It wasn't a long wait for the taxi. Within fifteen minutes a Crown Victoria pulled up to the square in front of the Orchard, painted with glossy yellow and black in the style of Knight Errant uniforms. An elven individual got out of the driver's side and adroitly opened one of the rear doors for Dawson. There was a barely perceptible raise of one immaculate grey brow when she told them the destination but no commentary was proffered.
The Crown Victoria was lovingly cared for inside as well as out. Dawson judged it to be a 2064 model, maintained to be like factory-new in an effort to provide Ares passengers with a tasteful mid-luxury experience even if they were just lower ranking assistants on errands. Tinted ballistic glass windows had the interior dim in the way Dawson always preferred cars to be dim, shrouding her in menacing half light that made questioning people from the driver's window slightly easier to achieve.
In the spacious rear seat however she had nothing to do but wait. Sometimes driving could help with thinking about existing problems but other times it could lead to thinking about the past. If she disassociated, Dawson would end up leaning against the door and watching San Francisco roll by, the pristine opulence of Silicon Valley gradually giving way to the decay and squalor of the neighborhoods by the bay proper.
So she focused on the driver instead. Elven, given away by the ears and brows and a little by the chin and nose. Lines around their eyes suggested habitual worry but lines around the mouth suggested frequent smiling, and more than just the polite side. Androgynous with no particular fullness of their upper body, and a subdued gray-blue sweater vest over a thinner black dress shirt. A name tag on their chest displayed the first initial M. and a surname, Richland.
Of more interest was the driver's hands. Their fingers were lightly calloused in an easily predictable way, indicating that it wasn't from exercise but from repetitive motion. Probably cleaning the Crown Royal fastidiously both inside and out, while wearing gloves for the more sophisticated automotive work on the battery and circuitry beneath the hood. Immediately a fondness blossomed in Dawson for this person; people who cared about their cars to this extent reminded Dawson of her uncle, and were in her experience always good people.
Richland's eyes flicked up the rear-view and caught Dawson staring at her and it took some restraint to keep from reaching out with her essence and touching the elf's. It would have been rude to start prying on someone just doing their job.
The elf spoke. "You looked stressed, ma'am." Their voice was calm, controlled and deferential. Vaguely feminine in enunciation of words, but vaguely masculine in its depth. "It is not unusual for my passengers to enjoy a cigarette during a trip."
At the suggestion Dawson could detect a faint, distant trace of soylent nicotine somewhere in the car's upholstery and carpet, so faded and mitigated by Richland's vigorous cleaning that she would never have noticed it on her own. She detected also a faint trace of displeasure in the driver's voice and in spite of her attempt to keep from connecting to them she picked up a stray sentiment: the resentment towards decorum preventing them from adding please open a window, hoping the idea would occur to the passenger on their own, though it so rarely did.
So Richland's relief was as plain as day when Dawson said, "It's been a long time since I smoked." And yet again in spite of her efforts, Dawson's eyes wandered to the window and she thought of the past.
Her last cigarette. A late afternoon in late summer in 2068. Climbing out of the High Mobility and stretching. In two days Salesforce Tower would explode. In two weeks the occupation would be declared over. Patrol nearly done, but Vic couldn't wait until they got back. Claimed he was starving. Dawson joking that with his reserve he could go a week without eating.
Him going into the convenience store. Pickers nearby at a trash can across the street, dumping empty soykaf cups and snack wrappers. Vayger inside just holding her Desert Strike in her lap and not making a sound. Broken, it seemed.
Soylent tobacco had no carcinogenic qualities. Didn't pay to kill the customers. Dawson had never really gotten much out of them, but the feeling of something in her mouth was worth walking a little ways down the street to light one up with her little black and yellow electric lighter.
Her standing there on the street corner, twelve meters from where she should have been by the truck, Alpha on its strap over her chest. Pulling on the cigarette and thinking If this habit can't kill me is it even worth keeping? But doing it anyway because habits made her feel nearer to being a normal person, in a moment where she should have been vigilant. What a hypocrite she was, telling Gaines that he shared no blame when she herself still felt flecks of this blood on her throat.
Her back turned, not seeing the orks creeping down the other side of the street. Vic coming out of the store with soy pork burritos in both hands. When the bloody tusk in front raised the filthy Defiance T-250 and pulled the trigger it jammed. Dawson had heard that and spun around immediately.
Victor Reyes with his hands full and his gut exposed, dropping his burritos too late to go for the Ares Lightfire 75 at his hip in its holster. Not before the tusk could switch the firing mode on the Defiance and pump it once. Not before he could pull the trigger.
By the time Dawson had her Alpha up and the safety off, the tusks had pulled off half of Vic's clothing. They were trying to tear his boots off when she opened fire, nearly hitting one in the head. The bullets scared them off immediately, clutching a Knight Errant employee's equipment in their hands and holding it in the crook of their arms.
"You fucking bastards!" Pickers' horrified scream as he pulled out his Ares Predator and started firing after them. Too far, and he was emotional. Not using his smartlink or his ocular implant. Vayger popping up out of the gunner port and racking a bloodhound round, firing and hitting the center ork in the back. Trackable radioactive dye splashed on all of them and within two weeks they'd all be caught. Dead within a year, in prison.
Dawson dropping to her knees at Vic's side. His last words in her ear. Her last words to him in his face. The cigarette still in her mouth.
Richland spoke into the silence of Dawson's memory, tearing her back to the moment. "That's to your credit," they said softly. "Heroes don't smoke."
Dawson shut her eyes, a small tear escaping out of the right one to trail down her face. She turned towards the window to keep it from being seen. She said evenly, "I agree. They don't."
She would have been content to endure the rest of the ride in polite silence but Richland, likely sensing that Dawson was melancholy, tried more conversation.
"I recognize you, from the newscasts. Am I taking you somewhere dangerous?"
"There might be a fight," Dawson admitted, running the fingers of her right hand through her hair on the right side of her head, without removing her hat. "I doubt anyone will try to kill me. At least not any of the people I'm intending to find."
Richland said courteously but without hesitation, "If I drive you somewhere and you end up getting shot there, I'd feel terrible."
The small smile the elf was wearing helped to dispel Dawson's sorrow. "Guess I should have you take me home, then. Though I could die there too, of too much sex."
"For that," Richland said, "You could thank me."
It felt good to laugh, however softly, without bitterness. "It's alright," Dawson said, "You're only doing your job. Take me to the arena so I can do mine."
