I should be unhappy, but I just don’t care enough to be. Rowan thought as she listened to the girl sitting next to her at the bar, whose name she couldn’t remember for the life of her, chatter on and on about her job and how horrible the people at it were. Honestly, at this point she was weighing what the pros and cons of stabbing herself in the head with a steak knife were. The depressing fact was that Rowan knew exactly how this would go. Rowan would feign interest in the girl (Naline, maybe?), like she was now. Then, said girl would say she was a good listener. Finally, they would go back to Rowan’s place where she would bang the girl while imagining the sweet face of Emma Watson. The girl would sneak out next morning and Rowan would wake up alone in a puddle of hangovers and self deprecation. Yeah, she had her pathetic love life down to an apathetic algorithm.
The girl (Nicky?) turned to her and smiled. “You know, you’re a really good listener.”
Rowan sighed and managed a weak smile. “Thanks.”
She drained her scotch, ordered another and waited for the flirty offer next. Sure enough, after the next bout of bitching, the girl (Naomi?) turned her eyes all half lidded and seductive.
“So, What would you say to me and you-” She was cut off by a guy grabbing her shoulder and leaning down.
The guy smiled. “Hey, Nicky.” (Damn, missed by an inch)
Nicky grinned. “Mark, what are you doing here?”
Yes, Mark. Rowan thought. What are you doing here? Can’t you tell I was busy feeding my self loathing by using your friend here?
“Oh, I’m in the area for a while, doing a bunch of photo shoots of urban graffiti for some high end artsy magazine.” Mark replied.
“That is so cool!” Nicky said, jumping in her seat.
“Yeah,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. “Why don’t you come back to my booth and we can talk about it.”
Nicky’s smile stayed up, but it faltered a small bit. “I’d love to, but I was kind of-”
“Go.” Rowan interrupted with a dismissive hand wave, thanks to Blondehair Mcperfectface, no sexual encounters would be had for Rowan tonight. “Be free, little dove.”
Nicky’s grin rose again. “Thank you! If I see you around, I’ll totally owe you a date.”
Translation: Rowan snarked in her head. I’m going to actively avoid this bar so I don’t have to owe you a date. Sighing, the woman knocked back her newer glass and asked for another. The bartender, a bald and bearded guy in his mid thirties with a lot of muscles and ink, shook his head.
“I know the I.D.’s fake, I just don’t really care, as long as you drink responsibly, but I’m not about to let you pickle your liver.”
Rowan snorted and got up, she was going to have to get a new one, but being a foot courier and tagger didn’t pay well. Amazon was killing her cash flow, she was eighty percent sure that she was now just ferrying drugs around for gangsters at this point. Plus, nobody got paid to spray paint public and corporate property without permission, no matter how good it looked. She wouldn’t be able to afford a new fake for a long while. Sighing, Rowan stepped out into what counted as brisk night air for in June.
The sad part of this whole affair was that Rowan was three drinks in and she hadn’t even had time to get a real buzz. Hell, thou dost reside in mine city. Rowan joked in her head. It would’ve been easy to climbed up the piping on the side of the building and start traversing rooftops, but Rowan had rules. One of them was to never drink and parkour, all it took was one small slip and her head would splat like a ripe watermelon. It didn’t matter that she didn’t feel anything, she knew for a fact that her feelings were bitch ass liars. So, she went the safe route, down the street, hand in her pocket, gripping her switchblade.
It didn’t take long for her to get home, but it was a sign of the times that she hadn’t felt safe until the door to her small condo was locked and bolted. The minute the door closed, a furry figure darted for Rowan and began rubbing against her legs. Bending down, Rowan scratched the furry beast’s head.
“Hey, Azzy, how ya doing? Ya miss me, baby?”
The tomcat gave a short yowl in response and padded over to an empty aluminum bowl, which he pushed with his nose expectantly.
“Oh, I see.” Rowan snarked as she refilled it with dry cat food. “You didn’t miss me, you missed what I provided you with. Good to know where our relationship stands Azzy, good...to...know.” The ginger cat gave an imperious mew and stuck it’s face in the bowl.
Plopping down on the couch, Rowan debated on what to do next, she could take a shower, or clean up around the place. Finally, she opted to binge another season on Netflix, it was some inane sitcom, which was what she loved, because she could just space out and refocus and still understand the basic story. Two hours in and she could feel herself nodding off, so she turned off her T.V. and started her shower. After a nice warm torrent of water, Rowan slipped into her sleep clothes and laid down in bed. However, as she dozed off, she felt this poking feeling in her mind that made her uneasy, she just couldn’t figure out what exactly.
———————————————————————————————————————
Sunlight, the bane of Rowan’s existence filtered through the blinds. Her head was pounding and she couldn’t help but feel a little cheated. No girl, she mused, but the hangover and self hatred are still going strong. She got up and stretched, pulling on her clothes for the day and admiring herself in the mirror.
She was a short girl, she had accepted being stuck at a perpetual 5 foot four for eternity. Yet she made up for her stature with her lithe physique, lean muscle layered under curves in the right places and cheekbones that could cut glass. At least that’s what her friend and co-worker, Deck, told her. What she saw was a short and brawny girl with a few too many tattoos, short hair does a fading shade of green and mismatched eyes, one blue, one brown. She saw a freak, of course Deck would’ve smacked her in the back of the head if she said that aloud.
