Thread: Empire -- City of vice. (BlackOut & Claire)

Empire City was everything that a 21st century metropolis ought to be it was a hustling, bustling, chaotic urban jungle. But it was a sprawl of concrete, neon, glass and titanium which had a genuine heart and a soul, a history as irrepressible as any modern western cultural capital, and an attitude to rival any other city. It was simply a place where life oozed through the boulevards and avenues and where character radiated from hotchpotch of art-deco, gothic and neoclassical buildings which lined the streets in the older parts of the city. Jazz singers and romantic eulogizers could wax lyrical about Empire City being a classy town and a hell of a place to party, and it certainly had it's charm. But the old city also had it's fair share of problems as well. For all it's class, it's pomp and parties, well, Empire City had been a city of sin for as long as anyone could remember. The oldest citizens could always remember the cities boom years, the times when it was one of the biggest ports on the Eastern seaboard and trade had flowed through it as though it were the center of the universe. Now the trade was mostly digital, or at the very least electronic, and despite the modest port - which still ran 30 of all East-bound shipping - it seemed that the city had eschewed it's seafaring and merchant roots. Some of the old mills and warehouses still stood on the river, and in some cases they'd found reuse as funky apartments, cinemas or shopping malls, but many stood there are a testament to the industrial past. Little more than large historical footnotes to remind the people of where the city had been little more than 60 years previous. In truth the so called boom was hardly really a thing of the past the money certainly ebbed and it flowed, but the biggest shift had simply been the division of proceeds and profits. In fact, over time the money had actually increased, but so too had it also steadily found itself redirected to run into the pockets of a more select few. If some were to be believed then equity and egalitarianism were slowly made silent victims in the face of the slow march of progress. Empire's money-men and it's power-brokers may have shifted and changed as the city itself evolved, but as always a fair number of them broke the rules to ensure their hands stayed well and truly in the cookie jar. So the battle between those who wished to clean up the city, and those who had a vested interest in the messy, chaotic - and ultimately financially rewarding - status quo had raged for longer than anyone could actually remember... if there was an end to the crime, corruption and exploitation which blighted some of the vulnerable, well, it had needed to start on the streets. Empire's founding father had stood in stone proudly above the courthouse for almost a century. The large plinth upon which he stood to peer out at the buildings which dwarfed his place in the city had been refurbished and cleaned more times than the city government cared to admit, but it was one hell of a monument. It was also a perch from which the convergence of streets that were the epicenter of the cities financial heart became most easily observed. Forbes St and Greenwich Ave sat proudly beneath the courthouse, bathed in streetlight, and as silent as might be expected at 2am in the morning. Silent, at least, but for the fluttering of the flags which hung below the statue and the low creaking of the poles which bore them. The lively banners dancing in the breeze above and the surprisingly bright light on the street below made for quite the distraction all but the most well trained and critical eye could easily have missed the lithe figure crouched in the darkness at the feet of Archibald Valence - the father of Empire City. The stillness of the dark silhouette against the dark marble certainly didn't help, and it was that which Shade was counting on to hide her from any prying eyes which might care to cast their glare towards the heavens above. To the slim heroine, Forbes avenue at 2am had the eerie silence of an empty amphitheater. She'd been on the street a mere 8 hours previous, enjoying a coffee and looking for the perfect place to observe the goings on below. Now looking down across the road Shade knew she had to be in the right place, it was simply too quiet. The area around her was home to banks, to insurance-brokers and private equity firms, but it had little in the way of anything residential or commercial. She knew it was expected to be deathly silent as the clock passed midnight, yet even in the solitude and the darkness it was a place that reeked of excess. Yet as she glanced down towards Greenwich Avenue she knew it led to all of the excesses that the bankers and the brokers enjoyed, a mere mile from downtown Empire City were the upmarket gentlemen's clubs and bars that would now be slowly filling the night. The city was such a strange and dynamic mix. But then and there it simply felt late, and down from the courthouse itself there didn't seem to be too many signs of life. Yet the young heroine had been tipped off that this was the place and it seemed a more than piece of information... so she watched and waited, a wraith dressed all in black. Her specially made night suit absorbing any light that hit her, rendering her practically invisible in the shadows, her half-face mask covering the top of her nose, but leaving her brown eyes exposed to survey the scene, and her hair tied back into a short pony-tail - it was glamourous but it was functional, and the look was something that shade was proud of given that she didn't mind the publicity all that much, albeit her true identity very much veiled behind the anonymity she rather enjoyed. Finally her patience wore thin and she darted from her position on the ledge, her eyes darting from space to space as she looked for the perfect spot. Then, in a flash, she vanished... appearing a fraction of a second later atop the 4 storey bank opposite, a wry smile growing on her tanned features, glancing across the large gap and 40m drop which she had bridged in the blink of an eye. This better go to plan. I am not losing sleep for nothing! she muttered to herself as she froze in place, perched on the ledge which jutted out of the south-east corner of the First Municipal Bank. She knew that there was likely to be an entry point which could easily allow her entry into the large main hall of the bank, but it was not really what she was looking for, in fact, the bank was the very last place she expected her adversaries to undertake their deal. She knew that the men she happened to be hunting were going to be making some manner of switch, that they were trading in contraband. But the minor drug pusher she had pressed for information had seemingly known little more than that. These guys are not amateurs. Why send lieutenants to do grunts work? she wondered aloud as she pored over the names she had managed to associate with the trade she knew was about to take place. ... finally it happened. Shade spotted the dark grey van the moment it appeared, and she watched like a hawk as it pulled into the alleyway a block down on Forbes St. Ah, here we go... show time... She swiftly climbed to the roof with the apparent ease of an acrobat, her lightly-super-powered body allowing her aerobic feats which others would have found nigh on impossible. The moment she hit the tiled precipice atop the bank she dashed off towards the van, making haste in hurdling across 8-storey drops and practically dancing over walls and up fire-escapes... all of it in remarkable silence, her soft rubber soled shoes leaving little more than the pitter-patter of a cat in the night-time. The noise of the running engine and the muffled radio within the growing sounds as she herself grew nearer her prey. It was time!