Chapter 6: Fire Starter
Earth A.G.D(After Great Destruction) 126
July 10th 11:45pm
Chrome HQ (Outer Grounds)
The Outer Parking lot of the Chrome HQ was perhaps too large for Lea Keller. As she finally began to reach the sidewalk, she found a convenient concrete parking marker not an ideal place to rest but a place nonetheless. She let her purse off her shoulder and took a seat to remove her black high-heeled shoes. She was still unaccustomed to the long walks she had to make from the building's various entrances and her heels ached as a result. "Oww" she grunted. "If I knew I was going to feel this much pain I would have joined Corporate Security instead of becoming a Terminal Scientist." Lea complained aloud. A white blouse and a newer Isaac City Squatters soccer jacket she commonly wore on her way home from late shifts covered up lea's upper body.
After resting for a moment she placed her heals back on, picked her purse up and continued on her way. As she reached the security stand at the end of the parking lot, she waved at the security guard near the window before speaking into the window's microphone. "Hey, How was your day Mr. Security?" Lea said perkily. The guard laughed before speaking into the microphone on his end.
"Really crappy if you could call it a day." the guard lightly chuckled. The guard balled one of his hands into a fist and covered his mouth before he hacked and coughed. Lea felt a nasty taste forming her mouth from the sight of the man's pain. The guard made what looked like one large hack from Lea's point of view before he spat into a trashcan or at least she hoped.
"That's a disgusting cough Greg, have you considered going to a clinic at all?" she asked cringing.
"I have, but I can't afford to take the time off. Bills are going to be rough this month for me." Greg replied solemnly.
"Geez, Greg I'm sorry. Hey how bout I get you some cough syrup there's a drug store not too far from here."
"No, really you don't have to I'll get myself some later"
"The store is going to close in about another half hour, so let me do this for you just this once" Lea asked politely.
"Ok, just this once, but when I see you tomorrow I'll pay you back." He replied scratching the back of his head. The man began coughing again. Lea nodded and went on her way.
It was close to midnight that Thursday night by the look of the neighborhood around her. The drug store wasn't too far from the parking garage which made her believe she could make it there and back to the garage without making it home too late. It had been about five minutes since she had left the coughing Greg back at the Garage and was about less than a block away from the Shinitomi Food & Drug store. Things felt oddly quiet for the Terminal Scientist. She could hear cars screeching off in the distance but couldn't really see any on the streets around her or any people either. Any real noticeable sense of life could only be seen in the neon lights of the shops down the street. She folded her arms against her Isaac City Squatters soccer jacket just below her chest in an attempt to hold some of her warmth in. The night dimming of the City's lighting system was considered the most dangerous time for women but, because she could easily see the store's name in hot green and pink neon Japanese characters, it didn't matter much to her.
As she stepped off the street on to the final stretches of sidewalk, she noticed a woman hunched over near a wall a little ways from the entrance to the store. The first features Lea could make of the woman as she slowly approached her was of her bandage wrapped ankles and the cheap wool cloak she wore over her person. In her passing of the woman, she was able to get only a look at the bottom of her pale face and what little strands of red hair she could see from the top of her hood. Should she been able to actual see them, she would be almost certain she had met the other woman's eyes. Seconds after she was already past the homeless woman, she reached the entrance to the Grocery store. She pulled the old fashion handled door towards her and swiftly pulled her near shivering self inside.
The store's overhead lighting flickered and sparked as Lea entered the Shinitomi store. "Hey close da door it's already cold enough n here" The store clerk said. Lea quickly pulled the handle on the inside toward her felt the door slowly lock itself into place has she let go. As she walked further in the store she took a quick glance at the store clerk. His stocky figure made it apparent why he was in the drug store business other than anything else. His bald hair, bushy mustache, and five o' clock shadow made him seem a bit on the shady side but his bristling smile made up for the rough look.
"Sorry about that. My mind was drifting a bit. " Lea politely apologized.
"It's alright I would just hurry up and get what ya gonna get, all the freaks come out at dis time a night". The clerk said.
Lea nodded and flicked her hair. She began searching around the small isles of the store looking for some kind of cough medicine and after few minutes of close searching, she was stumped.
"Hey lady, if you're here for medicine we keep that stuff behind the counter now. Too many kids shoplift that stuff and get high off it." The man said grunting.
"Oh ok then I'll take some Cofenol, The pill kind" She politely said.
The man ducked behind the counter and Lea could here him mumble has he looked for her Cofenol pills. " There we go" the man said. He promptly stood up and threw the tiny package of Cofenol pills on the counter. "That'll be five point twenty-three credits please". He smiled. Lea took out her credit card from out of her purse, swiped it through a little cred card container on her side of the counter, and punched in the password for her card. The machine bleeped and blooped as it took the required credits off her card. "Ok well you take care of yourself out there miss, like I said I wouldn't want any of those freaks out there to do anything to you this late at night." The man said while he placed the pills slowly into a plastic bag.
"Let's just hope not" Lea laughed with a hint of seriousness.
The woman swiftly pushed the door of the old drug store, and made it back out on to the sidewalk. As she looked around the nearby streets, she saw that they were as empty, dark, and lifeless has they were before she retreated into the store. A slight draft flowing down the street prompted her to fold her arms across her chest to keep some warm air with her. She began walking the exact same way she came except one thing about her path was different. The old cloaked woman that had been there before had vanished. "That's good she was beginning to give me the creeps, hopefully she started off towards one of those shelters." She thought. She cautiously started walking back down the street towards the chrome building. Suddenly as she reached the corner of one of the city streets, she felt something hit her feet causing her to trip and collapse onto the ground.
A little bit stunned by the fall, she sat up on her knees and shook her head, trying to gain control over self. " Damn ,unevenly paved streets" she grunted to herself.
