As you get older it is harder to have heroes…
WHO: Maggie Mui (origamiguardian)
WHEN: Starting Thursday, September 8 through Saturday, Sept 10 (ish)
WHERE: Somewhere in the Andes Mountains
SUMMARY: Maggie goes in search of a segment of the Cyber Key.
WARNINGS: Some violence.
OOC Notes: I’ve set this up as a solo log, but if you do have any questions or concerns, or would like to get involved, feel free to PM or email me or click on this link and post to it. This will be posted in chunks for easier writing and reading. Yes I know it doesn’t count toward activity.
=====
Maggie had always been bothered by the fact that, back home, they had been used to find the Gentleman Books without realizing what they had been for. While slightly comforted by the fact that Dokusensha wanted to keep them out of the British Library’s hands, she knew her former employers likely had no better intentions for them. The fact remained, they had helped a nefarious agency find dangerous component artifacts, asking no questions because that was the money they needed to pay for Anita’s tuition (and anything left over for food and books). And the fact remained, that that is what the Paper Sisters did. They weren’t murderers and they weren’t robbers, but they found stuff other people lost because that’s all they knew how to do, even if it was stuff that should be better left alone, and you don’t ask questions when the money is good.
Maggie hadn’t asked for payment for this. She wrestled as to whether she should. She wrestled as to whether this Vector Prime was the right person to help. She knew the other person who offered “anything” for them was wrong, because anyone who makes a pie-in-the-sky offer like that indicates either that they are lying and have nothing to offer, or that they want you to do something so awful, they think a blank check, so to speak, is the way to go. Contracts and specific agreed upon payments were the right, were the safest, and were the most professional way to go. You know what the person expects of you, and you know exactly, up front, what you were going to get-and know exactly when you’re released from service. So why hadn’t she asked Vector for a professional agreement?
Maybe it was just instinct. Maybe curiosity. Maybe boredom. Maybe she should still ask Vector for money. Maybe she should hold onto the Key until she knew exactly what he was going to do with it. Maybe what she wanted to feel like she was actually in control rather than a minion doing a job, when that’s what she was, a minion, just like the paper marionettes that served her. Maybe she just wanted to be a minion who actually felt useful, just this once.
Maggie’s most impressive “marionette” swooped through the sky, a massive phoenix-shaped entity, gleaming white. Doubtless various UFO sightings, unauthorized plane reports, and ImPort nuisance complaints had been filed, even though she tried to fly as covert a path as possible. The storms in the area made it hard-she had to go inland and around before heading south.
After two rest breaks and at least one terrifying escape from a helicopter when she’d inadvertently flown too close to a military base, she flew far until her GPS watch beeped: she had arrived. She swooped in to land on an unoccupied part of a mountain, paper bird shedding most of its “feathers” as it disintegrated into its component parts. Paper in her hands transformed into a working parachute. She landed, intentionally falling backwards, atop a large, waterproof canvas bag she’d brought with her. Maggie lay there, breathing deeply, exhausted.
Sustenance. After awhile, she sat up, fishing for essentials packed in her bag, retrieving them in order of priority: water, book, protein bar. The book was one of those “rough traveler’s guides” to Peru. She flipped through it while sipping her water, rapidly absorbing advice about weather and traveling through the mountains and useful Spanish and Quechua phrases to use so locals didn’t give you the stink-eye.
A reverberation, a bang, cut through the air.
Gunfire.
It had come from a village below. To the best Maggie had been able to research, the little village had few visitors save for the occasional troop of archeologists in search of Incan mysteries. She didn’t know of political instability. The only thing going on in this area was the “meteor” landing. And that meant-those gunmen would be looking for her sooner or later. Best to greet them.
She shoved the protein bar in her mouth, making sure there were adequate sheafs of paper in her cargo pants pockets and up her sleeves, and headed down the slope.
Two armed men held a young woman, pregnant, one with a gun to her face, the other, to her belly. A third man stood, clearly giving orders, and glaring menacingly at an older woman, stony faced despite the clear danger going on. The women were locals. The armed men could have been from anywhere, even their faces covered. The leader of the thugs was a white man in rugged traveling clothes, and she could tell from a distance that he had an entirely ridiculous mustache.
Maggie caught sight of a glint coming from behind the group. A third thug, then, covering the entire group with a rifle. She kept to the rocks and shrubs in the area, wending her way around to the other side.
There were few others out and about. Likely anyone else in the village were bullied into quiet, and there were not likely many police.
