You don't know how you got here

[mortemscintilla]

WHO: Korra and Hei.
WHAT: Two Contractors after a messy hit.

[ The assignment is complete. After a fashion. ]

[ The target's stretch limousine explodes, a time-bomb hurtling at eighty miles per hour. Hei verifies the detonation in the side-view mirror of their getaway van. The brilliant flames glow across the express lane, a bonfire on a humid July night, the deadly cacophony fifty yards behind him on the I-95. The ferocity from the detonation rolls through the atmosphere, juddering both sides of the interstate and adjacent roads like in a San Francisco earthquake. Brake lights flare in a screeching chorus. Behind Hei, beyond the blazing limousine, four lanes of interstate crowded with cars, trucks, and motorcycles careen to an ear-splitting halt, too late for speed demons to swerve and avoid flying debris. ]

[ Their van keeps going. The target is dead. The botched mission completed in less than forty-eight hours. The teflon-coated politician inside the limo had coasted through a dream-life of caviar and champagne, bodyguards at his side, girls in his lap, boys paid to shoot and kill and girls trained to smile and please. A man who didn't hesitate to have his enemies dragged to the desert and fed to the buzzards. ]

[ A prominent Syndicate faction had become one of his problems. And so the politician became one of theirs. ]

[ All BK201 knows is what he'd been briefed on, during the overseas assignment. And that, in itself, isn't much. The less the killing-machines knew, the better. What mattered was that they rectified the situation as they'd been ordered to. ]

[ The remote trigger that sparked blast is still in Hei's gloved hand. With a zzzt and a curl of smoke, he shorts it out. Tosses it out the window, while their van lurches from right lane to left lane to right lane, threading traffic like a bulky needle, becoming a fast-moving blur vanishing down I-95. Hei exhales, absorbing the metal's chill; the van is a freezer. Across him is the only other survivor of the hit: NC-108. Korra. Both their faces are crusted in dried blood, clothes grimy, hair in tufts. But everything else is intact -- unlike the rest of their teammates. The politician managed to weed them out before they'd fully infiltrated his base. Two were murdered in their hotel room by a hitman dressed as a waiter. The other three were machine-gunned on the street last night during dinner in a café by hostiles in police uniforms. The Syndicate is still recovering their mangled bodies. ]

[ Hei and Korra were advised to abort the operation and contact their respective handlers. Neither had bothered. Hei, because his inner-completionist refused to leave the job undone. Korra, because -- let's face it -- she has a streak, miles wide, that compels her to throw herself into the maelstrom of disaster, daredevilry the cover for an easy exit. During their firefight with the politician's hitmen, Hei had to drag her away a few times from almost certain disembowelment or death -- narrow saves that made Korra grin like she was high, the fevery glow off her skin like an irradiated firefly. ]

[ Hei can't say it bodes well. Not for her -- or her long-term career. ]

[ It doesn't matter. They've both succeeded at this mission. Five dead teammates equal five less cuts on the final payment. There's a tidy sum waiting for the two of them. A quarter of a million dollars, each. Hei's cellphone has already vibrated with the message: FUNDS TRANSFERRED. ]

[ It's a living, he thinks, gazing out the window with a sedate veneer but a tensile edge to his jaw. Forty-eight hours, five eliminated associates, and he's earned $250,000. And all it took was a few scrapes and bruises, a tricky full-immersion identity, and a block of old-fashioned C-4. ]

[ The Syndicate's safehouse is in an old motel, one of twelve pink stucco cottages strung out around a gravel parking lot. The cabin reeks of must, and like everything that night, humidly salty. Switching on the rattling air-conditioner, Hei conducts his careful sweep for bugs across the room. Satisfied, he shrugs off his coat -- stiff with caked blood -- before glancing impassively toward Korra, ]

Take the first shower.

