Though Zero hadn't bothered to check yet, much time had passed since his defeat in Sub-City 3. Nearly two days had come and gone, and as the cover of night fell on day two, just as Zero awoke from his involuntary slumber, Megacity 5 was bustling with activity.
Maverick Hunter Headquarters was located near the center of the Megacity, as were most important facilities. The Council Building was a bit further down the road, the idea being that it would be spared damage when the Hunter HQ was attacked, as it always was at one point or another. The Megacity Army's main base of operations wasn't all that far from Hunter HQ, and tonight it wasn't really all that active…which only made sense, as it had devoted most of its manpower to the Hunters as they prepared for their assault. And tonight, Hunter HQ was very active indeed.
____________________
"Equipment check!" Acting Commander Delates barked, moving down the lines of soldiers that composed Units 0 and 17. "This is your final chance, Hunters! Make sure you have all your gear in place!"
"You heard the man!" Jasper said to the other soldiers in the now sizable 17th unit. "You get caught out their with your pants down, and you're dead! There ain't no starting over tonight!"
Nearby, a smaller cluster of soldiers was going through its own ritual, which mainly involved well wishing and making sure the bloody Eagle mechas worked correctly. The 8th Unit Light Infantry, of course, did not want to have their subtle scouting efforts foiled by a malfunctioning engine. Falling from the sky like birdshit in a disabled ride armor was not their idea of a successful infiltration.
"Give your weapons a final cleaning, and check all internal attacks," their commander ordered before she turned and walked towards another cluster of Hunters, these more superior than the others. Grand Commander Signas was moving back and forth from table to table with a smoothness that belied his leg injury, gesturing to maps and explaining one final time to the gathered Commanders the various points of the BROKEN HALO operation. Unit 8's Commander Damia squeezed in and found the only map of interest to her.
"…and keep the bastards off Zion's back," Signas was saying to Hawkins of Unit 5. "Damia, you're still going in first," he said when he saw her. "Take the 8th around the mountain path and radio everything you find to us. Sabotage as much as you can and we'll blow the shit out of anything that remains. Link back up with us here…" He pointed to the main entry point, a clearing that would lead them right to the base of the castle. "Should be just as you remember it."
She nodded understanding and Signas turned his attention to Commander Erich Zegmann. Damia examined the map further. It was easier said than done, she knew, but her team was the best at getting in and out of places unseen. They'd done more covert operations than any other Hunting unit, and so Unit 8 owned a fitting mystique. Still, they were going in first, which meant that they would be in a hell of a lot of risk. Seraph Castle would be expecting them, after all.
"Once more," a new voice said, "you get to have all the fun."
"Oh, I don't know," Damia responded with a smile, pulling away from the table. "The way X talks about it, you guys are gonna be engaging in a good bit of action."
"Yeah, yeah, mindless action…same old, same old," Delates grinned back. "It doesn't beat the suspense of spying. Not sure anything does, as a matter of fact."
"I'd like to hear you say that after camping out in the jungle heat for a week," replied the woman who's team had spearheaded the attack on Web Spider's base, working with X's 17th. "Who knows, Delates? Maybe if you hack off your lower legs, you might be slight and unnoticeable enough to join up."
"That's all right," the special operations soldier replied. "This place has enough ankle-biters."
"Ass," she retorted with a laugh. Damia herself was not exactly the tallest Reploid in the world. She stood at 5'3, which didn't qualify her as a midget but still put her below most other Reploids. She wore a suit of aqua blue armor with a black suit underneath. The beauty of the armor was that it was interchangeable—Damia had two other sets of armor that suited different environmental situations. Camouflage was her game, after all. She even dyed her reasonably short hair sometimes, which wasn't often necessary, since her natural haunting brown blended nicely with most surroundings. About the only things she never bothered to change were her eyes, which blazed a bright blue color, but any enemy who got close enough to see those eyes was already doomed. "So, why aren't you bossing around your new pets?" she went on, referring to the squads in the 17th unit that X had given Delates to work with.
"Tyclammel took over for a while," Delates explained. "I went to triple check the plans."
"And?"
"And our big happy unit family is going around the side to attack Seraph Castle all at once while its main defenses are concentrated on stopping Archer, Mason, and Zion. Zegmann's people will be backing them up with heavy artillery. Taggart will start the party by sending in Ravens to bomb out some of their key defenses…you know, like machine gun encampments on the walls, missile batteries, the like. Then he'll have jets flying around the perimeter at all times with the mission to intercept one of those damned Buzzbombs if one gets off the ground."
"Jesus," she observed, as the situation's gravity sank in again. "We still don't know where the launchers are?"
"If they even have launchers," Delates corrected her, "we don't know where they are."
"Great." She smiled mirthlessly at her longtime friend. "Guess it's time, then. Ready to get the bastards back?" She, too, had known Sol well, and the Hunter's death was not something she was ready to forgive the enemy for.
