Author's note: I feel like things around going to start moving a lot more quickly now. Samus has set off prepared for a battle unbeknownst to her friends, and things are about to get real. Thank you once again to everyone who has commented on my story so far. Every single piece of feedback makes me smile. I'm glad to hear people are enjoying my characterization of Samus. I was worried that people might not like my version of Samus because she has so many obvious flaws, but I wanted to make a very human Samus and explore the pervasive effects of her psychological condition on her civilian life. I hope I was able to do that well, and thank you to everyone I've heard from for your words of encouragement.
Please do take time to let me know what you think! Thank you so much! So, without further ado, here is Chapter 25! :)
Chapter 25
It was about two in the afternoon when Adam heard a knock on the front door. He thought it strange considering they had already established the fact that Admiral Dane and his soldiers didn't need to knock if they wanted to go in and out to eat or use the bathroom, although they had opted to do most of those things on the fleet's ships. Curious who it could be, Adam opened the door to find Officer Rodriguez standing there with a long white box in her hands.
"Hello General Malkovich," she said with a grin. "Mind if I join you in the house? I've got some new information that should interest you and Samus."
Adam nodded and led her into the kitchen where he prepared a cup of coffee for each of them. His family was in the living room with Morrigan and Maggie for now, so they would have the kitchen to themselves.
"How do you take yours?" he asked.
"Blonde and sweet," she replied, noticing the broken chair from the night before and sitting in one of the three remaining chairs.
Adam poured his own coffee and then fixed Elisa's, thinking how different she was from Samus who generally only ever took her coffee black. Once each of them had their respective beverages, Adam sat at the table across from the officer.
"So, what brings you here today, Officer Rodriguez?"
Elisa took a sip of her coffee and looked up at Adam. "Well, I had the lab run the chemicals from the bullets you cut out of Samus. Apparently, both the blood thinner and the paralytic agent are ultra-concentrated versions of the components used in a lot of pharmaceutical drugs. The chemicals themselves originate from a planet in the gamma quadrant, but they are highly effective on humans, and they were widely used on Earth up until about ten years ago when their main manufacturer declared bankruptcy."
"Cobalt Pharmaceuticals." Adam remembered seeing it on the news ten years ago. It had been a major catastrophe when that company had collapsed, leaving thousands of Earth humans unemployed and helping launch the planet into an economic recession. "Their main manufacturing plant was in Bangor."
"Correct." Elisa grinned. "We believe they may be using the old drug factory in Bangor to process the chemicals and create them in levels concentrated enough to weaponize them. Last year, right before these murders started happening, there was a string of burglaries in which someone was stealing the components you would need to build a machine to cast bullets. I'm emailing you the files as we speak." She tapped her watch a couple of times, and Adam's beeped to let him know the files had reached his inbox. "I've got a theory that the abandoned drug manufacturing plant in Bangor is being used both to produce the chemicals and the cast the bullets that will act as their vectors."
Adam nodded, suddenly feeling excited. "That makes sense. That city has been a ghost town since the climate changed and forced most of its residents to move south." From what her knew of the remains of Bangor, it probably had an even smaller population than Rosewood, although abandoned cities like that had become havens for the criminal element.
"I can't wait to tell Samus! Where is she?"
"Probably still asleep." Adam glanced over at the time and saw it was after 2p.m. "She acts tough, but she took a beating yesterday from Ridley. When her body tries to heal itself, I've known her to sleep for days at a time. Not that I think she was hurt badly enough this time to sleep for more than a day." She had fallen into a coma for a month one time after being infected with lethal amounts of Phazon. He recalled a few times when she was younger and working full time hunting bounties, she had come to his apartment afterward to sleep off her injuries. It wasn't that she didn't have a home, but she felt safer having him around while she was vulnerable. He just let her use his place for as long as she needed and didn't ask questions.
Elisa nodded. "I'm concerned about her arm though. She really needs to see a doctor."
Adam shrugged. "I know she does. It's not going to heal right the way she has it, but good luck trying to convince her of that."
"Maybe you could convince her."
"Heh. Why me?"
"She respects you," Elisa said, very seriously. "She respects you in a way she doesn't respect anyone else."
Adam laughed, although it wasn't a happy laugh. "Trying to get Samus to do anything is like pulling teeth."
"I'm not saying to bark it at her like an order, but she respects your opinion. I saw you calm her down from that episode yesterday, and I see the way the two of you interact. She's a loose cannon and a feral cat, but she sees you as comfortable and familiar."
