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Smiling broadly, Alexander turned his head out the window, looking out on the city.

"Score!" he said to himself.

"Well, let's get you home, eh? We have a big day ahead of us, and the team isn't gonna just train itself." said Alex, smiling.

"Before we get there though, you wanna get a drink? I grew up in the Red sector, so I know a few good dives in the area."

Out of nowhere, Alexander's higher judgment skills kicked in just then, making him keep his mouth shut.

As the cab arrived at the apartment complex and the doors opened, Alexander couldn't help himself to this last joke of the day.

"Well, we're here. Got a big day tomorrow, eh? How about a kiss for good luck?" he said, grinning.

"I kinda think I should kill them," Deena Roscoe pondered out loud while two of her team were working on cracking the vaults and safeboxes of Blue Sector Central Bank. It was one of the few times her face wasn't in some form of smile. She was talking about the other two men who had slipped up on their part of the job - making sure the employees couldn't hit the panic button. Then they went and told the police they were taking hostages. None of that was part of the plan, and it made her quite upset that they deviated from it. The man and woman who were busy picking as many of the locks as possible just looked at the "Hyena" and shrugged.

"Yeah, I'll just let them get shot up by the SWAT the police will no doubt send. You know what?" Deena grabbed the backpack she had brought along, and threw some pillow cases at the locksmiths, "I'm going to take what I can get, and get out of here. I suggest you do the same!" The young woman's face then cracked into the smile she was known for, and giggled as she dumped a few security boxes into her backpack. She made sure it didn't look too lumpy and wasn't too heavy, and then made her way to the bank's second floor, which had several small offices that were borderline cubicles.

The walls were almost all windows, as was the current architectural style in the city. She could easily see that the roof of the one-story building behind the bank, and the narrow alley between them. The police had patrol cars parked to block the alley, but only two troopers on either end.

Deena knew she could easily make the jump onto the roof of the neighboring building, but the hard part was breaking open the large window without cutting herself and alerting the four policemen. After walking around the cubicles for about two minutes looking for inspiration, she came up with nothing. She thought about shooting out the windows with the assault rifle in her bag, but that was loud and would probably leave lots of shards still in the window frame. So, she just used the butt of the gun to break the glass at the very top and edges to leave them safe for the most part. One big section of the glass broke and tumbled to the street, which caught the attention of the policemen.

Quickly pulling the gun out of sight, Deena yelled, "Help me! They took my grandpa hostage! They have guns and everyone's really scared!" A few seconds passed before she heard one of the men yell back.

"Alright! Just carefully continue to break the glass and then we'll help you down!" Deena buried her face in the crook of her arm and laughed hysterically. She smoothed out her face again though since she couldn't tell how well they could see her face, and started breaking the glass quickly. As she turned away from the window to stow the weapon in her backpack, she started smiling and giggling again. Tightening the straps once the backpack was on, she jumped from foot to foot, to get a quick feel for how the weight of the bag shifted. She took several large steps back into the office, faced the window, and started sprinting.

The millisecond before she was airborne, she heard the policemen all shout in surprise and concern. Deena was fine though, and literally hit the roof running. And kept running. The young woman knew the dangers of running blind like this, but figured it wasn't any more dangerous than being the bad guy in a hostage situation in Blue Sector. She hopped across the roofs of several other one-story buildings before she came across a two-story one. It was an older building with more to it than just glass, so it was easy for her to scale.

Lying on her side and panting on the roof, Deena thought of her situation. "Only four cops saw me, and not that clearly. I would have disappeared out of sight as soon as I jumped onto the roof. I'm not too far from the bank, but probably far enough." Moving to a crouch and crawling to the edge of the roof, the criminal looked at the rooftops in front of her and the streets below. The traffic and police-to-citizen ratio on the streets looked normal, so she climbed down to the alley below, heading back to Black Sector.

She noticed people looking at her oddly, which could have been because her clothes were tatty compared to the Blue Sector norm, she was smiling, or because her cheeks were red with exertion. Deena slunk into a bar close by and just ordered some water, hoping to rest up a bit and give people one less reason to look at her.

Staring at her drink her face fluctuated between apathetic and amused. Deena was snapped out of her reverie by the dramatic "breaking news" jingle all TV news stations had. Looking up slowly, she anticipated the news would be about the robbery/hostage situation. "Ooooh, I hope someone got shot," she said excitedly, thinking about the goons who screwed up her plans. The barman and a few other patrons looked at the backpack-wearing, ragged stranger with mixed expressions. Instead of the robbery, the news was merely showing a live conference being held by some politician and business mogul. Deena recognized the name of the man though. She had a few acquaintances who were low-level members of the Hale gang, but she never worked with them. Or any other criminal organization, for that matter. Why would I willingly opt into a dysfunctional family? She thought with an audible giggle.