"I've been ready since the beginning," Delates confirmed with his own humorless smile. "Take care of yourself out there," he said, patting her on the shoulder.
"Just don't shoot us when we're coming back towards you," she advised and gave him a brief hug before heading off to rejoin her team. They'd been friends since the second uprising, and had come through for each other on a number of occasions, and when two people regularly saved one another's lives, friendships grew fast.
Commander X was, for the most part, left with nothing to do. His sergeants were doing all the work of keeping his troops in line, and with the addition of Zero's soldiers the organization was all but perfect. The final equipment checks were complete, and the first teams were preparing to depart. Damia's team would start out an hour ahead of the others, and then one by one the Hunter units would, on this very night, begin the march towards Seraph Castle, where they would end this most dreadful of situations. He wondered idly what they would find when they busted into the castle. How long would it take to find Zero, if he was even there? What would they have to do in order to keep the Buzzbombs on the ground? They'd have to make sure they eliminated the Maverick leaders, X thought. People like that did not get discouraged easily. They might try something like this again, and that risk was one that couldn't be taken.
X spied Caligula speaking with Douglas at the other side of the field where they were all assembled. He decided to clear up something that he'd been pondering for some time, and went over to greet the intelligence chief.
"Your boys ready, X?" Douglas asked as X approached.
"Ready as ever," the commander replied. "Any problems yet with the mobile artillery?"
"Anything faulty has been either fixed or removed from the lineup," Douglas confirmed. "We're as ready as we're gonna be. When do we leave, exactly?"
"Unit 8 heads out in two hours," Caligula answered with a check of his internal clock.
"Good thing, then," Douglas nodded. "I'm going help the guys in the computer lab. Some of them haven't done this in a while."
"You think we're ready?" X asked Caligula as Douglas disappeared into the nearest gaggle of Hunters.
"I should be asking you that," the Invisible Man pointed out. "Though I severely doubt that any further steps could have been taken. We're as ready as we're gonna be, I'd venture to guess." He blinked, reading X's mind as he skillfully as he read the minds of everyone else he encountered. "Something you need to discuss?"
"Just a bit of curiosity." X didn't lower his voice—the chattering crowds made it hard for anyone to eavesdrop. He did, however, check to make sure no one was all that close by. "It just seemed like this mission was one your people would want to have a hand in."
"My good commander," Caligula replied with a raised eyebrow of caution. "I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't. They didn't start you back up?"
His head shook slowly. "They never really shut me down. Still, a mission like this is cut and dry. Ain't much surgical about it. Aegis doesn't have much use in a situation like this, so I figured I'd just leave the operatives in their respective units."
"Mighty kind of you," X observed. "Just seemed that of all the people to send in first, they'd send Aegis."
Caligula shrugged. "Damia's unit is the one that Aegis recruits most heavily from in the first place. They can take care of themselves. Besides…sending a lone agent into a hornet's nest at this time would do more harm than good."
X nodded. "Just clearing the air."
Caligula nodded in turn. "Best get back to your people. The final briefing will start soon."
The azure Hunter found his way into the crowd, but Caligula didn't move. Instead he sipped idly at the cup of coffee he held and wondered whether or not Aegis would have worked in this scenario. Probably not, he reassured himself. Too many people would notice the absence of skilled Hunters at a time like this. No one knew what Aegis was except for the agents themselves and a few unit Commanders. Caligula figured that it was better to keep it that way. For now, anyway…
____________________
Krysta couldn't stop herself from hating her position. Despite Vulcan's words earlier, she still didn't like the idea of staying behind in this computer room, monitoring ride armors and jets, while the other members of her unit risked their lives doing the job they had trained for. The company here sucked, too. Scythe was nearby, and he was all right, but he was very into his work, as she knew she should be. Scythe was notorious for hating computers, but he was doing his job as he should be. She should follow the example, she knew. Joe, the human technician, was seated at his designated spot, along with a number of other Reploid and human Hunters.
Then there was Nightchaser. He'd fairly glowered at her when she'd entered the room, and she'd glowered right back. The little prick must put out a conscious effort to piss off everyone he met, she knew. Fortunately, he was at a secluded corner of the room, and no one bothered talking to him much. People didn't even look his way often. That suited Krysta just fine. Of course, no one was looking at anyone much, as they all had jobs to do, and Krysta did her job well enough, though she still didn't have to like it.
Zegmann's would be the last unit out, she reassured herself. She could still link up with them and get to the Catskills, maybe in time to prove at least to that unit that she knew her salt.
She of course had no idea, nor did anyone else, that she would be experiencing far more combat here at home than anyone in the Catskills.
The reason for that was because all was not quite well inside that computer room. There was something amiss. Certain people had talked to other certain people…more specifically the Maverick Diavus had spoken to information dealer Guyver, who'd called again on the hacker within Hunter HQ. There was a job to do for his "friends". The Mavericks needed his help, the hacker knew. They were the only ones who understood him. And he understood them. He would help them, he decided. He would stop these bastard, elitist, fool Hunters in their tracks…in a way they'd never expect.
