FFMLers-
Note that this isn't my fic. It's actually from LN411@aol.com, who
seems to be having some problems posting this fic. I'm hopin' it'll work from
my end. All comments and responses should be directed to him, but I'll
forward any messages to him if I get any nonethless.
Dark Alpha <AlphSailor@aol.com>
-----------------------------
The Dirty Pair: Double Vision
Standard Disclaimer: I don't own the Dirty Pair. I don't claim to either, so
don't sue me. Sakura Tenjo and Natsumi Ogawa are original characters who may
not be used without my approval. Thanks, and enjoy the show.
Cycle Two
When the Lovely Angel took off from the hanger at the 3WA Central Field
Office, everyone who saw breathed a mental sigh of relief. Where the Dirty
Pair went, chaos and destruction followed closely, like scantily clad
horsewomen of the Apocalypse. And the rumor was, there were two more of them
now. This rumor had spread so quickly that a number of 3WA executives had
applied for emotional leave or flat out resigned at the very thought. Two
Lovely Angels was a lot, but four of them implied destruction on a level that
would make most cataclysms blush.
Sakura Tenjo and Natsumi Ogawa, sitting side by side on a take-off couch
on the Lovely Angel, sneezed almost simultaneously. They glanced at each
other and shrugged, followed closely by the trademark tensing of the muscles
as the ship's interior switched over from normal-G to Low-G, or microgravity,
used during takeoff from planets with an especially powerful gravitational
pull. Once the gravity had diminished as much as it was going to, the two
girls released the shoulder harnesses holding them to their seats and floated
into the middle of the room, doing slow flips in the air as they went.
Sakura twisted gently so she was hanging upside-down in the air, and
folded her arms across her chest. For several seconds she floated this way,
looking pensively at the wall. Silence reigned until Natsumi moved across the
room in slow, loopy somersaults, giggling all the way. She poked her friend
with her foot and asked, "What's chewing on you? You look like a wet-headed
trainee on your first time in Low-G training. Whoop..!" She began flailing
madly as she accidentally upended herself, ending up floating upside down
like Sakura, if not looking as graceful.
The pink-haired girl smirked at her wobbling friend. "Says you,
Wingnut." She grew more serious. "Natsumi, I've been thinking�and I'm a
little concerned. This is it, you know. No more training. Now we're really
doing this, going out on patrol and getting the bad guys. When we screwed up
in training, we just looked silly. Now if we screw up, someone could die,
most likely us."
Natsumi took on a thoughtful expression and began to rotate backwards
head over heels. Finally, she said, "So what you're saying is that you're
scared."
Sakura kicked at her lightly and answered, "Am not! I'm just being
serious. One of us has to, after all�God knows that Kei and Yuri will be�"
She trailed off at the sounds of combat from the hallway. Both girls
instinctively looked for a weapon. But before they could do more than
consider what could be swung hard enough to do damage, the airlock shot open
and the Lovely Angels tumbled through, locked in a fierce tangle of flailing
limbs and blunt objects. After a brief squall of activity, they broke apart
and revealed their weapons: matching flight couch pillows. Kei smacked Yuri
hard enough to bounce her head over heels across the room. Kei stuck her
tongue out at her and taunted, "That'll teach you to goose me, you pervert!"
Yuri flipped Kei off and shot back, "Don't flatter yourself! I mistook
your butt for a grav-couch and tried to hang on!"
The red-haired Angel raised her pillow threateningly. "You saying I have
a big butt?"
Yuri pulled one lower eyelid down and stuck her tongue out again. "Are
you kidding? When you walk it looks like two mastiffs fighting over a steak
in a canvas sack!"
Both girls raised their pillows for another round. Before they could do
more, Sakura cleared her throat nervously. Kei and Yuri paused, looked at
them, and smiled sheepishly. Yuri flipped her hair out of her face and said,
"Oh, sorry about that�we sort of forgot about you two. This is how most of
our trips start out, y'see�"
The two new agents nodded nervously. Yuri misinterpreted their startled
expressions and waved her hands hastily and added, "Not that we're, like,
lesbians or anything! We just have a close friendship, that's all!"
Natsumi and Sakura made hurried assurances that the thought had never
crossed their minds.
This resolved, Kei floated towards a couch and called over her shoulder, "I'd
grab on, ladies, if I were you. The Angel's gravitic stabilizers will be
kicking in any second now."
Even as the words left her mouth, Sakura and Natsumi felt their weight
begin to resettle towards the floor. The two young agents and Yuri floated
over to a couch and sat down quickly, holding themselves in place by gripping
straps on the seats of the couches. A low humming emanated from the ship as
it created a field of normal Earth gravity in it's interior. Yuri and Kei
sighed in relief as the stood up and stretched. Sakura and Natsumi were
satisfied to simply stretch their arms and roll their heads lightly to get
rid of the mild cramps the gravity changes inspired. Once everyone was done
readjusting themselves to regular gravity Kei piped up, "Let's get you ladies
situated in bunks of your own! First off, we can go get your gear out of the
loading hold."
At this, Sakura stood up, eyes wide, and exclaimed, "I have to make sure
Le Papillion is okay!"
Yuri wrinkled her brow as she tried to recall some of the French she
had learned in college. Finally the word she was searching for came to her.
"The Butterfly?" She asked dubiously.
