Chapter Text
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Vi woke up to the sound of her alarm blasting on her right ear. It was a jagged electronic shriek that tore the heavy silence inside her dimly lit bungalow, it felt like a rhythmic stab in her ear canal. She didn’t move. For the first minute, she simply laid in bed, collecting her consciousness as well as her internalized dilemma. Her eyes remained closed, her eyelids feeling as though they are fused shut by the salty air and the dust of The Sump.
Her body was heavy, like an anchor pinned to her mattress. Three days had passed since her last operation at the Docks, yet her body still hadn't forgotten a single second of every movement, every strain.
She felt the first ache in her lower back, a deep thrumming pulse that radiated on her muscle, the consequence from forcing the shipping containers open with nothing but a crowbar and a stubborn refusal to wait for the hydraulic cutters. Then came her shoulders. She spent hours acting like a human battering ram against wooden doors and shipping containers. Every breath she took made the tendons in her rotator cuff protested with a burning sensation.
Move. Her body roared. Her body didn’t listen. It stayed glued down to her bed.
She forced her eyes open. Her ceiling is a blurry picture of shadows and dimly lit street light through her salt-crusted window. She reached for her phone, her fingers feeling numb and clumsy. It took her multiple attempts to successfully find her phone on the nightstand. The screen was a blinding white light in the darkness, illuminating the scars on her knuckles.
She turned her alarm off, and the silence of her home was almost as painful as the noise had been. The silence within the walls was almost physical, it was cool and heavy presence mixed with the faint aroma of the Pacific tide.
Vi rolled onto her side, a grunt escaping her throat. The movement sent fresh waves of fire through her hip flexors. She sat up on the edge of her bed, her feet found the oak floorboards of her old bungalow. She stayed there, head hanging low, hair covering half her forehead. This was her lean time. The hour where she wasn’t Officer Vi, a pointman or whatever they call it. She was just a collection of broken parts held together by scars and a badge.
The house felt quiet in a way that felt predatory. Only a few pictures on the walls, no scattered shoes in the corridor, and no signs of a life existing beyond work. It felt as if she didn’t live here.
She forced herself to stand. Her gait hitched and uneven. Every step she made was a combination of balance and pain. She walked towards her bathroom, her right arm hanging lower than her left, a permanent ‘tilt’ that she’d notice when she’s this tired. She didn't turn the lights on immediately. She stood in her bathroom doorway, looking at a faint shadow of a woman who the world insisted on calling a ‘specialist’.
When she finally flicked the switch, the light immediately sent a throbbing pain through her temple.
Vi didn’t look at her face, rather, she looked down to her torso. She looked like an organized mess. To her squad she was this five-foot-seven of dense bone and thick build of muscle, the perfect frame for a lead entry. But under the flickering light of her bathroom, the truth was more delicate.
Under the weight of their tactical vest, straps became a saw. Ceramic sliders became a pressure point that bruised the collarbone. And the humidity of a Long Beach standoff, another layer of fabric was a great way to cook your insides.
Beneath the shirt, her skin was raw and was filled with splotches of yellowing bruises along her ribs. This was her morning ritual.
She made her way into the tiled stall and turned the handle all the way to her right.
There wasn’t much of a negotiation with the temperature, Vi didn’t do lukewarm. She needed her water to be cold, the water hit her like a shock, shutting down the screaming nerves in her shoulder. She stepped fully into the shower, her breath hitched as the cold wrapped around her body. She leaned her forehead against her bathroom wall.
This was the only way to kill that ‘lingering heat’. Since she started her low-dose pills a few months back, her internal temperature had been rampant. She felt constant, low-grade fever, a hormonal burn as her body adapted to it. The cold water acted as her fire extinguisher.
She stood there for a long time, the water trailed down the heavy build of her back muscles and the budding, the whole new sensitivity of her chest, she watched as the water went down the drain, washing off the remnants of her previous mission.
As her skin began to be saturated, the inflammation of her rotator cuff began to subside. The feeling of crushed glass, now replaced by a clean and numb feeling. She reached for her scentless, sensitive-skin soap. She didn’t use those fancy floral soaps she used to like. In her job, she smelled like nothing but a tool.
Finally, she twisted the knob shut. The silence that rushed back into the room was deafening.
She stepped out of the shower, dripping and shivering, the air in her bathroom didn’t help at all. She wrapped her waist with her soft bath towel and stood before the mirror, reflecting a woman who was half-covered, half-healed, and entirely on the edge.
She opened her mirror cabinet and took two amber bottles sitting next to a pack of cotton buds.
“Maintenance" she muttered. First, she took two of the white pills, to suppress that pain on her shoulder, the only thing that kept her going on her twelve-hour shift. Then, the tiny teal pill that sat on her palm, which she stared at for a second longer than usual today. Her real maintenance.
