Mari was back.
Boze still hadn't wrapped her mind around that fact. The thought seemed out of place in her brain. After all this time, all this effort to get her back, actually having her seemed... off.
Maybe it was the fact that she'd given up that was really throwing her off. She'd walked into that room defeated, to say goodbye, fully intending on having to kill Atomic afterwards, no matter how much it would've hurt her to do so. It had taken her a good ten minutes to gather the strength to even go inside.
But it had worked. Finally, it had worked. Mari was back. And she wanted to leave.
That thought made Boze feel... strangely hurt. She should've expected it, really. Of course Mari would want to leave. The only thing that had been keeping her here was a desire to avenge Silver, and that had been Atomic's goal. Atomic was dead, and Mari hated her. It shouldn't have been as much of a shock to Boze as it was.
Yet it was. Boze had been half expecting her to be grateful to her for freeing her from Atomic, but she'd been wrong. Mainly, though, she'd been expecting Mari to miss Boze as much as Boze had missed her. Which was also stupid.
Now that Boze thought about it, she hadn't put any thought into what she'd actually do once she got Mari back. All those nights hunched over her laptop, thinking up ways to try and shock Mari from Atomic's subconscious and back into the controls, she'd only ever put any brainpower in how she'd do it, not what she'd do with the end result. Boze had just walked into unmapped territory. A dangerous one.
Mari was a wildcard. She wasn't as predictable as Atomic was. She could lie and act and scheme against her. All signs were pointing towards her wanting to escape, and Boze was sure that she'd try. She'd have to be careful around her.
Back when she'd first gotten Atomic, which felt like ages ago, she'd promised Pamick that she wasn't Wes. That she wouldn't make his mistakes. Trusting Mari was his biggest one; she wasn't about to follow in his footsteps.
Despite the fact that Mari was all she could think about, she tried to push her to the back of her mind. She had a meeting to get to. One she couldn't afford to mess up.
Quickly, she rushed into her office and got changed into a standard girls' uniform. She'd agreed on no weapons, but everyone in her world was a filthy liar, including her, so she shoved a knife into her boot, careful to make sure that she didn't cut herself, and headed out the door.
Chaos was waiting for her. Together, the two women headed down to the main floor, where Wrath and Psycho were waiting. Boze trusted Poison and Antidote, at least more than she trusted anyone else, but she wasn't about to go anywhere without some form of backup; especially when all she had to defend herself with was a knife.
The four of them made their way into the parking lot. Boze had let Chaos pick any car she wanted from her wide selection, and she'd picked a sleek silver Lamborghini that one of her girls had brought with her when she joined the gang. The licence plate had been torn off, replaced with a fake, untraceable one.
As they got in, Chaos ran her fingers along the hood of the car, smiling like a mother smiles at her child. Every woman in transportation had their favourite vehicle, one they specialized in and preferred, and there was nothing Chaos loved more than cars. She'd once built a fully-functioning car out of scrap metal.
Luckily, the windows were tinted, so no one would recognize any of them. While all three of the other women had been erased from every database, and Boze's Techs were working hard to make sure that no other data uploaded about them was ever stored, Boze had an easily recognizable face. Mari's case was sensationalized, and Boze was a main character. She was almost like a celebrity, except her paparazzi had guns and handcuffs.
Once everyone was in and had their seatbelts clicked in (they weren't completely lawless), Chaos slammed her foot on the gas pedal, and they tore out of the parking lot and onto the streets of Irvine.
They sped down the road at an inhuman speed. Chaos had a massive grin on her face as she drove. On their way to their destination, she almost hit three pedestrians, barely swerving away in time. Chaos was usually a better driver than this.
Soon, they arrived at their destination. Poison and Antidote had picked an abandoned military bunker as their base, a few miles away from Irvine. It was a big building, with cracked walls and boarded-up windows. It looked like even more of a mess than Boze's mall did from the outside. They could only hope that Poison and Antidote had some home decorators on their team.
As soon as they stopped, the doors to the bunker flung open, and eight men filed out, each holding a massive machine gun in their hands. Before Boze could blink, they had surrounded the car.
"Come out of the vehicle!" one of the men demanded, shaking his gun a little to show he meant business.
Boze sighed and kicked open the door. The rest of her girls followed suite. When she was out, she threw her hands in the air and shot the man who had spoken a tilted smile.
"Is this how Poison and Antidote treat their friends?" she asked tauntingly.
"You're Vixen?" the man responded, pointing his gun at her.
"Tom, lower the fucking gun," Wrath spoke up from behind her. "I know you recognize me."
The man glanced over at her. A slight smile formed on his lips as he nodded at his men, who all lowered their guns.
"Ah, my apologies, Vixen," he stated. "Poison and Antidote are waiting for you. Please follow me."
He turned and started to walk away, all of his men rushing to follow him. Vixen turned to Wrath.