Natsumi rolled her eyes and nodded. Kei, intrigued by the young girl's
excitement, asked, "You have a pet butterfly? This I have to see�"
*****
"THAT is 'Le Papillion'?!"
"Yup! Isn't she pretty?"
The Dirty Pair and their two new partners stood in the loading hold
watching in amazement as Sakura presented Le Papillion. Rather, Yuri and Kei
were staring and Natsumi was smiling and shaking her head. Le Papillion was a
bright lavender rocket launcher a good five feet long. With long-practiced
ease, Sakura lugged it from it's case and began expertly disassembling and
cleaning it. Kei was more than a little interested, so she squatted down
beside the younger girl and ran a finger over the side of the cheery-looking
weapon of mass destruction. "What kind of launcher is this? Anti-Tank?"
Sakura shook her head without looking up and began oiling the firing
mechanism. As she did, she explained. "No, it's primarily Anti-Personnel,
though I can adapt it to load Anti-Tank or even Anti-Aircraft rockets pretty
easily. Basically, it's just a souped-up LAWS launcher. I reinforced the tube
and added a removable five-round clip, and put on a stronger shoulder
harness. It already had a pair of legs for freestanding firing, but I took
those off to make room for a gyro-mount system. See that socket back behind
the rear grip? That can fit into any of the standard 3WA Gyro-mount suits
currently in use. The only other thing I changed was putting in a better
targeting system."
Kei looked at the launcher amusedly. "And what about the butterfly
decals?"
Sakura shrugged. "I just think those are pretty."
Yuri rolled her eyes and pushed off from the wall she had been leaning
against. As she dusted her hands off in a business-like fashion, she said,
"Well, as exciting as all of this gun-fondling is, we should go see what our
first mission as a foursome is."
Kei scowled slightly and responded, "Yeah, I suppose so." She looked at
the two new recruits and said, "Listen, while we're out on patrol or
whatever, you two just watch what we do, okay? We've been doing this so long
that we can do these system patrols in our sleep."
As Sakura opened her mouth to respond, a red light began flashing
accompanied by a trilling siren. She blinked and looked around in surprise.
"What's that noise?"
Yuri and Kei were already in motion, running down the corridor. Over her
shoulder Kei yelled, "Distress call on the radio! Meet us up on the bridge!"
After teaming up to disassemble Le Papillion, the two girls raced up to
the bridge. By the time they got there, Kei and Yuri were at the transmission
station sending a response of some sort Sakura and Natsumi leaned over the
backs of their seats and looked at the screen as a burst of coded symbols
crawled over it. Natsumi asked, "What is it? Where did the signal come from?"
While Yuri typed some response in the same coded language, Kei answered,
"It's a distress signal from Koppe Aqualogy�they're not that far from here,
actually."
Sakura looked at the screen with new interest. "An aqualogy? I've never
been to one of those before."
Kei glanced over at her. "Really? Yuri and I used to go to this really
nice one outside of Darinius during summer break while we were in the
Academy�"
Yuri sent another message and turned to look at them with a worried
look. "I'm not getting any response Kei. Think we should go take a look?"
The red-haired agent glanced at the empty screen, devoid of any sign of
response. "How far are they?"
"Not far. Maybe sixty thousand klicks or thereabouts. We could be there
in minutes at cruising speed."
Kei considered this. "Any other 3WA ships that close or closer?"
Yuri shook her head ruefully. "Nope. We're the only one within three
times that distance. I've radioed for some back-up, in case it looks ugly,
but odds are we're going to have to go in there, and alone at that."
Kei swore, then sat back and thought for a minute. Finally, after some
deliberation, she turned to Natsumi and Sakura. "Okay, look you two," She
said, "I hate to just toss two new agents fresh from their Academy bunks into
combat like this, but I have a feeling this may get a bit nasty, and we'll
need all the help we can get. Have you two been issued your regulation
side-arms yet?" Both girls nodded. "Well, go get them. We have some flak
jackets you can wear if you really want them."
By the time the girls had fetched their guns, Kuan Yin Electromags, and
returned to the bridge, Kei and Yuri were nowhere to be seen and the ship was
nearing final approach on Koppe Aqualogy. Sakura peered out of the nose
windows to look at the destination with considerable interest. The aqualogy,
an underwater farm and lifeform sanctuary, was, unlike most of its ilk,
actually on a planet, Mochica to be exact. From the stratosphere, the
aqualogy appeared as a gray strip of metal floating in a massive ocean, which
in fact covered 99% of Mochica's surface. But as they neared the surface,
Sakura could see the glow of the underwater part of the aqualogy. From school
lessons on economics she recalled that aqualogies, which commonly stretched
for miles underwater in every direction, were a massively important part of
their system's economy. She could already see huge lengths of eerily glowing
passages far below the surface, like a lost city. However, she could also see
patches of flames and oily smoke boiling up from the above-water part, the
landing docks, apparently.
"Pretty messy, isn't it?" The two girls turned to see Kei and Yuri
re-enter the room, dressed in their notorious silver battle bikinis.
Natsumi muttered something under her breath as Sakura smiled
embarrassedly/nervously and asked, "Umm, are you guys sure it's a good idea
to wear those things?"
Kei blinked and asked, "Whattaya mean? These are our uniforms."
Sakura laughed uncomfortably and went on, "Well, I mean, if we're going
to get shot at, don't you think you ought to wear some body armor or
something? What if you get hit?"
