[Chapter 13 of {unknown}]
"Nene, what are you going on about?" Priss next to the smaller and younger woman.
Linna, now half standing.
"It's on the news, come quickly," she grabbed Priss tugged at her.
Not sure what was going on Priss let herself be led, Linna following and then overtaking them when they came into the 'TV' room, her mouth dry.
A few gangers were about, bodies thrown out in a display of laziness eyes glued to the screen even if their brains weren't tuned into it.
"They've changed the channel, give me that!" Nene latched onto the remote and tried to pull it from the owning gangers hands.
"Hey!"
Nene put her foot on the chair, knee raised, to give her leverage in the tug-of-war struggle. She growled, face turning red. Others looked on in mild amusement.
Irritated Priss waded in and with a deft swipe yanked the remote from both pairs of hands. Nene fell back onto Linna. Priss' stare canceled any arguments.
"What station?"
"Two."
Priss pointed and pressed, nothing happened. "How the hell do you use this thing?"
Nene victorious at last got the remote from the luddite Priss, "Easy," she pressed a sequence.
"Priss, I don't...?"
Priss simply shrugged to Linna's question. She had no idea either.
The screen flicked over, an Anchor behind a desk, top left corner a graphic of two flags, ticker news stories and stock prices running by at the bottom of the screen.
"No, they've changed stories." Nene began flicking through the channels with a speed only a TV-generation child could and able to stop on a dime. "There."
The reporter and camera crew behind a Police road block, the reporter: "... no demands have been made by the terrorists yet but the Police are reported to have sent in a Negotiator.
"Already the office building has been surrounded by Police and the area evacuated. The terrorists, believed to be anti-boomer because the building they have occupied belongs to Hugh Geit, a Genom subsidiary, invaded at ten am according to witnesses. They have taken the occupants hostage..."
The reporters live image was replaced with a previous recording of the camera zooming in on the windows of the mid floors of the building. People were pressed up against the glass, the hostage takers behind them but out of sight. The camera zoomed even closer and the faces and features of the hostages could be clearly seen.
"Oh God." Linna covered her mouth with her hands.
As soon as she had seen the building she had identified it. That was where she worked. Her first thought then had been on Misei, her coworker. She was in there, a hostage. Then the windows, the people behind and the close up. It almost felt deliberate, picking them out of the dozens. Not even employees but parents of one. Her parents.
"Linna, I'm so sorry." Nene came over to her. She had seen a photo of Linna's parents when over one time.
"How can you be sure? They could be..."
"I know my parents Priss." crystal clear she had seen them. Like here eyes were the camera.
"Hopefully the Negotiator will sort it out. There's no need to worry, your parents will probably be the first released." Nene tried to be comforting.
"No."
Said laced with titanium.
"I'm going to rescue them."
"Linna, that's crazy, this is trap for sure." Priss being the voice of reason for once, and of considered thinking. She knew Linna's building, could put the facts together and come to her terrible conclusion.
"A trap?" Nene.
"Genom knew about us," meaning Nene and herself, "and has Sylia. That only left you out of their knowledge. And last night you show up, unexpected for all of us. They've got our files, they know where you work, your parents, your home. They've got the reach to set all this up. And the sickness." to contemplate doing it, and carrying it out.
"That may be, but it doesn't change my mind. They're my parents, I have to do this." her face set in a solid mask somehow reminding Priss of Sylia.
Nene tried, "Remember what happened last time Linna, we were all nearly killed! If Priss is right then that's what they will do."
"I'm not going to ask either of you to come. This is my fight and I'm going to make who ever is responsible pay."
Gone was the country girl, unsure of herself in the big city. Replacing; a firm determined woman having found her calling, escaped from the machine, her cog tumbling from its expected location.
Priss' hand on her shoulder, "They want all of us and they wont be disappointed. You've already proved that the best Genom has can't take a Knight Sabre down, now we will show them that fucking with us is fatal."
One of the gangers ran to find Kaneda.
+++===+++
Mason had Sylia brought into his office. Large mostly empty except for a desk near a wall of monitors.
Sylia looked, confused as to what she was meant to be seeing, each monitor a different picture. Inside a building, outside, offices, workers.
"Taking Big Brother a little too far aren't we?" she had to limp heavily. No crutch.