"You got to give the city credit, they did a better job on this area than in some of the nicer areas in Isaac." A woman's voice said.
Lea's eyes quickly sprung open and she gasped uncontrollably. The voice of the woman sounded rather distinctly European. As if she was from Eastern Europe in particularly. Lea turned her head and not to her surprise, she saw the cloaked woman on her bandaged feet and emerging from the shadowy wall behind her. "Who the hell do you think you are tripping me for no reason?" Lea asked angrily. Lea brushed some of the dirt off of her skirt and jacket and stood up on her heels. She kept her distance from the woman and awaited an answer.
"On the contrary, I tripped you because I don't like my prey running away from me. The woman said.
"What, you can't be serious, stay away from me. ' Lea yelled rather loudly
Suddenly everything Lea had on her became less important including the cofenol pills that she came for originally,. She threw her purse towards the woman and began stepping backwards. After taking a few steps and seeing the woman had not picked up Lea's purse at all, she immediately slid out of both her heels and ran the other way.
Lea scrambled herself off the sidewalk's curb and darted off into the street. She looked behind her and saw the cloaked woman unsheathe an object with a silver glint she had concealed within her clothing. The woman quickly began to give chase to Lea prompting Lea to move faster than her body wanted her to. Lea jumped up on to the curb and scrambled her way across the sidewalk with the echoing sounds of the woman's footsteps getting closer and closer to her with each breath Lea heaved. "Somebody help me she's crazy" Lea shrieked at the top of her lungs. Even with the adrenaline rush she had gained, her legs simply began to slow down. The steps of her pursuer grew louder until she heard the woman's breathing behind her. Suddenly Lea felt the most gripping pain burning in her ankle. She quickly fell to the freezing sidewalk, grimacing in the most terrifying of pain. This time her legs wouldn't allow her to move much and Lea could barely manage to get a glance at the wound she had just gained. Lodged dead in the center of her right ankle, was the object she saw the woman holding in the distance, a small throwing knife. Lea screamed in pain and tears began to fall from her eyes. "Why are you doing this to me?" she asked sincerely.
The woman knelt down beside Lea's bleeding ankle and pulled out the knife from it. She began crawling over Lea with the tiny knife and hovered around her chest. The cloaked woman smiled deeply into her quivering face and laughed. "Because once I've found my prey and conquered it I can't possibly let it go." She moaned. Overcome by a degree of trauma that she had went through, Lea's world began to quickly slow down and with the red haired woman's green eyes still staring her back in the face, darkness overwhelmed her.
Earth A.G.D 126 July 11th
Chrome HQ (Military Grounds)
Mia held herself against a handrail has she oversaw the final part-to-part connection of Shane Martinez's AC. She sighed as the unit's head, which looked much like a rhino horn, finished its last connection and steam shot out the side. Mia laughed.
"That is probably one of the most lifelike AC's I've ever seen" a Kensei techie next to her commented
Mia nodded as she looked at the younger tech. She really didn't want to seem like a grumpy commander, but it was truer than she wanted to admit. "I've been a commander for like a week and it still feels like a dream to me." She thought to herself.
She took herself away from the handrail and began to walk along the upper deck of the Chrome HQ's primary hangar ,her hands resting firmly below her butt. As usual, she was dressed in her causal suede jacket, which was unbuttoned, and a light blue blouse that was button just slightly above her bust. She was also wearing tight yet roomy white pants and black leather boots. It was one of the few neat liberties about being a mercenary, not having to wear a military uniform constantly. The commander still carried her trusty terminal goggles, has she called them, connected to her hair band that she wore over her natural blonde hair. She had gone ahead with dyeing her hair back to her natural color to honor Kensei's rules that an officer cannot have hair of unnatural colors.
She glanced around viewing the activities of Kensei's techs has they serviced the units of Linay, Kai, and Shane as well her Emerald AC. The past three days of their mission had proven to be very tiresome for the six pilots and the machines even though they hadn't suffered any combat damage were still fatigued. As she and many of the other pilots predicted, they had been very uneventful that week except for the drills that the commander of the base set the pilots throughout their second day. The extra training had managed to catch the young commander off guard and her nerves suffered because of it.
She took a right at a junction on the upper deck walkway and started into a hallway decorated in bluish-gray bulkhead. She suddenly heard a familiar voice behind her. "Commander Vinosec" a male voice called to her. Mia reluctantly turned her head. "No, its him" Mia screamed in her head
"Yes, Commander Orindas" Mia replied lightly. The older white haired commander's wrinkled irate face suddenly began to tear at Vinosec's mind. She knew either she or one of her people had probably done something to upset him again.
"Just so you know Commander Takagi and Lieutenant Satoshi have finished their watch of the building and are beginning to head back in now. The only problem I have with that is Captain Valiyone and Lieutenant Isamo aren't here to relieve them." Orindas complained.
"My apologies Commander Orindas I'll see that it won't happen again". Mia sighed.
"This kind of behavior is unacceptable, even if you are just mercenaries. See that it changes." He stated. Mia nodded and immediately went on her way.
As much as she hated the commander's words deep inside, she knew they bore truth. Kai and Linay were two of the most undisciplined pilots out of the group and they had a track record of showing up late for anything as minor as routine training exercise to being at an airport in time for a mission. While she walked through the hallway thoughts about two female pilots began to arise "Don't they know that every time they do this it makes me look I don't have control over my group?" She thought. While turning on to the hallway that bore her office door, she fingered her blond hair searching for the miniature terminal clipped to its strands. She pressed down on the terminal and an orange screen materialized a few inches from her face. As she reached the door to her office, she had already shifted the terminal functions to making phone calls. She pulled a card from her jeans pocket and slid it through a receiver on the door's side. After a confirmation beep, the many locks within the door's structure unlocked and the entrance way became open.