Yuri shrugged, a gesture that made both Sakura and Natsumi blush,
considering what she was wearing, and replied, "So we get hit. So what? We've
both taken hits before, and it's not that big of a deal. Besides, we don't
have to worry. We're the Lovely Angels, we can't die."
Sakura considered responding to this, but chose not to. Kei bounced over
to the view windows and looked at the smoking mayhem on the docks. "Wow!" She
exclaimed, "Look at this! This looks like something we might have done!"
Yuri joined her and scanned the docks. "I don't see any movement. When
we land, Kei and I will take point. You girls follow up on rear position,
okay?"
Mightily resisting the urge to make a joke about the lower portions of
Kei and Yuri's outfits, Sakura nodded. Natsumi asked as she popped a clip
into her Electromag, "Where are your guns?"
Yuri drew an Electromag identical to theirs from her thigh holster in
response. Kei grinned and stepped out into the hall, returning with a much
larger gun. Hers was a short rifle, as long as her arm, and bore a
pump-action grenade launcher as well. It also had the phrase, "Mr.
Antisocial" emblazoned on its side. At Sakura and Natsumi's startled looks,
she said, "12mm auto-rifle with a 10-round M-120 mini-grenade launcher. You
three can keep your wimpy little Electromags, I prefer something with a bit
more�kick." This said, she slammed a clip into it, reveling at the vicious
noise it made as it chambered a round automatically.
Sakura came over and fondled the gun appreciatively. She crooned, "I
like it�" and began to smile dreamily. Yuri watched the two girls play with
the death-dealing device and smiled indulgently. "You two will get along just
fine."
The Lovely Angel set down on the charred landing pad quietly. There was
a low hiss as the hatch swung open and the four agents hopped out quickly.
Kei peered under the belly of the ship and scanned the area carefully,
watching for any movement. As soon as she was sure that nothing was going to
jump at them, she motioned for the others to come around the ship and onto
the main docking area. With Kei and her rifle in the lead, moving back and
forth in wide sweeps to cover the entire area, the other tree backed her up,
waiting for something to move. But except for the flames, nothing moved.
Someone or something had hit the aqualogy hard, that much was obvious.
Most of the onsite vehicles had been blasted by some fairly heavy artillery,
as had a few groups of barrels, which apparently had been holding some
flammable chemical. Whatever it was, it had spread over most of the docking
area and started a number of blazes. But the worst part was the bodies.
Kei nudged one of the dozens of corpses on the docks, this one dressed
in the white coveralls of a technician. The man had taken a couple of rounds
from a rather big gun through the chest, leaving two holes the size of
oranges in him. "Someone wanted to make sure these people didn't get up
again."
Sakura stared at a pile of four bodies heaped against the door of a fire
hose casement. "Most of these people are dressed in black uniforms. What does
that mean?"
Yuri came up and eyed the bodies. One of them had had its head blown
away completely, with nothing but some ragged bone shards and a lot of gore
above its Adam's apple. "The ones in black are aqualogy security. It looks to
me like whoever did this was trying to avoid wasting the technicians in favor
of the security. Hell, it's what I'd do: eliminate anyone who can use a
weapon first, to guarantee they can't shoot you in the back while you do your
job. Smart work, this�"
Natsumi had turned an unhealthy shade of green at all the corpses lying
around. After seeing a security guard that looked remarkably as if his torso
had exploded from within, she dashed behind a small building to catch her
breath. Once out of sight, she made the mistake of peeking in a window. The
building had apparently been the security checkpoint, because blood and worse
was sprayed over the walls and ceiling. The source of this gore, at least ten
men, were lying in a pile in the middle of the room. Natsumi had had enough.
She swiveled like she was on coasters and vomited. And vomited. And vomited.
After several minutes of coughing and dry heaves, she stood and wiped her
mouth on the back of her hand. She froze, hand at her lips and stared at what
had been hidden behind the building. She called over her shoulder, "Guys!
Take a look at this!"
The others came around to look at what she had found. It was a small
black ship, sleek and totally unmarked. Kei walked up to it and rubbed a hand
over its side. She whistled appreciatively and rubbed her hand on her hip
unconsciously. "Wow," She said, "Totally frictionless. This thing was built
to move! I wonder what it is..?"
Natsumi stepped up to it and rubbed her hand over its wheel strut
lovingly and said, "It's a Bolo Mark Ten Stealth�it's been striped down for
speed and radar avoidance. This thing could do a planetary orbit in about
three minutes without making the reactor sweat." She looked at Sakura
plaintively. "I want it."
Sakura explained to Kei and Yuri, "Natsumi is something of a speed
freak. She has this perverse need to get a hold of any fast vehicle she can
find and crash it at top speed. I can't explain it, personally."
Natsumi shot her an outraged look and continued stroking one of the
ship's wings as she replied, "I don't mean to crash them! I just get
distracted easily when I'm going fast, that's all�"
Kei shook her head amusedly. "Let's go ladies. Natsumi, you can finish
molesting that poor ship later. There are bad guys to shoot."
******
The four girls entered the reception area across the dock, stopping
only twice to remove the videodisks from two security cameras they passed.
