Predictability:
The Reactor Project
The year is 2168; Jim and Kelly had volunteered for this procedure and were expecting to have it done sometime today at seven; it was supposed to be done on Jim, but the circumstances weren't going to allow it this time, sadly. The thing was Kelly was pregnant with a girl and was going through labor; this hadn't become apparent until it was far too late for an abortion (which Kelly absolutely hated even thinking about, let alone talk about it). The doctors had put her on a bed and were in the process of delivering the baby; when they had delivered the little bundle of joy, they let Kelly hold her daughter and see her for a bit.
The one thing a bit abnormal about this baby girl wouldn't become apparent until during her childhood (thus was a side effect of the drug that Kelly had taken not too long ago); after a while, she nodded to sleep with the baby lying on the sheets. It was about this time that the cart that carried the egg that contained the snake was brought right beside the bed and was left there for about twenty minutes, during which the egg had hatched and the five inch serpent had slithered onto the sheets upon catching the baby's scent.
It wasn't long before he was close to the girl and was in a position to bite and secure a telepathic connection with her (to destroy the connection the baby would have to be killed); nor is it very long before Casey bites Jenifer and says, "My name's Casey; I'm not your enemy, but I'm your friend."
The baby doesn't even know what he did, but doesn't have time to think about it whatsoever, she just knows the snake had just become her best friend ever, and she'd drop a bomb if he did get hurt (thus something extraordinary is created). It isn't long before the place is attacked and destroyed; then two people hear her crying in the ER, and they immediately wrap her up and are making a run for the north exit (the snake is in the sheets wrapped around the baby). The last thing these two siblings see is a burning building complex in the rear-view window, and something they swore to each other they weren't going to talk about for as long as they lived… even to the baby wrapped in the sheets (but boy, were they in for a surprise).
20 Years Later
It was a starry night, not exactly pitch black, but pretty well lit by the stars, and the moon, and Jen had just come across an Air-Mech factory; so she radios to Command, saying, -"Guess what I found out here in the middle of nowhere?"-. Command radios back, -"Go ahead, Spear-top, what is it?"- Jen puts her finger on the button but pauses, not exactly sure how to answer, but just when she's about to, a Spade roars overhead. Jen answers back, -"An Air-Mech factory; elimination suggestions? I was thinking an air strike, or single G-bomb using my coordinates. Command responds with a multi-missile UAV –a missile fuselage with roughly ten to twenty smaller self-propelled warheads along a center rod with a normal rocket engine at one end and a normal tipped end; the only difference is the fuselage splits in four and fans out like an umbrella– and a Gravity Bomb (one of the most destructive weapons ever created). It doesn't explode upon impact, it instead creates a small gravity warp that pulls anything within a one-hundred fifty yard radius to a point and then the small nuke that's at the center of the scrapped target goes off.
Jen just watches in happy silence, eating a bowl of popcorn over a campfire, while the bastards at the factory get their just-desserts. She then mutters, "Oh, wait…. Shit!" Jen then scrams behind an oak, just before the shockwaves hit her location. "Well, there went my lunch; at least it isn't a total loss," she says as she looks at the 300 foot wide crater in front of her. She then takes out her phone and snaps a picture of the hole her friends just made, and picks up her backpack, shoves the bowl in it and decides to head for camp. "Now, where did I put that stupid 4-wheeler?" Jen wonders, she then finds it a good twenty yards from where she parked it, (most likely due to the repercussions from the explosion). After driving for a while, Jen thinks to herself "I need a tracker for this stupid thing, given how many times it's gotten thrown around." She then just drives for a while; thinking about her childhood when things were so much easier.
"Let's see what we've got here." She then puts a blue visor over her right eye and vocally goes through and lists off what her equipment: Battle Rifle with full clip, and three hundred sixty spare rounds, a hand-held shotgun –or the equivalent of- with seventy-two five-round clips, or "discs", as they were called, and a belt of twenty grenades, five of each: normal, sticky, spikes, and fire starters. "Well, this is bound to come in handy sooner or later," Jen mutters to herself as she takes out her black and teal body suit. The armor was a light silk-like material that broke into pieces when it took enough damage (which is more than you might think); the thing is it has to be melted down to be reused after it's broken apart; the shoulder blades flex to allow the user's arms to move freely with little or no hindrance. The cool thing is the suit is as light as air; after a while Jen starts singing the lyrics to a song she used to listen to as a kid; the lyrics going like:
I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known; don't know where it goes, but its home to me, and I walk alone.
I walk this empty street on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams when the city sleeps and I'm the only one and I walk alone. I walk alone, I walk alone, and I walk alone. I walk a…
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me; my shallow heart's the only thing that's beating; sometimes I wish someone out there will find me, 'til then I walk alone. I'm walking down the line that divides me somewhere in my mind on the borderline of the edge and where I walk alone.
Read between the lines, what's messed up and everything's alright; checked my vital signs to know I'm still alive and I walk alone. I walk alone, I walk alone, and I walk alone. I walk a…
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me; my shallow heart's the only thing that's beating; sometimes I wish someone out there will find me, 'til then I walk alone. I walk alone. I walk a…
I walk this empty street on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams when the city sleeps and I'm the only one and I walk a…
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me; my shallow heart's the only thing that's beating; sometimes I wish someone out there will find me, 'til then I walk alone. I walk alone. I walk a…
What had always plagued Jen's mind was when she was just about to get her target; it manages to get away somehow. The most elusive of these targets is the doctor who created the mysterious "Reactor Project", Dr. Carter Halfway; there have been a lot of scattered witness accounts, speculation, and some denial on this project among the Resistance. Jen, however, just wants the facts…and that's exactly what she's getting.
It started with a mission briefing in the Spec Ops room on the captain's deck of the PDR (Planetary Defense Resistance) Common Sense. Jen was to go solo and do some recon and marking of Score-jet factories for neutralization by the next attacking squads. Maybe after they eliminated these stupid factories the doctor would lose his plans for the jet and would have to start over, and if that happened it would buy the Resistance the precious time it needed to perfect and finish off its crowning project: Prometheus. This would allow each soldier to bond with an animal. The bond would be a neural connection -like an A.I. and a SPARTAN II in Halo- only it would be an ultrasonic or ultraviolet wave connection, that way a soldier could talk subconsciously to their partner and vice versa. If successful, the project would allow soldiers to penetrate deep into enemy territory, and recon areas that would have been impossible to get into without tripping a security trap; it would also mean the end of the war, and the freedom of the entire solar system; the reason being we've already colonized the worlds in this galaxy; the weird thing is that the war is only in this one part of space, not exactly intergalactical, but it's bordering dangerously close to it.