The rifleman turned when he heard rustling behind him. Maggie punched forward, paper streaming from her hands, forming a discus that hurtled into the rifleman’s hands, forcing him to drop his weapon. The discus was attached to a chain of paper-as the discus whirled around the man, he was entangled hopelessly, bound as if by duct tape. Maggie yanked hard on the chain, dragging the man out of his nest in a tree, heartlessly slamming him into the ground. He was still breathing, but well into unconsciousness.
A paper bat flew to the rifle and delivered the weapon to Maggie’s hands, before reverting back to paper that flew up Maggie’s sleeves.
The people turned toward the commotion. Mr. Mustache yelled in Spanish and then in English, “Stop or the woman dies!” He spoke with Received Pronunciation. Why was it always the fucking British?
Maggie stepped fully into view, the rifle trained on Mr. Mustache. She had absolutely horrific aim, but he did not know that. “Back away from the women, or you die. You hurt them, you die painfully.”
Mr. Mustache looked between Maggie, the old woman (still stone faced, although just showing a shred of surprise at Maggie’s arrival), and his men. He ordered them, “Kill the Chinese bitch.”
The men complied, turning their guns from the pregnant woman to her. Good. Now that she was no longer in danger, Maggie could act freely. She smiled darkly, probably an expression no one in the City had ever seen, as the men fired on her.
Maybe Mr. Mustache could feel secure in knowing that he had called Maggie’s bluff-after all, her response was not to shoot him.
But any satisfaction he might have felt when paper flew from Maggie’s sleeves to intercept the bullets meant to strike her down. The bullets struck the paper as if it had a struck two-inch steel wall, flattening and embedding themselves in the shield that was only a few sheets thick. Everyone gasped-and all the more so when the paper wall was fueled by more paper, transforming into Maggie’s signature wolf. The wolf bounded toward the gun men, who fired futilely at the paper construct. The wolf tore the guns out of their hands with the force of a true dire wolf, before bull rushing them to the ground.
The old woman quietly picked up one of the fallen weapons, and looked coolly at Mr. Mustache. “Go,” she said to him. The thugs were already fleeing from the attack of the wolf, the pregnant woman moving as fast as she was capable for cover. Mr. Mustache, like most men who hired gunmen to do his dirty work, showed little bravery. Sweat pouring from his face, he ran.
“You…” the old woman eyed Maggie appraisingly as Maggie lowered the rifle to the ground and returned any usable paper to her reserves. “You are one of the… ‘Imported’? From the north?” Her English was excellent.
Maggie nodded. “I’m looking for something, and then I’ll get out of here.”
“The falling star,” the old woman nodded. “Dr. Conrad is looking for it too. He wanted me to guide him, like I used to guide the gravediggers looking for Inca treasure. I have a bad feeling. And the cliffs have been prone to avalanche of late. I refused.” She regarded the young woman, whom she approached and gently took her hand. “He overreacted.”
She spoke softly to the young woman with words Maggie didn’t understand, but guessed she was telling the woman to go to safety elsewhere, given the way the woman agreed and headed to a truck in the backyard. She soon zoomed away down the main road.
“My daughter. Pigs, who threaten a helpless mother. Come.” She waved to Maggie with a firm authority. “You, I will take into the mountains.” She picked up the discarded rifle, checked the safety, and shouldered it.
Maggie felt she had little choice to comply.
****
The old woman’s name was Chaska, and she adeptly led Maggie up one winding mountain trail after another. Maggie, who at times had carried both her sisters across battlefields and tended to walk nearly everywhere, was out of breath by the time they reached a mountain in the middle of the range. Chaska picked her way over rubble like a cat, showing no signs of weariness. “Up there,” she pointed at a cave mouth in a cliff above. “All this rubble, this is from its crashing.” Maggie presumed the woman had likely investigated before. “An old shrine to the god Urcaraguay was here, long ago. The archeologists picked it clean, and this falling star has cremated its remains.”
She paused, looking Maggie up and down. “We are even, I hope? Good luck.”
With no other ceremony, Chaska strolled back down the mountain, disappearing quickly amid boulders and vegetation. Maggie keyed in where she was on her GPS, so she could find her way back to her reserve stash of paper to make a bird to fly home.
Looking up at the cave, she felt a familiar prickling at the back of her neck. Years of work as a freelance infiltrator and detective told her, she was indeed on the right path. She summoned a giant bat, to fly her up the cliff face to the cave-
Bang.
Blood gushed from her leg, where a bullet grazed her. The bat dropped her to the ground and immediately transformed to a protective shield.
“Having her lead you-following was MUCH easier and less messy.” Mr. Mustache-that is, Dr. Conrad-addressed her from another mountain. “Thank you for the intervention. Now all we need to eliminate is you.”
