Roxy never knew her parents.
She didn’t have some sob story about being abandoned or abused like the other kids at the orphanage; she just... never knew them. Or at least not enough to leave any significant impression on her. She had been dropped off at the front steps of the orphanage when she was barely old enough to walk, wrapped in a blanket and buckled into a car seat that would have made it pretty damn easy for some freak to just walk off with her. She was honestly pretty lucky that the matron came by when she did.
She barely remembered the incident, and she definitely didn’t remember the family she’d lost. Her memories were stained with the smell of cigarette smoke, a cracked windshield, and hazy images of rust-colored hair, the same shade her own.
And that was it. That was everything Roxy knew about the people who’d made her. For all she knew, her mother had been some teenage prostitute who realized too late that she wasn’t cut out for motherhood. Or maybe she’d been a runaway, or an addict, or just someone who’d made a mistake and couldn’t live with it.
In the end, it didn’t really matter, but Roxy’s current situation made her wonder. If she did have parents or someone else who gave a shit about her existence, what would they think of her now?
It had been a week since she’d left the orphanage and the warm bed they so graciously provided for her, littered with bedbugs as it may have been. She wasn’t entirely sure whether or not she regretted it yet.
On one hand, she was free. No more matrons breathing down her neck, no more curfews, no more crowds of other kids making noise at all hours of the day and night.
On the other hand, she was sleeping in a shipping container and was using wet wipes to bathe.
Sweat rolled down Roxy’s face in buckets as she worked on the project in front of her. It was a little after two, and her ‘home’ had heated up considerably. Hot didn’t even begin to describe it, but still she kept on, even though she was running dangerously low on her already precious water.
A week straight living in her workshop had taught her that there was probably a reason most of the shipping containers around her were completely empty despite the amount of hobos around here. The metal walls absorbed heat like a sponge, turning the container into an oven by noon and holding that heat well into the night. The first few days had been miserable, sweat soaking through her clothes and dripping onto her work until she’d started setting up fans, and even then, the air just blew around without ever really cooling anything down.
But like always, Roxy made do.
Roxy squinted as she fixed the wires to the inside of her new helmet, making sure they were flush with the lining and wouldn’t peek out and poke her skin when she put it on. Once done, she shifted the padding to cover it, pulling back to examine her work.
Her last helmet was completely FUBAR. The damage that wrench did was more intense than she thought, and she was forced to pretty much throw the whole thing out. She salvaged what she could from the wreck and put it into her new rig, a slightly more worn motorcycle helmet that had been spray-painted black and blue by herself. The front was tinted darker and the helmet itself was pretty thick so hopefully it wouldn’t break quite as easy.
Roxy pulled her sweaty hair back, slipping it on and testing the fit. It was snug but not overly tight. She prepared to test the onboard suite, but as she went to turn on the noise dampening, her stomach chose that moment to remind her of her basic needs.
Roxy grimaced as her abdomen let out a powerful rumble that echoed through the cramped space. How long had it been since she’d eaten? She couldn’t remember.
She reached for the sleeve of crackers she’d stashed near her workbench, her fingers brushing against the empty wrapper before she remembered and cursed. She’d finished them yesterday... Or maybe the day before. The days were starting to blur together.
“Shit,” she muttered, letting her hand drop.
Roxy pushed herself up from the workbench, her joints protesting in the way they always did when she spent an hour or two in the same position. She cracked her neck, feeling the satisfying pops echo all the way down her spine, and sighed.
“Gotta get a clock in here,” she muttered, setting her helmet on her workbench and grabbing her backpack. It was the same one she used to use for school, though she’d long since thrown all the useless crap away.
The door of the shipping container groaned as Roxy pushed it open and stepped out into the blinding afternoon sun. The air was hot and muggy, but a light breeze cooled her skin in a way the fans in her workshop couldn’t. Roxy sighed, feeling the wind brush against her feverish skin, before moving on.
