12-04-2006, 05:16 AM
'Everybody's waiting for something to happen,
Everybody's waiting for something to see,
Lunatics waiting for bigger disasters,
Everyone's waiting for news on TV,'
- 'Face in the Sand', Iron Maiden
Take two people, have them just ... fit ... without much of an initial reason, but getting to trust one-another more and more as time went on. Similar in some respects, different in just enough to make things interesting. Stir liberally, and let stew for a month or so.
Add in an appropriate number of secrets on either side. They don't exactly go unmentioned, no, but with both the people in question having severe trust issues said secrets are worked around.
Then have both of them almost kill one-another in a showdown that was such a comedy of errors, or simply badly matched coincidences, that it could have been written by the old Greeks - everything had been going in a suitably tragic manner, in any case.
And then, after all that was said and done and mulled over, have them meet and at least _try_ to deal with things like reasonable beings - a course of events which, had the acquaintances of one of the participants found out about it, they would likely not have believed her capable of cooling down enough to make that last decision.
What you get - other than the queen of run-on explanations - is the mother of all awkward silences.
At least there was beer, thought Priss distractedly, even if it did taste like watered down piss.
She stiffened momentarily, as a slight weight settled on her right shoulder, opting to ignore it for the moment.
Behind her back, a dozen or two meters, two bikes sat on a smallish parking lot, a lonely lantern lighting the space and providing at least some illumination other than moonlight to the area. In front of her, waves rolled and frothed, barely perceptible in the faint lighting.
"Do you ... hate me?"
The problem with long, awkward silences, Priss groused to herself, was that they were often broken by things that made the situation even more-so.
In this case, it was because, though she hated to admit it ...
"I don't know, Sylvie," she finally managed. "I don't even know what to _think_ right now."
If there was anything about herself that she knew, and knew well, it was anger. She'd always been passionate, but somewhere back in the grit, gunpowder and gasoline, and the wake of blood spilled on paved highways, it had been anger and determination which let her drag herself out of a spiral of depression and self-doubt.
GENOM had been the focus of most of that anger, and over time it had easily spilled over into other related avenues.
The first chink in the cast-iron world-view she'd forged for herself hadn't occurred so very long ago, either. That boomers didn't necessarily equal hate.
It only took the death of, for all intents and purposes, a little girl, to drive that point home.
Now?
Priss didn't have many friends. She was just that kind of person. She had acquaintances, and some of them were friendly, but people she considered friends were few and far in-between ... even with the Knight Sabers, the only one she thought of as such was Sylia.
Linna and Nene were Good People, she knew and realized that, but still couldn't help but keep her distance most of the time. She trusted them with her back, yes, but ... it had been a long time since she'd trusted someone with her emotions.
Sylia was one of those rare people who'd managed to get behind that last line of defense, though exactly how that had come about even Priss wasn't entirely sure of.
Sylvie, though she'd only known her for what Priss realized was a very brief, comparatively speaking, period of time, had somehow achieved that as well.
"As far back as I can remember, I've wanted to be free," the amber eyed woman said into the night. "I never thought it would be this ..."
"What?" the singer turned her head slightly, to where Sylvie's was leaning against her shoulder.
"Priss, you were the first person who cared about me that didn't have a serial number. And I ... don't know if any of the others are still alive," the cyberoid confessed. "There were five of us when we ran, three who'd stayed behind, volunteering to be the distraction. Even with that, only Anri and myself made it out of Genaros, and I don't even know if Anri's," she choked back what sounded like a sob.
Well, what did you say to that.
Priss decided not to try and say anything to it, in any case. Her reaction would have had anyone who knew her rub their eyes in disbelief, though, as she - somewhat jerkily, and with not a small amount of hesitation - brought her arm up behind Sylvie and hugged her.
--
Demonbane Ltd.
presents
Machine Spirit
Arc One->Largo
Four->Who wants to live forever?
the follow up of a short in the BGC world
by Griever
Disclaimer: I make no claim to own the characters and settings used.
--
"I've got good news," he heard, the partially synthesized voice taking him away from some ruminations.
He'd always been a bit of a recluse, yes, but he'd also had many timesinks to turn to ... which, sadly, didn't really work all that well anymore. For example, he'd managed to discover that the most recently integrated sections of the J-1 battle computer had a tendency to activate whenever something they could relate to was being considered ... it made trying to play any sort of game lose its appeal, even with restricting his mind's 'processing speed' to just around human baseline.
So Kiba's interruption, for whatever reason, was a welcome one.
"Unfortunately, I've also got bad news, and worse news."
Alright, so maybe not that welcome.