Adam laughed humorously again. "My Problem Dog. That's what they used to call her when she was in my command."
"She served under you?"
Adam nodded. "Yes, when she was in the Army. Damn good fighter. Terrible soldier. Rude, insubordinate, acting on her own… but always in ways that made sense to her weird little moral code no one could figure out. I think I understand it now, but back then, she was the Problem Dog. People called her that even to her face. And sometimes she would beat them up, and that continued the cycle."
"Did you ever call her Problem Dog?"
"No…" Adam looked thoughtful. "I always called her Lady. I think I started calling her that to try to combat what others would call her… Problem Dog being one of the nicer names." There were a handful of Officers who had simply started referring to her as "Death" because that was what became of anyone, friend or foe, who encountered her on a mission.
"Well," Elisa said as she picked up her long white box and placed it on the table between them, "when she does wake up, I got her a little present. A sort of thank you for yesterday. I hope she'll like it."
"I'm sure she'll like whatever you got her. Although it will probably confuse her." Adam grinned. "She's awkward about receiving gifts. It's like she has no concept of why anyone would do anything like that for her."
Just then, they heard someone in the hallway approaching the kitchen. Adam and Elisa both turned toward the doorway to see a very pale Maggie stagger into it.
Adam leapt to his feet at once and went over to the heavily pregnant woman. "Maggie? What's wrong?" He gestured to his chair and led her over to it. "Here, sit down."
Maggie shook her head, visibly wincing as pain shot through her. "No… I gotta get to a doctor or somethin'. Somethin's not… right." She gasped, her breathing becoming heavier and more difficult.
It was Elisa's turn to jump up and walk over to Maggie. "Hello, Miss. My name is Officer Rodriguez, and I'm with the Rosewood Police Department. How long have you been experiencing this pain?"
Maggie looked at the woman curiously. "Where's Samus?"
"She's resting," Adam replied, hovering anxiously around Maggie, whose pain seemed to have subsided for a moment.
"Miss, how long have you been in pain for? And how far apart are the pains?" Elisa continued trying to get information from Maggie, but the woman would only look at Adam.
"I need Samus," she stated very firmly. "I need to get to a hospital. The baby's coming, and I need Samus to be there to protect us."
Adam looked from Elisa to Maggie and back. "Officer Rodriguez," he asked, "can you escort Miss Sinclaire to the hospital in your vehicle?"
Elise nodded. "Yes, of course. I'll use the sirens and everything."
"Good. On your way out, inform Admiral Dane he is to send four of his troops to accompany you. Tell him General Malkovich said so."
"Yes, Sir," Elisa said and turned to Maggie. "Are you ready to go?"
Maggie ignored her and glared at Adam. "I NEED Samus. I trust Samus."
Adam sighed and shook his head. "I'll try to wake her up, but that could take a while. She's resting and trying to recover from the beating she took yesterday."
"If you'd like, Miss Sinclaire," Elisa interjected, finally getting Maggie's attention, "I can take you to the hospital and Samus can meet us there as soon as she is up. In the meantime, Admiral Dane's troops are more than enough to look out for you, and I promise to do the same." Elisa laughed pleasantly and put Adam and Maggie a little more at ease. "I may not be the galaxy's toughest bounty hunter, but I'm a pretty good shot, and I'll do my best to keep you and your baby safe."
Maggie stared at Elisa for a long moment before finally putting her hands up in defeat. "Fine. Take me. But make sure you get a bunch of those Marines, and make sure Samus gets over there as soon as possible."
"Of course." Elisa grinned at Adam and turned back to Maggie. "Shall we go?"
Maggie nodded and followed reluctantly. Adam watched the two women go and left the kitchen once he heard the front door close behind them. Keeping an eye out for Morrigan, who would likely want to be informed of the blessed event, he ran up the stairs and over to Samus's room.
Waking her up was going to be a trick, and he knew that if he did it wrong, she could wake up in a violent state, particularly given the fact that she had faced Ridley yesterday. He knew all too well how Samus could react if anyone got close to her in her sleep, especially if she was having a bad night. A permanent bump on his nose marked where a fellow soldier had broken it when he had tried to wake him up back in their Army days. He had been a teenager then and had not quite understood how some people suffering from post-traumatic stress could react when approached in their sleep. Fortunately, the man who had punched him in the nose had been human. Samus was not. And she often woke up not knowing where she was and unable to recognize anyone around her. He knew if he approached her wrong he could end up with a lot worse than a busted nose.