The neighborhood outside the shipping yard had become well known to her. By now she knew which streets were safe and which ones to avoid, which buildings were actually abandoned and which ones had squatters. There wasn’t much gang activity, but the ABB occasionally made an appearance on a corner every now and then. She learned to avoid those too.
Roxy’s boots crunched on loose gravel as she made her way toward the edge of the yard. Her hand drifted to her pocket, checking for the crumpled bills she had left. Seventy-three dollars. That was everything she had to her name until she found another target.
Seventy-three dollars, she thought bitterly. Guess I’m back to scraping by on pocket change.
The thought made her jaw clench, but she forced it away. There was no point dwelling on it. The money was gone, and sitting around feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to change shit.
Right now, she needed to eat, then, she needed to find a better place to stay. The shipping container was fine for storage, maybe even living for short periods, but she couldn’t stay there forever. If she got an idea and slipped into an actual fugue, she’d probably be out of it long enough to pass out from the heat. If she was lucky.
There were abandoned buildings all over this side of town, and she’d already marked a few that might suit her. The most promising of them was an old factory a little ways away from her workshop. From what she’d seen, it was pretty much destroyed on the inside, half flooded and full of machines nobody bothered to haul off, but there were multiple floors so there was bound to be a few rooms that were usable. She just needed one.
Roxy made her way through the winding streets, keeping her head down and her pace steady. She made sure to keep her eyes forward and her ears open. This wasn’t a nice part of town, and she was an easy target.
The convenience store was a squat building wedged between a laundromat and some kind of governmental building. The windows were covered in posters of random crap and the fluorescent lights inside flickered in a way that would have given her a headache even before she triggered. She pushed through the door, ignoring the clerk’s probing glance, and made her way to the back where the cheap food lived.
She grabbed a bottle of water, a sleeve of crackers, and a package of beef jerky that looked like it had been sitting on the shelf since the store opened. The total came to just under eight dollars, which left her with sixty-five and change. Not great, but enough to keep her going for a few more days if she was careful.
The clerk didn’t say a word as she paid, not bothering to ask what a sweaty, clearly homeless teenager was doing in the bad part of town. He didn’t care, and both of them were happier for it.
Outside, she cracked open the water and took a long drink, letting the cool liquid soothe her dry throat. The sun beat down on her neck, and she could already feel the heat starting to build. She needed to find somewhere cool to hang out for a little while.
Guess it’s time to check out that factory, she thought, munching on a piece of stale jerky.
She started walking again, eating as she went. The factory was about half a mile from the shipping yard. The walk took her twenty minutes, and by the time she arrived, she’d finished the crackers and most of the jerky. She tucked the rest into her bag and circled the building, looking for the best way in.
It was an old building, brick and concrete with windows that had long since been broken out. Graffiti covered the lower walls, bright colors and gang tags that had faded with time. The main entrance was boarded up, but she’d spotted a fire exit during her first pass that looked somewhat accessible.
She found it around the back, and it took a bit of climbing to actually get to. The door hung slightly ajar, the lock broken and the frame splintered. Someone had been here before her, probably multiple someones, but the lack of footprints in the dust suggested it had been a while.
Roxy pushed through the fire exit and stepped inside. The smell of must and mold hit her immediately, making her wrinkle her nose as her eyes adjusted to the dim light leaking through the windows.
The fire escape let onto a catwalk overlooking a main floor. The rails were rusted and the entire thing creaked as she stepped onto it, but it held as she stepped inside, and looked around.
The ground floor was a mess. It was as if someone let a bull or three loose in the building and just told them to go crazy. Machinery lay in pieces, rusted and broken, and there were signs of water damage pretty much everywhere, just like she expected. There were holes in the walls and roof and in a city this close to the coast, that wasn’t exactly ideal.
Roxy examined the puddles of stagnant water on the floor, before turning and heading down the catwalk. A set of stairs led up to the second floor held just off center to the rest of the floor, bringing her up to a row of offices that she hoped had been spared from the elements.