He imagined it was a bit of an amusing sight, a battlemover hanging its head despondently, but he really didn't feel much like laughing at the moment.
"Bad news first, then," he sighed.
"You've been drawing attention, and not of the good kind either," Kiba said, plopping down atop an empty ammo crate. She had a lot of those around, sometimes in lieu of furniture. Her coffee table had once held a couple hundred 40mm HE shells, for instance. "My people tell me the JSDF's brought in one of their contractors, since the USSD's political clout took a nosedive ever since the Aqua-City incident, and more-so now that they'd been unable to retrieve a certain rogue superweapon."
"It's so nice to be wanted," the battlemover grumbled. "Not. Okay, what's the worse news?"
"Actually, that ties in with the former. I'm going to have to evict you. The contractor they've brought in is pretty damn good at what she does, _and_ she knows the city well enough to realize exactly where she ought to dig."
No, it wasn't entirely unexpected ... it was still pretty damn bad, though.
"Well, shit," Griever's own synthesizer wasn't very sophisticated, but it managed to convey the sentiment accurately enough. "Right. I'm just about ready for the good news now, thankyouverymuch."
"There's some old safehouses I don't have a use for anymore that you could rotate through," said the arms dealer and occasional middle-woman, "not much, but you two've been an investment with good returns, so there you go."
"For what it's worth, thanks. I don't suppose you could throw in a couple of cases worth of reloads for me?"
"What do you take me for, charity?" she asked with a wry chuckle. "Wasn't all of the good news, though. This last bit isn't big, but you'll want to know it."
"Okay, you've got my ear. And a few independent recording tracks."
"No need," she set a palm sized, flat and flat black object on the crate beside her. "It took a while, but I've got you your commission's worth here. Physical description fits to a tee, and the timeline works out as well. Here's all a few favors got me on Millie Jackson."
***
He grunted, part annoyance, part effort ... Mackie Stingray was, despite what a fair number of people in his acquaintance assumed, in more than decent shape. Unfortunately, he was also both still a teenager, and not exactly in possession of the sort of physical frame that lent itself to feats of great strength.
Dragging his nigh-insensate older sister through the sub-basement, into an elevator, then putting her to bed took a bit more effort than he was used to, to tell the truth.
And wasn't _he_ supposed to be the younger, immature sibling?
Of course, working yourself into the ground with the sort of obsessiveness some people approached drinking a bar dry wasn't the same as trying to get nude photos of people (or 'person' at least) known for their quickness in resorting to violent responses, but he'd firmly resolved to forget about that little tidbit next time Sylia wanted to give him a chewing-out.
The younger Stingray's thoughts quickly, surprisingly so in fact, went back to the matter at hand as he got onto the elevator and headed for the sub-basement again.
After all, he thought with a sigh, he knew his sister well enough to realize that she wouldn't let up until she was done with this. She hadn't been this bad about upgrading their equipment since an inadequacy in the early model of Linna's suit had nearly gotten the dancer killed during a sortie, and the young man could sympathize.
She'd always taken her responsibilities seriously. Sometimes too seriously at that.
Well, at least she'd learned how to delegate over the years ... or rather, Doc Raven had damn near beaten that into her hear once upon a fall in '29.
The workshop door hissed open, and Mackie went in, resigning himself to another mostly sleepless night checking Sylia's work over as best he could.
He supposed that it could be genetic. Or maybe it was just enlightened self-interest.
After all, the part of his mind that always kept some levity about it remarked, if someone on the team got injured he'd have one less knock-out to perv on.
"One can't be seen as too responsible, after all. Bad for the image."
The door *swooshed* shut behind him.
***
Sometimes, there's really no substitute for some good and honest grunt work.
At least that was what she told herself. It could be that the stress was finally getting to her.
Not that she'd ever had what would be commonly considered a calm sort personality.
Oh, methodical and meticulous when she had to be, yes, but sometimes ...
The last Rent-A-Thug went slamming through a wood-substitute tabletop, and following through all the way down and into the floor with a bone-jarring *thud*.
"You know, Ryo, I never really thought it was possible for you to sink any lower," she commented to the only other still conscious person present. "But you've managed to surprise me. Congratulations."
She smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
In fact, it made the slick haired man, who could pass for a sarariman if encountered on the street, and who was currently sitting behind a cheap desk in a way that suggested he wanted to try and make a break for it, but knew that said course of action wasn't a good idea, cringe. And want to hide. Preferably in a very deep hole.
"But, see - I've got a little something to discuss with you, so I'd be willing to let bygones be bygones and treat this as an unfortunate ... accident. No, don't talk quite yet, I'm not done."
