BTW: When's the next new chapter of 'Double Vision' coming out? Looking
forward to going over it. It's very nice work especially with the original
characters thrown into the mix. They flow in well with the story, which
doesn't always happen when new characters play such a major role in a story
D.B. Sommer
"When", he asks? Nyahahahaha! Right now! Here is cycle five for your, and
all of the FFML's enjoyment!
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
-- File: DP 5.txt
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, Natsumi Ogawa, and Bloody Mary are original characters who may not be used without my approval. Thanks, and enjoy the show.
"How exactly do you plan to get into a compound with what is most likely the best security in occupied space?"
Sakura set an anti-land craft missile aside and glanced back at Kei and Yuri, who stood in the doorway to the armory, arms folded across their chests as they watched her pick out weapons for her assault on BTR headquarters. She picked up an assault rifle with a funny-looking cycling device attached to one side. "What's this one?"
Kei blinked. "A Chance Mark IV Rapid-Load Rifle."
Sakura nodded and placed it in the "take" pile. Yuri shook her head. "You can't just walk in there! You won't even get within orbit of the planet before they know who you are, who you work for, how old you are, what your criminal record is, and what you had for breakfast that day. Trust me, if you plan to sneak up on them, you can forget that right now."
Examining a large pistol with the name "Big Talker" written one side of the barrel, Sakura replied, "Actually, I think that's exactly what I plan to do. See, the way I figure, they'll expect everyone to know that, and not try anything. By now, they must have gotten a bit complacent in their position. 'Where there is complacency, strike.' Remember that from Basic Strategy?"
Kei laughed in embarrassment. "Actually, I slept through most of my Base. Strat. classes...it was in the morning, see, and I always had these nasty hangovers..."
Yuri stepped through the arsenal doorway and said angrily, "I do remember Basic Strategy though, and I also recall them saying 'To slay the enemy, strike at the head. But to harry the enemy always strike for the tail'. Please, please tell me you aren't trying to wipe out the BTR, because if you are, they are going to grease you, little girl."
Sakura ignored her in favor of picking up a rubberized glove with chipjacks attached to the wrist-strap, assumedly for plugging into wrist sockets. "What's this thing?"
Kei took it from her and answered, "An Anti-Cyborg Logic-Lock Stun Glove. Delivers a powerful datafeed through the data-spikes in the palm into the neural system of a metal-head, blows them out by swamping their cranial sensory-I/O station. Sort of like a mini-Logic Bomb for mechs." She set the glove down and took on an unusually serious expression. "Look Sakura, I understand how upset you are just now, but you have to think about this for a minute. If you go in the way you're planning to, you stand a pretty good chance of getting wasted. It wouldn't be so bad if Yuri or I was the one doing it, because we have DNA and personality files backed up at 3WA headquarters. But if you die, it's the end. Bye-bye Sakura, check?"
Sakura nodded. "That's fine with me." Kei blinked. Sakura went on as she sighted down the barrel of a long, slender rifle, "Then you two can come along if you like. I could use the backup."
Both Lovely Angels clenched fists. Yuri growled, "We can come along..." Kei gritted her teeth and continued, "...if we like?"
Sakura nodded graciously. Then, her eyes fell on something shiny, black, and dangerous-looking sitting on a rack behind much of the other ordnance. She picked the monstrosity up and tried to figure out how it worked. Yuri winced in precognitive horror. "Oh for...Kei, she found the Boomer."
The pink-haired girl fumbled with the weapon, which was a good four feet long, and asked over the top of it's cooling vent system, "What does it do?" Kei told her, in great detail, what the Boomer did. Sakura said the only thing appropriate to the situation. "Ooh."
*****
Mary scowled murderously at Sleet and asked in the tone that implied chaos and bloodshed, "Kevin, why do I have to wear this again? And be clear. I don't know if I'll feel guilty or not if I decide to shoot you for this."
Sleet smirked and looked Mary up and down again. She was dressed in an achingly pink dress, in a style better suited to a small child on her way to an Easter church service than a professional murderer with a kill-count said to be in four digits. This was exactly what Sleet had been hoping for. He made soothing gestures with his hands and explained, "Mary honey, it's for your own good. Fisher wants to talk to you about your little, um, reconnaissance mission with the Dirty Pair, and frankly, I really don't want him to get the wrong impression of you."
Mary squirmed uncomfortably in the rustling pink abomination Sleet had put on her, and wished desperately for a gun. Or at least a big stick. "Why do you want him to have a good impression of me? I don't want him to have a good impression of me."
With a tired sigh, Sleet explained again. "Look, Fisher is a man with principals, or so he says, and he doesn't approve of needless killing." Overriding Mary's outraged sound, Sleet went on. "So if I come in there and show you to him as the person who I sent to get his books, and you show up soaked in blood and carrying a virgin's head in your teeth..." Sleet shifted uncomfortably at the way Mary's breath quickened when he said that. He was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake somewhere along the line. Then he glanced at her figure underneath the rather kinky little-girl dress, and decided that he had not. He continued, "He will decide that you are nuts, I am an idiot, and he will have my balls on a stick. Oh, and he'll most likely have you killed too. And as I am rather attached to my scrotum, in more ways than one, I have dressed you up like a sweet, innocent and wholly unassuming intelligence officer. Got it?"
Mary thought this over. "I want to shoot something. Right. Now."
Sleet refrained from saying, If this doesn't go exactly how I plan, you may well get to. Lets just hope it isn't me...
*****
Kei and Yuri finished closing the clasps on their transparent body suits, then stood, stretching their limbs to accustom them to the restrictive layer covering their skin. Sakura mimicked them, moving uncomfortably in her costume. All three girls wore plain white versions of the traditional Dirty Pair costume, underneath a body suit that resembled nothing so much as a layer of clear plastic. The suit covered their entire bodies to the neck and fit tight enough to feel like they had been painted on, the only ornamentation being the row of five white metal clasps up the left side. To Sakura, it looked as if all three of them had been covered with shellac. "What exactly is this, anyway?"
Kei slipped on one of the heavy boots that all three of them had begun pulling on over the plain feet of the suits. "It's a holo-foil camo-suit. It restricts heat waves, so we won't show up on heat-sensitive radar. The entire thing is a nanomolecular holographic field. It can create a miniature hologram around the wearer, making them pretty much invisible. It can load up a maximum of ten programmed images as well, which is what this is going to be really good for tonight. See?" Before Sakura's amazed eyes, Kei's suit shimmered with all of the colors of the rainbow, then the air blurred around her. Now standing before Sakura was a hulking BTR Tac/Int trooper. From somewhere in the trooper's midriff, Kei's voice came. "We loaded the image up from our video-links." The trooper fuzzed out, became monochrome, and vanished. The redheaded angel reappeared again in front of her. "It's good for simple camouflage too, but it was meant for the hologram effect."
Sakura nodded and slipped on the hyper-traction boots. Yuri handed her a light headset and showed her how to put it on correctly. "This is an external silent comlink," She explained, "We can communicate with you this way directly, without the need for vocalization." She looked at Sakura critically. "That is definitely the first thing we're going to do once this is all over. We are going to get you decked out with a full suite of neural-ware and whatnot. This is really inconvenient for us having to attach all this to you, you know. Could get you in to trouble too."