The stairs groaned under her weight but held, letting her climb them without issue. She rose to the second floor and paused at the top, looking out over the factory below.
“Could be worse,” she muttered.
The walkway ran along the edge of the building, connecting the row of offices that sat at the back of the factory floor. Most of the doors were hanging off their hinges or missing entirely, but one near the end looked intact. Roxy made her way over and ordered inside.
The office was small, maybe ten by fifteen feet, but it was dry. A desk sat in one corner, weathered but still in one piece, and a row of filing cabinets lined the wall beneath a grimy window. The floor was concrete, same as the rest of the building, but someone had laid down carpet at some point. It was stained and smelled faintly of mildew, but wasn’t completely soaked through. There also weren’t any holes in the roof.
She moved to the window and wiped a patch of grime away with her sleeve. The view looked out over the back of the factory lot, a stretch of cracked asphalt and weeds that eventually gave way to the street. She could see the water from here, and the faintest hint of the PHQ’s glowing forcefield peeking out from behind some buildings.
“I guess it’ll work. Gonna be a pain to lug all my crap up here, though,” she said aloud as she surveyed her hopeful lair.
She spent the next hour or so just exploring the building, checking for squatters or other things that might have been a problem. The first floor was a mess of broken machines and stagnant water, but she could probably clean it up a bit if she had the time. The basement was completely flooded, dark water filling it to within a few feet of the ceiling, and she could hear things moving around down there that she wanted nothing to do with. That was probably a lost cause.
She made her way back to the office she’d claimed and sat down at the desk, listening to the chair squeak and the quiet dripping of water around her. The concrete deathtrap was much cooler than her workshop, and she could already tell this was going to be better. Not good, necessarily, but better.
Her stomach growled again, reminding her that a sleeve of crackers and some jerky wasn’t really going to cut it. She still had most of the water bottle left, and she took a long sip before tucking it into her bag. She’d need to ration it carefully until she found a reliable source.
Add it to the list, she thought bitterly. Along with a mattress that isn’t infested with bedbugs, a clock, better lighting, actual furniture...
And so on and so forth. It turned out there was a lot more that she had to deal with living on her own than she originally thought. She needed a way to cook food, or at least heat it up, somewhere to shower that wasn’t a gas station bathroom or a wet wipe bath. She also needed power for her tools, which meant either finding a way to tap into the grid or buying a generator.
Money. I need money.
The reminder of what she lost made Roxy frown, and so she pushed herself out of the chair with a grunt. She needed to move her stuff from the shipping container before it got dark. After that, she could figure out her next move. Hopefully one that would help her recover at least some of the money she’d lost.
Roxy didn’t have a lot in her workshop, but there was enough that she had to make multiple trips. By the time she was finished, the sun had shifted across the sky, casting long, inky shadows across the pavement. The streetlights hadn’t turned on yet, but it was late enough that she expected them any time now.
Now, Roxy stood at the window of her new home, watching the last of the daylight fade from the sky. Her reflection stared back at her in the grimy glass, a pale, freckled face with red hair matted to her forehead from the day’s work. She looked like a ghost of herself, like a stranger wearing her skin.
She turned away from the window and surveyed what she’d managed to bring over. Her workbench tools were scattered across the desk, her helmet and Thumpers sat in a pile in the corner, and her bag of spare parts rested against the filing cabinet. Not much to show for weeks of work and risk, but it was hers. Every last piece of it.
“Home sweet home.”
[TONE]
Roxy spent a few days converting the office into a makeshift home. She cleaned the room and the hall outside, replaced the locks, and put a mattress in the corner to sleep on. A foldout table made up her new workshop, and the desk had stayed as well as the filing cabinet which she was gonna use for storage once she had things to actually store. She’d look into getting a trunk or something for her projects eventually.
She’d also used some spare parts and what she could salvage from the machines downstairs to make a sound dampener. It would keep any noise she made to a local area so that she didn’t alert anyone to her presence. On top of that, it also canceled out the noises from outside of the room too, meaning she didn’t need to constantly wear her headphones to stay sane amongst the shifting concrete and wet dripping that was almost constant in the factory.