It wasn't long before Jen got back to camp and stuck her Visor on the Intel Dock just inside the door; once you docked your Visor, you had to enter a unique code to detach it; that was determined by you alone. It wasn't long before the data was downloaded and processed; once downloaded, the Visor would be cleared of its information (kind of like a military debriefing), and would then be ready to snap a picture, record up to twenty minutes of video and/or audio, and whatever else seems interesting at the time. "So, how well do you think you did?" asks one of the technicians. "We'll find out right now," Jen replies. So the guys retrieve her stuff and like clockwork the code screen comes up, and Jen enters her pass: KmaDrCH. The almost black object that comes up in the bottom left corner no one notices, except Jen, who, surprisingly, doesn't say anything about it; instead just notes it and keeps watching. "Wow, you did a number on those guys, didn't you, Spear?" asked the second technician after they tallied the number of dead bodies (It's some kind of sick score keeping these two sides came up with a long time ago); the number was somewhere in the twenties or thirties. With a sly smile Jen just replies, "It was a good run, I'll say that much! I had fun, though, not in a sadistic way, if you know what I mean, right?" Still staring at the screen, the two guys just nod in agreement.
The Intel Dock beeps and out comes Jen's blue Visor, which she grabs and puts over her right eye, then recalibrates to show the reticle (which varies from weapon to weapon), what weapon she's currently (or not holding, which then it returns to a small lightly shaded red, blue, or occasionally, green "X", depending on what Visor color you've picked), ammo count, secondary weapon and its spare ammo, grenades, enhanced motion tracker (which shows someone even if they're still), and Waypoints (shown during missions). The Visor also shows a small vid feed when talking to another person in the same squad (if you're talking to someone outside, it only relays audio). When the reticle is red, it indicated enemies, green indicated allied forces, and blue indicated neutrals. There's also a small number just below the reticle to indicate how far (in feet, or meters, depending on your settings) the target is, which is helpful in combat situations (it also shows up in the zoom view as a small red number in the top center just below the compass, if your reticle is trained on a particular waypoint/target or person, the thing is, if you're using a scoped weapon the number is where it usually is, just below the reticle), and some weapons will let you can zoom in by using a button on the rifle if one was available (like the Battle Rifle, sniper, M6D pistol, Sun sniper, a shoulder-mounted laser cannon, or the heat-seeking dual rocket launcher). If used correctly, they're devastating for the enemy.
After all the info is downloaded and analyzed Jen states, "I think I'll go out to the firing range and see what I'm missing in terms of aim." The first techie replies, "Okay, just don't do anything stupid, or you're gonna regret it, got that?" Jen retorts, "I'm not exactly a kid any more, am I? I think that merits some freedom." With that, she picks up her BR and heads out to the range. When she finally gets to the range, she finds a few grenades, and decides to go through the simulator. "Level 1: Training. Map: has no vehicles, with an open area, close to medium range; randomize enemies, and hazards. Have twenty-two random weapon drop spots, the weapons are as follows, though random: Max Grenades, all types, BR and ammo, SMGs, three Sun guns, brute pistol ammo, four drop shields, and randomize the rest." This is what Jen used for her personal training level, and sometimes it would go up to level 5, but that reserved for the tough missions she would go on with the other guys; on some occasions she would work level 2, but she didn't have that instinctual feeling that something was coming so she just takes it easy whenever possible. All of a sudden Jen just got really angry and started shooting everything or everyone in sight. The guy that came up behind her got a shot in the head by her pistol; the next one got shot in the eye, and was withering on the ground in pain. Another unlucky person got a grenade in the stomach hiding behind cover… One guy even got shot through the mouth from ten yards away. All in all it was a clean cut in terms of how good she did. The simulator was a good way to let off some steam after a really upsetting, and most of the time, violent and often bloody event.
It was really strange when these bursts of anger would appear, because Jen never knew when they would crop up; the reason being, it seemed, she didn't know who her parents were. They were like a taunting dream in the back of her mind or a memory just out of reach. Most just assumed the fact that she didn't know who her parents were was what caused the anger spells, and it seemed to make sense to everyone else so that was the general theory. So Jen made all her BR clips magnetic, and when she wasn't using it, she ejected the clip and stuck it on the left side of the stock, once it was attached though, she had to slide it down then slip it up to refill her ammo, and she always made sure her main clip was full before restocking her rifle (she liked the large diameter rounds); the way it would work when she went through an anger spell was she would hit the eject button at the same time she would target someone, just to make sure she didn't kill them in the process, and it had become almost habitual for her, depending on the situation. In a large fire-fight though, it had its advantages; thus it was code named Jen's Kamikaze Mode. The protocol was Jen would scream out, "Get down!" Everyone would hit the ground and all hell would break loose; by the end, there would be a lot of blood, guts, and screaming. Once it was over Jen would then yell, "We're in the clear!" and everyone would get right back up; during every firefight this would happen at least once, and there was one fight it happened seven times. Let's just say it was pretty effective. The only thing against it would be no one knows when she'll go ape-shit and someone gets a broken arm, but that's already been remedied.
After she got out of the simulator and with a satisfied smile on her face, Jen mutters, "Well, that one lasted longer than I thought, but okay." Then her face completely drains of all color when she remembers what she was supposed to be doing. Yeah, it was a good run, but she didn't remember there was supposed to be a new unveiling of a new weapon today sometime around 5:00 p.m., and she had completely forgot about it; so she basically runs down and jumps on her "Mongoose" and slams the pedal down and runs down to the old barn that served as a café and stage for events such as this.
It took a good ten minutes to drive there, and a few people were irritated that Jen was a bit late, but she hadn't missed much; all it was a speech and they were just about to reveal it with someone saying, "…and it is my pleasure and privilege to reveal to you the Exosuit prototype!" It was definitely something to behold. It did have the proportions right for being humanoid, though. Now the thing was that the group that made this bot hadn't tested it, and the announcer had full knowledge of this, and with that, he said, "Now, before any of you get your hopes up, there's one thing I have to mention to you: this hasn't been fully tested. The group that made it couldn't find a willing volunteer to pilot it; so, I'm asking anyone of you to step forward and take that chance. So, who will it be?" Now this had everyone's attention, and no one was sure if they wanted to risk it, but after a little thought, Jen raised her hand and in a no-bullshit tone said, "I'll do it!" and with that everyone parted to allow her to pass to the front of the crowd and step onto the stage. The thing was, every-one there was fully aware of Jen's so-called "Kamikaze Mode", and that combined with this enormous machine would be devastating, especially given how many times it happens during a firefight.
