#quack fic

It's hard to be cheerful when your family is across the country and unaware of your existence, and that thought weighs heavily on Quinn's shoulders. She should be with them, laughing and smiling, but that opportunity was taken from her the day The Alliance told them she had died during the incident. She wonders if they've moved on, or if they're celebrating together to ease the ache of losing her.

A knock at the front door drags her attention from the tree and her gaze settles on the metal door, her brow furrowed in confusion. Another knock, and she's on her feet to see who's disturbing her quiet morning. When she looks through the peephole, her eyes widen slightly. 

Mack stands in the hall, a brown box tucked under her arm and a plastic bag in her hand. 

"You in there, Fabray?" she calls out. When Quinn doesn't answer right away, she sees Mack shake her head. "This was a dumb idea." 

The other woman shifts the box and bag awkwardly, as if she's trying to decide what to do with them, before she sits down and leaves Quinn's line of sight. Quinn waits a moment, weighing her options.

On the one hand, Mack is a known criminal. In fact, Quinn has had to interrupt several of her operations while on her patrols as Blitz. She's also rude, brash, and unbelievably cocky, which grates on Quinn's nerves more than her criminal activities. It's especially annoying that Mack always manages to slip away before she can bring her in. 

On the other hand, spending Christmas alone seems more and more unappealing the longer she thinks about it.

She'll probably regret it, but she opens the door. 

Mack startles, but a wide grin quickly spreads across her lips. "I was hoping you'd be home."

"And if I wasn't?" Quinn asks with an arched eyebrow. 

Mack shrugs. "I woulda figured something out," she says as she gets to her feet. She doesn't bother asking if she can come in before she slips past Quinn, the plastic bag rustling beside her. Quinn rolls her eyes, but shuts the door behind her. The dark-haired woman drops the box and the bag on the couch and lets out a low whistle as she looks at Quinn's decorations, or lack thereof. "Looks like a very merry Christmas in here." 

Quinn doesn't respond as she returns to her seat on the couch, next to the box and the bag. Her curiosity is piqued, but she stops herself from asking about them. Still, Mack must notice her interest. Her loose dark curls bounce slightly as she takes a seat beside Quinn and pulls the box onto her lap. She drums her fingers on the cardboard for a moment before she presses the box into Quinn's hands. 

"What's this?"

"What's it look like? It's a present for you," Mack says. "I didn't see the point in wrapping it if you were just gonna take the paper off anyway."

"And you call me festive," Quinn says, but her voice shakes slightly as she runs her fingers along the edges of the box. She looks at Mack, but if the other woman noticed the hitch in her voice, she shows no sign of it. "I don't have anything for you."

"I'd love some dinner later," Mack suggests, which elicits a laugh from Quinn. Mack doesn't get to hear it often, so she considers it a decent enough gift in return for hers. "So are you gonna open it or what?"

Slowly, Quinn lifts the flaps of the box and digs through styrofoam peanuts. She pulls out a brown, leather-bound notebook much smaller than the box it had been hidden in. She runs her hands over the cover. The leather is supple and smooth against the fingertips that are still sensitive to touch. A thought strikes her and she looks up from the notebook to gaze into Mack's eyes. 

"You didn't steal this, did you?"

Mack scoffs. "Seriously?"

"Given your questionable line of work, I think it's a valid question." 

"I didn't steal it," Mack says, and Quinn breathes a sigh of relief. "It's only stealing if you get caught," she adds with a wink.

Quinn can't tell if she's serious or not. 

“But you’re doing such a bang-up job.” Quinn looked back at their grinning son. The red base makeup was fine, but the black lines Quinn had tried to draw on his face had streaked because Harrison had lost all the patience a four year old could have. Quinn sighed and stood from her crouched position. She tossed the small sponge at Mack, who was dressed in pirate regalia.

A red bandana held back her thick curls and an eye patch covered one of her eyes. Her top was a large, brown vest over a loose, long-sleeved shirt. A fake cutlass hung at her hip, dangling from a colorful sash tied around her waist.

“Finish his face. If I don’t get changed before Brittany and Santana get here, Santana won’t let me hear the end of it,” Quinn said as she headed for the staircase.

“Aye-aye, cap’n,” Mack said, which made the little boy laugh. Mack looked back at the kid and smiled before tugging him forward by the black cloak he was wearing. “Were you giving Mommy a hard time?” she asked, and the boy grinned back. Mack sighed, and put her hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re a Sith, but that’s just a costume, bud. Doesn’t mean you get to act like a brat.”

“Sorry, Momma,” the boy said with a pout.

“Don’t apologize to me,” she said as she dabbed the sponge into the black makeup. While she fixed the streaks that Quinn had made, she added, “You give your Mommy a hard time again tonight, I’ll be the one eating all your candy.”

Harrison grumbled, but stayed still as she dabbed at his face. By the time Quinn came back down in her blue Elsa dress and the cap to Harrison’s costume in hand, the black makeup had been evened out and Harrison looked like a smaller, hairier Darth Maul. Once Quinn slipped the red rubber cap with the rounded off grey spikes over his head and tucked the tips of his hair under the edge, the costume was complete.

There was a knock at the door just as Quinn was handing the boy his plastic, red lightsaber. While the blonde woman straightened the dark cloak draped over the boy’s shoulders, Mack opened the door, revealing Brittany, Santana, and their ten year old daughter Cameron, who was wearing a Tinker Bell costume.

“Damn, now it looks like you have an actual demon child,” Santana said as they stepped into the living room. Quinn looked up from Harrison and narrowed her eyes at the woman who had just entered the house. Santana help up her hands, the orange candy bucket clunking as she did so. “Kidding, Quinn. He looks cool, if you like that nerdy stuff.”

“Which you do,” Brittany pointed out before placing a kiss on her wife’s cheek. Santana grumbled under her breath before she told Quinn that they were going to use her bedroom to change.

“You had better only be changing in there!” Quinn called after their retreating forms. She sighed when the two women disappeared upstairs.

“Don’t worry. If they use it for anything besides changing, you and me can break it in again,” Mack said with a wink.

“Why are you and Mommy breaking things?” Harrison asked in a small voice from beneath his dark hood. Quinn glared at Mack, who had the sense to respond with a shrug and an apologetic smile.

“It’s an expression, sweetheart. We didn’t break anything,” Quinn said. She ignored Mack’s muffled ‘yet’ and said, “So don’t think that means you suddenly have permission to break things. Got it?” The boy pouted, but nodded in understanding, and Quinn tapped him on the tip of his nose, turning the pout into a smile. “Good.”

“Hey, Ice Queen, we’re ready to go,” Santana said as she and Brittany descended the staircase.

She had donned a dark red, full-body loincloth similar to one that Brittany had worn their senior year of high school. Brittany, on the other hand, was struggling down the stairs in a full-body green dinosaur suit with purple spots. Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing they had coordinated their outfits. At least she and Cameron had both chosen Disney characters, although Mack had been quick to point out that, technically, Darth Maul was now a Disney character and she could totally pass off as a hot Jackie Sparrow in her pirate get up. Quinn rolled her eyes in response and held the front door open for the children and the three other adults to pass through.

Once she had locked up the house, she joined her wife, son, and their friends at the end of the sidewalk. She had left a large bowl of candy on the front porch for the neighborhood children with a sign that read ‘Take Three’ since no one would be home. She only hoped the teenagers were nothing like Brittany and Santana had been when they were younger, or the candy bowl wouldn’t last through the night.

“You know some brat’s gonna steal our bowl, right?” Mack asked as Quinn took Harrison by the hand that wasn’t swinging the lightsaber in large arcs.

“Please have a little faith in our neighbors, honey,” Quinn said, but she glanced over her shoulder one last time just to check on the bowl of candy. There was a tug on her hand and she looked down to see wide grey eyes looking back up at her.

“Wanna go with Cam,” Harrison said as he continued to pull on his mom’s hand. Quinn sighed, but told the boy he could go walk with Cam if it was alright with her. He tried to pull away so he could run after the older girl, but Quinn kept a firm grip on his hand and tugged him back. He recognized the expectant look on her face. He said a quick ‘thank you’ and Quinn released his hand.

