Chapter 2 – Bad Day, Worse Night
I was still awake the next morning when my internal clocks hit six am. Ironically they still sent a buzzing through me, even though it was pretty clear I was conscious. I could go a few days without sleep if I had too, but I still felt a bit guilty at missing a night's sleep.
About a half hour later I received a call.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Light, sir, there are several packages here for you. Shall I have them sent up?"
"Yes thank you, that would be fine."
"A bell boy will be up shortly. Have a pleasant stay Mr. Light."
"Thank you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About ten minutes later the bell boy was leaving, tip in hand, and I set out to get changed. I pulled a loose black t-shirt over my head, noting that my dark brown hair needed to be combed again. I sighed.
Why bother. It'll just look like this again in ten minutes. That was something I liked about being a machine. Oh, well.
I put on some faded blue jeans and a navy blue jacket. I looked down with my green eyes at the one thing in my things that hadn't been on the checklist. A ring. The ring had a silver band that separated in the middle to hold an onyx gem not unlike my helmet's crystal. In the center of the stone was a sky blue 'X', looking for all the world as if it floated in the center of the gem.
Maybe it does. It is from home after all.
The ring was a going away present from Zero. I smiled at the memory of my friend and partner. I would miss our conversations together. I chuckled a little remembering most of our conversations were about embarrassing moments. Most of which were Zero getting slapped by some female reploid over a really bad pick up line. The lines were pretty funny, even if Zero did usually sulk for awhile after he got shot down. All in all, it was good fun. Zero could easily laugh at himself once it was past.
I halted my side trip down memory lane and finished getting my things together. I put my credit cards in my wallet and packed my things. I checked out and went to a quiet restaurant for an early breakfast.
What should I do first?
Hunting down the mavericks came to mind almost immediately, but I discarded the notion. I had no idea where they were. I needed information.
The probe.
That was a good idea. It was programmed to continue to collect data on the people here, as well as scan for maverick activity, even after the first portal shut, so it was the best source for reliable news. Also, I didn't like the thought of what would happen if it were found, its technology level was far superior to what was commonly found here, and humans were naturally curious. And if it were somehow traced back to me…
The results will not be pleasant.
I paid in cash for my food and hopped on my bike. I pulled on my helmet, dead black with the maverick hunter symbol, which was little more than a circle with a slash through it on top of the maverick's Sigma symbol. I chuckled.
The running joke is that Cain designed it when he was drunk. Probably not far off either.
I took off to the last coordinates sent by the probe, hoping that it would be close enough for me to pick up on its signal.
~2010, The Park, 11:43 AM~
This cannot be a good thing.
I was near the last coordinates that the probe had sent. There were marks in the ground where the observational unit had sat. Now it was gone. It was also nowhere in the immediate vicinity. I had checked just about everywhere, I had even scanned the nearby trash containers for it. It was not there. It was not knocked into the bushes. It was not under a bench.
Okay. Best case scenario.
The best case scenario was that a small child had picked it up thinking it was a toy. The probe wasn't harmful in any way, and hopefully I would pick up on it before some parent got curious.
On the other hand, the worst case scenario was that a maverick had picked it up. Now they'd be expecting hunters to come after them. Maybe they wouldn't be expecting me personally, but they would expect an attack now.
I sighed. The most likely scenario was that an adult, reasoning human had picked it up, and was wondering just what the hell it was. I just hoped it never reached anyone in authority. I sighed.
I didn't say it often. It was just a waste of energy and thought. Saying it was the mark of a primitive life form surrendering to frustration. But sometimes, nothing else seems to fit.
"Crap."
Well, I won't accomplish anything sitting here. I'll go check into the apartment and rest for awhile. Something will come up.
~2010, Road, 12:16 PM~
I skidded to a halt at the sight of the explosion in front of me. I'm just glad that there was no one behind me, at the time, or I would have had trouble explaining the lack of damage to me or the bike. I turned the bike around and got off the road at the previous intersection, proceeding down an alley. I got off and changed forms.
Finaly. Mavericks.
I leapt to the top of the building, using the fire escape for leverage, and proceeded to close on the situation. I looked down at the mavericks from above investigating the situation. As Zero used to say: 'Never walk into a situation blind'. And I didn't. Well, not if I could help it anyway.
Just low level flunkeys. Oh, well, I should take them out before some humans get hurt.