Once the disks had been secured under flaps in Sakura's flak jacket, they did
a hard entry into the reception area. Yuri and Natsumi stood on either side
of the smoking area with guns ready. Sakura laid on the ground on her back to
the left of the door and slid a small mirror on a rod along the concrete
until she could see in around the corner. With the help of the mirror, she
could see a bloody figure slumped over at the desk, as well as another on the
floor by it. She nodded to Kei, who stood over her. Kei knelt and pumped the
grenade launcher on her rifle. In one smooth motion she rolled across the
opening and fired a grenade into the room, continuing her roll to safety on
the other side. The other three pulled back as the small charge detonated,
belching smoke and debris out of the edifice at them. This done, all four
rushed in, ready to do some damage.
Inside, there was no movement. The receptionist, a pretty young woman,
had taken one of the large rounds of ammo through the chest, making her
decidedly less pretty. So had the security guard sprawled in the passageway
to the left, who hadn't even had time to draw his gun. The passage to the
right was empty and quiet. The four agents spared little more than a glance
for either of the corpses and followed the trail of destruction down the left
hall. At the hall's end was an elevator. Kei and Yuri looked at each other
and nodded. They turned to Sakura and Natsumi. Yuri looked at them gravely
and said, "Look, it's going to get ugly from this point on. I don't want you
two to think you have to do this part. If you want, you can stay up here and
guard our backs. Actually, I'd prefer it that way."
Sakura shook her head. "Thanks, but no thanks. What happens if there's a
small army down there? Besides, if we get separated, it'll be that much
easier to overwhelm us. We'll go with you guys."
Natsumi nodded her agreement as she popped a few pieces of gum into her
mouth and began chewing. Kei shrugged and chambered a grenade. "Suit
yourself. Going down, ladies." She hit the call button on the elevator.
*****
As the elevator, a large freighter, sank into the ocean, Kei and Yuri
outlined their strategy. "When we get in there," Yuri said, "Kei will take
point. She's got the biggest weapon, so we want her out in front. Sakura you
take right flank, I take left. Natsumi, you take rear. Remember, technically
we're here as officers of the law, so if you see anyone, order them to cease
and desist before you open fire."
Kei grinned wolfishly and flipped her hair out of her face. "But I
always felt it was legitimate to tell 'em to freeze while you were already
firing. Makes 'em easier to hit�just make sure that it isn't a civvie. Foley
hates it when we waste the civvies, huh Yuri?"
Yuri scowled and fingered her pistol. "Dammit, am I ever going to live
that down? Look, Jehovah's Witnesses look a hell of a lot like terrorists in
a low-light scenario! And they were acting pretty aggressive. How the hell
was I supposed to know they weren't hostiles? They were packing heat, for
God's sake!"
Kei clicked her tongue reprovingly and said to Sakura and Natsumi, "Yuri
never did learn the Jehovah's Witnesses are authorized to pack a sidearm when
they're passing out those books. But it's pretty easy to tell a Jehovah's
Witness by his pistol: the only use those little girly guns; y'know, the
Chance Defense two-shots? Yuri saw guns and flipped. You can't really blame
her though, she's just over-trained."
Sakura and Natsumi exchanged glances and opted not to comment. The
elevator shuddered to a halt and slid open with a musical chime. Like giant
hunting cats, Kei and Yuri slipped silently into the hallway, followed
closely by a slightly more anxious-looking Sakura and Natsumi. The Lovely
Angels silently motioned for their new partners to move into position. In
tight formation, they moved down the dim hall.
At the end of the fifty-yard passageway, they came to an airlock. Yuri
took up position on the right while Natsumi stepped to the left. Kei stepped
back and covered Sakura while she pulled a shaped charge from the utility
belt attached to her flak jacket. This she attached to the electronic lock on
the barrier and stepped back. Once she and the others were flattened against
the walls, she pressed the small detonator down lightly, arming the charge.
She slid it back into her pocket alongside the second charge of explosives.
This done, the four girls moved back into formation in front of the door,
thirty feet back. Finally, once all were ready, Sakura depressed the
detonator button. The explosives flared blinding white and made a sound like
a hundred people kicking garbage cans simultaneously. Heated white-hot, the
locking system melted and oozed down the door, which fell clean off of its
hinges moments later. Making a mental note to use a smaller charge next time,
Sakura rushed alongside Kei and Yuri into the next room.
For a fraction of a second, all four of the girls were frozen by the
beauty that surrounded them. They were inside a huge transparent tunnel
suspended a mile below the surface. All around them huge fish swam and rubbed
against the warm transparent plastic walls. But the beauty of the shimmering
fish and crystal-clear water were erased by the presence of a small group of
figures down the hall. A group of people in black rubber body suits,
insectoid face masks and odd-looking helmets surrounded a pair of service
vehicles. At the four agents' entrance, they had all frozen and looked up,
and were now watching them silently. Sakura raised her gun, followed closely
by the others. Kei yelled, "Freeze, suckers! 3WA!"
The figures looked at each other and raised large assault rifles. Sakura
heard Kei mutter, "Fuck."
The black-clad people opened fire on them in an explosion of sound and
fury. Kei and Yuri grabbed their partners and dived back through the airlock
onto the floor below the lip of the seal. Like a swarm of deadly hornets,
bullets hummed over their heads, close enough that they could feel the warm
air of their passage on their cheeks. Yuri conferred with Kei briefly, then
turned to whisper to Natsumi. Kei glanced at Sakura and asked, "Ready?"