Once Yuri was sure Sakura had everything she needed, they each picked up the tight bundles of artillery and other equipment they would carry in. Rather than equip for a full-on assault as Sakura had wished to, Yuri had outfitted all three of them with gear suitable for a covert-op, which was essentially what they were doing. Over protests from Kei, all three girls were equipped with a single powerful pistol, silenced and armed with a flash-reducer for stealth purposes, a variety of light explosives and anti-cyborg equipment, and a few other odds and ends they had deemed necessary. Smiling to herself at the irony, Yuri thanked her lucky stars that Kei and Sakura had seen fit to swipe the equipment belts from those Tac/Int troopers at the aqualogy. Most of the gear in the Lovely Angel's arsenal was intended for heavy frontal assaults. Many of the more insidious toys on those two belts had gone into the packs each girl now carried. Kei lugged a longer, slender case up and on!
to her shoulder harness. Under extreme protest, she had been chosen as remote spotter over Yuri, more to keep the noise level down rather than any notable differentiate in the two Angels' relative skills.
All three silently packed into the small escape pod the Angel was equipped with. Made virtually sensor-proof out of necessity, the plan was to use the pod to land on the planet without attracting notice. After determining that there were several available craft on the airfield at the BTR base, they agreed that on the way out they would steal a light craft, and use it to get back out to the Angel. Once they were close, they would slip into light Evac-suits, and set the ship adrift to throw off any pursuers while they jetted back to the Lovely Angel and hit the road at high speed.
The three of them gripped the support straps as the pod silently jettisoned itself into the quiet of space. The only sound was the quiet hissing of the pod's propulsion system activating. Sakura leaned back and watched the planet's atmosphere approaching them like a large, silver marble. There were so many eco-domes creating specialized environments on the planet's surface that the surface resembled a gray blur rather than separate bodies of land and water. Yuri typed in the landing coordinates to be a few miles from their actual destination. Each girl wordlessly strapped on a small anti-gravity support system and power pack, which looked like a small plastic-coated backpack with a four-point strap system. The small pod shuddered as it penetrated the atmosphere and began its final descent towards the planet. The small communicator embedded in the wall crackled as a transmission came through haltingly. "...<KZZK> identify yourself and <BZT> your <FZZZT>rigin. I repeat, pl!
ease identify <KZZZT>self and state your planet of origin!"
Kei flipped the communicator off and looked at Sakura seriously. "We're committed now," She said quietly, "so any second thoughts you may have been having can go right out the window." Sakura just smiled grimly.
When they were approximately a mile above the ground, Yuri gave the nod. The invasion was beginning. Kei leaned back and kicked out the hatch on the pod. A shrieking wind whipped up by their velocity immediately filled the tiny space. In perfect precision, Yuri and Kei grabbed their respective bundles and rolled out of the pod into empty space. With only a little more trepidation Sakura dived out after them.
Instantly, there was total silence around her. The night was black, pitch darkness enveloping her in emptiness. Sakura straightened, aiming herself head down and pressing her arms to her side to lessen her wind shear. The comlink clipped over her ear sparked to life, and Yuri's voice spoke as if inside her head. <Count to eight slowly, then activate the gravity-pack.>
As the comlink died again, Sakura began counting. The lights beneath the eco-domes grew, and took on forms as buildings. Finally, with the dome looking uncomfortably large in her view, she hit the switches to activate the pack. Nothing happened. Sakura blinked. She was still falling. The dome looked to be about ten feet away. She was going to crash into the BTR eco-dome and die thanks to a stupid faulty gravity-pack. The dome was about to connect with her face! She prepared to let out a fitting death-scream. Then, there was a hum from the pack, and a something yanked hard at her back. Sakura gasped and bobbed in the air as the pack repelled the force that was about to get her killed.
As Sakura righted herself and began scanning her surroundings, Yuri and Kei floated over. Scratching her head in embarrassment, Yuri spoke through the comlink. <Sorry about that. I meant to say count to six instead of eight, because the pack has a two-second start-up time. Sorry...>
Sakura stared at her wordlessly. Finally, she floated down to crouch lightly on the curve of the dome. As she touched down, her boots adhered to the slick surface, creating a minute series of suction-holds by opening tiny valves and forcing the air from the spaces this created. Kei and Yuri did the same. Holding it in place with one hand, Kei opened her bag and produced a flat metal box and handed it to Yuri, who held it while Kei removed a small handgrip. She flicked a switch on its side, and a small point of light appeared at its slightly protruding head. Kei bent down and created a suction grip with one glove, then drew the point of light on the handgrip in an oval around her hand. Where the point of light touched, the super-dense plastic melted away silently. Finally, she handed the oval of plastic to Yuri, who tossed it over her shoulder casually. This done, both Angels knelt over their newly created entryway. Yuri set down the flat metal box, a rectangle about a foo!
t wide and eight inches high. There was a hiss of escaping air as it adhered itself to the surface like their boots. Pressing a recessed switch, Yuri flipped up the top to reveal a screen and keyboard. Reaching behind the small computer's screen, she attached two flat disks connected to the device by thin wires to the underside of the dome through the hole. One of the disks grew an antenna suddenly. The screen sparked to life silently.
Still working without a sound, Yuri began typing in commands while Kei reached into her bag once again. This time, she produced a long, sleek rifle. The rifle was obviously made for sniping, bearing an extremely long barrel and a series of sighting devices, but no other markings at all. Kei detached her feet from the dome and floated into a prone position. The comlink spoke into Sakura's head again, this time with Kei's voice. <We're going to locate a couple of troopers patrolling the perimeter and make them go bye-bye. That way, when you two show up, they won't wonder why there are two too many people out there>
Sakura nodded. Kei leaned the gun against the edge of the hole and drew a small cable from the sight attached to the top and connected it to a terminal in the side of the computer. This done, she positioned herself, peering into the sight and making slow sweeps with the barrel of the rifle. As Sakura watched, an image appeared on the screen of the computer, moving back and forth in slow bobs. Yuri said through her comlink, <Speed it up Kei. You have two minutes to acquire and neutralize the targets before we have to move.> Kei gave no answer except to glare at Yuri briefly.
After several more tense seconds of waiting, a trio of strange blobs of muted color moved into the screen's field of vision. Kei made a satisfied noise and said, <Three Tac/Int goons. Let me separate them up, okay?> Yuri and Sakura nodded.
Kei aimed again, the screen showing a blank field again, and fired once. There was no flash and the only sound a tiny hiss as a bullet shot into the night. There was a distant thump as it hit the ground three hundred feet below them. Without slowing, Kei swung the barrel back, showing the three soldiers on the screen again. All three had come alert and were obviously speaking into comlinks by their stance. Sakura cursed silently. Because of their featureless appearances on the infrared screen, Sakura could not tell which way they were facing. Apparently, neither could Kei, for she slowly moved the barrel from soldier to soldier, not firing. Finally, Sakura asked through the comlink, <Kei, why aren't you shooting? We're running out of time!>
As if to punctuate this, Yuri said, <One minute...>
Kei visibly ground her teeth, but didn't shoot. Instead, she asked Yuri, <What do you think?>
Yuri answered after perusing the screen, <About...three millimeters left.> Kei moved the rifle bore as prescribed, eliciting a nod and sound of satisfaction from Yuri.
