Chapter 1: Espanto

He crouched low in the darkening twilight, his knees protesting mildly, but he was ready, always ready. A slight breeze wafted over him on the cold January evening and he grimaced as he smelled himself; the stench of drying sweat and blood huddled around him. His hands unconsciously went to his scraped knee and elbow even though he couldn't really feel them under his body armor; he should have left the armor on for parkour practice. He had considered showering afterwards but he didn't really have the time before curfew.

Not that he'd let such a minor annoyance as the city's curfew hinder him. He went where he wanted when he wanted. He wasn't going to be some poor lapdog for the city's elitist government. They ruled from on high, cozy in their lavish houses with their expensive cars making laws and rules that mattered only in keeping themselves in power; it was just more of the rich staying rich and keeping the poor under their collective thumbs like good little slaves.

Good little slaves. It seemed that everything in life was geared to keeping the poor subjugated. The rich needed someone to 'work the mines' didn't they? If everyone were rich, no one would be; he didn't believe in socialism but a little equality would be nice. Over the years, every institution had been perverted for the benefit of the rich and powerful – banks, stores, shipping, even the government; especially the government. All the governments, all over the world. And beyond. Even the 'Confederacy' was in on it.

That was the whole reason for the stupid CAP system anyway. Sure, according to that old television show 'Average Joes' it was supposed to stand for something else – 'Capacity, Aptitude and Potential' – but Detroiter's had a different take on it – 'Castrate All Poor' or, sometimes, 'Cunts Are Poor'. He certainly had no delusions about it; it was just another way for the rich to take from the poor. This time, they were taking the attractive women and taking them off planet but that was hardly any different than before; it just put all the desirable females forever out of the reach of poor people. Of course, it changed nothing because anywhere outside of Detroit and its suburbs was off planet, really; Detroit was its own little tightly kept universe. The rich would wave their CAP scores around, gather all of the beautiful, poor women and then head off planet with their alien allies before some other alien race came and killed the people who remained. It was all class genocide wrapped up in a nice little story to make it palatable. He snorted as he sarcastically wondered what would be left on the planet except the poorest of the poor.

Of which, he was one. Of which, he'd always been one. He had no money and no family, not since...

He shook himself lightly, silently. Now was not the time. Besides, he did have a family now. The Cholos were his family. Resolved, he carefully pushed those thoughts into a box in his head and locked it. Compartmentalization was one of the things that made him who and what he was. His ability to concentrate completely on the job at hand, pushing distractions into their own compartments in his mind, made him highly effective and more than a little dangerous. Highly effective and dangerous – those were really the only traits that mattered in the universe that was Detroit, Michigan.

Quickly and quietly, he peered around the haphazardly stacked garbage cans behind which he was hiding. Seeing nothing, he gathered himself and then leaped straight up, his fingertips scrabbling for no more than a moment to find purchase on the roof's overhang. With one quick, smooth motion he pulled himself up and over, lying prone on the garage roof, listening intently. When he was relatively certain that no one had seen or heard him, he came up on all fours – fingers and toes – and carefully crawled up a peak until he could see over the edge. He agonized over climbing the peak; the roof was old and sagged in places. It was a death trap waiting to collapse but the peaks should be stronger than the valleys – at least in theory. Theory was good enough for him. Until it wasn't.

Nothing. He saw nothing and no one. Whoever was minding the house didn't appear to be keeping an eye on the back yard. He shook his head slightly. Amateurs. He, personally, knew eight easy, mostly unmonitored access routes into the house. The one he chose was the simplest; the biggest security gap would likely be the back bedroom window; its lock had been broken for a long time and no one had bothered to replace it.

As he crept further up, his senses keyed for any sounds that he'd been seen, he eyed the floodlight next to the back door. He knew it had a motion sensor that would flood the backyard with light but there was no way around that. He could have tried one of the side windows where there was no light but he knew that the 1^st floor side windows were all nailed shut and climbing to the second story windows would be a bitch; there were few hand or toe holds. He could do it but he was tired and wanted the night to be over with already.

He calmed his thoughts, breathing slowly but deeply, preparing for the next few minutes. He shifted the backpack he was wearing, once again feeling the unfamiliar weight of it and including it in his preparations. He wasn't used to the backpack; it was new and part of this whole thing. It only weighed a scant 5 or 6 pounds but any weight was enough to throw his balance off minutely. Plus, he had to take extra care not to land on it; the parcel inside, while not exactly fragile, probably wouldn't survive the force of him landing on his back.