Sakura nodded. Kei waited for the first burst to end, sat up, and fired
off a grenade with a scream. Yuri and Sakura were right behind her. As the
grenade hit, rocking the entire passage, the other two girls sat up and began
picking off shots at the black-clad assailants. One of them dodged aside from
Yuri's range, only to be caught in Sakura's sights. She winced as she emptied
three bullets into him. To her amazement, he staggered, but raised his rifle
and fired at her. She and Yuri ducked quickly. Sakura wiped the sweat from
her face and muttered, "Stubborn, eh?" She turned to Yuri and said, "Loan me
your gun for a sec." Yuri raised an eyebrow but complied. The pink-haired
agent turned to Kei and said, "Cover me."
Kei grinned and asked, "Gonna pull a Super-Soldier, check? I'm on it!"
The red-headed Lovely Angel stood and began blasting away with her
rifle, ignoring the return fire that zipped around her. Sakura stood as well,
a gun in each hand. She opened fire, roaring like a mad woman, blasting away
with both guns. The one she had wounded took five bullets to the face, and
went over the side of one of the vehicles, legs kicking madly in his death
throes. A second one went down after taking a whopping six bullets stitched
up his left side from knee to throat. A third caught two rounds from Kei's
rifle and was driven back against the clear wall hard enough to make it shake
all the way down its length before sliding to the ground. A fourth tried to
snipe from behind the closer vehicle, but Sakura emptied fourteen rounds of
ammo into his shoulders, throat and face. He fell from sight without a sound.
The other three looked at each other and dived into one of the vehicles and
roared off in the opposite direction at top speed.
Sakura released the breath she hadn't been aware she was holding in a
slow hiss from between her teeth as she squeezed the grips of the two guns,
making the empty clips fall to the floor. Yuri stood and dusted herself off.
"Where the hell did you learn to shoot like that? I don't think you missed
once."
As she handed back the borrowed gun, Sakura said absently, "Three times.
Bullets one, two and nineteen. The others all hit."
Yuri shook her head and slid a second clip into place. Sakura stretched,
then looked around. "Wait," She asked worriedly, what happened to Natsumi?"
Natsumi crawled out from under the remaining vehicle down the hall and
waved cheerfully. Sakura stared at her in amazement. "What the hell were you
doing?" Nastumi smiled and waved the detonator to the shaped charges she had
attached to the underside of the other vehicle. She said, "This."
She pressed the button and held a hand to her ear. From some distance
away, there was an echoing explosion. A brief flash of red light flared down
the passageway a bit. She pulled the load she had attached to the remaining
vehicle free and placed it back in her jacket's pouch. As she walked towards
the others, Natsumi causally said, "Those little trucks go up really nicely."
Sakura laughed and shook her head. They gathered around the corpses and
kicked at one of them lightly. Up close, their assailants were even more
unpleasant looking. Their black rubber suits covered them from head to toe,
leaving nothing uncovered. Each one wore heavy black gauntlets, web belts
covered with devices, and gruesome-looking headsets. Faceted black goggles
covered their eyes and they all wore respirators attached to small gas vents
on their chests. They had external comlinks that made them look even more
like upright insects. Video uplinks ran from their headsets to their massive
rifles. Natsumi walked over to the one leaning against the wall and picked up
his rifle appreciatively. "Cool," She said. Slinging it over her shoulder,
she said, "Finders keepers, pal."
With a sound halfway between a gurgle and a roar, the man, still oozing
blood from the wreckage of his chest, grabbed Natsumi's ankle. She screamed
shrilly. The others made to raise their guns, but Natsumi beat them to it by
slamming his rifle butt down on his head, hard. He grunted, but held on.
Babbling with terror, Natsumi continued hitting him.
"EEEK! <WHAM> Y-you have the r-right <WHAM WHAM WHAM> to remain silent!
<CRACK >"
"Ummm�Natsumi-chan?"
"Anything you- EEK! -say c-can and will be <THUD THUD> used against you!
<WHAM>"
"Natsumi? Natsumi?"
"I-if you cannot <WHAM> afford a lawyer, <WHAM WHAM> the 3WA will
provide you with one!"
"NATSUMI!!!"
Natsumi's head snapped up, blood spattered over her face. She looked at
Sakura who was holding onto her wrist. Her friend pointed at the battered
body Natsumi had been hammering at and said, "I'm no forensics expert, but I
think you got him."
She looked down at her accidental victim's head, or rather where it
should have been, which was six inches higher than where it currently
resided, somewhere down in his chest cavity. She put a hand to her mouth and
said, "Oops. I didn't mean to do that. I just wanted to subdue him."
Sakura patted her back and said, "Don't worry. You subdued him, all
right."
Kei and Yuri forced themselves to stop staring and examine the corpses.
While Kei admired Sakura's shooting, Yuri examined the head-set of one of the
corpses. She lifted the head of the least cranially-impaired of the men and
hissed through her teeth at what she found. She motioned for the others to
gather around. Holding up the head, she pointed to the symbol on the rim of
the man's datajack. It was three letters overlapping each other inside a
circle. The letters were B, T and R. Kei swore and said, "BTR Tac-Int goons.
Great, we've gotten involved with a BTR Op. This is all we need."
At the mention of the BTR Sakura and Natsumi paled. "What is 'Tac-Int'?"
Sakura asked.