She came around the desk, stepped behind his chair, and put her hands on his shoulders. Then she squeezed. Hard.
The yakuza underboss whimpered.
"See? You haven't forgotten basic hospitality since I paid you a visit last time, have you? It's only been, what, a few years? You talk when I say you talk, got that?"
Silence.
"Good. Now, I've been hearing something about you having a bit to do with an incident that came about lately. Something about a buyout of a meat shredding plant ... oh, sorry. I meant warehouse. Supposedly cheap, too, after all the yellow tape went down. Kinda makes all those nasty suspicious types think that you could have had something to do with what went on there, doesn't it?"
Another squeeze.
Those hands felt like a pair of iron vices. That was new. Last time, only one had been quite that bad.
"But I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here if you maybe just, oh, share your ... educated guesses on the matter with me. After all, you're still so well informed about what goes on down here, right? That much hasn't changed since I was last visiting, has it? Give an old friend a helping hand."
Hashima Ryo hadn't gotten to where he was by being soft ... but he also hadn't gotten there by not knowing when to cut his losses. A very important thing to realize when dealing with this particular person.
Messing about with Jeena Malso was not even remotely in the realm of good ideas.
***
Priss blinked.
Well, she thought to herself, this was new.
She was used to giving one member of the band or another a bawling out every now and then, when their efforts were lackluster ... but it was the first time she could recall having that same thing pulled on her. Worse, she wasn't particularly inclined to turn around, yank the door of the Hot Legs, which was still deserted save for the practicing Replicants, open, and give back what she'd gotten, with accrued interest.
Instead, she settled on her bike, and frowned ...
Hell, she'd spent the morning sitting on the steps of her trailer, nursing a bottle of Jack, and strumming all melancholy and shit out of an old, woefully out of tune acoustic she'd had for as long as she could remember and hadn't bothered with tossing. This wasn't like her, damnit!
... or maybe it was. She couldn't really tell, today.
She didn't tend to get emotional, or rather, didn't get emotional in any way except getting well and righteously pissed off. Hadn't for a good few years now. Until last night, when she'd gone through what could have passed for a nervous breakdown in any other set of circumstances. But then, misery loved company. Loathe as she was to admit it, it had been a liberating, almost cathartic experience.
The engine rumbled to life, and seconds later she was flashing down the dingy roads and alleys with the deft assurance of someone who'd done it more times than they could count, in weather considerably worse than the present minor rainfall. The blurring road and press of wind helped her get a semblance of her usual attitude back, at least ...
She couldn't help but wonder how Sylvie was dealing.
***
He'd never had much of a problem adjusting to new accommodations back when he'd hadn't been technically immune to any physical discomfort, and it wasn't a problem at present either.
'Yeah, well, it wouldn't be too bad if it weren't for everything being so damn _small_!'
It was just his luck that the seemingly 'best' of the safehouses Kiba had pointed out when they'd said their goodbyes happened to be little more than a sub-basement underneath, ironically enough, the remains of a church.
It wasn't _the_ church, of course, since there wasn't enough of it left topside to constitute even a good try at 'ruins' ...
Things would have been a lot simpler if they could have just found the damn place, but ruined places of worship - while not exactly a dime-a-dozen in the Canyons and the general Fault area - weren't exactly marked on your usual maps, nor were they places that garnered much attention from even the shadier characters.
Unless you counted squatters, and even those tended to pick more comfortable places. Or at least ones that weren't as drafty.
In any case, it was just as well that he'd never really had any sort of phobia related to being in small, enclosed spaces either, because, however surprisingly apt the D.D. was at moving through urban environs, despite having been designed with battlefields in mind, it was still rather big.
It gave him a whole new level of appreciation for Sylvie, who'd managed to not only not get caught while driving the thing-that-was-now-his-body through the city when she'd still been 'out for blood', pun intended, but also hadn't caused a ruckus with any cases of hard to explain damages to the surroundings other than the occasional footprint or two. He'd been having trouble getting used to the new proportions of things for a while after their initial meeting, and he _was_ the machine, for all intents and purposes.
Not that they'd spent a lot of time there, since as soon as he and a slightly out of sorts Sylvie had even gotten set up, she'd insisted on following through on Kiba's parting gift.
Which, he noted, brought him back to the initial subject of this idle flight of fantasy.
The solar panels that all but filled the rooftop were almost, but not quite, a veritable forest of metal and reflective surfaces, but there was plenty of space underneath this umbrella of sorts for maintenance work to be done ... meaning he could just barely squeeze in without damaging anything. The position wasn't exactly the best in terms of offered view, perspective, or pretty much anything other than concealment and proximity to the apartment complex that one Millie Jackson, GENOM employee, was registered as a resident of.
