///Assess.
Distant sirens echoed across the city. Every hour, on the hour. From time to time, a car raced down the nearby street - here the rattling roar of an old Ford, there, the heavy whine of a rat-rod. They were gone as quickly as they came. Nobody stopped near a place like this at this time of night. Nobody who valued their wellbeing. And the few who did, well, they were more often than not the reason places like this were dangerous.
Danger lurked under the cover of night, the only witness burnt out streetlamps and smog-hazed stars.
A man stood nearby, leaning against a mildewed brick wall. From the edge of the alley, she waited, watching him pull a cigarette from his pocket and hold it haphazardly between his fingers. She had reached out a faint tendril, probing his clothes, his pockets, his body - he had a gun, and a phone, and a pack of menthols in his back pocket. He favored his left leg. His pinky twitched from time to time. His shoes were beginning to peel, the tread detaching.
She knew this man. And he was not what she was looking for. A minor nuisance more than a threat, a nonfactor more than a potential tool. She began to pull her feelers back, the nodes retracting to where her main cluster hid in the nearby shadows - when his demeanor changed. He was shifting, eyes moving, hand pressing against the heavier of his two side pockets. Had he seen her?
///Wait.
He narrowed his eyes, peering into the darkness.
"Someone there?" He coughed, tossing the cigarette and crushing it to ash as he moved a bit closer to the alley's entrance. "You gonna be a problem?"
///Affirm.
Like a mist across a lake - like a pyroclastic flow - she descended on him. This close, she knew him, again, closer than she had before. She felt his face contort in fear. She felt his heart thrum. His breath catch.
"The fuck -" he half-shouted, half-choked. Too surprised to scream or shout. Take advantage of this. Noise attracts unwanted attention, and for now, she preferred to avoid undue scrutiny. Out of her mass, she coalesced a solid piece, a coalescence in the shape of a long, thin rod ending in a near-invisible point.
"Be silent. You are not a part of this."
Her voice buzzed from a trillion places at once. She watched his eyes widen. Felt his hands grab at the spike, felt him struggle to push it back. But he was merely human. He was a nonfactor. Easily erased. A single thrust, and it slipped through his fingers, pushing up and in through the corner of his eye. Warmth. Damp. She retracted, pulling back into the chilly night, leaving the man to silently stumble back and collapse in a shivering huddle.
He would no longer be a threat to anyone.
Distant sirens echoed across the city. Every hour, on the hour. From time to time, a car raced down the nearby street - here the rattling roar of an old Ford, there, the heavy whine of a rat-rod. They were gone as quickly as they came. Nobody stopped near a place like this at this time of night. Nobody who valued their wellbeing. And the few who did, well, they were more often than not the reason places like this were dangerous.
Danger lurked under the cover of night, the only witness burnt out streetlamps and smog-hazed stars.
A man stood nearby, leaning against a mildewed brick wall. From the edge of the alley, she waited, watching him pull a cigarette from his pocket and hold it haphazardly between his fingers. She had reached out a faint tendril, probing his clothes, his pockets, his body - he had a gun, and a phone, and a pack of menthols in his back pocket. He favored his left leg. His pinky twitched from time to time. His shoes were beginning to peel, the tread detaching.
She knew this man. And he was not what she was looking for. A minor nuisance more than a threat, a nonfactor more than a potential tool. She began to pull her feelers back, the nodes retracting to where her main cluster hid in the nearby shadows - when his demeanor changed. He was shifting, eyes moving, hand pressing against the heavier of his two side pockets. Had he seen her?
///Wait.
He narrowed his eyes, peering into the darkness.
"Someone there?" He coughed, tossing the cigarette and crushing it to ash as he moved a bit closer to the alley's entrance. "You gonna be a problem?"
///Affirm.
Like a mist across a lake - like a pyroclastic flow - she descended on him. This close, she knew him, again, closer than she had before. She felt his face contort in fear. She felt his heart thrum. His breath catch.
"The fuck -" he half-shouted, half-choked. Too surprised to scream or shout. Take advantage of this. Noise attracts unwanted attention, and for now, she preferred to avoid undue scrutiny. Out of her mass, she coalesced a solid piece, a coalescence in the shape of a long, thin rod ending in a near-invisible point.
"Be silent. You are not a part of this."
Her voice buzzed from a trillion places at once. She watched his eyes widen. Felt his hands grab at the spike, felt him struggle to push it back. But he was merely human. He was a nonfactor. Easily erased. A single thrust, and it slipped through his fingers, pushing up and in through the corner of his eye. Warmth. Damp. She retracted, pulling back into the chilly night, leaving the man to silently stumble back and collapse in a shivering huddle.
He would no longer be a threat to anyone.
