Chapter 3 - Visit

The view is to die for. Tall metal, glass, concrete, and polymer amalgam of a structure seemed to grow out of the unseen artificial Earth beneath. Colossal arrays of LED panels sprinkled the buildings, displaying diverse selections of advertisement, Weissman's Electronics, Pulmack-Flintstein Medical, Polyu, and many other such faceless logos. Although these are mundane for people of 2059, or what's left of them.

Several smokestacks puffs unending streams of cloud-like white smoke, signaling that there's a nearby nuclear power plant embedded deep into the earth, in the middle of East End. The smokestacks is surrounded only by a few skyscrapers, Goldestein & Family, Donenti Incorporated, Brothers's Distributables. Going into the further parts of the city, more slums appears on what's left of the Green Belt. Reduced in 2024 by Gerard Batten, further reduced in 2028 by Nigel Farage, and completely annulled in 2035, replaced with low-density homes, cheaply sold at first, but as many more people migrated to the UK, more desirable high-density flats replaced short, wide traditional homes. London looked closer to Hong Kong now than ever before, poetic justice? You decide.

The outer ring of metropolitan London, has been reconstituted with large factories, medium to high density flats, and underground or tall parking spaces. Natalya recognizes some of the factories, as those were the places where UKSF commissioned some of their weaponry, if not outsourced from USA, Germany, or France. Some of these factories are indeed weapons fabrication facilities, disguised as either fully automated civilian car assembly stations, or large dual-purpose electrical components manufacturer/PCB assembly stations, these usually hosted Accuracy International sniper rifles, small arms products of Thales Air Defence, or other types of small arms weaponry. She occasionally shot her AX50 in an underground range inside the factory, back when she had the default amounts of limbs. Sometimes high-ranked employers and commissioned officers regularly shoots there, when not wanting to fly to USA or Scotland for outdoors ranges that permit larger calibers. The noise and vibrations of the factory above helps subside any explosive reverberations when testing occurred, other than 200 meters thick concrete and sawtooth soundproofing foams covering the surface area of the walls and ceiling.

Entering Slough, a riot can be seen from the polyester window. Testudo wall of metal riot shields lined up against a variety of protesters lobbing bricks and metal pipes, periodically molotov cocktails. Not an uncommon occurrence around in those particular region. The situation inside the monorail can be described with one word, monotonous. People entering, then leaving, although not to the point of overcrowding the monorail. Her legs finally move towards the exit as the LED panel brightly displays Reading.

She reaches the elevator, and got unto the ground, approximately 59 meters above the sea level (2059 metrics). After a few blocks of trodding the pavement, a medium-sized archway, and  a decade old sign that reads, Reading Cemetary, and one next to it, Commonwealth War Graves. Inside, at the very back, 5 tombstones are lined up, each assigned a number and a name, "Nikodem Polizac", "Dianne Churchill", "Kolman Vinzenz", "NIclas Olle", and "Lewis Carlisle" respectively. Beside the rightmost of the grave, there's a vacant lot, devoid of any sign of tampering except the cut grass. She puts down the polyethelyne bag in front of the 4th "I remember you stealing all of ours back at #34 in Hong Kong. Sorry I didn't get for all of us, the deers might come here and fucked about. I'm gonna go now, take care". All replied with silence as the breeze swept her clothes.

"5.99" The clerk reads "Fingerprint or App?"

"Cash" "Take the change"  she  hands out 10 pounds  and sweeps the cheap whiskey.

"Pardon, but.", the clerk stops halfway "Lady, are you still living in the 10s?"

"I'd love to" "Before all these bullshit happened" she looks at the flatscreen hanging on the corner of the store, near the clerk. "Another terrorist attack on Nagasaki's newest Plutonium power plant, investigations point to Green Army's involvement" the headline reads.

"You have a point, though this makes me remember of my da-" before the clerk could finish,  in comes 3 lowlifes, armed with battered pistols and an unusually clean-looking baseball bat.

"'IGHT YA LOT BETTER GIFF US YER QUEENS OR WE AINT PLAYIN IT EASY!" one of the tidier man screams, while spewing a flooding amount of spit to the floor.

"Take it easy big fella" the clerk replied with caution "We don't want trouble"

"DASSIT, 'OW BOUT YE TITS MCGEE?" again screamed the man, but now directed at Nat "Awww poor lass, she missing an arm" "Ya got hit by a lorry? heh" two of the gunmen grinned.

"Big lass missin' one arm, boss, we got a jackpot"

At this point, Natalya gestures her only hand to the clerk, rotational hand motion around the arm near her neck, she assumes he understands.

Her hand reaches under her sweater and grabs the Glock in one quick motion\, immediately disengaging the safety and tackles the gunman closest to her\, then firing 2 shots in quick succession to the stomach of the gunman. Using him as a human shield\, 2 more shots flies to the other gunman's head before he could ever react. The apparent boss\, staggered by the sudden shots and the realization that at least one of his thugs lies lifeless\, attempts to catch the falling pistol of the dead gunman. His attempt proved successful and attempts to shoot Natalya with reckless abandon\, who now is still behind the human shield. 7 more holes entered the still living human shield\, sending more spatters of crimson across the floor. The final bullet\, shot by Nat\, entered the last thug\, *thud*\, sound of his corpse hitting the floor.

"Y... You just killed them!" The clerk cries, giving her a dirty look, while also looking dirty himself with blood that isn't his.

"They were a threat, what in His Majesty's name was I supposed to bloody do?" She retorted "Sit on my ass and wait to be fucked and possibly even get killed?"

"This is a massive cock up, what am I going to do?" the clerk says in a panicked tone

"Call the cops, I can arrange this." "Tell them 'The Russian bitch buggered off', see ya".

"Are you taking the piss?" the clerk shouts one last time, before ultimately dialing 999 on his dated smartphone. Bright green vested men arrived 3 minutes later, but couldn't find the perpetrator.

The perpetrator, seemingly unscathed and clean of any evidence, grins "I didn't get caught, aha. How long was it? Too long." "That felt real good, the brain bits really makes it." "It was justified, it was justified, they tried to kill me, I'm still a good girl, I'm still a good girl calm down, my time is over, no more violence, come on you're better than this." "Ah Блядь"

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