Breaking and Entering (Hobbs)

[David Cortes]

Well, there was that question again. David knew he'd have to answer it at some point. As the pdf did its work with the safe, David recounted some of the story.

"Have you ever had one of those bizarre chain of events that somehow ended up being much bigger than you thought? Yeah... it was kinda like that. I was on the subway, this lycan straight up attacked this chick, I killed said lycan, and it turned out this chick was a very mousy vampiress who happened to be the secretary or something to the number two guy of the vampire syndicate... Who evidently was thankful enough to not kill me and give me the a map with a couple of rogue vampire coven locations. Evidently they aren't fans of rogues either..."

That was the very short, annotated version of the story, but it summed it all up nicely. "I thought they were traps, but then I checked one out on my own a few weeks back and found the info reliable enough. It was a small one though, only two of them who were easily taken out by sniper fire. These required more work... Which why I asked you along." And thank God he did. She saved his ass today... And very much earned whatever drinks he's have to pay for later.

As the safe was opened, David peaked inside and grinned. A few thousand worth of bill stacks, and a smartphone. While the cash was very much welcome, David realized that smartphone was probably much more useful than every last cent in the safe.

"Great, hopefully that phone's got some more intel we can use. Let's grab it, and the cash of course, and get the hell outta here." He looked around the placed, and winced slightly at the sight of the bloody corn flakes. "I don't wanna spend more time here than I have too..."

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

Hobbs exhaled sharply under breath; a short ghost of a half-laugh. Yeah, she knew the kind of chain of events he was talking about. Practically her entire life was a big long chain of events like that; she’d been an average who went into the Police after her father, then because of that later went into the army, where she got her leg blown off, which made her fly to New York to get a new one specially made, where she was attacked by a Vampire, saved by a Hunter, and ended up becoming one herself.
Even the Vampire attack which ended up with her becoming a Hunter was the result of a freak chains of events. If one had never happened, if she’d crossed the road at a different point or not taken the late shift, if anything had been different...

It made her think sometimes; if her father had been, say, a driving instructor, or a mechanic, if she’d never gone into his profession after she left school, would she be here today?

Probably not.

Hobbs frowned, listening to him talk as she wedged the stacks of money into her numerous pockets. What really piqued her interest was the smart phone; Hobbs could get a gold mine of information out of it.
“So, lemme get this straight,” she said, pocketing the phone as she pulled out her gun again and moved towards the door. “You met the Vampire second in command? And you didn’t blow his head off because...?”

[David Cortes]

"You say that as if I didn't think about doing that." David replied as he put some of the money into his jacket and cargo pant pockets. Thank God for so many pockets, it'd be a shame to leave all this behind. "But I very much enjoy living. As in the thought of a dozen or so large, well armed, and well trained vampires ripping my throat out as soon as I so much as lifted my gun and tried to charge my way in held no appeal to me. Besides, if I had died who else would be paying your drinks for the next 5 or so months?"

Once he had collected as much cash as he could carry, he picked up his shotgun and began to walk out. He checked the hallway and saw that, for the moment, the coast was clear. He looked out the window at the edge of the hallway. No cops, and the sun was just about to set.

"We'd better leave quickly. The sun's setting, and I don't want to stick around to see if any more of their friends will show up." David grimaced, then moved towards the stairs, working his way down the hallway and reaching the flight of stairs, his shotgun ready to be used should the need arise.

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

At the doorway, Hobbs checked that the coast was clear. The gunshots had been quite loud, she fully expected patrol cars converging on the scene at any moment.
"You say that like I can’t hustle idiots into a sniping contest," she said, with a sideways grin at him. To any casual observer she was just one tiny Chinese chick. Her military training was the ace in the hole, the trick up her sleeve. Nobody expected much of her, and Hobbs liked it that way.
She led the way down the staircase, handgun at the ready, waiting for an attack that never came. The memory of the smart phone burned a hole in her mind; she was gonna have so much fun sponging intel from that little device.

At the bottom of the stairs she booted open the door and stepped into the evening air. She lowered her gun as she breathed in the sweet, sweat air of freedom, uncontaminated by gore or blood or decomposing bodies.

"Besides, doesn’t saving you ass tonight warrant an extra month on the bar tab?" Hobbs asked, fixing Cortes with that grin of hers as she tried to wriggle her way into a longer bar tab. If he didn’t fancy agreeing to that extra month, which she totally understood, she drank like a sponge, Hobbs was sure that there were plenty of other ways to reap the debt he owed her...

[David Cortes]

David exhaled heavily as he half smirked at Hobbs' comment about hustling him out of 6 month's bar tab. Sure, it was his own damn fault for bringing it up, but still... She basically had hustled him. "Yeah yeah, rub it in while you can." David replied as they moved down the stairs.

Walking out into the evening light, he smiled as he smelled air that was not contaminated by decomposing flesh, blood, and gore. Mind you, the city, cars, and general pollution weren't great, but it was a noticeable plus than usual.

He laughed heartily, grinning widely, as Hobbs mentioned how saving his ass was worth at least another month's worth of bar tab paid. Ah hell no. He just worked his ass off getting two weeks taken off, he wasn't about to add another two weeks to the punishment. Still...

"Another month? Not the way you drink, my bank can barely make student payments. But it does deserve the two weeks I was able to take off. Fine, it's back to the full six months. Enjoy it loca." He chuckled as he opened the trunk and tossed in his shotgun and bandoleer. After Hobbs tossed her stuff in, he shut the trunk and walked to the front, starting up the car.

As they drove off, he noticed the sound of sirens arriving, and within a minute or two police cars drove past, heading not in the direction of the house, but another way. David grinned.

"Looks like the cops really don't give a shit about this area of the city. Thank God..." David sighed. He then looked down and noticed the blood all over his pants and jacket. "Back to the compound, or do you want to get cleaned up at the safe house and spend my money on drinks?"

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

Hobbs turned back to him, putting away her gun and grinning widely as she did so. She wasn’t as much as drinking juggernaut as she used to be, but honed practice and practice died hard. Even if her blood volume was down these days she could still handle a shockingly high intake of alcohol before she was floor-bound.

He agreed to reinstate her full six months, and Hobbs smirked as she took out the smart phone. That man was about to fell the force of her drinking ability; his wallet and bank account would be sobbing in protest by the time she was done.
"Oh, I’m sure I will," she responded quietly, checking that location settings on the phone were off and cracking open the back of the phone to check that there wasn’t a GPS tracking dot in its innards. Y’know, just in case. The phone may have been planted as bait, and Hobbs didn’t want to be responsible for bringing a tracking device back to the Compound for all the Immortals to follow them home.

As she meddled with the phone, Hobbs followed Cortes back to the truck, briefly tossed her stuff in the trunk and then clambered into the passenger seat whilst popping the back onto the phone. All of this had been done without looking up from the device, but she wrenched her eyes away when she heard sirens, and saw police cars drive past the entrance of the alleyway.

"Still," she said, narrowing her eyes, "better to be safe than sorry. Let’s get the hell outta here. Where’s the safe house?"

[David Cortes]

"Not far," David replied. "Enough for us to get outta the range of the cops search. It's by the port." He said, taking a left and heading out against the main flow of traffic into the city and heading towards the docks. After about a short 15 minute drive, he pulled his car into an alleyway, and clicked a small clicker on the visor of his windshield. A garage opened, seemingly from a wall of a warehouse, with room small enough for one car. Driving in, the door closed, and he cut the engine.

Hopping out of the car, David stretched a bit as he took off his now blood-stained jacket. He then walked to the trunk and handed Hobbs her gear, then grabbed his own. Walking towards the door, he pressed the number combination and a door unlocked. Opening it, he walked into a small room with a couch, a television, a computer on a desk, an open kitchen, and two doors. One door lead into a room with four bunks on it, another the bathroom.

Walking towards the coffee table, he placed his shotgun on it and walked over to the kitchen. There, he opened a cabinet that had pistol with several mags of UV and Silver-nitrate rounds on it, and a gun cleaning kit. Taking the kit, he looked over at Hobbs as he plopped onto the couch.

"You can wash up first, I gotta clean vampire guts outta my shotgun." David sighed, looking at the gun. The entire front was crimson red, and undoubtedly some of it had seeped into the pump-mechanism. Best to clean it now while he was still dirty than clean it after he showered and get his new clothes dirty.

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

Meeting resistance from the phone Hobbs pocketed it. She nodded mutely in response to Cortes and said nothing more. She huddled down into the passenger seat and buried her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, trying to resist getting out the smartphone again and tinkering. If anyone knew how well gadgets could be booby-trapped, it was her. Best just to leave it until she could put her full attention to cracking it wide open, and that might take a while.

The quarter hour drive felt like far longer when Hobbs was trying to wrench her thoughts away from the phone in her pocket. When they finally did reach their destination, Hobbs sat up as Cortes activated some kind of remote system and pulled the car into a warehouse by the docks. Hobbs swung open the vehicle door once parked and got out, looking around as she elbowed the door shut behind her. She accepted the stuff Cortes handed back to her without even looking at him.

She eyed the keypad combination as he approached it though, and reached back into her hood for the thermal glasses propped atop her head. Hobbs politely looked away when he tapped in the combination in the way that people simply do when around others typing passwords, the way they make it obvious that they’re not peeking when in fact Hobbs surreptitiously flicked the glasses down onto her nose and glanced back at the keypad to see the residual heat on the buttons, cooling in the order he’d pressed them. She made a note to memorise the code should she ever need to bug out for a short while.
However, she was quick to whisk the glasses off her face the second the door was opened and stow them in one of the many pockets of her cargo shorts. Inside was a pretty sweet safe house.
“So this is bachelor pad number two, huh?” Hobbs said, shrugging off her leather jacket and looking around. She tossing the jacket onto the arm of the couch opposite Cortes as she shook back her hood and wandered into the kitchen area. “Can’t imagine this place being a hit with the ladies.” She looked inside a couple of cupboards and seemed almost disappointed to find regular stuff in them. Hobbs for one stowed guns everywhere: taped under desks, inside hollowed out books, under her mattress, inside her wardrobe... should she ever be attacked in the comfort of her own space she was ready to blow something’s brains out even if she was eating cereal.

You can wash up first, I gotta clean vampire guts outta my shotgun.
Hobbs looked over at him, shutting the cupboard, then she looked down at herself. Her Docs were sprayed with Vampire blood, and there was something that looked suspiciously like brain matter on the hem of her cargo shorts. She could do with a wash and a change of clothes but Hobbs wasn’t too fond of showers... for obvious reasons.

“Sure,” she said flatly, then wandered away into the bathroom. She shut the door with a click, then proceeded to disarm herself, laying out her small arsenal of ammunition, guns, knives and bombs along the side of the bath before running the sink tap until the water ran hot. She popped the plug in. As the sink slowly filled up she divested herself of the dirty garments, kicking off boots, peeling socks off mismatched feet and wriggling out of her shorts.

One of the boons of having short hair was that washing it was unbelievably easy. She dunked her head into the water and towelled off; that was it. She ran a damp cloth over hair face, neck, hands, arms, and down her left leg where she’d caught the Vampire’s arterial spray. Next she put down the toilet lid and sat down on it as she worked more blood out of her mechanical leg, dried it off thoroughly, and then sponged her dirty clothes. Gathering together her various weapons and wet shorts, she opened the bathroom door and leaned against the doorway in little more than an oversized plaid shirt that just about covered her underwear. Holding her damp shorts in one hand, finger-combing her wet hair with the other making it stand up in wet slicked spikes, she asked him, “Got a radiator anywhere in this place?”

[David Cortes]

As Hobbs walked off, David began to pull his shotgun apart. First, he cleared each and every shell from the chamber, than grabbed a wrench from his cleaning bag under the coffee table and unscrewed the nut at the top of the pump action. He then slid the barrel out of the seating, and grabbed a towel with oil. First, he removed all the blood from the barrel, then oiled it to make sure it wouldn't rust, he then began to clean the internals. He removed the pump action off, and with a tooth brush continued to scrub out the blood. Just as he had finally gotten it off, his hands still full of gun oil and blood, he heard Hobbs ask where the radiator was. Looking up, he saw her wearing her long flannel shirt as though it were a dress.

Don't look her over, don't look her over... Fuck it... Taking a quick glance up and down, clearly not expecting her, he pointed over to the bedroom door. "Yeah, it's in the bedroom. It's really the only room I care about being warm at night." He replied, then started to re-attach the pump action, having cleaned and oiled it, trying (and failing) to not watch her walk over to the door. Sure, she's a little thin... but... No, stop it man.

As he finished re-attaching the parts of the shotgun, he stood up and placed the shotgun on the gun rack, and put away his instruments. "Ok, I've got a bunch of Coronas, Miller, and Dos Equis in the fridge. Feel free to start while I clean myself up... Just try not to drink all of it before I finish. I want some too." He chuckled, as the fridge was nearly half-filled with the three kinds of beer. He doubted she'd be able to drink it all, but then again he had also doubted she'd kick his ass at sniping. Needless to say, he was simply trying to cover his bases.

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

Hobbs caught the flick of his eyes. It was a brief thing, a quick glance, the simple once-over. She noticed it, but she didn’t tug at the hem of the shirt to cover up for modesty’s sake. Once upon a time she may have done, at a time when there was the possibility of it meaning anything. These days Hobs wasn’t egotistical enough to think that anyone looked at her in that way, let alone a comrade.

Her eyes wandered over the fragmented remains of his shotgun, halfway through maintenance, and his hands covered in a bitter cocktail of oil and blood.
He gave her a reply, and saying nothing more, Hobbs turned and wandered through the open plan lounge-kitchen and into the bedroom. She nudged the door open with a carbon fibre panelled knee and slipped inside. Dumping her array of weapons on the duvet of the nearest bunk bed, she draped her damp clothes over the radiator. Before leaving the room, she paused. Though not bashful, she was in no way the type to flaunt her body parts all over the place. Pulling one of the duvets off the beds, she wrapped it around herself like a blanket and wandered back into the kitchen again, her footfalls making irregular sounds on every other step.

Hobbs moved over to the fridge, hoisted it open, and pulled out a couple of coronas. She kicked the fridge door shut behind her, moved over to the couch and threw herself down on the opposite side of it. She passed him one of the Coronas, and popped the cap off her own using one of the panels on her leg as a bottle opener.
"So why'd you set this place up?"