Once she got up on the stage and introduced herself, the man's face just drains of all color and Jen takes note of it and just stands there with a bit of a smile on her face; the man finally comes around and introduces himself as Henry Falconer, and he states, "You sure you want to give it a go?" Jen replies, "Do you see anyone else up here that wants to do this?" Mr. Falconer replies, "Good point, let's get started shall we? Just say 'Exosuit Activate!' and the pilot sphere will open up then the mech will move to a kneeling position and its hand will come down; then just get inside." Without a word Jen nods and says the phrase as instructed and, just as Henry said, the mech knelt down and its hand came down to the ground, palm up.
Once Jen is inside the pilot sphere, a ring with a rubbery disc came down on her and she guessed it was the interface suit, which was correct, it was, but the thing was you could only have on a swim suit or underwear on at best, which was the computer said as soon as the doors had closed; so Jen did so, and it came down and the suit was extremely form-fitting. "Damn, this is hard to… get on!" Jen exclaims as the suit forms on her. After the suit is on and the computer checks the basics in terms of body functions and it all checks out fine, the computer asks, "Do you want a demonstration?" Jen then answers yes since she has no clue what just happened. After getting her bearings on her surroundings, she finally notices she's basically blind with no way to see on the outside, and says, "How can I see outside?" The computer responds with a 360-degree screen around Jen and it shows everyone in the crowd along with the person who revealed the Exosuit. "Okay, 'this is way beyond cool'!" Jen exclaims, quoting Sonic- an old show she used to watch a long time ago.
The screen then shows a list of commands that shows how to operate the suit. It operated on a mobile trace system that tracks the body's movements and mimics them; so, in short, the suit does what the pilot does (So, yeah, the crowd has very legitimate reason to be nervous about this scenario, if you can picture it.). After thinking on something for a bit, Jen finally figures out how to operate the jetpack. The next thing she can't figure out is the weapons system, so she asks the computer, "Show me the weapon commands." On the screen to the left of the default commands is the weapons system list. After looking for a bit, she finally finds the command for a BR scaled to the mech; "Oh, yeah! I could definitely do some damage with that!" Jen explains, and then Henry turns to the crowd, "Now can everyone please go outside for the demonstration." With that everyone then files out the doors and the barn gate, with Jen just behind them in the mech.
Once everyone is outside the demo really gets underway with Jen showing them how well the machine performs basic movements. The next thing Jen shows them how she uses the mech battle rifle which is a sight to behold. After the show is done and Jen got out with her suit still on, she says, "Okay, how do I take this off?" Upon seeing her in the suit a lot of cat calls go up from a lot of the guys in the crowd; upon hearing this, Jen adds, "See? I don't like being in the spotlight of things like that!" Henry responds with, "Okay, just tear it off, but not here. It comes off if you run some water on it." Jen nods and heads for the rest rooms. Once in, she thinks to herself, "Okay, got a second set of clothes, and he said to run some water on the suit and it'll come off." So she runs water over the suit and it peels away from her like dead skin. After she cleaned the suit off herself and threw it down the drain (which is a good idea.) she came out of the rest-rooms; the first person she sees sends chills up her spine for a moment.
"Well, it's been a while hasn't it, Jen?" a guy says as he walks up to her. Jen responds, "I guess it has been a while, James." After regaining her composure she adds, "What have you been up to since training?" With a bit of a grin on his face, James says, "Oh, nothing much; it's just the usual crap. A few assassination missions here, a bit of bombing there. You know the same stuff since grad." Jen thinks on this a bit; then all of a sudden she's just about to beat him and James steps back with a "WTF did I do?" look on his face, and Jen almost immediately pulls back saying, "I guess it's not your fault then…" James then realizes he hadn't talked to the girl in over five years. "Hey, I know I haven't been talking to you in a long time, and you have a right to hit me, but the thing is I just got stationed somewhere else." Jen then thinks back to military school graduation and it finally hits her that James was moved from the PDR Grand Canyon, which was where he was stationed on just after military grad. Jen then runs right into James and traps him in a hug, which is highly uncharacteristic of her normal behavior, but it made sense given the circumstances; she hadn't seen him in five long years and here he was standing in front of her like nothing had changed. James then asks in a kidding tone, "So, do you know where I'm staying tonight, or do I have to go solo and camp out on this?" Jen then gives him a "Are you fucking kidding me?!" look that clearly said he was staying in her bunk that night with her (and her squad, no doubt). After figuring she wanted him to stay with her, he says, "Okay, I just need to get my stuff and when we get to the bunk I'll tell everything I can, or what you want to hear, okay?" "Okay, let's go!" an ecstatic Jen explains, dragging him toward the vehicle depot (which is where you're supposed to park by default, unless otherwise told by a commanding officer).
After James' stuff is brought into the "Can" (which is what most of the guys call the barracks), he gets himself situated on the bed beside Jen and begins to tell his story. "The ship had come under attack and we were moving like hell to counter, but since we were the ones with the plans, we, or our captain decided we were gonna 'suicide' the ship, in other words: turn it into a bomb… and we did. I was the last one out since I set the timer for seven and a half minutes. I got to the pod just in time with my load-out, a small suitcase of clothes and a picture. It was awhile until we located each other, but we had a hell of a time trying to get to one another, although we could still talk over the radio; so it wasn't too bad, I guess." He pauses, trying to think through something in his mind, which Jen then asks, "Then what happened; how did you get to your buddies?" James then gets his thoughts straight, and answers, "I was just getting to that. The thing was our pods were magnetic, so we just thought 'get close enough to magnetize, and we can then maneuver around'; so some of us (not including me) tried to dock with a bud and it worked out pretty well. The thing I like is the fact that something was apparently helping us. I don't remember what it looked like exactly, but it was long and had a stripe of diamonds down its back; that's how I saw it in the first place." Jen then thinks on this a bit, she starts to think back to when she used to have a pet snake, but had to let it go due to "No pets allowed on base" when she moved to where she is now. "No, that can't be him! I mean, could it? It's been so long since he left… and that wasn't even his fault. I really hope he can forgive me for that." Jen thinks to herself. "You sure it had a diamond stripe pattern down the body, Jim?"
