Melissa, if that was her real name, dove head-first into a greasy pile of garbage bags stacked next to a dumpster that was filthy enough to be described as a 'Level 2 War Crime'. Maybe not head-first, her arms were up, protecting the skull she kept under her short, dark, suddenly not-so-clean hair. She liked her skull, they had grown up together and were quite attached to one another. Her nose though, she never liked, and appreciated it even less now that it was gathering smells and sending signals to her brain about the kind of marvelous new chemical warfare it had discovered.
She pulled her legs in and curled into a ball, twisting hard, and doing her best to sink into the soggy, lumpy abyss. Her pursuer had gotten the best of her in a way that Melissa would have thought was fairly badass if the roles were reversed. Melissa was typically quick on her feet, but the woman she was running from had tossed something thin, possibly a sign from a shop window, under her feet. Melissa lost her footing and ended up on her back, if only for a moment. Years of physical training kicked in on her way down, and she used the new found backwards momentum to flip herself back onto her feet. It wasn't until a block or two later that she realized the familiar weight of her sidearm was missing.
Just as Melissa, which was not in fact her real name, finished squirming into the wet, lumpy, plasti-fiber bags, the other Not-Melissa turned into the alley at a full run. This woman also had short, dark hair, but the inclusion of bright blue streaks was a good way to tell the two apart. So was the extra foot in height, additional 40 pounds of muscle, entirely different face, and lack of trash smell. This taller, cleaner woman continued to run down the alley, past the garbage (because who would hide in that mess?) and into a slightly open side door (because obviously she ran in there) leading to what was about to be several surprised, then scared, and then dead fry cooks.
The trash lady without any blue in her hair couldn't see much, being all scrunched up and facing the wrong way, but she could hear the cries of shock, the sounds of a scuffle in a kitchen, and the unforgettable sound of her pursuer's top-of-the-line hand cannon, a PXW-11. PXW stood for Particle "X"cellerating Weapon. It was a gun, like a billion others that had come before it in human history, but unlike most, it used a small brick of metal as ammo which it cleverly shaved bits off of to spit out when you pulled the trigger. Also unlike most weapons in history, this gun had previously belonged to the very woman trying to turn her body around in a seemingly endless sea of refuse in order to run away from said gun.
Getting out of the trash was harder than getting in, and as her eyes adjusted to the neon lights that ran along the wall of every building, lighting the almost eternal night of what she considered a terrible idea for a planet, she realized she had ended up very close to safety. The holo-board visible across the street advertised 'Excellent Cho'Ma-Ro' which was a kind of food that, trust me, was impossible to be excellent, but existed solely on the South-West side of the city's Basin District. 'Did I really run for my life THIS far?' she wondered.
Heading back out of the alley the way she had come, followed by nothing but stink, and the lingering sound of underpaid food worker screams, the woman heard a chirpy sort of 'bla-ding' noise in her ear. This made her happy, as it meant that her com-link hadn't fallen out, and she could continue to hear from Meathook on the other end of the call. It goes without saying that Meathook was not his real name, but was his call sign, and therefore what he would respond to it, if Protaghost were to call out to him. Protaghost was, obviously, the slimy mess making her way across the street, and towards a flickering neon sign depicting a red fish in a martini glass in the window of a bar named 'The Red Herring'.
"Now sit down and stay put, Dook!" Meathook's gravelly voice bellowed into Protaghost's ear canal, signaling Meathook had returned to his computer rig at last, after hastily leaving it to deal with a mysterious issue in another part of whatever non-descript warehouse he might be set up in. Protaghost nearly sat and stayed put herself, until she realized that the order was directed towards Dook, Meathook's dog.
The sounds of a large, angry man getting comfortable in a tiny, broken office chair and returning his headset to his ginormous bald head played background noise to her entrance into the bar. She walked in, as if not coated in grease and flecks of week old meat. Head held high she calmly headed behind the bar, ignored the questioning stare of Jorge, a man sitting at the counter in the only spot she had ever seen him be in her whole life. Into the back room she went, shaking mysterious chunks from her authentic aqua-leather jacket, and pressed a hidden button on the wall, calling for a secret elevator. Finally, Meathook's voice came through in a calm and quiet manner, sounding like a man half his size and a tenth as imposing.
"Sorry, Prota, the boy knocked a whole stack o' shit over. What'd I miss?"
Prota rolled her eyes, entered the small, cylindrical shaped room that had opened in front of her and huffed her reply with more than a drop of annoyed sarcasm, "Not much. Got spotted, chased, tripped, lost my chip rocket, and dove into garbage to avoid death. Glad your equipment is so secure or else we might have had a real issue."
"Oh, Prota. I am.. That's on me, my dear. Did you get someplace safe?" replied a voice that seemed to come from a man much smaller than the hulking, tattooed brute from which it truly emanated.
"No, Meathead, I died. That's how I'm talking to you. I'm a real ghost now. OoooOOOoooo." The answer started angry but the ghost impression had her smiling before her elevator ride was over. "I'm at Outpost 5. My pursuer ran into the kitchen of someplace across the street, get some Law-Corp over there."
Moments later, Protaghost, or Prota, or Not-Melissa, or Jennifer Benning if you knew her real name which not many did, was moving forward with purpose through the entrance of a secret underground government outpost, ten floors below the Red Herring. She was allowed to be there, you see, because Jennifer Benning was an Agent of A*D*V*E*N*T*U*R*E: Alternate Dimension Victory Engagements, Through Us Reality Endures. The acronym wasn't great, but the founder, J. C. M. Magnus had invented the whole operation and he had really wanted a cool acronym using the word 'adventure'.
"Mission success, at least." Protaghost said, as much to Meathook as to herself. She removed a tiny data chip from her pants pocket and inspected it, glad that it had not gotten lost or as garbage covered as her gun or the rest of her.
"Copy that. Again, Prota.. I'm so sorry. Dook will NOT. DO. THAT. Ever again."
"I'm not mad at you, Meat. Nothing you coulda done, anyway." Prota gave a half wave to a familiar face and touched the small hunk of tech in her ear to turn it off after a quick, "I'll see you later."