Yuri looked up and explained, "Tactics/Intrusion. They're the BTR's
special forces, total killers. They use them when they don't want humans
fighting but can't risk computer failure from a robot. These guys are
monsters in every sense of the word. Take a look at this."
This said, she loosened the straps on the face mask on the corpse and
pulled it loose. At what lay below, Sakura and Natsumi made retching noises
and turned away. The man, if indeed he could still be called that, had little
left of a face. His eyes were gone, replaced with empty metal sockets. Wires
ran from the goggles directly through ports in his gaping sockets to his
brain. His nose was gone, as was his lower jaw. Instead, a thick tube ran
from his throat, was clipped to the roof of his dead mouth, and ran through a
metal frame that replaced the missing lower mandible into the air filter
attached to his chest. His ears were gone and had been replaced with
secondary sockets, most likely used for attaching to microphones in the
headset. There was a metal plate in his throat over his jugular with a gaping
rectangular slot. Yuri let the human wreckage fall back with a dull thump.
Her eyes were grim and voice were grim as she said, "They are totally
committed killers that don't have the problematic downfalls of robots, such
as computer failure or weakness to EMP, and with all the benefits of human
life; cheap to maintain, and even cheaper to replace."
Sakura gagged again and asked weakly, "But what are they doing here?"
Yuri shook her head. "I don't know. We'll have to find that out. These
guys were here for something, and I'm betting it's down this passage
somewhere. Ready to go ladies? Kei, what are you doing?"
Kei looked up from her task at hand, wrestling one of the men out of his
combination web belt and flak jacket. She grinned and asked, "Have you seen
some of the cool stuff these guys get? It just isn't fair; all this neat tech
and no brains to appreciate it all."
Sakura made a shocked sound. "You can't take that stuff!"
Kei went on struggling with a strap and asked, "Why not? These guys
don't need it anymore. And even if they did, I wouldn't let him keep it."
Sakura stared. "But, they're dead! That's disgusting!"
Kei shrugged and returned all of her attention to the vest. "Fine. You
can be disgusted, and I'll have fun setting off all of these remote mines and
smart-bombs."
The pink-haired agent thought about this for a moment, then began
stripping the vest from one of the other corpses. Once she and Kei had pulled
off a belt each and slipped them on, Yuri rolled her eyes and said, "If you
two ghouls are quite finished, can we get going?"
Almost as an after thought, Kei hefted a rifle and tossed it to Yuri.
When she caught it, she looked at Kei questioningly. "It sure as hell beats
that Electromag." Kei said, "There are extra clips in his chest flaps."
Sakura picked up one of her own, holstering her pistol in the process,
as Kei took the last one, tossing "Mr. Antisocial" into the loading vehicle.
Natsumi laid hers alongside it and hopped into the driver's seat. "All
aboard!" She called.
Sakura paled at seeing Natsumi preparing to drive, and started to say
something. Kei and Yuri cheerfully hopped in and looked at her, waiting for
her to get in as well. Sakura sighed and shook her head ruefully. And her day
had been going so well, too�
Once they were all in, Natsumi started the engine with an almost
reverent expression. At the engine's throaty rumble, she smiled blissfully.
And slammed the gas pedal to the floor.
*****
As they whizzed down the hall at seemingly ludicrous speeds, Yuri yelled
at the top of her lungs, straining to be heard over the rush of the wind
around them. "Aren't we going a bit fast?!"
Natsumi responded only by shaking her head. They whipped past a flaming
wreckage, the vehicle Natsumi had booby-trapped earlier. As they rounded a
corner on three wheels, they spotted another group of the Tac-Int soldiers
manhandling a service vehicle towing a large crate up the hall towards them.
They waved and motioned the girls closer, mistaking them for their
compatriots at that distance. But after a moment of waiting, they seemed to
realize that something was amiss, and raised their rifles. Natsumi cackled
maniacally and slammed on the brakes as she spun the wheel. Yuri, Kei and
Sakura's screams of terror mixed with the screaming of the tires as the
vehicle turned sideways in the passageway and flipped. They all dived out
just before the vehicle slammed into the one the Tac-Int people had been
using. There was a resounding crash when the two vehicles collided.
Natsumi crawled from under a pile of smoking wreckage and staggered to
her feet, a loopy grin plastered on her face. Scattered around were pieces of
the two loading vehicles and several crushed Tac-Int soldiers. "That was
cool." She remarked to anyone who might have cared.
It had been an especially exciting crash. The idea to ram them that way
had been absolutely divinely inspired. For a few moments Natsumi thrilled
over the memory of the crash. But reality reinserted itself in the form of a
Tac-Int soldier with a mangled leg punching her in the back, hard. Natsumi
flew three feet and slammed into the wall painfully. She gasped and turned
around. The black-clad thing made a husky growling sound and put his right
hand to his left wrist. Natsumi looked around, realizing she had dropped the
nifty rifle she had picked up, and fumbled for her pistol. The soldier hooked
his middle finger through a ring in the wrist of his left gauntlet and pulled
away. With a faint buzzing, a gleaming wire attached to the ring and glove
unraveled out, making a wicked-looking garrotte wire. Natsumi cursed and
continued struggling with the clasp on her holster. He advanced on Natsumi
slowly, dragging his crushed leg.