Three days after she moved in, she found herself strolling the Boardwalk. She normally avoided the area since it was so insanely loud and the enforcers usually hassled her looking like a homeless person--which she technically was now. Today though, she needed something she could usually only find there.
It was exactly as loud as Roxy remembered. Music drifted from storefronts, people chattered in clusters, And children shrieked and laughed with no regards to the ears of people around them. Roxy’s headphones were her only saving grace, but even then, she could feel a headache coming on within only a few minutes of being here.
Her disheveled appearance caught some glances from the enforcers, but thankfully none of them actually approached. Her clothes were clean enough, if a bit worn, and she’d managed to scrounge up a jacket from a donation bin that didn’t smell like mildew. As long as no one looked too closely, she could pass for a regular teen out for a walk.
The Radio Shack was near the end of the Boardwalk, completely empty except for a bored clerk manning the counter. The doors were clean and inviting, but Roxy ignored them completely in favor of ducking into the alley just behind the store instead.
Places like this threw out tons of good merchandise if they couldn’t sell it, and Roxy wasn’t picky enough to snub dumpster diving if it meant she got some brand new speakers or a pair of headphones she could fix in like two seconds. That was how she got all of her old pairs, actually. You’d be amazed how much good stuff you could find if you were willing to get your hands dirty.
Checking to make sure the coast was clear, Roxy kipped up the side of the dumpster and lifted the lid, peering inside.
A veritable pile of abandoned tech peered back at her. There was enough crap to fill over half the dumpster, and already she could spy a few things that might have been worth her while. Roxy hefted herself up and over the lip of the dumpster, landing inside with a loud crunch as plastic and cardboard gave way underneath her weight. She paused, ears perked as she listened for any indication that someone might have heard her. Nothing. She was free to scrounge.
The smell wasn’t bad but it was still a dumpster. Roxy breathed through her mouth and leaned further in, her hands sifting through mounds of packaging and old standees. Most of the stuff on top was trash beyond even her ability to salvage, but she found a few things that were worth keeping and shoved them into her backpack.
She worked quickly. If the clerk came out for a smoke break or someone heard her doing this, she could get in actual trouble. She shifted piles of garbage, picking out what suited her and tossing what didn’t. She dug deeper and deeper, until, near the bottom of the dumpster, she found something worth her time.
A set of speakers, still in their box, with a dented corner that probably kept them from being sold. Someone had cracked the casing open at some point, revealing the cones inside, but they looked near mint. Next to them sat a box of headphone cords, several pairs that had been returned for one reason or another. Useless to most people, but not to her.
“Jackpot,” Roxy muttered, shoving the finds into her bag.
Backpack full of stolen goods, Roxy decided she’d looted enough and hopped out of the dumpster. She nearly fell on her face from the added weight of her backpack, but thankfully stopped herself before she gave herself a busted nose to go with the slowly-healing scab on her head.
Thankful that no one was around to see that, Roxy slipped out of the alley and back onto the main street when her stomach growled again. She glared at it, before deciding to grab something to eat since she was out anyway.
She was debating whether to splurge on an overpriced hot dog from a stand when voices caught her attention.
She shouldn’t have stopped. She should have just kept walking, bought her hot dog, and gone back to her factory to tinker in peace. But the voices caught her attention anyway, drifting over the general noise of the Boardwalk like they were meant for her ears.
“—tomorrow night; it’s gonna be a big one. I heard Victor’s gonna be the one heading everything so nobody fucks up.”
Roxy’s head turned before she could stop herself, her eyes immediately locking on to the source. Two men stood only a few feet away from her, talking in hushed tones. They were mid twenties and somewhat built. Both of their heads were shaved completely bald and one of them was wearing a jacket despite the heat, meaning he probably had something to hide.
Skinheads. Gotta be, Roxy thought, eyeing them. What are they talking about, though?