Mia walked into her makeshift office just has the person she had begun calling finally picked up, on their end. "Hello" The voice yelled into the phone. Mia cringed her eyes has she was caught slightly off guard by the loudness of the voice. "Kai, this is Mia where the hell are you?"
***
"We're caught in traffic right now" Kai yelled trying to keep her speech above the blaring techno in the background. Kai eased her foot on gas petal causing the car to crawl its way forward until the transport in front of her stopped causing the already late duo to have to stop once again. Kai cursed herself for not trying getting out the door sooner. Linay's feeble attempts at fixing a descent breakfast for the two ended in chaos and the cleanup of their apartment caused their late departure. She glanced over at Linay who was sitting in the passengers seat bouncing around to the beats of the song on the radio.
"We? Is Linay with you as well?" Mia asked her angrily.
Linay turned her head a little excited at the mentioning of her name "Yeah, we're roomies remember besides I haven't replaced my bike since I threw it at those techno hitmen awhile back"A/N I'll tell that story one of these days Linay replied sheepishly.
"Oh yeah, Well anyways, I have Orindas lecturing me about you two not showing up on time. That type of stress I don't need, you guys." Mia replied sincerely
"Don't worry boss, we'll be there in less than twenty minutes, that I can promise." She exuberantly yelled.
"Ok, well I've got some desk work to do, report straight to the hangar when you get to the HQ and hopefully you might be able to save yourselves from the Commander's wrath as well. Later!"
Kai clicked off the phone and set it down next to her parking brake on her left. She glanced off to her left noticing her friend looking out her window at sights the city block had to offer from the spaciousness of Kai's small boxy Huishodi pearl. Knowing that her friend was zoning out yet again she retreated to her driving responsibilities as well as her thoughts. "Another beautiful day of getting yelled at by Mia, and that anal ass Commander." She thought to herself. Suddenly a loud horn from behind her told Kai that she had been zoning out also. She promptly eased her foot on the gas inching her car up again before coming to a complete halt. "Is my life ever going to get any better?" she asked aloud.
Linay turned her head away from the road looking at her friend banging her head against the steering wheel. Kai lifted her head away from the padded steering wheel and focused on her friend whom she knew some words of wisdom would emerge.
"Well, If it helps Mia is going to be going on a date tonight so you won't have to deal with her oping for you." Linay said
"So, Miss Anal finally got asked out by someone, that's great. Do you know who the lucky guy is?" Kai asked
"Yeah, Her and Kounji-kun are going to have so much fun together" Linay said merrily
Kai's heart suddenly dropped lower than had in a long time. She felt has if she would have to literally catch her heart before it fell out of her chest. "Her and my boy scout going out on a romantic night on the town. The world is ending." Kai screamed in her head. The thoughts inside of her head suddenly began to grow irate. She was angry, and not at all happy for Mia.
Suddenly the space in the road ahead of her began to clear and she was able to hold her foot on the gas a little heavier than usual. She suddenly noticed in the way Linay moved her lips that they had not concluded the conversation she started before.
"Yeah, I can just see her and Kounji's lips pressed together, reveling in a sweet majestic bliss." Linay laughed making tiny kisses at the passenger side window.
Kai gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, angry with herself. Kai then proceeded to slam on her car brakes hard. Why can't he just like me instead of her? " She yelled in side her mind. She heard a loud thump sound has the pilot next her was thrown into the dashboard of her car's interior.
Kai turned to check on her friend Linay and noticed her activities had gone from kissing the window to a taken back look. "So you finally decided to stop, huh?" she asked sighing
"Yeah, I think the car just got angry with me. Besides this lady walking by with the red hair is giving me this weird look." Linay replied scratching her head.
"I wouldn't blame her, some blue haired chick making kisses towards me would make me think she was a lesbian or something." Kai remarked laughing with more upbeat tone.
"If you ask me people in this day and age are far too uptight. No one seems to take in all the fun stuff in life anymore." Linay said shaking her head unhappily
"Well, maybe if everyone drunk as much coffee in the morning as you do Linay they would have your vibrant energy to take in all that "fun" stuff." Kai mocked at Linay. She then proceeded to take her hands off the wheel and make a sprinkling motion with her hands.
Linay's face puffed angrily. " I don't drink that much coffee" she yelled with a joking tone.
"Girl, We run through like a carton of coffee in like a week whenever you crash at my place" Kai yelled in seriousness.
"Well, if it helps we can go to Café Isaac some days and drink up all their coffee" Linay replied projecting a false sense of a ditz. She giggled and twirled her blue locks adding to the act.
There was pause in car and then suddenly, the two friends burst into laughter. Kai's hard laughing slowed before Linay's did as turned towards her friend and smiled. For that year and a half that Linay lived with Vance, Kai didn't have nearly as much fun as she was now. "How did I ever get through last year without this girl?" Kai thought positively. "But Linay must really be dying inside over losing Vance. How can she still stay even remotely the same person?" She thought with sincerity. Kai pushed her foot on the gas pedal again before letting off. She smiled at Linay while the pale skinned woman beat her fists against Kai's dashboard during their impatient wait in traffic.
"Good Morning Ms. Keller" a young Guardsman said to the terminal specialist.
An energetic and vigorous red-headed Lea Keller nodded in thanks to Guard as she stepped through the entrance to Outer Grounds much earlier than she expected. "7:55" she read on her Plastic sports watch. "I'm going to have use my time much more wisely next time." The woman laughed to herself.