Not that actually getting up there had been easy to do without drawing all kinds of the wrong sort of attention. Sylvie, though, had come back determined enough that there really wasn't any talking her out of doing at least an initial bit of recon.
After all, this was Anri they were here for. If nothing else had convinced her of the fact that what information he'd spoken to her about, regarding the possible course of events both current and upcoming, was genuine, the fact that he'd been right on about the covert identity Anri was using would have.
The rain that had been falling since sometime a few hours before dawn, but seemed to be slowing down now - likely, the skies should be clear come evening - had been a big help in getting up to the rooftop without getting spotted by bystanders or anyone else for that matter. Though the fact that they'd done so an hour before dawn was a factor, since not many of even the most zealous corporate drones, not to mention the other productive members of society, were up at the time.
Things would have been more difficult, had the place been in the vicinity of a college campus, but luckily no such problem needed to be worked around in this case. There was only so much even a coffee addled mind on too little sleep could dismiss as hallucination, and a Battlemover wasn't quite within that bracket.
"You've had a productive evening, then," he'd asked/stated on the way through the ruins of the Canyons - still one of the most secure routes they could take, even with the increased vigilance of police and military forces.
"Yes. No. Maybe," Sylvie had said, haltingly. "I'm still not sure if it wasn't a cascading error in my empathy program. We finally ended up pretty much where we started from ... undecided."
He'd inquired about details, and she'd informed him.
"It sounds perfectly normal to me," he'd replied, with not a little wryness. "Do you want to talk about it?"
She'd hesitated, had gone to nod, and stopped halfway, instead opening the privacy protocols that either side had place on the superweapon linkage.
The somewhat uncomfortably emotional exchange that followed didn't take as much as a second, but both sides had gotten a few insights out of it.
He could still recall Sylvie's unease when she'd found that this 'quest' of hers was one of the main things keeping his own mind in relative equilibrium. It was, he'd explained, in a way the logical extension of how he'd always approached some things, and if he focused his attention on something to the near exclusion of everything else and it kept him more or less sane, well, who was she to argue.
Although, and he didn't know whether she'd let it slip on purpose when the linkage was being limited again, he'd been mildly perplexed when she'd felt oddly flattered upon learning of the above.
The rest of their transit had been spent in silence, both literal, and metaphorical.
***
It took a while, but at the same time, less than it would have pretty much anybody else.
She still knew the city. The beat of it thrummed in her blood, in the electrical impulses twitching artificial muscle, in the way she walked.
She'd _missed_ it. For all the dreams, some of them her own, ground into the ground and crushed under the feet of indifferent masses, there was no other place quite like it.
And to Jeena, MegaTokyo was home.
An occasionally rat infested one, desperately needing renovation, but home nonetheless. And none of the rats were big enough to seriously bother her. They hadn't been then, they sure as hell didn't get any better over the years.
A part of her was faintly disappointed.
The rest wasn't considering that there and then, because it was busy being surprised, then suspicious.
The trails and the peculiar style of mediating the contract were both familiar. Enough that she really hadn't needed to be quite as rough on poor-stupid-Ryo ...
She snorted. As if.
The corridor started in a back alley, leading under the building that proclaimed to all the world the delights of soy and sinking down quite a bit further after some point. She'd caught at least five separate sensor plates at varying intervals, but wasn't really concerned. Unless she'd suddenly become persona-non-grata here, which wasn't likely, she wouldn't be more than warned off. Meaning that she'd simply need to find another way.
Apparently, that wasn't to be a problem. She reached the end of the corridor without incident, climbing into the small freight elevator that sat behind a suspiciously unlocked security hatch. Both it and the hatch looked like they were going to fall apart any minute, which wasn't something one could dispute without a more focused examination. The appearance of either was, naturally, a carefully maintained feint for anyone who'd gotten this far.
The ride down was as smooth and quiet as she remembered it being, obviously at odds with the way things looked.
When the lift finally did stop, in a chamber much like the one several levels above, she dismounted with little fuss. It was, she remarked to herself as she pushed open the door she knew led to one of the main storage areas of the place, time to meet an old friend.
"Huh, I wasn't expecting you ... not this soon, at any rate," the white-haired woman said, not looking up from the obstinate arrangement of power-cells the refused to properly align with the drive train receptable of the antiquated K-6 Personal Trooper. The entire space was filled with boxes, full of more in the way of weaponry than even she knew the details of, and quite a bit of miscellaneous kipple besides. "What's the matter? Can't buy a thrill?"