Mason sat behind his desk, back to the monitors, hands together in front of his face. He laughed. Unnerving.
"Take a closer look. You will find the short future to be very, very interesting."
Sylia complied. Now standing at the other side of the desk she was close enough to pick out details. To read the caption on one of the screens: HOSTAGE CRISIS! The internal camera's obviously those of the building that had been occupied. There were armed men. Office workers huddled together by the windows.
She eyed sharply, "What's this about Mason?"
He motioned to his left, where on of the secretarial boomers had been standing motionless. The boomer turned on a projector. Schematics came into being on the wall.
"Boomers? Project..." she had to squint, "Terminator?" she turned back to Mason alarmed.
His hands, gloved, she only just realised that he always wore gloves, "Forget the name, I'm told it is a title of a pre-millenium movie." he shrugged, "Engineers have their little quirks but it is quite apt.
"You see Sylia, I'm sure you would be glad to know that your companions recovered their hard suits last night."
Sylia stood a little straighter, some pride returning. Her girls wouldn't give in.
"So I have decided to end this once and for all. I have plans that need finishing and you and your merry band is frankly wasting my time. As luck would have it at the time your friends struck I too came into possession of something, no somebody's that will allow me to end this distraction."
Sylia didn't like what she was hearing, not at all, "What are you talking about?"
"It seems the parents of one Linna Yamazaki had grown worried about their daughters absence from work, I for one thought her dead- a mistake- as it was her surprise arrival that saved the others from capture by the Police."
A chill ran through her, "You monster!" oh Linna no. Your parents.
"Oh yes. I expect your companions to attempt a rescue and will be quite upset if they don't. It isn't everyday that we get to field test our products in such excellent conditions."
Project Terminator. Human sized combat boomers. The Genom Security man she had fought outside the warehouse.
"I see..."
"We shall have the best ring side seats in the house, to see once and for all whether Boomer or Knight Sabre will take the title."
+++===+++
Red.
Blue.
Black.
Each a point of a triangle joined to the other in a strength that grew the closer they became.
Faceless masks, bringers of doom.
The Black Knight Sabre at the lead flanked by friends, comrades. In her hands a lethal rifle, a minister of change reflecting the nature of the conflict the Knight Sabres now fought. No longer against boomers that had gone out of control. Now against the very creators of the boomers, the source of the problem, not the symptom.
The rifle. As black as the armour. Curved magazine fully loaded, a long round chambered. The first time Linna had actually seen a bullet, real, she was scared. In her hand, then, something lethal, that could take a life as many before had. Long and thin and deadly. The brass case cylindrical. The tapering point steel. How heavy it felt in her palm. The weight of the question asked to those who used the bullet: could you take a life?
The three masks looking over the tops of buildings, across the bay to the Tower.
"Let's go."
As one they turned, filed down the stairwell off the roof into the building below to the ground level and past rooms, gangers amazed following in their wake until they came out into the courtyard.
Kaneda leaning against his bike, goggles around his neck.
"Need a lift?"
His grin, larriken
Supporters around him, bikes at the ready. All eyes towards the Knight Sabres. Living legends in their midst.
Priss shook her head in disbelief. "I think you've done enough for us Kaneda."
He put on a face of disappointed. Real enough maybe but probably not. "I heard about your parents," he said to the black one. He'd been told about her but hadn't seen the woman with his own eyes, "Stuff like that aint appreciated."
Linna was silent. There was only one thing she wanted to do. How she got there didn't matter. It would be slower but their batteries would not be wasted powering the jets. They might be seen coming in however. Genom was watching, waiting for them. The Police would want a rematch too. No time to waste on Genom's patsys.
"Shit!" Priss swore. She was looking past at the entrance to the courtyard from the road. Eyes followed hers.
A lone figure, a man, a tall bulky man, strong upper body, standing in the absolute centre of the driveway. Hands casually in the pockets of his brown leather jacket. About twenty metres distant.
Just to the other Knight Sabres, "Leon?" Nene surprised yet hopeful. He had got her message. Found her. Maybe she'd survive this after all.
"Who?" Linna queried.
"A cop." Priss, "ADP. He was there last night. Let us go."
What was he doing here? More to the point, how did he get here? Had he followed them? How? As important, what was she going to do.
