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Her name was Djinara Kesh.
When Aramis first laid eyes on the woman, he thought her a crazy for wearing pumps this day and age, what with the pavement torn into rubble with war and neglect. Crazy, but otherwise unremarkable. She initially struck him as something of an Amazon: tall for a woman, at 5' 9", with dark sepia skin, jet black, shoulder-length hair and sharp eyebrows styled like a 1950s pinup model. Her shape was undeniably feminine, with a set of ample breasts, a smallish waist and a derriere that seemed to nearly explode out of her pants. He marveled, at first, how she navigated the streets of Golgotha in those insane heels while others wore sneakers, boots, especially when you considered her otherworldly body proportions. But she seemed as comfortable in those heels as Aramis did in his boots. He saw her every now and then, her painted lips smiling at men of every Tribe and gleaning items from those poor smitten saps for damned near nothing in exchange. Clever woman, he thought, so long as she stayed away from him. And so, for a while, it was live and let live.
But that was before the incident.
Baal-Hazor was a medium-sized city many miles away from Golgotha, but a city with vastly greater resources. Every now and then, the Hazorites would launch attacks on Golgotha for God knows what, and would leave the city and its citizens in pandemonium and chaos. It was during one of these raids when Aramis and Mickey Shift had the misfortune of coming across a rifle inadvertently left behind by a fleeing Black Boot Brigade soldier. At first, Aramis thought himself lucky. Firearms were extremely difficult to come by. After all, The Black Boot Brigade, or B3, had an iron grip on the flow of guns in and out of Golgotha. In order to get your hands on a firearm, you usually had to pay excessive amounts in goods or skills. So, of course, when Aramis found the rifle there, he was thrilled. And for quite a while, he touted the rifle around with him, feeling ten feet tall. What he didn't know, however, was that the Brigadier who owned the rifle wanted it back. Badly. And he would go to great lengths to get his rifle back. They also didn't know that Djinara had her eye on the rifle as well. She knew she could sell the rifle at a high price and afford luxuries many other citizens could not. Luxuries such as electricity and running water. She planned to kidnap Mickey Shift and hold him as ransom in exchange for the rifle.
Aramis and Mick didn't know they were being watched so closely by Djinara and this Brigadier. During another raid many days later, the Brigadier and Djinara both had the same idea: ambush the two bumbling Gang Green tribesmen and take the rifle. Unfortunately, Djinara and the Brigadier happened upon Mickey Shift at the same time. They agreed upon a temporary alliance that would be mutually beneficial: The Brigadier would get his rifle back. In exchange, he would put in a good word for her back at the B3 base and bring her in as a recruit to join the Brigade. They were both confident that Aramis, upon seeing his best friend in immediate danger of death, would give up the rifle in order to secure Mickey's life.
They guessed wrong.
The Brigadier and Djinara kidnapped Mickey Shift and held him captive in an abandoned building. Aramis threatened to put a bullet in the Brigadier's head if the soldier didn't comply in releasing his friend. The Brigadier refused and began to use Mick as a human shield. What they didn't expect was that despite all of his cowardice, Mickey had all but given his blessing to Aramis to put the bullet straight through his brain and kill the Brigadier in order to secure his own safety. But God was in the machine, and before Aramis could pull the trigger, the blare of bomb sirens filled the air. The Hazorites were attacking. Citizens scrambled for shelter from the bombs, and Djinara found the rifle much less valuable than her own life. Aramis threw the rifle. The Brigadier released Mick and chased after his precious weapon. As Mick and Aramis fled to the sewers to survive the bombing, the Brigadier went for his rifle and Djinara went to parts unknown. Whatever the specifics was, all four survived the ordeal.
Days pass. The dust of the bombing settles. The Hardhats are busy rebuilding what structures they can, repairing what infrastructure they're able to repair. And Djinara, the Amazon, she struts about the ruins in her pumps as naturally as a tiger in the forest. Aramis watches from a safe distance as she, newly muscled from the weeks in training spent with the Brigadiers, reaches into the mouths of the recently dead with pliers and plucks the teeth from their mouths, selling the gold fillings to the Hardhats. They call her the Tooth Fairy now. He calls her a parasite. Djinara was dangerous, despite her coy gestures and her sweet smile. The thorn on the long stemmed rose. The razor blade hidden in the apple. Every now and then they would trade daggers with their eyes on instances when their social circles came too close to intersecting. Aramis has known many dangerous women who take advantage of the weak and helpless stereotype to the detriment, and sometimes death, of their victims. Djinara, though.... she was of an entirely different species of woman. She not only survived without assistance of a Tribe, she thrived in her solitude. She held self-preservation was her creed and self-reliance was her religion. Nothing that fell into her hands left them without a heavy price attached. She was a skillful markswoman, highly intelligent and perfectly ruthless in her pursuit of material wealth in a world that had barely any to speak of. And when she set her sights on any particular goal there was no one---no man, no woman, no child----who could stop her from achieving it. Many women in history with drive and ambition might have been described in endearing terms such as "spunky" or "a firecracker." Djinara Kesh was no firecracker.
She was an atomic bomb.
 Bleeding Apocalypse · Thu Jan 26, 2012 @ 10:03pm · 0 Comments |
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