Unlike most taggers, Parker couldn't ride around the city and see her works displayed on public walls and buildings. No, her works were on discreet shacks and filthy alleyways. No one cared about hers, save for a few other street kids. Other than them, people didn't know who Parker was. They did, however, know who "Skyscraper" was. The mysterious tagger that had free climbed Clouds Tower and tagged the top floor walls. It was a spray-painting that had essentially been a massive middle finger to the government, and also Parker's greatest work yet.
Yet, presently, as she reached the roof of the ratty, pathetic building she and her brother currently called home, she couldn't see her finest achievement. She looked across the city at Clouds Tower, but the painting was no longer there. It had stood for a total of fourteen hours and thirty-nine minutes, at the end of which time the government had promptly covered her only attempt at rebellion. Now, the walls of the tower were returned to their formerly chaotically pristine colors.
Parker stood atop the roof, then moved toward the western side. She climbed down the fire escape, then dropped down to the alley below. She reached back and unbuckled her gear from her backpack, placing the four rollerboard on the ground. With a single beep, the device lit up, blue LED light lining the edges of the board. Parker placed her left foot on the back end of the board, then stepped with her right foot onto the front, balancing herself as the motorized accelerator kicked in. She rocked back and forth to ensure that the board was functioning right. Satisfied, she leaned forward and kicked off the ground, accelerating towards the end of the alley.
The warehouse she was supposed to reach was about ten minutes away, so she moved forward at a decent speed, ducking through alleyways when she could so that she didn't attract too much street attention. She passed several tags on the way, some that she recognized by their trademark callsigns and style. She could tell which tagger had left it their. She accelerated forward and wound in between another alley. When she came out, she stopped in front of the the large warehouse.
On one of the doors was a spray that replicated the symbol printed on the letter she'd been given six months ago, when she'd been rescued from the police by a mysterious man in black. Ratpack. In the warehouse were a couple people, but Parker didn't announce herself yet.
She breathed a heavy inhale of apprehension. Her nerves were on edge like never before. She had no idea who she was coming to meet.
"C'mon, Park. C'mon. You got this." She said, her voice augmented by the her respirator. stepping off her board.
"No problem. You're Skyscraper. You can do this." She bounced on her toes, then suddenly stopped moving. She inhaled deeply and tried to relax. She moved back to her board and stepped on it. She learned forward and rode towards the warehouse.
She leaned forward farther, accelerating and rolling quickly into the warehouse. As she reached the center of the room, she leaned back on the breaks and swiveled her board around, the tail of her green coat whipping around in a dramatic sweeping motion.
"You the ones that gave me this letter-" She stopped as the board jolted, nearly throwing her off balance. Her breath caught and then released as she steadied.
"This letter- Oh shi-" The board jolted again accelerated to the left, then broke hard and threw her to the ground with a thud, her hood falling off. The board whirled in a circle and then fell to rest on the back end, the blue LED's fading and the device powering off.
Parker lay on the ground with a pathetic groan.
"Stupid broken skateboard." She rolled from her side onto her stomach, placing her head against the concrete floor so that she didn't have to look up at the other people. Of course she'd completely humiliated herself in front of total strangers. When she finally looked up, pulling her respirator from over her mouth to rest around her neck, her cheeks were as red as her hair. She first saw the guy wearing a large gas mask. Her mouth fell open and she jumped to her feet, gears in her mind clicking as she remembered the night of her arrest at Clouds Tower.
"You! Oh my God you were the one that freed me!" She said, yet again bouncing on her toes like an excited child.
She pulled her sleeves past her wrists, exposing the metal band on her arms. Most of them would probably recognize the set of bands as pair of magnicuffs, if they'd still been in function condition, they could've been activated to connect to each other like chain handcuffs. She'd managed to smash the batteries, but she had yet to find a way to get them off of her wrists.
"See? Like- You took those cops down and then disappeared like a fricking ninja!" She looked at him with an awestruck face and bright eyes.
She then frowned, reaching into her jacket and pulling out her letter. She looked around at the others in the room.
"Wait... so they got letters, too..." She muttered, drooping her arms to her side and pursing her lips.
"Well dang, I thought I was special..." She said, exhaling and leaving silence to hang.
She then perked back up and said,
"Oh, I'm Skyscraper - you remember the big mural on the Clouds Tower? That was me!" She said with a new burst of energy.
"Oh- wait, are we not doing the whole identity thing?" She said, quieting down for the first time since she entered.