With deliberate steps, slow, well placed he walked. Hands remaining in his pockets, because that was where he kept a gun, smaller than his usual one, just in case, surrounded as he was by a bike gang and a Knight Sabre armed with a very deadly weapon.
"Hey, who the hell are you?" Kaneda put forward the question everyone else wanted to know.
"ADP." each letter spoken out slowly. Carefully, if he said it fast they may do something he'd regret.
"A Cop!"
"Pig..."
Muttering amongst the gang. A cop on their turf. They weren't going to let that stick.
Leon kept walking not daring to stop. If he did he might not be able to move again, mindful of the black. The new one. The dangerous one. Continued until he was before Priss.
He knew it was her, the singer, the biker. He knew that bike anywhere. Where the bike was the rider, Priss, was sure to be close by. It was a natural progression when he had seen the bike he knew with a Knight Sabre riding it. His mind's eye stripping away the blue armour to reveal her.
"Going somewhere are you Priss?"
He knows me? Herself taking a step back.
"Don't deny it. I know its you. There's only one person with a bike like yours."
How was that? Her bike, her partner for so many years had betrayed her. Betrayed her to a cop. Well, it was as much her own fault as the bike's. She rode it everywhere. She had to laugh at herself.
"Clever. I would never have thought about that."
"That's why I'm a Cop."
Her hands on her hips, "Come to arrest us? Now that you've found the Knight Sabres all together, big scoop for you. Back-up outside?"
"No, no backup." shaking his head. "Not here to arrest you either." he looks about at the full courtyard everyone listening to each syllable.
"Then why? This for kicks?"
He shrugged, "I really don't know why." sure he did. Underneath that armour was girl. One that he was chasing. "So what's going on here? Did I interrupt something?"
"We're going to kick Genom's sorry ass so if you're not going to arrest now you'll have something to charge us with later." Kaneda put himself into the conversation. One Cop around, there had to be more.
"Priss, this can't wait." Linna's impatience apparent. She was the one with the finger on the trigger.
"You got that car of yours around Leon?" Priss was having an idea.
"I'm not dumb enough to hang around here in a cruiser all night. Unmarked van." like the other one. However was in there probably watching what was going on too.
Van, better. "Here's a favour..."
+++===+++
Sylia sitting on her own chair. Eyes grown bored of watching the hostage situation.
Mason talking to his people again, asking if anything was going on. Negative response. Irritated.
"I expected more Sylia."
"They know it's a trap Mason. They can wait."
He grunted derisively, turned to a boomer, the one with the black hair, "I'm thirsty."
"Yes Sir." she acknowledged and left.
The room returned to silence. Both the masterminds drifting through their thoughts. Mason on after the destruction of the Knight Sabres, brining his plans to conclusion. Sylia on both the future and present. The future of two possibilities; the success of her girls or their failure. What either meant for her. The present, the ambush they were certainly entering. Over two dozen Genom men inside the building she had counted. She didn't know if they were all the type of boomer she had fought.
The cameras, they covered every corridor and room. Planned and executed in a small space of time. Sylia had to respect Mason for that. When he wanted something done it happened quickly.
The boomer returned placing a glass of water by Mason, then surprising both humans by holding another out to Sylia.
Stunned she took it.
"Why did you do that?" he asked the boomer.
"She is thirsty." came the reply.
"I did not ask you to bring her one."
"Mother is in requirement of fluids."
Mother?
+++===+++
Knight Sabres cramped in the back of the van. Leon and Daley in the front.
"This had better not be a setup Priss or we're screwed."
"Don't worry Linna, I believe Leon." piped Nene.
Daley by the wheel, "You really have taken leave of your senses you know that Leon? If any of this gets out, and I've half a mind to tell the Chief, then our careers are finished. Jail time I bet and in no pretty place either. You know what they do to crooked cops."
"Where not crooked Leon. What we are doing is right."
"How do you figure that? Is this some way to pick one of them up? Because if it is..."
"Shut up Wong. Just drive to the building, you'd be doing the same."
