Chapter 46: Friends

"Hanna are you crazy?" Clair said putting a hand on Hanna's shoulder. "They killed your parents and tried to kill you! Now you want to go to their hideout?!"

Several others voiced their agreement with Clair. It sounded like Hanna had a death wish. Hanna herself knew it was probably a bad idea, but that wasn't enough to stop her.

"I know it's crazy, but I have to do this." Hanna retorted. Then she spoke with a bit of anger in her voice. "They should not be allowed to get away with what they did. What if they want to do the same to you or your parents? We have to spy on them to warn the grownups!"

"Hanna's right." Chad replied. "Just last week they stole some food right out of my grandmas hands."

Rachel joined in. "My older sister works at a bar and she says that the gangsters are always harassing her. They are all around jerks!"

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to just take a look…" Derrick said nodding in thought. "My brother did say they were mean dudes."

"I guess it's settled then." Hanna said getting up from the tree trunk. "Let's go check out their base!"

Several other of the children present voiced their enthusiasm and got up to follow Hanna. A few of the younger girls didn't seem quite as willing and slinked away to go back to playing marbles. The younger boys, however, could hardly control their excitement and ran around hooting and hollering, like uncontrollable idiots that little boys often be. Hanna was quite taken back by the overreaction of the neighborhood kids. She didn't exactly expect nearly everyone might want to go.

Being one of the eldest of the children, Clair was not going to just let this slide. She was the voice of reason for these unruly kids. Putting both hands above her, she shouted, "Hold on you guys!"

A few of the children glanced at her and stopped what they were doing. They knew better than to ignore Clair when she got mad. There were several times Clair had gotten them into trouble with their parents for doing dangerous stuff. Though Clair was a bit authoritative, they did respect her.

"We all can't go. Even if we did, we should not go." Clair said with a serious expression. She glanced around at everyone and continued, "The gangsters are dangerous! Who knows what they might do to us if we get caught?"

"Clair, you’re such a party pooper." Sid said giving a smirk. He was an eleven-year-old ginger haired kid and was always arguing with Clair in one form or another. "If they want to go, let them. You are not the boss of us."

"Clair is partly right though." Derrick said putting a hand on Sid's head. "You little kids should stay here."

"Awe, come on." Sid and all of the younger kids cried out in unison. "We wanna go!"

"Even if you could, it's a long way across town." Derrick continued. "You all would get to tired out before we made it there."

His remarks didn't soothe over the kids though and they continued to protest. Derrick ended up having to deal with a flood of questions and arguments for the newly formed child mob. While Derrick was trying to convince them, Clair pulled Hanna aside.

"What has gotten into you?" Clair said looking Hanna in her dull green eyes. "I know your mad and rightly so, but you can't go off after those guys. You're too little to fight them!"

"I know I'm little." Hanna mumbled. "But I cannot just let them get away from me either. Clair, they killed my parents! If there is something that I can do against them, I need to find out what that is."

The look in Hanna's eyes was like nothing Clair had seen in the little girl before. Hanna, her childhood friend, had changed. A cold, unsettling feeling crept into Clair's heart. However, Hanna was her friend, and she couldn't just ignore her.

"F-fine. We can go and only just 'look' at their base." Clair finally caved in after giving a second to think. "But we will only look. If you or the others try to go in or there is danger, I am going to drag you all away myself!"

Hanna gave a smile and victoriously gave a calm reply, "Don't worry Clair. Everything is going to be fine."

Derrick somehow convinced most of the kids to stay here. He told them that while the big kids were gone, they would be in charge of the play area and could make their own rules. The offer seemed to do the trick and the little kids scampered off to start some new bazar game.

In the end there were only twelve of the older kids that wanted to go. Hanna, Clair, Rachel, Jillian, and another girl named Tilly were all the girls that wanted to go. Derrick and Chase were the first of the boys to volunteer to go. Then with nearly no persuasion the five oldest boys also agreed to go. They wanted to check out the Mad Dogs base and finally now had an excuse. Though they disliked what the gang did to Hanna, they still thought them cool. Their names were Bill, Henry, Sorra, Malik and Fred.

It wasn't long before this rag tag group was already leaving the kids base and headed into the town.

…

Lisa and Sadie were headed back towards the Mad Dogs base after leaving the Ragged Flagon. Sadie was pouting the whole way back. She felt completely embarrassed and crestfallen.

"All I did was make a fool of myself." Sadie moaned to herself. "I am such a screw up! I bet Lisa feels like I am going to be some kind of burden to her now."

"So, Sadie?" Lisa said interrupting Sadie's thoughts. "What are you going to bring back to my place? I really don't have that much room and it's not all that nice or comfortable."

"I was just thinking about just my cloths and essentials." Sadie answered giving a shrug. "Why? Is there anything I need to bring specifically?"

"Well, for starters, you won't have a place to sleep. You got a bed I could carry or something?" Lisa asked.

"Carry my bed?" Sadie said a bit surprised. She looked at Lisa questionably, but Lisa appeared completely serious. "I know you are strong, but is that really necessary?"

"Unless you want to sleep on some metal floor, then yes." Lisa replied.

"I mean if you want to carry my whole bed you could. But I don't think I am aloud to take my bed away from the compound." Sadie said still sounding a bit confused by what Lisa was telling her. "Don't you live in a house or a hotel?"

"No. That's also one of the conditions you'll need to follow.” Lisa replied with a strict tone. “You can't tell anyone where my place is. Too anyone, ever."

"That's fine. I promise." Sadie replied quickly. She needn't give Lisa anymore reason to dislike her.

At this time, they arrived back at the gate to the gangs’ compound. Sadie pulled out from under her burgundy colored shirt collar an ID card. The gangsters glanced at it and opened the door. They eyed Lisa skeptically, but didn't say anything as she followed Sadie inside. Even though Lisa had just come and gone from the gate, it wasn't like they trusted her just yet.

Upon reaching halfway to the three main buildings, Sadie had explained to Lisa that they would split up here and meet up later. Sadie mentioned that she didn't have that much to pack up and the residential area was off limits to outsiders anyway. They decided to meet up outside the Arena's entrance in two hours.

At first Lisa, walked around the nice garden and fountain area wondering how and why the gang built this. But she couldn't think of anything think plausible. Though she suspected that the gang wanted the area to look presentable to those coming in from the outside.

Seeing that there wasn't much anything else for her to do, Lisa headed right for the sketchy modern market inside the Warehouse's entrance. She had been far too curious about it the moment she laid eyes on it. The prospects of possibly making money here drove her to explore.

Once inside she first just surveyed the people. Just like before, they all seemed entirely out of place. They were all way to well-dressed to be in this half dead town in the middle of seemingly nowhere. The rich were definitely their own kind of breed and it seemed dressing like an eccentric person was a requirement. Many of the patrons and buyers were waring ballroom masks to hide their identity, making it look like she was at some party rather than a market.

"These guys have to be doing something illegal." Lisa thought to herself. "These types wouldn't be here otherwise."

Walking slowly through the market, she looked at the items on display either on tables or in blue holographic displays. Like before most items were simple trade materials, but as she looked closer, Lisa realized something odd about the items for sale. The items were far too few in quantity. For example, paper; there would only be a stack of blank paper on a merchant’s table. If someone bought the stack the merchant would take the paper off the table, then hand the buyer an extremely thin tablet like device. The devise was a razor thin technological marvel. She had seen one person almost roll the tablet into a complete cone and yet it still functioned! How it was so flexible and thin, Lisa had yet to find out.

Taking a sly peek at the paper buyer’s device, Lisa saw that the transaction price was astronomical! The plain stack of paper on the table was sold for nearly two million dollars! Taking a harder look, while still trying to not appear suspicious, Lisa skimmed the words of the deal on display. As it turned out, the paper was ultimately symbolic. The buyer had in reality just bought a paper mill factory!

Looking around the crowded room, Lisa realized that all the items here actually represented entire companies or industries. Normally to purchase such things you would have to go through huge legal steps, conditions, contracts and even government permits to buy them. But here, just with a few electronic signatures and money transfer completions, it was done in minutes.

This was a Black Market Hub for illegal business purchasing.

This was the kind of place she needed to find. Being a wanted woman, dealing in the legal market was out of the question. Lisa was excited about her new discovery and wanted to learn more, when she was suddenly approached by two men in matching black uniforms.

"Excuse me miss." One of them said. "Are you here under any circumstance to buy these items? Do you have an invitation?"

"Umm, well not exactly." Lisa replied slowly. "I was just looking around. I am actually a Match Fighter, Queen. You might have heard about my fight earlier today?"

The two glanced at each other. "Come with us please." The other said motioning towards the back of the market. "This will only take a moment of your time."

Not wanting to cause trouble just yet, nor did she have any reason to, Lisa started towards the indicated area flanked by the two uniformed men. As they walked, Lisa noticed for the first time that there was a large glass walled off area with a dozen or so people working inside. They were all sitting around starring at hundreds of security camera footage. Four more men were monitoring the others and walking slowly around carrying radios; only stopping occasionally to speak on the radio.

Lisa and the two guards walked past the glass security zone and came up to a man that looked like he was some important figure, based on his well-dressed apparel. There were security guards on either side of him as he, himself, was watching the security cameras on his own TV. He was flipping through the different channels and didn't look up from it when Lisa was brought over.

"Sir, this woman claiming to be a Match Fighter named Queen, was spying on our customers." One of security guards announced.

"Queen?" The man murmured while looking up. "Oh, Queen. You lot can stand down. I can vouch her validity." The man spoke with a soft scratchy voice, but it had an attractive tone.

Eyeing the well-dressed man carefully Lisa thought to herself, "Who is this guy? How can he vouch for me? I've never even seen this guy."

"Sorry about this, but its standard procedure. We can't have anyone messing with the customers. My name is Xander Moran and I am head of security around here." Xander said while leaning back in his seat.

"It's a pleasure." Lisa said giving a nod. "Why, may I ask are you vouching for me? We have never met."

"Oh, you beat Owen, one of Jackson's pets. Anyone that can mess up his plans is a friend of mine." Xander said rubbing a hand through his pail blond hair and giving a smile, the kind that most women would find quite dashing. Xander was not all that bad looking by any standard.

There was something about that smile that that threw Lisa off though. It was like a smile she had seen dozens of times before on the battlefield. When making deals with terrorist groups or militia forces, they would give this same smile and then either betray your trust later on or try to kill you once your back was turned. Either way she had already formulated a natural distrust of Xander from simply that smile alone.

"Do you mind if we discuss something?" Xander continued. "I think you will find it quite interesting."