It takes him a second to think it over, and then he responds with, "Yeah, now that I think about it, I'm sure it had a diamond stripe down the body; like I said… I'm sure it was the thing that was helping us, but I have no clue how it found us… unless it was onboard the ship with us, and decided to go solo and help the less fortunate of the crew." Jen then draws in a sharp breath, realizing exactly who it was. "It is him! Casey, did you still try to get close to me when you knew it would be hazardous to you? You haven't changed at all after all these years then." A chill went up Jen's spine when she started thinking about it; James took notice of it, and asked, "Was it something I said?" Jen then assaults him with a barrage of kisses, and then hugs him for the second time that day. "Did it follow you when you guys started off for another ship, or did you see it at all after that?" For a second James pauses, trying to think back to when he and the crew were trying to get to another ship, and he had taken leadership of the crew and gotten them to the closest ship there was: The Infidel. James then says, "Yeah, now that I think about it, the Diamond Snake had attached itself to my pod right on the window. When we did dock with Infidel it then went on its merry way…" Then seeing the look on Jen's face, he then quickly adds, "…it did get on the ship though. It and my pod were inside the hatch when the snake finally detached, and I could've sworn it had looked at me and waved back, and that's how we ended up here."
Jen then says to him, "I guess you're wondering why I'm questioning you about the snake, right?" James then answers back, "Yes, I would like to know that. You seem… inquisitive about it; now you have to tell me why this snake is so important to you, from the looks of it; since I told you my story." Jen then takes a deep breath to calm her mind down a bit before she starts her story. "So, you know when I had a pet snake and I had to kill it because of the rule 'No pets on base', right?" James nods, thinking back to when they were inducted into the Resistance. She continues with, "Well, I let him go…" James then gives her a look that plainly says "What the hell were you thinking?!" Jen answers, "I know what you're thinking: 'Why did you let a poisonous snake out in the wild '? Well… I've known him a long time, and the thing is… people tend to stereotype a lot of things, snakes included. The thing with Casey is he has human feelings like you or me, or the guy in the bunk on top of you. Which is why I tell people: 'He's not a normal snake' he's just a bit misunderstood, but that doesn't stop him from doing what he does." James then cuts in saying, "Wait a sec, you're telling me that snake I saw was your pet Casey?" Jen nods, a smile on her face. She then continues with, "Yeah, the funny thing is I can talk with him and vice versa. I remember him telling me he could move around in space once; I thought he was kidding, but when you told me about that incident where you were trying to get close to your crew it made sense that he wasn't kidding whatsoever."
Just then she got that age old feeling in her body that she could never forget, not that she wanted to, and voice said, "Haven't seen you for a long time, Jen. How have things been?" Jen then says back, "How did you find me… I mean, you got in that ship and…" The voice then responds, "I just followed your friend here, and here he leads me to someone I haven't seen in over ten years, but it seems nothing's changed; which is good." Jen then turns to the entrance and right there is her long lost friend. "Casey, you've gotten a lot longer, but you're still the same. James told me so. You helped his crew form the halo and get back to another ship; you can move around in dead space with nothing but a thought." Casey then moves over closer to Jen and James, and says, "That, and I used my tail and the pods' gravity to move on an intercept course to the other pods… once I found out what they were trying to do; you know full well I can intercept radio chatter as well as a real radio can listen to it, Jen."
Jen thinks back to when she and Casey were young. They would usually try to pull some outrageous prank on Jen's foster parents when they were on their free time. "Damn, those were good times." Jen thinks to herself. Meanwhile James is watching with the utmost fascination with this new development in front of him. He can't understand what they're saying to each other but just by the expression on Jen's face he can kind of understand what's going on with these two. Jen then asks Casey, "Can you sing Desert Rose to me for old time's sake, please? It's been so long since I've heard that one." Casey then nods, and plays the song a couple of times, and then jumps -or the snakes' equivalent of- on Jen, and just lightly squeezes her all over. Jen then tells James that it's okay, that's just how Casey hugs someone. "Okay, so what did you do while you were away, because you know how far you got then I couldn't talk to you; after that I just assumed you went on an exploratory mission to somewhere; so, how the HELL did you end up in space with James?"
Casey then pauses, not sure how to answer. "Casey, if you can't say it now you can always talk to me later about it." He then responds, "No, it's not that, it's just that the events are bit fuzzy in my mind, and I remember the pods, but I can't exactly remember how I ended up… Oh, that's right. I went looking for a good place to find some rodents to eat, and somehow I end up in a crate. You know how hard it is to contain me when I'm not in a complying mood, right? Well, these guys were trying to get me into this crate, and I was still in a state of confusion about it." Jen then gives this some thought, then asks, "You only incapacitated them, didn't you?" Casey nods then continues, "Yes, I only incapacitated them. The thing was that they still got me in that crate, and after that I don't remember what happened. When I did get out of that damn thing I found myself on a ship; I guess I was on James' ship, because I knew it was gonna blow and I could sense a ticking in the command center of the ship, so I made for the pods, and got stuck in between the capsule and the hatch doors, so I figured I might as well help these guys out, and like I said, I intercepted their radio chatter, went to the two closest pods, and pushed them together and then let the pods' gravity take over." Jen just stares at him in absolute disbelief for a second, then asks, "How can you function in space, you would have blown into a balloon and went 'BOOM' almost instantly." Casey, expecting this question, then answers, "That's what everyone thinks, but I'm not normal as you always used to tell people. The thing is I can create a gravity field to contain my body in its natural shape; thus I can move around normally, or as normally as you can move in space." Jen just stares at him for a sec in sheer shock, thinking he's on then grabs her Visor and says to him, "Well, how do you like it? I custom ordered it and I also ordered one for you; I had a few different sight settings set on it; just set it to how you want it. Mine's blue; yours is red."