I jumped down onto street level, firing on the very breakable, very disposable, little guys with a vengeance. They fell easily, and I noted that I was drawing a crowd. I teleported out to my land chaser, and, since there was no one there, changed back to my human form and rode off.
I need to relax a little more.
~2010, Halo Apartments, 1:24 PM~
I sighed.
Today has not been a good day.
I had run out of work when news of an attack downtown came in over the radio playing in the back room. I had called the other scouts, and we had arrived on the scene, only to find someone had beat us to the punch. The only thing there was mangled metal, as the internal wiring had a tendency to melt itself when the bodies were defeated. The few intact samples Amy had were because she managed to freeze them before this could happen.
We barely even knew what they were! They seemed to be youma from their attitudes, but they were mechanical. At the same time, Amy was finding trace amounts of negative energy in them, and that was a little spooky. Amy suggested that these are just advances machines using refined negative energy as a power source, and we were of the opinion that Amy, like always, was probably right.
In any event, I went back to the diner. And I was fired pretty much on the spot. I had just run out on work three days in a row, so this was going to happen anyway, but it still hurt.
We never can get a break, can we? If I could sell some of my paintings, I wouldn't have to look for jobs like this.
I stepped off the elevator at the 'bling' sound and walked through the extremely overheated hallways to my apartment, where Darien and I lived. As I got there, I saw a guy, obviously new, trying to open the door to the apartment next to ours, and balance a box on his head with his other arm. He almost had the door open when the box decided to fall back toward the floor. He struggled to steady it, and I rushed over and grabbed the box to help. I helped him get it into both arms, and he set it inside the open door before turning to me.
"Thank you for your help. My name is Rock Light. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. …?"
"Tsukino. Serena Tsukino. You must be our new neighbor."
He smiled a little.
"Yes, I suppose I am. I thank you for the help Ms. Tsukino. Forgive me, but I have no more time to chat, I am a bit… preoccupied at the moment. Perhaps another time.
Wow! This guy's pretty stiff. But, he's probably got things on his mind. Maybe he's a little shy too.
I smiled warmly at him and extended my hand.
"That's fine. I'm sure we'll see each other around Rock. I've got some things to do as well."
He took my hand and shook it, as if he knew what to do, but wasn't used to it. It was a little stiff and formal.
Definitely shy. But he'll loosen up.
I smiled again and walked away, opening the door into my own room. I dropped my purse on the couch, and continued almost without pause to the bathroom, where I sat in front of the mirror. I went about fixing my make-up, and my thoughts drifted back to the guy moving in, Rock. Something about the guy was strangely… well, strange, to be honest. I frowned.
I'm being a little unfair. I just met the guy after all. But still…
Rock's skin seemed a little cool, about what the temperature in the hall should have been, if the heater weren't on in there, unusual for summer. Then there was that handshake, he definitely wasn't used to doing that.
But what kind of person has never shaken hands before?
I sighed again, my brain turning over easier problems instead of what I should have been thinking about, our new enemies. I yawned and redid the 'meatballs' that I kept my hair in. I concentrated on my reflected image and saw myself blink. I dropped my hair as it hit me. That was what was off. Rock hadn't blinked, not once in our entire conversation had Rock blinked.
Weird.
I picked up my hair again and re-secured my hair into my nearly trademark style. I left the bathroom, shutting off the light as I did so. Moving my purse to a new home o the floor, I collapsed on the couch, and tried to force myself to figure out what exactly these enemies were, what they wanted, and, most importantly, how to stop them from getting it.
What they were was strange. These new enemies were fighting in a style we'd never come across before. They didn't fight like youma, a single tough opponent coming at us. For the first time in awhile, we were continually outnumbered. The majority of the robots were weak, but there were enough of them that we were quickly worn down. Then there was always one of them that commanded the others. These ones were tough, but we could take them out under most circumstances. But not when we were tired out by the rest of the little ones. They usually just laughed, banged us up, and left. It was all very frustrating.
As to why they were here, I couldn't even make a guess. They would just laugh, blow things up, kill people, and leave. They didn't steal from people, they didn't take energy, they just killed and left.
It's as if they don't care about anything but terrorizing us…
I sat bolt upright on the couch as I realized I could very well be right.