Priss' favour, a partial truth about the hostages, the full truth that it was a trap. Leon suspected that he wasn't getting the whole story but he didn't really care. That Genom was involved and the ones taking the hostages made his sick to the stomach. He wanted to go in there himself. He should, he was the cop after all And it wasn't going to be a place for women, armour or not. The macho/chauvinist side. He preferred to look at it as his chivalrous side. Daley was partially right too, damn, the man always was, it was about a girl as well. One in the back, he couldn't see them, the partition closed. In the blue.
They arrived.
Stopped at the road block. ADP badges didn't work. Metro keeping tight control on their turf. No boomers, no ADP. Maybe we'll let you take a look afterwards.
The road block was well back. Nearly a block away in all directions of the occupied building. Evertything else in-between evacuated. Fireflies hovering overhead but also high up. Like they were not meant to get within a certain distance.
"Crowded, look for somewhere to back into and we'll drop them off."
Unhappy with what he was doing Daley complied. Sometimes he just didn't know why he supported his partner so much. Interesting moments maybe.
Shadows of high walls fell over the van.
Leon pulled the partition back, "We're here. Get out the back, way's clear." the partition closed. To Daley, "Honk if anyone comes."
"Roger..."
Pat on the shoulder, "Don't worry Daley," Leon reached into the man's jacket and pulled out his gun.
"Again?"
Leon was out the cabin walking around to the back where the Knight Sabres waited, a gun in each hand.
Priss jerking with her head, "What are those for?"
"For you." Leon held one out each to Priss and the Red. The Black had its own. Magazines on its thighs.
Nene shrunk away from the weapon.
"We don't need them." Priss waved her hand.
"Take it Priss." Linna spoke for Leon to hear as well. Commitment and resolution.
"Your friend is right. This is different than rogue boomers."
"Tell me about it." reluctantly the other two took the guns.
"Which way is it?" the Black asked.
Leon pointed, "The next block."
Linna to Nene, "Do you have the floor plans?"
"Yes."
"All right, into the fire."
Leon shielded his face as the Knight Sabres took to the sky.
"Man, that is one hard bitch."
+++===+++
"Sir, they are coming."
"Excellent."
Mason turned his attention to the wall of monitors putting the words of the boomer to the back of his mind for consideration later.
Sylia too gave the monitors her full attention. Eager to see how her hardsuits performed in combat.
+++===+++
Nene's HUD slowed half a dozen blips heading in their direction, "We've got company!" she alerted the others.
Linna wished she'd taken a smaller weapon. The assault rifle was too big for this.
They were in a corridor, offices on one side, empty, all the hostages were at the very moment being moved to one central place. That meant Genom knew they were here. That and the men coming towards them.
Linna was in front, weapon raised and against her shoulder, finger resting lightly outside the trigger guard. It wouldn't take her long to have it firing. Her back against the wall she inched forward, Nene reading off the shrinking distance of the enemy. The corner in the corridor where they would appear.
Priss was against the other side and a meter back, the gun in her hand uncomfortable and strange. She wondered if it would be better just to throw it at the enemy than shoot it.
"Here they come," Nene at the back. Eyes scanning the floor plans of the building which she had downloaded from a hack of the city council records office. Government security was weak.
The first pair rounded the corner. They were just like the gunmen that they had fought before. Fully armoured, bulky. No trace of a person at all besides the shape.
Boomers have that shape too. Thus Linna justified her killing.
From the end of the barrel a long tongue of flame, a dragon's roar. The distance close, still some bullets of the bursts missed spitting chunks of fibreglass, refabricated compacted plastic flying off the walls. Most hit. Little force spent, penetrating the armour, throwing the bodies back against the others behind.
Grey/green blood. Linna's eyes focused, zoomed in on the splatter.
"They're boomers!" realisation.
"Then we have to crush their cores," Priss rushed forward past Linna.
The events caught on camera playing to a select audience.
The corridor was filled with smoke and debris at the detonation of a knuckle bomb. The force concaving nearby walls.
Overkill.
Priss could punch through the boomer with her normal fist.
A helmet had been blown off one, its green bloody face, mouth wide appeared out of the smoke right in front of her face. It let out an inhuman shriek. The gun in her hand jerked knocking the boomer back against a wall.
Linna was then on it, free hand crashing through its chest, finding and crushing the core.
And she was moving again, three boomers had retired around the corner. They fired when she appeared. Bullets chipper her armour and she jumped back. The corner of the wall vanished into dust with a shot gun blast.
