Alright, second to last chapter here and still not one word from anyone on this story despite a good number of hits. Well, I guess I'll see what, if anything the reaction is to this chapter and that'll tell me if it's even worth posting the final chapter afterwards.
The bolthole's inner door blew in with a resounding crash, and was immediately followed by the tinny clinking of two frag grenades as they rolled into the room. As soon as these twin explosions rocked the room and shrapnel tore it's way through everything exposed, three figures popped through the doorjamb, one headed left, one right, and one taking up a position in the center, just to the left of the door. Both the flankers fired as they moved, Sarge on the right hosing the room with 30mm DPU rounds, Red on the left doing the same with automatic fire from an arm-mounted laser unit. In the center, Syndesta crouched, ready to engage any target of opportunity with the 12.7mm rail-action sniper rifle that was hard-wired into an I/O and power jack disguised as a class ring on her right hand.
Though the technique they used was similar to the one employed by the two Knight Sabers, they had no need for the verbal signals that Priss and Linna had used. Their communication was instantaneous and secure, linking the three together at the speed of light. They moved as one in perfect coordination, and what one saw or targeted, all could see and engage.
The first room was cleared in seconds, and the three moved without hesitation to stack at the door that Priss and Linna had decided to bypass, the one leading into the bolthole's living area. Again without visible pause, Sarge, in the lead, stepped out into the fatal funnel, checked the door quickly for traps, triggers or hidden electronics, and then kicked it with his massive left leg. The door, even reinforced as it was, buckled on impact. Immediately, Sarge let fly with another pair of frag grenades, falling back to the opposite side of the door frame. As soon as the grenades went off, all three were moving, repeating their earlier performance precisely. Inside, they found a whole suite of rooms, and, leaving Syndesta to guard their rear, continued to clear as a two person team.
At the door, Syndesta dropped into a prone position, using as much of the door frame as she could for cover, and aligned her weapon as nearly as possible on the open doorway at the opposite corner of the large room. Unfortunately, the large, armored metal and composite tube that had housed and healed Jillian's broken body blocked her aim, and so she had to be content with covering the tube itself.
Suddenly, a small, rounded disk ricocheted off the wall to Syndesta's right and continued on, heading straight for her face. Reacting at digital speeds, she shifted her aim, locked on to the rapidly moving object, and fired while it was still about four meters away. This proved to be a mistake.
The hyper-velocity 12.7mm sabot struck the disk in mid-flight, detonating the detached knuckle-bomber charge danger-close to Syndesta. Due both to her own lightly armored skin and to the fact that the small shaped charge had never been intended for such a use, Syndesta was only singed by the blast and not really injured at all. However, she was momentarily blinded and definitely distracted, which was all that had been intended in the first place.
Three feminine figures, two armored and one not, boiled over and around the regenerative tube, all firing as they moved. Syndesta, caught off guard, was struck by a veritable hail of hyper-velocity nails, rail fired spikes and laser fire while trying to re-sight on the new threat. Her integral armor and the lightly armored fatigues she wore proved to be of little use versus this ordinance, and she was literally torn almost apart. Spraying red-orange android blood and body parts all over the room behind her, she died without even a scream.
The other two invaders, immediately aware of their companion's plight as she winked out of their collective awareness, charged back through the connecting doorway, also firing as they moved. The two Knight Sabers and their androidial companion twisted and dodged desperately in the enclosed space, narrowly avoiding the wall of 30mm rounds and laser fire directed toward them while returning fire themselves.
In a scene reminiscent of the D-Day opening of 'Saving Private Ryan', hyper-velocity metal and lethal laser light criss-crossed the room as the two opposing forces, with no available cover, closed on one another in a Gettysburg-style charge. And just as it was during both of these past battles, casualties began to accrue on both sides.
Sarge roared as he sprayed the room, hosing back and forth, until one of Priss's rail rounds struck him squarely in the mouth. The oral cavity laser lens, concealed at the back of his throat, as yet un-deployed, was shattered and the long metallic needle lodged itself firmly in the main capacitor. This caused an immediate electrical discharge equivalent to a small lightening bolt inside of Sarge's mouth which in turn caused unknowable secondary damage to the systems housed inside his already wounded skull. With an inarticulate growl of pain and outrage, the still partially disguised boomer dropped to a knee, chain gun clattering to the floor, and both hands clasped to his now smoking face and mouth.
