So ive been working on a novel now for a while and thought: Why not post the first chapter/intro (13 pages) here and get some potential feedback? See what people think and if its anything worth pursuing. Not that i have a name for it.
Posted below is a short rundown of the setting with the actual chapter being on the next page. (Note that most of this is exposition that’s also present in the actual story).
* The story is sorta a furry one. I started out writing it like that but then after a while I decided that I wanted to do more with the setting itself. So I ended up changing everyone into aliens. Said setting is somewhat inspired by 1940s film noir (so PG-13 due a lot of gunplay and violence) with an ever so slight sci-fi background.
* The Main character (Cedrik, not sure if I'm going to give him a last name) is a Seqa. Think of them like an anthropomorphic mixture of Squirrels and Weasels except they have no tails and their backs are covered in rows of pangolin-like scales (nowhere near to their degree though. Looking at them sideways they wouldn't be visible and covered by their fur). A notable feature is their ability to run four legged (again, sorta like real rodents though they don't generally walk on two legs.
* Like several other species on this planet the Seqa isn't actually native. They instead represent the descendants of an interstellar invasion force that “failed” to conquer the planet a long time ago (not sure how long. Recently enough that everyone save for a few nutjobs accepts it as fact but long enough that details have been forgotten. 500 years maybe?). The planet in question might or might not also be Earth, I'm planning on keeping that ambiguous.
* The other major race that isn't native is called the Dourg. They have this big interstellar empire somewhere very far away from this planet and the story I'm going with is that there was this Dourg general that got “blown of course” returning from a campaign with his fleet. He ran across this planet by accident and thought “hey, why not conquer this one too!” but grossly underestimated the population and their abilities. The resulting war became one of mutual destruction and in the end they didn't have enough resources to make it home and were forced to settle the now almost uninhabitable planet. The Seqa meanwhile hail from a planet in the same system as these guys and were often recruited as auxiliaries. The Dourg themselves look somewhat human but they are in general quite a bit bigger and bulkier and have no hair on their bodies.
* Quite a few of the prior dominant species are still present on the planet obviously and they call themselves Mannings. As suggested earlier they might or might not be humans or at least some kind of alternate reality version of us. Being in general nocturnal. Enough time has passed since the invasion that no "serious" bad blood exists between them and the Dourg but the two generally don't intermix with one another. The story is also mostly set in one of their old cities that has been "reclaimed"
* Finally the last major species is called Razier. No one really knows where they came from seemingly having just shown up following the invasion like they always were on this planet. I imagine them looking sorta like anthropomorphic bats but with slightly more reptilian, almost pterosaurian features and have very distinct social structure based around clans. They also mostly keep to themselves but several clans live in the city and have a sector dedicated to them.
An untitled (non-HP!) Novel im working on
Moderator: ArcWolf
Re: An untitled (non-HP!) Novel im working on
When is the best place to start something? When the idea came to me about writing about my life I didn't give that question much thought. I seemed to have believed that the moment I did finally put pen to paper it would just come to me and I would go from there.
Some would say that the beginning would be the best. Normally I would have no arguments there but would starting 30 years before I was even born really be the right thing here? Wasn’t this supposed to be my tale? Yes, thinking about it I believe starting in the middle would be so much better. In my own youth when I was nothing but a young Seqa trying to find his fortune in this crazy world...
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It was a night like so many others for me. One just as normal as the thousands of other people living in this city with maybe just one slight difference. Their definition of a "normal" night probably involved sleeping soundly in their beds next to their loved ones. While mine well... involved quite a bit more gun wielding goons and being chased across rooftops with bullets whistling around my ears!
I don’t know what had gone wrong. Could have been a snitch that alerted the target or something as innocent as someone sneezing at the wrong moment, but for me it didn't matter. It never mattered cause my job wasnt to care about such details. No, my orders had been very much direct and while I had technically already succeeded at fulfilling them, it wasn’t exactly meant to be a suicide mission but at this point unless I wanted it to become one I had to get down from here now!
The nature of this part of the city (sector 3) made it harder than it sounded though. The buildings were way too tall for me to jump from directly and their neglected state meant that any staircases or similar object I had run past so far wasn’t an option either. Being too fragile or broken even for me to use.
So despite this being quite a familiar situation for me, there was no denying that the chase had gone on for far longer than I was comfortable with. These guys had been persistent, more so than usual and every second the chase continued was a second closer to me getting caught or getting a bullet lodged somewhere where I didn’t want it. And while I don’t think my pursuers and been given explicit orders to kill me, neither was a scenario I wanted to experience for obvious reasons.
Though speaking of bullets. It had actually been a while now since I had heard any being fired, so against better judgement I dared to stop and look back for a moment. I couldn’t see my pursuers but that wasn't a reason for me to relax. I had the wind against me and for them to follow me this long other Seqa had to be involved who should just as easily be able track me by scent. So I was in other words not out of proverbial woods (or canyons in this case but I'll explain some other time) yet and there was still also the matter of me getting down from here in one piece...
While I didn't know it yet, the fact that they seemed to have lost me somewhat turned out to have been a blessing from some kind of merciful god. As I resumed running and jumped across yet another canyon a disturbing feeling started to raise in my stomach - were they getting wider? I had barely managed to make this last jump after all.
While I didn't know it yet, the fact that they seemed to have lost me somewhat turned out to have been a blessing from some kind of merciful god. As I resumed running and jumped across yet another canyon a disturbing feeling started to raise in my stomach - were they getting wider? I had barely managed to make this last jump after all.
Ignoring the feeling for the moment I heaved myself up from the ledge and kept running. But following me vaulting over yet another old non-functioning air-conditioner my momentum came to a grinding halt as my instinct had been spot on. All this time I had subconsciously been moving towards the CS hoping to find at least one inhabited building with a non-broken emergency staircase or something, but a side effect of that was that the canyons had been widening and there was absolutely no way I was jumping across this next one.
Desperately I started to look around and saw an old and slightly charred chimney next to me which I quickly dived behind, hidden (temporarily at least) from any eyes which might want to cause me harm. I proceeded to stand up in an attempt to get a better view of my surroundings as well as to contemplate my next decision.
As I had suspected I couldn't stay there for long. The wind had turned and a small whiff into the air confirmed that my pursuers were still there somewhere and presumably looking desperately for anything that a Seqa could hide behind. You know, like an old broken chimney. Meaning I was limited to just two options: I could either risk backtracking and find another route down and risk running right into my pursuers arms or get down from here using other means...
A sudden burst of gunfire (none of which hit me or my hiding place, some of the bullets came dangerously close though) from behind me and in the general direction of my pursuers abruptly ended my train of thought. Either they had gotten into some very heated argument among themselves or they had caught up and figured out my hiding place. I did not dare to look around the chimney and expose my head to check but it didn’t matter. It left me with just option two and looking over the street I think I found a promising route in potentia. Or at least the start of one and hey, acting on a dangerous whim and figuring things out on the fly sure beats getting captured and/or shot!
I got down on all four again and leaned over the nearby ledge. Underneath me was, just as I spotted from above, an old broken pipe which probably once had been used for some kind of drainage but now had partly fallen out of its holdings and was hanging from the wall with a 70° (or something like that) angle from it. And while it wouldn’t take me to another roof, my route down might just go along it.
