[IC] T H E L A S T A V A T A R ᶠᵉᵃᵗ ᴱˣˡᵗ ˣ ᴿᵒᵃᶜʰ

[Exit]

	__________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ...is on her way to the Lower Ring.___
__________________ __________________ __________________ __________________ __________________	Morning   ·   Clear Skies   ·   Slightly Chilly happening now... All of the Republic is gearing up for the centennial celebration of the end of the Great War. The middle ring will be hosting a majority of the day's events including special performances from a number of artists and celebrities and a large scale parade. Because of ongoing organizational efforts, security has been beefed up heavily in all of the Middle Ring and while not as clearly apparent as it is there, the Lower Ring has received some of the same. This presence is however felt more strongly around the neighborhood that hosts The Lotus Room, thanks in no small part to a recent raid and reports of individuals who have frequented the business and are allegedly sensitive to Spirit Energy and potential Benders. As it is an ongoing investigation, the business has been temporarily closed and is usually occupied by the RSF or, if not currently occupied, being monitored. Sakani, a protégé of the incarcerated Gran-gran, owner of The Lotus Room, has inspired some to action against the RSF.

Vyska watched the jagged edge of the skyline crawl by outside her window, the light of the morning sun catching the features of her face and casting their reflection against the glass pane in front of her. A girl stared back. A girl adorned in jewels and family sigils. In golden garments and tassels and red frills wrapped in black wool. Her perfect blonde hair fell to either side of her face and cupped gently at her jawline. The dark brown of her irises looked as if they were emboldened by the softness of the make up on her cheeks and lips and around her eyes. All of it the visage of a girl meant to look as business and casual as she could manage. Almost five years in and she still found the balance of it all rather awkward.

...Just like mom was supposed to be...

The warm of the sun was interrupted by the shadow of a towering structure that pierced through the distant horizon. It was quickly followed by another and then another and before she had time to adjust to the way the cabin had begun to lean into an incline, the clearer skies of the middle ring had been replaced by the ever present muggy haze that was the lower. Columns of smoke billowed violently into clouds that hugged the top of every skyscraper. The buildings themselves were packed so tightly together that it was often impossible to see unobstructed to the street below. It was these same spaces that often never saw the light of day. The stark difference between here and the place she called her home was all too apparent and even in the safety of her own airship, an air of claustrophobia was strongly felt.

She tried to shrug it off. Although this would be her first time here without her father, this feeling of throwing herself into a crowded pit was something she had expected. She'd found herself in similar situations many times during her youth and as added comfort, she wasn't travelling alone.

"Five minutes." Came a voice over the intercom. An abrupt mechanical whine followed by an abrupt silence signaled the end of the message.

"I still stand by this being a terrible idea." Jack commented from across the aisle. Besides having voiced his concern before boarding the train earlier, he'd been content with keeping to his usual brooding silence. The entire ride had seen to him with legs and arms crossed and eyes glued to the monitor he'd opened up on the table in front of him. A body present but not really. A tall and pale thing with short hair and a plain suit. He seemed able to fold himself into dark corners with ease and turn from a stark white to shadow if need be. The only thing giving him away now was his unusually chatty self. "We could be at the parade."

"Ms. Moon." Another man addressed her now, standing straight and tall and wearing dress pants and plain black shoes with a white shirt and a bow tie. He held a towel in the crook of his elbow and folded his other arm behind his back. He gave a short bow. "We will be arriving shortly. Would you like another coffee?"

"No, thank you."

"Of course." He took the empty mug in front of Vyska and gave another short bow before turning to leave, stopping only momentarily in front of Jack to which he had received a dismissive wave.

"Jie Xiao is supposed to sing. I do enjoy that voice of hers."

"You've said as much." Vyska pulled herself away from her reflection and turned toward the man. "You'll have to make due with the broadcast... and after we're through."

Jack smiled but kept his eyes on the dimly lit screen. "Don't worry. Plant is secure and the perimeter is solid. There's been little to no vandals recently or activity in the area so I suspect, besides what's being discussed during the meet, there will be little else that happens." He then glanced up at her and gave a nod toward her hip. "You still have it on you, yeah?"

"Of course I do."

"You'll be fine. Ms. Xiao needs me."

[Roach]

Down below, in a shoebox apartment that rattled with every passing train, Sakani was getting ready – if not for war, then for something that would be just as great an upset.