~2010, Mizuno Residence, 5:18 PM~
I stared at it. I had found it in the park today, as I walked through on my way to the library. Mechanics and advanced programming weren't my ordinary areas of study, but with these new attacks, something had to be done to figure out what made them tick. As I walked through, I had noticed its black casing reflect the sunlight. With no one looking, I got out my Mercury computer and scanned the thing, only to find that the thing, whatever it was, had technology that was not of our world. It was a small black orb, perhaps six or seven inches in diameter with two ski-like stands on the bottom, and a couple of antennae on the top of it. I got my computer to interface temporarily with it, and shut it down. Further analysis proved that it had the dame basic technological circuit patterns as the robots we had been fighting.
From what she could tell from the schematics her computer had made of it, it was some type of probe, designed to study aspects of human life, as well as scan for some other frequencies. I gulped. If this was an enemy probe, it definitely meant that an invasion was coming, if not already here. Unless something changed, we were all in serious trouble.
I decided against my better judgment to turn it back on, and see what it scanned for. It immediately began searching for a certain frequency. I input that frequency into my computer and set it to scan as well. Almost instantly a map of the neighborhood came up. On it was a blinking signal that was moving steadily past. Then, it stopped for a second before heading straight for my house. I grabbed my communicator quickly and called the other scouts. I was in serious trouble.
~2010, Residential Area, 5:21 PM~
This is a bad idea.
But, I was doing it anyways.
I had decided that the easiest way to figure out more of what the mavericks were doing was to get them to come to me. I was scouting a residential neighborhood in my armored form, knowing my mechanical functions let out a certain frequency, grumbling at the lack of security in a place this densely populated with civilians. A maverick attack would rip through here in seconds.
But, I suppose it's understandable. They don't even know what a maverick is.
I was almost to the appropriate house when I picked up on something else, and stopped again.
This is going to be one hell of a night.
I was still awake the next morning when my internal clocks hit six am. Ironically they still sent a buzzing through me, even though it was pretty clear I was conscious. I could go a few days without sleep if I had too, but I still felt a bit guilty at missing a night's sleep.
About a half hour later I received a call.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Light, sir, there are several packages here for you. Shall I have them sent up?"
"Yes thank you, that would be fine."
"A bell boy will be up shortly. Have a pleasant stay Mr. Light."
"Thank you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About ten minutes later the bell boy was leaving, tip in hand, and I set out to get changed. I pulled a loose black t-shirt over my head, noting that my dark brown hair needed to be combed again. I sighed.
Why bother. It'll just look like this again in ten minutes. That was something I liked about being a machine. Oh, well.
I put on some faded blue jeans and a navy blue jacket. I looked down with my green eyes at the one thing in my things that hadn't been on the checklist. A ring. The ring had a silver band that separated in the middle to hold an onyx gem not unlike my helmet's crystal. In the center of the stone was a sky blue 'X', looking for all the world as if it floated in the center of the gem.
Maybe it does. It is from home after all.
The ring was a going away present from Zero. I smiled at the memory of my friend and partner. I would miss our conversations together. I chuckled a little remembering most of our conversations were about embarrassing moments. Most of which were Zero getting slapped by some female reploid over a really bad pick up line. The lines were pretty funny, even if Zero did usually sulk for awhile after he got shot down. All in all, it was good fun. Zero could easily laugh at himself once it was past.
I halted my side trip down memory lane and finished getting my things together. I put my credit cards in my wallet and packed my things. I checked out and went to a quiet restaurant for an early breakfast.
What should I do first?
Hunting down the mavericks came to mind almost immediately, but I discarded the notion. I had no idea where they were. I needed information.
The probe.
That was a good idea. It was programmed to continue to collect data on the people here, as well as scan for maverick activity, even after the first portal shut, so it was the best source for reliable news. Also, I didn't like the thought of what would happen if it were found, its technology level was far superior to what was commonly found here, and humans were naturally curious. And if it were somehow traced back to me…
The results will not be pleasant.
I paid in cash for my food and hopped on my bike. I pulled on my helmet, dead black with the maverick hunter symbol, which was little more than a circle with a slash through it on top of the maverick's Sigma symbol. I chuckled.
The running joke is that Cain designed it when he was drunk. Probably not far off either.
I took off to the last coordinates sent by the probe, hoping that it would be close enough for me to pick up on its signal.