No sooner thought than done I had jumped down, grabbed a hold of the pipe with both my hands and feet and upside-down started to crawl headfirst along it towards its end. I could hear the rusty bolts still holding it to the wall grinding heavily like they wanted to give away, but my fortune hadn’t run out completely yet. It somehow still held firm as I reached its end and made an as large jump as I dared towards the other wall and my actual destination further down on it.
I must have fallen for a good second or so before I, with instincts honed by hundreds of jumps like this, reached out and grabbed hold of the piece of wood that represented my salvation. The Seqa board (again, I’ll explain later) flexed dangerously under my weight but it, like the pipe before, somehow held firm and after making sure It actually led somewhere I swung myself upwards to its top and immediately jumped to the next one following its path.
Or at least that had been my theory. You see, if I hadn’t been so worked up with the adrenaline rush you get from the thrill of chase and successfully avoiding the jaws of death I might actually have noticed that something was wrong with the boards of this path. Like for starters the lack of any major claw marks.
This can usually mean two things: either it had been newly laid/maintained (slim chance considering how few of us Seqa that actually lived in this part of the city) or it had been set up privately. But whatever the reason it spelt bad news for me since as I reached the 12th or so board on the path it suddenly ended abruptly and I found myself having to stop at my second dead end that night.
I didn’t know if my pursuers had chosen (or even been able to) follow me onto the path but I didn’t want to risk following it in the other direction to find out. So instead I stood up once again in order to find out what I should do next.
The path seemed to have stopped at one of the few inhabited buildings of sector 4 confirming that yes, it most likely had been privately laid. No one seemed to be home though and the entrance was locked so that route wasn’t an option. And since the way back was too dangerous It left me once more with just one more option. An option which was fortunately way more my style.
I swung down from the board once more, hanging onto one with only my claws before letting myself fall feet first and with as much wind resistance as possible, landing hard on a balcony about 3 meters down from the board's location.
The landing was a bit rougher than what my feet would have appreciated and they ached somewhat from it but hadn’t any time to complain, the ground was only ten meters or something away.
I wasted no time jumping over the balcony, grabbing hold of one of its support beams and crawled along it towards the building wall. Letting go of the beam to instead grab the wooden crossbeam of an old and dirty window that was located underneath it. I then quickly crawled vertically along it before jumping to a second window underneath that and while hanging from its lower beam released and let myself fall in such a way that I made a four-point landing on the concrete street below. Once again ignoring the pain in my feet and hands this time I wasted no time in scuttling off into the darkness of the canyons. A left turn, a right turn I didn’t really care as long as it was in the general direction of the sector pass. Until finally the light of said building came into view and I collapsed behind a big trash container panting heavily as I finally managed to relax my muscles in the hope that I had gotten away.
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Right. You, the reader whoever you are probably have a lot of questions so let’s try to give you some answers before we continue.
For starters you are probably wondering who the heck I am and why I was just running for my life in a rooftop chase? Well the first one is quite easy to answer: My name is Cedrik, son of Edgar and a 3rd generation Seqa inhabitant of this city.
The second question is somewhat harder to answer though. Back then I used to work for this group known simply as "The Order". My role that particular night having been that of a “runner” where I essentially acted as a lookout, currier or even like that night; a distraction while the "hitters" made the more direct grunt work. And these distractions often involved me having to lead guys away from our targets like tonight.
Now my language here might raise some red flags among those who don’t know who The Order was. Was I working for some kind of criminal organization? And yea I’m not going to try and smooth things over here. To an outsider to the system, that's basically what we were.
But let’s try that again. Yes, the order dealt with what most people would consider criminal activity. Break-ins, assassinations, racketing, you name it. But did that make us a criminal organization? Label us like that then what would you call all those other syndicates doing the same thing but who operated with actual government support?
Well, guess when I put it that way it would technically make us one but our lack of government sanction wasn’t the only thing that set us apart from the rest. You see, unlike them we didn’t do our stuff against civilians. We did it exclusively against other syndicates.
Now how would that work you ask? Wouldn’t that just mean we were hated by everybody and wouldn’t last a day? And why were syndicates operating with government support? Well the latter is a long story that I can give some other time. But as for the second we kind of were, but before I go on let’s first introduce a little scenario:
Pretend that you are a high-ranking member of one of these syndicates. You just got news that one of your rivals recently started probing your territory, seemingly with the intention to muscle their way into it, what do you do? Confront said syndicate and tell them to back off? Start probing their own territory in return? Or even just try and kill some important member to send a message? Sure you can. But all of those answers come with a simple caveat; You were the one to do it. It risks creating blood feuds or even wars among the syndicates that risks upsetting the balance between them and in general never be good for business. But lucky then that there is this group that can do it for you instead? Yes, let's hire them to do it and give yourself some plausible deniability over the whole affair and if they somehow mess it up then it would still be no risk for you since well, who knows what they are up to anyway? Not like they can challenge you without revealing themselves right?
So yes, we are basically a syndicate for hire. And over time pretty much all of them have come to rely on us for this exact purpose. Solving feuds among them and creating a weird sort of balance where everyone dislikes us yet at the same time also needs us in order to keep the way more delicate balance that exists between them and is needed for this city to even run properly.
In fact I would even say that by my time there even the government (who are arguably a syndicate themselves but that’s again, another story) seems to have come to realize our important role for keeping this balance. Since despite not sticking up to them we were still allowed to do all this stuff with pretty much no threats from them beyond them breathing down our necks occasionally and forcing us to move our HQ every month or so.
Anyway I'll get back to this later as I get further into my story. For now let's return to that back-alley dumpster I was still lying behind.
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My heavy panting was suddenly disturbed by my ears twitching to a sound from behind me. Footsteps? yes. And from the heaviness of them it definitely wasn’t a felow Seqa. I knew better than too move though and it didn’t take long for whoever it was to announce their presence.
“Well hello now, nice place for taking a rest isn’t it?”
I pretended to have not heard or even acknowledged that I had noticed her voice. Said voice also telling me that she indeed was no Seqa but rather a Dourg and from the sound of things either very confident in her abilities, or just stupid.
I could hear her draw a breath to say something more, but in a raspy and still somewhat tired voice I finally acknowledged her presence by cutting her off:
“Sorry. I don’t have any money or anything else of value. You have to find someone else to mug."
I don’t know if it was my nonchalant tone or merely the fact that I hadn’t shown any semblance of fear to her thinly veiled threat earlier. But when she spoke again it was with a notably less calm voice.
“Oh I don't know about that sweetie. That coat of yours sure looks nice..."
Well that pretty much confirmed my other suspicion. She was either unaligned to any of the major syndicates and didn’t recognize what I represented. Or “really” stupid.
Ignoring the obvious question of what she was going to do with a Seqa sized coat. Said coat was specifically given to me by the order and me wearing it symbolized that i was on official order business. No syndicate in their right mind would risk their business with us on a random mugging.
Which was actually good news for me. It meant that I in turn could teach her a lesson without any actual consequences.
I got up onto my feet and only now faced her. As I summarized she was indeed a Dourg, quite a distinct specimen of one too with their completely hairless skin and a good 50 cm taller than me even standing up. I also made a quick unimpressed glance at the knife she was holding before fixating her eyes.
"Look here lady... I don’t know who your usual victims are but you picked the wrong one tonight. Leave me alone before I hurt you..."
She didn’t answer my treat but her sudden grin betrayed her intention and quick as only a Seqa could and right as she was about to lurch forward with the knife I had gone back on all four and rushed forward myself to where she was standing. And before she had any real chance to counter me, I had gone past her while also making a not very deep but still painful slice into one of her legs with my claw making her trip forward onto the ground.
