Return to Horizon

Angie sat in the boat, mind everywhere but the present. Her mind drifted during long waits. The sea air stung her with every breath, but by now, she could barely feel it. Not over the roiling rage, the deep anger that had been building inside her for the last day. Ever since Luis’s betrayal had forced her to go back on a promise she made someone. Someone who rightfully terrified her. But she needed a ride back to Horizon. She couldn’t enact her just vengeance from the ruins. So, she’d called the person who’d stabbed his eight-year-old protégé, given a child a scar that caused her pain for the rest of her life. He was busy, unfortunately for someone other than Angie, but he still had gotten a ride for her.

Angie knew that the chances of her finding Luis in Horizon were negligible. Not because he thought she was alive. Luis knew, with a hundred percent certainty, that she couldn’t swim. Being near salt water pained her, after all, and she never wanted to get anywhere near water. No, he would leave because BigBird had been the best Overwatch in Horizon. Her death meant, even if Luis blamed it on a mistake or really anything else, even if he got Diane to corroborate his story, the rest of the locals would hate him forever. So, Angie knew he’d collect his paycheck and head out. But someone on Horizon would know where he went. And, since she didn’t know where he would go, this was her only option.

As her chauffeuse began the final approach, Angie tapped her on the shoulder. “Drop me right over there,” she said, gesturing towards a buoy a half mile out from the ports of town.

The driver looked at her passenger. “You sure?”

Angie just simply stared the woman down, cold and expressionless. With a sigh, the chauffeuse turned the boat. Pulling up to the buoy’s side, Angie stepped out onto the barely a meter wide platform and sat down. The boat didn’t move. “You can leave,” Angie said, coldly, seated calmly with her Go-Bag over her shoulder.

The chauffeuse shook her head and muttered, “Same goddamned attitude.” Then, the boat returned to life and motored off. Angie waited until the boat was out of sight before she stood up and moved to the side of the buoy. Pulling on the center of the platform, the buoy opened up, revealing her old supply kit. She’d left it here when she first moved to Horizon, two years ago. Pulling out the equipment, she moved most of it into her Go-Bag. Waterproof bags with electronics, and blueprints, and plastic explosives, and other miscellanea that she had figured she wouldn’t need in her job here. With those supplies transferred, she pulled out her old drysuit. Carefully, to avoid re-aggravating any old injuries, she stripped everything but her compression underwear off and pulled on the drysuit. It still fit her. It would be a tad uncomfortable, but it allowed her to swim without constant stinging pain. She put the spare clothes in the Go-Bag. Drysuit on, she pulled the final thing out of the makeshift chest. A featureless white ballistic mask. Nothing special, but it was somewhat bullet resistant and would keep her identity unknown. She hadn’t put it on in years. Almost a decade. Since she left her old business, the business the insane god had taught her. It took her a moment to get the nerve back up. It had been an important moment in her life, tossing this mask into this hole. She put the mask on, pulling her old face down over her natural one. With such a seemingly minor moment, BigBird was no more. She was just another Nobody. Closing the buoy and tightening her Go-Bag across her chest, she dove into the water.

It was a rough swim for Angie. It’d been ages since she’d swam at all, much less a full klick. But, fuelled by her rage, growing ever more icy, she made it to the side of the floating city. Her first stop would have to be the Dead Man’s Haunt, an old sailor’s bar near the docks. That would be where Diane was. That’s where Diane always was, when she wasn’t on a job. Which meant Angie had two options. Climb onto Horizon here, and walk through town, or go under the town, and come up somewhere closer. Too many people would notice her climbing up here. Better to head up through the storm drains’ cisterns and up somewhere in the middle of the city. She knew it would be less obvious that way. Diving once more, she swam under the edge of the floating city.

Angie climbed up in an alleyway, two and a half blocks out from the docks, two flat from the Haunt. She opened up her go-bag and pulled out a hat, scarf, and lightweight, long jacket. Hoping, together, they would cover her drysuit. As uncomfortable as it might be, she wasn’t about to strip down in a public street. At the same time, she didn’t think she could manage to look very incognito, wandering into the bar in a full drysuit. The jacket and scarf combined made it unclear what she was wearing, at least as a top. The bottom of her drysuit wouldn’t look too odd, especially at a bar that close to the docks. The hat was just because Angie was self-conscious about wandering around in her mask. It felt too Goar to her. With a hat positioned right, though, you might almost not notice the mask at first glance. At least, that was her hope. Outerwear donned, she set out down the street.