WHEN: Starting Thursday, September 8 through Saturday, Sept 10 (ish)
WHERE: Somewhere in the Andes Mountains
SUMMARY: Maggie goes in search of a segment of the Cyber Key.
WARNINGS: Some violence.
OOC Notes: I’ve set this up as a solo log, but if you do have any questions or concerns, or would like to get involved, feel free to PM or email me or click on this link and post to it. This will be posted in chunks for easier writing and reading. Yes I know it doesn’t count toward activity.
=====
Maggie had always been bothered by the fact that, back home, they had been used to find the Gentleman Books without realizing what they had been for. While slightly comforted by the fact that Dokusensha wanted to keep them out of the British Library’s hands, she knew her former employers likely had no better intentions for them. The fact remained, they had helped a nefarious agency find dangerous component artifacts, asking no questions because that was the money they needed to pay for Anita’s tuition (and anything left over for food and books). And the fact remained, that that is what the Paper Sisters did. They weren’t murderers and they weren’t robbers, but they found stuff other people lost because that’s all they knew how to do, even if it was stuff that should be better left alone, and you don’t ask questions when the money is good.
Maggie hadn’t asked for payment for this. She wrestled as to whether she should. She wrestled as to whether this Vector Prime was the right person to help. She knew the other person who offered “anything” for them was wrong, because anyone who makes a pie-in-the-sky offer like that indicates either that they are lying and have nothing to offer, or that they want you to do something so awful, they think a blank check, so to speak, is the way to go. Contracts and specific agreed upon payments were the right, were the safest, and were the most professional way to go. You know what the person expects of you, and you know exactly, up front, what you were going to get-and know exactly when you’re released from service. So why hadn’t she asked Vector for a professional agreement?
Maybe it was just instinct. Maybe curiosity. Maybe boredom. Maybe she should still ask Vector for money. Maybe she should hold onto the Key until she knew exactly what he was going to do with it. Maybe what she wanted to feel like she was actually in control rather than a minion doing a job, when that’s what she was, a minion, just like the paper marionettes that served her. Maybe she just wanted to be a minion who actually felt useful, just this once.
Maggie’s most impressive “marionette” swooped through the sky, a massive phoenix-shaped entity, gleaming white. Doubtless various UFO sightings, unauthorized plane reports, and ImPort nuisance complaints had been filed, even though she tried to fly as covert a path as possible. The storms in the area made it hard-she had to go inland and around before heading south.
After two rest breaks and at least one terrifying escape from a helicopter when she’d inadvertently flown too close to a military base, she flew far until her GPS watch beeped: she had arrived. She swooped in to land on an unoccupied part of a mountain, paper bird shedding most of its “feathers” as it disintegrated into its component parts. Paper in her hands transformed into a working parachute. She landed, intentionally falling backwards, atop a large, waterproof canvas bag she’d brought with her. Maggie lay there, breathing deeply, exhausted.
Sustenance. After awhile, she sat up, fishing for essentials packed in her bag, retrieving them in order of priority: water, book, protein bar. The book was one of those “rough traveler’s guides” to Peru. She flipped through it while sipping her water, rapidly absorbing advice about weather and traveling through the mountains and useful Spanish and Quechua phrases to use so locals didn’t give you the stink-eye.
A reverberation, a bang, cut through the air.
Gunfire.
It had come from a village below. To the best Maggie had been able to research, the little village had few visitors save for the occasional troop of archeologists in search of Incan mysteries. She didn’t know of political instability. The only thing going on in this area was the “meteor” landing. And that meant-those gunmen would be looking for her sooner or later. Best to greet them.
She shoved the protein bar in her mouth, making sure there were adequate sheafs of paper in her cargo pants pockets and up her sleeves, and headed down the slope.
Two armed men held a young woman, pregnant, one with a gun to her face, the other, to her belly. A third man stood, clearly giving orders, and glaring menacingly at an older woman, stony faced despite the clear danger going on. The women were locals. The armed men could have been from anywhere, even their faces covered. The leader of the thugs was a white man in rugged traveling clothes, and she could tell from a distance that he had an entirely ridiculous mustache.
Maggie caught sight of a glint coming from behind the group. A third thug, then, covering the entire group with a rifle. She kept to the rocks and shrubs in the area, wending her way around to the other side.
There were few others out and about. Likely anyone else in the village were bullied into quiet, and there were not likely many police.