With a curse and scream that I won’t bother recreating she fell down onto her knees and started to frantically swing the knife around in an attempt to hit me with it. Once more I was too fast for her though and with a small jump I climbed up her back and delivered a powerful blow to her head.
The impact had the desired effect and seemingly dazed her. Making her fall over hit her face hard against the concrete below as I jumped off her again. I got up on my legs and briefly watched her, from the sound that came she seemed to have broken her nose in the impact.
For a moment I considered drawing my gun and really teach her a lesson. But ended up deciding it would be a waste of a good bullet and once I determined that she wasn’t going to lurch at me again I instead left her there. And turned back towards the street deciding it was time I headed home.
I began to walk out of the alley but then stopped as I realized something. Someone from the sector pass might have heard the commotion and gone to check what was going on. A problem since those government goons weren’t exactly fond of us Order people to begin with for obvious reasons, and if they found me here next to that Dourg it might give them enough justification to “hold onto me”, and making them not to would have taken a serious bribe with money which I hadn’t joked about not having on me.
I was lucky once again though. Looking out towards the street I breathed a sigh of relief finding it still abandoned with no sounds suggesting someone was rushing towards my position. So before I headed out to it I proceeded to dust myself off to the best of my abilities.
Normally I wouldn’t bother until I got home but the CS inhabitants were a bit, you could say, “high strung” living in their luxury and, assuming the guards even would have let me in, going there covered in old concrete dust or whatever was on those rooftops tended to give you annoyed looks. And even if I would be safe from any muggings there, unnecessary attention was not something I wanted after the failed hit tonight.
So only after making sure I didn’t look too “Seqaish” I proceeded towards the brightly lit pass. Already mentally preparing myself for the grueling walk all the way to sector 2.
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I don’t know how far this tale of mine will travel so just for the sake of context, let’s move out a little and look at this city as a whole and what it represents. But even before that I think I might need to explain some things about this planet as a whole.
I mentioned that I was a Seqa and my would-be assailant was a Dourg. Together we represent two “dominant” species here so to speak, but neither of us are actually native to this world. Being for the lack of a better term, Aliens.
I’m no historian but to give you the short story of what happened, those Dourg apparently have this big interstellar empire somewhere far away from this world where we Seqa apparently served as auxiliaries or something like that. And the generally accepted story goes that about 500 years or so ago, one noble on his way home from a campaign "got lost" in uncharted territory, ran into this planet and decided that he might as well conquer it while he was in the area.
Or at least that had supposedly been his plan. As you might have suspected by now, it didn't really work out like that when the natives proved much fiercer than he had suspected. And soon his “easy conquest” had become a full-blown war of attrition.
No one really seems to know how the war ended or how long it lasted, but the results are well accepted. The civilization that used to inhabit the planet was pretty much wiped out but in order to achieve this the Dourg fleet ended up wasting so many resources that it longer had the ability of making it back to charted territory. Leaving the survivors with no choice but to settle on few remaining inhabited areas on the planet and the rest is as they say, history.
Now you might ask: what happened to the original inhabitants? Are they all gone? Well not really. They call themselves the Mannings and despite their numbers being far from what it used to be prior to the war and their current civilization being a shadow of its former self. They are most certainly still around and the whole “invasion” thing means they aren’t exactly fond of either us Seqa or the Dourg in general. Meaning that even “post war” confrontations used to be quite common though by my time things had mostly calmed down save for a few flare ups here and there.
Now about this city. While we Seqa have in general no issues living with the Doug we prefer to make our own habitats and with the Mannings, well, being what they are it has led to each species mostly sticking to themself as much as they can. But there is one major exception as I finally come back to the original purpose of this lengthy piece of exposition, this city.
80 years or so ago before I was born some guy whose name isn't really important had this great idea uniting the scattered inhabitants of this planet. Leading to a new era of cooperation, unity, happiness and you know, the usual idealist crap. Somehow though through sheer charisma he managed to get enough followers from every species to actually go through with it, and you certainly couldn’t fault the guy's ambition.
This city had pretty much been abandoned since the war and the guy and his followers actually made an honest attempt to clean up the place, eventually dividing it into 5 "sectors". One central that represented his vision where anyone who wanted could live and 4 outer dedicated to the "needs" of the 4 races that made up the alliance. Sector 1 being tailor made for the Dourg, sector 2 for us Seqa, sector 3 to the Mannings and finally sector 4 to the Razier whose rooftops I also just ran for my life across.
The Razier? Oh right, forgot to mention them. They are the fourth major sapient species of this planet though no one really knows where they came from. Having seemingly just showed up following that invasion and no records of them being in the Dourg armies exist. Like the Mannings they mostly stick to themself and at least back then I tried to avoid them as much as I could as they creeped me out.
But anyway. The guy’s dream lasted until his death after which things quickly fell apart and these syndicates took over. But I have babbled on enough about history now so let’s return to the story at hand and pick up where we left off.
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Save for those border pass guards leaving me waiting so that they could "check my story" and me having to seriously lean in on the order's reputation for them to let me pass. My journey through the CS and its brightly lit streets was relatively uneventful.
Which was a problem since it gave me time to reflect on how much I hated this place. Sure, not living your life in fear over having your throat slit during the night would be nice. But that didn’t stop my scales from tingling over how... sterile the place felt having barely any smells in the air and buildings that had been shined to a polish with no Seqa boards or even wood in sight. Just concrete, glass and pompousness with locals that gave you angry glances and who turned away from you the moment you acted in a way that didn’t fit into their self-created cages they called a world…
No, thank some god for sector 2 where you could live freely without having to conform yourself to someone else's idea of a life. There you could climb and run whenever you fancied while here. If you did any of that or even started walking four-legged people would give you looks like you were some kind of animal!
Grueling thoughts like these kept filling my head as I walked the distance between the two sectors. No, there was absolutely no way I could live like this. My life might be full of danger involving people that would want nothing more than to kill me. But it was my life to live and the one I had chosen for me. Now, where was that darn sector-pass...
Oh there it is! I almost exclaimed outloud upon seeing the large building finally appear out in the distance. The sight instantly improved my mood and I started to hurry along at the prospect of soon being out of this wretched place and not spend a minute more in it than necessary.
That there was a contrast between this and my last passing was a bit of an understatement. Unlike the Sector 3-CS one where I probably had been moments away from a cavity search if I hadn’t thrown my weight around, here the guards barely gave me an eye as I walked up to the gate and without me even saying a word i watched one Seqa, clearly more preoccupied with figuring out how he had managed to land this graveyard shift, lazily nod to a coworker about opening it for me.
Their indifference of course made sense. Noone cared about who left the CS. Just who got in and my status as a fellow Seqa was enough to prove that I had business in sector 2. So with a slight nod of my own I simply walked past them and heard them immediately close the gate behind me.
The guards on this site didn’t exactly pay me any more attention so I took the opportunity to stretch out a little as my long walk through the CS and lingering disdain from the place had made my muscles feel incredibly stiff. Once done (the guards had passed me an eye or two but like their friends on the other side, they were more preoccupied with not falling asleep on duty) I proceeded to walk away from the building towards a nearby tower clad in wooden boards full of claw marks and I added some of my own as I climbed it and heaved myself up onto the platform at the top. From there running towards the edge and grabbing hold of a Seqa board, jumping down a familiar path that I knew would get me home.