The sound in the confines deafening.
"More are coming, up behind us." Nene kept the others aware of the fluidity of battle.
Steeling herself Linna leapt around the corner, and up, the barrage of fire going under her feet. It was awkward but she fired aiming for the one with the shotgun. The boomer reeled back under the punishment, enough to kill a human.
"Priss!" Linna came down and fired her jets tackling one.
Priss charged around the corner and it was hand to hand again. Three against two. The shotgun the worry.
With a punch Linna crushed the head of her opponent but that didn't stop it. It's arms grabbed onto hers and squeezed. Metal bent and compressed against her arm. Through clenched teeth she moaned.
Remembered something Gou showed her.
Went sideways, one arm came free. Punched forward. Ended it.
Priss her her own trouble. Two tough boomers. Point blank fire into her stomach, she slapped the gun away, staggered back, another rushed her and they broke through a wall and fell into offices, onto a table that smashed under the weight.
The third boomer now facing off against Nene. The pistol no effect. It charged, she fired her other weapon, needle gun electromagnetically charged, designed to give a pulse that would disable a boomer and shut it down. It never had been very successful. This time...
Two needles where the heart should be, the pulse delivered. The boomer slowed, hesitated. It wasn't rogue, no madness had infected it. For once the needles worked.
"Nene, get out of the way!" Linna warned.
Nene stepped to the side, the boomer started moving, slowly. Not a long pause.
From behind Linna, the shotgun in her hands, held out from her waist. Pump action. It barked once.
The boomer jumped forward some metres, a gaping hole in back.
Its signal faded from Nene's sensors. "You got it Linna!"
She pumped the shotgun. Empty shell dropping to the ground. "Help Priss then catch up."
Linna continued along the path the boomers had taken to reach them.
The office was a mess. Showing human cunning the boomer picked up a chair and threw it, charging in right after. Priss knocked the chair away but was caught in the tackle again. She brought both her elbows down on the boomers shoulders and cracking reached her ears. The boomer picked her up, feet scrambling for the ground, threw her into a wall.
Stunned Priss felt herself being picked up again, lashed out blindly. Blocked. Solid knee into her hip. Pain. Jolted backwards. Wall.
Then the pressure gone.
"Priss, are you ok?" Nene, in front of her, "Linna's gone on we better hurry." grabbing her arm pulling her along.
+++===+++
"Knight Sabres six, Genom zero." Sylia allowed herself to laugh. Her eyes drawn to the monitor with the black Knight Sabre. It had to be Linna. How, she didn't know. How Linna was able to be there, in a hardsuit, fighting that was. When she should still have been confined to a hospital bed. What had Dr Shan done?
"A skirmish nothing more." Mason's reply, eyes glued to the battle.
+++===+++
The hallway widened out into a waiting/reception room of some kind. This place was full of offices. Probably where all the Managers worked.
It felt good blowing it up.
Two boomers, one blast. One flying back despite its weight, the other its arm blasted apart from the elbow.
Gunfire came back at her. Linna spun back on her heels against the wall. A line of holes stitched where she had just been. Splinters raining to the ground.
Beside her the reception door swung up.
She dropped to her knees, fired.
The one armed boomer's green blood splattered the room.
She ran into the reception. Bullets raced down the hallway.
Pumped the gun. Last round. The weight just felt that way. Over the counter the blast making it shake. Paper, blackened by heat drifting in the air.
She dropped the shotgun, picked up the boomers weapon, submachine gun. Loaded and ready.
Priss and Nene in the corner of her vision, running past the reception door.
Buzzing sound all around. Bright flashes of light. Metal on metal contact.
Linna stepped out into the hall again, boomers the way she had come, fired. Two jerked under the bombardment and slumped down. Blood on the hallway wall behind them. The bullets having gone all the way through.
She backed up gun trained on the hall.
"Where are they Nene?"
Nene's second kill at her feet, she checked her map while trying to get her breath back, "Holding back."
"Find my parents!"
Nene moved off.
Priss picked up the gun of her own conquered foe. She'd changed her mind about guns seeing the bits of boomer parts blown off. Killing them from a distance would be safer, especially when they fired back. Sweat was streaming down her face. With a helmet on it stank.
"Let's go Linna."
