The Black Bandit
Author's Notes: It's been a while since I wrote Chapter 1. I know I promised I'd work on Silver Linings. Instead, though, about ten different plotbunnies piled onto my head and demanded attention. This was one of them, along with the rest of Chapter 2, which has been sitting on my hard drive for ages. Hopefully, the things I've written during the delay helped improve my overall writing ability.
Chapter 3: Standard Issues
The next day, I woke up to the most horrific racket imaginable. Turns out there was an alarm clock built into the bed. It blared only a few times, but that was more than enough to rip me out of bed and get me frantically searching for the snooze button. Not that I'd have time for an extra five minutes of sleep in a guerrilla rebellion group like QUILL, but I didn't want to listen to five alarm klaxons before getting it to shut up next time. Having located the controls in question, I got dressed in the uniform before heading out. There hadn't really been an orientation to tell me what to do at the start of the day, aside from Zeno's walk-and-talk yesterday afternoon. That reminded me that I must have been sleeping a while. Getting up at 6 AM would have been harder if I'd been short on sleep, sonic bomb alarm or not.
I couldn't quite remember my dreams, if I had any. That was probably a good thing, given the trauma from yesterday. No, not thinking about that right now.
Not knowing where else to go, I went for the Operations Room. Moniqa was there, but she told me to go back down the hall right to the end for breakfast. Oops. I almost missed the most important meal of the day! There went my image of competence.
I finally made it to the large-ish lounge that QUILL used as a cafeteria. There was cereal and milk, along with bread for toasting. I picked up a bowl of my favorite, Luigi-O's (motto: "Even my cereal sounds like Mario!"), and brought it to the table where Zeno and Asimov sat. Someone was missing, though.
"Hey, Lu! Glad to see you got a good night's rest." Zeno greeted me.
"I apologize for not distributing the orientation document. The procedure for getting new members hasn't really been finalized since there are so few of us," Asimov explained. He handed me a little fold-up map and schedule, which basically covered what I'd done so far and ended with "7:30 A.M. to 8:00 P.M.: On call." I guess that was when the missions came in.
I asked, "Hey, where's Gunvolt? Did he get through the mission okay yesterday?"
I must have said something wrong, because Asimov's expression darkened immediately, noticeable even through his awesome blue visor.
Zeno growled, "Yeah, he made it through. But rather than delete the Muse, he learned she was an adept that Sumeragi held captive, not an AI program like we thought. So Geeves ran off with this 'Joule' girl and quit QUILL altogether! And here I thought we were buds..."
Asimov spoke up. "To be fair, we can still expect his help. Not much has changed besides his place of residence now that he's gone 'freelance.' I doubt he'll find many jobs elsewhere suited to his particular skills, so we'll be his main source of income. I figured I would give the boy his space. He's probably going through some sort of puberty-related emotional stress, and we can't afford to turn such a valuable fighter against us, even if he wasn't an adoptive son to me."
Zeno laughed. "That's Asimov for you! See how he can go from ruthlessly effective, to awkward dad, and back to ruthless in half a minute? The man's amazing."
"I hope that was a compliment, Zeno," Asimov said with a level tone and no expression. Zeno hastily appeased him.
"Totally, boss man! You're a master multitalent, is what I was trying to say!"
I spoke up at last. "So, if Gunvolt's...less here than he was yesterday, does that mean the rest of us will get more missions to compensate?"
"Yes. More on that after breakfast. Eat up; you have a round in the Firing Range to do, then we'll figure out which of the missions we have stacked up would be the best fit for you." Asimov had already finished his own bowl of PokeCrunchies (Motto: "Gotta crunch 'em all!") somehow, despite spending the last minute or so speaking. He put his bowl on a conveyor belt and left the room.
Zeno commented on the phenomenon with his mouth full of Smash Bran (motto: "In a battle of all-stars, choose your health!"). "QUILL's Seven Asimov Mysteries, Number 4. No one has ever seen the boss man do anything that wastes time he could be spending in the Operations Room. If he needs to eat, he's already done eating."
I finished my last swallow before answering. "He is impressive. What are the other six Asimov Mysteries?"
