would give her time to slip in.

Children's screams coud only protect the civilians for so long, and, unfortunately for New Langit, there were not many in this town. The Monser always started with her little bombs. A paper bomb here, a leather bomb there. By the time she had worked her way to the center she was happily using grenades and gathering all the resources each dead civilian left behind.

Her battle with the merchant was entirely anti-climactic. She just blew him up, accidently even, as she blew up the closest house to her.

As she tossed her grenades, The Monster mused over the fact that she once believed that she'd never have to do this again. Yet, here she was, making a killing off of killing, just like before.

What had Red Eden changed for her in the end? she thought as two flaming civilians burst out of a flaming house, their shrieks melding with the shrieks of all the rest of the injured and dying.  She turned and to see her handy work: beautiful yellow and orange flames licking a black, soot ridden sky. Civilians ran screaming into the streets, escaping flaming leather bombs. Women, clutching their screaming adopted children as they ran towards a shelter that didn't exist.

There is a reason even moderators advise against putting your city in the sky. If attacked, where could the survivors run?

Off the edge apparently, flaming and screaming.

Now was the perfect time to use it.

The Monster pulled out a tiny flask filled with a thick, yellow substance: an artificial super nova.

"Why!?" asked a man with streaks of blood running down his cheeks, becoming a thin red mud. "What did we do to you?"

The Monster was surprised that one had spoken to her, but decided to humor him.

"The creases between my toes are always wet," she replied, trying to give him the briefest response possible.

Actually, she hadn't once considered why Mod Alex wanted her to bring this city down. The Monster was even given a time and date, and didn't know why. Did she care?

No. She wanted new shoes and she wanted to see a super nova.

She dropped the flask, then immediately flew a safe distance away.

.............,.......

"Nope," said the glowing figure, covered by a cheap holograph that formed a featureless face, "You're bad for business."

"What happened to complete anonomy?" hissed Lizard, doing little to contain her irritation.

"No such thing. Never has been."

"And if I pay you double?"

"Still can't do it. You're lucky I'm even talking to you right now."

Lizard sighed. She should've guessed something was wrong when her info broker met her in a complete disguise.

"Once things die down again I hope you'll call me first, but as of now, I'll have to freeze you out. I hope you understand."

"Yea, sure," she said dismissing them with a wave of her hand. As they parted ways, Lizard mused bitterly over all the points she spent with them over the decades, and strolled into her favorite rest stop.

Maltine's rest station was a moldy little place with no walls and no nonsense. The wet breeze made it's wooden boards swell into uneven shapes, and speckled it with green and white.  Lizard reclined in a torn booth, at a table to herself, waiting for her order to arrive. Her coily, lime green pixie cut and bright yellow eyes were back; she was home. She was free, relatively.

"I thought that bitch was dead," she heard.

"Me too! What the hell is she doing here?" asked another voice.

Lizard sighed. She had only been home for four hours and her presense was already catching attention. She thought she'd spend her first day back relaxing, but maybe she could take advantage of this, matter of fact, she knew she could.

"Is she the real thing?" inquired the first.

Lizard's somber expression morphed into a delighted smirk. There was something slightly satisfying about knowing she was infamous.

The waiter dropped a pile of berry covered waffles in front of her and left without a word. She dug in with saw like teeth, her favorite modification. No problem. She'd been here enough to know how this system works. He'd come back with a ticket when the rest of her order was ready

"I'm the real thing," said Lizard feigning indifference.

The atmosphere in the rest station became suddenly tense.

"Why aren't you dead?" a hunter demanded.

What should she say?

"I found an immortality potion," she lied, "I'd share the recipe but, since you bitches tried to get me killed. I'm not feeling too generous."

The rest station filled with an angry silence.

"It was the civilians who asked," said a gruff voice.

"Don't care. But I might change my mind for the person who is willing to help me find Tank."

Still, no response. Curious. As a player she would've jumped at the chance to be immortal. This wasn't going to be as easy as she thought, not that she thought this would be easy to begin with.

"So no one wants to be immortal..."

"No one is stupid enough to make a deal with you," someone answered.

Fair enough. She was lying afterall. Instead she should've used her month and a half of sales pitching experience. Maybe she would've gotten a better response. She made a mental note of this, slightly amused, then ate her waffles in silence, waiting for her new equipment to be personalized.

A boy plopped his items down in the seat ahead of her, attracting plenty of mean glares. They could tell as easily as she could: he had no businuess at the Red Road. He was a wiry looking teen, carrying a large back pack and cooking slab, something that was more popular in the western deserts, which meant he was either too poor or too foolish to buy a WSD ( weight and size distorter), like her mirror, and that he'd travelled a very long distance. A number floated above his head in glittering gold: twenty-five thousand. A tantalizingly high bounty for someone so underwhelming.

"Hi," said he, before awkwardly brushing his thin locs away from his eyes.

Lizard raised a brow, still chewing her food.

He glanced around, acknowledging the strange looks they were getting and leaned in to whisper.

"Meet me outside when you're done."

With that, he threw his heavy items over his back and left.

Before she inhaled the rest of her food, her lazer-proof jumper was brought back to her, her signature scale design imprinted into it. She put it inside of her mirror and went after the boy, hoping to find some information on this Tank person.

He was waiting right by the door, close enough to surprise her just a bit. He motioned, she followed, but only to a point.

"Why did you stop?" he asked, looking genuinely dumbfounded.

"I can see you feeling for that knife in your pocket. I'm not following you into an alley in my brand new top."

"Ok. Just stay there and block the walkway."

She did, because, why not? He was the only thing close to a lead she had.

The boy cut open his own wrist, and the blood began to pump, rising and falling to what she knew to be the bear of his heart. When it was done, he wiped the blood away with a napkin and showed her the wound. It had already formed a scab.

"Did you call me out here just to show me a magic trick?" asked Lizard, putting a hand on her hip.

"No, I'm immortal like you. I can't be killed," said the boy.

Lizard sighed. She had fooled the kid into thinking they were in some way alike. She tried to imagine what kind of life he'd had, stuck in a teen's mind and body no matter how many years go by. (She was greatful to have entered Green Hunt as an adult.) She'd better come clean.

"I was lying back there, I can be killed. There is no potion."

The boy seemed unfazed.

"You were dead and you came back."

"Not the same."

"Might as well be."

She thought about it for a moment or two. The result of either was essentially same.

"Look, I followed you looking for information on Tank," Lizard began, trying to end this conversation gently.

"Well, what you said you were looking for was help finding Tank," the boy interrupted.

Lizard's patience was dwindling.

"What's someone like you going to do for me? I'm not looking for someone I'm going to have to babysit."

"You wont! I can't die."

Maybe she should just turn and walk away.

"What do you even want out of this anyways, there is no potion, if there was a potion, you wouldn't need a potion."

"I'm looking for Tank too! Look, I'm sure you know how players feel about scavengers and rogues. No one is going to tell you anything, And I keep getting attacked because of my bounty and let's just say I'm a lover not a fighter. If we work together, I can gather information, while you keep us protected."

The town did seem a bit more hostile towards her than before, but she wasn't convinced. A look at his bony frame could tell her he was more trouble than he was worth.

"I just said I don't want to have to babysit."

"Well, how else are you going to get information?"

She could always resort to torture. But where would she even start?

"Ok. I see your point."

She looked the boy over one good time. He was a spindly little creature with copper hair and skin, his muscles were knotty like someone who'd gone without eating but not without work.

"And I bet you're going to want me to feed you right?"

The boy said nothing.

"Ok. I'll make this deal with you, I'm going to adopt you first, just in case" said Lizard, already opening the adoption tool, "If you try to rob me and run away the mods will bring you right back to me and I'll beat the shit out of you. What name am I looking up?"

"River Eight-Three-Four-Nine, Nine-Oh-Five-Oh. And You have to agree to travel with me all the way there."

Lizard passed the tool for River to give a thumbprint and looked him over one final time.

"I guess that's fair."