As he lunged at her with the wire, Natsumi screamed and yanked her gun
free just in time to bring it up in front of her face. The soldier's wire
coiled around the barrel of her gun as he lunged for her throat. In swift
succession, Natsumi drove an inner-heel kick into his kneecap on his wounded
leg, followed swiftly by a knee to his chest when he staggered. He reeled
back, pulling on his wire as he did. There was a faint scraping sound as the
wire neatly cut the Electromag's barrel in two. Natsumi, still rather woozy,
shrieked in alarm as she lost her balance and sat down hard. The soldier
limped towards her. In desperation, Natsumi grabbed around for something to
hit him with. She felt something made of cold metal encounter her hand. She
grabbed it, closed her eyes and swung it with a scream.
She opened her eyes when no attack came. She heard a faint gurgle. She
looked up. The thing she had swung was the rifle, which had been crushed
between the two colliding vehicles. Its barrel had been broken in half,
clipped into a crudely formed point, which was now imbedded in the chest of
the soldier and was protruding from his back. She dropped the ruined rifle,
which fell to the ground accompanied by the dead soldier. "Sakura!" Natsumi
called her friend's name and staggered off to find her.
The two friends found each other further down the hall, where the other
three were looking for Natsumi. When Natsumi staggered into view, Sakura
dropped her purloined rifle and ran to her. As she hugged her battered
friend, she exclaimed, "What happened to you?! We looked all over for you,
you jerk! I was so scared!"
Kei and Yuri came up, both looking rather battered and burnt. Yuri
smiled kindly as she smacked Natsumi across the back of her head. At her
pained exclamation, she said, "If you ever think of pulling a move like that
again, do two things first: warn us, and make sure your will is written out."
So reminded, Sakura smacked Natsumi across the head as well. She ignored
her friend's whine and said, "I can't believe you pulled a move like that!
What were you thinking?"
Natsumi rubbed her head and muttered, "I'm not sure. All these blows to
the head have damaged my short-term memory."
Sakura ignored her and turned to Kei and Yuri. "So, what was it they
were trying to run off with?"
Kei shook her head. "We haven't checked yet. Let's go take a look."
They went back to the massive steel crate and perused the complex
electronic lock. Finally, after much deliberation, Kei said succinctly, "Fuck
it." And blasted the lock off with Mr. Antisocial, which she had retrieved
from the wreckage of the loading vehicle.
This done, they pulled the lid open and regarded its contents. In neat
stacks, there were dozens upon dozens of metal cryovac containers, two feet
across and three feet long. Yuri tapped the transparency button on one of
them. All four of them held their breath as the tinted viewing window
lightened, revealing�a book. The book was three hands high and one and a half
wide, with a carved wooden cover, darkened with age. Strange writing sprawled
across the front cover in an odd, looping language. Sakura gasped. "This is
Old Earthian Arabic!"
Kei hit the transparency buttons on several more of the containers.
"They're all books!" She exclaimed.
Each container did indeed hold a book, all of them in strange foreign
tongues, many of them with covers made of strange materials. One of them Kei
swore was made of human skin, much to the disgust of the others. Once all of
the cases had been checked and re-darkened, the four of them sat on the floor
leaning against it and looked out through the clear wall at the shimmering
school of fish, undisturbed by the recent violence inside the underwater
tubes. Finally, Natsumi looked at Kei and Yuri. "So now what?"
Kei sighed and looked at Yuri for an answer. Yuri shrugged and said, "We
go topside to wait for our damn late backup and report to Foley. Not much
more we can do."
Sakura nodded and asked, "What about these books?"
Yuri answered, "We just load them up on the transport and�" She trailed
off as she remembered a fairly important fact. She, Kei, and Sakura looked
over at the ruined loading vehicles and the scattered corpses of the Tac-Int
soldiers. They wordlessly turned and stared at Natsumi. At their looks, she
slapped the floor with her hands and wailed, "I'm sorry!"
*****
Much later, while a group of 3WA forensics technicians perused the
scene, the four girls stood talking with the Chief Inspector, Dan Garza, and
Director Foley, who had come in person at the terse description of the
situation Yuri had given him. After handing over the disks from the security
cameras, Inspector Garza had quickly loaded them into a Hand-Vid. The six of
them crowded around it, watching the black ship land. While they watched, the
hatch opened and spit out a knot of the Tac-Int killers. They had spread out,
sniping down security guards and technicians alike. The interesting part was
that when the last ones came out, a man with long black hair stepped out as
well, and was apparently giving orders to the soldiers. For the better part
of the tape, he kept his back to the camera. For a few frames, he stood in
profile, giving them a decent look at him. He had shoulder-length black hair
and wore chromed glasses and a permanent sneer. Yuri and Kei shook their
heads when asked if they recognized him. They watched as the man returned to
the black ship. When Garza paused it, Kei pounded her hand into her palm and
cursed. "I can't believe we didn't think to check inside that ship!"
When they had returned to the surface, the four of them had found that
the ship was gone. Kei had spent at least ten minutes kicking things and
cursing over this fact. Natsumi had joined her once she realized she would
never get a chance to fly the ship.
Foley motioned for the four of them to come with him off to one side.