The hacker who'd stolen the Terrornova leader list all those weeks ago began his first crisis of the day an hour before Damia's Unit 8 was to set off on its mission. He did not know himself what unit would be going when, but he knew that the attack was underway, and there were people to warn. No one was looking at him, he saw…the bastards, that was too bad for them! He typed casually, as though he were still working on the ride armor maintenance, but instead had pulled up a new menu. It was a communications channel, and he was using a private line set up by "Kujacker" using the magic of the UNDINE coding process. His eyes did not move from the screen, so he looked to be as intent on his work as everyone else was. The hacker finished his message and encrypted it skillfully and casually. He sent the message, which was soon received a ways down the road, at a building used by Maverick agents as an information center specifically for this mission.
"They're coming," the message said. "Estimate 2 hours before first group departs."
Satisfied, the hacker returned to the process of making sure ride armors were working properly. He'd thought about sabotaging some of them, but that might draw too much attention, and he couldn't have that, could he? One thing at a time, the hacker thought with an inner smile.
These bastards would regret their treatment of his people, the hacker thought. He'd lived among them long enough, and that had been an excruciatingly annoying process. Now it was time to play his final role, and escape before Commander Gredam succeeded in turning the Hunter HQ into a crater.
____________________
The center of Megacity 5 was home to more than just military and government bases, of course. One other enterprise was the business of junk collecting. Each district of the Megacity had at least one junkyard in it, and most of them were chock full of broken or destroyed Reploids. Most of the time, dead Mavericks littered the area, as people never took the time to take them apart. Of more interest were the broken Bee Bladers and other mechaniloids that were disabled, but still repairable, which suited his purposes nicely, Tetra thought as he signed out for the night.
A junkyard was different from a landfill. Landfills housed buried trash; junkyards housed exposed, defunct contraptions. This particular Reploid junkyard—Morph Moth had attacked this one in years past—was a prime source of materials for Tetra's cause. He waved to his coworkers as he headed for his truck. He had this one more shipment to make and he could go home for the night. Every once in a while, Reploid part manufacturers purchased defunct machines to melt down and reuse. Tetra was in charge of taking the big truck to the proper people, who would unload the cargo and send the check to the junkyard.
However, as usual, Tetra made one extra stop on his midnight route. It was a large garage that belonged to a housing project, one that was now curiously empty. Its proximity to the Hunter Headquarters made it somewhat undesirable to its former inhabitants, and it was scheduled for demolition. For the moment, however, it had temporary occupants, and they were very grateful for Tetra's deliveries, which had become more frequent in recent months.
The Reploid parked the truck inside the shaded garage and disembarked quickly. As expected, the usual crew rushed to help him unload the important cargo. Tetra always made a point to store his "expendable" cargo at the back of the truck so it could be easily unloaded without having to weed through all the junk that the Mavericks wouldn't want.
Tetra had been a soldier in the tank brigade of the Megacity Army when it used to draw heavily on Reploid recruits. His loathing for the humans began when a tank malfunctioned and was unable to support a team under fire from Repliforce personnel. One of Tetra's best friends, another Reploid, had piloted that tank, and he was later accused of sabotaging it himself in order to let Repliforce finish the job. He was court marshaled as an enemy spy and executed without proper evidence, Tetra thought. From there on he'd hated the human authority, and after he'd left the army he'd taken this meager junkyard job at the urging of his Maverick case officer. He'd been bringing the Mavericks bits and pieces of machines for almost a year now, and while he imagined that they used the parts to reassemble war machines, he didn't know where they stored the parts.
Something was different tonight, he noticed. The Mavericks were not bothering to unload the truck. Instead, they actually hopped inside and hid inside some of the trash. Another Reploid emerged from the shadows, a tall, lanky stag beetle that Tetra had heard about but never before seen.
"You are the one who brings us these gifts all the time?" Boomer Kuwangner rasped, chilling Tetra, who recovered quickly enough.
"That's me. You must be…"
"Boomer Kuwangner," the Maverick replied, opening the passenger door and getting inside. Tetra took the hint and got back behind the driver's wheel. "I'm the one who recruited you, Mr. Tetra. It's nice to see that you stuck with us."
"My pleasure, boss," Tetra said as he started the engine. "Where we going with this stuff?"
"Get on the road," Kuwangner replied simply. "I'll tell you where to turn. Tonight's mission is a little different."
Mission? "Something up?" The truck was backing out onto the road now, turning out onto the highway at Kuwangner's command.
"You might say that," the eerie Maverick replied. "Tell me, Mr. Tetra, would you like to see what has happened to all those bits and pieces that you so kindly brought to us?"
The voice was really creeping him out, Tetra thought. "I sure would. I imagine you've just been repairing them?"