She was dressed in comfortable light green Hawaiian shirt with a sleeveless white undershirt beneath it. She wore comfortable cargo shorts beneath the shirt and to top the whole outfit off some straw sandals. As her usual routine she would have to check in at the Outer Grounds checkpoint in order to make her way through the inner parts of the building to where she conducted much of her work. She pulled on her bag slung over her shoulder as she continued her steps through the lobby. The chrome HQ lobby was bustling with an enormous amount of activity. Many techs. MT pilots, and military personal were littered densely amongst the HQ's lobby. Several of them were pushing and shoving their way into elevators, others from the night crews dragging themselves through the front doors with blank expressions. Several Kensei guard officers stood readily at their patrol post within the lobby with hardened expressions their military training gave them, on their faces. While a few meters from the hallway she needed to enter, a burly shaped man bumped into her. Startled, the small woman fell backward to the ground.
"Sorry, Miss, are you ok?" the big man asked, with a sense of embarrassment.
Lea turned towards the man with a fuming expression on her face. Instantly she caught eyes with man's picture I.D and name. "H. Marcus" It read.
Her eyes perked up as she saw how sincere the man looked. His jaw was square and sported a bushy goatee that covered his smiling lips. His eyes were large and the wrinkles beneath his eye lids told the tale of a man who had seen his share. "Yeah I'm ok, I guess because I have such a small and insignificant role in this building you couldn't help but run in to me." She replied as she took the man's hand. The man pulled her up not using much of his strength Lea figured.
"It can't be much smaller than mine. I'm a sanitation engineer." He replied heaving a sigh
Lea giggled nervously and smiled. "Cleaning up after all of the staff here makes your job here much more important than mine and I'm a terminal specialist." She declared.
Marcus blushed slightly before he reached down to retrieve Lea's bag. Quickly he reached into his back pocket and grabbed onto a plastic card in his back pocket while he turned facing his back to Keller. He slipped the card into her front pocket before bringing the bag to the nervous Keller. "Here you go Miss, you don't want to forget this." He said.
Keller took the bag from the man and nodded in thanks. The man quickly continued on his way but Lea failed to move. She quickly scanned the area with her eyes to see if any of the military policemen had seen the transfer take place. After confirming to herself that there weren't any wise policemen, she continued to the security access elevator. Because of the transfer happening in the first place she knew that everything was going according to plan. Soon she would be able drop the phony façade and become herself again.
As she approached the access elevator, its passengers were already exiting its confines. Keller quickly squeezed herself through the many other workers in her path and entered the elevator. She took in a small breath of relief as she pressed button to the B12 level and the elevator brakes unclamped and the lift began to descend. Keller scanned the confines of the elevator with her eyes as she began to think about the next few phases of her plan. "Ok, Langley so far so good." She thought to herself.
Besides her many talents as a commando, an assassin, and an AC pilot, Carla Ustasia Langley was also good with impersonating personnel of many kinds for the sake of espionage. She wanted to feel remorseful about torturing pass codes and names of important personnel out of the young girl but it was an ability she lost over time in this conflict. Around her in the small elevator were at least two civilians hopefully they would stop on a higher floor before they reached the central information core down below. The elevator hummed and clacked has it shot downwards further beneath the earth. After going a few floors down the elevator doors slid open and one of the passengers, a male left the passenger elevator. Langley gave an internal sigh of relief before she glanced over at the passenger behind her. The passenger behind her was a blonde haired woman a little shorter than she was and wearing fairly classy clothing with a body that she felt most men would admire. Although she didn't feel the jacket that she wore went well with the rest of the clothing, her style almost matched someone else's from the past. She couldn't help but think she knew her from past experiences. Suddenly the woman turned her head towards her and Langley saw a reflective piece of hardware clipped on the woman's hair just past her ear. "Oh my god, Mia Vinosec". She thought out loud.
The woman turned towards Langley with a seemingly forced smile on her face. "Yep, in the flesh" she replied. Vinosec extended her hand out towards Langley or whom she thought was Keller and smiled.
"Kensei and Nazuka must both think along the same lines. I can't believe she's here and I'm guessing some people from her little group are here, too this job is going to be all the more difficult." She began to think. She extended her hand out to Vinosec and began laughing and giggling while bouncing around in place like an anxious fan girl.
"I'm Lea Keller but my friends call me Lokiya on the web. This is like so unbelievably cool that we have a fellow hacker on the base now protecting us, I mean what are the chances that someone so low on the rung as me would run into a top pilot as well as a top hack like you here. I must have read the article on you in For Hire magazine dozens of times" Langley said playing to the part of Keller as she studied. She was doing such a good job she almost made herself vomit at her campy act.
"Uh, that's neat although some of the information was a bit over dramatized in that article. I didn't know I had any followers." Vinosec replied shocked.
Langley ran up to Vinosec grabbing on her side, which she could already tell, made the pilot uncomfortable. "Are you kidding, nearly the entire staff on the bottom floor is stoked. "
"Really, I'll have to stop by and visit with my fellow hacks some other time today. I'm really in a hurry right now cause I have to make sure two of my pilots cores are all prepped before they get here." She disappointedly replied.
The elevator began to slowly decelerate as they reached a floor from which Langley could tell was before the exit to her floor. A small chime rang as the doors to the elevator opened; Langley happened to notice that the doors opened up to a long corridor that ran until it opened up into a larger area. "The hangar" she presumed.
"Don't forget to stop by later if you get a chance Ms. Vinosec. We'll be happy to see your face around the center." Langley yelled while waving at the departing woman.