“Be careful!” Quinn called after him, watching his short legs wobble as he chased after Cameron. Unfortunately, he tripped over the edge of his cape and fell on his stomach halfway down the sidewalk. She took a step forward, but he clambered to his feet and started off towards Cam once more, albeit a bit more slowly. Quinn startled when Mack slipped her arm behind her back and pulled her close.

“He’s a tough little guy, I’ll give him that,” Mack said before she kissed Quinn on the cheek. When she pulled away, she added, “I bet he gets it from his mom. Not sure which one, though.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. If she had known how annoying Mack was going to be with the mom jokes, she would have rethought her decision to have a child with her. She still would have done it, obviously, but at least she would have been better prepared for the cheesy jokes.

“Wouldn’t hurt you to laugh, Fabray,” Mack teased. “I know you think I’m hilarious.”

“I don’t think I would go that far,” Quinn said, but she smiled at her wife’s antics. Oddly enough, she liked that Mack still called her ‘Fabray’ after their marriage. “Come on, goofball, or Brittany and Santana are going to think we ditched them for a quickie.”

“I mean, we could…”

“Mack!”

“Just kidding,” she said with a grin.

 ----

Half an hour later, and the small group of trick-or-treaters had made it around four blocks without much of an incident. Harrison was still just as energetic as he had been when they left. Quinn suspected he was somehow sneaking candy from his pumpkin pail. She wasn’t looking forward to the crash afterwards. Despite how well the night was going, however, all good things came to an end, and their rather uneventful Halloween was about to crash and burn.

Quinn knew the haunted house would be a bad idea, but Mack insisted that things would be fine. She doubted any of the suburban families could come up with anything scarier than taxes. Still, Brittany and Santana decided to stay outside with the kids while Quinn and Mack went through the front door to the haunted house.

Quinn stepped closer to the smaller woman as they entered what she assumed was the living room. It was too dark to see anything besides slightly darker shadows, though. She had expected eerie music to be playing throughout the house, but there was only silence as they waded their way through the darkness, occasionally punctured by the creak of a floorboard. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flash of white, but when she tried to get a better look, whatever it had been was gone. She took a deep breath and squeezed Mack’s hand a bit tighter.

“Don’t worry, Quinn. You know it’s all fake,” Mack whispered.

“I’m aware, but that doesn’t make this any less creepy,” she replied as they crossed into another room.

The floor felt harder beneath their feet, and she wondered if they had gone into the kitchen. Any windows had been covered in dark construction paper, blocking out the lights from outside. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but she could still only make out shadows. She thought she saw the backs of several chairs lined up beside them. Then they moved forward, and Quinn jumped, knocking into Mack. She turned to apologize, but it wasn’t Mack she found at her side.

Rather, it was someone much larger with a bright white face and eyes that burned red in the dark shadows.

Logically, she knew it was just one of her neighbors with some weird kind of contact lenses. Logically, she knew she wasn’t in any real danger and that Mack was probably nearby laughing her ass off. Logically, she knew it was just face paint. Unfortunately, logic fled the scene the moment she realized it wasn’t Mack’s hand she had been holding all night.

She screamed and shoved the figure away from her before stumbling back into another body, which only made her shriek louder. She stepped back again until she was safely pressed against the wall. She was going to kill Mack if she managed not to have a heart attack in here.

“Mommy?”

Shit.

Harrison.

“Mommy, I heard you,” said the little voice from the living room. “I’ll come save you!”

Quinn sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t realized she had screamed so loud. That probably meant Brittany and Santana heard her, too. She was never going to live this down.

Despite the lingering fear of the shadow people in the room, she pushed herself off the wall and headed towards the living room once more. There was a shriek that sounded a lot like Harrison. The fear from before fled and she quickened her steps to get to the living room. The scene that greeted her was her son hanging upside down in a stranger’s arms, swinging wildly with his plastic lightsaber. She was about to yell at whoever had her son in their grasp, but her wife’s voice beat her to it.

“Get your hands off my kid, shithead!”

From the glow of the light-up toy, Quinn saw Mack hop the railing of a flight of stairs beside the door to the kitchen. It seemed her wife hadn’t even been in the room with her earlier, which would explain why she hadn’t come to make sure she was alright, but she was with her now. Before the wave of relief could completely wash over her, however, she saw Mack’s fist make contact with the masked person’s face.

She knew this had been a bad idea.

While Mack made sure Harrison was okay, Quinn checked on the person Mack had just decked. She lifted up the mask and grimaced at the bruise she could already see forming on the man’s face. The lights switched on, revealing a group of dark-hooded people circled around them. The man’s eye looked an even grosser shade of purple in the light. She looked up at her wife, who was kneeling down and wiping at the corners of Harrison’s eyes. His makeup had smeared from the tears.

Fortunately, their neighbors were an understanding group of people.

The man Mack punched promised not to press charges for assault and battery—which Mack thought was ridiculous to begin with since she thought she was protecting her son—as long as they promised not to stop by their haunted house in the future.

“Whatever,” Mack said as she hefted Harrison onto her hip. “It was a lame haunted house anyway.”

“Mack…”

“I mean, yeah, sure. We’ll find somewhere else for a cheap thrill next year.”

Quinn shook her head at the response, but led her wife and kid out the front door before Mack could cause any more trouble. She swore she could feel the bruised man glaring at them on their way out, not that she could blame him.

“What happened, Quinn?” Brittany asked as the three of them joined their friends on the sidewalk. “We heard someone scream their head off and Harrison bolted.”

“I save Mommy!” Harrison said with a toothy grin from his spot pressed against Mack’s side. “And Momma save me. She punched the bad man!”

“We’re trick-or-treating in your neighborhood next year,” Quinn said. “I doubt anyone here will let the dynamic duo near their house after tonight.”

“That’s fine with me,” Santana said as she dug through her daughter’s candy bag. She pulled out a tiny candy bar and frowned. “Our neighborhood gives out better candy.”

  Later that night, after the candy and stories had been swapped and the makeup cleaned off, Quinn and Mack tucked Harrison into his bed. Quinn ran her hand through his damp locks of hair and softly smiled at the boy who had tried to come to her rescue.

“Looks like you’re more of a Jedi than a Sith, little guy,” she said. She placed a kiss on his forehead and when she pulled away, she added, “Thanks for coming to my rescue tonight.”

He gave her a sleepy smile, but the fatigue from the night’s events quickly had his eyes drooping until he was sleeping soundly. Once she was sure he wouldn’t wake, she turned towards Mack, who was looking at their son with a soft expression she reserved solely for him. Mack had been scared to have a kid at first, worried she would screw up somehow, but she had proven herself wrong, starting with the first time she held him in her arms.

Quinn slipped her hand into Mack’s and the other woman looked at their joined hands then back up at Quinn.

“And thank you for looking out for our son.”

Mack chuckled and pressed her forehead against Quinn’s. “Wasn’t gonna let some brute manhandle one of my favorite Fabrays. Not after I did such a shit job protecting the other one from those ridiculous shadow people.”

“They were creepy, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Fabray,” Mack said with a laugh as they left their son’s bedroom.

Either way, she was hungry and she had a feeling Miss Prissy Pants kept a fully-stocked fridge. She made her way around the small table in the middle of the kitchen to the refrigerator behind it, only to have her hopes dashed at the sparse amount of food on the shelves. There was a bowl of leftover broccoli soup from last night, a jug of apple juice, and a bran muffin. She leaned back on her heels to see if there was anything on the counters, but all she found was a banana bunch. Apparently her host could afford all those books in the living room, but keeping her fridge filled was out of the question. Mack muttered under her breath and pulled the small bowl of soup off the shelf. She slowly lifted the lid and sniffed at the contents, grimacing at the smell before putting it back. She grabbed the muffin off the shelf instead before slamming the door shut. She was about to limp back to the living room when she noticed the nook on the left. The morning sun streamed through the high window and the pillows propped against the wall were large and inviting. Mack allowed herself a rare, genuine smile at the sight before she limped across the kitchen to see if it was as comfortable as it looked.

It was.

Her smile morphed into a grin as she settled into the seat, pulling her injured ankle up to rest on the comfortable cushion while her other leg dangled over the edge. She bit into the bland muffin and watched the sky as puffy white clouds leisurely drifted along. It was the first decent day she had seen in a while. Mack had to admit that what her host lacked in her taste for food, she made up for in her taste for décor. As much as she enjoyed the other woman’s digs, though, she knew she couldn’t stay much longer; one more day here max, then she’d be out of the woman’s hair.

“Is that my muffin?”

Mack startled and crumbs tumbled from her mouth down the front of her shirt as she quickly turned her gaze from the window to the kitchen doorway where her host stood, arms crossed over her chest. She was already dressed for the day in a long, brown skirt, white blouse, and brown cardigan, which was more than Mack could say for herself. She hadn’t worn her day clothes since she got here; only the loose, comfortable clothes her host had given her to use as pajamas. She didn’t even know where the blonde woman had put the stuff she had come here with.

She swallowed the pieces of muffin that hadn’t fallen out of her mouth before she replied, “There was nothin’ else in the fridge.” The other woman’s eyebrow arched and she tilted her head. Without a word, she crossed to the refrigerator and pulled out the bowl of soup that Mack had put back several minutes earlier. Mack shrugged in response. “Who wants to eat broccoli soup at nine in the morning?”

“What was wrong with the bananas on the counter then?”

“Look, you should be thanking me. I saved you the trouble of eating this gross muffin. It’s bland as hell,” she said as she got to her feet. “But if you want it so badly, the rest of it’s yours.”

Mack tossed the half-eaten muffin at her host, who easily caught it in the palm of her hand. She shuffled towards the doorway while the other woman called after her,

“I better not find any crumbs in my window seat!”

            Quinn Fabray Residence Downtown Tetra October 14, 2054 09:20

There were definitely muffin crumbs on her window seat.

Quinn muttered to herself as she wiped the offending pieces of muffin onto the floor, thinking unkind thoughts about the woman who had left them. Once the mess was on the ground rather than her seat, she sat down with her morning cup of tea and watched out the window as people bustled along the sidewalks. Even this early, people were roaming the streets of Tetra in droves. She hadn’t planned to wake up early after coming home so late, but sleep had been elusive; most likely because of the excitement still thrumming through her veins. It had been her first time back on duty in over a year and it had gone well. Dull for the most part, but it was a success.

Now that she was starting to fully awaken from the little bit of sleep she got, though, she felt almost guilty for getting frustrated with Mack. It wasn’t the other woman’s fault that Quinn hadn’t stocked her fridge. Granted, she could have asked before scarfing down her muffin, but Quinn still felt a twinge of guilt for how she had acted. Mack was probably hungry. She leaned her head back against the wall, closed her eyes, and sighed. She hadn’t had a clue as to what she was getting into when she invited the other woman to temporarily stay at her place, but now she had to deal with the consequences, and that meant actually going shopping for more than just one night.

After draining the last of her tea and placing the mug in the sink, Quinn grabbed her keys off the counter and left the kitchen. Mack was lying across the couch again, only this time she had one of Quinn’s books in her hands. It seemed boredom had gotten the best of her and she had resorted to reading one of Quinn’s ‘stupid books.’

“I’ll be back soon,” she said as she walked towards the door. The other woman grunted in response, but didn’t bother asking where she was going. Quinn rolled her eyes before stepping out to pick up something substantial for the two of them to eat.

When she shuffled back into the apartment half an hour later, her arms laden with plastic bags—one hand far more burdened than the other—she found Mack still on the couch, only her eyes were closed and the book from earlier rested open across her chest, which was rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. Even though she rolled her eyes at the sight, Quinn had to admit it was kind of a cute image, especially since Mack wasn’t awake to ruin it by saying something rude or childish. She silently walked past the dozing woman to the kitchen. After putting away the groceries, she returned to the living with four Styrofoam to-go boxes in her hands with two forks wedged between her fingers and the boxes.

Inside the boxes were still-steaming hashbrowns that had been fried in liberal amounts of butter, piles of bacon, sausage links and patties, three slices of French toast, and several flaky biscuits. A stack of fluffy pancakes had a box all its own while a Styrofoam bowl of sausage gravy still sat on the kitchen counter. Quinn may have been a cyborg, but she still only had two hands. She was laying out the forks when her houseguest stirred and stiffly sat up, the book sliding down to her lap.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a bit of everything,” Quinn said, not looking up from the boxes as she opened them. When she finally did look up, Mack seemed confused. “Half a muffin isn’t very filling and I wasn’t cooking for you.”

Mack scratched the back of her head for a moment before reaching for a fork and one of the boxes. Quinn was about to say something about showing a little gratitude when Mack said, “Thanks, lady.”

“Quinn,” she replied.

“Okay. Thanks, Quinn,” Mack said again. “You can call me The Mack, by the way,” she added before shoveling a forkful of potatoes into her mouth with her good hand.

Quinn almost let it slip that she already knew Mack’s name, but she managed to bite back the response. Instead, she said, “I’m not calling you that.”

The other woman frowned around the fork in her mouth. After swallowing the hashbrowns, she asked, “What’s wrong with it?”

“It sounds ridiculous with ‘The’ in front of it.”

“Fine. Then I guess you can just call me Mack, but only ‘cause you brought breakfast,” she said. “Y’know, you can have some, too”

“Thank you for offering me some of the breakfast I paid for,” Quinn said as she grabbed her fork and the box with bacon and hashbrowns and carried them over to the recliner beside the couch.

“Jesus, sorry for saying anything,” Mack said before returning her attention to the food in her lap.

The two of them ate in silence for several minutes, each of them enjoying the taste of the greasy diner food. Quinn hated to admit it, but it was a lot better than the bran muffin Mack had devoured most of, even if she knew she was going to regret stuffing herself later. Her phone buzzed not long after she started eating. It was a text from her caretaker, reminding her of her appointment at three. She took a moment to type out a response before focusing on her breakfast again.

She was pushing around some of the hashbrowns when she felt Mack’s eyes on her. She looked up from the box and met the woman’s gaze. “Can I help you?”

Mack shrugged. “Just tryin’ to figure out what someone like you might want from someone like me.” Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Don’t play dumb, blondie. People don’t do stuff like this for nothing.”

“There’s nothing I could possibly want from you,” she replied. It was a lie, but a necessary one if she wanted to use Mack for information. Speaking of which… “Although, I wouldn’t mind hearing how you wound up in that alley.”

“Stupid decisions,” was the only answer she got, although she hadn’t expected much more. She was far from discouraged, though. She was sure she’d eventually get the information she needed, if not from Mack, then from some other petty lowlife. “Not that I regret ‘em or anything. They got me some nice TLC from a cute blonde, after all,” she said with a wink.

Quinn’s brow furrowed. Was her houseguest… hitting on her? Deciding it was best to ignore the remark, she stood up from the recliner and took her empty box with her to the kitchen. When she came back, Mack was starting on her second to-go box. Since the other woman was thoroughly occupied with her food, Quinn decided to do some digging on bullhead tattoos she had seen the night before. She let her guest know about the bowl of gravy out on the counter before disappearing into her bedroom and locking the door behind her.

The last thing she needed was Mack walking in on her hooked up to a computer.

She set up the laptop on her bed and sat cross-legged on the mattress. After she stuck the cable into the port behind her ear and the rush after it, Quinn started scrolling through the images and videos she had recently recorded until she found the image of the bullhead tattoo. While she uploaded it to the Alliance database, she sifted through the other videos and images, deleting those that were unimportant, saving some to the computer for future reference, and saving others to the chip in her head.

The cursor hovered over her most recent interactions with Mack. Truthfully, she hadn’t gotten any useful information out of the woman. She wouldn’t need the conversations later and it wasn’t like Mack was the definition of pleasant company. The thought of deleting the images gave her pause, however, when she found the video of Mack sitting in the window seat, rays of sunlight mixing in her dark hair and a soft smile on her face far different from the cocky grin Quinn had quickly grown accustomed to. She paused the video and stored the image in her chip with a sigh before saving the rest of the video to the computer. She hesitated before saving the conversation over breakfast to her chip.

By the time she was done filtering the memories, the image of the bullhead had been found within the Alliance records and a table of mugshots filled her computer screen, along with information listed under each picture. The symbol represented a gang known as the Minotaurs that was allegedly run by a man by the name of David “Bear Cub” Karofsky. Quinn’s brow furrowed at the name. People in this city had no taste in aliases. Karofsky looked like a brute, his shoulders broad and the scowl on his face threatening. His list of infractions was impressive, but it seemed none of the charges ever stuck.

His right-hand man appeared to be a hulking individual named Azimio Adams, who was just as large—if not larger—than Karofsky. His list of crimes was almost as long as his boss’s, but he hadn’t been lucky enough to escape jail time. A short note beneath his rap sheet mentioned that he had taken a bullet for his leader during an altercation with the cops and it had led to his hospitalization, followed by several years in prison. There didn’t seem to be any hard feelings between the two, though, as they had continued to run together after Azimio was released.

Two other lackeys were Rick the Stick Nelson, which was another name Quinn groaned at, and Brett Bukowski. It seemed when gang members didn’t have stupid nicknames, they compensated for it with alliteration. They were two redheads, one significantly taller with a fiercer appearance than the other, who looked like he had just rolled out of bed for his mugshot. Quinn saved the images to her chip, along with the photograph of the bull tattoo. She hadn’t found much on the Cobra Collective, so she’d see if she had more luck with the Minotaur gang tonight.

After disconnecting the cable and placing her laptop back in the closet, Quinn returned to the living room and found Mack reclining on the couch again, book in hand and two empty boxes on the floor beside the couch. Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. She supposed it was too much to ask of the injured woman to throw her garbage in the trashcan beside the couch or even place them on the table instead of the floor.

“I have to go out this afternoon, so you’ll have the place to yourself,” Quinn said as she picked up the empty boxes. She made a point to be deliberate with her actions as she placed the garbage in the trashcan so Mack would get the message, but Mack was more engrossed by the book she had borrowed.

“Sweet. I’m sure I’ll have a shitload of fun sitting here by myself,” Mack replied, not taking her eyes off the book.

“It looks like you found a way to pass the time just fine,” Quinn pointed out. “How’s that ‘stupid book’ going?”

Mack shrugged. “It’s alright, I guess. It doesn’t really… I dunno.”

“Do you know how to read it?”

That got Mack’s attention. She turned towards Quinn, scowling. “What the fuck kind of question is that?”

“No, I don’t mean… I’m not asking if you know how to read,” Quinn explained. “That book isn’t supposed to be read straight through. I mean, you can read it that way, but there are other ways of reading it that change the tone.”

“That is some Goosebumps level bullshit,” Mack said, shaking her head. Quinn rolled her eyes but said nothing more. Several minutes later, Mack asked, “So which reading did you choose? My money’s on the conformist one.”

“And you would be wrong because you don’t know anything about me or my life,” Quinn replied as she stood up. “Enjoy the book.”

“I thought you didn’t have to go until later?”

“Yeah, turns out I don’t really feel like sitting here with a complete ass all morning,” she said. She grabbed her phone off the table and ignored Mack’s objections to her leaving. She might have stopped for an apology, but she never heard one, even as she walked out the door.

  Tetra Labs Uptown Tetra October 14, 2054 12:30

The first thing Quinn was aware of as she walked through the white door with the opaque glass was the bass thrumming along her muscles as Ke$ha’s classic song ‘Blow’ pumped from the speakers of a stereo pushed against the wall to the right. The second was the pungent smell of pot that wafted through the doorway. Her nose scrunched at the aroma. The source of the smell was the rolled up paper trapped between the lips of a lanky blonde woman wearing a fuzzy hat that looked like it was supposed to be some kind of animal, but several parts had been chewed away so Quinn couldn’t tell what it was. The only thing that appeared remotely professional on her body was the black tie dangling from her neck.

The volume of the music had been loud enough to mask the sound of Quinn entering the lab and the fact that the woman was spinning in one of the lab chairs must have kept her from noticing her standing in front of the door. If she was supposed to be Quinn’s caretaker, she was unimpressed.

She tried clearing her throat to get the woman’s attention, but it wasn’t until a shorter woman with dark hair and tan skin walked through a set of double doors on the other side of the room that the blonde woman stopped spinning. Unlike the spinning woman, the newcomer looked more professional, sporting a white lab coat and dark-rimmed glasses. An official ID card hung around her neck. The only thing that threw off the appearance was the large case of beer in her left hand.

“Britt-Britt, do you think this will be enough to get me plastered for dinner tonight? I don’t really want to remember any of your mom’s weird sexual innuendos in the morning.”

“I’m not sure Busch is the way to go if you’re trying to avoid innuendos, honey.”

“I knew I should have gone with Mike’s Hard,” the other woman muttered as she set the case on the floor. When she stood back up, she finally seemed to notice that they weren’t alone. “Who the fuck let you up here?”

“The guy at the front desk? I asked about the Bio-Mech expert and they told me to come here,” Quinn said, “but I’m starting to think they may have been mistaken.”

The joint drooped from the other blonde woman’s lips, so she placed it on the computer table and slowly stood up from the lab chair. She faltered slightly, still disoriented from her spinning session, then leaned towards the darker woman and whispered loudly, “I thought you said she wouldn’t be here until later or something.”

“She wasn’t supposed to be,” the smaller woman hissed back. “I told her to be here at fifteen hundred hours.”

Quinn cleared her throat to get the attention of the two women. “Look, I don’t want to be here all day, so can I please see my caretaker?”

The women glanced at one another for a moment, some non-verbal message passing between them, before the shorter of the two nodded. “Sure thing, Fabray. Just take a seat in that chair over there.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” the lanky blonde said as Quinn stepped by her to sit in the lab chair that was now unoccupied.

After Quinn took a seat, she expected the two women to scurry off to find their boss. Instead, they continued to stand in front of her, one with a wide grin on her face and the other with her arms crossed over her chest. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Nope,” the darker woman said as she took a step forward. “Doctor Santana Lopez. Neurologist. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”

“And I’m Brittany. We haven’t talked yet, but I’m kind of like the doctor for your tech,” she said with a wink.

“Hang on. Why do I have two caretakers?”

“Hey, if you had been here a year ago, you could have had five,” Brittany said with a smile, which soon turned into a pensive frown. “Although I guess the clones wouldn’t have been much help considering how things turned out…”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Santana said since Brittany seemed to be lost in thought. “Look, you kind of threw a wrench in our plans by showing up early, but I guess it’s kind of a blessing in disguise.” She hefted the case of beer up off the floor and said, “We’ve got an invite to an impromptu dinner, so maybe if we start doing your tests now, we can finish with enough time for me to get drunk beforehand.”

“How long do you expect this to take, exactly?”

“Well, I have to take a look at how your brain is holding up—”

“And I’ve gotta examine all your robo-parts,” Brittany finished, apparently snapping out of whatever mental space she had gone.

“Do you really think I’m going to let you near any part of me while you’re high?”

Brittany shrugged. “I do it all the time.”

“She’s kind of an expert,” Santana said with a proud smile as she looked over at her partner. When she turned back to Quinn, the affectionate expression was gone. “But if you’re so uptight about it, we can do the brain stuff first.”

Quinn sighed. She wasn’t sure which sounded better: Someone poking around her cybertronics while stoned or someone poking around in her brain. In the end, she chose to go with Santana instead of Brittany in order to get the brain business out of the way. As it turned out, there wasn’t much Santana could do in the way of testing since Quinn had made the mistake of drinking tea that morning, eliminating several of the tests that her caretaker had planned to perform.

“I swear, you did this on purpose,” Santana muttered as she led Quinn to a large machine that resembled a tube.

“How was I supposed to know what you had planned for me?” she asked as she climbed onto the table, although she had a feeling Santana was right. She had gone through the testing process several times during her stay with the Alliance. She knew what it entailed. So maybe she had subconsciously found a way to shorten the process.

“Just be quiet and get in the damn tube so I can do the one test I can perform.”

Santana’s irritation was almost amusing so Quinn took her time sliding into the large chamber. She could hear Santana tapping her feet on the hard floor as she waited impatiently for her patient to get situated. Once she was still, the sound of the machine whirring to life filled the chamber before it started to take pictures of the inside of her head and the rest of her body.

The process took half an hour. Half an hour of stillness, which Quinn didn’t mind so much. The half hour of Santana bitching at her for screwing up the testing plan, however, she could have done without.

“I get it,” Quinn said as she got off the table. “No caffeine next time.”

“And show up when you’re supposed to, not three hours before,” Santana mumbled from the control panel as she shut down the machine.

Quinn took that as her cue to leave. Santana still needed to get the pictures developed before she could examine the results. She stepped through the double-doors Santana had come through earlier, only to find Brittany taking another hit off the joint from earlier. The blonde coughed when she saw Quinn standing at the door.

“Sorry,” she said as she dropped the paper onto the table and stood up. “I expected that to take like, way longer,” she explained. “No worries though. I’m still good to operate.”

The wiggle of Brittany’s fingers was not encouraging, but Quinn supposed she had only done this to herself by screwing up Santana's plans. She took a seat on the examination table and removed her cardigan and blouse so Brittany could get to her arm. In order to avoid watching the process, Quinn studied the examination room that had been decorated with personal photos of Brittany and Santana, but no amount of studying could distract her from the hiss of air that escaped when Brittany’s nimble fingers found the points that disconnected her arm from her shoulder. She flinched at the sound and the cool air that brushed against the exposed skin. To her credit, Brittany didn’t make any remarks like her former doctor did. That guy always seemed way too impressed by his own handiwork and almost sounded jealous of her.

Brittany’s fingers probed the end of the arm, which was still surreal to watch, and after a few strokes, the limb morphed into its primary weapon mode. The fake skin easily tore so the machinery to shift into position. The blonde studied the parts inside for a moment before pressing several spots on the top of the arm again. Just as Santana was walking through the double doors, the sonic cannon fired and the wave of energy smacked into the wall next to Santana’s head.

“Holy fucking shit, Britt! How many times do I have to tell you to watch what you’re doing?” Santana said. She studied the hole in the wall for a moment and shook her head.

“Sorry, sweetie,” Brittany said before returning to her examination of the gears and gadgets.

Quinn was glad she had come early. She had a feeling this examination was going to take a lot longer than she had expected.

  Quinn Fabray Residence Downtown Tetra October 14, 2054 12:30

After Quinn left the apartment, Mack had tried to continue reading the book she had borrowed, but she couldn’t focus on the print for very long. She kept thinking about the fact that she had somehow chased Quinn away. She hadn’t thought the remark about the book was that big of a deal, but it had apparently struck a chord with her host and chased her off. It shouldn’t have bothered Mack—she had chased off dozens of people with her hostile personality and she preferred it that way—but for some reason, the fact that she had upset Quinn enough to make her leave was eating away at her. Scowling, she closed the book and placed it on the table so she could find something else to take her mind off things.

Television and radio was out of the question since her host appeared to be against anything technological aside from that fancy laptop Mack had seen. Her best bet seemed to be raiding the kitchen for leftovers from breakfast, so she slowly got to her feet and limped to the kitchen to grab the last Styrofoam box out of the fridge. After heating up the food, Mack wandered back into the living room and finally took the time to look around while she ate.

There wasn’t much to look at.

The walls were bare of decorations. Quinn seemed like the kind of woman to have large paintings covering the walls no matter where she lived and maybe a couple of fancy clocks, but there was nothing. The large bookshelf and the coffee table were the only things that gave away anything about the woman’s personality, which wasn’t much. On the middle shelf of the bookcase, however, something metallic in between the books caught Mack’s eye. She set the container on the floor before she pulled out the object that had grabbed her attention.

It was a framed photograph and from what Mack could tell, the frame had cost quite a bit. Intricate designs of flower petals were etched into the silver material and she wagered she could get a pretty penny for it at a pawn shop. Behind the glass was a picture of a dark-haired young woman, a large smile on her face and her arms up in the air. She was dressed in a bright, striped coat that looked a little too big for her small frame. Mack frowned and slid the picture back between the books where she had found it before picking up the food container again and going back to the kitchen.

After she threw the container away, she leaned against the counter and tried to figure out a course of action. As much as she enjoyed staying at Quinn’s apartment—it was the closest she had come to feeling safe in a long time—she knew she was starting to grate on the other woman’s nerves. Even though she had offered to let Mack stay until she felt better, Mack had a feeling she’d get tired of her before then. Besides, she had jobs to do, and as nice as it was to pretend she wasn’t part of that life for a little while, those jobs wouldn’t be going away soon. Jimmy would give her some leeway since she was injured and all—never mind that he had been the one to do the punishing—but it wouldn’t take long for him to get antsy and send someone to track her down at Quinn’s place.

She may have enjoyed needling Quinn and pressing her buttons, but she didn’t want to bring Jimmy into the life of the first person who had helped her out in years.

Mack sighed and pushed off from the counter.

First she would find her clothes, and then she would be out of Quinn’s hair.

  Quinn Fabray Residence Downtown Tetra October 14, 2054 17:22

The appointment with her caretakers had taken far too long in Quinn’s opinion. Brittany had spent an hour going over each of her limbs, making sure the gears were okay, which had been uncomfortable to watch. Sitting on the table with her legs and arm missing was always surreal. It was even stranger when Brittany had to remove her eye implants to make sure they were functioning correctly. Thankfully, she kept whichever one she wasn’t examining attached, avoiding placing Quinn complete darkness. Despite the awkwardness of watching someone disassemble her body parts, she was grateful that neither Brittany nor Santana had treated her as a science experiment, although Santana had ended the appointment by calling her Robo-Quinn.

Quinn scowled at the memory as she approached the door to her apartment. She twisted the knob, only to find that it was locked. Her brow furrowed. She hadn’t locked it on her way out. Maybe Mack had gotten paranoid while she was gone and locked it just in case. After unlocking it, she stepped inside.

“I didn’t mean to be gone so long,” she said as she shut the door behind her. “Things took a bit longer than I planned and…” Quinn stopped talking when she realized her houseguest wasn’t on the couch where she had left her. “Mack?”

When there was no answer, she went to the kitchen, wondering if the woman had gone to raid her fridge again, but there was no one there either. Her room and the bathroom were just as vacant. She went back to the living room and her eyes scanned the bookcase for a moment before she sat down on the couch, which still had the pillows and blanket that Mack had been using, along with the clothes she had loaned her.

It seemed her houseguest had taken off, leaving Quinn alone once again.

Worse, she had taken the book Quinn was in the middle of reading.

  Burt’s Auto Repair South Tetra October 15, 2054 01:07

  After a quiet meal by herself, Quinn had gone back to researching the Minotaurs, but hadn’t come across anything that she didn’t already know. So, when she started her patrol that night, the first place she went was South Tetra to follow up on any leads she might find there. It had been the first place she had come across the gang after all, and they seemed to want to bring the territory under their control. It would make sense to find them there again.

To her relief, the teenagers from the night before were missing. Maybe they had been scared off for a few days by the confrontation between her and the Minotaur faction. Her eyes did, however, catch movement at the end of the street and it wasn’t very discrete. In fact, she could tell without zooming in that it was a large group ambling down the dark road. At first she thought it was another group of Minotaur members, but when she zoomed in on the group, she found that it was comprised of several men wearing dark blazers over white shirts with dress pants. Their hair was slicked back and they appeared to be… snapping? The man in the lead was thin and his face looked like it was stuck in the stage just before squinting. He could have passed for the human version of a meerkat.

Then she saw the movement behind them.

Other men were slowly stepping out of alleys to follow behind the group with weapons in hand.  

Quinn shook her head and pressed the button on her helmet that lowered her visor. It seemed she would have to protect the wannabe tough guys from actual tough guys before she could get started on hunting down the big fish. She dropped down from the roof of Burt’s Auto, surprised when she didn’t feel as much of the aftershock on impact. Whatever Brittany had fiddled with in her legs earlier had made it so her mechanical parts could absorb more force.

Nice.

She didn’t want to alert the gang that she knew about their presence, so she decided to confront the group of wannabes first and hopefully get them to disperse before they got hurt. She approached the group with her hands up, although it was hard to stifle her laughter when she actually heard them snapping.

“Shouldn’t you boys be partying at a country club right now?” she asked as she stepped out of the shadows. The leader stepped back, startled by her appearance, but he quickly hid his surprise.

“The Warblers can party wherever they want, whenever they want,” he said with a smirk that looked just as sleazy as his slicked back hair. The crowd of guys behind him made noises of agreement behind him, mostly made up of snapping.

“The… What?”

“The Warblers,” the man repeated. “I know you haven’t heard of us yet, but trust me. Soon we’ll be the talk of the town.”

Quinn had to resist the urge to groan. She suddenly felt like she was in a poorly produced version of West Side Story. “The only reason you’re going to be the talk of the town is because the news covered your bodies found in an alleyway.”

“Are you threatening us?”

“No, but I think the guys behind you are,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what kind of fantasy you have built up in your heads, but you’re all going to get yourselves hurt or killed if you don’t leave now,” she said in a louder voice so the whole group could hear her. “So I’m going to ask one more—”

A loud shriek came from above them. Quinn looked up to see a dark figure in a cape descending from the top of one of the surrounding buildings. They rolled once they hit the ground, only to spring to their feet by one of the men that had been stalking The Warblers. This time, Quinn did groan.

She was sure everyone in this city had a death wish.

Her legs tensed as she crouched down. Then, with a burst of strength, she pushed herself off the concrete and leapt over the group of boys to join the mysterious figure in their fight. She landed on top of one of the men holding a bat, drilling him into the ground. She ducked in time to avoid the crowbar coming towards her head and kicked out her leg to take down her assailant. She felt her foot connect with his stomach and straightened her posture, but she had to quickly sidestep afterwards to avoid the punch thrown at her chest. She grabbed her assailant's hand and twisted, feeling the crunch of bones beneath her fingers.

There were more tonight than there had been last night and she hated the idiot that had ruined her plan to get the other idiots out of there before they could get hurt. Speaking of said idiot, she had lost track of him in the crowd. It didn’t help that she had to keep dodging fists and kicks and weapons.  She was in the middle of twisting a man’s arm behind his back when she finally spotted the caped figure, who was probably regretting the cape at the moment because someone had grabbed it to keep them still while another guy threw punches at their face.

“Damn it,” Quinn growled under her breath before she shoved her captive face-first into the pavement and took off towards her decidedly unhelpful helper.

When she reached the man attacking the caped person, she willed electricity into her fingertips and grabbed hold of the man’s thick neck. His body shook in her grasp and when she let go, he fell to the ground and continued to convulse and swear. The man holding the cape immediately let go of his captive and started to run from Quinn, but she quickly morphed her arm into its weapon form and fired, the burst from the sonic cannon sending him further than he had probably planned to run.

She was about to check on the downed figure when three more men ran up behind her. She fired the sonic cannon at the ground, channeling a much more powerful burst, and large chunks of concrete sprayed at their faces. With that looming threat out of the way, she shifted her arm back into its resting form and grabbed the figure by the front of their costume so she could take them to the safety of the alley. Whoever they were, the punches had bloodied their face up and they were obviously disoriented as they struggled to keep up with her steps. When they reached the alley, she propped the caped person up against the wall and let them regain their bearings as she quickly took in their appearance.

Definitely male, physically; slim build; slicked back hair not unlike the hair of The Warblers, who had been smart enough to take off once the fighting started; a black mask that covered his eyes with what appeared to be the curve of a black beak in place of the nose piece; dark clothes; and a now torn cape.

When he finally seemed to reorient himself, Quinn slammed his back against the wall and pressed her forearm against his throat. “Who are you and what the hell did you think you were doing?”

In a raspy voice—most likely caused by Quinn’s arm placement—he replied, “In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Never,” he said with a blood-stained smile.

She took a seat on the soft cushion, brought her knees up to her chest, and rested the paper against her legs. While the skies were overcast, there was still enough light that Quinn could read the print without turning on a light. Reports of recent criminal activity were the first things she searched for. Every city had its problem areas and Quinn was determined to discover the crime patterns. From what she had gathered over the last few days, it seemed that, while downtown Tetra was rife with violent activity—there were at least three accounts of assault and battery in each paper—the upper class areas had more reports of home invasion and theft. It wasn't a surprise to Quinn. Why steal from your neighbor when those in the upper part of town would be more likely to have nicer stuff? Tensions were also high in the impoverished downtown areas, sparking more violence. She just needed to figure out where those tensions ran highest and who tugged the strings. Her gaze drifted to the archway between the kitchen and the living room where Mack still slept.

In the grand scheme of things, her current houseguest was a small fish, most likely food for bigger, meaner fish. That didn't absolve Mack of her crimes, but Quinn was sure the other woman would be of more use to her outside of a jail cell rather than in one. She would see what kind of information Mack could give her before she considered the other alternative.

A shrill whistle pierced the air in the kitchen and Quinn put the paper down before going to the stove to pull the kettle off the burner. She had hoped to remove it before the sound woke up her guest, but she picked up sounds of movement coming from the living room. She glanced over her shoulder and could see the blankets shifting on the couch. She turned back to the counter and went back to preparing her tea. While she pulled out two cups and two packets of tea, she listened to the sounds coming from the living room: A lot of swearing interrupted by several groans. She smiled to herself as she poured water in the cups.

Her criminal houseguest was apparently a big baby and it seemed she'd be joining her for her morning cup of tea.

After the packets of tea had steeped in the water long enough, Quinn took them out to the living room. Mack had shifted into a sitting position at some point, leaving enough room for Quinn to sit next to her. She handed the woman one of the cups before blowing off some of the heat from her own cup. Mack's brow furrowed and she cautiously sniffed the contents of her mug before taking a sip. Her expression immediately shifted to one of disgust.

"Thanks for the hot leaf water, but I think I'll pass," she said as she set the cup on the coffee table. "Do you have any real food around here?"

"That depends," Quinn said. "Do you have any real manners?"

"Hey, I didn't ask to crash here," Mack pointed out. "If you're gonna invite a girl to spend the night at your place, you should really have breakfast ready for her, or at least something a bit more filling than tea."

Quinn had to bite back her response, but the grip on her mug tightened from the effort and she could feel the ceramic handle cracking from the pressure. To hide the damage, she set her cup on the floor, careful to place it beside the couch so Mack couldn't see it.

"I didn't ask you to crash around the alleyway outside my window in the middle of the night, so I guess we both got something we didn't really want," she finally said in a level voice. Mack's scowled at the remark, but couldn't refute what Quinn had said. The blonde rolled her eyes and stood up from the couch so she could disappear into the kitchen once more. When she returned, she tossed Mack a banana, only to remember at the last second that she really shouldn't be throwing things at the injured woman. She felt a twinge of guilt when she saw the flash of pain cross Mack's face while reaching for the tossed banana.

"You're kind of a dick, ya know?" Mack said when Quinn sat next to her again.

"And you're extremely rude," she remarked as she watched the injured woman struggle to peel the banana with one hand. Taking pity on her, she plucked the banana out of her grasp and peeled it before handing it back. She didn't expect a thank you, so she wasn't surprised when she didn't get one. Still, she did think back to when Mack winced and once again left the couch to get some painkillers from the medicine cabinet in her master bathroom. Given her line of work, she tended to be well stocked with those. When she came back and handed them to Mack, she was finally rewarded with what could have been a grateful smile, but it quickly turned to a grimace when Mack washed the pills down with her tea.

"Still gross."

"You're welcome," Quinn replied as Mack went back to devouring the banana. Once she was finished, Quinn handed her a tiny wastebasket from beside the couch so she could throw the peel away instead of putting it wherever she had planned to drop it. After she returned the basket to its usual spot, she requested that Mack remove her shirt so she could check on the injuries she hadn't been able to tend to the night before.

"What kind of girl do you think I am?" she asked, but the cocky grin on her face spoke volumes as to what kind of girl she was. She slowly removed the shirt Quinn had loaned her the night before so the blonde could get a better look.

Without the shirt, Quinn discovered that the mark she had seen in the video still from yesterday was, in fact, part of a tattoo. The portion she had seen was a maroon tongue of a snake. The rest of the tattoo was a red, coiled serpent etched into her shoulder blade. Quinn was by no means a snake expert, but she was willing to bet money that it was a depiction of a cobra. She'd have to make sure to save the image to her personal database during her next memory dump. With that in mind, she returned to her observations of the woman's injuries.

Black and purple stains marred the lightly tanned skin. She gently placed her hand against Mack's side and ran her fingertips along the ribs, trying to assess the damage. Her gaze sometimes landed on old scars as she felt for any breaks and she tried not to think about what may have caused them. From what she could tell during their brief time together, the only real skill Mack had was saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, so it wouldn't surprise her if the scars were from her saying something she shouldn't have.

Her assessment done, she pulled her hands away and stood up. "It doesn't feel like anything is broken in there," she said as she picked her cup up from the floor, careful not to drop the broken handle in front of Mack, "but I would still check in with whatever medical contact you might have just to make sure." Quinn started to take the cup back to the kitchen, but when she reached the threshold, she looked over her shoulder at the injured woman and mustered a small smile. "I suppose you can stay here until you feel well enough to leave."

Mack was slowly reaching for the borrowed shirt when Quinn's words reached her. She paused and looked at the woman who had allowed her to stay the night. Quinn made sure to hold her gaze until Mack shrugged and went back to pulling her shirt on.

After rinsing her cup out and placing it in the drying rack beside the sink, Quinn returned to the nook and her newspaper. The sky was still grey, but the sun was trying to peek out through patches in the dark clouds. Just as she had done before, she settled against the wall, her knees bent in front of her, and read through the articles while listening for anything abnormal. Mostly, she just heard Mack moving around on the couch. She shook her head at the other woman's restless behavior, but maintained her focus on the information in front of her.

She was just starting to search through the classifieds for job prospects when she caught a faint buzzing sound in her ear. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to figure out what it was. It was too soft to be coming from this room, so she folded up the newspaper and left her comfortable roost to seek out the sound. When she entered the living room, Mack was sprawled across the couch, staring up at the ceiling with a bored expression on her face.

"I can't believe you don't even have a TV in here," she said, but Quinn shushed her, which only made her grumble more. Quinn ignored the mumbled complaints and went to her bedroom, where the sound was coming from.

She could have smacked herself when she saw the lit up screen of her cellphone, which was buzzing beside her pillow.

The number was foreign to her, but it had an Alliance code—one of many—at the very front. When she answered, she was greeted by a very irritated, feminine voice.

"Do you know how long I have been trying to get ahold of you? All freaking morning. Do you need a new ear implant or were you just ignoring me for funsies?"

Ah. Her new caretaker, she supposed. She had forgotten about that. Quinn pinched the bridge her nose and shook her head. "No, I haven't been ignoring you and no, I don't need a new ear implant," she said. "I've just been busy."

"Yeah, well I'm busy, too, and now I'm going to be even busier because I wasted my time trying to get ahold of you," the woman on the other end said. "Thanks for that. I really appreciate it."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "Okay, I get it," she said. "Now what is so important that you had to spend all morning blowing up my phone?"

"Mandatory check-up reminder," the woman replied, the irritation still clear in her voice. "You have an appointment tomorrow at fifteen hundred hours. I'd love it if you managed to get here on time."

"You could have just left a voicemail."

"They're important and you, Quinn Fabray, have a reputation of skipping out on them and using the excuse that you didn't know about the appointment," was the response. "This is me being thorough and making sure you are completely informed of when the appointment is. I will be calling again tomorrow, so keep your damn phone on you," the other woman said before there was a click, ending the call.

Quinn glared at the phone in her hand before sighing and slipping it into her pocket just in case she got more calls from her caretaker.

When she returned to the living room, Mack hadn't moved from her previous position, but her mug was now empty. Now that Quinn was pretty sure there were no broken ribs, she'd let Mack take care of it whenever she felt like getting up. She wasn't her mother after all. Without a word to the woman resting on her couch, she packed up her laptop and took it back to her bedroom, where she stashed it in a safe, then locked it in her closet. She should have taken care of it before she went to bed the night before, but she had been so tired that it had slipped her mind. It was a sloppy mistake she would have to refrain from making in the future.

Once the laptop was secure, she went to her nightstand and pulled out her wallet. If she was going to be feeding both of them tonight, she needed to take a trip to the grocery store later. Until that time came, though, she'd go keep the insufferable woman on the couch company. After she slipped the wallet into her pocket, she went back to the living room to find Mack in the same position she had left her.

"Putting away the valuables, huh?"

"Yes," Quinn said as she crossed the room to the large bookcase set against the back wall. Her response evoked a huff from the woman on the couch.

"If I was going to steal something, don't you think I would have done it last night?"

"You could hardly move without my help last night," Quinn reminded her in a bored voice while she scanned the rows for a book to read. She decided on her worn copy of The Mixquiahula Letters so she could easily pay attention to what Mack was doing while she read. "If you wanted to steal anything last night, you would have had to struggle down the stairs with it and I don't think you were capable of doing that without falling and injuring yourself even more."

Mack grumbled something that sounded like an agreement. Quinn didn't push her for a more articulate response. Instead, she chose to sit in the black recliner beside the couch and get started on her book. Several minutes of silence passed before Mack broke it with another question.

"Do you even own a TV or somethin' else I can watch?"

"No," Quinn said as she turned a page.

"Is there anything fun to do around here that doesn't involve reading one of your stupid books?"

"No."

Mack groaned, but she stopped asking questions for the time being, allowing Quinn to have the quiet atmosphere she had grown accustomed to over the last few months.

Quinn told herself she didn't miss the chatter as she flipped through the pages of her book.

Fusco Square Downtown Tetra October 14, 2054 01:07

It was windy on the rooftops of Fusco Square without the tall buildings to break the cool October gusts, but it hardly bothered the crouched figure perched on the ledge of one of the buildings. The black body armor kept her warm enough and the black helmet stopped the wind from whipping bright pink hair from her wig into her eyes. Far below Quinn's position, citizens still ambled around the bustling square. Yet another difference from her hometown.

Where she came from, there were never this many people out past midnight. Granted, Lima did not have a successful nightclub within its limits, let alone four within one square. She thought it was a bit excessive, but she also suspected the establishments were a front for other, more nefarious purposes. There were a lot of dark spaces within clubs where shady deals could be struck. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough information yet to attempt a bust on one of those operations.

Besides, she'd rather establish a presence in the city before she made any moves towards the bigger fish. She wanted them to know she was coming for them. She wanted them to know what it was like to be afraid.

Her first night on patrol, however, was so far pretty quiet, aside from the drunken patrons stumbling from the buildings. Quinn sighed and tried not to think about what could be going on inside said buildings as she focused on the streets instead. After another dull half hour of sitting on the ledge without anything happening, though, she was thinking it was about time she moved on to a new location before she died of boredom.

She stood from her perch and backed away from the edge of the rooftop. With the push of a button on the side of her sleek helmet, a thick, neon green visor jutted out and covered the top half of Quinn's face, showing only her mouth and chin to those who encountered her. She blinked back to her normal vision distance so she wouldn't stumble on the rooftop, then closed her eyes so she could shuffle to her night vision. Once it was activated, she accessed her memory chip and, after some searching, brought up the schematics of the city she had downloaded before she left, along with the image of the crime reports she had read earlier. Both pictures showed up side by side on her visor.

She skimmed through the reports once more before deciding on a target. A green dot appeared on the map of the city a few miles south of her position. She willed the reports away, leaving her with just the map on her visor. Deciding she had wasted enough time, Quinn started towards her new objective.

Burt's Auto Repair South Tetra October 14, 2054 02:10

South Tetra technically wasn't part of downtown, but from what Quinn had gathered from the chatter on the streets over the last few days, the citizens still referred to it as 'downtown' because of the dilapidated buildings and the crime rate. From the top of the auto repair shop, Quinn had a good vantage point. The buildings weren't as tall as those in downtown Tetra. There were also fewer groups of people, making it easier for her to track what was going on.

One group in particular had caught her interest shortly after she arrived.

They were a group of six, gathered in the darkness of one of the alleyways. She wouldn't have seen them without her night vision activated and even then, she had only spotted them because she caught a glimpse of one slipping into the alley, which had led to her moving to Burt's Auto for a better view. Even with her ear implant, they were too far away for her to hear what they were saying, but they were shoving each other and, from what she could tell, laughing. They all appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties, too; young with nothing to do and something to prove. It was a dangerous combination.

The shoving suddenly stopped as one of the guys in the group pointed towards a building across the street. It was a bicycle shop, blue paint peeling off the sides and a boarded up window in the front. Graffiti covered huge patches of the building. It didn't look like it had been open in quite some time. Quinn watched as the group slipped out of the alley and started towards the bike shop. When they approached the building, one of the young women in the group was the first to pick up a rock from the street.

This was technically the cops' territory—vandalism was not high on Quinn's list of big crimes—but she was there and the cops weren't.

She rose from her crouched position and, after a deep breath to calm her nerves, she silently dropped from the rooftop down to the cracked sidewalk. Her legs absorbed most of the impact, but she could still feel slight reverberations traveling up her torso. It seemed Burt's Auto was taller than it looked. She shook off the repercussions of her miscalculation and sprung towards the group of delinquents. Just before the young woman could throw the stone, Quinn grabbed her by the wrist, careful not to squeeze too hard.

"What the fuck?" came the startled response from the girl in her grasp. The rock dropped from her hand and she twisted to figure out which of her friends had stopped her. Quinn could clearly see the surprise on her face when the girl realized it wasn't one of her friends who had grabbed her. Her outburst also drew the attention of the rest of the group so all eyes were on Quinn.

As she suspected, the group was comprised of a bunch of teens and young adults. The piercings and tattoos didn't surprise her. None of the tattoos indicated any gang affiliation though, so it seemed they were only looking to kill time. They had chosen poorly, but she was relieved that none of them were working for a bigger group just yet. Maybe she could talk some sense into them.

"Don't you all have somewhere else to be? Like your own homes, for example," she asked in a low voice as she released the girl's wrist.

"Hey, freak. Daft Punk called," one of the guys in the group said. "They want their outfit back so they can burn it."

Quinn rolled her eyes. She hadn't dealt with poorly thought out insults since she was in high school and she didn't plan on taking the bait now. "Go home now," she repeated, "and I won't call the cops."

"I'd listen to her if I were you," a man said from behind them. Quinn looked over her shoulder and found that another, older group had approached without her noticing. Maybe she did need a new ear implant like her caretaker had suggested. Unlike the teenagers, this group was armed. No firearms that she could see, but she doubted getting hit by one of their bats or crowbars would be pleasant for the teenagers she had approached.

The girl who had been making to throw the rock earlier stepped forward, defiance written in her stance. "For the last time, this isn't part of your turf so get the fuck out of here."

The man who had spoken earlier chuckled. The sound was ominous and put Quinn on edge. "Silly, silly children should really learn to respect their elders."

It happened quickly. One moment the night was still; the next, two of the older men were lunging at the group of teens with their weapons up. Quinn's reflexes were even quicker though. She kicked out the legs of one of the assailants, sending him flying into the pavement. The other, she grabbed by the back of his jacket collar as he ran past her and jerked him backwards, slamming his back into the ground.

The scowl on the leader's face was encouraging.

Rather than send two at her at a time, the four remaining lackeys lunged forward. She grabbed the wrist of the man who aimed a crowbar at her head and twisted, bones crunching in her grip. Another man was aiming a blow with his bat at her side, but she quickly turned so he hit his friend in the stomach instead. She shoved the man in her grasp forward so he crashed into the other. She stepped back just in time to avoid a crowbar coming down on her head, but another lackey used the moment to his advantage and wrapped a chain around her neck.

The coils bit into her skin, cutting off her airflow. The attack had taken her by surprise, but she couldn't let herself panic. She was stronger than that. While her movement was hindered by the assailant behind her, another man landed a blow across her stomach. Even with the body armor, it hurt. She knew there'd be a bruise there tomorrow. Before he could land another blow, Quinn kicked at his chest, sending him into the three men behind him. She grabbed the chain looped around her neck and tugged, ripping it from her captor's hands.

As she turned toward her unseen assailant, a neon green light lit up behind her visor. A formerly unseen pattern on her body armor lit up as well, tendrils of glowing green light creating a circuit design across the black body armor. The hum of electricity filled the air and the metal chain in Quinn's hand seemed to come alive, writhing in her grasp as an electric current traveled through the coils. When she started to swing it around her body, the thugs were smart enough to stay away from the crackling metal whip. Finally, she tossed it over the heads of the group that had surrounded her so it smacked the leader, who had hung back to let his lackeys handle it.

She had dialed back the electricity before she tossed it, but it still had the intended effect. Namely, sparking fear in the men who had surrounded her when their leader collapsed and convulsed on the ground. For added measure, she willed her mechanical arm to shift into one of its weapon forms: A miniature sonic cannon with enough force to knock a grown man on his ass. When one of the men lunged at her, he found out firsthand how powerful it was when it sent him flying across the street. His companions were smarter; they took off instead of attacking her. She watched their retreating forms before she turned back to where the group of teenage troublemakers had been. It seemed they had been so entranced by the fight, they had stuck around. Their gazes were locked on her mechanical arm, so she quickly willed it back to its usual form. It didn't stop them from staring, but at least they didn't seem so terrified with the weapon put away.

"I would suggest going home now," she said in a firm voice. "Or do you want to wait for someone else to come jump you?"

The group of teenagers looked at one another and nodded, an unspoken message passing between them, before they scattered, leaving Quinn standing alone on the deserted street. She wasn't sure if she had gotten through to the kids or not, but a pained groan from the middle of the road pulled her attention away from those thoughts and reminded her she still had a job to do.

She spent the next few minutes gathering the three unconscious men and propping them up against a street lamp. She pulled a long cord from the belt around her waist and wrapped it around the men so they couldn't move from the post. When she was done, she checked the men for any marks that may clue her in on which group they belonged to. She found matching tattoos on the back of their necks: Bullheads. She would have to look into the symbol later.

After admiring her handiwork, she stepped back and checked the time on her watch. It was already three in the morning. She chewed the inside of her lower lip before deciding to do another round of surveillance throughout the city before she went back to her apartment.

Quinn Fabray Residence Downtown Tetra October 14, 2054 04:30

Mack had been trying to sleep when her mystery savior left the apartment around midnight. She was sure the woman wasn't aware that she had been awake when she snuck out. Not that the strange lady owed her any explanation. For all Mack knew, the same woman who was letting her crash on her couch was a stripper or something. She didn't see any shame in that, but the way the woman snuck out made it seem like she had some issues with her profession. Or maybe she was a nurse of some sort. She knew enough about medical stuff that it wouldn't surprise Mack in the slightest.

She wouldn't have heard the door to the apartment open if she hadn't been listening for it. She slowly shifted her gaze from the ceiling—she was slowly starting to memorize that damn ceiling—and watched as her host slowly closed the front door then quietly crossed the room to her bedroom. Mack waited for a light to appear beneath the door, but the space stayed dark. She must have just crawled into bed, too tired to do anything more.

Most of her host was shrouded in cold bitchiness and mystery, but Mack was sure of one thing:

This lady was fucking strange.

People didn't help her out of the kindness of their hearts. People generally didn't help her at all. Everybody wanted something from her, and while she appreciated that this stranger had fed her and let her stay, she didn't plan to stick around long enough to figure out what she wanted in return. As soon as she felt safe enough to go back on the streets, she would be gone and she wouldn't have anything else to do with the woman. With that thought in mind, she closed her eyes and settled against the armrest of the couch so she could finally get some sleep.