"Indeed," Boomer replied, gesturing for a right turn.
Ten minutes later they had entered a series of warehouses owned but poorly managed by the government. Kuwangner had Tetra park the truck inside a certain garage and the Mavericks sprung out of the top. Both Tetra and Kuwangner hopped out and observed their new surroundings.
"This way," the beetle hissed to Tetra, who followed wordlessly.
The warehouse they entered wasn't all that large, but inner contents took Tetra's breath away.
There they were. Crummy looking, for sure, but they were still there, and they had all been built from the parts Tetra had provided. A full row of Bee Blader hovercopters. Another full row of the miniature tanks commonly used by today's armed forces. There was even a single real tank, one that resembled Tetra's personal mount from back in his army days. He already could picture all the poor bastards that could get mown down by those big treads. There were also two full rows of reassembled ride armors and hovercycles, and the rest of the room was occupied by a veritable swarm of mechaniloid drones. The Mavericks had assembled a small army in this warehouse so close to the center of the city, and all the power located there. They could launch an attack on the Council Building, perhaps, and certainly on the Megacity Army base. They might even take Hunter Headquarters…but only if the base became for some reason deserted of most of its personnel, of course, and really, Tetra knew, what was the likelihood of that?
"You did all this…?" the former tank driver asked.
Kuwangner nodded absently. "It was not difficult. We had the men for it. All we needed was the material. You proved most useful to us, but your mission, as far as this is concerned, is now over."
Tetra turned to him and blinked. "I have no desire to return to the path of the straight and narrow. If my purpose here is served, there has to be something else I can do for you."
"Indeed, there may be…" The Maverick Boss looked hard at the large, full-sized military tank that he'd secured from Alden Base with Cassius's help. "I understand that you used to be a soldier."
"Tank driver," Tetra clarified. "And a decent soldier, now that I think about it."
"Hmm…" Kuwangner mused for a few seconds before pointing to the tank. "Could you drive that?"
"Could I?" Tetra laughed. "I could drive one of those things one-handed and blindfolded."
"We do not expect such handicaps for you," was Kuwangner's mild attempt at humor, "but if you can do the job…?"
"I'd be happy. What's the target?"
"Maverick Hunter Headquarters."
Jesus, Tetra thought. This was big time shit. They really were building an army, weren't they? "Tonight?"
"Yes," Kuwangner confirmed, "tonight. More specifically tomorrow morning. By the time the sun rises, everything will be in motion. You have that long to familiarize yourself with those controls."
"No problemo," Tetra assured him with a grin. "You don't just forget shit like driving a tank, partner."
"Indeed…" Kuwangner glanced around one final time, pleased with the project. It had worked out better than his last venture, he thought, even if he had managed to bag Zero. Stupid move by the boss, he thought. They could have killed the crimson bastard right there and spared them all a lot of trouble. Well, at least he'd been able to kill a human or two, the brutal Maverick thought with a grin that was hidden behind his facemask. No wound gushed blood quite like a slit throat, as poor Kim had learned in her final moments. He knew her name only because that repulsive friend of hers kept shouting it out. Foolish humans. Death, after all, was a part of life, something humans claimed to value. As far as Boomer was concerned…well, there was nothing wrong with speeding up the process a little.
For Tetra, the entire situation was a little stunning. An hour ago he'd been doing his job as regularly as any other night, and now he was about to drive a tank into the Hunters' backyard. Good, he thought. He'd had enough of sitting on the sidelines. It was time to pay the humans back for what they'd done to his friend, and to Tetra himself. If their protectors got in the way, well…once again, Tetra pictured all the poor bastards he'd mow down with those treads.
"We're checking the equipment," Kuwangner announced. "Get used to the tank. We move on Hunter Headquarters when we get the cue."
"How will we know what that is?" Tetra asked before he got moving. "I mean…we're all the way out here. What's to say we won't miss it?"
Boomer Kuwangner's eyes did the smiling for him, and it was absolutely ghoulish. "Believe me, my comrade. This is one cue that will be impossible to ignore."
____________________
A few miles from Kuwangner's base of operations, the guard was changing at Alden Base. Tony Jones had enlisted the help of an Army night crew that specialized in security measures. There would be no more incidents like with the Marauder, which still frightened Colonel Jones more than a little. That thing was an absolute monster, and the thought of it in Maverick hands…well, it wasn't something that allowed for peaceful slumber.
"Quiet night," Jones observed to Cassius, inside the base command center.
"It is," the wild-haired Reploid replied, shutting down his network for the night. "Expecting something to happen?"
The colonel frowned and shrugged. "It would have to be now, wouldn't it? The Hunters are on the move, and the Mavvies are gonna know it." He glanced one more time out the window before heading for the door. "Make sure the security teams stay alert."