[ He's not being a gentleman. But the widest window for enemy retaliation -- and the Syndicate's own post-mission clean-ups -- occurs in the twelve hours after the successful hit. If they're ambushed, Hei doesn't plan to be naked, dripping wet and unarmed. ]

Comments

[anatural]

[He's mad. He doesn't say it, hardly shows, and probably wouldn't admit it to himself, but Korra can tell that BK-201 is pissed at her. It shows in the glances he shoots her way, checking to make sure she isn't doing anything crazy. It showed in the force he used to pull her out of those fights, away from danger.]

Aye sir. [She gives him a mock salute, and hopes that her levity pisses him off more. She wants to get him frustrated with her. She wants to watch his temper burn.

What she really wants is to figure him out, because he makes no sense. He's shown, in little small ways over the years, a decidedly un-Contrator-ly interest in her survival. Were he human, she'd think it was guilt, but Hei is too rational for that. Like he'd told her, if it hadn't been him, it would have been somebody else. There's no logical reason for him to feel bad about destroying her life; she was dead the moment the real stars left the sky. So why does it matter to him whether she lives or dies?

As much as Korra wants to know the answer, she also doesn't waste much time thinking about it. What other people think & what other people feel aren't in her control, which means there's no point worrying about it. You account for it, the way you account for a mountain when planning a journey, but you don't bother asking yourself why the mountain exists. That kind of pointless shit is for scientists.

In the bathroom, she strips quickly, tossing the ruined clothing into a plastic garbage bag before hopping into the shower. She's still drunk on adrenaline and horny as hell; she can't help tweaking her nipples a little as she washes off the blood, and she has to skip between her legs. Now is not the time to be masturbating. (Not that it would really help. Korra's been through this song & dance before; what she really wants right now is a good hard pounding, one that straddles the line between sex and violence. She can't get that with her fingers.)

In five minutes she's clean & out of the bathroom, dressed in black biker shorts & a skintight blue cami that looks like it might be ripped open by the points of her nipples.]

It's all yours.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Is it guilt? Hei doesn't think so, because guilt is an indulgence, and he has been stripped of that long ago, his life pared down to the barest blade's edge. Guilt is useless because it gets to be a habit, something you live in. You wear it like a cumbersome shell, its heaviness a reminder of how vulnerable you are underneath. ]

[ Hei needs vulnerability like he needs a hole in the head. ]

[ So why? Why the concern for her well-being? Sure, altogether Korra would've been a pitiable case, if Hei were the pitying kind. But the balance of life is too lopsided for him to give pity away for nothing. Crazy, scarred people are nonetheless people, and most are despicable. Especially if they're Contractors. ]

[ Maybe that's the problem. In Hei's memory are snapshots of a different person. A Contractor, but also a girl, wide-eyed and wide-smiled, eager to play out in the snow, bathing her pet dog in the sunlight, sassing her protective parents; the girl she'd been before he'd plucked her from her hometown; a wellspring of destructive power, yet so benignly sweet. Whereas this newer version, reshaped by the Syndicate, is an unhappier Korra who wears darker shades of clothes, darker moods. At times, it's impossible not to see Pai, superimposed across her face like a ghost. An invention of eerie nostalgia. ]

[ Forcibly, Hei shakes it off. Her snarky remark pings off his brain: his own temper is towing at its leash, and there is a dim desire to either be elsewhere, away from Korra's colorful tide of chaos -- or else to punch the girl somewhere tender, in a way that will jog her senses. Unnecessary. He's not her caretaker, or her counselor, or even her colleague. Their alliance is temporary: by tomorrow, they will both be reassigned, she to a different part of the States, Hei back to Tokyo with his default team. Her wellbeing -- or her disregard for it -- isn't his concern. ]

[ His look is flatly inexpressive: both at her mock-salute, and her racy little ensemble when she re-emerges from the bathroom. Her whole manner radiates a stymied arousal, ornery yet entirely unsurprising. He's spent enough years in this profession to recognize the almost sexual charge adrenaline feeds -- during and after. In his case, however, sex is always a secondary priority. He has little tolerance for physical frivolity with impending explosions and rampant cutthraot agendas as the background noise. If there's anything Heaven's War -- the disaster with Amber -- taught him, it's that to stay alive, you need to keep your brain in your skull, not your dick. ]

