Friday Afternoon Banking
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This is a short little flash story I wrote not too long ago. I've taken to writing them more often then anything else as its easy and doesn't take as long to write as a full short story or novella. Most importantly, they are fun. Slapped an R on it to be safe.
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Throughout the centuries of mankind’s existence, the financial system remained mostly unchanged. Even four thousand years since the first bank was developed in Old Earth Persia, one fact remained universal. Friday afternoon after a payday was a hectic time for those who worked there. Even though electronic deposits and systems of the like had largely made them obsolescent, people still got some sense of security from doing it in person.
Unfortunately, that made it hot, crowded, and for a non-human like the vixen standing in line, an alien experience one never forgot.
Particularly on this day.
“…so that’s when I decided to come by here on my way home!”
Forwar Milliscen Fischar cocked her head at the young human male speaking to her. He was scrawny, more bone then anything else, and couldn’t be more then in his late twenties. He wasn’t un-attractive for a human, with light brown hair and expressive eyes, and the vixen ran a paw through her black hair fur in reflex.
“Awri, I see. So ye do this every week?” Milliscen asked, toying with her intricate collar and flicking her bushy tail back and forth. For her, dealing with humanity’s monetary systems was one of the most confusing parts of being a free agent. It would be so much simpler if they just used a government run requisitions system like the Nation did.
“Yeah. Well, I live with my mother, she’s disabled see, and she never trusted the auto deposits or home scanners, so I come up here and do it for her.”
“Awrr, that’s so sweet of ya ta do.”
“Oh it’s really nothin…” The human would not get to finish his sentence, as suddenly the person that was in front of him whipped around and put a gun to his head. Milliscen almost ripped her clawgun out of its chest holster, but then she noticed a few others in the crowd walking over to support him. Why hadn’t the automated defenses zapped them all already? As discretely as possible she scanned the room, and noticed the cameras which aimed them were dead, as was every other screen and electronic device in the building. A low yield electromagnetic pulse, it had to be.
“Ye’ll be wantin ta let the boy go.” She stated simply, calmly, almost pleasantly. At least, it would be if she wasn’t baring her fangs.
The thug holding the gun to the poor kids head sneered derisively at her. He was pale white, with black hair that had a red streak in it. “Just wait your turn, bitch, we’ll get to you in a minute.” He dragged the boy by the collar to the front desk. The young female clerk was shivering slightly, but she was composed. The thug gestured with his gun. “You, give them your code to your account, and dump the funds into the one I specify.”
The poor kid shook his head slowly, pale as a ghost. “I can’t! My mother needs that for her medicine!”
The black haired guy holding the gun looked taken aback by this. Someone actually resisting him? He did not have the time for this. The gun whined, almost silent as the railgun pistol shot a hypersonic dart through the kid’s brain. A large hole cratered in the side of his head, gushing his lifeblood and the thug threw him to the floor, a panic, strained expression on the kid’s face.
Milliscen growled threateningly. She lived her life as a soldier. Her comrades had been killed, and she had taken life from thousands of inferior species, but nobody fucked around with Milliscen Fischar, or her friends.
The thug guffawed loudly, and his minions laughed nervously as well. “What are you getting so worked up for foxy? I kill your fuckin boyfriend or something?”
Milliscen laughed. Laughed! Not a friendly laugh either. This was the laugh of a carnivore that had its prey cornered and was toying with it. Of a person about to hit someone with something they never saw coming. “Aye deal with maggots like ya on a daily basis. Ye never seem ta learn either. The galaxy is so much bigger then ya, and ya don’t have a fuckin clue. You ever hear of the Star Nation of Wepernia’s Off Standard Infantry program?”
The thug returned a blank look, but one of his posse had a sudden flicker of understanding run through them, and her eyes darted to the vixen’s collar.
In one smooth motion the long, heavy emergency clawgun came from its chest holster and with a thought she activated her armor. Her metallic collar shimmered, nanobots kicking into overdrive as they replicated and assembled, generating plates apparently out of nowhere, servos, hydraulics. In less than a blink of an eye, the once docile looking vixen before them was clad in battle armor capable of standing up to low grade tactical nukes.
“Oh… fu-“ was all the time the lead thug had to utter before the vixen was upon him. Poweful gauntleted paws clenched in on his hands, covering the muzzle of the gun as rounds ricocheted harmlessly back down the barrel of the gun, ruining it. The man couldn’t see past the mirrored visor, but he could just imagine the snarling face behind it. Fear turned to outright panic as the armored paw slid up his wrists, and he cried out in agony as his wrists were shattered, hands literally ripped off by the armored behemoth before him. He stumbled to the floor in agony.
The rest of the gang opened fire, a mish mash of accelerators, particle weaponry, and old fashioned guns. Milliscen leapt through the air, descending on her foes like a kinetic impactor from orbit. Her leg swung around in a fierce heel kick as she scattered one woman’s brains against the floor, followed up with a swift stab from her sharp elbows into the trachea of another. She moved fast but with surgical precision, a nightmare of bloodied battle armor from which there was no escape. As the last of her would be assailants fell to the ground, she returned to their fallen leader, trying to crawl away on his bloodied stumps.
“Well vatch” she looked down on her foe “looks like it’s your turn.” She lifted him effortlessly. The poor guy looked on the verge of vomiting.
“What do you want from me! I’ll do anything!”
“Wot I want from ye is something ya can’t give. That poor kid’s life you destroyed for your own self interest. Somehow, I don’t think you’ll be missed as he will.” With one smooth motion she hurled him straight at the wall, and his skull yielded to the cermacrete barrier.
With one last regretful look at the boy who lay where he had fallen, Millscen Fischar walked back out the bank door, through a crowd she sensed but didn’t take notice of. This was her life, it was what she did.
But nobody fucks with Milliscen Fischar.
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