"If I wanted to, I'd be trolling the strip joints in Tinsel City. Been a long time, Kiba."
***
"But ... no, it can't be ..."
"I'm sorry to have to bring you this sort of news," his hand reached out to squeeze hers. A futile gesture of trying to comfort somebody who'd just had the world ripped out from under here.
Again.
"Couldn't we _try_? At least to talk to her, sir? I know I could get through, I just know it!"
Hope springs eternal in the human breast. Or one close enough to it to not matter very much, at least.
"If there is a chance. But I'm afraid we can't risk it," he sighed ruefully. "There simply is no window of opportunity to do so. Things will be coming to a head soon, you know. What we do, we do for the betterment of the world. Some things ..."
She shivered. Then, hesitantly, nodded. The concept wasn't one she was unfamiliar with, but not exactly something pleasant either.
No. Not pleasant at all.
"I'm sure she'd approve," the woman said, drawing herself up. "If it's against GENOM. It's their fault, after all. Their machine. First they took Nam, Lou, and Meg ... and now they're taking Sylvie away from me."
Arms came around her, pulling her close.
Mismatched eyes looked down on the aquamarine haired girl.
Over the top of Anri's head, Largo smiled.
In the distance, a brief flash illuminated the coastward city skyline, briefly filtering through what was left of the ruined church's stained glass windows.
***
Kenichi Hoshi had never wanted to play hero.
All he wanted was to be left more or less alone, to be able to pay his bills and buy Mari a few of this month's 'absolutely must have' things to keep her from verbally biting his head off, and maybe catch a few beers with his friends at the end of a long day.
There'd been a bit of a tight spot when GENOM bought out the company he'd been working for a month ago, but fortunately he wasn't one of those people who'd been let go at the end of the day.
It may not have been his dream job, but he had a sort of knack for working security that wasn't just there due to his being six foot even and around two hundred pounds of pure muscle. He was thorough, conscientious, and took what he did seriously ...
... but he'd never wanted to play hero. It got people killed.
And, like Iwagami had aptly demonstrated a moment ago, trying to take on three assailants in powered armor with small-arms wasn't just 'playing hero'. It was 'playing stupid hero'.
Kenichi stumbled up the stairs, limping. A spray of fire from one of the attackers hadn't quite caught up with him, but the chips that the impacting projectiles had torn from the concrete wall he'd ducked behind a few dozen paces behind and below had.
The five 55-C models they had on shift were long gone, the assailants having gone through them without even thee most remote bit of difficulty, which had prompted Kenichi's desire to be somewhere else in the first place ...
... thought things seemed to be quieting down now. Which either meant that the threat had been dealt with - not likely, all things and prior performance considered - or that ...
The loading doors below rumbled, high yield hydraulics making a characteristic sound that he could recognize in his sleep.
An inkling of hope flared within him as he shuffled over to one of the windows that overlooked the loading yard below.
A cargo hauler roared from the building, tearing through the yard and out the gates, and Kenichi breathed in relief as the glaring lights outside illuminated the three powered suits of the assailants.
The impromptu tourniquet he'd tied off just above the injured part of his leg would keep him from bleeding to death for the next while, and the frantic panic of having to run for his life was passing.
It was over. He nearly laughed in relief.
He was still alive!
Which was when the sound of servos working the loading doors closed was overshadowed by a deep, heavy rumble ... and the floor, as well as the bays below, two floors above, and nearly the whole breadth of that storage section of the warehouse complex was engulfed by and explosion.
It was enough to light up the sky for a moment, and the fires that raged until the following morning would cast an eerie radiance throughout it all.
***
Daley Wong threw the ADP Interceptor around a corner at the sort of speed that would have had him jittering away like someone on too much coffee and too little sleep only a few years ago.
Here and now, he did it with a practiced ease that spoke of many hours behind the wheel, and having had Leon McNichol for a partner. Hotheaded though the man was, few could fault his skills with anything on four or two wheels, and his ability to convey them to other people ...
Though, outside of Daley and a few others, most of the ADP officers who'd once upon a time made the choice of signing up for the unofficial McNichol school of urban combat driving ended up needing sedation after nearly every session.
The man himself didn't even seem to notice as concrete and glass and asphalt flashed past outside, though he did wince a bit at a particularly abrupt swerve. Medical technology may have advanced by leaps and bounds over the past decade or two, but even with all that Leon's ribs still twinged on occasion. A testament of the encounter with a Battlemover that was as much psychosomatic as it was physical, or so the doctors had said.