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Ok I have been talking about those boards for a while now so let’s give some more context before I continue about us Seqa and what we are. We are as you might have summarized natural climbers having apparently lived some kind of arboreal life back at our home world. And despite being as far from the woods as you possibly can be in this city these attributes still reflect a lot in our chosen habitats and way of life. Manifesting as an example in our choice of dwellings which we built almost exclusively from wood and here in this city at least, tended to be stacked vertically on top of already existing structures often in a way that made them lack anything resembling a ground floor or even method to enter said dwelling from ground level. Entrance instead often being achieved through these boards that essentially acted as our roads and which took the form of reinforced wooden platforms, slanted at an angle to make them sturdier and set up through regular intervals. In turn creating these branching paths that in sector 2 at least. Had been built into a full-blown network that pretty much allowed you to travel anywhere in the sector without ever touching the ground. Only disrupted by platforms like the one I had entered that served as hubs.
So did that cause issues when other species needed to visit sector 2? Well I would be lying if I said it couldn't. But it's not like the streets aren’t there and we tended to care enough to keep them somewhat clean from trash. But that’s a story for another time so let’s move on from this tangent.
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The wind poured nicely through my now open cloak as I ran down the path feeling the familiar sense of my weight expressed through my claws each time I grabbed hold of a new board and had to strain my muscles so I could jump towards the next. Together the feelings quickly became a pleasant rhythm and since the path was multi-laned and didn’t really lead anywhere significant (well it did lead to one of the sector 2-3 passes, but again nowhere significant) other than to my home I had little to no traffic to care about. Leading to me actually finding myself drifting off as I ran and my mind quickly wandered towards earlier tonight and the failed hit.
What had gone wrong exactly? My (officially at least) not exactly high status within the order meant that I wasn't exactly privy to information outside of what I needed to accomplish my job (“Need to know” and such crap). Still, I considered myself clever enough to read between the lines and thinking back to the briefing... had it felt a bit hasty? like this was something that had been scrambled together at the last minute? Wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened and usually it wasn’t a problem as our leadership normally knew better than to take a job without sufficient intel but could they have made a mistake…
I forced myself to stop thinking about it. My speculation wouldn’t lead to anything good and instead I turned my mind towards what I would do now that I was free for the coming days. Standard practice after a hit was to lay low and wait for a summon prior to debriefing just in case some cleanup needed to be done or we needed to change our HQ location or something like that. And this failed one would likely take a while to sort out so maybe I could finish up some paperwork? Or just take the opportunity to hang out somewhere nice and relax? Hell, maybe I could even offer to help Nathalie with some of her work if she'd let me…
“Though speaking of that girl...” I ended up thinking as my train of thought got interrupted by an unusual sight that also made me suddenly stop at a hub and stand up. It was the final one before I was supposed to turn off the main path onto a smaller one that led to the house itself and normally at this hour you would just barely be able to spot it from here laying in the shadow of the CS wall as it did. But tonight things were different and I could see it clearly thanks to the light being on inside. Suggesting that Nathalie must be awake and most likely waiting for me.
"Why would she do that?" I openly questioned and felt a sting of confusion and worry in my stomach. She fully knew I would be working tonight and even if the hit hadn’t gone wrong me getting home way past her usual bedtime was standard. Could the failed hit have generated enough publicity that some radio broadcaster had reported on it already? Making her stay up and worry for me? That was bad...
Well not the part of her being up worrying for me. That was downright cute and quite endearing in its way. But the news of the hit potentially going to the media so quickly gave the possibility that it might have been a setup meant to fail. Either from our contractor or possibly through some political move by the order itself. And neither possibly was one I liked…
"Still..." I concluded as I got down again in order to grab hold of the platform edge and jump onto the final path. It was just more speculation from my part and would hopefully be cleared up in the coming days. So instead I quickly jumped the last few platforms and dug my claws into a very familiar wall that I proceeded to climb upwards from towards another platform that I heaved myself onto. And after spending a few seconds now truly dusting myself off I took out my key and opened the door into my still lit house. Wondering if I should call out to my sister or not.
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Ok. I should probably clarify something there. Calling Nathalie my sister in the way I will do multiple times in this story is kind of misleading as we weren't really related and had mostly just grown up together after she got adopted by my mother. Who I should also clarify already by saying that she wasn’t actually my mother and more like my aunt... look, my family history is complicated ok? I will get more into it later.
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I breathed out again as I closed and locked the door behind me glad to finally not only be home and safe but also since it allowed me to finally ditch this darn coat so I spent a few seconds doing just that and hung it in the hallway. Like most Seqa living outside of the CS I normally didn’t bother with clothes in general. Our fur was good enough to warm us and modesty was something those Dourg and Mannings dealt with. This cloak though represented my allegiance with the order and not having it on while on business for them was never a good idea.
I proceeded to move into the house proper. Unlike most Seqa dwellings here in sector 2 this one hadn’t been built as one consisting instead of the modified top level of an old Manning house. It had an unusual layout as a result with everything on a single floor rather than rooms being stacked vertically from a central chamber and accessed by climbing though I didn’t care much about it. I had (well, my dad had and for different reasons than me, but that’s details) chosen it mostly for its remoteness and lack of neighbors and Natlie didn't have any complaints either and once more speaking of that girl...
As I entered the main living room and started to lurch off my gun belt too, my attention was suddenly drawn to a door leading to Nathalie's own sanctum opening.
"Thought I heard Someone open the door" She called out to me and entered the living room with that peculiar stride that she had.
"Sure did, guess I still need to work on my stealth skill a bit" I answered and finally managed to get that darn belt loose and put it alongside my gun on the table starting the process of unloading it. In the back of my head I could feel her stare at it.
"Well I can't say anything about that.” She eventually continued and walked up to me. “Must have been a good night though since you haven’t used that thing"
"Not the way I would put it sadly…" I admitted as I kept working on the firearm. "Raid was a complete failure. Ended up chased all over sector 4"
Still from behind me I could hear her make a curious sound. Being technically a civilian unaffiliated with the order I shouldn't really talk with her about our business but we had known each other (and lived together) long enough for a certain dynamic to develop. I told her enough that she couldn’t get into trouble over it. She in return didn’t ask any questions that she knew I could get into trouble over so that sound was also where she left it at.
I finally managed to unload the gun and turn around to face her. There is a plethora of jokes among both the Dourg and Manning communities both on how no one supposedly can tell us Seqa apart and how if you didn’t hear us speak, we might just as well be single-gendered species. But this was of course idiocy. While Nathalie and I were roughly the same age (She herself wasn’t really sure how old she was when our mother adopted her) we looked nothing alike. Her stature was somewhat smaller than mine and her fur a bit redder though the most striking difference that I found so intriguing and almost jealous of every time I looked at myself in the mirror was her scales. Mine had always been a bit rough and had accumulated more scratches than a well-used Seqa board from all the fights and scraps I’ve been in throughout my young life, while hers were almost completely undamaged and smooth with an almost marble like texture that just made you want to run your han...
…Sorry where was I? Yes and she also had one more row than me which you would think would be enough to set us apart but I digress. The point I was trying to get to was that she looked quite tired suggesting that she indeed had stayed up waiting for me.
"Did something leak out about it?" I finally asked the question. “Not often one sees you awake at this hour.”