While Zeno walked me over to the firing range, he went over the Seven Asimov Mysteries. "First is his unknown Septima, of course. Second is his hair; he doesn't dye it blue, but it's not exactly natural. Third is the fact that he never yawns or shows fatigue. Fourth is his legendary ability to never waste time. Fifth is the contents of his room; I've never seen inside and I don't have a key. Sixth is his parents; even Sumeragi's databases don't know where he grew up. Seventh is the 'mystery' mystery; why do I call them the Seven Mysteries when there are only six?"
I laughed with him. "Mysterious, indeed!" We arrived at the Firing Range, which was next door to the stealth simulator. Along the wall were all sorts of firearms, from big two-handed machine guns like Zeno's and sniper rifles like Asimov's to smaller pistols.
"Standard gear includes a pistol; you get ten shots a clip, and we can spare you two reloads each mission. Don't shoot with it unless you can surprise the enemy; it's kind of ineffective against armor. Luckily the shots are pretty quiet, so you can stealth-kill guards without bringing a whole facility to high alert. Hold the gun like this, brace like this, and try to stay calm while aiming. Freaking out will throw off your aim." Zeno guided my hands to the right positions, and I took aim at the bulls-eye on the far wall, which was about fifteen meters away. BANG! A red spot appeared just below the center of the target. "Nice shot, Lu! 80 points! Try aiming a little higher; it looks like the crosshairs are misaligned a bit." I adjusted my aim and fired again. Bulls-eye! "Jam, you're a fast learner!"
"I learned to aim while practicing my Septima," I responded. "I used to have to toss an energy bolt at things to make them the center of a gravity well, but I've gotten better at judging distance manually, so I don't need the bolts anymore. Looks like I can still aim projectiles well enough, though." BANG! BANG! Two more 90-point hits.
Zeno applauded. "Good form, Lu! Now let's see how you handle a real weapon..." The target moved back twenty more meters, and Zeno handed me a rifle just like his. I nearly fell over; this thing was heavy!
"I don't think I could use this in the field." I put the rifle back, then looked over the rack for something lighter. I noticed an Uzi-like sub-machine gun near the bottom of the rack, and picked it up.
"Careful with the recoil on that thing. The last time I used it, I nearly fell over. We still haven't repaired the bullet holes in the ceiling here." Zeno pointed up at several holes in the ceiling.
"Huh. I guess you're right. Do we have some kind of stun rod here? I know a lot of Sumeragi troops don't have any ranged weapons, and the ones that do fire slow-moving projectiles. I could get in close with a sword or something, since they'd be marching straight at me anyway." I could see it now, actually. I'd been part of the Sharp Object Fan Club at school (the whole extracurricular catalog was pretty eccentric). Part of the club activities was learning the basics of offense and defense with foam-wrapped weapons. Luna II had dreamed of being a ghost duster, whatever those were, but I preferred more practical pursuits like dragon-slaying.
"Actually, we do have a couple beam sabers. Here, show me your moves!" Zeno tossed me a deactivated hilt, and I pressed the button to bring it to life. The two-foot, red cone of plasma would melt through just about anything I tried to whack with this sword. I gave it a few practice swings at a safe distance from Zeno. Overhead slice, horizontal right side cut, diagonal up-right, another overhead slice, thrust. I watched the crimson blade leave a short trail behind it and bend slightly as it moved. Zeno clapped. "Good offense there, Lu! Now let's test your defense. Try and bat away the projectiles from this drone." He pressed a button on the wall, and out of what I assumed was another bullet hole in the ceiling came a small, cone-shaped training drone. "He'll fire at regular intervals. The projectiles travel as fast as those from a standard Sumeragi rifle, but they'll just sting a bit if you miss. Three, two... Oh, whatever. Go!"
The drone fired before Zeno said "Go," so I had to twist out of the way and be ready for the next shot. These Sumeragi-based shots really did travel slowly; it was a simple matter to get out of the way, and even easier to interpose my blade and bat the shots aside. Zeno ramped up the difficulty three times before finally getting impressed. By now the drone was shooting five shots in a burst from slightly different angles. It was a matter of starting to sweep them aside from the right direction, since there was only one source in motion rather than a group shooting out of sync. "Okay," I said after Round Four was cleared. "Do you think I can handle a mission now?"