The pilot nodded her head, as the door slowly shut in front of Langley. Immediately when the door sealed Langley's heart stopped beating its way out of her chest. "Shit" she yelled as she finally began to calm herself down. The only thing she was in high spirits about was the fact that her outfit was done well enough to fool someone who probably had looked at her profile dozens of times. She began to bring herself together as the elevator began to slow it's humming and stopped at her floor. In a matter of seconds she would be walking through one of the most highly secure floors in the entire building. Soon she would be stealing what couldn't be stolen. She smiled at the possibilities that awaited her as the doors to the floor open. "Showtime" she hummed to herself happily
Earth A.G.D(After Great Destruction) 126
July 10th 11:45pm
Chrome HQ (Outer Grounds)
The Outer Parking lot of the Chrome HQ was perhaps too large for Lea Keller. As she finally began to reach the sidewalk, she found a convenient concrete parking marker not an ideal place to rest but a place nonetheless. She let her purse off her shoulder and took a seat to remove her black high-heeled shoes. She was still unaccustomed to the long walks she had to make from the building's various entrances and her heels ached as a result. "Oww" she grunted. "If I knew I was going to feel this much pain I would have joined Corporate Security instead of becoming a Terminal Scientist." Lea complained aloud. A white blouse and a newer Isaac City Squatters soccer jacket she commonly wore on her way home from late shifts covered up lea's upper body.
After resting for a moment she placed her heals back on, picked her purse up and continued on her way. As she reached the security stand at the end of the parking lot, she waved at the security guard near the window before speaking into the window's microphone. "Hey, How was your day Mr. Security?" Lea said perkily. The guard laughed before speaking into the microphone on his end.
"Really crappy if you could call it a day." the guard lightly chuckled. The guard balled one of his hands into a fist and covered his mouth before he hacked and coughed. Lea felt a nasty taste forming her mouth from the sight of the man's pain. The guard made what looked like one large hack from Lea's point of view before he spat into a trashcan or at least she hoped.
"That's a disgusting cough Greg, have you considered going to a clinic at all?" she asked cringing.
"I have, but I can't afford to take the time off. Bills are going to be rough this month for me." Greg replied solemnly.
"Geez, Greg I'm sorry. Hey how bout I get you some cough syrup there's a drug store not too far from here."
"No, really you don't have to I'll get myself some later"
"The store is going to close in about another half hour, so let me do this for you just this once" Lea asked politely.
"Ok, just this once, but when I see you tomorrow I'll pay you back." He replied scratching the back of his head. The man began coughing again. Lea nodded and went on her way.
It was close to midnight that Thursday night by the look of the neighborhood around her. The drug store wasn't too far from the parking garage which made her believe she could make it there and back to the garage without making it home too late. It had been about five minutes since she had left the coughing Greg back at the Garage and was about less than a block away from the Shinitomi Food & Drug store. Things felt oddly quiet for the Terminal Scientist. She could hear cars screeching off in the distance but couldn't really see any on the streets around her or any people either. Any real noticeable sense of life could only be seen in the neon lights of the shops down the street. She folded her arms against her Isaac City Squatters soccer jacket just below her chest in an attempt to hold some of her warmth in. The night dimming of the City's lighting system was considered the most dangerous time for women but, because she could easily see the store's name in hot green and pink neon Japanese characters, it didn't matter much to her.
As she stepped off the street on to the final stretches of sidewalk, she noticed a woman hunched over near a wall a little ways from the entrance to the store. The first features Lea could make of the woman as she slowly approached her was of her bandage wrapped ankles and the cheap wool cloak she wore over her person. In her passing of the woman, she was able to get only a look at the bottom of her pale face and what little strands of red hair she could see from the top of her hood. Should she been able to actual see them, she would be almost certain she had met the other woman's eyes. Seconds after she was already past the homeless woman, she reached the entrance to the Grocery store. She pulled the old fashion handled door towards her and swiftly pulled her near shivering self inside.
The store's overhead lighting flickered and sparked as Lea entered the Shinitomi store. "Hey close da door it's already cold enough n here" The store clerk said. Lea quickly pulled the handle on the inside toward her felt the door slowly lock itself into place has she let go. As she walked further in the store she took a quick glance at the store clerk. His stocky figure made it apparent why he was in the drug store business other than anything else. His bald hair, bushy mustache, and five o' clock shadow made him seem a bit on the shady side but his bristling smile made up for the rough look.
"Sorry about that. My mind was drifting a bit. " Lea politely apologized.
"It's alright I would just hurry up and get what ya gonna get, all the freaks come out at dis time a night". The clerk said.
Lea nodded and flicked her hair. She began searching around the small isles of the store looking for some kind of cough medicine and after few minutes of close searching, she was stumped.
"Hey lady, if you're here for medicine we keep that stuff behind the counter now. Too many kids shoplift that stuff and get high off it." The man said grunting.
"Oh ok then I'll take some Cofenol, The pill kind" She politely said.
The man ducked behind the counter and Lea could here him mumble has he looked for her Cofenol pills. " There we go" the man said. He promptly stood up and threw the tiny package of Cofenol pills on the counter. "That'll be five point twenty-three credits please". He smiled. Lea took out her credit card from out of her purse, swiped it through a little cred card container on her side of the counter, and punched in the password for her card. The machine bleeped and blooped as it took the required credits off her card. "Ok well you take care of yourself out there miss, like I said I wouldn't want any of those freaks out there to do anything to you this late at night." The man said while he placed the pills slowly into a plastic bag.
"Let's just hope not" Lea laughed with a hint of seriousness.
The woman swiftly pushed the door of the old drug store, and made it back out on to the sidewalk. As she looked around the nearby streets, she saw that they were as empty, dark, and lifeless has they were before she retreated into the store. A slight draft flowing down the street prompted her to fold her arms across her chest to keep some warm air with her. She began walking the exact same way she came except one thing about her path was different. The old cloaked woman that had been there before had vanished. "That's good she was beginning to give me the creeps, hopefully she started off towards one of those shelters." She thought. She cautiously started walking back down the street towards the chrome building. Suddenly as she reached the corner of one of the city streets, she felt something hit her feet causing her to trip and collapse onto the ground.
A little bit stunned by the fall, she sat up on her knees and shook her head, trying to gain control over self. " Damn ,unevenly paved streets" she grunted to herself.