[ A cursory nod, before he steps past her. In the bathroom, steam curls everywhere, redolent of Korra's particular scent. A hot blast of water and soap allows him to scrub clean the dirt and crusting cuts: aside from a violet spiderwebbing bruise on his right knee, his injuries are superficial. Rinsing the suds and shampoo off with an icy-cold secondary spray, Hei consigns the two garbage bags of their wrecked clothing to the corner, for the Syndicate to dispose of later. ]

[ Dried and dressed -- jeans, gray sweatshirt, tousled wet hair -- he steps out, without letting his eyes turn toward Korra. Straight to the fridge for something to eat or drink: hunger gnaws with sharp little teeth at his gut. With his mouth full, it will be easier to ignore the anger -- and something deeper -- bouncing in his body whenever he glances at Korra. ]

[anatural]

[She's not disappointed by his lack of reaction; if it took that little to get a response out of him, he wouldn't be who he is. She just files it away as another gambit failed.

She chugs a glass of water and steals a little food off of his plate, just to be annoying.]

So. What now?

[mortemscintilla]

[ He bats her hand off when she plucks at his plate of canned vegetables. Not sharp, but forceful -- a reminder for her to stay out of his personal space. He doesn't speak at first. He chews slowly, his face, downturned in reflective habit, suggesting that his mind is elsewhere, his thoughts adrift -- but that's a lie. He is fully conscious of both his solitary audience, and the faintest creaks and rustles in their periphery. ]

[ A beat, then: ]

Wait 12 hours. If the coast is clear, the Syndicate will call. [ Idly, he stirs the goop of food around with his plastic fork: the sticky stockade of potatoes that might have been mashed last year, the wrinkled green peas that belong in a lab test-tube. A few hours, he reminds himself. Then you can get a fresh meal. ] If there is no news from them, we're on our own.

[ Double-layering. Countersurveillance. Rendezvous points. The usual jargon of their profession. She knows all of it -- hell, she's been in the trade long enough. Hei can't imagine why she'd even ask the question -- unless it's a ruse of some sort, or a way to fill in the silence. ]

[anatural]

Yeah, I know the routine. [If she were a few years younger, she'd be rolling her eyes. She's been on plenty of these missions. She doesn't need to be told what the Syndicate wants them to do.]

What I want to know is, what are we going to DO with those twelve hours. [That's a long time for an energetic, horny young woman to be trapped in one place.]

[mortemscintilla]

Conserve our energies.

[ Hei has no patience in his body, but he has practice at making his words calm, steady. He doesn't do any better in confined spaces than Korra does: he can recognize that full charge of impatience coiled in her body. Unlike her, though, he's been trained to switch that facet of his nature off. Recklessness serves no purpose when your survival depends on silence, stillness. The Reaper inside him recognizes the game -- that's what Heaven's war was to him; a grand game -- is the same whether in a prison or a jungle. He prefers to be in a position to excel. ]

[ Spearing a piece of lime-yellow roll on his fork, he takes a tentative bite. Stale and cloyingly sweet, but he needs the sugar boost. ]

[ Flatly, without glancing at Korra, ]

I'd suggest meditation.

[anatural]

Don't tell me the Black Reaper buys into all of that mystical mumbo jumbo.

[She'd never been good at it, but meditation has been important to her once, back when she had been a shaman. Now... Well, if it does provide any benefit, it's not worth the effort. Her time could be better spent on more readily accomplished tasks.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's never been interested in the spiritual aspects of the practice. For him, meditation serves as a type of stress-relief, on reshaping his zitzing energies into a plashing flow, letting his thoughts skate through his mind like swarms of leaves without leaving any mark. The purpose is to feel mindful, to feel full: in Heaven's War he used to sit zazen during lulls between battles, not erratically but as a needful practice. A reminder that his mind and body could be mastered, shaped into stillness, like anything else. ]

[ He isn't interested in explaining that to Korra. Instead, shoveling the last goopy mouthful of peas past his lips, he says, ]

If it doesn't suit you, do push-ups.

[anatural]

For twelve hours? [Korra is so not impressed. For someone called "the Black Reaper," he is the most boring person.]