When he approached her door, her knocked on it very gently. "Lady?" he called softly, listening to see if she stirred. When he didn't hear anything, he knocked on her door again, a bit louder this time. "Lady?" Still nothing.
He tried the gentle approach a few more times, getting a bit louder each time until it troubled him not to hear her stir.
"Samus? Samus Aran?" he called loudly, wondering why she wasn't responding at all. Growing concerned, he tried the door handle and found it was not locked. Cautiously, he turned the knob and stepped into her bedroom, worried about what state he might find her in.
When he entered the room, he knew immediately why she had not responded. The bed was made, perfectly neat, and her clothes from the night before sat haphazardly at the top of the hamper. In the far corner of the room sat an open window, and there was no doubt in his mind that was how she had made her exit. Where she was going, he had no idea, but he knew it must have been somewhere dangerous or else she would have told him. She was injured, and had he known she was planning to go off on her own, he would have told her not to. He knew she disliked disobeying him but would do it anyway if she felt it was the right thing. He also knew she would rather just do dangerous things without anyone knowing so she would not have to disregard anyone's wishes.
Adam sighed as he walked over to the window and closed it. Wherever she was, he knew she would survive, but he worried about what kind of state she would return in. And in what kind of condition she would leave wherever she had gone. Places tended to blow up when Samus Aran got done with them. Along with those thoughts, though, he hoped she would return in time to be there for Maggie.
Meanwhile, Samus arrived in Bangor around the same time Maggie and Elisa left for the hospital. She got out the cab about three blocks away from the diner Inga had said to meet her at. With a couple of hours left before the meeting was supposed to take place, Samus decided to set up her drones so they could scope out the place for her.
Years of living on the street had taught her how to make herself invisible in an urban environment, and she found a dank alley between two buildings with a large dumpster overflowing with trash. She made her way down the alley, quickly but silently and set herself up behind the dumpster. The restaurant in one of the building beside the alley was not opened, but it must have still been functional because the decaying food in the dumpster was not more than a week old. It smelled of rotting meat and fermenting beer that had been left out in the sun too long, so no one would likely come close enough to it to find her. Samus was used to the smells of death and decay, though, and they had stopped affecting her long ago.
She set her backpack down on the ground and crouched beside it. One by one, she removed each of the stealthy security drones, programmed them to fly in different routes around the city, and let them go into the air. They had the ability to project the images from the surrounding area onto themselves as they flew, and they blended in so well with their environments, they were almost invisible to the naked eye. When the last of the drones had flown, Samus sat back for a moment and watched their recordings from the holo-screen her watch generated. She sat for a long time familiarizing herself with the layout of the city and the various buildings and alleys around them.
Eventually, she scoped out the abandoned diner where she was scheduled to meet with Inga. It was old and so dilapidated it must have been empty for a long time. A lot of other buildings in the area were the same, and many of them looked like they had been burned out in fires. Even some of the buildings that still looked occupied had boarded up windows and graffiti tagged all over them. Samus had to wonder why any of the non-criminal denizens of Bangor still lived in the area, but then she realized it wasn't too different than a lot of places she had lived over the years. At least rent would be cheap.
Once the time for the meeting drew closer, Samus had the drones converge around the diner so she could see it from every angle. She decided it was safest to let Inga arrive first so she could get a good look at them through the cameras. She figured it would also be safer for her to approach them as opposed to them approaching her and possibly leading an ambush of hired assassins.
It was almost four o'clock exactly when Samus saw someone she recognized walking over to the diner, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up immediately. The Purist who arrived at the diner and waited there to meet her was the same short, red haired woman she had encountered outside of the supermarket the day she and Maggie had been attacked. She was even wearing the same thick sunglasses and black pea coat she had been wearing that day.
Standing up straight, Samus kicked her backpack under the dumpster to hide it. She straighten out the black trench coat she had stolen from Adam and felt around to check the status of the six guns she carried on her person. The bounty hunter was well aware that the lone woman might just be a decoy to lure her out and that there were likely others hiding inside of locked buildings or in dark alleys the drones could not see.
Either way, she was ready to finally confront her enemy face to face. If more of them came out of the shadows in an attempt to fight her, all they were doing was conveniently gathering in one place so she could take out more of them at once.