Suddenly, one of the troopers moved away from the other two. As soon as he was out of the screen's line of vision, Kei snapped, <You two, go!>
Yuri grabbed a startled Sakura and darted to the hole. Without a word Yuri dropped through the hole into the air above the BTR buildings. Not sure what was going on, Sakura followed suit. Once they were in the dome, Sakura followed Yuri down on an arcing passage towards the ground. From above came four shots, all only audible because the girls were listening for them. Kei said through the comlink. <Get down there, fast! Yuri, I'm switching frequencies on the 30-19 pattern.>
Not sure exactly what was going on, Sakura continued following Yuri down. They reached the ground, a grassy field about five hundred feet from a large building, and hovered a foot above the grass. After a moment of static, Sakura heard Kei speak again. <To your left, eleven paces! Hurry!>
They flew in that direction. On the grassy ground were two Tac/Int soldiers, each with a neat hole through his head and a shallow furrow along the left side of his neck. Sakura gasped. Their comlink antennae had been severed cleanly by a single bullet each. Kei's smirk was almost audible over the comlink. <Sometimes you have to wait a second for the sweet shot. Okay ladies, get your stalking suits on, because we're going stealth-mode!>
Yuri bent down and attached a small pin with a faintly glowing head to the still chest of each of the dead soldiers. Touching a small activator on the wrist-clasp of her suit, she said, <Activating the holo-camouflage...> The air around the two soldiers shimmered, then changed slightly. Sakura gasped out loud. The soldiers were gone! She bent forward and gasped again when her hand vanished as it got close to their former resting-place. <Tight-circumference holographic field.> Yuri explained.
Nodding, Sakura straightened. With instructions from her companion, she depressed a series of small tabs on the wrist-clasp of the suit. Across from her, Yuri shimmered, and vanished, replaced by a looming Tac/Int soldier. As Sakura's field of vision dimmed slightly, she assumed a similar form. Just then, the third soldier returned. Inside her protective illusion, Sakura tensed. The soldier raised one hand slightly as a burst of encrypted code came in over her comlink. Before Sakura could do more than blink, Yuri sent a similarly encoded message back. The Tac/Int soldier she resembled made a circling gesture with one hand. The third one nodded and moved off silently into the darkness. Realizing that she had been holding her breath, Sakura exhaled noisily and asked, <How did you know what frequency to use?>
The trooper across from her shrugged and spoke with Yuri's voice. <I just got lucky. Those things are really creepy, you know that?>
As she moved off towards the building, Sakura tried to not think of what might have happened if Yuri had guessed wrong. Despite the fact that she was now witnessing what made the Lovely Angels so deadly to work with, she was remarkably unafraid. I'm too angry to be afraid...She thought wryly. But it was true as well. Every few seconds, the image of Natsumi screaming weakly as the little blond freak assaulted her shot through Sakura's head, making her teeth clench and her hands shake. She wanted to find that little bitch and hurt her. Hurt her bad. She wasn't quite sure what had gotten into her, and it worried her. She wasn't normally this violent. She paused and amended that. Well, she was always pretty violent, but she wasn't usually so sadistic.
All such thinking came to an end as they approached the wall of the building. Yuri shifted out of the holographic disguise, and Sakura followed suit. While the black-haired Angel began searching for any movement in the shadows of the building, Sakura drew her pistol, a long-barreled assassin's weapon made by Kuan Yin, the same company that made their official sidearms. The gun was only a little less than a foot long from end to end, equipped with a heavy silencer and a complicated device around the barrel intended to hide the flash. There was a small button on the front of the trigger that looked a bit odd, so Sakura tested it. A thin red beam immediately shot from a small device slung under the barrel. Yuri glared at her and snapped, <Turn off that laser sight! Do you want us both to get shot before we even get into the building?!>
Abashed, Sakura released it and lowered the pistol. Yuri scowled briefly and resumed scanning the building for movement. Finally, she motioned with her chin for Sakura to follow her. Thanks to their anti-gravity packs and the holo-camouflage, they flew towards the building a foot above the ground, flattened out and gliding like a pair of deadly stingrays, intent on their goal. At the sealed doors, Yuri floated up into a standing position. By the closed doors was a small I/O port intended for a Cranial-Scanner lock. A person would insert a cable from the port at the base of their neck into this one, allowing the computer inside of it to recognize the person by their neural-signature. Into this port, Yuri inserted a pointed plug attached to a small black disk with a short cable she connected to the port at her neck. Once the plug was in, the computer in the door-lock hummed. Yuri explained to Sakura, <It's a Neural Lockpick. The disk has a universal brain-pattern, an engine!
ered neural scan generic to all sentient lifeforms. It has a clever little hack program burned right into the neural channels that sleazes through the check-point's security when the computer tries to read the brain-patterns inside. These have been around for a while, but the 3WA black-ops version has a little trick all its own to play.>
As if in explanation of this, Yuri glanced to the sky and said, <Kei, I'm sending you the encoded data through my comlink. Jack into the comp and spool it down onto the hard drive.>
There was a pause, then Kei's voice, mixed with static and seeming to come from a long distance, crackled through. <Check. I'm in the process of shifting position, you two. They've got light hovercraft out examining the dome. I've covered our tracks, so I'll reposition on the far side and get back to you there, okay?>
Yuri responded, <Check. We're going to start the intrusion. Get back to us when you're in position.>
Almost inaudible, Kei responded, <Check that. Good luck you two...>
As silence resumed, Yuri thumbed the key to open the door. The disk attached to her jack and the door hummed briefly, then slid open noiselessly. Both girls floated in like ghosts in high-tech stealth-wear. Sakura asked, <Yuri, why did she sound so full of static? I thought the range on these comlinks was a lot farther...>
Yuri nodded. <It is. But she was using the basic cloaking function of the suit. One of the things it does is fuzz out must forms of signal passing through the field, so it doesn't look like there is anything there to receive said signal when the space is scanned by some of the really sensitive probes. That really cuts down on the range for internal wetware like a comlink, so she's going to have to either cut the camouflage once she repositions or maintain radio silence.> She glanced at Sakura. <Are you okay? You're holding up pretty well, all things considered.>
Sakura nodded. <I'm fine. I haven't had to do anything too scary yet, so I think I'll be okay.>
Yuri smiled mirthlessly. <Too bad, because now we get to do the scary part. Are you ready for this?> All Sakura could do was nod.
*****
Mary and Sleet marched down the hall towards Fisher's outer office side by side. Sleet had dressed in his normal wrinkled slacks, a white shirt, and his favorite brown jacket, for a little luck. God knew, he would need it. Mary wore the pink dress and a look that would have stunned a Tac/Int goon from twenty paces away. One guard on patrol had been stupid enough to smirk at Mary as she passed. Not that Sleet didn't smirk at her, he just made sure to do it when he knew she couldn't see. The guard, one of the human security troops that patrolled the occupied areas of the headquarters, was good, a hardened killer trained to defend his one hundred yards of hallway to the death. He was also no match for Mary. She caught the smirk, wordlessly turned, kicked him in the shin, followed it with a high knee to the groin when he flinched, and head-butted him when he doubled over. The idiot went down like a stunned whale. Sleet just smiled.
Now, they entered the outer sanctum to Fisher's lair, and a more apt description Sleet could not come up with. The entire headquarters was a series of circular buildings built in a concentric circle around a single spot, this building, and the office it held. While the other buildings had marginal protection, this one was a tank anchored to the ground, a fortress, an armored web with Fisher sitting in the middle of it. As the BTR was nominally under the jurisdiction of CC, the Central Computer AI that ran the 3WA as well, this building held a direct interface port with the computer center that CC operated out of. But the 3WA knew, Fisher knew, and Sleet knew, the real reason this building was so well protected was because Fisher was in it.