The rifleman turned when he heard rustling behind him. Maggie punched forward, paper streaming from her hands, forming a discus that hurtled into the rifleman’s hands, forcing him to drop his weapon. The discus was attached to a chain of paper-as the discus whirled around the man, he was entangled hopelessly, bound as if by duct tape. Maggie yanked hard on the chain, dragging the man out of his nest in a tree, heartlessly slamming him into the ground. He was still breathing, but well into unconsciousness.
A paper bat flew to the rifle and delivered the weapon to Maggie’s hands, before reverting back to paper that flew up Maggie’s sleeves.
The people turned toward the commotion. Mr. Mustache yelled in Spanish and then in English, “Stop or the woman dies!” He spoke with Received Pronunciation. Why was it always the fucking British?
Maggie stepped fully into view, the rifle trained on Mr. Mustache. She had absolutely horrific aim, but he did not know that. “Back away from the women, or you die. You hurt them, you die painfully.”
Mr. Mustache looked between Maggie, the old woman (still stone faced, although just showing a shred of surprise at Maggie’s arrival), and his men. He ordered them, “Kill the Chinese bitch.”
The men complied, turning their guns from the pregnant woman to her. Good. Now that she was no longer in danger, Maggie could act freely. She smiled darkly, probably an expression no one in the City had ever seen, as the men fired on her.
Maybe Mr. Mustache could feel secure in knowing that he had called Maggie’s bluff-after all, her response was not to shoot him.
But any satisfaction he might have felt when paper flew from Maggie’s sleeves to intercept the bullets meant to strike her down. The bullets struck the paper as if it had a struck two-inch steel wall, flattening and embedding themselves in the shield that was only a few sheets thick. Everyone gasped-and all the more so when the paper wall was fueled by more paper, transforming into Maggie’s signature wolf. The wolf bounded toward the gun men, who fired futilely at the paper construct. The wolf tore the guns out of their hands with the force of a true dire wolf, before bull rushing them to the ground.
The old woman quietly picked up one of the fallen weapons, and looked coolly at Mr. Mustache. “Go,” she said to him. The thugs were already fleeing from the attack of the wolf, the pregnant woman moving as fast as she was capable for cover. Mr. Mustache, like most men who hired gunmen to do his dirty work, showed little bravery. Sweat pouring from his face, he ran.
“You…” the old woman eyed Maggie appraisingly as Maggie lowered the rifle to the ground and returned any usable paper to her reserves. “You are one of the… ‘Imported’? From the north?” Her English was excellent.
Maggie nodded. “I’m looking for something, and then I’ll get out of here.”
“The falling star,” the old woman nodded. “Dr. Conrad is looking for it too. He wanted me to guide him, like I used to guide the gravediggers looking for Inca treasure. I have a bad feeling. And the cliffs have been prone to avalanche of late. I refused.” She regarded the young woman, whom she approached and gently took her hand. “He overreacted.”
She spoke softly to the young woman with words Maggie didn’t understand, but guessed she was telling the woman to go to safety elsewhere, given the way the woman agreed and headed to a truck in the backyard. She soon zoomed away down the main road.
“My daughter. Pigs, who threaten a helpless mother. Come.” She waved to Maggie with a firm authority. “You, I will take into the mountains.” She picked up the discarded rifle, checked the safety, and shouldered it.
Maggie felt she had little choice to comply.
****
The old woman’s name was Chaska, and she adeptly led Maggie up one winding mountain trail after another. Maggie, who at times had carried both her sisters across battlefields and tended to walk nearly everywhere, was out of breath by the time they reached a mountain in the middle of the range. Chaska picked her way over rubble like a cat, showing no signs of weariness. “Up there,” she pointed at a cave mouth in a cliff above. “All this rubble, this is from its crashing.” Maggie presumed the woman had likely investigated before. “An old shrine to the god Urcaraguay was here, long ago. The archeologists picked it clean, and this falling star has cremated its remains.”
She paused, looking Maggie up and down. “We are even, I hope? Good luck.”
With no other ceremony, Chaska strolled back down the mountain, disappearing quickly amid boulders and vegetation. Maggie keyed in where she was on her GPS, so she could find her way back to her reserve stash of paper to make a bird to fly home.
Looking up at the cave, she felt a familiar prickling at the back of her neck. Years of work as a freelance infiltrator and detective told her, she was indeed on the right path. She summoned a giant bat, to fly her up the cliff face to the cave-
Bang.
Blood gushed from her leg, where a bullet grazed her. The bat dropped her to the ground and immediately transformed to a protective shield.
“Having her lead you-following was MUCH easier and less messy.” Mr. Mustache-that is, Dr. Conrad-addressed her from another mountain. “Thank you for the intervention. Now all we need to eliminate is you.”