Black Market Merchant

Jackson was very unsure how he was to answer her. He had been loyal to the Mad Dogs and Martinez for years. Things had gone well during the last few years as the town was mostly subdued, his position was good and his job in with the gang continued to be easy. Why would he mess all this up to support some random woman that just showed up?

Greed. Ambition. Opportunity. These were likely reasons. Yet not quite enough to fully sway him.

"I'll think this over." Jackson finally replied standing up. He patted off the bottom of his pants and looked down at Lisa calmly looking back up at him. “Though things, from my viewpoint, don’t look like they will pan out as you say.”

Lisa held his gaze confidently as the two looked at each other. Jackson took a deep look into her gray eyes and he could see that they were not the eyes of a wistful person. There was something in there lurking, holding back, just ready to explode at any moment. This woman was ambitious or reckless, it was hard to be sure.

"I haven't any reason to betray Martinez." Jackson continued looking away from her steely eyes, "However, if he were truly gone, I would be interested to see how things play out. You were right, I am not a leader type, but others here would be. I find letting others work while I benefit from them, suites me best. As for getting you the deed, that is also up for consideration. It would be like giving you an unneeded win."

"I'll take that answer as a good sign. There of course is no need to rush in this decision." Lisa replied waving her hand dismissively in front of her face.

Though Lisa showed no signs of emotion, aside from a calm smile, she was getting impatient. It had been far too long since she promised to help Hanna get revenge and her plans to make money had been put on hold for this reason. Now that two people were taken care of, it was time to finish the rest of the job. Only once Hanna was helped, the gang in her control, and the dam running; this town would soon become the center of her ambitions. If Jackson wasn't willing to help smooth things over she was going to have to improvise.

Standing up to face Jackson, Lisa extended her hand for a handshake. "I hope to hear from you soon. Who knows, something or someone might happen along that could screw up the offer."

"Don't say something that warrants a red flag." Jackson replied giving a mock smile. Then he took her hand to return the shake. Suddenly his smile faded into a look of confusion. "Is your hand alright? Feels like the bottom is oddly ridged."

The two looked down at Lisa's hand. Seeing it, Lisa realizes her mistake. She hadn't fixed her busted-up hand and arm armor yet! Her pinky was still stuck and awkwardly sticking out completely straight. Quickly she stuck her hand into her pants pocket before her secret was exposed.

"Yeah, my hand is fine. I'm just feeling a bit tense still from the fight." Lisa answered suppressing her voice from giving him any indication that there was an issue. She had to continue keeping her prosthetic limbs secret for as long as she could to hold the advantage.

"If you say so." Jackson replied, though not fully convinced. "Goodbye."

The three then split and Lisa turned to Zane as they too left the fountain. "Now tell me, how did you come across these deeds?"

Zane explained best he could to her about the little adventure he had taken into the bank. When he finished explaining, the two of them were now at the compound’s exit. Lisa, though a bit worried he might have caused more trouble than it was worth, was pleased he was able to find out the information about the deeds. It also made her curious as to what else the gang might have tucked away in their vaults.

"As long as you weren't caught, good job." Lisa sighed as he finished. "However, if you were caught, I couldn't guarantee that I could help you. There is only one of me. This isn't like the Black Rats where a bunch of people can fight. You need to be extra careful from now on."

"I'll do better, boss. But I am the best information finder from the gang. I just can't help myself when I see an opportunity to find stuff out." Zane replied patting his chest. Then turning towards the exit, he asked. "So, what's our next move? That Jackson didn’t seem to take your offer and from what you said there is a lot to do still."

"You could try training better!" A cocky male voice called out from behind them.

The two recognized the annoying voice and turning around they confirmed its owner. The voice belonged to Ernest. Ernest continued speaking to them while still coming forward, "That was the luckiest win I've seen in a while. However, it was just as I thought, you're not all that good. A guy like Watt should have been beaten in a single attack. Like this!"

A silver streak flashed out from Ernest, so fast Zane couldn't react just like before!

"Thap!"

Lisa reacted immediately and caught the streak tightly between two fingers. Another throwing knife. She signed and looked at Ernest with mock disappointment. "Really? Using the same trick twice in front of me. Try being a little more interesting kid."

"You...!" Zane stuttered and started flush, but Lisa cut him off.

"Listen, if you keep this up, you're going to have real problems on your hands. Leave us alone or else." Lisa said while tossing the throwing knife aside into a decorative bush.

"Pfft, or else what?" Ernest replied rolling his eyes. "You think just because you beat a couple of high-ranking MFA types, that you scare me? Those guys were ultimately trash too."

"Boss, let me fight this guy!" Zane whispered harshly from behind Lisa. He still had his tiger claws on and looked rearing for a fight. "This punk has screwed with me enough!"

"Not yet." Lisa murmured in reply, never looking away from Ernest. “The kid has some skill, and it would be unwise for you to look away from him too. His attacks were quite dangerous and accurate.”

