Fight the Power-(SyFy AU)

[Catriona MacGregor]

Pulling back the safety to release the combustible elements that gave the blaster its reputation, Cat slowly...so slowly, adjusted her angle and waited for the shot to line up. For five long years she had been waiting for this moment. Five years of nightmares and lonely nights and insomnia and too much coffee and no time with friends. And if this went off the way she had planned for those five years, since the loss of her partner, Adam, she might live again. Might.

 

From the sleazy cyber sex club, a large man to emerge. His girth was such that he had had doctors attach a second pair of legs with iron support to hold himself up. D. Lauderdale had let himself go the moment the one cop of the force who had enough balls to take him on got destroyed by a suicide bomber who ran into One Cop Cental just as Adam was coming out. My partner saw him and didn't think twice about throwing himself on top to minimize the collateral damage. She still didn't forgive him his selflessness.

 

She stopped breathing as Lauderdale began to move into her sights. Just one more step. That's it. Just one more. All she could hear was the beat of her heart and the hiss of her own breath before the sonic boom took out all hearing when her finger pulled the trigger. One of the reasons this gun wasn't legal was the fact that there was a very high chance of being permanently deafened. If that was the worst of it, Cat figured she could live in silence. She practically was now.

 

She didn't bother to see if she had hit her target. Everything with a 50 yard radius would be vaporized. The only thing that should be left would be any metallic. She didn't want anything to keep as a souvenier. The scars were enough.

 

With swift practice, the gun was dismantled and stored in every day, usual items. Then, she picked up her backpack, pushed her glasses up her nose, and headed back into the library where she had just spent the last 3 days lying still atop of. Gravel was knocked off, as much as possible, and the back pack, which had been sprayed with oil degreaser designed just for fingerprints left in the revolution aisle. She made her way to the computer monitors and did some minor search with no relevance, before finally heading to the exit. Her family motto ringing in her head, the head she kept down to keep from being recognized.

[Francis Kirke]

Francis was an undercover operative and an adventurer, oft showing up when least expected. He kept some good intelligence on people important to him, and he tried to help them out of binds if he was needed. Cat, though, she had not needed his help, but that did not mean that he had not surreptitiously been there in case something had gone wrong.

 

As the woman exited the building, Francis gave a little clap and started walking next to her.

 

"Well done," was all he said, grinning. "You make it look so easy, I am beginning to feel useless lingering in the shadows."

[Catriona MacGregor]

Cat barely spared him a glance as she continued walking. "Is this the part where I pretend not to know what you're talking about and act innocent?," she asked as she moved her hand away from side where she had one of many blades strapped to her body. She should have known he'd figure out what she was doing. Francis was aware of her obsession, had tried more than once to talk sense to her about it, but it never took.

 

Stepping slightly towards him to avoid the airbike racing towards them on the sidewalk instead on the street where it belonged, she sighed. "It had to be done. No one was ever going to do anything about him. And after that girl was left, beaten and bleeding, on the steps of Headquarters..." She had to stop talking to work at taking a breath. That one had hit hard because the girl had looked like her sister. "Even with him gone, the rest of the syndicate is not going to stop. A brief pause. Maybe." Her eyes grew frigid as she thought on all the damage they had done to this city, to the people within.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at him. "Have you heard anything from your contacts?"

[Francis Kirke]

"Acting innocent doesn't befit you. I doubt you would believe it if I started acting like a choir boy," he chuckled. "Besides, there's no point in denying the obvious to someone very good at tracking people.

 

"Not much," he replied, to her question about his contacts. "His friends won't be too happy, so you'd best hope there was some other hopeless fuck in there and it can look like collateral damage."

 

He hooked his thumbs into his pockets and licked his lips.

 

"Or do you plan to take them out one by one too?" Someone stared at them a bit too hard, and he gave them a withering glare back that said 'mind your own fucking business' without saying a word at all. "I like the glasses though. I almost wish I had a librarian fantasy."

[Catriona MacGregor]

"Whatever church you were in would go up in flames should you decide to try the choirboy route," Cat replied, one brow arched as a small smile played along her lips. "Blasphemy and all that."

 

They were closing in on her destination quickly. "Plenty of others likely hurt or killed in that blast. After who I saw go in there, I think a parade in my honor would be more likely. The second in command of the East Side gang, the top drug distributor for the city and a Councilman known for his preference in young, restrained boys. It could have been any one of them as the target," she said as they reached the building. She used a complicated code that changed every day to unlock the door, expecting Francis to follow her.

 

"Not a single librarian fantasy? Oh, wait, that would require you to enter a library to see all the waist high desks and frequent bending over a librarian must do," she teased. "Besides, these glasses are work related. The glass has been infused with a special polymer that acts as a magnifier when a small electric pulse is emitted from here." She took off the glasses and showed him the small button on the side. "I could have see a pimple on a rat's ass if required." As they entered her safe room, she began stripping off the various blades from her body, including the two hidden in her hair.

[Francis Kirke]

"Even God needs warrior angels," the blond responded, with a deadly chuckle. He preferred to think of himself as a deadly agent of good, but he could hardly claim to be without sin either.

 

"Then you may have that many more people are you," he reasoned. "Lots of people will be wanting retribution. Let's hope you're as good at covering your trail as you are at delivering the blow." In the back of his mind, though, he worried that he was not the only person who could and did track her movements. Perhaps he really was that good, but he did not hedge any bets on it.

 

"Lots of objects to bend people over everywhere," he drawled lazily, the smile teasing his lips.

 

He accepted the glasses and played with them for a few moments, truly taking in their capacity. Then he put them on and used the button.

 

"Hmm, useful," he agreed, after following her inside.

 

"You're a walking arsenal. Not that I'm surprised. A man couldn't come within an inch of your without getting cut. I suppose it's a fair way to keep everyone at a distance."

[Catriona MacGregor]

"And with that hair, you do look ever so angelic," Cat replied with a wry lift of her brow. She was quite familiar with Francis' vanity regarding his hair.

 

She shrugged at the thought of how many people might be after her now. Death wasn't really a fear of hers any more. "I walk on the side of good. I'm always a target," she reminded him. Walking into the small kitchen area, she programmed the stove for tea, still removing her weapons. "The East Side has been aiming for me ever since I stabbed that one banger in the crotch. Free vasectomy, I say. Now, no one has to worry about his tainted genetics getting around. Did the world a favor. As for others, let them come."

 

The comment on her keeping people away had her stop cold. She looked over her shoulder at Francis, her eyes flashing pain for just a moment before it was ruthlessly put away. "If you don't get close to people, you can't grieve when you lose them. Its safer that way," she stated as she unbuttoned the top couple buttons on her shirt, giving herself room to breathe, though the bulletproof corset she wore didn't give her too much extra room. It was both practical and feminine, something she thought herself to be as well. The kettle started to whistle. "Tea or would you prefer a beer?"