Sighing, Rowan filled Azzy’s bowl before shrugging on her sling pack and leaving, locking the door behind her. She put in her earpiece and opened up the courier channel, the hissing static was replaced by the chatter of jokes and code words that filled her world day to day. She listened intently and parsed out the code that would help her plan her route.
“V-ex here, Clicker on Headshrinker’s Row, barely missed me.” Translation, V-ex almost got nabbed by a cop trying to fill his arrest quota by nabbing some rooftop jumpers on the street with all the psychologist’s offices. That didn’t trouble her much, a quick detour and she would be right back on track to the courier den. With little effort, Rowan jumped up, gripping onto the ledge that shielded her front door from light and used it to hoist herself up onto the roof. Looking around she pointed herself in the direction of the den and started to run. This was the favorite part of Rowan’s day, when she was traveling around on top of the urban world, she didn’t run and jump, she didn’t even fly, she flowed, like water through a pipe. It felt right, like she was born to follow these paths her mind made.
As she bounded from structure to structure, Rowan calculated every step, every foot and handhold. It was like she could see what would happen for every jump and every move. She had looked at some online forums, some called what she did “Mirror’s Edge-ing” others said “predicting” a few called it precognition. All Rowan knew was that she loved what she could do, it just felt so right to her.
———————————————————————————————————————
It didn’t take long for Rowan to get to the den, maybe only twenty minutes tops. The den was a small repurposed office building that everyone that worked in it had pitched in for, it had taken a long amount of saving, but eventually the ten different couriers had made it happen. Now, what was once a decrepit building on its last legs had become a Mecca for all with a cool ass exposed brick aesthetic that let Rowan practice her tags. The place had it all canvases stood in one corner for art nerds, salvaged computers and other electronics for tech nerds, etcetera, etcetera. Someone was always playing tunes, the rule was first come, first playlist. Today was Aurelio Voltaire, which could only mean that Deck was present. Sure enough, there he was, dancing on the dining table in the middle of the space, long brown hair waving wildly as he crooned out the lyrics to When You’re Evil, teal painted nails holding an imaginary microphone.
“THIS IS THE LIFE YOU SEE, THE DEVIL TIPS HIS HAT TO ME!” His eyes were closed as he belted out the song. He was wearing nothing above the waste except a blue suit vest that he had left unbuttoned, exposing his sinuous form. He didn’t work out as much as the others, but Deck wasn’t a some scrawny dude either, he had his muscle. The music faded out and Deck opened his eyes as God Thinks floated through the room. He finally noticed Rowan standing there, leaning on the wall. He smiled nonchalantly and sprawled along the table like a pin up model.
“Hey, Ro, whats going on?”
“Nothing much, we got any deliveries?”
“Let me check.” He hopped off the table and plopped down into a swivel chair which he pushed over to his computer. Deck wasn’t really a courier like the rest, sure he could do deliveries in a pinch, but he had a much more useful skill as a coordinator. The others had started calling him “Oracle” like the Batman character as a joke, until it wasn’t anymore. The guy was an absolute genius, he had six monitors pressed together to form a map of the city with little color coded dots tracking each courier and all their hazards. Really, he was kind of the cat herder of the group.
“Okay,” he called over his shoulder as he tapped away. “I got a darknet request if you’re okay with that.”
Rowan let out a low groan. “I hate those, it’s always something creepy, illegal, dangerous or all three.”
“Yeah,” Deck agreed. “But also, very lucrative.”
Rowan threw her hands up. “Alright, you got me, I’m a greedy little fuck.”
“Atta girl, sending you the addresses for pick up and delivery, also if you say anything bad about yourself again, I’m beating you with the nearest blunt object, which happens to be a wrench at the moment.” He waved said object around threateningly.
“Yeah, Yeah, see ya later, Deck.” She grabbed a couple waters and power bars before heading out. If there was one thing she learned during her time as a courier, it was that you should always have nutrition handy. She climbed the ladder to the roof and opened her phone to see the address. It was a good four miles away, but on rooftops she could effectively cut that number in half. It would be a little difficult, there was one of those tall ass offices right in the middle of her path, but she could work around that. She pocketed her phone and pulled her pack tight. It was time to get to work.
———————————————————————————————————————
It took maybe half an hour to get to the client and that was because Rowan was taking it slow. She hadn’t noticed, but she was getting pretty damn fast, the only thing that threw her off was that nervous tingle that lingered at the edge of her skull. A normal person would’ve just shrugged it off as the product of an overactive imagination, but Rowan wasn’t normal, one of her biggest rules were, if you think it’s your imagination, it’s probably not. Then again that was a rule she made after a horror movie marathon at the den so, maybe not a credible survivalist tenet.
The building was a large condo area with slate grey walls, her client was on the second floor. She hooded up the stairs and knocked on the door. Something poked through a crack in the door, revealing a patch of pale leathery skin, coupled with a muddy brown eye. The eye gazed at her with suspicion. Rowan stood straighter and put on her best here-to-help smile.
“Hello, I’m Rowan from Hermes Delivery Service, I was told you had a package that needed to be delivered?”
The eye pulled back and closed the door, Rowan heard the dead bolt slide open and a man in his mid fifties appeared and shoved a small box in her arms before slamming the door.
“Ooookay,” Rowan said aloud. “Not weird at all.”
As she shoved the package in her bag, that little prodding feeling kept getting stronger and stronger...
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