The outer office was a wide circular room, with a sweeping view of the compound and the surrounding eco-domes. Along the walls were pieces of holographic audio/visual art, the placid nature scenes that all corporate offices held; forest waterfalls, birds hopping on dewy branches, deer walking gracefully through idyllic glades. All very nice, but each and every one hid a potentially deadly trap for the unwary. Hidden inside the most active parts of the pictures, and therefor the ones the eye was drawn to most, were encoded messages in bitmap form, tiny streams of binary scrolling across the surface of the image in nearly-microscopic size, that spooled directly into the subconscious mind. These clever little messages would travel along pre-existing synapses into the logic center of the person's brain, and start to "convince" the unwitting reader that Fisher knew what they were thinking, what they were planning. They would whisper that their plots would fail, and everything !
that they wished to keep hidden, Fisher already knew. These insidious mind-fuckers had broken more than one subtle power play or the like in Sleet's time. He knew, as he had helped come up with the idea's execution. For him, the images held no threat. The bio-spectacles he wore had been adjusted to screen out incoming bitmaps that fell inside certain guidelines. To him, the holographic images looked like empty screens, all of the deadly binary code blocked out by his glasses. He glanced at Mary and whispered, "Don't look at the artwork. It's part of a trap."
She nodded and didn't stop looking at the large doors to Fisher's inner office. As they approached the doors, a device that resembled an eyeball attached to a fishing rod arose from a slot in the wall, perused them, and then retreated. After a short pause, the doors swung open silently. They started walking down a short hall to another large room. Without moving his lips, Sleet said to Mary, "Whatever you do, don't acknowledge what I'm saying. From the moment we came in, we have been under minute scrutiny, and it will only get tighter from this point on. If we look like we're planning something, we will die. If you act even slightly threatening, we will die. And if you act even slightly out of the role of a sweet, innocent and obedient intelligence officer, we will most assuredly die. That little turd you were sparring with before I met you has Fisher's ear, and I get the feeling he holds a grudge. So please, please, please don't do anything extreme. I don't want to die, !
and frankly, I'd prefer it if you didn't die either."
Also without shifting her lips or glancing at him, Mary said, "Aw, that's sweet Kevin. I may cry."
He bit down on his smirk at her dry tone, but kept his face neutral as they entered the next room. This room was also circular, but smaller than the last. It too had a wide window, but no artwork. Exactly across from the hall they had come through was a single door, the door to Fisher's inner sanctum. At a wide desk by the window, a neatly dressed young woman typed silently at a keyboard. When they approached, she looked up and smiled politely as if she hadn't been aware they were coming since several minutes ago. "Go on in, Mr. Fisher is expecting you both." To Sleets surprise, she did not change her expression even slightly at Mary's dress. He was impressed.
As they entered, he reviewed the plan he had made in advance. If this worked, he would come out of this with his hands looking as clean as they ever did, which was his primary goal. The main wild cards were Mary and Dalton, both of whom he could not trust to act predictably, or even rationally. God, He thought, I hate dealing with lunatics...In a moment of reflection, he decided that it would be wise to put through an advisory notice to the screening sector to upgrade their psychological barrage. It seemed like more and more unhinged types were slipping through the cracks. Having indulged himself, he narrowed his vision and centered his thoughts. All issues and thoughts irrelevant to his goal, survival, became background noise. The world seemed to slip into sharper detail. Like a deadly machine, well-oiled and ready, Sleet's mind began coldly analyzing every angle of his situation, organizing defenses and back-up defenses, constructing contingency arguments should any of !
his primary defenses fail to satisfy. He began examining Mary's usefulness as both a weapon and as a human shield if absolutely necessary. No matter what happened in the meeting ahead, one thing was certain: Kevin J. Sleet would not die without a fight to the finish. They entered the office of Regional Director Fisher.
*****
Yuri pressed the tiny pod to the wall high up near the ceiling. There was a tiny click and a brief point of light as it spot-welded itself to the wall at a touch from Yuri. Sakura watched in silence. Yuri had drawn a small metal device shaped like a tiny hourglass from her utility belt and motioned for Sakura to follow her. As the younger girl watched, Yuri pressed one of the flat sides of the object to the wall just inside the entrance to the building and attached it there. She gave a light pull on the other end of the device. Sakura heard a minute grating sound as the device pulled in two. She squinted as Yuri slowly drew the end she held away from the wall. There was something spooling out from the attached end of the device, but it was almost impossible to see, as if it slipped away from the eye. The Lovely Angel explained, <It's a non-refractory monofilament wire. It's made out of an ultra-dense plastic polymer, so it doesn't reflect light. If you could hold it up to!
a microscope, you'd see sub-microscopic serrations along the edge, a trademark of the manufacturer. Monowire this fine is only available to the 3WA and the BTR, as it requires nano-sculptors to make such a sharp edge.>
Sakura nodded her understanding. Another small device came from the belt, this one a mini-welder according to Yuri. To Sakura, it looked like a stubby knitting needle with a short handle. Being careful to hold the spool of deadly cord away from her body, Yuri kneeled down and melted the wire to the wall at just below knee height. This done, she carefully floated back up near the ceiling and affixed another edge of it in another spot along the wall. She repeated this until the entrance to the building was blocked by a near-invisible web of wire so sharp that it made a razor look blunt by comparison. Once this was completed, Yuri melted the loose end and retracted the remaining cord back into the remaining half of the device. She looked to Sakura and said, <Nobody ever expects this, and the only way to get rid of it is to melt it, which will take them a while if guards try to swarm the building.>
As she nodded, Sakura responded, <It's cool, but do you really think this is necessary? I mean, we'll be in and out before anyone is that wise to us, right?> Yuri's only response was a long, silent look at Sakura. The pink-haired girl swallowed nervously and followed her partner as she drifted down the hall.
Yuri repeated the trick with the monowire at two other entrances into the building they passed, alternating between hall-blocking webs and deadly ladder-back patterns across the floor at knee-height. As Yuri was discarding the now-empty container for the wire, their comlinks sparked to life with Kei's exultant voice. <Hey there ladies! I'm back, and I have great news!>
Motioning for Sakura to follow her, Yuri floated up into a shadowy corner up near the ceiling to respond. <Really? What happened? You get to shoot someone?>
Kei razzed her over the comlink and answered, <No, stupid. The info-dump you sent me when I hacked the door had the components of the universal code system for some of the sectors of the mainframe. It shut me down pretty quickly once I pieced together the code-system, but before it tagged me, I managed to find something pretty good. Connect your heads-up displays to your comlinks and feast your eyes.>
With Yuri's help, Sakura did this. After a moment, an image sparked up, a screen with the simple statement: BTR REGIONAL FIELD AGENT INDEX. Then, photographs began blurring by at high speed. After a moment of this, it stopped abruptly on a picture of a dimpling girl who looked about fourteen years old and as innocent as a flower girl. Yuri immediately recognized her. The data-screen next to the photo read:
Latimer, Mary Rose
Agent, Second Class
Ignoring the rest of the information, Yuri snapped her fingers in excitement. <That's her! Now we know who we're looking for!>
Sakura growled, <So that's her name, huh? I suppose that should be helpful. I'd hate to have to gut-shoot someone I don't know...>
Kei interjected, <It gets better! Accompanying the datafile is a Universal Locater number keyed to her personal wetware signature. The BTR Security force has constant tabs on every agent in the facility. Key your heads-up display to frequency 00177A62102G. That's the Location program. Pump in her data, and you can find out exactly where she is.>
With a wrinkled brow Yuri asked, <Kei, this information is clean, isn't it? I really don't want to have compromised the mission for this stuff...>
The other Angel snorted. <Are you kidding? These jerks aren't half as bad as I expected them to be. I ghosted their sorry trace programs without breaking a sweat.>
*****
A computer bank in the BTR Security Center sparked into life.