"That...was awesome. You've got to teach me some of those moves sometime! Okay, one more round and we head off to the briefing. Round Five is the hardest training level for one drone; you ready?"
"Bring it on."
This time the pesky drone fired bursts of three shots, zipping around my sides to force me to defend from all angles. I was doing pretty well until one of the deflected shots hit the drone. It fell to the ground smoking. "Oops."
"What do you mean, 'Oops?' Do that more often! Sure, we only have a couple training drones, and they're kind of flimsy, so practice on the Sumeragi dogs next! By the way, here." Zeno handed me a canteen full of cool water. I took a long sip of it, which tasted great after the morning's exercise. "Keep the canteen. I was supposed to give it to you with the uniform, anyway. We are so rusty at getting fresh blood on board..."
I nodded. "Yeah, you'd think there would be lines of adepts fleeing from Sumeragi right into our arms, or at least a larger organization already here. The TV propaganda tends to make QUILL look like a huge terrorist movement destroying residential buildings left and right." It might have been believable if the bombs dropped from the "QUILL aircraft" weren't playing on such an obvious loop. They never even hit the generic burning building before jumping up to the bomb bay again. Still, the reality of QUILL was kind of underwhelming after the propaganda hyped it up five times a day.
"I don't get it either, but every revolution has to start somewhere, right? Might as well be with us. Let's get down to the Operations Room and see where we can help." We went.
Moniqa looked surprised when we walked in. "7:30 on the dot! Who are you and what have you done with Zeno?"
Zeno pretended to faint. "You wound me, milady! We were just finished up picking out Lu's gear. She opted for the beam sword."
"And? Can she use it effectively?" Asimov asked.
"She bats a perfect score on Level Five! Or it would have been, if the drone hadn't been hit with a reflected bolt. I think she's ready for prime time! Her marks with the pistol are a bit lower, but still fine for dealing with Sumeragi cannon fodder." Zeno clapped me on the shoulder; I blushed a bit from the praise.
"Okay, if you think you're prepared, Lu, there's a couple places we need to hit today." Moniqa brought three locations up on the main screen; one was grayed out. "That third location is Gunvolt's target today; we need him to take out Viper's chemical plant. Lu, you're going to this submarine dock in Sector 3; we need to confirm some intel about a giant nuclear sub being built there, and if it is, destroy it. Zeno, you're to investigate the rumors of a haunted warehouse two blocks down the street from our base. If Sumeragi's camped that close to us, they need to go."
"Doesn't the 'haunted warehouse' sound more like a stealth gig?" Zeno asked.
"No, the haunted part is supposed to be below. So your job today is to lay some charges to open a path to the deeper facility. We'll have GV handle that tomorrow...if possible." Moniqa removed the briefing info from the screen. "No telling if he'll be available, but probably. Anyway, you have thirty minutes to get prepped. When you're ready, get moving to the co-ordinates on your datapad."
"Oh! I sort of thought the datapad was a journal or something, so I left it in my room. I'll just go grab that and be off, then. Is there some sort of protocol for ending meetings?"
"...Not really. We're not quite as organized as we'd like to be, as I'm sure you've noticed." Moniqa looked embarrassed by the state of their (our, I was in the group now!) recruitment procedures.
"I'll be working on that problem while you two are out on these missions," Asimov said. "I can't just sit here and stare at this screen all day, so I'll refine our standard operating procedure. Get moving, you two." He returned his gaze to his personal monitor.
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A/N: And here's Chapter 3! The next chapter will cover Merak's level, and maybe some stuff leading up to the level after it. Merak was my favorite of Sumeragi's Robot Master analogues. He's just so chill! Which is a nice way of saying he's the laziest man in the world, but he's got the right idea. No sense dying when there are death traps and minions willing to do it for you. He just underestimated how fast GV can climb. Lu's powers aren't hampered by water, but she's not immune to drowning...