And what are you going to be doing?

[mortemscintilla]

[ He didn't earn that moniker for being a party animal. Or anything remotely entertaining or pleasant. ]

[ Setting his empty plate aside, he flicks his gaze toward his chatty cellmate, whose whole posture telegraphs the slump of profound boredom, an affliction transcending species and professions. He doesn't answer her question. His dark-toned voice layers politeness over impatience over a base note of cool irritation. ]

Twelve hours are well-wasted if you sleep them off.

[ He's too wired to do the same. Always is, after a big mission. Decompression happens in degrees, and in solitude: it's not as easy as he makes it look, shedding somebody else's skin after a full-immersion assignment and feeling like himself again. ]

[anatural]

Like you could sleep right now. [It takes hours for the adrenalin of a mission to deplete enough for Korra to sleep... or super intense sex. All the other Contractors she's met have been similar, and she finds it really hard to believe that Hei is any different.

She leans forward, grinding herself against the chair to give herself some relief.]

Why don't we fuck?

[She makes the offer casually. She's got an itch that really needs scratching. A part of her may still hate him for what he did to her, but you don't have to like someone to bang them.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei blinks, but his smooth face shows no surprise. Or much of anything else. He knows she's itching for a fuck. Like a cat she's practically flushed with it, a sleek armful ready to rub against whatever is handy. That's not what bothers him. It's the tone just under her flippant invitation: words carrying other flavors of feeling that mix poorly and make in whole for an unpleasant taste: mockery, self-mockery, resentment, and underneath it all a basic unhappiness that tugs at Hei's dubious concern despite his resistance. ]

[ Is she deranged? Ready to fling herself at anything that is deadly and available -- explosions, blazing gunfire, sharp objects, infamous Contractors? She's aware of his reputation. He's notorious for never mixing business with pleasure. In the rare instances when he does, it's not a perk, or an indulgence. It's a performance, a smokescreen for the benefit of lulling his mark into trusting malleability. His sole purpose is to put the target at ease, far exceed their expectations -- then crack them open like a human vault for cash and information before discarding them. ]

[ Is that what she wants? To be used, dissected, then flung aside like butchered entrails? ]

[ Flatly, ]

I understand your default setting is bad decisions. But I'm not interested in being the latest.

[anatural]

[What she wants is to work off her excess energy. She wants intensity and pleasure and the oblivion that comes with a really good orgasm. If she likes it best with people who don't care, it's because they don't try to psychoanalyze her or trawl for feelings which aren't there.]

Wow. Somebody's got self-esteem issues. [Well-deserved ones, admittedly. The jibe about her own decisions bounces right off of her; she has no interest in living Hei's definition of a "good life." Constantly breaking and re-shaping himself to satisfy their superiors, sacrificing pleasure for the sake of extending his pathetic existence as a slave. It'd make sense if he had some hope of being free in the future, but there is nothing rational about choosing to extend a life of endless misery.]

But whatever. Point taken. I'll go... do those push-ups. [She heads up to the bedroom.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's her survival he's interested in. Anything beyond that -- happiness, fulfillment, family -- is wishful thinking. Contractors are something that exist independently of human society. Indifferent to the needs and desires of everyone living in the cloistered civilian realm, they lumber ever on, carrying out the instructions of the Syndicate's Frankensteins. No one can truly love a monster, especially a dangerous one, but they can exploit it, and this is what the Syndicate has always done. They exploit it in every possible way, united in their cold hatred for anything different. ]

[ But Hei isn't as resigned to the trade as he lets on. There is nothing rational about prolonging a life of endless misery. But there is nothing rational about struggling in the web of barbed-wire when you are ill-equipped to break free. BK201 is in it for the long game. With each mission, he's simply biding his time. He always has been. Life as a Syndicate lackie is a means to an end. His goal is to learn what happened to Pai. To repay Amber for her betrayal. Until he's accomplished that, he's not going to die. He might say he has, inside him, a calendar of sorts -- a measure of his days, and on each page is a list of errands and sufferings, setbacks and triumphs, he has yet to carry out. ]