“Thanks for letting me have your sofa for the night,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck not just out of embarrassment but because the uncomfortable cushions left an almighty crick in it. No matter how many times she tried to crack it, the tension of a poor night’s sleep wouldn’t release. “Means a lot.”

Her host was a boy who ran in the neighborhood with her when she was small but sorted himself out well enough. Ren waved a hand as he buttoned up his white chef’s jacket, clean and pressed even if the vest underneath was fraying and threadbare. “It’s no hardship. You’d do the same for me or any one of us – or, you would, if you had a home to open up.”

A few seconds later, he realised what he said and stumbled over himself to apologise. “Sorry, that was insensitive. You will get your place back, no sweat.”

“Yeah…”

Sakani wasn’t so sure about that. Who’d ever heard of the RSF letting anyone go once they spirited them away? They were like a dog with a bone, and sometimes the bone was actually a baby rabaroo, but that didn’t seem to bother them, even if they were going extinct. Nobody ever told them to spit it out.

She cracked a smile instead. Ren had a good thing going. He’d make it to the Middle Ring if he worked hard, and nobody could say the boy didn’t hustle. His name was top of a list of people she couldn’t talk to about the Plans.

Plans – with a capital-P – were those made when airing grievances about the RSF and the Middle Ring and the Upper Ring. Toothless, under normal circumstances, but the disaffected customers of the Lotus Room spoke like they finally had enough when they said they’d help her get Gran-Gran back, one way or another. The last of their good will had finally spilled out of the cup.

“We’ll see. You’ve got bigger things to worry about, don’t you? Like this big catering job.”

“One man’s catering is another man’s washing dishes for sixteen hours and getting paid a pittance under the table. Long live the Republic?”

“No need to wish it well. It’ll outlive us,” Sakani said with a laugh. The tickle of exhaust fumes in her sinuses reminded her that she ought not to suck in so much of the air in, even indoors.

“Speak for yourself! I for one intend to live until I’m a hundred and fifty. Get better lungs.”

▲▼▲▼

Later, Sakani slipped out of Ren’s apartment with a hearty, back-slapping goodbye and an open-ended offer that if she failed to find a place to stay, she could come back to claim the couch – as often as she liked.

She left in the knowledge that she would not be taking him up on his offer.

Her mask sealed in her frown as she pulled the cords of the drawstring bag that held all her worldly possessions. The weight was light on her back; a small mercy given all the other burdens that liked to pile themselves on these days.

There were few other places she could go. Not back to anywhere associated with Gran-Gran. She could plead her case with the ladies of Lily Street, see if they could get her some work as a courier or a smuggler and front her some cash while she got back on her feet, or––

Or she could go and engage with the Plans that were being made with or without her, but that were definitely being made because of her. Rather than stumbling forward into normality, just waiting to be snatched herself for something she didn't do, she could walk towards the industrial area of town. She could take the back alleys that were poorly patrolled and slip into the union-workers' bar through the back entrance, plead her case to all those old uncles to be included.

Her legs were already moving. The spirit of injustice quickened her step.

[Exit]

The tired sounds of a city that never slept were muted behind hundreds of feet of compacted dirt, steel and concrete. Beneath the streets, there were no crowds to drown out the ambiance, no space for satomobiles and no large glowing neon signs advertising the most popular spirits in the district. Down here, there was a little known Zen den and with the right words, a door to another world... or at the very least a piece of it. Here, there was nothing but silent whispers through ever encroaching walls, the scratching of mice in the darker corners of forgotten rooms and the sound of water droplets eerily reminiscent of lazy, lost rain. The Underground, as some would call it, was very much a maze where any and all discernible paths or rooms seemed to be cut crudely out of the Earth itself. Some efforts had been made to make it seemingly more or less comfortable with a smattering of metal and wood panels from the filth left of the world above. The collage of repurposed trash woven together vaguely described the boundaries of each space, giving way to some crude excuse of an underlying structure. This structure in turn described something of a genesis of a patchwork city, still in its infancy but growing nonetheless. Throngs of thick bundles of exposed wiring marked the lifeblood feeding whatever struggled to survive down here. They fed into lights, half of which were shattered and danced sparks haphazardly into the air. They fed into wayward appliances like the lone radio in the corner or the shattered monitor on the wall that blinked images of the Middle Ring and the impending celebrations. It also fed into a peculiar table situated in the center of a dusty room. Lights flitted around quietly just under the surface and lasers pushed those lights into the space directly above it, constructing a three-dimensional render of their slice of the lower ring.