FOREIGN SIGNAL LOCATED. AUTOMATED ANTI-COVERT INVASION DEFENSE PROGRAM ACTIVATING IN SECTOR C-3.
In a sub-basement of one of the many buildings in the BTR complex, a long row of large hulking shapes began to hum and shift slightly. One by one, the computers imbedded in their bulbous craniums came to life. Like rocks launched from huge slingshots, they shot straight up into the night in search of their prey. The computer returned to a dormant state, knowing deep in its complex circuitry that the threat was effectively dealt with.
*****
Sakura popped the section of wall away and handed it to Yuri, who held it in both hands while watching the hallway for activity. Using a floor plan supplied by Kei and her hacking plus a hand-held super-sonic pulse device, they had located a ventilation duct wide enough to fit through, an air pipe about fourteen inches wide. While the prospect of flattening out and flying in a space too tight to even qualify as being coffin-like didn't appeal to Sakura, the idea of trying to shoot her way in appealed even less. So, while Yuri stood lookout, she cut away a panel of wall over the duct using a tiny electrical-arc cutting tool from the belt of devices she had taken from the Tac/Int soldiers in the aqualogy. Once the side of the duct was visible, Sakura began cutting slowly to avoid creating excess sparking. The quiet hissing of the blade sounded like a waterfall to her painfully sensitive ears, so she reminded herself again that the sound was barely audible outside of five fe!
et. It was right about then that the two guards turned the corner on them.
The two guards, both slender men in gray Flex-Armor and helmets with heads-up displays and external mouth-pieces, froze at the sight of them, but only for a second. In the way that physical conflict sometimes does, time slowed down to ridiculously slow, almost ludicrously so. The guards began raising identical light machine-guns, each carrying the super-light aluminum alloy shells that Sakura knew the BTR to employ. The bullets became super-heated as they left the barrel, moving fast enough to break the sound barrier. By the time they hit a target, they had melted somewhat and spread out enough to almost guarantee either a nasty hit, or if they missed, little chance of ricochets. Neither guard had changed expression at finding two intruders. They were trained killers, long since hardened to any surprise. Sakura's hand seemed to be made of lead as she fumbled under her arm for her own gun. Yuri didn't even bother with her gun.
Like a deadly shark striking, she pushed off of the wall at about waist height and pulled her arms tight across her face, flying along the ground at ankle height. She straightened out like a pencil and shot between the legs of the guard on the left. The man registered emotion for the first time as he started to turn, saying "What the fuck..?" The second guard started to turn before realizing his mistake.
Having gained her opponent's back in an unexpected manner, Yuri went to work. She shot up behind the guard on the left and grabbed his half-turned head between her hands. A foot off of the ground, she snapped his neck with a sharp twist and drove her right knee into the small of his back, severing his spine several vertebrae lower at the same time. He died without a sound, slumping to the ground limply. The second guard had more time to react, and only received a glancing kick to the chest from Yuri's left leg, rather than the windpipe-crushing blow she had intended. He did not however avoid the four silenced bullets Sakura sent into his gun-arm, neck, cheek and temple. There was a spray of blood as he pitched over and landed with a thump. The entire conflict had taken less than seven seconds.
Sakura holstered her gun after noting the number of remaining shots and resumed cutting away a portion of the duct wall. No words were spoken between the two girls. No words were needed. Once the section was loose, Yuri wordlessly lifted the portion of wall. Sakura slid the piece of the duct into the space between the wall and the duct. This done, she redrew her gun after a moment of thought and floated into the tiny space, straightening out and flattening herself as best she could. Even so, her breasts dragged lightly against the bottom of the duct, which irritated her somewhat, but was ultimately unimportant. Floating forward six feet, she allowed Yuri to squeeze in after her. The last light they had vanished as Yuri pulled the section of wall into place and quickly spot-welded it into place. With a prompt from her partner Sakura activated a small flashlight on her gun's barrel. The anti-gravity pack creating the sensation of lying on a smooth, flat surface, she flew fo!
rward silently. Behind her, Yuri used her heads-up display to locate their target, the office of a Mr. Fisher.
*****
Sleet and Mary entered into Fisher's office full of artifacts to be met by Fisher himself and a smiling Freddie Dalton. Sleet wished silently for a gun. So did Mary, but for her own dubious reasons. Fisher smiled benignly at them, especially favoring Mary, who, to Sleet's intense relief, smiled back sweetly enough to put a diabetic into shock. Dalton just grinned. The look he leveled on Mary was, to say the least, unsettling. But the diminutive blond only winked at him. He made a disgusted sound and stalked off to stand by the window. Fisher motioned for them both to sit, which they did.
Once they were comfortably seated, or at least pretending to be, Fisher took his place standing behind his desk. He continued smiling even as he turned that weird goldfish-stare on Mary. After several beats of total silence while he and Mary examined each other, he clasped his hands behind him and spoke. "Welcome, both to you Brother Sleet, and you Sister Mary. That is a lovely name, by the way."
Mary dimpled and said in her sugarplum fairy voice, "Thank you. It was my mother's name."
Fisher raised an eyebrow and replied, "Oh really? What system does she live in? I am sure you do not see her often, being on assignment-"
The small blond cut him off, saying flatly, "She's dead." For all of a moment, Fisher was placed off-balance by her even tone. Then, he shook his head and continued as if nothing had happened.
"In any case, I have called you both here for several reasons. First of all, to discuss Sister Mary's recent reconnaissance mission."
Sleet began running through his back-up plans in his head. Fisher moved out from behind his desk to sit on the edge of it directly in front of them. Sleet tried not to stare. He had never seen Fisher do anything so casual, so...normal. He was either standing stiffly or sitting like a statue at his desk. He didn't perch easily on the corner of a desk, hook his hands over a knee and lean back. That was something relaxed people did, something reserved for those who were confident...in their...position. Shit. Sleet began getting that wretched feeling that starts at the hairline on the back of the neck and crawls down your back with little cold feet until it reaches your ass and crawled into your rapidly shrinking rectum to hide. It was the feeling that Something Very Bad was about to happen. He was, as he often was in such cases, completely right. If anything positive could be said for Kevin Sleet, it was that he was a survivor. And successful survivors have an excellent dang!
er sense.
Fisher swung his foot easily as he reclined. Dalton moved over to stand behind Fisher's shoulder, grinning at Sleet and Mary. The BTR Regional Director glanced at him, then said, "Before I begin asking questions, I think it only fair that I explain to you, Ms. Latimer, what it is I need these books for."
Sleet was halfway to his feet before he got a hold of himself and sank back into his seat. "Sir," He said somewhat nervously, "Are you sure this is wise? Project Eden is a Black-Level Operation. Neither Agent Latimer or Agent Dalton have the clearance to be present during the discussion of anything pertaining to the project."
The goldfish gaze turned on Sleet like two weak spotlights. Fisher seemed to swell and grow to tower over Sleet. "Are you questioning my authority, Agent Sleet?"