Jen sets the Visor on Casey's head, and then switches through the vision settings to show which ones he can use; Casey then settles for the standard vision setting (HCV/Human Color Vision). The next setting she shows him is the Motion Tracker (standard/ enhanced) setting, with Casey choosing the standard tracker, just so he can catch someone moving and tell Jen to follow them with her scope (and since she has the enhanced tracker). The third setting she shows him is the weapons setting: Top Left, Top right, Bottom Left, Bottom right; after giving it some thought, Casey picks the Top right setting for old time's sake because he loved to watch Jen tear it up in a console game called Halo that she used to play as a kid; after she's set Casey's Visor, he asks, "Okay, so now that you've set my 'scouter' for me, what is it exactly?" Jen then tells him about the Dragon Ball Z Namek saga. "Oh, so I guess it's called something different then." Jen nods at that. "Yeah, it's called a Visor." Casey then asks, "Okay, so you couldn't decide on a design for personal HUDs, and so when you saw the Ginyu Force with the scouters, you decided to use that basic design; the exception being mine, because it looks like Robo-Cop's helmet? And you used Halo 3's HUD, minus the shielding meter, which in its place you put the Reach health bar.
She then answers, "Pretty much; it's had its shining moments. Which, by the way, my Kamikaze mode has been going off more often lately, which isn't necessarily a good thing, I don't think." Casey gives this some thought, and then responds, "I would agree; if I'm following you correctly, Kamikaze mode just means those bursts of anger you get from time to time that you can't control. I've seen firsthand what you're capable of during that time; it's not pretty." Jen just nods her head; then Casey, just to tease her, plays Dangerous by Akon, and man, does she hate that song! The thing is Casey does spontaneous things like this just to get her mind off of crap like her Kamikaze mode or her troubles in general, and it usually works. Meanwhile, James just sneaks out the door to give them time to get reacquainted.
Jen then explains, "Yeah, that's the codename for it. The counter protocol I came up with works pretty well; the way it works is if it catches me off-guard I just hit the eject button on my battle rifle and the clip harmlessly hits the floor. It's something that everyone is made aware of when they come on base. The fire-fight protocol is a bit different: I'll scream 'Get down!' which signals everyone to hit the ground immediately, and if they don't hear it, they'll see it, then those guys will hit the ground and lay on their stomachs until I call out, 'All clear'; the reason being it looks like they're already dead, so I overlook them, and basically kill anyone still standing. So basically I call out; they play dead and anyone who doesn't comply is killed almost immediately.…"
"Okay, so you want something to eat? I'm sure you're hungry right now." Casey just opens his mouth (with no fangs) as wide as Jen's hand width to indicate "Yes; feed me, please." She then lets him get on her shoulders and wrap around her torso, and then leaves for the rec hall. It takes a good ten minute walk to get there and then another five to get something to eat; meanwhile, the room goes dead quiet when everyone who sees the little spectacle stares slack jawed at Jen, and with good reason (Wouldn't you, if you saw a girl with a snake in a position to kill her just sit on her shoulders wrapped around her body, and it looked like it was smiling?). To Jen, it's as normal for her as food is important for survival; to everyone else, it's just not exactly right. Casey just looks at everyone, and memories come back from when he and Jen were young, and they would do a lot of seemingly stupid things. Jen just smiles and goes about getting a plate of food for herself and Casey while everyone else just stares in stunned silence. The only person who isn't staring in the room is James, who's sitting contentedly eating a burger with cheese. Jen spots him and goes over to sit by him and Casey unwraps himself from Jen and sits in a coil on her left with a plate of what some people would certainly call a pile of shit –which is just a pile of dead rats Jen caught earlier that day via some very useful traps, but didn't know what to do with– but Casey just calls it lunch.
Jen then says to James, "Don't worry, he eats it pretty fast; which is a good thing considering how fast those carcasses rot." James responds, "Well, that's a good thing; I was thinking of who it was in that mech, though. Do you know who it was?" Jen just smiles and doesn't say anything; James then gets that "Yes, it was me" vibe from her and then says, "You have got to be joking, how was it you in that suit? You could've had a Kamikaze attack!" "Well, no one else wanted to get in an untested machine and risk losing more than a limb apparently, so I stuck my hand up." Casey then looks at Jen, not quite following the line of conversation; he then asks her, "What are you talking about?" Jen just tells him, "It's just a big-ass robot you can control. What James is saying is that I could've had a Kamikaze attack." Casey's response, "…What the hell were you thinking volunteering for that?" Jen says back to him, "Like I said, no one else was going to, so I thought 'Why not?' At the time it seemed like a good idea." Casey and James then look at each other; James then asks, "I'm gonna guess that Casey was asking what possessed you to volunteer for that demonstration; if so, then I agree with him; what were you thinking?" Jen then looks at her plate, and answers, "Well, that's pretty much what he said; I just told him what I was going to tell you, but you kind of beat me to the punch, so all I'm gonna say is no one else was going to, and I was wondering what it would be like to pilot one of those Exosuits, so like I've said for the third time, I stuck my hand up." Casey then starts playing Dangerous again, and Jen gives him a "Shut the f%&# up!" look, and he then plays "There is no Plan", with his head down, just to see the look on Jen's face, and for the heck of it.
Just when they're about to get up to trash the leftovers, someone runs in screaming, "They're here! Get the mobile turrets; they're here!" and without warning he falls to the ground with a hole in his upper back, and is dead almost immediately. "Here we go again, you bastards." Jen mutters under her breath, "James, go get your load-out, and hurry, we don't have much time; the 'bots'll be here in no time." James just nods and runs for it to the barracks to get their weapons. "Casey, just do what you best; be an annoying pain in the ass for these guys." Casey doesn't need telling twice about situations like this, and when it comes to fights, he's the best at neutralization simply because he possesses a venom that just knocks anyone out cold, and he knows how to use it, too. It's just sad no-one knows how he's gotten as powerful and smart as he is, or where he came from. The sad thing these guys were trying to replicate this same thing, and it usually ended in someone losing either a limb or their life, or both, unfortunately.
When Jen and Casey get outside, they're met with a force of hundreds of soldiers; all of a sudden Jen gets a feeling like someone just died. "James, you had better get back here, quickly!" Casey then bites the soldiers as fast as he can, trying to buy time for James to get back. Jen then hears her name called out and rushes in the direction of the cry, leaving Casey to deal with the squads. "Okay, here you go, Jen; these are yours." James says as he hands her BR and Brute pistol to her, along with the ammo for them, and Jen puts her Visor on and syncs it with Casey's and James' Visors allowing her to get a visual on what they're doing for the most part. She then asks Casey, "Can you tell how much farther the Visors increase our connection? It'll be exceptionally helpful during combat, in case we lose visual contact with each other." Casey then answers back, "Yes, this is much farther than normal. Do you think you could send me a visual on where you are? I've already dealt with these sorry assholes." Jen then sends him a video of where she is, and he immediately speeds for her position. It takes about ten minutes for Casey to get there just in time to see a bunch more soldiers swarm the joint, so he takes them out about as quickly as he did the last group.