[ He isn't sure how many pages there are, or what's on every page. Nor does he wish to. But he intuits that calendar is still quite thick. ]

[ That's nothing he'd bother explaining to Korra. Let her believe he's just a compliant cog in the complex machinery of wetwork. It's safer that way. Cogs don't have agendas. Cogs don't have histories or traumas or raison d'etres. They function mindlessly, therefore they are. ]

[ His chin nudges upward in a tiny jerk -- dismissal, indifference. He lets her pad toward the bedroom. Wrenches open the fridge, where there are a few cold diet cokes and a handful of whiskey bottles. He sips from a sweating can while the air-conditioner labors in the sweltering air, then opens the bottle of whiskey and swallows one burning mouthful. ]

[ He's not interested in getting drunk. Just in melting those frozen knots of anger that still throb inside him. Because Pai is gone -- consumed in a flash of white light, all her energy and potential and bright-blooming life sapped away. Yet here is this eerie doppelganger -- Pai-yet-not -- alive yet completely, selfishly wasteful of her existence. ]

[anatural]

[What's wasteful about it? Korra is enjoying her days to the best of her ability, and if it kills her young, that's fine because there's nobody who loves her. Nobody who would miss her except for the people who used her. The people she had loved and the people she would have lived for have forgotten her entirely.

She has no one to live for but herself. So she'll take enjoyment instead of safety.

And in her defense, she goes to the bedroom with the best of intentions. She does 300 pushups before throwing herself onto the bed. Another hundred crunches after deciding against masturbation. She doesn't want to jill off. She wants the kind of sex that leaves bruises.

So Fuck it. Hei can hole up here all safe and cozy and bored. Korra lets down her hair and takes out the contacts that she'd been using to disguise her bright-blue eyes. With a stealth that would surprise Hei, she slips out the window and heads out to the closest bar.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Enjoyment over safety? Sounds more like Russian Roulette disguised as thrill-seeking. ]

[ He is peripherally aware of her movements in the bedroom. Creaking floorboards, whining mattress-springs, muted huffs -- she's certainly doing her best to deplete her energy levels. Not that it's working. She's like a bee caught in a glass jar. ]

[ Forcibly, Hei tunes her out. In the small sitting room, the television has been tuned to an old black and white movie that he's seen a dozen times. In the final bit, when the shooting is done and the chips have fallen, the heroine's eyes brim, and her lip trembles; the hero looks at her with an expression of devoted renunciation, but can't leave her without first taking her in his arms. Hei yawns, half-bored, half-transfixed, until the screen fades to black, then hits mute on the remote. ]

[ When Korra sneaks out, he doesn't instantly know. No sixth sense, no magical precognition. But he's been trained to catalog anything and everything -- nerves drawn taut to catch vibrations no one else picks up on. There's not much he misses. He's halfway through polishing his blades with an oil rag and a whetstone -- when he becomes aware of the silence. No sounds emanating from the bedroom. No secondhand soundtrack of restless Korra-ness. ]

[ When he checks the bedroom, the window is half-open, a breeze fluttering the curtains -- and he doesn't need any other clues. ]

[ NC-108 has snuck out. ]

[ Exhaling, Hei rubs his eyes. He's too tired to feel anything but a dull, bone-deep anger. But by now he knows how to deal with that. It seems to spark somewhere inside him at all times. Part of him weighs the pros of alerting the Syndicate of their wayward operative. They'll deal with her -- with a bullet to the brain. She isn't sanctioned to exit the safehouse. Hasn't been authorized to interact with third parties. To disobey those orders -- barely three hours after the assignment -- would imply that she's either contacting a bridge agent for a rival syndicate, or attempting to flee with her newly-acquired funds. ]

[ Except he knows Korra. She's too short-sighted for such plans. Most likely, she's at a trashy bar, spread-eagled under some tatted-up biker and moaning to the breeze. ]

[ Typical. On a scale of one to ten on the 'how many fucks BK201 can spare on any given day', it's usually about a middling .... zero. But he needs to drag Korra back before the Syndicate finds her. If the higher-ups suspect double-dealing, they'll both end up on the hit list. ]

[anatural]

[Here's the thing, Hei — Korra's done this before. This is hardly the first time she's left the safehouse before the allotted time. Would the Syndicate prefer that she stay put like a good little girl? Of course. But her value as an asset outweighs the inconvenience of her disobedience.