Oh well. No rest for the wicked.
That was particularly true in MegaTokyo, even during the city's gestation period.
The relative quiet, at least in regard to boomer incidents, of the past two weeks or so had been enough to put maybe not the entire department, but at least those who had some experience under their belt and knew how to use their heads, on edge.
And now things looked to be boiling over.
"Coming up on it," the redhead commented, cutting in front of a delivery van and causing the driver thereof to send up a string of horn-honks in retort, not that either of the ADP officers noticed. "How soon is backup due?"
"What!?" exclaimed Leon into the headset of his comm gear. "What do you mean, another incident? What's so big that ... never mind! If we're not getting air deployment, what have we got inbound?"
A pause, during which Daley downshifted, tapped the brakes, and guided the vehicle into a controlled skid ...
"Oh, that's just _great_, what're we supposed to do with HOLY SHIT!!!"
... before something flickered into his field of view, making him jerk the wheel further in on reflex, as well as almost get up from the driver's seat, even with the safety harness there, putting as much pressure on the brake pedal as he could.
It nearly put the car into a spin, throwing it off course and making the passenger side barely, just _barely_ miss the business suit clad woman who'd been in the process of dashing across the street.
With an unholy screech of rubber on asphalt that echoed in the concrete canyon, momentarily beyond even the wailing of the ADP Interceptor's siren, they came to a halt.
A detached part of Daley's mind noticed the smoldering wreck of a car, sitting in the distance, in the direction of where the disturbance had been reported initially.
The woman had frozen, momentary shock chiseled into her features and the expression intensified by the still flashing red and blue lights on top of the Interceptor's roof.
Then Leon, and a moment later Daley, noticed that she was no longer looking at the car, but past it, before her face shifted back into stark panic and ...
There was a flash of energy discharge, burning its way through the air, and something exploded above, before a large, familiar shape came crashing down into the ground, on the opposite side of the ADP car from the woman. No. It had tumbled out of the air, coming down trailing smoke and bits of armor, and smashed into the driver's side of the Interceptor before bouncing off with a screech and falling into a heap on the asphalt.
Daley blinked from where he'd been hauled half out of his seat by Leon, the other man's prompt and equally instinctive reaction having saved him from a serious concussion at least, seeing as the armored roof and part of the door of the Interceptor was now caved inward a fair amount.
He realized his ears were ringing. The explosion, whatever it had been, happened close enough that its concussion had rocked the then-still-intact Interceptor, and apparently thrown the sarariwoman to the ground.
The restrains of his safety harness released, even as his partner opened the passenger side door and leapt out, Earthshaker revolver at the ready and ...
... then Daley dove across the console, Leon's empty seat, and tumbled to the ground as driver's side of the Interceptor, as well as most of the roof, were blown off by a point-blank energy discharge.
Then the Earthshaker spoke, Leon up in a crouched firing stance and snapping off all three heavy .60 rounds over Daley's prone form, and into their assailant.
One skittered over armored skin, not penetrating at all due to the awkward deflection angle it had hit at. The second was better, but not by much, hitting low and penetrating - at this range, the Earthshaker's heavy anti-boomer rounds did good work to say the least - into the chest area, but apparently not causing any damage beyond the superficial. The target staggered, though, and the third shot came with a fraction of a second more of an interval, hitting the unprotected mouth cannon of the 55-C and ripping it to pieces, as well as blowing off the majority of the boomer's head on its way out.
***
With a thought, commands flashed over relays and the RPG launcher returned to idle mode.
The whole thing had seemed so simple when they'd come up with it. After all, they had a location now. He'd spent his time in overwatch position, still perched amidst the solar panels and usual rooftop kipple, while Sylvie had opted for a more immediate location.
The complex had a basement parking garage, and Millie Jackson was registered as having pulled a company car. Kiba's information was nothing if not complete, even going as far as giving that particular sedan's serial numbers, plates, and so on ...
Which they were on the lookout for. Not that the 'plan' went past 'get to Anri, and get her _out_, then get the hell out of dodge' ...
What neither of them had counted on was the duo of 55-C model combat boomers that suddenly blipped onto the scene, dropping down from the complex's roof, and ... promptly proceeding to ignore a momentarily frozen Sylvie, who'd stepped out from beneath a shadowed overhang as the sedan was in the process of pulling up to the garage doors, in favor of charging down the car.
The sedan went into reverse almost immediately, spinning around and tearing back down the way it had come, and for a moment things seemed to be _over_ just like that. The beams from boomer mouth cannons flashed.