"How do you know him?" she asked.
Wrath blushed. "I went on a few dates with him."
"You WHAT?" Psycho asked.
"We really hit it off after our mission," Wrath replied. "He's quite funny."
"Out of all the guys in that truck, you picked him?" Psycho asked incredulously.
"He was the leader, Psych," Wrath replied. "Had more of a chance to talk to him. And you're trying to talk to me about taste? I've seen some of the women-"
"Girls," Boze raised her hand. "We're here for a reason."
Psycho and Wrath grumbled but didn't reply, and the four of them rushed to follow Tom and the other men. They made it inside the building just before the doors closed behind them, locking instantly.
You could tell that Poison and Antidote hadn't been here for long. The inside of the building hadn't been repaired at all, and boxes covered the floor, which men were moving into rooms. At least they had some sort of order. Boze didn't know exactly how their organization worked, but she assumed that it was similar to her's. Each man seemed to have his own role.
Or woman. There weren't that many, but as they walked to Poison and Antidote's office, Boze spotted a few. They were dressed just like the men, and looked at Boze and her girls curiously as they passed.
So Poison and Antidote had snatched some women that had fallen under her radar. Interesting. It seemed that she had competition in the convincing-women-with-an-affinity-for-crime-to-join-you business.
Eventually, they arrived at what she could only assume was Poison and Antidote's office. Tom knocked on the door, and Poison answered.
"She's here," Tom announced.
Poison nodded. "Let her in."
Boze left her girls outside and entered their office. It was what used to be a sleeping quarter, with all the bunk beds removed. They had three chairs set up, two facing one, in the right corner of the room. A table with a computer on it rested against the far wall, with a king bed beside it. The paint was peeling off the walls, and the windows had boards covering them, making the dim ceiling lights their only light source.
Antidote was already sitting in one of the chairs. Boze sat in the singular chair against the wall. Seeming to have picked up on her tastes, Poison grabbed a bottle of wine off the floor and handed it to her.
"We ran out of clean glasses," he apologized.
Boze shrugged and popped off the cork before taking a swing. She wasn't one to turn down wine, no matter what the circumstances were.
Lasercorn was right. She was going to drink herself to death someday. And she wouldn't regret a single second of it.
"So, you two wanted to talk?" she asked as she crossed her legs.
Antidote nodded. "We did."
"Well then," she smiled. "Let's talk."
"We have another mission for you," Poison explained. "If you're interested, that is."
"Depends on what it is," Boze replied, "and what I'll get out of it."
"We need the mayor of L.A dead," Antidote stated. "And we think you'd be the best person for the job."
Boze's eyes widened. "Why do you want him dead? Planning on running in this year's election?"
Poison scoffed. "Of course not. He's just proving to be an obstacle. Wants to crack down on crime; especially us. He proves a threat to our entire community. And seeing as he's on the lookout for us and our group, we can't be the ones to do it."
"So what would I get out of doing this for you?" Boze asked. "Killing a mayor isn't an easy task."
"We're well aware," Poison replied. "So, in payment, if you get rid of the mayor for us, we'll take care of your little... Bereta problem."
Agent Bereta. She still had to get rid of him. If they could do it for her... well, it certainly wouldn't hurt. Besides, killing the mayor wouldn't be the biggest challenge she's ever faced.
"May I ask why the mayor is so fixated on you two?" she asked.
"He's my brother," Antidote explained. "Has hated me since we were two."
"Ah," she smiled. "We have a deal. I'll kill the mayor."
"And we'll kill Agent Bereta," Poison agreed. She shook both of their hands. "Pleasure doing business with you, Vixen."
She nodded. Antidote opened the door for her, and she walked out. Her girls were waiting for her. Well, Chaos and Psycho were waiting for her, leaning against a wall. Wrath was caught up in a conversation with Tom, a wide smile on her face. Boze had to physically yank her away.
Some men had been guarding their Lamborghini outside, and dispersed the second they walked through the doors. They all got into the same seats they arrived in, and seconds later, they were off. Chaos seemed a lot calmer now, and her driving was far more controlled.
They arrived at the Compound just as the sun started to set. Boze made a beeline for her room. As she walked, she allowed herself a quick glance at Mari, who was sitting in the chair in her cell. They made eye contact for a few seconds, and Boze quickly looked away.
She made it to her office and jumped onto her bed, staring up at her ceiling as she thought. Mari was back. What was she going to do now?
There was no way she was going to let her go. She'd devoted far to much time to her to watch her leave. But she didn't want to keep her in that cell forever. She wanted Mari, the real Mari, as one of her girls. How she was going to accomplish that, however, she didn't know.
You have all the time in the world to figure that out, Boze, she told herself, closing her eyes. Let's focus on the task at hand. You have a mayor to kill, after all.
With that thought in mind, she let herself get distracted from her overwhelming thoughts about the woman she had confined downstairs.