Final Fantasy XII (Ashe, Basch, Vossler) [week 4, prompt 7]
Title: Blockbreaker Author: Sister Coyote Rating: Worksafe. Length: 500 words Summary: "The best in the business doesn't do dives himself. I need backup."
Ashelia floated in the tube of vita, her fair skin faintly green through the liquid. Her hair fanned out around her face like a flower, and her eyelashes rested calmly on her cheeks -- palms out, drifting, limp.
Her voice in his ear was anything but limp: crisp, pleased as she said, "I think I've found an ally."
"Oh?" he replied, touching the headset to his ear as if to get closer to her, running a finger down the terminal readout -- she was lurking somewhere not far from the husk of the old LANDIS servers. That was touchy ground -- there were still Archadian bots roving there, and those inhabitants of the slums who could afford jacks or voile sometimes made a living preying on gawkers -- but he knew better than to suggest she pull out.
"Goes by Basch. I think he's from one of the slumclades. At any rate, he has no more love for Archadia Corp. than I do, and less for the Solidors."
Vossler glanced up at her vacant body, her peaceful face, her chest rising and falling as she took in vita, absorbing oxygen and nutrients through the delicate lining of her lungs. "Be careful."
***
It wasn't as though there was a paucity of people willing to say they hated the Corporation -- in fact, you'd have a hard time finding anyone who said they did like them, Below -- but people who were willing to do something about it were rarer than rare. Those few who did anything indulged only in petty anarchy that did nothing about the larger problem, whose name was Solidor clade.
That made it all the sweeter to hear this woman -- if indeed she was a woman -- speaking of serious revolution.
"How do you know I'm not an Archadian enforcer myself?" he asked.
Her ghostly presence (and no wonder she went by the handle "Ash") smiled. "You don't have the look about you. But it wouldn't matter if you were. Try to trace me."
He did -- and flinched at the backlash, fierce as acid, that nearly sent him careening back into his flesh-body. " -- That's an impressive block. Did you set that up yourself?"
"I work with the best in the business."
"Really? Then what need have you for me?"
She drifted a little. "The best in the business doesn't do dives himself. I need backup."
***
"Ready?" Basch's avatar asked, next to her. She nodded shortly.
"Sure about this?" Vossler asked in her left ear. She could see him in her mind's eye, bending over the terminal, monitoring her progress and her lifesigns. She hoped Basch had someone to do that for him, wherever his body was.
"Positive," she said.
"Traceblock in place," he said, "and don't forget your ripcord."
"I won't." She saw Basch's eyes turn inward as he readied his own decrypt and blockbreaker. She felt a fission of excitement coil upward through what she couldn't really call her belly -- but close enough. "Let's go."