Chapter 34: Recruitment Efforts

Sonnet had returned home over seven hours ago, and was writing in her journal again. She was considering producing an electronic version using her laptop, but decided to wait until she knew some encryption/decryption techniques. She paused and glanced at the clock over her sofa. The time was 00:37. She wrote a few more lines on her current page before hearing a knock at her door. She got up, entered her apartment, and closed the balcony door. She moved over to the door, opened it, and saw a terrified Mutaru on the other side.

"What's wrong?" She asked, opening the door to let him in.

He entered the apartment, and turned to face her. While she shut her front door, he paused for a minute, trying to get his breath, before saying:

"There's gonna be a zoanoid attack in the area. Very soon."

Sonnet spun back around to face him, knowing that he had had a psychic influenced dream.

"Any idea how many zoanoids?"

"At least 50. Possibly more."

Damn! Sonnet thought, it's probably going to be a 'recruitment drive'. They must be running short on troops, so they obtain some 'volunteers'. Looks like Mutaru will be getting a workout.

"I could handle about 20, unless they all rush me. Beyond that, I'm outmatched. I think we'll…"

Mutaru looked up as she trailed off.

"We'll what?"

Mutaru looked a bit shocked as her eyes glowed blue, since he hadn't seen this ability of hers.

"They're coming."

"You can sense them?"

"Yes. Although I can't tell you an exact number."

"Can you approximate?"

"At least 20, maybe 25. You and I might need to fight."

"I think I can manage. What about Ran?"

"Let's go to your apartment. We can wake her up and keep her in reserve."

"She won't like that. She'll want to help."

"Then she can help. The more of us, the better."

"What about Sho and the others?"

Sonnet considered this.

"Keep them in reserve. We might need their firepower."

"Why don't you use your enhanced armour? It'd give you a chance to test it in the field."

Sonnet smiled.

"Good idea. Chronos might think there is a seventh Guyver if I do that."

"True. Let's move."

The two of them left Sonnet's apartment, and went to Ran's apartment. Mutaru used his key, and let himself and Sonnet in. Sonnet quickly went into Ran's bedroom, moved to the side of her bed, and shook her awake.

"Ran, Ran wake up. We need you."

Ran was, not fully awake and was a little slow to react to what Sonnet was saying.

"Wh…"

"Ran. WAKE UP!" Sonnet spoke as loud as she could without shouting. This caused Ran to wake up completely, and sit up in bed.

"Sonnet. What are you doing here? What's going on?"

"There is a small zoanoid army in the area. I think they are 'recruiting'. Mutaru and I need your help in getting rid of them."

Ran quickly got out of her bed, and left her room. Sonnet was right behind her. The two women met Mutaru in the lounge area.

"Can you teleport us to the roof?" Mutaru asked.

Sonnet nodded, and held out her hands. Ran and Mutaru grabbed one each, and the trio disappeared in a flash of blue light. They reappeared a few seconds later on the roof of the building. All three summoned their armours, and Blue summoned her upgrade, and began scanning the area.

"How many can you detect?" Blue asked Red and Psychic.

"32." Psychic replied.

"31," Red replied, "How about you?"

"32."

"Remember your sensors have a slightly reduced range." Psychic pointed out, talking to his sister.

"Yeah. I remember. So, do we split up, or team up?"

"Can you handle single combat?" Blue asked, in a concerned voice.

Both Guyvers nodded.

"OK. Stay close to each other though, so we can cover each other if needed."

The three Guyvers jumped off the roof and, once they hit the ground, they headed for the nearest zoanoids they could detect. Stealth Guyver went towards a group of at least seven zoanoids, activating her sonic swords. Red moved towards a group of three, and Psychic moved towards a group of five. Although only a few of them had transformed, the Guyvers could still identify the Chronos troops because they were wearing the trooper uniforms. The group that Stealth was near to went into an apartment building across the street from her current location. Stealth paused for a few seconds, out of sight, and decided to live up to her name. She cloaked, and lifted herself a few inches off the ground with the gravity orb. Now she could sneak around, since none of the zoanoids should be able to tell she was nearby, unless they walked into her. She scanned the building that the zoanoids had entered, and detected all seven on the ground floor.