James then remarks, "Wow, he really knows where their weak points are if he can take them down so quickly." Jen replies, "He's been doing it since he and I were little, and he knows how much to use on some-one; even when I was in trouble, being picked on or just being laughed at, he was kind of protective of me; he would hiss at the perpetrator and most of the time they backed off, but when they didn't he would bite, or at least psych them out, making them think he would bite them. It was a mystery to everyone I stayed with when I got sick, and then I would be as good as new in an hour or two, and a lot of my foster parents took me to see a doctor, but they didn't have any idea what kept me healthy; the thing was Casey's venom was like an antidote for every disease or internal injury I got, but it would put anyone else to sleep, like napping, but he always did it when we were alone. The way he did was he would wait beside me, and when everyone was gone, he would bite near the spot that was injured or infected. I never thought much of it; I just wish people would stop getting uptight about it." It takes James a second to respond, "Wow that was a mouthful; even for you."
Jen just nods; suddenly there's a huge explosion and she gets a knot in her stomach and instantly screams, "Get down!" Any and everyone who hears her cry immediately hit the ground and Casey, snaps to intercept her and wraps around her torso and just sits there until it's over, sometimes spitting on a soldier or two. It's not very long before the attacking battalion realizes it's the Kamikaze they're dealing with; so the leader orders a retreat because of said kamikaze. The battle only lasts ten minutes against Jen; two hours against the Resistance, which is just sad, but to Jen it lasts an eternity almost, and the one thing that tamed this unspeakable act was a voice in her head. Casey then squeezes only enough to snap Jen back to reality, because she basically becomes "an uber-unit in Halo Wars". "It's all right, calm down; they ran from you within a sixth of the time the other guys ran them off, it's okay, Jen." Casey explains upon squeezing her. It takes only a second for Jen to realize that she just ran off an entire battalion and plus some off within ten minutes. "How bad was it? Did I get more of them than I did last time, or was it an enchilada?" Casey and Jen had this one code word they always used right after she had just gone through an episode. Casey then responds, "You only took out half the enchilada this time, Jen; it was a surprise attack; that's what made you snap a little more stiffly than normal, but you're okay now." Jen then decides to head back to the barracks and rest for a bit, but that's easier said than done.
It isn't long before she gets to the barracks, but when she does she finds a note saying she needs to report to the main briefing room for a mission objective and protocol. "Damn, it's the end of a fucking defensive battle and I still haven't fully recovered from my episode. Well, okay, might as well; I don't have anything else to do." She mutters under her breath. When she turns around, at the same time slipping the BR on her back, she sees Casey slither in, and then lets him wrap around her torso as was the protocol when they needed to get somewhere quickly. It only takes them ten minutes to get there on the 4-wheeler and another five to get to the briefing room; when they do get there someone in an almost black suit says, "Okay, now everyone's here; so, let's get started with this: Everyone turn and look at the holo-table in front of you. You should see a building that looks like a round bunker that's twenty feet tall and 200 feet in diameter." One of the soldiers steps forward and asks, "Is this where we'll hit the doc's prize project, Commander?" The black suited man answers, "Yes, corporal, this is where you'll hit the hardest. You all will be split into three teams: Team A: Lt. Jen and her companion Casey, I believe?" He turns to see Jen with Casey wrapped around her torso, which was typical when they had to come in on short notice; Jen nods. "Okay, like I said Team A: Lt. Jen, Casey, Corp. James Macintyre, recruit Kevin, and Cpt. Baltimore. You will be responsible for infiltrating the compound and neutralizing the doctor's reactor. Team B: Cpt. Henry Dalton, Harry Utilitarian, Kelly Teresa, and Thomas Asher. You will be responsible for providing cover fire for Team A. Team C will be the rest of you that I didn't call out; you'll engage and neutralize the ground soldiers using medium/long ranged and power weapons. You all will rendezvous at the same coordinates away from the complex after the building is destroyed. Your extraction options are as follows: The first option is send a flare and a PX-17 Drop-ship will evacuate your team from that position. Option Two: Have a few Troop Transports and Mobile Turrets dropped and you and your team will drive to a second set of coordinates, and option one will take effect; any questions?" No one says a word, and after a minute or two the general says, "No? Then, attention!" then everyone snaps to, and respond, "Sir, yes, Sir!" The general then asks, "Everyone here knows the Kamikaze Protocol, and what happens if it's not followed, correct?"
Everyone responds, "Sir, yes, Sir!" The general then dismisses the troop and they split up and fall out to gear up for the assault. "I guess we'll be dropping in since he didn't say how we get there. That's usually what he expects when we get briefed on a mission." Jen says to James when they're in the armory. James just nods his head. "Is something troubling you; you're never this quiet, so what's up?" Casey asks her as Jen loads up on her supplies and armor. It takes Jen a second to respond, "I was just thinking about when I was a kid… you were always there to calm me down; even when I was a baby you were always just a little protective of me; even when someone tried to get close to me. I just keep thinking about when you had to leave; I still regret seeing you leave. It feels like I'm a kid again around you." Casey just gives it a little thought before jumping on Jen and giving her a hug.
James just stares at the little spectacle in front of him for a sec, and then says, "I don't think I'll ever get used to that… a snake wrapped around someone's torso." Jen just gives him a smile and hands him a BR. It only takes him a second to get his spare ammo and grenades in their respective spots and he says, "Well, come on we need to get to the drop pod chutes." On the way to the chutes Casey starts playing 'Bleed it Out', and Jen replies to him saying, "Yup, sometimes it does feel like I'm going out of my fucking mind at times; especially given how many times I've gone on possibly suicidal missions and come back with no more than a bruise." James just smiles to himself after listening to her comment. Jen catches him and, a little sarcastically, says, "What? It's true; I do, and most of the time it's usually me that has to go inside and do the bullshit no one else wants to. What does that tell you about them?" James gives her a Vita-chew and just says, "That's not saying much; I can say that." Casey then asks Jen, "I'm going with you; I want to see how bad you can make it for them with a lot of firepower." Jen then gives him his Visor and says, "Okay, just get your spit ready then when we hit the ground, 'cause we'll hit the ground running." The pod is about eight feet tall and three to four feet wide; just big enough for two weapons, spare ammo, grenades, and enough wiggle room for one person (or in this case, a person and a snake).
Jen then takes the battle rifle off her back magstrip and puts it on the strip beside the pod chair and puts her brute pistol right below it, with the ammo in the same configuration on the other side of the chair. It takes about five minutes to get the weapons and their ammo in the right spots since the grenades are supposed to be put in special removable cases for storage right below the weapon ammo. The next thing she does is get her suit on by basically forcing herself through the head and shoulder holes at the same time.
Jen then proceeds to explain to Casey how the drop pod works, saying, "I guess it's self-explanatory where the weapons, ammo, and soldier sit, so I'll just cut to the chase: I'll sit there in the seat with you on my lap. When we do hit the ground you'll hit those two switches on the left and I'll hit those two on the right; make sense?" Casey nods, and she continues, "You'll then wrap around me as you usually do when we're in a hurry then when I say so, jump off me and just have at it, and give them hell; like you did earlier. Okay on that?" Casey then thinks it over for a second and then answers, "Okay, when you get in I'll jump on your lap and that's until we hit the ground; then I'll hit the switches on the left and you'll hit the ones on the right. Next, I'll wrap around your torso until you give me the signal, then I'll unwrap and have at it like I did during the surprise assault today; is that how you said it?" Jen then says yes and she straps in, with Casey on her lap and waits for the signal to drop. Jen looks at Casey and asks, "Are you ready for the drop? It feels like an elevator that lost its towing cable, but it's not so bad once you get used to it. It'll be fun once you do; just make sure you're expecting it, otherwise it'll take your stomach right out from under you. It did that to me the first few times I went on a drop, and I'll tell you right now: it was not fun whatsoever." Casey just smiles and sits there on her lap contentedly. After a minute he asks, "When was the last time you went on a drop?" It takes Jen a second to answer this question ironically because of how many drops she's been on. It takes her a second to answer, "It was a recon mission on marking factories. I even called in a gravity bomb on one, too. Although, the guys ruined my lunch… and I don't like it when someone ruins my lunch. You of all beings should know that." Casey just nods and reminisces about those days when they were just the odd pair out of the bunch at the schools they used to go to. It always scared everyone a little that they always saw her with Casey, and they would say she was some kind of freak (but most of the time when someone did spread a rumor about her Casey would just tell her to let people think what they wanted, and it worked out pretty well considering how many people Casey had bitten).
It wasn't long before the Common Sense was over the target complex's coordinates. At the same time a computer voice says, "Prepare to drop to specified coordinates; push green button to confirm." Jen then presses said blinking button and the pod shakes and buffers a bit then the feeling that Jen mentioned earlier settles in Casey's center causing him to wrap around Jen's legs, to which she simply says, "Told you, it takes your stomach from you." Casey just stares at her. When they do pull out of the pod socket Casey just stares at the window in front of him in awe. "It's certainly a sight to behold isn't it, Casey?" Jen asks him after a second. Casey responds, "I don't think I've ever seen the planet from this view before." Jen then starts humming a tune she heard a long ago. "…and you think there's not enough love and no one to give it to." Casey joins in on, "…So you say you're not gonna fight, because no one will fight for you…"
Pretty soon they've momentarily forgotten about the situation and Casey's stomach finally settles down. After they've sang the lyrics to Robot Boy they find themselves on the ground. "Okay, so hit on three, Casey; one…, two…, three!" Both of them hit a synced execution of removing the pod door and Casey wraps around Jen's torso as planned and she sets off to find James' pod. It's not too long before they find the stupid thing not too far from where they dropped. Jen then puts her Visor on and assesses James' pod condition given it's still sealed. -"James, are you alright? I'm not getting your signal."—She says into the channel. It takes a minute for James to respond, -"The pod switches are busted; I can't get out of this thing! Can you burst-fire on the door, Jen? Maybe that'll get the door dislodged enough for me to kick it off and get out."- All he hears is gunfire coming from outside… and a grenade, of all things! Jen then answers, -"Okay, I'm gonna try another grenade, and when you see the pod door slip, you kick it."- She then tosses a sticky grenade on the door from about twenty yards away from the pod. All they hear is a loud boom, and metal on metal scraping. James then kicks the door and it slips a bit, so after a few good kicks the stupid door finally pops off and he emerges, unharmed by the sticky.
Jen then walks over to him with Casey still wrapped around her like a rope and states, "How the hell did you get imprisoned in that stupid thing, anyway?" James then goes a little red, and says, "Well, that's for me to know and you to find out." Jen then gives him her famous "Are you fucking kidding me?!" look and just hits him on the arm saying, "Come on, we need to find the rest of the squad, and get the hell over to the complex, blow it up, run to the coordinates and boot it." James just complies and follows her. It doesn't take long for them to find the other pods and get to the complex. They had all agreed to scare the guards with something scaly, which would imply Casey had to do it; which he complied for the most part. It went pretty smoothly considering how loud the guards were being, especially given that they were fighting an extremely agile, fighting savvy; thin, but exceptionally smart snake. The end result wasn't pretty to say the least.
It doesn't take very long for Casey to do his job, and the reason being he just bites them on their ankles; so when he does get back to the squad he tells Jen, "I don't know how long they'll be out, so we need to get in and blow it, get out and scram before they even know we're here." Jen nods, and basically says the same thing to the rest of the team. They all agree to storm the joint and go quietly to the bottom floor and see what they're up to inside. It doesn't take long for them to surround the entrance and hack the electronic lock on it. -"Okay, let's go and kick their asses all the way to hell and back, guys."- Jen says over their com channel.
It takes the squad about ten minutes to make it to the bottom of the complex and make it to the balcony, only to see something they had feared since rumors started floating around. Right smack in front of them is a sphere encased in what looks like three or four spinning rings, all on a different axis. Jen then spots a man beside the machine and for some reason gets a weird, but familiar feeling in her stomach; so she asks Casey, "…get my battle rifle and load it with stun rounds, like your venom, and hurry, I don't know how long I can hold it in suppression." Casey then taps James on the shoulder, and sends him a typed message saying, "Can you reload Jen's battle rifle with stun rounds, and quickly, before she goes into an episode?" James nods and doesn't say a word as he takes Jen's battle rifle and reloads it with a clip of just a few stun rounds. "Thanks, James." Jen says as she takes aim and steadies herself on the railing. James just smiles to himself. Jen then takes a deep breath, steadies herself on the railing; targets the man and fires.