It was with a conscious effort that Sleet refrained from nervously clutching his hands into fists. Fisher was not playing, and he was not in the semi-euphoric state of religious ecstasy he spent most of his time in. From underneath the deadly cunning, but still aging shell a demon had emerged, a consciousness of lightning-fast wits and perceptiveness. The Fisher that had clawed his way to near the very top of the BTR's political heap was not dead after all, simply resting. Sleet wanted to run, to kill him, to throw Mary at him and duck for cover. Like the essentially basic lifeform he was, Sleet's danger sense was screaming at him, and he wanted to escape. But it was too late. He sighed mentally and leaned back in his chair. The only thing left was to wait for a moment of weakness to climb through.
Fisher nodded, and began explaining to Mary about Project Eden, and the most unbelievable secret ever contained in a BTR laboratory. Sleet listened with half an ear, noting the bits that had been unknown even to him and memorizing them, while the rest of his brain occupied itself with damage control. It was obvious what was going to happen. Because of the sensitivity of the information, Mary and Dalton would be required to be eliminated. Mary would not leave this room alive of course. Dalton would be issued a promotion to Agent First Class immediately, if he hadn't been promoted already. Judging by his general lack of expression at what Fisher was saying, he either already knew, or just didn't care. Sleet was willing to lean either way. In any case, Sleet would die as well, both for his failure, and for the simple fact that Dalton didn't like him, and the bastard had somehow gotten on an inside track with Fisher. Most likely, he would "make an attempt on the Director's li!
fe", or something similar. They probably knew about his relationship with Mary, and would use that as motive. Then, once he and Mary were both dead and gone, the official report would be logged with the CC, and two more agents would slip into obscurity. Similar things had happened in the past. Hell, Sleet had organized a few such erasures of his own since joining the BTR. It was a hell of a way to go out, after all of his work. He almost felt bitter about it. Fisher had paused, and Mary said incredulously, "Are you for real? They really exist?" It was about then that, as the authors say, all hell broke loose.
*****
The BTR Security Computers spit out another message.
FOREIGN SIGNAL TRACED AND IDENTIFIED. ALL ANTI-COVERT INTRUSION DEFENSE UNITS, CONVERGE ON TARGETS AND NEUTRALIZE.
The bulky shapes broke off from their neat squadron and split off in two directions, one group heading for the eco-dome, and the other group aiming for the Central Building in the facility.
*****
Sakura glided along slowly through the duct, her arms stretched out in front of her as she aimed her pistol down the passage ahead of her, using the muzzle-light for a lamp. She was unsure of how long she and Yuri had ghosted down the claustrophobic little tunnel like this, single file with her head scraping the roof and her breasts and toes occasionally dragging across the floor. It's a damn good thing that I don't mind tight spaces, Sakura thought bemusedly. From behind her, Yuri said, <There's another drop ahead, about three yards.>
Sakura cursed silently. This was the really annoying part for her. They had come across a handful of ninety-degree turns, rises and drops in the tube, all of which required a fair bit of squirming to get through, even with the effective weightlessness of the anti-gravity packs. She grunted as she ducked her head and wiggled ungracefully, aiming herself down the vertical section. She floated down for about six feet, then rolled so she was effectively on her back, allowing herself to slide more easily into the horizontal section. She would have to move on her back until it widened out again, which was rather awkward at best. Behind her came a muffled grunt and a curse as Yuri forced her body through the bend in the duct. A moment later, she said into the comlink, <We should be pretty close to the vent we wanted. Go about...fifteen feet, then cut away the ceiling; there's a maintenance crawlspace there. We should be close enough to sneak into the outer office through the ven!
tilation grate. Okay?>
Giving an affirmative, Sakura did as instructed. She found the spot Yuri wanted, then wiggled and squirmed for about a minute, just to get her mini-torch up to her face. She turned off her gravity pack and slowly settled onto the floor of the duct, giving her room to cut without running the risk of burning her face. The metal of the duct squeaked quietly as her weight settled onto it. She winced at the sound and began cutting. After several seconds of cutting interspersed with more low complaints from the duct, which was noticeably distending from her weight, she managed to remove a section of the duct ceiling to reveal...nothing. There was blank steel above them. She cursed out loud and said, <Dammit! The space you found isn't there, Yuri! Now what?!>
Yuri canceled her own anti-gravity to squeeze up closer to Sakura and take a look. She too cursed. Not even bothering to use her comlink, she said, "I don't get it! The blueprint said it was right above here."
Sakura sighed. "Now what do we do, huh? What should we do-ooooooooooooaaaaaghhh!"
The duct, having long since made its case for why it should not be made to hold two girls covered with intrusions gear, surrendered all hope and gave way under their combined weight. The metal broke at the next junction, spilling the girls out into the crawlspace below, the space Yuri had been looking for on a blueprint she was unaware she had been reading upside-down. Falling about six feet, both girls hit the narrow reinforced section with twin "oof" sounds, rolled, and fell off onto the weak ceiling material below. As this, like the duct, was unequipped to hold two girls loaded up with anti-intrusion equipment, they broke through with a shriek and a cloud of roofing material. And landed neatly on Fisher's desk.
*****
Sleet had seen a lot of weird things in his day. Many of these things left him wondering if he had seen right afterwards. A number of them had something to do with the Dirty Pair, but this was of little consequence. The point was, Sleet was no stranger to the bizarre. But this really took the cake. Right at the point when Fisher should have been giving them their death sentences, the ceiling exploded, and a blur of skin, ceiling material and dust landed on the desk, and more importantly, on Fisher. Then things got really weird.
*****
The BTR Security Computers registered a final message.
TARGETS ACQUIRED. ALL ANTI-COVERT INTRUSION DEFENSE UNITS COMMENCING TO NEUTRALIZE TARGETS. INITIALIZING DEFENSE PROGRAM NOW.
*****
Sakura gasped as she landed on something nominally soft. It bellowed in pain, which surprised her all the more. A hand grabbed her arm, and yanked her off of the desk. She yelped. As the dust cleared, she saw it was Yuri, who had drawn her gun. Lying stunned across the desk was an old man in a very nice, but now very dusty suit. In front of her was a man she recognized as the guy from the security tape from the aqualogy. His face was a mixture of shock and terror. He was fumbling for a gun in an ankle holster. Standing next to him was Mary Latimer, the blond girl from the security tape, dressed in a darling pink dress. Sakura met her eyes, and in that split second, many things were decided. Yuri turned and got back to back with Sakura, yelling, "3WA! Everybody FREEZE!" Sakura whipped her gun up to point it at the blond's head. The blond knocked over the man and yanked the gun from his hand as he fell, pulling it up in one smooth motion to point it at Sakura's face. All mo!
tion ceased.
The man on the floor groaned. The man on the desk groaned. A vaguely familiar voice behind her said, "What the fuck is this shit?"
Confronting the monster who had brutalized Natsumi, Sakura felt every plan she had made, every cutting remark she had planned to use as she shot the bitch, slip away like sand between dry fingers. The girl's eyes...they were wrong, so wrong. They glowed. Not a movie-monster glow, but a sick, feverish light, like swamp-rot. Lights seemed to spin and dance behind the irises. Sakura tried to smirk and said with as little quavering as she could, "Nice dress...you look like a Barbie Doll."
The blond smiled sweetly and cocked her gun. "And you look like a corpse. Who would you rather be right now?"