Once they were gathered around him, he said in a low tone, "Okay, look. I
take it you didn't get a chance to look at your mission disk." They all shook
their heads. He went on, "That's fine. I'm officially reassigning you to
this. It turns out that those books were the collection of one Nakamura
Shuichi, an antiquities collector who died about sixty years ago. These books
had been lost when he was transporting them while they were being transported
to his new home. The ship apparently crash-landed here. According to the
aqualogy's records, the ship's wreckage was found a few miles away from here,
in a silt pit. The important part is that he left them to a museum that the
3WA has a controlling interest in. I don't know how or why, but the BTR wants
these books too. They're sending an official out here to seize them. Aside
from the fact that I have a deep and meaningful loathing for all things of
the BTR, I have a feeling these books are important."
His eyes grew serious, "The only thing is, if I admit we have them, the
BTR can exert all kinds of political pressure on me to hand them over.
Instead, I want you girls to keep an eye on them for me until we can find
somewhere to put them. I know you can protect them, so that's why I ask this.
And this isn't an order, by the way. It's a request."
Kei and Yuri looked at each other. Kei shrugged and nodded. Yuri looked
at Foley and said, "We'll take them. But now you owe us."
Foley smiled and answered, "Good, good. I took the precaution of having
them loaded on you ship in advance."
Before Kei or Yuri could say anything, Inspector Garza stepped up and
said quietly, "Director Foley, the BTR's representative is here."
Foley scowled and turned as the BTR's man approached. He was fat and
short, almost as short as Foley, and had a bald spot and spectacles. He
sweated constantly and wiped his face with a limp hanky as he strode up.
Foley nodded and said, "Mr. Tate." The man nodded briefly and said, "I'll
take those books now, Director Foley."
Foley gave him a blank look and said, "What books? This is an aqualogy
Mr. Tate, not a library."
Tate smirked and answered, "Don't play dumb, Foley. You're far too
clever to play the idiot. I know you found some belongings of the BTR's, and
I'm here to collect them."
Foley nodded and pointed to the four girls, who were watching curiously.
"Talk to Agents Kei, Yuri, Sakura and Natsumi. They were the first on the
scene, so they know the most." He gave Kei and Yuri a significant look and
walked away.
Sakura and Natsumi followed Kei and Yuri over to the man, who gave them
a condescending look as he said, "Okay girls, where are those books? Don't
bother lying to me, because I'll know."
Yuri smiled vacantly and said in an airy tone, "Books? I didn't see any
books." Kei giggled and added breathily, "We don't like books. They make our
heads hurt. Right Sakura?"
Sakura twirled her hair around one finger and stared off into space as
she said, "What? I don't get it�" Natsumi just looked at them all and
wondered what the hell was going on, honestly confused. Ironically, she
blended right in with the other girls.
Tate blew his nose into his hanky and said, "Yes, well as ready I am to
believe that you girls are as vapid as you are acting, I know you have the
books. Look, those books are legally the property of the BTR. I have the
documentation right here!"
Tate did not notice that Kei had moved behind him so that the four girls
ringed him. Kei cracked her knuckles and asked, "Do you want me to do it,
Yuri?"
Yuri smiled and flexed her own fingers. "No, no�please, allow me."
This said, she grabbed his briefcase with one hand and punched him hard
in the stomach. Tate wheezed and staggered. Yuri handed the briefcase to
Sakura. The pink-haired girl grinned evilly. The others looked away in
sympathetic pain as she hit the tubby man over the head a number of times
with his briefcase, saying, "Oh, vapid am I?!" She wordlessly handed the
briefcase to Kei, who tossed it into the water off the side of the dock. Tate
gasped, "My briefcase!" Kei smiled sweetly and said, "Bye-bye!" With a little
wave she kicked him hard in the rear, sending him over the side into the
water. Natsumi looked around confusedly. "What's going on here?" She whined.
As the four of them walked away, Natsumi still trying to puzzle out why
they punted the fat little man into the water, a technician ran up and stared
at Tate thrashing in the water. "What the hell happened to him?" Kei, Yuri an
Sakura chorused, "He tripped!"
*****
As they stood at the base of the hatch of the Lovely Angel, the four
girls smiled at each other and shook hands. Kei, shaking Sakura's hand, said,
"I must say, you did impress me with your shooting. I haven't seen that good
of shooting from anyone but, well, me!"
While Sakura tried not to roll her eyes as she thanked Kei for the
compliment, Yuri said to both of them, "Seriously. Now that we've seen you in
action, I think we'll get along. I hope you're willing to stay with us for
the whole mission."
Sakura and Natsumi linked arms and nodded happily, bruised, tired, but
exultant. They were real 3WA troubleshooters. The four girls walked up the
causeway onto the waiting ship. As they entered, Kei hastily added, "The Kei
Is God rule is still in effect, though!"
Foley watched the Lovely Angel take off. He smiled as he cupped his hand
around a match and lit a cigarette. As the ship flew off, a dripping wet Tate
came up and stood with Foley. He glared at him and rubbed his head. "Was that
performance really necessary?"
Foley chuckled and answered, "There was no other way I could think of to
guarantee they'd take those books. Those ones are the only troubleshooters I
have good enough and dumb enough to send to stop the Eden Project. If they
went in knowing what they were up against, they would never do it, and it
would get pretty messy for me too. No, this was the only way."
Tate rubbed his head again and said, "I just hope you know what you're
doing." Once he had walked away, Foley muttered, "So do I. God damn it, so do
I." This said, he relished his cigarette and watched the Lovely Angels fly
off into the setting sun.
Continued in Cycle Three