Shoulders In Need Of Angels
When Violet Von Ashmen was born, the Ashmen parents ditched the organs and had them outfitted with one hundred and twenty million dollars worth of microchips, silicon tubing, titanium plates, and pig derived biometals. They were digital age nouveau riche, a polite way of describing terminally online libertarians with a penchant for esoteric technologies, a disdain for ethics, money to throw around, with a side of black market contacts. The kind of people who really wanted a daughter, but would rather replace them with a dollish simulacrum than bear witness to any newborn bodily fluid.
Every birthday was a new augment. For Violet's fifth, Anderson Robotics ambulatory prosthetics that can outrun grown Olympians, the kind that outgrew them within a year. Double digits; eye replacements, miniature crystal ball projection, which literally let her see the future (approximately 15ms ahead of time). Quinceañera, they got rid of the baby (and adult) teeth and replaced them with a shiny set of obsidian mandibles, good for biting through razor wire and nothing else.
All in all, Violet Von Ashmen was worth approximately twenty six billion dollars in enhancements, surgeries, tech, and paratech. They weighed approximately a hundred and forty kilograms, contained within a build that was at most one point six meters tall, looked like they were chiseled by Michelangelo, and could kill a bear without really trying.
It's why they couldn't stop Violet when they left their parents palatial estate (they had since upgraded from a mansion). Or from immediately turning into a mercenary. The Von Ashmen's had built a Frankenstein, down to the moral scruples (lack thereof) and a shockingly poor education.
Homicide, union busting, speeding, brawling, property damage, defacement (literal and metaphorical), public urination, jaywalking, and copious amount of gun violence. Imagine what they could do if they hired contractors.
Which leads us to now.
23:21:05
Corner of Peck Drive and Palm Springs Lane
Violet's stolen cybertruck swerves into the driveway of 1201 Colonial Court. It fucking reeks. Everything here reeks of their parents. That lingering stench of upper class white supremacy; stuffy and bloody.
They step out of the vehicle; the door was ripped off hours ago in an attempt to impress a biker chick.
There's the house. The target is inside.
They step up to the porch.
The door handle gives with a satisfying crunch. The door swings wide open as the bolt clatters to the floor.
No alarm. Amateur.
They step inside and scan the environment; expensive furniture that cannot possibly be comfortable, not a single broken tile, unused marble kitchen countertops, drawn curtains, and a living room filled with potted astraphynicus ficus. A multiple UV lamps point towards the plants