"You got to give the city credit, they did a better job on this area than in some of the nicer areas in Isaac." A woman's voice said.
Lea's eyes quickly sprung open and she gasped uncontrollably. The voice of the woman sounded rather distinctly European. As if she was from Eastern Europe in particularly. Lea turned her head and not to her surprise, she saw the cloaked woman on her bandaged feet and emerging from the shadowy wall behind her. "Who the hell do you think you are tripping me for no reason?" Lea asked angrily. Lea brushed some of the dirt off of her skirt and jacket and stood up on her heels. She kept her distance from the woman and awaited an answer.
"On the contrary, I tripped you because I don't like my prey running away from me. The woman said.
"What, you can't be serious, stay away from me. ' Lea yelled rather loudly
Suddenly everything Lea had on her became less important including the cofenol pills that she came for originally,. She threw her purse towards the woman and began stepping backwards. After taking a few steps and seeing the woman had not picked up Lea's purse at all, she immediately slid out of both her heels and ran the other way.
Lea scrambled herself off the sidewalk's curb and darted off into the street. She looked behind her and saw the cloaked woman unsheathe an object with a silver glint she had concealed within her clothing. The woman quickly began to give chase to Lea prompting Lea to move faster than her body wanted her to. Lea jumped up on to the curb and scrambled her way across the sidewalk with the echoing sounds of the woman's footsteps getting closer and closer to her with each breath Lea heaved. "Somebody help me she's crazy" Lea shrieked at the top of her lungs. Even with the adrenaline rush she had gained, her legs simply began to slow down. The steps of her pursuer grew louder until she heard the woman's breathing behind her. Suddenly Lea felt the most gripping pain burning in her ankle. She quickly fell to the freezing sidewalk, grimacing in the most terrifying of pain. This time her legs wouldn't allow her to move much and Lea could barely manage to get a glance at the wound she had just gained. Lodged dead in the center of her right ankle, was the object she saw the woman holding in the distance, a small throwing knife. Lea screamed in pain and tears began to fall from her eyes. "Why are you doing this to me?" she asked sincerely.
The woman knelt down beside Lea's bleeding ankle and pulled out the knife from it. She began crawling over Lea with the tiny knife and hovered around her chest. The cloaked woman smiled deeply into her quivering face and laughed. "Because once I've found my prey and conquered it I can't possibly let it go." She moaned. Overcome by a degree of trauma that she had went through, Lea's world began to quickly slow down and with the red haired woman's green eyes still staring her back in the face, darkness overwhelmed her.
Earth A.G.D 126 July 11th
Chrome HQ (Military Grounds)
Mia held herself against a handrail has she oversaw the final part-to-part connection of Shane Martinez's AC. She sighed as the unit's head, which looked much like a rhino horn, finished its last connection and steam shot out the side. Mia laughed.
"That is probably one of the most lifelike AC's I've ever seen" a Kensei techie next to her commented
Mia nodded as she looked at the younger tech. She really didn't want to seem like a grumpy commander, but it was truer than she wanted to admit. "I've been a commander for like a week and it still feels like a dream to me." She thought to herself.
She took herself away from the handrail and began to walk along the upper deck of the Chrome HQ's primary hangar ,her hands resting firmly below her butt. As usual, she was dressed in her causal suede jacket, which was unbuttoned, and a light blue blouse that was button just slightly above her bust. She was also wearing tight yet roomy white pants and black leather boots. It was one of the few neat liberties about being a mercenary, not having to wear a military uniform constantly. The commander still carried her trusty terminal goggles, has she called them, connected to her hair band that she wore over her natural blonde hair. She had gone ahead with dyeing her hair back to her natural color to honor Kensei's rules that an officer cannot have hair of unnatural colors.
She glanced around viewing the activities of Kensei's techs has they serviced the units of Linay, Kai, and Shane as well her Emerald AC. The past three days of their mission had proven to be very tiresome for the six pilots and the machines even though they hadn't suffered any combat damage were still fatigued. As she and many of the other pilots predicted, they had been very uneventful that week except for the drills that the commander of the base set the pilots throughout their second day. The extra training had managed to catch the young commander off guard and her nerves suffered because of it.
She took a right at a junction on the upper deck walkway and started into a hallway decorated in bluish-gray bulkhead. She suddenly heard a familiar voice behind her. "Commander Vinosec" a male voice called to her. Mia reluctantly turned her head. "No, its him" Mia screamed in her head
"Yes, Commander Orindas" Mia replied lightly. The older white haired commander's wrinkled irate face suddenly began to tear at Vinosec's mind. She knew either she or one of her people had probably done something to upset him again.
"Just so you know Commander Takagi and Lieutenant Satoshi have finished their watch of the building and are beginning to head back in now. The only problem I have with that is Captain Valiyone and Lieutenant Isamo aren't here to relieve them." Orindas complained.
"My apologies Commander Orindas I'll see that it won't happen again". Mia sighed.
"This kind of behavior is unacceptable, even if you are just mercenaries. See that it changes." He stated. Mia nodded and immediately went on her way.
As much as she hated the commander's words deep inside, she knew they bore truth. Kai and Linay were two of the most undisciplined pilots out of the group and they had a track record of showing up late for anything as minor as routine training exercise to being at an airport in time for a mission. While she walked through the hallway thoughts about two female pilots began to arise "Don't they know that every time they do this it makes me look I don't have control over my group?" She thought. While turning on to the hallway that bore her office door, she fingered her blond hair searching for the miniature terminal clipped to its strands. She pressed down on the terminal and an orange screen materialized a few inches from her face. As she reached the door to her office, she had already shifted the terminal functions to making phone calls. She pulled a card from her jeans pocket and slid it through a receiver on the door's side. After a confirmation beep, the many locks within the door's structure unlocked and the entrance way became open.