Compared to the chalky texture of the ibuprofen, her maintenance looked far more delicate. This was the pill that was doing all the heavy lifting. The one that was filling the hole inside her.
She walked out of her bathroom and stood at the center of her bedroom, air still heavy with the damp chill of her shower. In her closet, her uniform was hangered piece by piece. To a regular civilian, it was just clothes. For Vi, however, it was her exoskeleton. Designed to keep the public protected, while keeping her own reality hidden under a layer of dust, plastic straps and heavy tactical gears.
She began to pull the charcoal-gray fabric over her head. The shirt was designed to help manage the heat of an operator under stress, pulling sweat away from the body to prevent rapid cooling, the main source of their muscle cramps. For her, the compression served another purpose. It was an added containment, a backup that made sure her frame stayed as hard as possible.
Then came her trousers. They were heavy and stained with invisible grease and dust from the raid back at the Docks. She inserted her tactical belt through the loops. Sitting on the edge of her bed as she tied her boots. Black, high-top tactical boots, soles thick. She could no longer feel the floorboard, she was grounded.
Vi grabbed her hooligan bar, the forged steel cold and heavy in her hand. She stepped out of her porch, boots crunching on the gravel driveway. The air in her neighborhood was still thick with a damp, salt-mixed mist that wrapped around the blacked-out window of her black F-150.
As she pulled out of her neighborhood, the drive became a study of how the surroundings became a void, the ocean waves were nowhere to be seen, but was loud. The steering wheel felt cool against her palms, but the heat building up into her body, reminded her with every breath that she can no longer be soft.
As she crossed the bridge to downtown, the environment changed to a more urbanized scenery. The salt water was replaced by the scent of the city asphalt and brake dust.
The horizon was replaced by the silhouettes of the The Sump. Even from a distance, the port of the Beach District and the Docks machineries that painted her gaze like birds against the sky. That was her "place", the sight of raids, the sudden building collapses and the dirt she cleaned off her skin every time she came home.
She turned onto their precinct, the concrete post of their headquarters. The HQ wasn’t just a building. It was where the ‘woman’ was officially nowhere to be seen and the ‘Specialist’ was in motion.
She pulled into the parking lot, tires gripping on the oil-slicked asphalt. She sat there for a minute, hands gripping the wheel until her knuckles turned white. She took one last breath and opened the door.
Vi walked straight to the locker room and wore her vest to complete her uniform. It was violent, a heavy piece of gear which made it hard to move. It sent a sting on her shoulder. The vest settled against her chest with a hollow thud. The pressure was uncompromising. It didn’t care about the sensitivity hiding in her chest nor the raw skin that was beneath the shirt. To any of the men in the locker room, Vi still looked the part, a lean, powerful frame, with broad, flat musculature of a career athlete. Her chest didn’t betray her either, under her tactical shirt, it looked like hardened pecs of someone who went to the gym four mornings a week.
The mirror was a liar though.
The plates didn’t care about the new sensations in her skin. They didn’t care that the nerves were being altered from the inside out. For Vi, the issue wasn’t the volume of the tissue, it was the sensation, the vibration of every fibre that felt like assault.
Vander was there. He didn’t offer to help, he knew better than to treat his lead breacher like she was fragile, but he stepped into her space, his presence cutting off the view from the rest of the unit.
“You’re fighting the gear, Vi.” Vander said, his voice low. “The gear shouldn’t be an enemy before we even hit the scene.”.
Vi didn’t look up. She yanked the strap, the velcro letting out a sharp screech that filled the silence between the two. “It’s just a tight fit, Cap. New plates haven’t molded it… yet.”
Vander reached out, his hand touching the shoulder straps of her vest, checking the tension without making contact. “I don’t think it’s the plates, Vi.” He tapped her shoulder. “You’re breathing from the throat, not your diaphragm. I can see that tension in your jaw from across my office.”.
He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a whisper, heavier than the ceramic on her chest. “You’re going to red-line in the sack. If you can’t expand your lungs, you can’t ventilate your muscles. If you can help your muscles, you’re going to drop that bar when the building starts to crumble.”.
Vi finally met his gaze. She felt like everything was collapsing under the weight of his gaze. “I need to be solid, Dad. If it shifts, the friction… It's distracting. You know how physics works. I can allow a single flinch when I’m at the door.”
There’s solid, and there’s brittle.” Vander countered, his eyes behind his tactical glasses. “Brittle things snap when pressure is high. I need you to be pliable. I need you to breathe.”.
He reached down, with a practiced motion and eased the tension of her side buckle. The relief was sudden, but the rush of oxygen made her head swim.
“Better?” he asked.