~2010, The Park, 11:43 AM~
This cannot be a good thing.
I was near the last coordinates that the probe had sent. There were marks in the ground where the observational unit had sat. Now it was gone. It was also nowhere in the immediate vicinity. I had checked just about everywhere, I had even scanned the nearby trash containers for it. It was not there. It was not knocked into the bushes. It was not under a bench.
Okay. Best case scenario.
The best case scenario was that a small child had picked it up thinking it was a toy. The probe wasn't harmful in any way, and hopefully I would pick up on it before some parent got curious.
On the other hand, the worst case scenario was that a maverick had picked it up. Now they'd be expecting hunters to come after them. Maybe they wouldn't be expecting me personally, but they would expect an attack now.
I sighed. The most likely scenario was that an adult, reasoning human had picked it up, and was wondering just what the hell it was. I just hoped it never reached anyone in authority. I sighed.
I didn't say it often. It was just a waste of energy and thought. Saying it was the mark of a primitive life form surrendering to frustration. But sometimes, nothing else seems to fit.
"Crap."
Well, I won't accomplish anything sitting here. I'll go check into the apartment and rest for awhile. Something will come up.
~2010, Road, 12:16 PM~
I skidded to a halt at the sight of the explosion in front of me. I'm just glad that there was no one behind me, at the time, or I would have had trouble explaining the lack of damage to me or the bike. I turned the bike around and got off the road at the previous intersection, proceeding down an alley. I got off and changed forms.
Finaly. Mavericks.
I leapt to the top of the building, using the fire escape for leverage, and proceeded to close on the situation. I looked down at the mavericks from above investigating the situation. As Zero used to say: 'Never walk into a situation blind'. And I didn't. Well, not if I could help it anyway.
Just low level flunkeys. Oh, well, I should take them out before some humans get hurt.
I jumped down onto street level, firing on the very breakable, very disposable, little guys with a vengeance. They fell easily, and I noted that I was drawing a crowd. I teleported out to my land chaser, and, since there was no one there, changed back to my human form and rode off.
I need to relax a little more.
~2010, Halo Apartments, 1:24 PM~
I sighed.
Today has not been a good day.
I had run out of work when news of an attack downtown came in over the radio playing in the back room. I had called the other scouts, and we had arrived on the scene, only to find someone had beat us to the punch. The only thing there was mangled metal, as the internal wiring had a tendency to melt itself when the bodies were defeated. The few intact samples Amy had were because she managed to freeze them before this could happen.
We barely even knew what they were! They seemed to be youma from their attitudes, but they were mechanical. At the same time, Amy was finding trace amounts of negative energy in them, and that was a little spooky. Amy suggested that these are just advances machines using refined negative energy as a power source, and we were of the opinion that Amy, like always, was probably right.
In any event, I went back to the diner. And I was fired pretty much on the spot. I had just run out on work three days in a row, so this was going to happen anyway, but it still hurt.
We never can get a break, can we? If I could sell some of my paintings, I wouldn't have to look for jobs like this.
I stepped off the elevator at the 'bling' sound and walked through the extremely overheated hallways to my apartment, where Darien and I lived. As I got there, I saw a guy, obviously new, trying to open the door to the apartment next to ours, and balance a box on his head with his other arm. He almost had the door open when the box decided to fall back toward the floor. He struggled to steady it, and I rushed over and grabbed the box to help. I helped him get it into both arms, and he set it inside the open door before turning to me.
"Thank you for your help. My name is Rock Light. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. …?"
"Tsukino. Serena Tsukino. You must be our new neighbor."
He smiled a little.
"Yes, I suppose I am. I thank you for the help Ms. Tsukino. Forgive me, but I have no more time to chat, I am a bit… preoccupied at the moment. Perhaps another time.
Wow! This guy's pretty stiff. But, he's probably got things on his mind. Maybe he's a little shy too.
I smiled warmly at him and extended my hand.
"That's fine. I'm sure we'll see each other around Rock. I've got some things to do as well."
He took my hand and shook it, as if he knew what to do, but wasn't used to it. It was a little stiff and formal.
Definitely shy. But he'll loosen up.
I smiled again and walked away, opening the door into my own room. I dropped my purse on the couch, and continued almost without pause to the bathroom, where I sat in front of the mirror. I went about fixing my make-up, and my thoughts drifted back to the guy moving in, Rock. Something about the guy was strangely… well, strange, to be honest. I frowned.