Mia walked into her makeshift office just has the person she had begun calling finally picked up, on their end. "Hello" The voice yelled into the phone. Mia cringed her eyes has she was caught slightly off guard by the loudness of the voice. "Kai, this is Mia where the hell are you?"
***
"We're caught in traffic right now" Kai yelled trying to keep her speech above the blaring techno in the background. Kai eased her foot on gas petal causing the car to crawl its way forward until the transport in front of her stopped causing the already late duo to have to stop once again. Kai cursed herself for not trying getting out the door sooner. Linay's feeble attempts at fixing a descent breakfast for the two ended in chaos and the cleanup of their apartment caused their late departure. She glanced over at Linay who was sitting in the passengers seat bouncing around to the beats of the song on the radio.
"We? Is Linay with you as well?" Mia asked her angrily.
Linay turned her head a little excited at the mentioning of her name "Yeah, we're roomies remember besides I haven't replaced my bike since I threw it at those techno hitmen awhile back"A/N I'll tell that story one of these days Linay replied sheepishly.
"Oh yeah, Well anyways, I have Orindas lecturing me about you two not showing up on time. That type of stress I don't need, you guys." Mia replied sincerely
"Don't worry boss, we'll be there in less than twenty minutes, that I can promise." She exuberantly yelled.
"Ok, well I've got some desk work to do, report straight to the hangar when you get to the HQ and hopefully you might be able to save yourselves from the Commander's wrath as well. Later!"
Kai clicked off the phone and set it down next to her parking brake on her left. She glanced off to her left noticing her friend looking out her window at sights the city block had to offer from the spaciousness of Kai's small boxy Huishodi pearl. Knowing that her friend was zoning out yet again she retreated to her driving responsibilities as well as her thoughts. "Another beautiful day of getting yelled at by Mia, and that anal ass Commander." She thought to herself. Suddenly a loud horn from behind her told Kai that she had been zoning out also. She promptly eased her foot on the gas inching her car up again before coming to a complete halt. "Is my life ever going to get any better?" she asked aloud.
Linay turned her head away from the road looking at her friend banging her head against the steering wheel. Kai lifted her head away from the padded steering wheel and focused on her friend whom she knew some words of wisdom would emerge.
"Well, If it helps Mia is going to be going on a date tonight so you won't have to deal with her oping for you." Linay said
"So, Miss Anal finally got asked out by someone, that's great. Do you know who the lucky guy is?" Kai asked
"Yeah, Her and Kounji-kun are going to have so much fun together" Linay said merrily
Kai's heart suddenly dropped lower than had in a long time. She felt has if she would have to literally catch her heart before it fell out of her chest. "Her and my boy scout going out on a romantic night on the town. The world is ending." Kai screamed in her head. The thoughts inside of her head suddenly began to grow irate. She was angry, and not at all happy for Mia.
Suddenly the space in the road ahead of her began to clear and she was able to hold her foot on the gas a little heavier than usual. She suddenly noticed in the way Linay moved her lips that they had not concluded the conversation she started before.
"Yeah, I can just see her and Kounji's lips pressed together, reveling in a sweet majestic bliss." Linay laughed making tiny kisses at the passenger side window.
Kai gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, angry with herself. Kai then proceeded to slam on her car brakes hard. Why can't he just like me instead of her? " She yelled in side her mind. She heard a loud thump sound has the pilot next her was thrown into the dashboard of her car's interior.
Kai turned to check on her friend Linay and noticed her activities had gone from kissing the window to a taken back look. "So you finally decided to stop, huh?" she asked sighing
"Yeah, I think the car just got angry with me. Besides this lady walking by with the red hair is giving me this weird look." Linay replied scratching her head.
"I wouldn't blame her, some blue haired chick making kisses towards me would make me think she was a lesbian or something." Kai remarked laughing with more upbeat tone.
"If you ask me people in this day and age are far too uptight. No one seems to take in all the fun stuff in life anymore." Linay said shaking her head unhappily
"Well, maybe if everyone drunk as much coffee in the morning as you do Linay they would have your vibrant energy to take in all that "fun" stuff." Kai mocked at Linay. She then proceeded to take her hands off the wheel and make a sprinkling motion with her hands.
Linay's face puffed angrily. " I don't drink that much coffee" she yelled with a joking tone.
"Girl, We run through like a carton of coffee in like a week whenever you crash at my place" Kai yelled in seriousness.
"Well, if it helps we can go to Café Isaac some days and drink up all their coffee" Linay replied projecting a false sense of a ditz. She giggled and twirled her blue locks adding to the act.
There was pause in car and then suddenly, the two friends burst into laughter. Kai's hard laughing slowed before Linay's did as turned towards her friend and smiled. For that year and a half that Linay lived with Vance, Kai didn't have nearly as much fun as she was now. "How did I ever get through last year without this girl?" Kai thought positively. "But Linay must really be dying inside over losing Vance. How can she still stay even remotely the same person?" She thought with sincerity. Kai pushed her foot on the gas pedal again before letting off. She smiled at Linay while the pale skinned woman beat her fists against Kai's dashboard during their impatient wait in traffic.
"Good Morning Ms. Keller" a young Guardsman said to the terminal specialist.
An energetic and vigorous red-headed Lea Keller nodded in thanks to Guard as she stepped through the entrance to Outer Grounds much earlier than she expected. "7:55" she read on her Plastic sports watch. "I'm going to have use my time much more wisely next time." The woman laughed to herself.