Vi could only swallow hard, the ibuprofen still clinging to the back of her throat. “I feel… exposed.”.
“Good.” Vander grunted, stepping back an inch away from her looking at the lockers. “Exposed means you’re feeling the room. Now grab that bar. I’m going to start the briefing in five.”.
He didn’t wait for her response. He knew the slack he’d given her vest was the difference between her staying conscious, but he also knew that she needed space to adjust. He turned to his heel, his heavy duty boots hitting the concrete.
“I need everyone in the box in five!” Vander’s voice echoed through the locker room.
The unit complied in a singular, fluid motion. No hesitation as the unit operated like a clock. Mylo and Claggor exchanged a final, quiet jab of their banters, slamming their helmets onto their heads before filing out towards the corridor.
Vi stood alone for a second, fingers lingered on the cold, steel of her hooligan bar. She took a single measured breath, a luxury she wouldn't have once they hit the humid air of the docks.
The buzz was still there, a persistent vibration in her nerves that the pills she took a while ago were currently trying to drown. She felt like a bridge with a heavy load. A cable under tension. She adjusted on her tool, feeling the familiar weight of it.
She followed the heavy footsteps of her team, leaving the metallic smell of the locker room. The vest shifted as she walked. The ceramic plates rubbed against her chest. It was a reminder that the world didn’t care about her exposed nerves. They only care if the door opens successfully.
Vander stood at the head of a massive steel table. Across the surface weren't just maps but a clearer image of The Sump.
“Eyes on,” He commanded, his voice dropped making the hair on Vi’s neck stood up. He tapped a stylus against the screen, highlighting the shipping warehouse. “Sumps, Pier 11. Dead zone, no official records. Intel suggests a high-yield narcotic den, a bigger issue is the structure itself. Rusted shell from the sixties, reinforced with illegal grafts.”.
Vi leaned forward, she wasn’t looking at the suspects, rather she was looking at those load-bearing beams on the scan.
“Lead-entry is here,” Vander continued, pointing to a heavy steel sliding door. “Vi, this isn’t a standard home visit. This is industrial plating, we need the Hammer to find the structural failure point before the sensors can alert the interior. If the door doesn’t open clean, we're trapped.” he continued.
The room felt smaller now. Every person in the room was either an asset or a liability.
“We leave in ten.” Vander said, his gaze locked onto Vi’s. “The Docks don’t forgive a flinch. Get your heads together.”.
They climbed into the back of their armoured truck. The lighting inside was a dim, tactical red, casting long, vibrating shadows across the faces of the unit. The unit was already checking their magazines. Normally, there would be banters here and there, but today was different. Very different. The thought of the building collapsing above them made the room really quiet.
They drove forward, heading to the The Sump. Vi watched through the narrow windows of the truck. She watched as the rain created a mist that certainly did not help with their current mission.
The truck halted into a stop meters away from the building. The team huddled forward and began to check their gear. Helmets and goggles lowered.
Vander didn’t join the huddle. Instead, he moved towards the door where Vi stood, his frame blocking their view. He reached out on her shoulder softly, avoiding that pain in her rotator cuff.
“Vi.” he said, his voice dropping to a volume only she can hear.
“The building can crumble at us any time, Vi. This crap is held together by spit, bad intentions and old wood. The rain last night may have done plentiful damage to the foundation as well. If you hit a resistance point and you feel the floor shift… if the frame moves for more than an inch… drop the bar. Clear the frame. You get out.”.
He leaned in, his eyes stern behind his glasses. Searching her for any of the “brittle” flinch he had told her earlier.
“Don’t be a hero today. I am not losing my best pointman in a shitty narcotics basement. The target isn’t worth you getting crushed under five floors of this Sump crap. You breach, you clear the area, you stay alive. That’s an order.”
Vi looked past him, her eyes focused on the mist.
I am not a hero, Dad. She thought. I’m just someone in a box, trying to find a way to breathe in a world that’s already falling apart.
“I’ll get that door open.” she said sternly. “The rest isn’t my job…”
The rear door of the truck swung open, the graveled path and oily air of the The Sump rushed in. The unit moved smoothly towards the leaning frame of the building.
Vi reached the primary entry point. A heavy, warped wooden door reinforced with rusted iron straps. She could feel the building already panting. It was a low grumble that vibrated through the soles of her boots.
She took her stance, ignoring the heat in her shoulder and the thrum in her chest. She raised her hooligan bar, the fork finding the gap between the frame of the deadbolt.
Behind her, Vander’s hand acted like an anchor on her shoulder, the unit was silent, weapons leveled.
Vi exhaled, a long, slow breath that emptied her lungs. She focused every part of her to a single friction point.
“Breaching.” she whispered in her comms.
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