"Not that I know off" she answered with a shrug, making that knot in my stomach ease as she moved away from the table. "Been up trying to get that darn bookkeeping to make sense somehow... While you were away I got news that the big donation we were supposed to get for the orphanage ran down the toilet, so now I had to redo the entire budget for the next quarter..."
She frowned and gagged slightly at the last sentence while I just nodded. Nathalie tended to use my hard-earned money in quite a bit of different charity works. But that orphanage was her baby so to speak which makes sense since it had belonged to our mother and was the place where they had met one another.
Suddenly though I found myself suppressing a yawn. Seems like my body had finally realized that I was safe now too.
"Yea good luck with that… I for one has a nice bed waiting for me right now “ I said while turning away from her again and proceeded to scoop both the gun and extracted bullets into my hands. “Think I’m going to sleep in tomorrow if you don’t mind..."
"Hm, imagine being able to do that..." She answered and gave me a slight wink. I was tempted to return it but honestly didn't have the energy so instead I just gave her a tired smile.
"While that budget isn't something I can help you with, anything else going on tomorrow? Considering what happened tonight it might be a few days before I get the call again."
She shrugged again "I'll see what comes up. Got some other things i have to deal with first before I even can set a schedule for this next week"
"Ok, Goodnight then" I answered and suppressed another yawn as I walked away from the living room towards my own bedroom. Technically I was supposed to write my report for the night immediately while it was fresh in memory but screw that! I deserved some rest so instead I just closed the door behind me, dumped the gun and bullets into their designated containers and curled up into my bed. Barely having any time to think about what she could have meant with those last words before I fell asleep.
Some would say that the beginning would be the best. Normally I would have no arguments there but would starting 30 years before I was even born really be the right thing here? Wasn’t this supposed to be my tale? Yes, thinking about it I believe starting in the middle would be so much better. In my own youth when I was nothing but a young Seqa trying to find his fortune in this crazy world...
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It was a night like so many others for me. One just as normal as the thousands of other people living in this city with maybe just one slight difference. Their definition of a "normal" night probably involved sleeping soundly in their beds next to their loved ones. While mine well... involved quite a bit more gun wielding goons and being chased across rooftops with bullets whistling around my ears!
I don’t know what had gone wrong. Could have been a snitch that alerted the target or something as innocent as someone sneezing at the wrong moment, but for me it didn't matter. It never mattered cause my job wasnt to care about such details. No, my orders had been very much direct and while I had technically already succeeded at fulfilling them, it wasn’t exactly meant to be a suicide mission but at this point unless I wanted it to become one I had to get down from here now!
The nature of this part of the city (sector 3) made it harder than it sounded though. The buildings were way too tall for me to jump from directly and their neglected state meant that any staircases or similar object I had run past so far wasn’t an option either. Being too fragile or broken even for me to use.
So despite this being quite a familiar situation for me, there was no denying that the chase had gone on for far longer than I was comfortable with. These guys had been persistent, more so than usual and every second the chase continued was a second closer to me getting caught or getting a bullet lodged somewhere where I didn’t want it. And while I don’t think my pursuers and been given explicit orders to kill me, neither was a scenario I wanted to experience for obvious reasons.
Though speaking of bullets. It had actually been a while now since I had heard any being fired, so against better judgement I dared to stop and look back for a moment. I couldn’t see my pursuers but that wasn't a reason for me to relax. I had the wind against me and for them to follow me this long other Seqa had to be involved who should just as easily be able track me by scent. So I was in other words not out of proverbial woods (or canyons in this case but I'll explain some other time) yet and there was still also the matter of me getting down from here in one piece...
While I didn't know it yet, the fact that they seemed to have lost me somewhat turned out to have been a blessing from some kind of merciful god. As I resumed running and jumped across yet another canyon a disturbing feeling started to raise in my stomach - were they getting wider? I had barely managed to make this last jump after all.
While I didn't know it yet, the fact that they seemed to have lost me somewhat turned out to have been a blessing from some kind of merciful god. As I resumed running and jumped across yet another canyon a disturbing feeling started to raise in my stomach - were they getting wider? I had barely managed to make this last jump after all.
Ignoring the feeling for the moment I heaved myself up from the ledge and kept running. But following me vaulting over yet another old non-functioning air-conditioner my momentum came to a grinding halt as my instinct had been spot on. All this time I had subconsciously been moving towards the CS hoping to find at least one inhabited building with a non-broken emergency staircase or something, but a side effect of that was that the canyons had been widening and there was absolutely no way I was jumping across this next one.
Desperately I started to look around and saw an old and slightly charred chimney next to me which I quickly dived behind, hidden (temporarily at least) from any eyes which might want to cause me harm. I proceeded to stand up in an attempt to get a better view of my surroundings as well as to contemplate my next decision.
As I had suspected I couldn't stay there for long. The wind had turned and a small whiff into the air confirmed that my pursuers were still there somewhere and presumably looking desperately for anything that a Seqa could hide behind. You know, like an old broken chimney. Meaning I was limited to just two options: I could either risk backtracking and find another route down and risk running right into my pursuers arms or get down from here using other means...
A sudden burst of gunfire (none of which hit me or my hiding place, some of the bullets came dangerously close though) from behind me and in the general direction of my pursuers abruptly ended my train of thought. Either they had gotten into some very heated argument among themselves or they had caught up and figured out my hiding place. I did not dare to look around the chimney and expose my head to check but it didn’t matter. It left me with just option two and looking over the street I think I found a promising route in potentia. Or at least the start of one and hey, acting on a dangerous whim and figuring things out on the fly sure beats getting captured and/or shot!
I got down on all four again and leaned over the nearby ledge. Underneath me was, just as I spotted from above, an old broken pipe which probably once had been used for some kind of drainage but now had partly fallen out of its holdings and was hanging from the wall with a 70° (or something like that) angle from it. And while it wouldn’t take me to another roof, my route down might just go along it.
No sooner thought than done I had jumped down, grabbed a hold of the pipe with both my hands and feet and upside-down started to crawl headfirst along it towards its end. I could hear the rusty bolts still holding it to the wall grinding heavily like they wanted to give away, but my fortune hadn’t run out completely yet. It somehow still held firm as I reached its end and made an as large jump as I dared towards the other wall and my actual destination further down on it.
I must have fallen for a good second or so before I, with instincts honed by hundreds of jumps like this, reached out and grabbed hold of the piece of wood that represented my salvation. The Seqa board (again, I’ll explain later) flexed dangerously under my weight but it, like the pipe before, somehow held firm and after making sure It actually led somewhere I swung myself upwards to its top and immediately jumped to the next one following its path.
Or at least that had been my theory. You see, if I hadn’t been so worked up with the adrenaline rush you get from the thrill of chase and successfully avoiding the jaws of death I might actually have noticed that something was wrong with the boards of this path. Like for starters the lack of any major claw marks.
This can usually mean two things: either it had been newly laid/maintained (slim chance considering how few of us Seqa that actually lived in this part of the city) or it had been set up privately. But whatever the reason it spelt bad news for me since as I reached the 12th or so board on the path it suddenly ended abruptly and I found myself having to stop at my second dead end that night.
I didn’t know if my pursuers had chosen (or even been able to) follow me onto the path but I didn’t want to risk following it in the other direction to find out. So instead I stood up once again in order to find out what I should do next.
The path seemed to have stopped at one of the few inhabited buildings of sector 4 confirming that yes, it most likely had been privately laid. No one seemed to be home though and the entrance was locked so that route wasn’t an option. And since the way back was too dangerous It left me once more with just one more option. An option which was fortunately way more my style.