She was dressed in comfortable light green Hawaiian shirt with a sleeveless white undershirt beneath it. She wore comfortable cargo shorts beneath the shirt and to top the whole outfit off some straw sandals. As her usual routine she would have to check in at the Outer Grounds checkpoint in order to make her way through the inner parts of the building to where she conducted much of her work. She pulled on her bag slung over her shoulder as she continued her steps through the lobby. The chrome HQ lobby was bustling with an enormous amount of activity. Many techs. MT pilots, and military personal were littered densely amongst the HQ's lobby. Several of them were pushing and shoving their way into elevators, others from the night crews dragging themselves through the front doors with blank expressions. Several Kensei guard officers stood readily at their patrol post within the lobby with hardened expressions their military training gave them, on their faces. While a few meters from the hallway she needed to enter, a burly shaped man bumped into her. Startled, the small woman fell backward to the ground.
"Sorry, Miss, are you ok?" the big man asked, with a sense of embarrassment.
Lea turned towards the man with a fuming expression on her face. Instantly she caught eyes with man's picture I.D and name. "H. Marcus" It read.
Her eyes perked up as she saw how sincere the man looked. His jaw was square and sported a bushy goatee that covered his smiling lips. His eyes were large and the wrinkles beneath his eye lids told the tale of a man who had seen his share. "Yeah I'm ok, I guess because I have such a small and insignificant role in this building you couldn't help but run in to me." She replied as she took the man's hand. The man pulled her up not using much of his strength Lea figured.
"It can't be much smaller than mine. I'm a sanitation engineer." He replied heaving a sigh
Lea giggled nervously and smiled. "Cleaning up after all of the staff here makes your job here much more important than mine and I'm a terminal specialist." She declared.
Marcus blushed slightly before he reached down to retrieve Lea's bag. Quickly he reached into his back pocket and grabbed onto a plastic card in his back pocket while he turned facing his back to Keller. He slipped the card into her front pocket before bringing the bag to the nervous Keller. "Here you go Miss, you don't want to forget this." He said.
Keller took the bag from the man and nodded in thanks. The man quickly continued on his way but Lea failed to move. She quickly scanned the area with her eyes to see if any of the military policemen had seen the transfer take place. After confirming to herself that there weren't any wise policemen, she continued to the security access elevator. Because of the transfer happening in the first place she knew that everything was going according to plan. Soon she would be able drop the phony façade and become herself again.
As she approached the access elevator, its passengers were already exiting its confines. Keller quickly squeezed herself through the many other workers in her path and entered the elevator. She took in a small breath of relief as she pressed button to the B12 level and the elevator brakes unclamped and the lift began to descend. Keller scanned the confines of the elevator with her eyes as she began to think about the next few phases of her plan. "Ok, Langley so far so good." She thought to herself.
Besides her many talents as a commando, an assassin, and an AC pilot, Carla Ustasia Langley was also good with impersonating personnel of many kinds for the sake of espionage. She wanted to feel remorseful about torturing pass codes and names of important personnel out of the young girl but it was an ability she lost over time in this conflict. Around her in the small elevator were at least two civilians hopefully they would stop on a higher floor before they reached the central information core down below. The elevator hummed and clacked has it shot downwards further beneath the earth. After going a few floors down the elevator doors slid open and one of the passengers, a male left the passenger elevator. Langley gave an internal sigh of relief before she glanced over at the passenger behind her. The passenger behind her was a blonde haired woman a little shorter than she was and wearing fairly classy clothing with a body that she felt most men would admire. Although she didn't feel the jacket that she wore went well with the rest of the clothing, her style almost matched someone else's from the past. She couldn't help but think she knew her from past experiences. Suddenly the woman turned her head towards her and Langley saw a reflective piece of hardware clipped on the woman's hair just past her ear. "Oh my god, Mia Vinosec". She thought out loud.
The woman turned towards Langley with a seemingly forced smile on her face. "Yep, in the flesh" she replied. Vinosec extended her hand out towards Langley or whom she thought was Keller and smiled.
"Kensei and Nazuka must both think along the same lines. I can't believe she's here and I'm guessing some people from her little group are here, too this job is going to be all the more difficult." She began to think. She extended her hand out to Vinosec and began laughing and giggling while bouncing around in place like an anxious fan girl.
"I'm Lea Keller but my friends call me Lokiya on the web. This is like so unbelievably cool that we have a fellow hacker on the base now protecting us, I mean what are the chances that someone so low on the rung as me would run into a top pilot as well as a top hack like you here. I must have read the article on you in For Hire magazine dozens of times" Langley said playing to the part of Keller as she studied. She was doing such a good job she almost made herself vomit at her campy act.
"Uh, that's neat although some of the information was a bit over dramatized in that article. I didn't know I had any followers." Vinosec replied shocked.
Langley ran up to Vinosec grabbing on her side, which she could already tell, made the pilot uncomfortable. "Are you kidding, nearly the entire staff on the bottom floor is stoked. "
"Really, I'll have to stop by and visit with my fellow hacks some other time today. I'm really in a hurry right now cause I have to make sure two of my pilots cores are all prepped before they get here." She disappointedly replied.
The elevator began to slowly decelerate as they reached a floor from which Langley could tell was before the exit to her floor. A small chime rang as the doors to the elevator opened; Langley happened to notice that the doors opened up to a long corridor that ran until it opened up into a larger area. "The hangar" she presumed.
"Don't forget to stop by later if you get a chance Ms. Vinosec. We'll be happy to see your face around the center." Langley yelled while waving at the departing woman.
The pilot nodded her head, as the door slowly shut in front of Langley. Immediately when the door sealed Langley's heart stopped beating its way out of her chest. "Shit" she yelled as she finally began to calm herself down. The only thing she was in high spirits about was the fact that her outfit was done well enough to fool someone who probably had looked at her profile dozens of times. She began to bring herself together as the elevator began to slow it's humming and stopped at her floor. In a matter of seconds she would be walking through one of the most highly secure floors in the entire building. Soon she would be stealing what couldn't be stolen. She smiled at the possibilities that awaited her as the doors to the floor open. "Showtime" she hummed to herself happily