Still paying attention to the conference with an occasional smile as something amused her for her own strange reasons, Deena was actually surprised to hear about all the hubbub in the Admin compound. Glitches? Must be a White Sector issue, she thought. Things were business as usual in Black Sector, as far as she was concerned. The Admin that crashed the conference made her laugh out loud. In the same breath, she essentially said the glitch was no big deal but announced a grand ol' effort by multiple jurisdictions to fix Warlock. If White Sector was crumbling to pieces, Deena wanted to be there to have first dibs on looting opportunities. Maybe the Warlock Recovery Team would end up being like any other do-gooder organization - anyone can join no matter how useless to the actual cause they are. That's the vibe she was getting, at least.

Exiting the bar, Deena hailed a taxi. "Corner of Fourth and Montfree, Black Sector please."

"We'll have to take a detour through Red Sector since police have a chunk of road blocked off. It'll be costly..." the driver said, seeing how scruffy his passenger was and doubting that she had that kind of cash. Deena saw his eyes widen with recognition through the rear-view mirror before she could answer. He continued with a smirk on his face, "Wait, Fourth and Montfree? Isn't that where the Dus-"

"Dusky Parlour? Yeah, and if you get me there for free I'll get you in for free, ifyouknowwhatImean," Deena cut him off with a wink. The "Dusky Parlour" was the brothel her mother still worked at, and where she was raised. Deena had more than enough money on her to cover her fare, but she was a cheapskate.

"Fair enough doll, my shift will have ended by the time we get there anyway," the driver agreed with a chuckle. This asshat thinks I work there, Deena thought, her face brooding. She smiled though as she decided she would break his nose once they got to their destination.

"A gang in the Black Sector. That sure narrows it down." She said, but her voice was even as frustration began to set it. Along the block that was Prositute Walk, there were three gangs that claimed territory there alone. Throughout the whole Sector, there were countless others.

"Hannah..." She'd look into it, and any gangs that Mr. Kipling might have had any contact with, however indirectly. It was going to be a lot of leg work, possibly a lot of bribes, most definitely the use of a weasel. That was what she paid them for, anyway.

She asked a few more questions, got vague answers that she was forced to be satisfied with. "You've been very...helpful, ma'am. Thank you for your time." She said, offering a hand.

((Guess who's finally posting? I am so sorry guys. I hope there are some of you who are still interested after two, three months of inactivity.))

Hours later, Aubia sat at her desk and stared out the tiny window of her tiny apartment. She could not see the sky from this angle, but that was alright with her. It didn't matter. In this part of the city, the lights never went off, sunlight -

All the lights flickered, and Aubia covered her mouth and muffled her frustrated cries. This was a nightmare! An absolute nightmare! How could Warlock be breaking down? It was a self-serving machine! It was practically sentient! The Admin sighed, and put on her glasses. The clock read 04:07. Not long after four in the morning then. She was right on schedule, naturally.

Today would be important, it would be a defining moment for her career. Aubia looked up at the ceiling. For now, it seemed the lights were holding steady. Maybe the network was just overloaded. Maybe, hopefully.

She brushed a few reddish-brown curls behind her ear, and pushed some papers off her workstation. A few floated to the floor, and she picked them up and slapped them back down on her desk, before typing in her commands. Network overload or not, she needed this to go through.

"Contact," she muttered as she typed rapidly.

"Contact Armand Parr." The first command went out to the wily scientist. Insufferable goon or not, he was vital.

"Contact Elliot Seare." If she and Armand could along well enough to no destroy anything, she would also be vital. Aubia would need several high-level Admins, as well as skilled civilians. Warlock was everybody's business now.

Aubia paused. "... Contact Antoinette du Soliel." She could be as insufferable as Armand, but she was skilled.

She scrolled through the rest of her. "Contact Alexander Isaacs." She blushed slightly, but kept typing. "Contact Cwen Hazard, Contact Maxwell Hale." And there was one name on the list that she had glossed over previously. This individual was promising. "Contact Jack Vegas."

There, that would do well enough. "Message: Report to White Sector, police headquarters, by 06:00. Meet Administrator Aubia Shultz in conference room. Bring ID. Be punctual."

"Send."

She sighed. This was going to be a long morning.

(Aubia was facing away from the door, toying with the display menus of the conference room's wall mounted projector. It lit up, and she smiled slightly. The projector used a different version of the media program on Aubia's Admin device, and she was concerned that it would not work - but backwards compatibility saved the day again. It was an important aspect to have on any code that would enter the network, as some parts of the city were hundreds of years older than others. Warlock had always been good with modifiying unsuitable coded without prompt, but now... not...

The Admin turned around as she heard footsteps, and watched Antionette walk in. It figured that she would be earl, but by five minutes? She must have had a very relaxed morning. "Good morning, Antoinette. At least you got here in time."