"You got it, sir," Cassius affirmed, and then Jones was gone. Humans had to sleep, the Reploid knew. They were no good without rest, though Jones would probably be hard pressed to get to sleep on a night this suspenseful. Cassius could hardly blame him. He was nervous too, though for an entirely different reason.
Cassius was about to leave the command center himself when the beeping stopped him cold. It was his pager, he knew, his internal communicator. It was set for only one frequency, and its activation told Cassius all he needed to know: It was time.
Still, he had to confirm it. He was the only one left in the room, and the security cameras had a blind spot right underneath them. Cassius waited for the camera in the right corner to tilt in the proper direction and he slipped right under it. Here he activated his communicator—the cameras did not have sound receptors—and called the proper frequency.
"Is this about the suit?" Cassius asked of the faraway voice.
"Yes, Mr. Cassius," Boomer Kuwangner replied from the other end. "It is ready for pickup."
"Thank you," he said, and the connection broke. Hoo, boy. It was happening tonight…probably more towards the morning, he realized. Finally it was all going to come together. This made him more than a little nervous, since Cassius, like most of the Mavericks, did not know where exactly Commander Gredam was going to direct his nukes. Hunter HQ was a no-brainer, but he had to have more than one at his disposal, didn't he? And Alden Base was certainly on the target list. But that wouldn't matter, he told himself. He would do his job and leave the premises, and that would neutralize Alden Base's capabilities and allow him to slip into anonymity.
Cassius produced a chaff grenade from an armor compartment and set it down behind him, right at the corner of the wall. He pulled the pin and jumped at the bang, and immediately darted towards his personal workstation. He reactivated it, wishing that he hadn't just shut it down. He used the painstaking seconds while the cameras tried to refocus to stretch up to one camera and pull out the power cable, praying also that the chaff wouldn't mess up the computer system. It didn't really matter except to load up. Once Cassius inserted his disc, chaff wouldn't matter. The disc's designer—Cyber Peacock, AKA Kujacker—had created the perfect program. Once Tony Jones attempted to activate Alden Base's remaining forces to move against the Mavericks, this virus would cause the machines to go haywire, creating a disturbance in Alden Base that would draw all of Jones's attention, effectively neutralizing Alden Base's usefulness. It was a nice plan, if Cassius could only pull it off.
There. The computer loaded and Cassius immediately inserted the disc, opened the "Run" menu, and typed the proper code. Then he waited again for the precious few seconds that would allow the program to run in its entirety, and finally—it seemed so long—he removed the disc and stowed it back in his armor. He shut down his computer regularly but left the room before it finished, first collecting the pieces of the chaff grenade, and then heading as calmly as he could manage to the nearby officer's lounge. Cassius wasn't really an officer but he did pull some weight. Fortunately no one was inside except a major Cassius knew by reputation only. They nodded to each other but didn't speak, as Cassius poured himself a cup of coffee. Somehow he managed to keep his hands from shaking.
The men monitoring the security cameras were of course alarmed by the sudden deactivation of the cameras inside the command center, and they mobilized on the double. However, all they found upon entering was a quiet, dark room with functioning cameras…though one seemed to have a disconnected cable. That must be the problem, one man thought, reattaching the cable. The camera worked good as new. Just a maintenance problem, the security men thought with disdain, but just to make sure they checked the nearby offices. They found Major Bellman and that Cassius Reploid inside the officer's lounge, and a few secretaries in the other nearby areas, but other than that the command building was clean. No one raised any alarms. Cassius was in here all the time, and was just having a cup of coffee. Bellman often stayed late, and why would a human try to sabotage the base?
Nope, just a maintenance problem, the three-man security team decided as they headed back to their posts. They were more worried about an attack from the outside, Cassius thought as he bid good night to Bellman and headed outside. They didn't really consider an attack from the inside. As he walked to the front gate, he stopped and moved behind a warehouse that he often examined as part of his routine daily inspections. No one inside thought it odd that he should show up nearby, and he nodded and smiled to the security officers as he passed them. Inside the warehouse he casually made sure no one was watching and retrieved a set of papers from a cleverly hidden shelf behind some ammo crates. The papers were supply collection orders signed by Colonel Jones himself…actually Cassius had signed them, but his forgery skills were top notch, and the guards wouldn't examine it all that closely, he knew.
He was right. The guard at the gate saw the signature, saw that it looked like the signature he'd been told to memorize, and waved Cassius through, warning him to be slow when he returned to the base. It wouldn't do to go startling the guards now, would it?
No, it would not, he thought as he climbed into the official jeep and drove off into the night. Goodbye to Alden Base, he thought, and to this chapter in his life. He'd done his part in the effort to save his people, he thought. Now the rest was up to those with slightly more power at their disposal.
____________________
Isoc was getting anxious. He hadn't done this in quite some time, and the pressure was something he hadn't been prepared for. The scientist Reploid went over the maps one final time, comparing that data to the mission orders he was about to send to the two squads of Investigators, both in very different places, and both with very different missions.
