Escape

"She's definitely still there?"
Cass shifted uneasily in her seat. The potential of violence from the thug behind her was making her feel nervous, and so she was trying hard to remain placid and not glower with contempt at the man with the floppy fringe, and his two companions seated around her, while he talked on his phone
"So who the smeg is this?"
The guy on the phone narrowed his eyes, scrutinising Cass suspiciously
"Yeah. Yeah, I re-ran the analysis already; facial recognition gives me a perfect match, although this one's got short hair"
"A clone? Nah - she's a cyber-technologist not a smegging geneticist"
Cass bristled at this, disliking, even after all these years, the casual bandying of her highly illegal skillset around in public
"Yeah, yeah, honest" the man continued "It's one hundred percent"
"I dunno - maybe she's got a twin sister?"
"Oh who smegging cares? Tell you what - I'll bring her in anyway; we've never done twins before"
"Yeah, 'kay. Later"
Thumbing his phone to end the call, the man smiled evilly at Cass and settled back into the sofa he was sat on, opposite her, over a low drinks table
"It's not your lucky day, sweetheart" he leered "You're"
Cass didn't bother letting him finish and instead scooped up her glass of gin and dived forward, up onto the table to ram the glass into one of the mans eyes; the speed and sudden ferocity of the move allowing her to evade the flailing grasp of the thug stood behind her, as the force of the impact shattered the glass and badly gouged the mans cheek, which burst in a red bloom of blood
As the mans compatriots scrambled to react, she pirouetted on the table and, in a move that would have made Jay proud, swung a viciously hard kick to the side on one of the mens heads before she was off, up and over the opposite sofa to sprint through the bar amid shouts of shock and horror
"Get the bitch!" a voice screamed behind her as she barged through a party of early evening revellers, sending salarymen and drinks flying amidst angry shouts
A shot rang out as Cass made it to the door, one of the people she had just barged through falling screaming to the floor, clutching his wounded shoulder before the whole room erupted in panic
More shots followed, shattering glass and eliciting shrieks of terror as Cass ran for a lift that was just departing, clearing the lobby at a sprint, only to skid to a halt and thump into the door as it closed in front of her
"Bollocks" she hissed, wheeling to look for the emergency stairs and momentarily flinching as another shot pinged off the wall nearby
Spotting the signpost for the stairs Cass took off at a sprint as the first of her persuers made it through the panicking crowd to the bar's exit, the man raising a pistol and firing at her as she shouldered her way through the door into the emergency stairwell, the shot blowing a chunk of concrete out of the wall just above her head before the door banged closed behind her
Alone in the spartan-looking stairwell, Cass bolted up the stairs, making it around the corner and well on her way up the second flight to the floor above, before she heard the sound of the door she had just entered though, bursting open and the stairwell echoing with angry shouts
Slowing her pace, she breathlessly tiptoed up the remaining steps to the next landing and waited in nervous silence by the exit onto the next floor, quietly wishing that she had one of her MED's with her and reflecting on the short work it would make of slaughtering a few thugs
Five, maybe ten seconds passed before the stairwell echoed with a fortuitous door banging closed a few flights down
"Go. Go" a voice yelled "We'll loose her"
The receeding sound of feet hammering down the stairs drifted up to Cass as a smile stole across her lips and she quietly opened the door she was stood beside and exited the stairwell
Cretins

It didn't take her long to find a service lift, which she quickly overrode by kicking the secure access panel in, and shorting the controls to take her straight down to a lower ground level service bay
Exiting the lift, she walked past the massed ranks of laundry baskets and ignoring the surprised shouts of the security guard, ducked under the traffic barrier and strode out, up the exit ramp and into Tokyo's skin pricklingly cold and drizzly February air

Tonight was going to be a busy night
Thirteen men were going to die tomorrow
Her purpose here was clear
Thirteen more deaths on her conscience
Piece of piss
She wasn't the frightened little girl who had fled this city all those years ago; now, she was a force to be reckoned with