I swung down from the board once more, hanging onto one with only my claws before letting myself fall feet first and with as much wind resistance as possible, landing hard on a balcony about 3 meters down from the board's location.
The landing was a bit rougher than what my feet would have appreciated and they ached somewhat from it but hadn’t any time to complain, the ground was only ten meters or something away.
I wasted no time jumping over the balcony, grabbing hold of one of its support beams and crawled along it towards the building wall. Letting go of the beam to instead grab the wooden crossbeam of an old and dirty window that was located underneath it. I then quickly crawled vertically along it before jumping to a second window underneath that and while hanging from its lower beam released and let myself fall in such a way that I made a four-point landing on the concrete street below. Once again ignoring the pain in my feet and hands this time I wasted no time in scuttling off into the darkness of the canyons. A left turn, a right turn I didn’t really care as long as it was in the general direction of the sector pass. Until finally the light of said building came into view and I collapsed behind a big trash container panting heavily as I finally managed to relax my muscles in the hope that I had gotten away.
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Right. You, the reader whoever you are probably have a lot of questions so let’s try to give you some answers before we continue.
For starters you are probably wondering who the heck I am and why I was just running for my life in a rooftop chase? Well the first one is quite easy to answer: My name is Cedrik, son of Edgar and a 3rd generation Seqa inhabitant of this city.
The second question is somewhat harder to answer though. Back then I used to work for this group known simply as "The Order". My role that particular night having been that of a “runner” where I essentially acted as a lookout, currier or even like that night; a distraction while the "hitters" made the more direct grunt work. And these distractions often involved me having to lead guys away from our targets like tonight.
Now my language here might raise some red flags among those who don’t know who The Order was. Was I working for some kind of criminal organization? And yea I’m not going to try and smooth things over here. To an outsider to the system, that's basically what we were.
But let’s try that again. Yes, the order dealt with what most people would consider criminal activity. Break-ins, assassinations, racketing, you name it. But did that make us a criminal organization? Label us like that then what would you call all those other syndicates doing the same thing but who operated with actual government support?
Well, guess when I put it that way it would technically make us one but our lack of government sanction wasn’t the only thing that set us apart from the rest. You see, unlike them we didn’t do our stuff against civilians. We did it exclusively against other syndicates.
Now how would that work you ask? Wouldn’t that just mean we were hated by everybody and wouldn’t last a day? And why were syndicates operating with government support? Well the latter is a long story that I can give some other time. But as for the second we kind of were, but before I go on let’s first introduce a little scenario:
Pretend that you are a high-ranking member of one of these syndicates. You just got news that one of your rivals recently started probing your territory, seemingly with the intention to muscle their way into it, what do you do? Confront said syndicate and tell them to back off? Start probing their own territory in return? Or even just try and kill some important member to send a message? Sure you can. But all of those answers come with a simple caveat; You were the one to do it. It risks creating blood feuds or even wars among the syndicates that risks upsetting the balance between them and in general never be good for business. But lucky then that there is this group that can do it for you instead? Yes, let's hire them to do it and give yourself some plausible deniability over the whole affair and if they somehow mess it up then it would still be no risk for you since well, who knows what they are up to anyway? Not like they can challenge you without revealing themselves right?
So yes, we are basically a syndicate for hire. And over time pretty much all of them have come to rely on us for this exact purpose. Solving feuds among them and creating a weird sort of balance where everyone dislikes us yet at the same time also needs us in order to keep the way more delicate balance that exists between them and is needed for this city to even run properly.
In fact I would even say that by my time there even the government (who are arguably a syndicate themselves but that’s again, another story) seems to have come to realize our important role for keeping this balance. Since despite not sticking up to them we were still allowed to do all this stuff with pretty much no threats from them beyond them breathing down our necks occasionally and forcing us to move our HQ every month or so.
Anyway I'll get back to this later as I get further into my story. For now let's return to that back-alley dumpster I was still lying behind.
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My heavy panting was suddenly disturbed by my ears twitching to a sound from behind me. Footsteps? yes. And from the heaviness of them it definitely wasn’t a felow Seqa. I knew better than too move though and it didn’t take long for whoever it was to announce their presence.
“Well hello now, nice place for taking a rest isn’t it?”
I pretended to have not heard or even acknowledged that I had noticed her voice. Said voice also telling me that she indeed was no Seqa but rather a Dourg and from the sound of things either very confident in her abilities, or just stupid.
I could hear her draw a breath to say something more, but in a raspy and still somewhat tired voice I finally acknowledged her presence by cutting her off:
“Sorry. I don’t have any money or anything else of value. You have to find someone else to mug."
I don’t know if it was my nonchalant tone or merely the fact that I hadn’t shown any semblance of fear to her thinly veiled threat earlier. But when she spoke again it was with a notably less calm voice.
“Oh I don't know about that sweetie. That coat of yours sure looks nice..."
Well that pretty much confirmed my other suspicion. She was either unaligned to any of the major syndicates and didn’t recognize what I represented. Or “really” stupid.
Ignoring the obvious question of what she was going to do with a Seqa sized coat. Said coat was specifically given to me by the order and me wearing it symbolized that i was on official order business. No syndicate in their right mind would risk their business with us on a random mugging.
Which was actually good news for me. It meant that I in turn could teach her a lesson without any actual consequences.
I got up onto my feet and only now faced her. As I summarized she was indeed a Dourg, quite a distinct specimen of one too with their completely hairless skin and a good 50 cm taller than me even standing up. I also made a quick unimpressed glance at the knife she was holding before fixating her eyes.
"Look here lady... I don’t know who your usual victims are but you picked the wrong one tonight. Leave me alone before I hurt you..."
She didn’t answer my treat but her sudden grin betrayed her intention and quick as only a Seqa could and right as she was about to lurch forward with the knife I had gone back on all four and rushed forward myself to where she was standing. And before she had any real chance to counter me, I had gone past her while also making a not very deep but still painful slice into one of her legs with my claw making her trip forward onto the ground.
With a curse and scream that I won’t bother recreating she fell down onto her knees and started to frantically swing the knife around in an attempt to hit me with it. Once more I was too fast for her though and with a small jump I climbed up her back and delivered a powerful blow to her head.
The impact had the desired effect and seemingly dazed her. Making her fall over hit her face hard against the concrete below as I jumped off her again. I got up on my legs and briefly watched her, from the sound that came she seemed to have broken her nose in the impact.
For a moment I considered drawing my gun and really teach her a lesson. But ended up deciding it would be a waste of a good bullet and once I determined that she wasn’t going to lurch at me again I instead left her there. And turned back towards the street deciding it was time I headed home.
I began to walk out of the alley but then stopped as I realized something. Someone from the sector pass might have heard the commotion and gone to check what was going on. A problem since those government goons weren’t exactly fond of us Order people to begin with for obvious reasons, and if they found me here next to that Dourg it might give them enough justification to “hold onto me”, and making them not to would have taken a serious bribe with money which I hadn’t joked about not having on me.
I was lucky once again though. Looking out towards the street I breathed a sigh of relief finding it still abandoned with no sounds suggesting someone was rushing towards my position. So before I headed out to it I proceeded to dust myself off to the best of my abilities.