"Cutting power would be the most effective way." There was a short pause and a man pointed at a section of the image, touching the edge of a building and highlighting it red. "The one plant powers the entire city and yes, they have the backups but with Holding here..." He tapped another edge and highlighted a second building that stood only an arms length away from a third building that was highlighted in yellow. A thin red line appeared tracing a path between the two. "...We have enough time to get in and get her out before they kick in and return power."

"I don't like it." Another chimed in. "The risk... it's high. And if we decide not to do anything, there's a chance RSF might release her because she isn't a Bender. She's done some shady shit in the past but she's smart. She's clean. Kept everything off the books."

"How about out of her head?"

"That is a lot of fucking names." A third voice.

"That is a lot of fucking faces."

"My point is. We go in and we fuck this up in any way, we don't get the shit fucks for security we're dealing with now. They'll start sending troops from the inner rings. You're talking about upsetting all of the Republic to buy maybe a minute of a window. Even if we get in there and get her out, it's all chaos afterwards."

"You came to us because we have the manpower and the weapons for this. We know and if not, I can get in contact with someone inside. Have them do her in there."

"No. W-we're not fucking killing her. And we're not about to start another war."

"What we're not going to do is risk everything for one person. Maybe she doesn't talk. Maybe she's got it in her to cut off her own tongue before they can ask questions but she's rubbed shoulders with too many people. She's been alive too long. Knows too much."

"They have ways."

"Ye-, they have fucking ways to pull that information out and they will. Besides, when was the last time you heard of the RSF letting someone go who was evenly remotely involved or related to someone who could potentially bend.

"...Never."

"Either way, she's a liability now to everything. It has to be done one way or another."

"She's not going to like this."

"Sakani is not here and if she were... Look, I get that she was close, that you both were. It's a hard decision but it has to be made."

"Yeah. Fine. So plan A is the break out and plan B is... taking her out. Parade will start soon and security will be pulled from the outer ring to the middle. Do we start then?"

"We start now. There is a Pai Sho tile on the board that just so happened to arrive. Free for the taking." The third man hit a button on the edge of the table and the render of the map was dropped for another image. This one of a girl with blonde hair.

"Who is that?"

"Leverage. Keep the RSF at bay or if we must... may keep your 'Gran-Gran' alive."

---

	__________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ...is arrived at the plant in the Lower Ring.___

"Do you need this?" Jack held out a device about the size of her closed fist; A rebreather designed to be as small and as easy to use as possible. This one in particular fit comfortably around the mouth, creating a seal around the lips and nose without a loop around the ear.

Vyska, however, shook her head. Although she'd wrinkled her nose briefly, she was quick to force her lungs to adjust. There was a near constant tinge of metal and dust in the air, enough to taste it on her breath as she exhaled, but she wouldn't let it affect her. "It stinks." She answered honestly. "But no. You?"

Jack shook his head as well. "Believe it or not, I grew up in this."

"I know."

There was a short pause before Jack's expression turned to mild amusement.

"Oooh. Okay. Someone's in a joking mood today. You do know that I'm in charge of your well-being right? I could probably end you, get rid of the body and still have at least the rest of the day to chase after Ms. Xiao before anyone knows what happened."

"Ms. Moon!" A man in a hard hat and an orange vest called out to her as he entered the landing pad. A badge dangling off the breast pocket read him as Mark Maxis. "Mark. It's a pleasure to see you again!" He reached in for a handshake which Vyska took.

"And a pleasure to see you as well. It's been some time since my father had me here for a tour."

"Yes. You've grown so much since then. Oh!.. And as I'm sure you're already aware, he's doing fine at the Synergy Plant. Said he was looking forward to hearing about you chastising us during your visit. We've buttoned up in anticipation of your arrival because of his warnings."

Vyska let a genuine smile pierce through her more professional poise to the girl underneath who was simply excited to do the work her family had been for years. There was a hint of anticipation in her eyes as she started toward the doors that lead to the rest of the plant. "I promise not to be harsh. I'm sure everything is running smooth. Besides, this is less an inspection and more my continuing acclimation to my duties."

Mark followed quickly behind, slowly over taking the woman before they reached the doors and opening one up for her.

"What's that?"

Jack's voice stopped her before she'd stepped inside and she turned to follow his gaze toward the large security gates at the front of the plant. They were open when they were supposed to be closed although barricades had been put into place and it seemed like there was a small number of men in hardhats crowded around it.

"Ah. Maintenance. Routine."