On the other side, Priss, as she scored the hit on Sarge, was simultaneously struck by two of the last rounds he'd fired. She took one hit glancingly to the abdomen and the other dead in the left thigh. The ultra-dense depleted uranium rounds, originally designed to open up tanks like tin cans, shattered ceramic and composites where they struck. Only the miracle of Sylia and her father's material's technology kept the rounds from tearing on through as reactive and ablative layers of armor sacrificially absorbed the energy of impact. Even so, a tremendous amount of kinetic energy still reached Priss's body, knocking the wind from her and dislocating her left hip, as well as deadening her left leg from the groin down. "Ah! Shit!" She yelled as she was spun around by the impact, landing in a heap on the floor. She struggled immediately to rise, but even she found it impossible for the moment.
Linna, leaping, dodging and twisting forward, weaving seemingly effortlessly through Red's laser fire, closed in on Sarge. As she passed the still-incapacitated combat model, she casually whipped her mono-edged cutting ribbons up and around, and then downward in a vertical strike that took both of Sarge's arms off between the elbow and shoulder. The enraged boomer roared at this latest indignity, and as he reared back, Linna lashed out with a front punch. Her knuckle-bombers caught Sarge in the middle of the forehead, and blew the top of his head clean off. Sarge fell immediately silent, and his body, still jerking spasmodically, dropped with a crash to the floor.
Jillian, also dodging wildly and almost as nimbly as Linna, closed quickly on the boomer named Red. She couldn't avoid being struck a few glancing blows by Red's arm mounted gatling laser, but she ignored the relatively minor damage and continued to close.
As she came into melee range, she struck out with a lightening-fast swipe aimed at the laser on Red's left arm. Her glittering, crackling blades struck home, not only severing the laser but Red's hand as well. With a cry of outrage, Red extended her own wicked, serrated wrist blade and slashed savagely at Jillian. But Jillian, faster than Red now that her gestalt with the other boomers was broken, parried. Her arm was jolted all to the way to the shoulder by the impact of the larger, more powerful boomer's strike, but she held firm. Striking back with her off hand, she slashed a deep gash into the other boomer's chest. Red growled and brought her blade back into play.
This continued for several lightening-paced seconds as both boomers, moving at inhuman speeds, slashed, sliced, gashed and parried. And in this, a contest of speed, skill and agility, Jillian came out ahead of the larger, slower spec-ops model. While she took a number of superficial wounds, Jillian managed to remain largely unscathed. Red wasn't as fortunate.
Gushing orange combat-model grade synth-blood from a dozen major wounds, Red was forced to confront several critical system's warnings that screamed and flashed in her internal heads up display. If she were human, she would've been breathing heavily, panting perhaps, and certainly pain and exhaustion would have slowed her. But, being what she was, she merely confronted her adversary squarely, and then came to a last-ditch decision. With a final ululating roar, she rushed Jillian, catching her partially off guard. Red slammed into her full force, driving her wrist blade to the hilt in Jillian's chest, while simultaneously taking four of Jillian's blades to the abdomen.
The two boomers stood there for several seconds, just staring into each other's eyes, neither giving or relenting. Finally, Jillian, tapping into some unused reservoir of strength, grasped her wrist with her off hand and heaved upward with all her might. Her energized blades opened the other boomer up like a sardine can, and there was a wet splash as whatever passed for her entrails hit the floor at Jillian's feet. With an electronic groan, Red slowly collapsed, taking Jillian, still impaled on her blade, to the floor with her.
Linna, shocked, stood frozen for a moment, and then ran to the where the fallen boomers lay. Dropping to her knees, she put a tentative hand to Jillian's shoulder and said, "Jillian?"
At first there was no reaction and Linna wasn't sure if there would be. After all, there was orange-red blood everywhere, and she could see perhaps four inches of serrated steel protruding from Jillian's back. But then, slowly, the security model began to stir. Uttering a loud groan, she levered herself up and off the other boomer's blade, causing herself even more damage in the process. She tried to force herself up to her knees, but immediately flopped over onto her side, almost landing in Linna's lap instead.
"I need your help," she said weakly, gurgling slightly around a mouthful of synthetic blood.