Normally I wouldn’t bother until I got home but the CS inhabitants were a bit, you could say, “high strung” living in their luxury and, assuming the guards even would have let me in, going there covered in old concrete dust or whatever was on those rooftops tended to give you annoyed looks. And even if I would be safe from any muggings there, unnecessary attention was not something I wanted after the failed hit tonight.
So only after making sure I didn’t look too “Seqaish” I proceeded towards the brightly lit pass. Already mentally preparing myself for the grueling walk all the way to sector 2.
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I don’t know how far this tale of mine will travel so just for the sake of context, let’s move out a little and look at this city as a whole and what it represents. But even before that I think I might need to explain some things about this planet as a whole.
I mentioned that I was a Seqa and my would-be assailant was a Dourg. Together we represent two “dominant” species here so to speak, but neither of us are actually native to this world. Being for the lack of a better term, Aliens.
I’m no historian but to give you the short story of what happened, those Dourg apparently have this big interstellar empire somewhere far away from this world where we Seqa apparently served as auxiliaries or something like that. And the generally accepted story goes that about 500 years or so ago, one noble on his way home from a campaign "got lost" in uncharted territory, ran into this planet and decided that he might as well conquer it while he was in the area.
Or at least that had supposedly been his plan. As you might have suspected by now, it didn't really work out like that when the natives proved much fiercer than he had suspected. And soon his “easy conquest” had become a full-blown war of attrition.
No one really seems to know how the war ended or how long it lasted, but the results are well accepted. The civilization that used to inhabit the planet was pretty much wiped out but in order to achieve this the Dourg fleet ended up wasting so many resources that it longer had the ability of making it back to charted territory. Leaving the survivors with no choice but to settle on few remaining inhabited areas on the planet and the rest is as they say, history.
Now you might ask: what happened to the original inhabitants? Are they all gone? Well not really. They call themselves the Mannings and despite their numbers being far from what it used to be prior to the war and their current civilization being a shadow of its former self. They are most certainly still around and the whole “invasion” thing means they aren’t exactly fond of either us Seqa or the Dourg in general. Meaning that even “post war” confrontations used to be quite common though by my time things had mostly calmed down save for a few flare ups here and there.
Now about this city. While we Seqa have in general no issues living with the Doug we prefer to make our own habitats and with the Mannings, well, being what they are it has led to each species mostly sticking to themself as much as they can. But there is one major exception as I finally come back to the original purpose of this lengthy piece of exposition, this city.
80 years or so ago before I was born some guy whose name isn't really important had this great idea uniting the scattered inhabitants of this planet. Leading to a new era of cooperation, unity, happiness and you know, the usual idealist crap. Somehow though through sheer charisma he managed to get enough followers from every species to actually go through with it, and you certainly couldn’t fault the guy's ambition.
This city had pretty much been abandoned since the war and the guy and his followers actually made an honest attempt to clean up the place, eventually dividing it into 5 "sectors". One central that represented his vision where anyone who wanted could live and 4 outer dedicated to the "needs" of the 4 races that made up the alliance. Sector 1 being tailor made for the Dourg, sector 2 for us Seqa, sector 3 to the Mannings and finally sector 4 to the Razier whose rooftops I also just ran for my life across.
The Razier? Oh right, forgot to mention them. They are the fourth major sapient species of this planet though no one really knows where they came from. Having seemingly just showed up following that invasion and no records of them being in the Dourg armies exist. Like the Mannings they mostly stick to themself and at least back then I tried to avoid them as much as I could as they creeped me out.
But anyway. The guy’s dream lasted until his death after which things quickly fell apart and these syndicates took over. But I have babbled on enough about history now so let’s return to the story at hand and pick up where we left off.
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Save for those border pass guards leaving me waiting so that they could "check my story" and me having to seriously lean in on the order's reputation for them to let me pass. My journey through the CS and its brightly lit streets was relatively uneventful.
Which was a problem since it gave me time to reflect on how much I hated this place. Sure, not living your life in fear over having your throat slit during the night would be nice. But that didn’t stop my scales from tingling over how... sterile the place felt having barely any smells in the air and buildings that had been shined to a polish with no Seqa boards or even wood in sight. Just concrete, glass and pompousness with locals that gave you angry glances and who turned away from you the moment you acted in a way that didn’t fit into their self-created cages they called a world…
No, thank some god for sector 2 where you could live freely without having to conform yourself to someone else's idea of a life. There you could climb and run whenever you fancied while here. If you did any of that or even started walking four-legged people would give you looks like you were some kind of animal!
Grueling thoughts like these kept filling my head as I walked the distance between the two sectors. No, there was absolutely no way I could live like this. My life might be full of danger involving people that would want nothing more than to kill me. But it was my life to live and the one I had chosen for me. Now, where was that darn sector-pass...
Oh there it is! I almost exclaimed outloud upon seeing the large building finally appear out in the distance. The sight instantly improved my mood and I started to hurry along at the prospect of soon being out of this wretched place and not spend a minute more in it than necessary.
That there was a contrast between this and my last passing was a bit of an understatement. Unlike the Sector 3-CS one where I probably had been moments away from a cavity search if I hadn’t thrown my weight around, here the guards barely gave me an eye as I walked up to the gate and without me even saying a word i watched one Seqa, clearly more preoccupied with figuring out how he had managed to land this graveyard shift, lazily nod to a coworker about opening it for me.
Their indifference of course made sense. Noone cared about who left the CS. Just who got in and my status as a fellow Seqa was enough to prove that I had business in sector 2. So with a slight nod of my own I simply walked past them and heard them immediately close the gate behind me.
The guards on this site didn’t exactly pay me any more attention so I took the opportunity to stretch out a little as my long walk through the CS and lingering disdain from the place had made my muscles feel incredibly stiff. Once done (the guards had passed me an eye or two but like their friends on the other side, they were more preoccupied with not falling asleep on duty) I proceeded to walk away from the building towards a nearby tower clad in wooden boards full of claw marks and I added some of my own as I climbed it and heaved myself up onto the platform at the top. From there running towards the edge and grabbing hold of a Seqa board, jumping down a familiar path that I knew would get me home.
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Ok I have been talking about those boards for a while now so let’s give some more context before I continue about us Seqa and what we are. We are as you might have summarized natural climbers having apparently lived some kind of arboreal life back at our home world. And despite being as far from the woods as you possibly can be in this city these attributes still reflect a lot in our chosen habitats and way of life. Manifesting as an example in our choice of dwellings which we built almost exclusively from wood and here in this city at least, tended to be stacked vertically on top of already existing structures often in a way that made them lack anything resembling a ground floor or even method to enter said dwelling from ground level. Entrance instead often being achieved through these boards that essentially acted as our roads and which took the form of reinforced wooden platforms, slanted at an angle to make them sturdier and set up through regular intervals. In turn creating these branching paths that in sector 2 at least. Had been built into a full-blown network that pretty much allowed you to travel anywhere in the sector without ever touching the ground. Only disrupted by platforms like the one I had entered that served as hubs.
So did that cause issues when other species needed to visit sector 2? Well I would be lying if I said it couldn't. But it's not like the streets aren’t there and we tended to care enough to keep them somewhat clean from trash. But that’s a story for another time so let’s move on from this tangent.
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The wind poured nicely through my now open cloak as I ran down the path feeling the familiar sense of my weight expressed through my claws each time I grabbed hold of a new board and had to strain my muscles so I could jump towards the next. Together the feelings quickly became a pleasant rhythm and since the path was multi-laned and didn’t really lead anywhere significant (well it did lead to one of the sector 2-3 passes, but again nowhere significant) other than to my home I had little to no traffic to care about. Leading to me actually finding myself drifting off as I ran and my mind quickly wandered towards earlier tonight and the failed hit.