In file. Into a stairwell.
Bullets came towards them fro above and below.
Priss ran dry, "Shit I'm out. Give one of your clips."
"Not compatible."
"Fuck!"
Nene yelped holding her arm.
"What is it?" Linna took a look. A bullet had gone right through the side of the forearm. Missing Nene's real arm but not by much. Armour penetration bullets.
"Can't stay here," Priss blew a hole in the stairwell wall and they exited quickly.
Priss set herself by the smoking opening, "You two go on."
"Priss..."
"You have to tell me where to go Nene, c'mon." Linna grabbed Nene by the arm.
+++===+++
"Get a camera there quick!" Mason ordered. The blast had knocked the one out that was in the room the Knight Sabres had retreated to.
He didn't want to miss a thing.
+++===+++
The loss of the camera also meant the boomers were blind, they were all tied into the feeds and so knew exactly where the Knight Sabres were, and where they were going. Until now. With added caution they approached the hole.
The first one went through, sensed Priss next to it, almost blocked her attack, a hard jet assisted round house kick arching upwards into the chest.
The boomers chest plates crumpled and its gun hovered in the air as it fell back onto its fellows.
Priss snatched the gun, brought it down and fired an extended burst through the hole at the clumped boomers.
Then she ran, weaving through cubicles the bees around her.
Shooting further away as well. Linna and Nene in the thick of it.
Genom's boomers. Just how many of them where there anyway? It was like a computer game with an inexhaustible supply of badguys. You didn't know you had got the end until you reached an even bigger and badder level boss.
Nene provided supporting fire, her needles causing a temporary pause in the boomers effectiveness allowing Linna to finish them off or shoot them up. Replacing her empty weapon with a victims.
Nene watched her, the black armour a denial of personality. That what stalked and killed the boomers was itself not human. A killing machine.
The gun ran empty again.
Three boomers rushed her, pistols pouring hot lead, deep pits in the black armour.
Linna dropped, kicked knocking one over by striking its feet. She scrambled away under a boomers kick, leg blurringly fast. Into the path of the third. It's fist shot out aiming at Linna's head. She swayed her body from the waist to the side, the punch touching only the top layer of paint. Feet dancing on the carpet floor. Her own hand coming up to strike at the armpit breaking armour apart the hand reaching inside. Another boomer, recovered close and attacking. Again she twisted, hand pulling the core out killing one, still moving, in a wide arc. Like a ballerina.
Fists and legs striking backwards and forth.
Clang of striking metal.
Linna's breathing laboured over the intercom.
The pace furious. Two against one. Body shifting to the right, back, darting forward, a bang, one boomer stumbling back, the other knocking Linna down.
Blue carpet all Linna could see. She rolled over. A booted foot sinking into the floor where she had been.
Nene attacked the wounded boomer, smoke pouring out a hole in its flank. She stunned it with her needles, punched as hard as she could knocking it over and out of its torpor.
Growling it got up, pulled a serrated knife out of a leg sheath. Nene backed away in fright. If the boomer had a face she could see then it would be smiling at her.
Feeling like a jackhammer had worked over her body Priss was in much the same position.
"Come one you bastards, who's first!" she challenged.
There were enough takers.
The first came, knife in hand. Priss kicked a table into its legs halting it and giving her time to worry about the next closest one. Fist flying at her head she jerked back lessening the force of the blow.
The boomer followed up with a powerful kick that sent her flying into a meeting room. She pushed her self off the table just in time as the first boomer started to enter, she slammed the door in its face, breaking the door and giving her enough time to ready and deliver a killing blow.
Through the glass wall of the meeting room the boomers jumped shattering it into a thousand points of light.
Panting, dodging she got out of the room.
+++===+++
"They're slowing now. Not long now before they fall."
"You're running out of boomers faster." Sylia could see it, victory coming.
Nene and Linna finally finishing off their opponents, Priss catching up with them and four boomers close behind her. The four that remained. Monitors that had been passed by showing the wrecked still forms of twenty one of Mason's vaunted warriors.
"Oh this is just the beginning."
Said with confidence. She didn't like the implication of that.
+++===+++
"Almost there, they're all in the one room."
"Any boomers?"
"Can't tell."
They would assume so. And the four chasing them.
Guns gone.