Before things could proceed any further, a massive humming came into being from somewhere outside the room. The doors exploded inward, twinned by the windows smashing in. Sakura started at the sound, losing her focus for a split-second. Time slowed down again. Mary grinned viciously and pulled the trigger. Using the reflexes that a person can only call upon when about to die, Sakura whipped her head to the side, receiving a stinging graze along her temple. She reflexively returned a bullet, but shot wild, punching a small hole through the girl's dress without hitting skin. Then her nemesis was on her. The blond moved like a pitbull, even in the dress. She delivered a stunning kick to Sakura's midriff, which Sakura barely managed to counter with a toe-kick to the thigh that sent her opponent staggering backwards. Using her moment of advantage, she bulled in, launching two snapping jabs at her face. The first connected squarely, but Mary knocked the second aside with her wr!
ist and kneed Sakura in the right elbow, driving it in towards her body. When Sakura gasped and swiveled her torso away to avoid having her arm snapped, she took an elbow to the side of the head. The entire exchange lasted seconds, but would forever seem like hours to Sakura.
Since she was facing the door, Sakura saw the things enter from the corner of her eye. The man on the floor jumped up and shouted, "Shit! Time to go, Mary!" Without saying more, he ran for the door.
Mary and Sakura eyed each other. Sakura smiled. "See you around, Mary. Love the dress." Mary smiled back, as sweet as sugar and answered. "Not if I see you first. And if you like it so much, I'll see that your raped, burnt, and battered corpse gets dumped in it. Nice meeting you. Bye!" And with that, she darted off, leaving Sakura feeling more than a little sick. Almost as an afterthought, she sprayed a dozen bullets after her. She thought she heard a yelp, but was unsure in the face of what was coming.
Two things that looked vaguely like steel dogs the size of cars trundled in through the detonated doors, walking on four huge humanoid hands. Sprouting from their broad backs were the bulbous growths of dozens of different kinds of sensor. Their vaguely human heads moved back and forth as they clumped towards Sakura at a steady clip. Large ports on their shoulders opened up to reveal openings that looked a lot like gun barrels. Nervously, Sakura backed up against the desk.
From behind her, the maddeningly familiar voice grunted, then there was a gunshot and a loud curse from Yuri. The voice said, "Come on Mr. Fisher, time to go!"
To Sakura's stunned bemusement, Frederick Dalton, now in considerably better shape, dashed by her with the old man in the suit over his shoulder. He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. No it wasn't so much a grin, more of a baring of the teeth. In the doorway, he called, "Talk to you soon, Sako-chan!" He bolted off with a laugh, still carrying the man. Then Sakura found she had bigger problems to deal with.
Sakura and Yuri got on the same side of the desk. To Sakura's dismay, three more of the huge robots had entered through the now smashed windows using anti-grav systems similar to their own. Using the comlink, Sakura asked, <What the hell are these things?>
In answer, Yuri said as she raised her gun, <ACIDs. Anti-Covert Intrusion Defense. They use these for people they want captured alive.>
Sakura gulped at what that implied. Yuri went on, <They use purely non-lethal weapons, but they're pretty damn effective. Just a second.> She glanced up and said, <Kei, we could use a distraction. Kei?>
There was a crackle of static and a reply. <Distraction? Now what happened? Well, you came to the right girl. Just a second, okay?>
One of the ACIDs aimed its head at Yuri and spoke in a hollow monotone. "CEASE ALL CODED TRANSMISSIONS AND RELINQUISH YOUR ARMS."
The others closed in, repeating in the same voice, "DO NOT MOVE, DO NOT MOVE, DO NOT MOVE."
Sakura backed up against Yuri and asked, "Fight 'em?" Yuri nodded. Sakura sighed. "I was afraid of that. They look pretty well armored. Hand to hand?" Yuri nodded again. Sakura sighed once more. "I was afraid of that too. Well, here we go." She set her gun down slowly. The robots moved closer. Then, in a blur of action, she attacked with her partner.
*****
Kei sent a brief coded message to the Lovely Angel up in orbit around the planet. Once it was confirmed, she used her computer to locate the other two. Once she was sure of where they were, discovering their little problem in the process, she grinned. They would owe her so big for this. Nearly an afterthought, she upped the anti-scan protection on her suit to maximum. If there were ACIDs out there, they would be looking for her too.
High above, a small hatch in the belly of the Lovely Angel opened. Protected and guided by the Angel's GM Field, an oblong object raced down towards the planet's surface. It breached the stratosphere easily, still protected by the field around it. As if magnetized to her, the object shot down towards Kei at impossible speeds. Knowing what was coming, Kei casually raised an arm. With an audible humming, the object rocketed down, stopping without a micro-inch of drag a foot above Kei's hand, to settle there comfortably, using the GM field to keep it up. Kei lovingly stroked The Boomer, cooing to it like a favored pet. The cannon, a good four feet long, hummed slowly as energy dispersal vents opened along its length like gills. A small display popped out from the side to settle in front of Kei's face, giving a full diagnostic reading of the gun's capabilities. She waited for it to power up as she chose her target carefully.
The gun Kei lovingly called "The Boomer" was actually a highly experimental weapon still in the late stages of design by 3WA lab groups. Kei had "liberated" it six months before the release date, claiming she "needed it for a high-priority mission of deadly importance that would require her to gruesomely dismember anyone who asked any questions about it". Since then, it had laid in the arsenal of the Lovely Angel, just waiting for its day. And its day was now. From what Kei had read, the gun used a powerful electro-magnetic pulse, supplied by the Lovely Angel, to accelerate a 20-mm titanium-aluminum alloy shell to a speed of five kilometers per second. The shells were loaded in this case with a canned thermite charge, which were commonly known among the users as "crash-and-burns". Reading the amount of power the gun would require from her anti-grav pack to compensate for the huge recoil, Kei pondered her options. "Let's see...the shot will take about 25% of my remaining b!
attery." She grinned. "Hell, that means I can take three shots, 'cause I won't need much to get to the air-field."
This settled, she strapped herself into the gun's firing harness, took aim, and fired. There was a sound like thunder mixed with a car exploding. Kei was yanked back twenty feet by the blast, even with her pack compensating. Had it not been, she would now be tumbling end over end a good mile away. Even so, it felt like both of her arms had been dislocated. She grinned wider. This was fun!
*****
Sakura flew over a crackling wire and darted at the ACID. They had started firing electrically charged pin darts across the room, making the entire space a dangerous obstacle course. Luckily, the anti-grav packs made things marginally easier. The smoke belching from the ACID she and Yuri had already wasted did not. The one she was currently engaged with fired a disk the size of a dinner plate from a vent on its arm. As it passed her narrowly, Sakura bobbed in the air. The disks increased gravitational pull, nullifying the effect of her pack. Still weaving in the air, she drew a slender spike from her leg, one of three remaining. The first ACID had taken two from her and one from Yuri to die. With a grunt, she drove the sharpened tool into the exposed neck of the robot. There was a beep from the blunt end. The ACID began swiveling around to try and tag her again. Then it's head exploded and it collapsed to join its friend. Sakura smirked. The spikes were loaded with small !
shaped charges delivered through the point, perfect for taking down large mechs.
She wheeled and turned as another fired a pin dart at her. The five ACIDs they had encountered were being quite the problem. Luckily, no other defense forces were interfering. Judging by the distant screams she could faintly hear, the monowire was doing its gruesome job. Another ACID exploded behind her, showering her with bits of hot metal. She turned to regard the remaining two. Yuri floated over to her as the robots warily approached. Yuri said, "These things are chewy. I've used all of my blast-spikes. Guess it's time to get in close..." Before she could say more, there was a distant explosion, followed immediately by chaos, as the room tilted, flashed red, white, then black.