They've even got a whole little system worked out. An operative or two keeps an eye on the trashiest bars in the town near the safehouse. They make sure she isn't double-dealing, usually by taking her to bed themselves. Korra knows this, and she keeps an eye out for them. Might as well bang the Syndicate-approved pieces of ass.

Right now, though, she's dancing. Four shots to the wind and letting the energy flow through her.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Of course she's done this before. She's a troublesome little baggage. But while the Syndicate may remain on the whole magnanimous -- letting her sneak out like a teenager past curfew, scratching her itch with honeytraps of their own selection -- at some point they'll yank her leash. Hard. The organization is reconciled to a sum of money flowing out from their pockets to keep valuable assets happy; it's not as if Hei's, or Korra's upkeep is an isolated and conspicuous drain on their resources. ]

[ But it's dangerous to regard yourself, not as living out of their pocket, but as part of a grand tapestry of profit and expenditure that's been decades in the making. No matter how many of your own stitches are woven in that tapestry, no matter how much you appear to be an inextricable figure in it -- at the end of the day, you are expendable. Everyone is. ]

[ It doesn't take him long to find her. There are a few stuffy bars near the safehouse. The most suitable is a low rambling shack of unpainted weathered grey boards, set amongst marshy reeds, a red neon beer sign in one of its dark windows, and some vehicles parked around it -- mostly, he notices, pick-ups, older domestic cars, and one or two nondescript models that can only be Syndicate-owned. ]

[ Carefully, he wends his way through the smoky red atmosphere, redolent of spilled liquor, tobacco and sweat. The bar is packed, and there are a lot of young people on the dancefloor -- boys, girls, tourists, locals: he hears a jumble of languages spoken. Some of the girls are cute -- at least, they'd have been cute to the average man, a civilian, a shy college boy like Li. Right now they just look like easy targets, unnecessary desserts, the kind you don't eat because you are on a crazy drop-dead serious diet. ]

[ It's barely a moment before he spots Korra. On the crowded dancefloor, shaking her little box to the beat. She makes a pretty sight. He won't deny it. Downright fuckable: that tight body, those pert breasts and the dark sweep of her hair. ]

[ But when he elbows through the crush of bodies, tapping her shoulder, there is nothing appreciative in his manner. His voice, low beneath the thumping baseline of music, is strangely flat: ]

Next time, leave a sticky note.

[ Otherwise he'll just contact her handler to deal with her. ]

[anatural]

[Korra grins. Caught. But she just grabs his hand and twirls herself around.]

Worried, Dad?

[She gives zero fucks. Z e r o.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei jerks his hand away, His whole body is as immobile as a statue, an barbed-wire wall surrounded by a frenzy of dancing bodies that never quite collide with him. Electronic music bounces off the walls, anchored by a thumping base line and undercut by crooning lyrics. The relentless beat, or perhaps the piling irritations of the assignment, is all giving him a headache. ]

[ Or maybe it's just Korra. Everything about her, from the tick-tocking pendulum of her hips, to the blue glints of her eyes, makes his stomach seethe and boil, makes him quietly, nail-spitting mad, sour-mouthed; it's as if every ounce of irony and fucked-up karma in the universe has been melted together like warm butter and poured into this girl. ]

[ She's a Contractor. But she doesn't belong in this world. Nor did Pai. ]

[ He blinks, before his expression shifts, taking on shades of dismissal and weariness. ]

Be back at the safehouse in nine hours.

[ What she does until then is her business. He's ready to call it a night and go. ]

[anatural]

Who died and made you my handler? [She asks, rolling her eyes and her hips. Standing still in the middle of a dance floor is a great way to draw attention, at least of the people around you. But as long as you keep dancing, nobody cares what you say. So she keeps up with the beat. It's over. You go your way; I'll go mine. Everybody goes happy. Or what passes for it when you're a jackass withn stick up your butt.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's look stays inexpressive. But for a moment something glints in his eyes as if he's concentrating hard so as not to grab Korra's neck and shake her like a rat. Worse than that is when the moment passes and he takes on a different, frozen stillness of self-control. Something bubbles briefly inside -- pain, pity -- perfectly hidden behind flat eyes, flat mouth. BK201 doesn't always put things out of their misery, but he does when they get under his skin. ]

[ Korra does -- but that doesn't mean he needs to obey the compulsion. ]

[ He doesn't fire off a scathing retort. Doesn't give any indication that he's heard her at all. He just turns on his heel and exits the crowded bar. The entire building resonates with noise and smell and light, and its very air feels sharp to his touch, tastes like blood and bitter resignation on the back of the tongue. ]

[anatural]

[She snickers — but the snicker dies out as she notices some men moving. They're good; they don't do anything until after Hei has left the building, so he won't notice he's being followed. Revenge for tonight's shenanigans, or related to something else the Black Reaper has done?

Korra's not sure. And she doesn't care. But still... If they're after Hei, they could also be after her, and they could have backup.

She grabs someone's drink, chugs it down to cover her actions, and feigns stumbling out the door. She calls out Hei's codename, giving him the alert both that she's coming and to not be surprised when she grabs onto him and kisses him like a girl just drunk enough to do something stupid.

Under her breath, without removing her lips from his, she gives him the enemy rundown — five men, all packing.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Her voice pings off his senses like a coin clattering into a metal bowl. Blinking, Hei turns -- and there is Korra sailing forward, twelve feet, then ten, then five, then her mouth collides against his with a sloppy deliberation. Blinking, Hei settles his hands on her hips, his mind running through scenarios of How What Why? with a blank, white-hot alarm, muscles automatically coiled to shove her away. Then she debriefs him about the threat, her mouth tasting of alcohol and something hot, sweet. And the landscape of his psyche shifts from simple anger to a more complex alertness -- personal distance melding into operational security. ]

[ He doesn't jerk away from Korra. His hand starfishes across the small of her back, fingers against the damp cotton of her shirt. Detaching from the kiss, he stays close, his manner conciliatory, soft. Like they're a couple who've had a quietly blazing row indoors and then come back to each other, their anger burnt off and leaving them raw and tired and clinging together. ]

[ But beneath the surface, he's attuned to enemy movements. His peripheral vision tingles with hyperactive awareness: five men, converging from the shadows. Instinct tells him they're recon and action, both. No way to be sure if they're his enemies or NC-108's. No way of knowing whether they hope to follow him and introduce themselves on terrain they find more favorable -- or if the plan is for him to walk into them. ]

[ Hei doesn't care. Casually, he strolls with Korra down the marshy road, weeds sprouting high, nothing to hear but the ambient chig chig chig of insects. He knows their pursuers are close behind them, but they won't be comfortable yet -- the location isn't quite right. An ideal spot for a hit is an especially congested area, where there are so many people and so much tumult that no one will notice what's happened until several seconds after the fact. Or an especially empty area, where there will be no witnesses at all. ]

[ Hei's money is on the latter. ]

[ Drifting past an empty lot, strewn with trash and battered old cars, he murmurs, lips near Korra's ear. ]

They're going to converge here. Be ready.

[ A team of five usually means two people will tail their target, keeping it in their crosshairs. The secondary trio will be about the same distance behind the first, needing only to maintain visual contact with them. If they narrow the gap between them, it means action is at hand. Hei isn't going to give them that chance. ]

[anatural]

[Korra giggles like he just made a little lovers joke. She's gotten better at these little lies and subterfuges; what the Syndicate failed to teach her she picked up from her one-night stands.]

Not if I move first.

[Not far off there's a fire hydrant... She twirls around, trying to make it seem like she's doing a silly drunken dance -- when she's actually bending the water out in a controlled explosion. She sends a sheet of ice down the road, aiming to catch their feet and freeze them in place.]