Chapter Text
It was the middle of the night on the planet known as Earth. Outside Leah’s window the lights of Earth’s capital city, shone in a thousand colors- probably more than her human eyes could see. She smiled at the lights and flicked a finger against her communicator laid on the table beside her bed, the notes of pop hits from decades ago floating into the silent air of her small apartment. She sighed as she rolled back over to stare at the empty bed beside her, colder than it ever had been just a few weeks before. She rolled back over towards the window and grabbed her communicator checking the time “22:10” the display read in bright blue light.
“I am a twenty-two year old woman and I am in bed by 10 o’clock” she said to herself “Fucking pathetic”
Leah took a deep breath and sat up. She wasn’t going to let some dude (who she had dated for eight months- but she wasn’t thinking about him). She wasn’t going to let him ruin her night, nor her life. She hoped out of bed and towards her closet, pulling out one of her trademarked ‘going out’ outfits. She pulled the sheer patterned tights over her dark legs along with a pair of dark high waisted shorts. She zipped up a blue turtleneck tank top and pulled an oversized brown coat on. Leah ran a hand through the crop of curls atop her head smoothing them down a bit as she made her way downstairs, communicator clipped to the thick belt slung across her waist and biking goggles strapped to her head.
Outside her apartment Leah zipped past the lights of the city on her magbike, the glowing wheels levitating off the magnetic rails that wove through the tops of the city skyscrapers. Below her the people blurred into dots of color- every race of alien and human bustling about at such a late hour, not caring who or what they were in the camaraderie of the night. Leah took an exit off the main rail and followed it as it trailed down to the ground, weaving around tall office buildings that glimmered in the night, their windows filling with projected advertisements for everything from Plaxa-Cola to the latest season of Bee-Bo-Me.
As the speedway reached ground level Leah slowed her bike and rolled into the streetlight district. The streetlight district was the biggest spot for night life in the city, hell, in the system. On a night like this Leah might usually be on patrol (sometimes even on patrol with him) regulating the sale of drinks, making sure no one was biking under the influence, etc. On a fun night she’d be helping take down illegal fighting rings, which were far from rare here in downtown. The gladiator style rings were made up of big shots fighting each other while the pimps and gangsters bet on the winners. The danger of the business is the habit of fighters to shoot up on quintessence boosters, upping their strength and their crazy.
Leah had intended to get out, maybe head to one of the packed clubs, but now she didn’t feel it in her. It felt too much like work. Instead she opened up the throttle, feeling the wind whip against her face. She sped back up onto the speedway, curving around onto the main rail out of the city. This time of night the main rail was nearly empty and Leah let the needle on her speedometer climb higher and higher. She felt the wind whipping through her curls and whistling around the metal of her goggles, a lone woman with a balmeran crystal in her bike, with endless opportunities in front of her. She didn’t need James in her life.
Before Leah could spend too long on an internal tangent of independence and freedom she spotted another vehicle in the corner of her eye. Speeding up the railway was another magbike glowing red. The bike was catching up to her, roaring as it gained speed as if it were trying to outrun someone. Leah smirked to herself as the bike caught up to her, playing a little game with herself to see if she could outrun the newcomer. Her bike wasn’t the newest model, but neither was red’s, and a few years of chasing runners on patrol had taught her the tricks to passing people on the rail. The two bikers, neck and neck with each other, arched over the hill in the speedway and went sailing down the sloping rail. Leah looked back to at her rival, seeing them grimace inside their helmet as she passed them. Leah had almost counted herself victorious when she saw bike after bike, about ten in total, roll over the hill the pair had just come over. The bikes were pitch black, where the rims should’ve glowed with color all that was visible was shadow. The riders themselves looked like they were woven out of shadow, with no discernible feature except the pure darkness of them.
“What the fuck?” Leah said aloud, drawing the gaze of the rider in the lane over. The bikes were close enough that if they outstretched an arm each they could possibly touch their fingertips together, not that they would and risk flying off their respective bikes at nearly 90 miles an hour.
It was obvious the other rider was being chased, but those bikers were not garrison officers. Leah bit her lip, debating. She could call this in and possibly get all of them arrested or killed in the time it took for back up to get there. The main stretch of the speedway was closing off soon and the rails would take a quick turn down onto the streets, which were presumably full of innocents that would be disregarded in such a high speed chase. Not thinking she pressed the autorail button on her bike, which slowed her down significantly, giving the red biker a chance to pull ahead. Meanwhile she cracked open the storage compartment in her bike and whipped out her pistol, taking aim at the head of the pack of shadow bikers. She let off three shots, each in the direction of one of the bikers before switching back into high gear and gunning it to meet the red biker. Ahead of the pair the Skarin turn was fast approaching. The Skarin turn was a known killer, with many an ill-fated biker skidding off the side and down 70 stories to their doom after an ill advised jaunt down the highway. Fortunately it was only dangerous at high speeds.
“Which is precisely what I’m doing” Leah thought to herself. She began to slow, not willing to risk her life (anymore) for some stranger. Besides, she had a gun to ward off any approaching bikers. Meanwhile red continued their pace down the road, quickly approaching the turn, and they looked like they had no intention to stop. Leah had nearly pulled to a stop, gritting her teeth in anticipation as the remaining hostiles whirred past her towards the red biker, who was fast approaching the edge. Was the red biker seriously going to sacrifice themselves to get these guys off their tail? Leah wondered, as the set of bikers glided to the edge like a hoard of lemmings. It wasn’t till the last moment that Leah’s breath fully caught in her throat. She watched as the red rider spun out against the edge of the turn in a flurry of sparks, the seven remaining riders rolling of the turn one by one. Leah couldn’t move as she watched the red rider press a finger to the base of their helmet, causing it to shrink away. The rider turned to face Leah and gave her a salute. The red rider had shoulder length dark hair that was almost mullet like, but in a way that suited her. Oh, and the red rider was a her, with a face darkly feminine and masculine all at once.
“Thanks, I owe you one” The rider said to Leah before pressing her neck to recreate the helmet and speeding away, just as fast as she came. But not before Leah had filed away the bike’s plate number (for report purposes, obviously).
Leah picked up the garrison radio installed on her bike for nights just like this.
“Accident on Skarin Turn, shots fired by an unidentified hostile” and as soon as she clicked the receiver back into place she had her goggles back onto her face and the wind against her cheeks once again. It was probably late enough for her to go to bed now.