If she hadn't been here, Zane would have died twice over, and he hatted knowing this fact. Zane made a sour expression and stepped back to glare at Ernest. Ernest ignored Zane and smirked at Lisa. "I'll let you two country fools go. But this is the last time you'll know my knives will be coming at you. Queen, you better watch your back."

Lisa looked unfazed by Ernest's threat. She had heard countless people in military school, on training grounds and even out on the battlefield say similar things. She had overcome each and every one of them. Why should this brat bother her?

Lisa's silent gray eyed stare remained icy cold as she looked down at the smirking kid gangster. She was at least a full head taller than him and combined with her own threatening ready to fight aurora, started to pressure him. Ernest's smirk visibly faltered. This probably wasn't the reaction he was expecting.

"Hmpf, get lost." Ernest huffed and sharply turned to leave.

"Come on Zane, let's go find something more worth our time." Lisa said just loud enough for Ernest to hear. He flinched and balled his fists but continued leaving.

…

Sometime later the two returned back to the dam. Benny and Sadie were the only ones that were there at the moment. Benny explained that Hanna went back home with John for a while. The rest were apparently still out searching the storage units. The reason they were go so long was either they had found nothing or something good.

Lisa wanted to check on them and use that time to further examine her damage arm and finger. Leaving Benny to count the money he had won and letting Sadie start explaining to Zane what the next training regime would entail, Lisa headed off down the hill to the storage units. She took her coffin along as well. Inside was the tool and hopefully the right parts to repair the damages.

Arriving at the closest set of storage units on the left side of the red roofed buildings, which were also within view of the river, Lisa found that the locks here were already busted off. It seemed that the search team had been doing their job well. Coming up to the first unit, Lisa was disappointed to find it was completely empty. There wasn't even a single empty cardboard box inside.

Going inside anyway Lisa un-shouldered her coffin, unlocked it, and took out the box of assorted wires and tech chips. Then taking off her leather jacket she inspected the smashed in arm armor.

The spot where the axe had struck her was dented in no more than four centimeters. Though small it was still deep enough to pinch the wires underneath. Reaching into the wires box, Lisa shuffled around for a unique tool specially designed to remove the military cyborg armor.

While she did that, Lisa grumbled inwardly. "Looks like I underestimated the strength of those Inducements. This armor can take on midrange caliber bullets without puncturing me completely. Yet those triplets were doped up enough to harm me. I'll have to stop playing around from now on. The futures techniques sure are different."

Finding the tool, Lisa lifted it from the wires to reveal an elongated palm sized black egg. Lisa took hold of it carefully as the tool was an incredibly special device that could help or harm her. Inside the black shell of this ‘egg’ was a rotating metal ion magnet and electro-vibration inhibitors. The inhibitors would vibrate at a frequency so fast and high that when combined with the rotating ion magnet the device would peel away metal. Very much like peeling an orange skin off the fruit.

Since the device wasn't big it was only able to affect metal that it made direct contact with. The frequency was also preset to vibrate at a level only capable of affecting Lisa's specially designed prosthetics. Therefore, the reason she had to grasp it carefully. If she activated it the wrong way, she'd risk ripping off her own fingertips!

Only the ends of this black egg were safe to hold, and each end had to be squeezed to activate, but the danger was enough for her not to trust the mechanism. The way to peel back the metal was to pinch the egg on the ends with thumb and pointer fingers, to then roll across the indicated metal, no matter what the condition, just like one would operate a lint roller. Thus, exposing the unaffected wiring of the prosthetic safely and without further damaging the internals.

Lisa did all this with ease. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last. The small hum of the elongated egg buzzed gently in her hand. Contrary to what one might think, the metal did not make any terrible groaning, scrapping or screeching sounds at all. It sounded and looked just like wet, uncooked bread dough being ripped and rolled up. The rolled-up metal curled loosely above Lisa's hand in the process; like an ocean wave barreling.

Turning off the egg device, Lisa put it back onto the pile of wires. The exposed area was now from the front of her bicep to wrap around past the opposite side of the arm. Looking around carefully on the inside of her exposed upper arm, Lisa saw that two wires were crimped and a thin coupling, no more the two millimeters thick, was snapped in two.

"Crap!" Lisa groaned. "I can fix these wires easy, but that coupling is going to be an issue. I'll need a small soldering tool that's typically used on computers, but I don't have mine anymore. Where to get one?"

Lisa though to herself of where she might find one while in the meantime, she also repaired the two crimped wires. Fixing the first one, she noticed that her pinky immediately returned to normal, and its stiffness relaxed to look natural. Flexing and clenching her hand a few times it seemed that the wire was for mobility. However, the speed of the pinky closing was half that of the rest of her fingers. This meant that the other was for speed. Fixing it and repeating the former test proved her assumption.

"Wait, I think I know where one might be." Lisa answered aloud to herself. "That kid, Tom, from the docks had something like it on his work desk. I hope the kid can keep a secret, because judging from the angle I need to reach he's going to have to help fix it too."