Isoc confirmed the coordinates and ran the program through his computer this last time to check for errors. Nothing wrong, he saw with relief. At least, nothing that a computer could catch, and since Isoc himself was a computer, he figured that he couldn't do any better.
"Relax, partner," Gate said calmly as he approached his associate to collect the revised mission orders. "They already know most of what they're doing."
Isoc frowned, but nodded. "I'm more worried about the Brazilians than anything else. What is their situation?"
"I received reports from their army," Gate explained. "All they need is my signal, which Commander Yammark will provide. Then…" He had to grin at this one. "Well, the Mavericks will learn a thing or two about proper military strength. It's a shame that the Megacity forces don't have that kind of firepower—" He stopped, catching himself. "Well…you know what I mean."
Isoc nodded, but was still frowning. Weapons of any sort precluded war in each and every incidence, and he was quite glad that the Megacity System did not have the weapons needed to make it into a military giant. "Do you foresee any problems?"
Gate emitted a nearly inaudible sigh. He'd met Isoc years ago, and the two found that their ideologies were nearly identical. Isoc was also older than Gate, and his increased experience with the world made him a valuable partner. Some found it odd that Gate even wanted a partner, but those were the ones who expected Gate to make some move for power, and power was something he didn't want. Well, he admitted, the power to bring everyone around to the utopian world he'd pictured for years would be nice, he thought. But how was that different from tyranny? He didn't know, he decided, so it probably wasn't worth caring about. Isoc himself was another who could care less about personal power. He'd seen enough evil in the world and his only goal now was to correct it. Still, for all Isoc's intelligence and his skill in managing the Investigators, the man could be such a damned worrywart.
"Of course I foresee problems," Gate answered. "Anything that can go wrong will. We've allowed for everything we can…now it's just a matter of letting random chance run its course."
Isoc absorbed this and nodded again. "As you say. They'll be moving soon, you know."
Gate nodded in turn and accepted the sheets of paper Isoc offered him. He scanned the data and nodded again, heading back to his mainframe, where he loaded a copy of the orders and sent them to their respected owners. "Investigators," the first line read, "the time has come. UNDINE team, move into position."
____________________
Blaze Heatnix, Blizzard Wolfang, and Ground Scarabich received the message directly into their CPUs. They unhooked themselves immediately from the chargers they'd been using to keep themselves at full capacity and boarded the vehicle waiting for them. They were to infiltrate the Catskills alone and link up with the Hunters upon their arrival, after which they would attack UNDINE and recover the proper information. All three were pumped and ready. All they had to do now, ironically, was wait. Then the transport would drop them off at the appointed place and into the mountains they'd go. Seraph Castle would never know what hit it, they were all sure.
____________________
"It's a shame about the Hunters you lost at the quarry," Malevex was saying, still in that damnably neutral tone of voice. "We'd assumed that you'd be better organized."
"Was that your idea of courtesy?" Zero asked coldly, rubbing at his temple. He was still groggy, and in a state of extreme lethargy. Whatever the Mavericks had shot him with back at Sub-City 3 was still taking its toll.
This invoked a shrug. "Merely a gesture for the Reploids involved. We needed you there for the confusion, you see, though killing Reploids at any time is undesirable." A line from The Great Maverick Creed.
Zero blinked at his apparent host, analyzing his face and coming to a decision fast. "That's horseshit, and you don't believe it any more than I do."
The Maverick smiled faintly, lowering the curved wooden pipe from his lips. In the moment he reminded Zero of some English detective sitting in Scotland Yard observing a notorious criminal behind bars. "And I'm sure you've heard that litany a hundred times."
"At least," Zero agreed, still trying to focus himself. There was a lot to focus, after all. He worked on converting all the emotion from the dream he'd just had into antipathy for Malevex, and the people he represented. It wasn't a difficult task. "Always it signifies the new King Shit, the new asshole with a gun who wants to make people give him what he wants by throwing a squad of thieves and killers at society and calling it a 'revolution'."
"Is that what you think?" the Maverick asked with an amused grin. "Well how about that. You're just as cynical as the rest of us."
"War does that," Zero explained in a monotone similar to his host's. "War after war after war with 'the rest of you'. And now you bastards want to nuke half the city into oblivion. Well that's just great," he finished, stopping to catch his breath. Even his respirators seemed to be on low-speed.
"Half the city?" Malevex leaned back in his chair. "That's a bit of an overstatement."
"What does it matter?" Zero's eyes narrowed. He hated this game, and wouldn't play it on a normal occasion, especially given his sluggish mental state. However he didn't know if he'd get to see this man again, and there were things he wanted to say. "One nuke will be enough. All nukes carry radiation. That can kill a city as easily as a blast can."
"Buzzbomb radiation outputs are remarkably mild," the Maverick pointed out, somewhat distantly. "I'd say that your pet humans won't have a lot to worry about, after the fact. Not that I'd care much otherwise, of course."