Sakura blinked and opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, and the air was filled with smoke. Yuri was shaking her. She sat up and looked around. The entire outer side of the room was gone. The desk, the wall, and both of the ACIDs were gone, replaced with a burning hole some twenty-five feet wide. Sakura looked at her partner. "Kei's distraction?"
Yuri grinned and nodded. "She always was something of a showoff. Let's get out of here!"
They flew out of the window towards the airfield they had spotted from orbit. There was another explosion, followed closely by the detonation of another large chunk of a building. Sirens were going off everywhere. A third explosion came, this time focused on a small building spilling armored men, leaving nothing but a smoking foundation and scattered bodies. Yuri and Sakura shook their heads. "Typical," Yuri remarked, "We ask for a distraction and we get an invasion. That girl will never learn." She looked around. "Regardless of which, I'd say it's time to go. Our welcome is long overstayed." She glanced in the direction of the still-echoing gunshots. <Kei! Move your fat butt out of there! We're going home!> This done, they flew towards their destination.
*****
Kei smirked at the smart-ass remark from Yuri. Some gratitude...she thought to herself. She dropped the gun with some regret at having to leave it. She reconciled herself with the fact that any day now these things would be easily available, assuming those tech boys hadn't slacked off. This resolved, she turned to head for the airfield. Coming at her at high speed were five ACIDs. Kei stared, said succinctly, "Shit." Having stated her piece, she darted off to evade the looming robots.
*****
Sleet and Mary dashed through halls filled with smoke and hysterical people. Someone was bombing the complex, and Sleet had a good idea who. Where the Dirty Pair went, death and destruction followed. Mary was cursing like a veteran Marine, as she had a bloody strip of the dress tied around her lower leg. A fair-sized chunk had been ripped loose by a bullet from the pink-haired girl, and was still bleeding heavily. Mary had rabbit-punched Sleet when he offered to carry her, so after regaining his breath and forcing himself to stop wanting to vomit from the pain of that blow, they set out with Sleet jogging and Mary limping.
So far, they had avoided most people, as Fisher no doubt had an APB out on them by now. Another explosion rocked the building, making the hysterical workers packing the halls scream again. They had been so placid in their security as workers for the hallowed BTR for so long, they had forgotten what it was like to be attacked. Sleet muscled aside a panicky man with an armful of papers to push Mary through a door to a staircase that Sleet was sure led outside. Once the door shut, there was considerably more quiet. They paused to rest, catching their breath in deep gulps. Mary still swore between gasps.
Sleet went over to Mary and bent down to look at the wound. Blood oozed out from under the makeshift bandage. She glared at him and hissed between clenched teeth, "It's fine, now fuck off!"
He glared back and tore another strip from the hem if of the dress, wadded it over the wound and tied the strip over it. "Whatever. You die of blood loss, then that's it. The end."
She shrugged and replied, "Big deal. So what if I die?"
Sleet glanced at her. "I don't want you to die. Not here. Not now." He tightened the bandage slowly, making Mary curse louder and half raise the gun she still clutched. He eyed the gun and said, "Why don't you let me have that?"
She clutched it to her chest and snapped. "Mine! Fuck off!"
He sighed. "Look, you can barely stand up. Let me carry the gun, so at least one of us has a decent chance of potting anyone who shoots at us. I refuse to die because you want to be selfish and stubborn."
After staring at him hard, Mary smiled and reversed the gun to hand it to him. "Here, you big lunk. Honestly...." She turned away to look down the staircase and said, "I know I'm not quite normal, but I think I have my reasons...my mom and dad, they...aw, fuck it, it doesn't matter....the point is, I really think you're okay Kevin. I mean, you're willing to keep with me even though I know I scare you, and that sort of, y'know, means something to me. I guess I'm trying to say...if you'll just be patient, I can...I can try to change. Maybe. Okay?" She started to turn when she felt the cold barrel of the gun press against the side of her head. She stopped. She closed her eyes slowly and leaned against the handrail of the stairs. She said one word, a question, in a neutral voice. "Why?"
Sleet, pressing the gun to the side of her head, said quietly, "You'd only slow me down. I have to get out alive. Besides, I can't help but think you'd have done the same to me, given the chance. If...if it's any consolation, I am sort of sorry. I...I think I was sort of falling in love with you."
Mary nodded as a tear slipped from under one eyelid. "I..." She whispered, "I know." Then there was an explosion and soundless white peace and she was falling away from the railing and she was getting cold...
The gun hit the metal stairwell with a clang. Sleet leaned against the wall tiredly and looked down at Mary's body, so small and frail now, in her bloody pink dress as a puddle of blood spread out under her head. Her eyes were wide open and stared at nothing. "You would've done the same to me..." Sleet whispered. For one of the rare moments in his life, one of less than five, Sleet felt sick with himself, at what he did. He looked again at the tiny body on the stairs and stepped over the puddle of blood and hurried away. He wanted to die. Or maybe just kill everyone else everywhere. He couldn't really decide.
Some time later, long after the door to the stairwell slammed shut, the body in the puddle of blood twitched slightly. A single finger moved a bit. One staring eye blinked weakly, and a tear slipped out from it to mingle with the blood. A weak voice whispered, "Kevin...please..." Then the third and final shell hit, and no further words came.
*****
Kei was getting increasingly frustrated. The ACIDs were hard to hit, and their armor deflected the pathetic ammo her Electromag packed. Her leg was numb from one of those damned pin darts, and things were looking bad. She saw the airfield ahead and put on a burst of speed.
*****
Sakura slammed the guard's head against the side of the small ship again before dropping him. She looked around nervously. She and Yuri had moved into full camouflage mode and crept up to the ship they wanted. After disabling the armed guards running around the area, Yuri had gone into it to start it up while Sakura kept an eye out for Kei. The pink-haired girl gnawed at a knuckle and muttered, "Where is that lunatic?"
*****
Kei could see with her heads-up display's image magnification a pink-headed form in front of one of the ships. She grinned and put on the final burst of speed she would need. She started forward, leaving the ACIDs behind. Then, a new message popped up on the display. GRAVITY-REPULSION SYSTEM BATTERY PACK AT 0% POWER. IF YOU WISH TO RECHARGE IT, PLEASE INSERT...
The rest of the message became moot as Kei began rapidly falling. She gasped and cursed at the same time. She was so close! Something hard and cold grabbed her around the middle. She looked up into the eerie featureless face of an ACID. Frantically, she sent a message to Yuri and Sakura. <Guys, they've got me! Get me-> She was cut off as the ACID attached a small disk to Kei's neck. The disk, a potent neural inhibitor, made Kei's body go slack as all high-order functions were neutralized instantly. She watched helplessly as the ACID turned and flew back towards the base carrying her limp and unresisting body in one pair of its massive hands. She stared frantically, unable to move a muscle, and prayed that they had gotten her message and seen her approach. Otherwise, things were about to start sucking badly
*****
Sakura and Yuri both watched, one from the ground and the other from the ship as the ACIDs flew off. They had both heard Kei's message and watched as she was captured. The ACIDs vanished into one of the buildings. When more guards poured from a building towards them, Sakura scampered onto the ship. There was a brief flare as the engine started. Leaving chaos and destruction in their wake as per the norm, the two remaining Lovely Angels escaped into the night sky.
Once they were out of the atmosphere and ghosting towards the Lovely Angel, they looked at one another in dismay. The entire plan had been botched. Mary was still assumedly alive, and now Kei had been captured. Only one question remained. As one, they said, "NOW what the hell do we do?!"
Continued in Cycle 6