What had gone wrong exactly? My (officially at least) not exactly high status within the order meant that I wasn't exactly privy to information outside of what I needed to accomplish my job (“Need to know” and such crap). Still, I considered myself clever enough to read between the lines and thinking back to the briefing... had it felt a bit hasty? like this was something that had been scrambled together at the last minute? Wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened and usually it wasn’t a problem as our leadership normally knew better than to take a job without sufficient intel but could they have made a mistake…
I forced myself to stop thinking about it. My speculation wouldn’t lead to anything good and instead I turned my mind towards what I would do now that I was free for the coming days. Standard practice after a hit was to lay low and wait for a summon prior to debriefing just in case some cleanup needed to be done or we needed to change our HQ location or something like that. And this failed one would likely take a while to sort out so maybe I could finish up some paperwork? Or just take the opportunity to hang out somewhere nice and relax? Hell, maybe I could even offer to help Nathalie with some of her work if she'd let me…
“Though speaking of that girl...” I ended up thinking as my train of thought got interrupted by an unusual sight that also made me suddenly stop at a hub and stand up. It was the final one before I was supposed to turn off the main path onto a smaller one that led to the house itself and normally at this hour you would just barely be able to spot it from here laying in the shadow of the CS wall as it did. But tonight things were different and I could see it clearly thanks to the light being on inside. Suggesting that Nathalie must be awake and most likely waiting for me.
"Why would she do that?" I openly questioned and felt a sting of confusion and worry in my stomach. She fully knew I would be working tonight and even if the hit hadn’t gone wrong me getting home way past her usual bedtime was standard. Could the failed hit have generated enough publicity that some radio broadcaster had reported on it already? Making her stay up and worry for me? That was bad...
Well not the part of her being up worrying for me. That was downright cute and quite endearing in its way. But the news of the hit potentially going to the media so quickly gave the possibility that it might have been a setup meant to fail. Either from our contractor or possibly through some political move by the order itself. And neither possibly was one I liked…
"Still..." I concluded as I got down again in order to grab hold of the platform edge and jump onto the final path. It was just more speculation from my part and would hopefully be cleared up in the coming days. So instead I quickly jumped the last few platforms and dug my claws into a very familiar wall that I proceeded to climb upwards from towards another platform that I heaved myself onto. And after spending a few seconds now truly dusting myself off I took out my key and opened the door into my still lit house. Wondering if I should call out to my sister or not.
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Ok. I should probably clarify something there. Calling Nathalie my sister in the way I will do multiple times in this story is kind of misleading as we weren't really related and had mostly just grown up together after she got adopted by my mother. Who I should also clarify already by saying that she wasn’t actually my mother and more like my aunt... look, my family history is complicated ok? I will get more into it later.
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I breathed out again as I closed and locked the door behind me glad to finally not only be home and safe but also since it allowed me to finally ditch this darn coat so I spent a few seconds doing just that and hung it in the hallway. Like most Seqa living outside of the CS I normally didn’t bother with clothes in general. Our fur was good enough to warm us and modesty was something those Dourg and Mannings dealt with. This cloak though represented my allegiance with the order and not having it on while on business for them was never a good idea.
I proceeded to move into the house proper. Unlike most Seqa dwellings here in sector 2 this one hadn’t been built as one consisting instead of the modified top level of an old Manning house. It had an unusual layout as a result with everything on a single floor rather than rooms being stacked vertically from a central chamber and accessed by climbing though I didn’t care much about it. I had (well, my dad had and for different reasons than me, but that’s details) chosen it mostly for its remoteness and lack of neighbors and Natlie didn't have any complaints either and once more speaking of that girl...
As I entered the main living room and started to lurch off my gun belt too, my attention was suddenly drawn to a door leading to Nathalie's own sanctum opening.
"Thought I heard Someone open the door" She called out to me and entered the living room with that peculiar stride that she had.
"Sure did, guess I still need to work on my stealth skill a bit" I answered and finally managed to get that darn belt loose and put it alongside my gun on the table starting the process of unloading it. In the back of my head I could feel her stare at it.
"Well I can't say anything about that.” She eventually continued and walked up to me. “Must have been a good night though since you haven’t used that thing"
"Not the way I would put it sadly…" I admitted as I kept working on the firearm. "Raid was a complete failure. Ended up chased all over sector 4"
Still from behind me I could hear her make a curious sound. Being technically a civilian unaffiliated with the order I shouldn't really talk with her about our business but we had known each other (and lived together) long enough for a certain dynamic to develop. I told her enough that she couldn’t get into trouble over it. She in return didn’t ask any questions that she knew I could get into trouble over so that sound was also where she left it at.
I finally managed to unload the gun and turn around to face her. There is a plethora of jokes among both the Dourg and Manning communities both on how no one supposedly can tell us Seqa apart and how if you didn’t hear us speak, we might just as well be single-gendered species. But this was of course idiocy. While Nathalie and I were roughly the same age (She herself wasn’t really sure how old she was when our mother adopted her) we looked nothing alike. Her stature was somewhat smaller than mine and her fur a bit redder though the most striking difference that I found so intriguing and almost jealous of every time I looked at myself in the mirror was her scales. Mine had always been a bit rough and had accumulated more scratches than a well-used Seqa board from all the fights and scraps I’ve been in throughout my young life, while hers were almost completely undamaged and smooth with an almost marble like texture that just made you want to run your han...
…Sorry where was I? Yes and she also had one more row than me which you would think would be enough to set us apart but I digress. The point I was trying to get to was that she looked quite tired suggesting that she indeed had stayed up waiting for me.
"Did something leak out about it?" I finally asked the question. “Not often one sees you awake at this hour.”
"Not that I know off" she answered with a shrug, making that knot in my stomach ease as she moved away from the table. "Been up trying to get that darn bookkeeping to make sense somehow... While you were away I got news that the big donation we were supposed to get for the orphanage ran down the toilet, so now I had to redo the entire budget for the next quarter..."
She frowned and gagged slightly at the last sentence while I just nodded. Nathalie tended to use my hard-earned money in quite a bit of different charity works. But that orphanage was her baby so to speak which makes sense since it had belonged to our mother and was the place where they had met one another.
Suddenly though I found myself suppressing a yawn. Seems like my body had finally realized that I was safe now too.
"Yea good luck with that… I for one has a nice bed waiting for me right now “ I said while turning away from her again and proceeded to scoop both the gun and extracted bullets into my hands. “Think I’m going to sleep in tomorrow if you don’t mind..."
"Hm, imagine being able to do that..." She answered and gave me a slight wink. I was tempted to return it but honestly didn't have the energy so instead I just gave her a tired smile.
"While that budget isn't something I can help you with, anything else going on tomorrow? Considering what happened tonight it might be a few days before I get the call again."
She shrugged again "I'll see what comes up. Got some other things i have to deal with first before I even can set a schedule for this next week"
"Ok, Goodnight then" I answered and suppressed another yawn as I walked away from the living room towards my own bedroom. Technically I was supposed to write my report for the night immediately while it was fresh in memory but screw that! I deserved some rest so instead I just closed the door behind me, dumped the gun and bullets into their designated containers and curled up into my bed. Barely having any time to think about what she could have meant with those last words before I fell asleep.