"That's right," Zero recalled the conversation with Mortar. "You and your vengeance. You killed those army men?"
"Thornton and Komanov?" The Maverick waved them off. "Don't concern yourself with those murderers. Nothing happened to them that they didn't deserve."
"That's an interesting statement," the Hunter said, sinking in the barb, "coming from you."
This time he showed emotion. Fury blazed behind his eyes for a brief second before he controlled himself, remarkably fast, Zero thought, considering the nature—and relative unfairness—of the statement. Malevex inhaled from the pipe again, calming himself further as he did so. "I don't much blame you for hating me, Hunter. Though at least hate me for the right reason. If you hate me because I'm planning a nuclear raid, fine. If you're hating me for shooting your friend in her head, get your priorities straight." His eyes narrowed. "The men who truly killed your friend are already dead. We took care of that problem for you."
Zero had to admit that the Maverick's barb was worse than his own. "Don't give me that. You could have walked away from them at any time—"
"Sure I could have," Malevex snapped, nearly losing his temper again. "I could have walked away and joined the Mavericks. Because I sure as hell couldn't go to the Hunters. That would have solved a lot, eh?" The pipe went up again and the Maverick went on, actually laughing lightly. "Yes, I could have walked away, and lived the rest of my life knowing that my own cowardly act resulted in a prolonged session of agony for the only friends I've ever had."
"You could have found help," Zero persisted, losing his own temper. He'd gone years without venting his fury over Mea's death, and here at last was his chance. "There were people who would join you in a heartbeat. You could have busted all of them out. Instead you just kept on killing. That was your cowardly act, you bastard! It was so much easier to just kill people, and transfer the pain to others rather than facing it your own goddamned self! God knows who else you killed, besides Mea, and all so you and your fellow terrorists wouldn't get rapped on the knuckles by your teachers."
At this Malevex nearly jumped from his chair, produced the revolver in his pocket, and showed Zero what a kneecapping felt like. However he decided, with incredible amounts of professional self-restraint, any attack on this prized prisoner wouldn't sit well with Gredam, who couldn't well risk a change in plans at this point. Instead he very slowly inhaled from the pipe again, his personal method of relaxation for years, though he still couldn't explain it to himself, as smoke had no effect on him. He raised his eyes to his prisoner as he let the smoke flow from his slightly parted lips. He knew a thing or two about Zero's past, and he decided here and now that the Hunter would not get away with his comment. He selected the most venomous barb from Zero's life and moved to strike.
"Restraint…?" the Maverick said in a very quiet tone of voice that had his prisoner's attention immediately. "Is that it, Zero? Restraint? Should I have ignored those innocent people, like I wanted to with all my heart, and returned to face the music like a man, or something like that? Should I have put down my sword and my sniper rifle and worked for a peaceful solution?" He spat at the floor near Zero's feet. "My cowardly act! I saved the lives of the only people who mattered a damn to me. Which is more than you could do," he added in a sickeningly nonchalant manner.
Indeed, it was a most venomous barb. Instead of the fury that might have taken him, though, Zero blinked once at the full impact of the words, even before it had all sunk in. More than I could… He was right, Zero realized, actually feeling his already weakened body deflate further. He sank back against the wall in a bit of shock. Malevex, seeing this, was encouraged, and went on, driving the spike as far in as he could.
"Fighting is easy for you, isn't it?" the Maverick asked with genuine spite. "It's the restraint that comes hard. Was it restraint you showed when you cut Colonel down like a dog? I don't recall you putting down your sword. He had a sister, didn't he? I know you killed her, too. How did you let that happen?" He shook his head in wonderment. "How can you love someone and then kill them?" He didn't know if it was love, in fact. All he had to go on was Sigma's eyewitness account, told to them months ago when the Maverick was still in power. "Oh, I bet you're sorry," he went on quietly. "I bet you're sorrier for that than for anything.
"But me?" he leaned forward, puffing the pipe once more with a more neutral face. He had to relax, he thought. He'd done the damage, and he was satisfied with the pain he'd inflicted…perhaps even slightly ashamed of it, he thought as he saw the look on Zero's face. The Hunter couldn't possibly have known the rage his words would have awakened in the former assassin, but Malevex's own words had been fully intended to crush his visitor's spirit. At least he had Zero's attention now. "Me, I'm not sorry. I made the right choice and I'm glad for it. Of course I regret killing your friend," he added, again genuinely, though it would probably be lost on Zero, who had come out of his shock somewhat and was paying more attention to Malevex's words. "But I wouldn't change my decision at all. You know who's in this castle with me, Zero?"
"Mortar," the Hunter supposed, thinking back, glad to think about anything but the great guilt the Maverick had just instilled in him. "And someone named Gredam's in charge."