And _missed_, tearing into buildings, carving furrows just off the car's sides ... the J-1's calculations put that so far into 'unlikely' it wasn't even funny, even as one scored a hit that didn't do much other than disabling the car.
The only plausible explanation that came to mind immediately was that they were trying for a capture, and he'd shifted his body up and into bipedal configuration, toggled the weapons online, and shifted out from underneath cover.
By the time he'd brought himself into a better firing position, though, the car was burning, its occupant - and physical readings matched what he'd expected from Anri's data - running, and the 55-Cs swooping down.
Then things had happened all at once, with an ADP car screaming its way around a corner and narrowly avoiding turning Anri into roadkill, and his own fire plans being executed with a momentary squeal of ECM and a brief painting of either boomer with laser designators.
Open season had been declared.
At five-hundred meters, the Hight Explosive rounds from his Shipunov were impacting their targets in just around half a second after leaving the barrel, with a burst of ten projectiles arriving in the span of two seconds. The anti-materiel rounds tore and shredded armor, scattering bits of one 55-C some thirty meters above street level.
The warning proved enough for it's partner to calculate trajectory and ballistic properties of the rounds, then alter its course to slip under the projected line of fire, into the shadow of the chaff that had, a moment ago, been its companion.
Which was where the concussion grenades, launched to intersect the most efficient projected evasion trajectory a few moments before the cannon had fired, caught it. It hadn't been a clean hit, though, but even at the edge of the proximity triggers' activation range the blast had been enough to throw the boomer around something fierce.
Enough to have its gyro to be knocked out of whack, literally knocking the cyberoid out of the air and into the unfortunate ADP vehicle that had slewed to a halt between Anri and the boomers.
Which was when his sensors registered unpleasantness bound to arrive soon, and - much as he'd hated to do it - he'd made a choice.
"Sylvie, we're getting out of here," he'd informed, bouncing the commo-laser from a store display and onto his partner's retina. He could see her shake her head, violently, halted in mid-step of heading towards the 55-C, the ADP car, and Anri.
Well, the ADP car and Anri, since the boomer had just lost its head ...
... considering what he'd lost it to, and optical magnification, it was damn clear who he'd lost it too as well.
"We've got at least two ADP Armored Transports inbound, possibly more on the way. We can't ..."
The remains of the ADP car were momentarily tossed up into the air, officers Wong and McNichol going for cover the moment it happened, and Anri dashing into an alley and out of sight as the crab-like, armored carapace of a Bu-12B strode onto the scene from ... _somewhere_.
This _reeked_ of an ambush, and as much as he wanted to just get Anri out, their best bet at it was gone. Too contrived, with too much of a chance of not getting out of what looked to be turning into yet another example of MegaTokyo urban warfare.
"... we're moving! The 12 hasn't made me yet only because it's busy," the ADP transports had stopped in the distance, and four K-11 suits were tearing down the street, guns blazing. The Bu-12 responded by blowing one away with its 46mm railgun and an anti-tank round before slipping back under cover itself. "And we've missed our chance. I'm sorry, damnit, but we've got to get while the getting's good!"
Sylvie stiffened, angrily looking down towards the battle and Anri's point of departure, before swearing violently - at least that was what it looked like from up there - and tearing off in the direction of their designated meeting point.
The Battlemover faded back, having shifted into quad-mode as soon as the Bu-12's presence had become apparent, and tried to be as discreet as possible in making its own way there.
The sounds of battle didn't stop until after they were well away.
***
"There goes trying to convince her to get some more rest," the young man grumbled quietly. "Again."
"What was that, Mackie?"
Apprently, not quietly enough.
"Nothing, sis. Newspaper hardcopy?"
He set the various early editions on the coffee table. Sylia had subscriptions to most, if not all, news publications in the city, and insisted on paying the extra for hardcopies in addition to getting the usual electronic format of once or twice-a-day updates. It was a bit of eccentricity he'd never quite managed to figure out, preferring to just take in the highlights of the digital versions, or having them compiled for him by the custom digest software she'd written in her spare time, a few years ago.
Of course, that bit of code had originally been meant for, and still served them well in, filtering the various popular media for even the most remotely relevant bits of information ... still, what sort of aspiring engineer would he be if he didn't find new and inventive uses for things meant to do something else.
The fact that it went through H image boards just as quickly and efficiently was just an extremely nifty bonus, in his opinion, not that he'd ever be telling Sylia about that.
In any case, the news for the day was exceedingly monothematic, and not in a good way. Getting blamed for something you didn't do was bad, in and of itself, but things like murder, arson, etc. were a whole different scale of 'bad'.
When accompanied by video evidence, in brutal technicolor, it was doubly as disquieting.