Taking a final breath, he erupted in motion, his legs and hands taking him down the opposite peak head first. When he neared the edge of the roof, he leaped for the ground, twisting himself at the last instant so that he rolled on his sides and hips instead of his back. The floodlight turned on, bathing his world in a bright glow but he was already moving through the few shadows that remained, his roll finishing with him on his feet. He took a single step and then leaped for the wall of the enclosed back porch. The back porch didn't span the length of the house, its side perpendicular to the house's back wall forming a small corner. His foot made contact with the porch's side wall and he used that contact to kick himself towards the house's back wall at an upward angle. At the apex of that leap, his left foot shot out and contacted the house's outer wall; a quick flexing kick took him back along the same angle but ever upward. As he reached the new apex, he thrust his hands up towards the porch's roof.

For a moment, he panicked; he'd misjudged the angle slightly and his hands were higher than he expected. Before he could even think, however, his fingertips lowered and grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled himself up and onto the roof of the porch. It was all reaction, honed from spending the past 8 years training in parkour.

He wasn't done. He had to move quickly and quietly; his feet had undoubtedly made some noise as they'd impacted the two walls and he expected someone to investigate within a few moments. It would be best if they found nothing.

The back window was unlocked as he'd expected; it really couldn't lock, after all, but someone may have thought enough to repair it or nail it shut since the last time he'd inspected it. In the space of a breath he had the window opened and himself through it, sliding the window closed quickly and quietly; only the rustle of the curtains and the slight hissing of his breath were signs that he was even there. He shifted the backpack a bit as he lay quietly on the floor, keeping some stacked boxes between himself and the door. Of course, he knew that this particular back bedroom was used as storage. If it had been a true bedroom he would have used a different route in; he couldn't anticipate if someone would be using the bed.

He waited a full 3 minutes, his ears straining for some sign that he'd been heard. The brief respite allowed him to get his breathing under control and to stretch and release the tightened muscles of his arms and legs. He even worked a small knot out of his back, just in case. Then, he rose and walked swiftly and silently to the door; a quick check for light at the crack under it showing the hallway was unlit.

He reached into one of the many pockets hidden in his armor and produced a small square of shiny tin he could use as a mirror. Carefully, he opened the door a crack, standing behind it with his foot planted firmly so that the door could only open a fraction; if anyone was on the other side, his foot would stop them from bashing the door in easily and over-whelming him. He pushed the mirror to the crack and looked out.

Nothing and no one, the corridor a dark, gaping maw with only a hint of light on the far side.

His target would be up here in the bedroom-cum-office kitty-corner from this one. He was in the far left room in the back of the house; his target was in the front bedroom on the far right. There was a bath next door and another small bedroom – a true bedroom – past that. Across from him was the stairwell with the target's office next to it; the office door was far down the hall, across from the only true bedroom on this floor.

He was out the door, silently closing the door after him, in less than a second, sinking himself in the comforting darkness. In less than another, he was down the hallway carefully stepping as close to the wall as he could; there was less chance of a creaking floorboard that way. He moved silently, his steps and body swaying effortlessly. He was a shadow in the dark, a movement caught out of the corner of an eye. He paused a moment, his head shaking mildly in disappointment. Amateurs. The office door was open and the only light came from the far end of the room, from the wall nearest the stairwell. The light slid, pale and weak, against the far wall of the corridor, concealing more than illuminating. He'd have to take them to task for that.

He paused outside the door, his head moving slowly until he could see the source of the light; it came from monitors on the far wall of the room. Confident no one was neither near the door or watching it, he eased himself in quickly but quietly, taking care not to alert the two men he'd seen on the left half of the room. He needn't have worried; they were staring so intently at the two computer monitors that they probably wouldn't have noticed a marching band walking through the room. He slid around a small reclining chair set on the right side of the door and crouched behind it. He smiled in satisfaction when he realized that no one even knew he was in the house. He felt the barest hint of pride before squelching it tightly.

His smile turned to a frown as he watched what the two men were doing. The man on the left was typing, his long fingers gliding gracefully over a keyboard. His strokes were light yet purposeful and seemed almost negligent, as if what he was doing was beneath him. The intruder watched the code flicker by on the screen, his mouth frowning even more. He shook his head yet again. It looked like they were trying simple port entry of a computer system but they were coming at it from an expected vector; it was unlikely that method of entry went unmonitored and ... He grit his teeth and pushed the thought into another box, locking it shut. This wasn't his task; his task was still ahead of him.

"Anything?" The man on the left asked in heavily accented English. He was a big man with wide shoulders and a thick neck. His dark hair was shiny, the reflecting light giving his head an angelic halo. He seemed impatient, his words clipped, his body rocking slightly.

"No, Tomas," the other man replied with a sigh, his accent only slightly less evident. He was a slight man and thin but the tattoos evident in the monitor's light giving the impression of a certain hardness about him. "Every time I try to get in one way, they lock me out. They've hardened most of their ports as it is. I think I can piggy-back off some RPC traffic on port 80 but..." The thin man shrugged. "I won't be able to get much more. I know it's definitely in the building but I can't say where in the building. Maybe if I were faster – or this piece of shit were faster..."