"There's another," Malevex informed him. "Her name is Teytha." Smoke flowed from his mouth again as he dredged up the proper details from the darker parts of his memory. "She and I were sent on a particular mission together, a few months before I was sent after Mea," he remembered the name. "The target was a young Reploid Hunter who was too zealous for his own good, or at least, that was how Komanov saw it. The attack was supposed to take place in a wooded area, near Yates Forest."
"Sturmond!" Zero realized. "The target was Sturmond! He'd reported the attack, though he came out of it unscathed."
"Yes," Malevex agreed gloomily, "I suppose he did. Teytha's role in the mission went off without a hitch. She was to seed the road with mines and escape into the trees, while I sniped any survivors. Random chance, however, is often unkind. Your friend Sturmond's jeep malfunctioned on the road in, sparing it the mine damage. I was not equipped to take out Sturmond and his four comrades. A snipe shot would kill the target, but escape for Teytha and myself would have been very hairy. So…I aborted rather than risk our lives. The attack your friend reported was when one of his clumsy comrades stepped on one of Teytha's mines. You see, she'd done her job perfectly. I'm the one who failed.
"But yet, when we returned to base, Komanov did not see fit to just punish me for my caution. Because I spared the enemy, I had to watch Teytha…" He stopped, actually shivering. "You know what a 'Surger' is?"
Zero felt his contempt for the Terrornova assassins melt somewhat into actual pity. A Surger was the common name for a device meant to magnify electric impulses in an object, usually for use in recharging blown fuses. Use on a Reploid was possible, only the effects were fatal if prolonged, and for any shorter period of time it was easily the worst pain most Reploids would ever feel. Vile's cages in the first uprising used Surger technology in the bars. Zero had grabbed them once. After that he'd been absolutely paranoid in his efforts to remain in the exact center of the cage, as far from the bars as was possible. "You can't be serious…"
A laugh. "Komanov did not take defeat well. We all paid the price, because I decided not to shoot." Again, the eyes narrowed, and Malevex continued in a voice that was difficult to analyze. "What would you have done, Hunter, if it had been Iris?"
Again Zero recoiled, knowing full well how cowed he'd have been if it would have been Iris.
"Would you have 'put down your sword'?" Malevex went on, making his point and knowing it. "Would you have been reluctant to continue on your murderous missions? No, you would not. You would shoot every further target right in the head, twice, just to make sure. You would do everything in your power to make sure that the incident never happened again. And then you had to hope that your comrades took the same attitude, or you would be punished for their mistakes. No, Zero, there was no room for mercy. There was only room for protecting the only things that mattered to you. Thornton and Komanov have paid their dues. Now the rest of the bastards will face the music."
It was quiet after that. Zero sat still, back against the wall, absorbing everything despite the protests of his exhausted CPU. Malevex waited a minute, using the time to shove his own demons back in the boxes he'd removed them from. It had been years since he'd thought about the Surgers. Such thoughts belonged behind barriers, Malevex believed. Perhaps he'd face them someday but for now he found that he did just fine keeping the thoughts at bay. The Maverick then put out his pipe and stood, heading for the door to leave Zero alone with his thoughts.
"All this?" the Hunter's voice asked the Maverick's back. "All this carnage, even nuclear attacks, just so you can have your revenge?"
Malevex turned, and his face was unreadable again. "The objective isn't revenge, Hunter. It's security." At the confusion on Zero's face the Maverick continued on. "Gredam, Teytha, Mortar and I cannot live in the Megacity System while certain people still live. The fear of discovery would remain constant, and how can you call yourself free if you're still living in oppression? Once these people are gone, only then will we be safe."
"You'd drop a nuke just to feel warm and cushy? I don't imagine you care…but that's selfish as hell."
A shrug. "After what they did to me, humans are as expendable to me as us Mavericks are to you. I'm talking about my own objective here. Gredam may really want to save the Reploid people, or something idealistic like that. All I care about, though, is living free...more specifically, making sure my comrades can live free. If I die, then I'll die making that a reality. If I have to live with the image of Teytha in agony on a Surger, then I'll make damn sure I die with the image of her safe and well and free, and to hell with anything that gets in the way," he declared, unaware of how much he was reminding Zero of himself, at a certain moment that the Hunter had recently subconsciously revisited. "For soldiers like us, or X, or Gredam, or even Sigma, there's only two real decisions to make. One is, what is your objective? And two, how many people are you willing to kill to achieve it?"
And then, realization happened. Zero blinked slowly as a geyser of dread erupted in his stomach and crept upwards. "And for this objective…the safety of your…comrades. How many…are you willing to kill?"
Malevex took a deep breath and let it out slowly, sizing Zero up and conveying that he didn't care much for the methods, but hated the opposition enough that nothing seemed too severe for them. Zero sat in quiet alarm, knowing the answer already.
"Anyone and everyone," the Maverick finally said quietly. Then he turned and left Zero to vegetate in his pool of dread.