I'm being a little unfair. I just met the guy after all. But still…
Rock's skin seemed a little cool, about what the temperature in the hall should have been, if the heater weren't on in there, unusual for summer. Then there was that handshake, he definitely wasn't used to doing that.
But what kind of person has never shaken hands before?
I sighed again, my brain turning over easier problems instead of what I should have been thinking about, our new enemies. I yawned and redid the 'meatballs' that I kept my hair in. I concentrated on my reflected image and saw myself blink. I dropped my hair as it hit me. That was what was off. Rock hadn't blinked, not once in our entire conversation had Rock blinked.
Weird.
I picked up my hair again and re-secured my hair into my nearly trademark style. I left the bathroom, shutting off the light as I did so. Moving my purse to a new home o the floor, I collapsed on the couch, and tried to force myself to figure out what exactly these enemies were, what they wanted, and, most importantly, how to stop them from getting it.
What they were was strange. These new enemies were fighting in a style we'd never come across before. They didn't fight like youma, a single tough opponent coming at us. For the first time in awhile, we were continually outnumbered. The majority of the robots were weak, but there were enough of them that we were quickly worn down. Then there was always one of them that commanded the others. These ones were tough, but we could take them out under most circumstances. But not when we were tired out by the rest of the little ones. They usually just laughed, banged us up, and left. It was all very frustrating.
As to why they were here, I couldn't even make a guess. They would just laugh, blow things up, kill people, and leave. They didn't steal from people, they didn't take energy, they just killed and left.
It's as if they don't care about anything but terrorizing us…
I sat bolt upright on the couch as I realized I could very well be right.
~2010, Mizuno Residence, 5:18 PM~
I stared at it. I had found it in the park today, as I walked through on my way to the library. Mechanics and advanced programming weren't my ordinary areas of study, but with these new attacks, something had to be done to figure out what made them tick. As I walked through, I had noticed its black casing reflect the sunlight. With no one looking, I got out my Mercury computer and scanned the thing, only to find that the thing, whatever it was, had technology that was not of our world. It was a small black orb, perhaps six or seven inches in diameter with two ski-like stands on the bottom, and a couple of antennae on the top of it. I got my computer to interface temporarily with it, and shut it down. Further analysis proved that it had the dame basic technological circuit patterns as the robots we had been fighting.
From what she could tell from the schematics her computer had made of it, it was some type of probe, designed to study aspects of human life, as well as scan for some other frequencies. I gulped. If this was an enemy probe, it definitely meant that an invasion was coming, if not already here. Unless something changed, we were all in serious trouble.
I decided against my better judgment to turn it back on, and see what it scanned for. It immediately began searching for a certain frequency. I input that frequency into my computer and set it to scan as well. Almost instantly a map of the neighborhood came up. On it was a blinking signal that was moving steadily past. Then, it stopped for a second before heading straight for my house. I grabbed my communicator quickly and called the other scouts. I was in serious trouble.
~2010, Residential Area, 5:21 PM~
This is a bad idea.
But, I was doing it anyways.
I had decided that the easiest way to figure out more of what the mavericks were doing was to get them to come to me. I was scouting a residential neighborhood in my armored form, knowing my mechanical functions let out a certain frequency, grumbling at the lack of security in a place this densely populated with civilians. A maverick attack would rip through here in seconds.
But, I suppose it's understandable. They don't even know what a maverick is.
*BLEEP*From there, a map ran through my mind. I stopped for a second to confirm its location, then turned around and headed for the signal. I'd figure out haw to get it from the house it was in when I got there.
Signal Detected
Confirmed: Probability of Probe 98.9%
Location . . .
I was almost to the appropriate house when I picked up on something else, and stopped again.
*BLEEP*Added to the map in my head were now six new powers. I spun. Five of them were clustered together on top of the roof of a nearby community center, moon behind them, illuminating only their silhouettes, while the sixth was just below and off to the side of them on top of a lamp post. Then they were shouting at me. Most of it wasn't important, except that when the one in the center shouted something about punishing me, I couldn't help it. I really couldn't. I laughed. I laughed long and hard. I stopped laughing when I had to dodge the gout of flame that was coming for me. I smiled and powered up my buster.
Six energy sources found
This is going to be one hell of a night.