No one gave her a second glance. Why would they, they all had their own lives to attend to. Entering the Haunt, Angie scanned the room. Diane wasn’t here. She must’ve been on a job. Angie walked over to the table behind Diane’s usual and sat down. She could afford to wait. Everyone in the bar looked curiously at her, now that she was stationary and everyone else wasn’t busy. But no one bothered to comment. From her dress and attitude, it was clear she was just a visitor, not trying to cause trouble. Any bar this close to a dock got visitors like that, people from other cities or communities, all the time. Angie was just another of those types to the others at the bar. Their attention turned when another of those types entered, a man in a fancy suit. A yachtie, she surmised from the look of him. Angie, after a moment’s glance at him, turned her focus back to the door. She was waiting for a meeting, after all.

It was one minute and seventeen seconds before Diane walked through the doors into the Dead Man’s Haunt. Angie sat, patiently, waiting. No one bothered her. Diane seated herself and ordered her first beer. Angie politely waited for the beer to be delivered to her table before she stood up and moved to Diane’s table. “What do you want?” the boat driver asked.

Behind her featureless mask, Angie took a breath. “Just to ask some questions. Diane.”

Diane looked confused at the mask before her. She didn’t recognize it, and didn’t even try to hide that fact. “Am I supposed to know you?” she asked.

“You better. After all,” Angie replied, a knife clicking out of a switchblade and poking just barely into Diane’s diaphragm “You wouldn’t want us to get matching scars.” Diane’s eyes widened, recognizing where the blade was touching. “Come with, nice and -” Angie didn’t even get to finish her sentence, as Diane made a break for it, sprinting out of the bar’s double doors. “Goddamnit,” Angie muttered, running after the woman.

Diane fled into the city. Perhaps she hoped to lose Angie in the crowds, perhaps she hoped for bystander help, perhaps she simply no longer thought water could stop Angie, the why didn’t matter much to Angie. Angie was on the hunt. And Diane wasn’t used to evading people like Angie. No one was. No one could. Not for long, in any case. Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds later, Angie shoved Diane into an alley. With a kick, Diane was unconscious. Angie opened the grate to the storm drain, and rolled Diane into the cistern. After she heard the unconscious body splash, she followed it down, closing the grate behind herself. Pulling Diane onto the maintenance scaffolding of the cistern, Angie took off her mask and got to work setting up for her polite questioning.

Diane, now chained to the grated scaffolding, awoke to a ghost. Angie stood over her, a cold blank expression on her now visible face. “It was quite rude of you to run like that,” Angie informed her former driver. “Now I have some questions you’re going to answer for me. Understood?”

Diane spoke immediately. “He’s not here anymore,” she blurted out. “He took the money and left. The other scavengers were planning something.”

Angie cocked her head as she looked down at the terrified woman. She hadn’t even started yet. “Where?” she asked her captive.

“I don’t know,” Diane said to her.

Angie shook her head. Diane had access to everything she’d need to figure out where Luis had gone, and she was a curious sort. She definitely figured out where he’d gone. Angie placed a cloth rag over her face. “Lying is wrong,” she said, taking a bucket and filling it with the cistern’s water, she began to pour it out over the rag. Repeating the pour twice, she removed the rag. “Now where did Luis go?”

Coughing up some water, the clearly traumatized driver spat out, “No.”

Angie nodded. That told her everything she needed to know. Something about her personal code meant whatever she learned about Luis was a secret. Something to be kept safe. The information was on Diane’s boat. It was the safest place in Diane’s life for information to be kept. “Thank you,” Angie replied. She turned to leave.

“You’re just going to leave me here?” Diane asked, “You realize you’re never going to be allowed back if you do this, right?”

Angie turned to look at the woman. “You made me take back up my old face. I can never go back anyways.” She used the cloth rag to gag her, so no one would find the woman. “A storm is coming in a couple days. Survival is in your hands alone.” And with that cryptic statement, she climbed back up out of the cistern, leaving Diane to her fate. Sliding her face back on over her head, Angie walked calmly to the edge of the city.

Diane’s boat was parked, exactly where it was always parked when she was on Horizon. At the edge of the docks, in plain view of the security people. Fortunately, the guard on shift was sneezy Phil, whose attention was focused mostly on the yachtie’s mini-barge. Phil always focused on guest ships over locals. After all, locals generally can take care of their own stuff. Angie walked through the side gate and, under the shadow of the guardpost, she threw on Diane’s coat. From far away, the guard would just assume she was Diane. Walking down the pier, Angie walked right onto Diane’s boat, with none the wiser. Deciding not to take any chances, Angie turned the boat on and drove away from the docks. Away from Horizon. Anyone wondering would assume it had been Diane, fleeing from the mysterious masked person who had chased her. Out at sea, Angie went below decks, to Diane’s cabin. To the safe. Decoding it took a while. She was better at picking than decoding. Eventually, however, it opened. Looking inside, there were a lot of secrets that she might be able to use in the future, but only one that mattered to her in the present. Luis was headed to Skymarket. Heading back to the top and turning the boat, Angie began to motor ahead. She was close enough to taste her vengeance now. And it tasted good.