And as far as he knew, Sylia had been following up on it, as well as delegating investigative duties, ever since her alarm had gone off at four in the AM.
It figured she had the damn thing wired to go off when one of her or Nene's self perpetuating SearchBots flagged something of significant interest.
Now if only the damn thing hadn't been loud enough to get _him_ up as well.
Eh. Things looked to be quieting down, though. Or, heading more in the direction of quiet intensity, which gave him ... four more hours until Doc Raven said he wanted to get on with the garage's seasonal general overhaul. With luck, he could squeeze in a couple or three hours of sleep more ...
The doorbell chimed in, irritatingly cheerful.
... or maybe not.
'That's it,' he thought as he moved to check the vid-assembly for the flat's private elevator. 'After I'm done with the Doc, I'm getting me some earplugs.'
***
Linna and Nene had been somber, even subdued when they'd parted at the Lady633 building that afternoon, in the wake of discussing this latest, and perhaps most offensive to them as a whole, of the city's upsets.
Priss, on the other hand, had been just plain angry.
The melancholy mood she'd been in over the past few days had burned away like the morning mist in the face of the searing sun as soon as she'd caught the early news.
When the first thing you see in the morning is somebody pretending to be you splattering people across the walls, you wake up real quick.
The feeling had persisted in its intensity throughout the course of the day, going as far as to nearly make her beat her drummer like he did one of his instruments during a performance for commenting that it was good she'd gotten over whatever it was that had her lagging behind lately.
Instead she'd stormed out without another word, gotten onto her bike, and spent the rest of the day tearing across Timex, Tinsel, and now the Coastal until her ears rang and her muscles ached and she felt the burn of anger fade, bit by bit.
It wasn't gone, by any means, but she'd beaten it back for the moment, storing the excess for whenever she'd have need of it in the near future.
By then it was evening, and she was set to head back and maybe grab something to eat before getting the last lingerings of it back with a few quick riffs. Considering where she was right then, a vending machine was the best she could hope for in the immediate vicinity. Not that this was a problem. She'd had to make do with worse, back in the day.
She pulled into the deserted seaside parking lot, brought the bike to a halt, and froze upon noticing that the lot wasn't as empty as she'd thought.
Sylvie's bike sat in the shadows of the far corner, almost invisible in the twilight, its rider huddled with her back against the seaward railing and ... sleeping?
There was something about her, even though her face was mostly obscured as she sat there, nearly motionless, that spoke of a troubled time. More so than usual.
For a moment, she was tempted to start her ride back up, turn it around ... but only for a moment.
Then she dismounted, shucked her helmet, and made to approach her ...
... what was Sylvie to her?
That night, several days ago, had been emotional enough to have that particular issue fall to the wayside. The only thing Priss was certain of was that she cared for Sylvie, and vice versa ... every more definite sort of classification escaped her.
Life, she thought in a brief instant of semi-humor, had been much easier when she'd been all about revenge.
Then there was motion, and a moment of panic, and the hard ground touching her shoulder as her legs burned with the brief burst of motion, and her hand was going into her leathers to close on the butt of her gun before conscious thought actually made her pause - on one knee, and one hand, the other having half drawn her pistol.
For a second, Sylvie had been a blur of startled activity, ending up in a similar position with an automatic half-drawn from its holster in the small of her back, before she'd frozen in recognition and horrified realization.
"Oh god, Priss! I'm so sorry," the sexaroid blurted, falling back down onto her rear with a startled expression on her face. She seemed to draw into herself. "I almost ..."
"Don't worry about it," the singer replaced her weapon in its holster, picking herself up and brushing off her leathers. "Nothing happened. I've gotta say, though - didn't expect you here. Didn't expect you to be this wired, either."
"I've had a bad night," Sylvie said, quietly. "Wanted to clear my head, so I rode around and came here, and somehow ended up ..." she shrugged weakly.
Priss paused for a second at that first bit. "I sorta know where you're coming from," she finally spoke, and was tempted to leave it at that.
Sylvie was someone she cared about. Sylvie was someone who cared for her.
"D'you want to talk about it?"
        ***
END Who wants to live forever? And in the next chapter:
- more Priss and Sylvie. For some reason, it's this interaction that's hijacking my mind. Maybe I just like writing PrissWithEmotions, or something.
- what the hell was that whole Kiba/Jeena thing? Special delivery.
- Leon, Daley. The case of busted BUMA. Knight Sabers, public enemies?
- Largo loves it when a plan comes together.
- and more.
Hopefully before New Year's Eve.
-Griever
ETA: Editsu.
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm