Jennifer's voice jolted Maya awake. She opened her eyes groggily and mumbled a reply.
Her head felt heavy. She reached up and pressed a hand to her forehead — scorching. She estimated roughly 102°F (39°C).
She exhaled, slapped both cheeks lightly to force herself alert, and checked her foot. The color was almost normal again. The violent purple-red swelling of a few hours ago had faded considerably.
She took a roll of bandage from the box and wound it around the foot.
It wasn't an ordinary bandage. This was a Bronze-tier item — grade 4, no less — purchased from the black market several days ago for several hundred Influence Points. Not the plain, unranked kind.
At the time, there had also been a kunai forged from chakra-infused metal in the shop's inventory. Maya had been sorely tempted. But after buying the bandage, she couldn't afford it. And besides, a few days earlier the black market had listed a Shikamaru Shadow Bind skill card — so in the end, she'd let the kunai go.
All things considered, the bandage had been the right call.
With the wrapping on, she couldn't fit into her school flats. She swapped them for a looser pair of low-soled shoes.
Despite her injured foot, high fever, and essentially zero sleep, Maya still had no intention of calling in sick. She wasn't going to let Jennifer or anyone else know about any of this.
Because last night, she had killed eight people.
They were criminals. Her purpose had been to save victims. She wasn't even an ordinary girl by any measure. But this was still the first time — across both her lifetimes combined — that she had killed.
Not a chicken. Not a fight. People.
Maya didn't feel guilt over the choice. What she felt was something simpler and more uncomfortable: a normal human being's visceral unease at having taken lives. In her past life she'd been no soldier, no special forces operative — just an ordinary person. It was going to take time to work through this. A lot of time.
And there was the practical side to consider. Last night's events would send Frank Gardes into a fury. As the undisputed boss of Hell's Kitchen, he would tear the whole neighborhood apart looking for whoever did this. From what Maya had gathered about the man — meticulous, sharp, cold — he would not leave a single stone unturned. She couldn't afford to give him anything.
Frank ran human cargo to feed organs to powerful people upstairs. In exchange, those people kept his operation off the books. He moved his smuggled product through South American routes — Mexico, Argentina — and was careful enough to anchor his transit ships on the Jersey City side of the river, away from the obvious scrutiny of the Manhattan piers.
Even if Frank wasn't back in America yet, he was already setting people in motion, canvassing everything within reach.
And in this neighborhood, small as it was, Maya was something of a known figure. She had a perfect attendance record — never missed a day. A sudden injury or illness, even for a little girl no one would normally suspect, was still an anomaly. And Frank Gardes didn't play by normal rules.
So Maya gritted her teeth, swallowed the pain — physical and psychological — and climbed onto the yellow school bus like any other morning.
"Andrew — did you hear? At least five people died on the Hudson last night." A freckle-faced boy in the row behind Maya was whispering to the boy beside him.
"For the love of — don't bother me while I'm reading. Since when is dying on the Hudson news?" Andrew didn't look up from his Battle City strategy guide.
Should I get a Nintendo? That'd take weeks of saving up. Forget it — I'll just go play at Cook's place.
"Oh come on, I'm trying to tell you something! And why are you reading a guide for Battle City? Are you serious right now?"
"You're the one who's serious. I'm going for a no-death full clear. Every stage has exploitable positions — park your tank in exactly the right spot and you don't take a single hit. I've mapped it out through Stage Three already. No system in front of me right now, so I'm working from the printed map. This is research."
Jamal cut in from the other side: "Andrew, why don't you just draw your own maps?"
Andrew gave his little brother a withering look. "So I can pile white bricks around my base like you? Next time just stack them around your starting position too, so the other tanks can't even touch your body."
Jamal sucked on a finger and thought about this for a moment. "Andrew... that's actually a really good idea."
Andrew stared at him.
The freckle-faced boy, thoroughly ignored, finally lost his patience. "You two are idiots. Do you even know whose people got killed last night? It was Frank Gardes' men. Frank Gardes — the Bloody Rose — the man who sends a rose to your address before he has you killed! He runs all of New York!"
That got everyone's attention. Andrew, Jamal, the whole bus — a collective gasp, then an eruption of cross-chatter.
Maya had been sitting quietly with her eyes closed, trying to rest through the noise. But she'd been listening to every word, and she'd been frowning. She finally spoke: "Arthur — do you know why they were killed?"
The boy named Arthur went visibly red beneath his freckles at being addressed directly by Maya. "President Hansen! I didn't expect you to take an interest in this! But it makes sense — someone as perceptive as you would naturally understand the implications this could have for the whole neighborhood. President Hansen, you really are—"
"Arthur." Maya cut him off flatly. "Get to the point. Why were Frank's people killed?"
Arthur, floundering after his interrupted flattery, said haltingly, "Well — I, um — I actually don't know why, President Hansen."
He saw her expression tighten and rushed to add, "But — my cousin works on the docks! He was doing the night shift last night. He says it looks like a human-trafficking bust. Honestly it's probably just someone settling a score who didn't mind messing up Frank's business in the process."
Maya felt a spike of irritation. Dozens of her own people had been in those cages — and this was not a big deal?
She didn't direct that anger at Arthur. He didn't see it as significant because he had no frame of reference. He hadn't been there. Maya couldn't expect him to share a feeling he'd never been given reason to have. He was just a kid in this neighborhood — the same as her, white on the outside, Chinese at heart. She couldn't ask for more than that.
At that same hour, on the Hudson waterfront, the crime scene tape was up around the R9.
The NYPD had established a cordon. Seven reporters were pressed against the outer perimeter on the other side. The morning sun was just clearing the horizon, spreading a wide, hazy gold across the river. Distant cargo ships moved slowly under the bridge connecting Jersey City and Manhattan. The mist lifted. Birds crossed the pale sky. The city slowly emerged from the dark, like a great animal lifting its head to the dawn.
A silver-haired senior officer was questioning a young patrolman by the water's edge.