This isn't right, she thought, Chronos is usually subtler than this. Why are they being so obvious now?

Even with that concern, she decided to take them out. Remaining cloaked, she moved closer to their location, and activated the three sonic swords on her left arm. She selected a Vamore as her victim, and moved behind it. Once she was in position, she fired a sonic disruptor beam, which shattered its head, and caused its associates to look around for the culprit. She quickly moved a short distance away, then towards another zoanoid, and quickly sliced it in half vertically.

"What the hell is going on?" an Enzyme II shouted.

Blue, to her surprise, then heard a telepathic voice in her head, which sounded like Balcus.

[Your attacker must have some kind of stealth ability, Enzyme. This could be a problem.]

Quick off the mark, Doctor! Blue thought, somewhat impressed. Balcus' voice then continued.

[Withdraw. Other Guyvers are killing the other teams, we need to conserve resources.]

Blue decided to then cause some more damage. She moved behind the group of retreating zoanoids, and dropped her cloak.

"HEY!" She shouted at them.

As they turned around, and one appeared shocked by her appearance, she fired a beam from the head laser at each of their foreheads. The result was five dead zoanoids, and their remains quickly dissolved. Blue then re-cloaked as she heard someone approaching an apartment door. Luckily, the remains had almost completely dissolved by the time the door had opened, so the tenant only paused for a second and sniffed the air, before going back inside his apartment.

He must have been able to smell the creatures' blood; although I'm surprised no one came out of their apartments sooner. Blue thought. She then decided to check on the others.

[Red, Psychic, how are you doing?]

[We've killed about 13 zoanoids between us, but they took off for no reason.] Red reported.

[If you can sense me, can you meet me outside my current building? I might be able to explain what happened.]

She got two acknowledgements, and then teleported herself to the front door of her building. Once the other two Guyvers appeared, she teleported all of them to Ran's apartment. She deactivated her armour, and then sat down on the sofa. Ran shut down her armour, and sat down on the other side of the sofa, and Mutaru took the desk chair after deactivating his armour.

"OK, Sonnet," Ran said, "Why do you think they retreated?"

Sonnet thought for a second before answering:

"I was trying my stealth upgrade, and had killed a couple of zoanoids, when I heard Dr Balcus telepathically telling them to withdraw. Something about having to 'conserve resources'."

"So you can hear other telepathic messages, besides ours?"

"Yes," Sonnet replied, "Remember I told you not to contact me in any way while I'm at work?"

The siblings nodded.

"I was afraid Balcus would pick up on telepathic messages. It seems I also have that ability."

"You have latent telepathic abilities naturally, don't you?" Mutaru asked Sonnet.

"Yeah, but I never learnt how to control them."

"Maybe that is why you can eavesdrop." He said.

"This could be useful. As long as he can't eavesdrop on our telepathic conversations too."

"This is fascinating," Ran stated, "I don't know about you Mutaru, but I'm tired."

"Yeah, I am too."

Sonnet took that as a cue to leave, and teleported herself to her own apartment. She then retrieved her laptop, and accessed the Internet. She was reading any scientific reports that she could find regarding cyborgs, and the possibility of them being produced. Most of the reports she read indicated that cyborgs might be possible in the next twenty years or so, but not sooner.

If they only knew about Taron. Sonnet thought sarcastically.

According to a few sources Sonnet had in Taron: since the 'death' of Dr Melicus, Taron hadn't been able to produce any more cyborgs to work as assassins for them. Which meant that Bird and herself were the only ones of their kind. Sonnet, however, didn't regret killing Melicus, or the fact that she and Bird were alone in the world.

I wonder if I'll be informed of the 'recruitment drive' when I go into work today?

Sonnet wondered, as she finished the last report on her current site.

She then glanced at the clock, and noticed that she had just over 3 hours to kill before she was due to be at work. She decided to do something unusual, and go for a morning jog. She hid her laptop and journal in the ceiling compartment, and then went to her room and changed her clothes from her jeans and t-shirt to a white set of clothes, including a white tank top, white shorts, socks and trainers. She slid her apartment key into a pocket, and left the apartment.