Priss had only a few knuckle bombs left as well and they were all breathing hard. Muscles burning from exertion and injury.
They let the four catch up wanting to clear them before moving onto the hostages. They killed them all. Nene was taken out as well, broken ribs, her suit visibly cracked deep.
They paused to recover themselves.
"Nene, can you make it out by yourself?" Linna leaned over Nene, kneeling on the floor and shaking.
"I ... I think so."
"Get to Leon, or if you can one of Kaneda's groups. They'll get you to a hospital."
Nene struggled to her feet, leaning on Linna for support.
"Shit, I don't think she can make it." Priss held onto Nene as well.
"She can't follow us or stay here. We can't stop going forward either."
A moment for hard decision.
"I can make it. Get your parents Linna," Nene pushed off from the others, stumbling but standing on her own legs.
Silent. The others nodded. Then they left.
+++===+++
"Nene..."
"One down," finally he did not add, not actually expecting the Knight Sabres to destroy all the combat boomers.
All the monitors changed the the same screen, then part of it making the wall a giant image which the two Knight Sabres entered cautiously.
A large meeting room, enough space for a few hundred people. Auditorium but not equipped that way. Corporate presentations, functions.
In the middle, huddled into a tight mass the hostages. The staff of Hugh Geit. Misei was in there somewhere, scared out of her wits. Her parents were in there somewhere, mother holding dad tight. All of them wondering if they were going to get out of it alive.
Linna halted, feet planted apart.
From the middle of the mass of of hostages three tall powerful forms.
"One for each of us," except Nene had gone.
"We can do it." Linna said firmly.
From the circle one boomer, it was larger than the others they had fought and not at all trying to disguise itself as a person. It was a boomer and everyone knew it. Bulky, armoured. It stopped halfway.
+++===+++
"This will be the end," Mason stood up. He wanted to be standing when it happened. It was a lot more commanding than sitting in a chair.
The boomer let out a mighty roar shaking the glass on the entire level and then charged.
Before Priss' mind had even registered the boomers movement Linna was off the mark her own cry ringing in the air.
David met Goliath.
History repeats.
One of Linna's forearms had been replaced with the same from Sylia's hardsuit. Silently, quickly, a flash of silver wolfsbane, the blade extended and with Linna's swing ran cleanly into and out of the middle of the boomer.
Groaning, control lives severed between the legs and the body the boomer tried to turn around as Linna was now behind it and wondered as much as it was capable by its legs weren't following its instructions. The upper half twisted and crashed onto the floor, the legs remained upright. The carpet darkened in a widening stain.
"NO!" Mason shouted.
The boomer destroyed so suddenly. Like it had been nothing.
Sylia laughed aloud, freely.
"You've lost Mason! Face it, my..."
"Silence bitch." he snarled, reached down and opened a drawer, pulled out an automatic pistol.
"Your mad."
"Yes. Maybe. But I'll still win," he turned to his computer on the desk, started pressing keys.
Slowly, Sylia rounded the table.
"You see, I've filled vans with explosives and had them parked underneath the building. Enough to completely demolish the building and kill everyone in it, and destroying any trace of Genom involvement." he chuckled, an edge of craziness in it, "I was going to do it even if I won."
"The hostages?" cold.
"Yes they would die too but they're of little importance." his eyes were off Sylia who was trembling in rage. Her face twisted into a snarl.
"Monster!" she leapt at him.
"Off!"
They struggled, Sylia strength assisted with righteousness, Mason fueled by hunger for power and a dark madness. The gun in his hand the focus of their attention, faces nearly in contact, flushed, lips pulled back over gums ferally exposing teeth. Grunts of exertion, the gun lowering, moving, between their bodies.
Impassive, unmoving the boomers.
A single shot.
Mason stumbled backwards, panting.
Sylia, still. Eyes flared.
A red mark on her chest. Growing.
Mason giggling. Hysterical. The gun in his hand.
Sylia's strength gave way. Feeling nothing, hearing nothing she collapsed to the floor.
Mason triumphant, returning to the computer to finish his work.
The boomer, black hair was upon him.
"What are you doing?"
With both hands the boomer grabbed Mason by the neck, lifted him off the ground. Squeezed.
The gun's report, over and over until the clip was spent.
His eyes wide, terror, unable to breath. Croaking. The boomer squeezing the life out of him, crushing his throat.
"Mother..."
A snap like a wet branch.
Sylia took her eyes away, Mason's limp head and body still held by the boomer, turned them instead back to the monitors her fading eyes watching her beloved Knight Sabres.
Priss.
Linna.
The last two boomers falling to them.
Well done girls, well done. You've made me so proud. All that I could have even wished for.
I wish I could have told you in person.
And with that Sylia sighed, expelling last of her breath and her eyes closed in eternal rest.
+++===+++
Mackey Stingray whooped in joy when he watched the reporter announce the hostage crisis over. He looked at one of the Minders in the room who had also watched on, but impassively.
One of their phones rang and was answered. Short, only a few words. The man put the cell phone away. Jerked his head and walked out, the other Minder following.
Just like that they were gone.
Mackey looked outside and saw them get in their car and drive away.
Finally. His ordeal was over.
"Nigel! Nigel, they've gone."
+++===+++
As usual the Knight Sabres escaped. This time helped by a spree of robberies by a biker gang while the Police attention was focused on the hostage situation.
Nene had gone to Leon, he was the closest. The two ADP Officers got quite a surprise when they found out who the Red Knight Sabre was.
"Nothing will be new to be any more."
They took her to a hospital.
On jets Priss and Linna returned to where they would be least expected, Sylia's place. There they found Henderson alone. He told them his Minder had received a phone call and suddenly left.
"Hope Nene's ok." Linna wrapped in one of Sylia's robes. Short on the thigh.
Priss steadfastly refused to where anything of Sylia's. The last time she had to wear one of the woman's articles... she didn't want to think about it. Henderson supplied her with an antique sleeping robe of his own.
"She'll be fine. I called Kaneda and none of his guys have her so it must be Leon."
"Is that safe?"
Priss shrugged, "They're all ADP."
"So why did that Cop help us?" they were seated in Sylia's lounge/bar room with the news on.
"I have no idea."
"Well he knows who you are, are you seeing someone behind my back?"
"What?"
Laughter releasing the remaining tension.
Henderson coming up with a tray of drinks. He offered it to Priss, "Here you go Miss Priss."
"Thanks." she took the glass, half filled with brown liquid.
"What is it Henderson?" Linna.
The old man had stopped moving. The colour of his face ashen. Looking at the TV.
Eyes gravitated to the screen.
"Oh my god..."
+++===+++
"Turn it off!" Nigel yelled.
The news, "In an another apparent terrorist strike, this time at the heart of Genom a high ranking Genom Director and Sylia Stingray, daughter of the famous inventor of boomer technology were found murdered in the Director's Officer in the Genom Tower. The Director was in charge of boomer operations in the Tokyo region..."
"I said turn it off!" the screen shattered, a wrench thrown into it.
Mackey sat absolutely still, "Sylia. Sylia's dead. Why didn't I feel anything?"
Nigel left the room slammed the door to his own room behind him.
"My Sister is dead." there should be a feeling of loss. Isn't that what real people, humans, felt?
Grief. He had seen it on the news as well. Accidents, war. Always grief.
Nigel. He was close to Sylia, they shared something. He would be in grief.
He went to Nigel's room, the door was locked.
"Nigel?" he knocked.
Nothing.
Something. Wrong. He felt uneasy, a cold sweat along the length of his spine.
He knocked harder, some force driving him on, "Nigel! Open the door, Nigel!"
Mackey reacted as if it was he who had been the target of the report, jerking back against the wall.
"No, no, Nigel, no." he smashed the door open, rushed into the room.
Blood covered the wall where the bedhead was. Thick and dark in the centre. Thinning out to a spray that was even on the roof.
Nigel lay on the bed. A revolver in his hand.
+++ 30 +++
And that will be the second last part of this body of work! Title from the Chun Yow Fat movie of the same name. Inspiration for the battle here 'homage' from the last scene in the Hospital of the film. No babies though.
Hope it was shocking enough. Sylia had to redeem herself and it is always made stronger with the ultimate sacrifice. Nigel's suicide a natural progression: while I didn't tell it he 'sold' Sylia out like the series and obviously felt that it was all his fault and lost it when he saw that Sylia was dead. Tragic figure.