The nasty little secret they were hiding was that the reactor was about to be finished, but since the man responsible for entering the codes to stop the overload process had been effectively knocked unconscious it was only a matter of time. The monitor had an infrared sensor that, if it was broken before the codes were entered, would sound a silent alarm… and that's exactly what happened. It wasn't even five minutes and the guards had already stormed the room and were looking for the sniper.
Jen, after holding herself back for the longest time in her life, let it go… and there was no holding back; she screams, "Get down!"; James decides to screw the whole thing and get rid of as many guards as he can. The only thing that stops him is that instinct to hit the ground until Jen finishes her reign of a massacre on the defending forces. The other thing he sees is Casey going at it like it was his last fight. "Damn, he's really pissed about something." James mutters under his breath as his training kicks in and automatically reloads his rifle, ready for the idiots to start running when they realize fighting Jen in her Kamikaze mode is like fighting a Cybertronian with nothing but rocks… it's not a very good picture.
All of a sudden the reactor starts to whir and brighten up like the sun. James then signals to everyone in the squad to, quote, "Get the hell out of here!" The rest of the squad responds in nanoseconds and is ready to get to the door, armed with rifles, grenades, and most lethal of all… rockets. -"Jen, you need to get the hell out of here! The damned thing's gonna blow any minute now!"- James says into his radio. His response is: -"She can't hear you; once she goes into it, she can't come out of it by choice. She has to let it run its course and then she'll be back to her normal self."- James just stops dead in his tracks. –"Casey, how are you talking to me? I thought you could only talk to Jen, and even then, only telepathically."- Casey then races to him and transmits, -"This Visor is the only way I can talk to you. Remember that I had this on during lunch and the surprise assault?"- James thinks back to that day, and it hits him and he nods then turns to leave, seeing as how everyone is already outside ready for him to reunite with them.
James then sends him and Jen a message, using a quote from an old movie he once watched as a kid, -"We are here; we are waiting…"- Casey picks up on it and says, -"Optimus Prime, at the end of the live action movie Transformers." James nods and sprints for the door. Casey then turns his attention to a more pressing matter: Jen's Kamikaze episode.
"Jen, did you at least hear what we were saying? If not, I'll repeat it for you." He tells Jen. She responds with, "Yes, I heard it, and that old phrase he used, too." Casey then assesses the body count, which after a while comes up to somewhere around six hundred. He thinks, "Dear God, she's really gotten worse." He then races to where Jen is still wreaking havoc on the soldiers and wraps around her torso and says, "It's time to go, Jen. The reactor is about to blow and send us to the point of no return." Jen then slows down and this sends the men into a panic frenzy as they're trying to get as far from the reactor as possible… but they were already too late. It was a futile attempt to run in Jen's mind, but against her reason, she bolts for it… only to see a blinding light and feel a skull-splitting headache. Casey got thrown to the door unraveling from her torso while she got slightly irradiated and buried under a pile of cement, metal, and wood. Casey gets knocked out cold from the impact into the ground. It was the biggest loss the Resistance had and would ever suffer.
To Casey, it felt like something had been chained to his mind and was cursed to stay there until his death. The first thing that came to his mind was what had happened at the complex. He immediately tries to move but his body hurts so much he stops dead and lays there until it subsides. James then walks in, and says, "Well, you're awake at least… You okay, or feel like crap?" Casey then realizes he doesn't have his Visor on, so he points to his head. James then realizes the same thing and pulls his laptop out and opens a notepad. He then explains to Casey to type his response on the keyboard. Casey nods his head understandingly and moves his tail to the keyboard slowly. James then notices he's still a little sore and asks, "You know what happened to Jen? We searched for her, but couldn't find her." Casey then hits the Caps lock button and types: "WHAT?! You haven't found her yet I can still sense her, I just can't talk to her because we're too damned far away." James reads what he said and answers, "Like I said, we searched and searched but couldn't find her. If you can still sense her but can't talk to her then that means she's still alive… Damn, I really should've stayed there until you came to, then we could've found her like that, right?" Casey nods his head. "Well, the place was a disaster when we went searching, but if we use you as a tracking device we could easily find her in no time!" Casey smiles, knowing he'll find her in no time once the connection settles when they get close. Casey then types: "Our connection works when we get close to each other, but we can only sense the other when we go past that certain distance. So, when we get close enough to her I'll get as close as I can and see if she's injured and then… Can you keep a secret?" James reads it and nods his head thinking this is pretty important if he's asking for secrecy. Casey continues: "I'll bite her and then after a few seconds she recovers and is back to normal as compared to being knocked out cold when I bite someone else." James then responds, "Well, how in the hell is that fair? I guess it makes sense considering… Don't your brainwaves have to be in sync to talk to someone else?" Casey nods his head; James adds, "That makes sense now that I think about it."
Casey then starts playing a really old song called 'Both Ways (remix)' and James picks up on it and says, "So the connection works both ways then?" Casey then nods his head. "Okay, so let me get this straight. You and Jen have brainwave synced communication allowing you to keep a secret in plain sight. The second thing would be your venom, although this does seem a little unfair it makes sense to me…" he then types what Casey said about his venom being able to heal Jen and knock out anyone else into a coma. Casey types in response: "For someone I've talked to for only an hour at max maybe, you pick this up pretty quickly." He then types: "So, when do we start looking for Jen?" It takes James a second to think; then he then responds, "As soon as you're up to full strength, tough guy. It won't be long; I know that for a fact." Casey then smiles at him, which kind of surprises James a bit. He then remarks, "Wow, now I've seen everything."
Meanwhile, back at the obliterated complex, Jen is just coming to, she then takes in her surroundings, the one thing she knew wasn't right was that everything seemed so… out of proportion, like out of an old fantasy. So she started searching for… what, she didn't, or more rather, couldn't remember. The only thing that came to mind was one name. She tried to remember what the name belonged to, but all she could get was something really long with diamonds down the back; so she screams the name as loud and long as she could, "CASEY!"