Victor was one of Kaiser’s lieutenants. His exact power was a bit up in the air, but everyone agreed he was some kind of Trump or Thinker. He was supernaturally good at just about everything he chose to do, be that sniping, hand-to-hand, or just throwing shit. No matter what, his skills were at the peak of what was humanly possible. He wasn’t as dangerous as Hookwolf or Purity, but he had about as much sway as either of them in the E88.
Roxy casually adjusted her headphones, turning the music down to let the world come crashing in, along with their conversation.
“—Trainyard on the south side,” the second man was saying. “Shipment’s coming in around nine tonight. We cleared out some junkies to make room. It’s gonna take a few trucks to haul it all out of there and we don’t want any noise.”
The first man scoffed. “He’s gonna be breathing down our necks the whole time, ain’t he? I had plans tonight.”
“Well now you’re gonna make a couple hundred carrying boxes all night. Just don’t try to steal a piece this time, yeah? Can’t cover for you forever.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.”
Roxy’s heart pounded as the two men passed her by, heading down the Boardwalk. A shipment overseen by Victor. If a cape was overseeing things, that meant there was some heavy shit being moved. Guns, money, maybe drugs, enough that they’d need more than one truck to get it all out of there.
Talk about a freaking jackpot. If Roxy could make off with just a single box of whatever they were hauling, she could use it or turn it around to make a ton of money.
She kept her giddy smile off of her face, her fingers running over a display of tacky friendship bracelets while her ears strained to catch more. The two men continued talking as they walked, but it had nothing to do with the shipment so Roxy soon tuned them out. She’d already gotten what she needed, anyway.
Trainyard. South side. Nine o’clock.
Roxy had her target.
[TONE]
With the added personal time she had, Roxy had made some improvements to her armor. Where before it was a barely padded slab of aluminum molded into the shape of her body, now it had some actual form factor that made it seem, if not professional, then at least not quite as amateurish as before. Made from a mix of machined steel and aluminum, it should be able to shrug off most physical blows, and at least some small arms fire. Not that she was really willing to test that.
It settled around her chest, snug but not tight. She rolled her shoulder, feeling the padding press against her joints and settle around her limbs. It bunched up slightly in the shoulders, but didn’t actually restrict her movement which was all she really cared about.
Over her armor went a jacket she found at a thrift store donation bin. No zipper, so it just sort of hung off her frame loosely, though she had to admit she liked how it made her look bigger than she actually was. She spraypainted the same symbol she left at the chop shop at the back, blue acrylic staining black fibers and standing out against the bare cloth.
Her Thumpers were repaired and strapped to her forearm, bunching up the sleeves of her jacket. She gave them a once over to make sure there weren’t any last minute fixes she needed to do, before grabbing her helmet from her workbench and slapping it on, tinting the room black. Finally, she grabbed her Sonic Lance from where it was leaning against the filing cabinet and slung it over her back, comforted by its weight.
This would be the first time she’d gone out in weeks and she was a bit antsy. The memory of her previous excursions peeked out in her thoughts, and she took a deep breath, holding it a moment, before letting it out.
A not-so-small part of her worried about what she was going to go up against, but a bigger part of her was confident she could deal with it. Judging by what he men said, this would be a big operation, overseen by another cape. If she was careful, she could get in and out before anyone even noticed she was there.
And if they did, well…
Don't get cocky. Don't let your guard down. Don't assume anyone is down for the count until you're sure.
She ran through her mental checklist one more time. Helmet, check. Armor, check. Thumpers and Sonic Lance, check. The spare battery she'd rigged up was tucked into her jacket pocket, along with a small first aid kit she'd put together from stolen supplies. She was as ready as she was going to be.
Roxy rolled her shoulders and glanced out into the hallway. Streetlights glared from the street down below and skyscrapers in the distance gleamed like beacons in the night. It was almost eight. If those skinheads were smart, they’d already be clearing the area for the shipment.
Time to get to work.