Eyes wide inside her helmet, Linna said, "Well, of course! I can see that!"
Jillian shook her head slightly, and said, "No, you don't understand. There's nothing you can do for me physically now. There's too much damage. It's just a matter of time"
Puzzled, Linna said, "What do you mean, then? I don't understand."
"I do," Priss said matter of factly from where she'd finally forced herself to her feet. "Linna, help me get her up. We need to get her through that emergency exit and out to that little girl before it's too late. She made a promise to a friend, remember?"
Jillian smiled weakly and said, "Yes, I did. And if I don't keep it, Aiko may spend the rest of her life wondering why."
Outside the escape tunnel, in the dingy, trash-filled alley where it ended up, a lone figure crouched, waiting. Waiting both for the friends left below, and for the heavy response team he'd called for as soon as they'd emerged. Leon hoped they wouldn't be needed, but in this case even he had to admit that safe would be better than sorry. This was part of the reason he'd ordered Nene to take the girl to an overwatch position further down the street. From there, they could still see what occurred at his location, but would hopefully have time to get away if things turned ugly. It was a compromise, but in this neighborhood, Leon knew it wouldn't have been wise to send Nene and the girl off alone. While Nene had shown a lot more guts and talent than he'd thought she possessed tonight, he knew that by herself she'd be no match for any of the gangs that prowled the area.
'I sure as hell hope they hurry,' he thought. 'And I hope they win. It's gonna really suck if they're not the ones who come out of there.'
As this thought crossed Leon's mind, there was a clank and a clang from behind him as the specially rigged manhole cover that concealed the tunnel's terminus was disturbed for the second time that night. He turned quickly, bringing the Stomach around to cover the exit, and then dropped his aim just as quickly as he saw who emerged.
Linna was in the lead, the only able-bodied one of the three, and she helped the others up as Leon moved to assist. Second came Jillian, pulled by Linna from the front and pushed by Priss from the back. Her nearly 200 kilograms of androidial mass made this difficult in the confined space, even with the augmented strength afforded the two Knight Sabers by their hardsuits.
As Leon reached the three, Priss and Linna had just succeeded in levering Jillian's mostly limp frame up onto the pavement. "Holy shit!" He said as he surveyed the scene before him.
"Yeah, you can say that again," Priss said, still only partly out of the tunnel herself. And then, in a slightly sarcastic tone, she said, "Hey, Leon? I know it's not really your style or mine, but do you think you could give me a hand out of here? I'm just about at the end of my rope, and my friggin' leg feels like an elephant just stomped on it."
Surprised, Leon said, "Uh, sure!" And, extending his hand, he said, "Here you go."
Priss grasped Leon's hand gratefully, surprised herself at this, and pulled herself the rest of the way up with his assistance. And, she had to admit, she was mildly impressed by the fact that he hardly seemed to strain against the extra 75 kilograms added by her hardsuit. He was a lot stronger than he looked. 'Must be all that extra muscle between his ears,' she thought with good-natured amusement.
Turning to Linna and the badly injured boomer, Leon gave a low whistle and said, "Damn. It must have been one hell of a fight. How is she?"
Linna shook her head and said, "Not good. Not good at all. Where's Aiko?"
Leon nodded slowly and said, "Ah. That bad. Well, Nene and Aiko are down the street a ways, but they've got this place under surveillance, so they should be on their way back by now."
Sure enough, soon after Leon had uttered those words, first Aiko and then Nene came running around the corner into the alley. The little girl was wild-eyed with fear and grief as she practically slid to a stop on her knees next to Jillian's prone form.
"Jillian!" She screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks as an emotional dam burst somewhere inside of her, releasing a flood of remorse that had been held in check since her father's death. "No, Jillian, no! You promised me! You promised!"
As Aiko's tears fell to spatter Jillian's face, she stirred slightly, eyes focusing on the little girl and said, "I know, Aiko. And I've done my best to keep that promise. I'm here. Even if I can't stay for long."
Sobbing now, Aiko said, "Please, Jillian! Please don't go and leave me here all alone! I don't even remember my mother, she died so long ago, but you've been as much a mother to me as anyone could be! And now that Daddy's gone, you're all I have left."
Jillian reached out with an arm that had no strength left, and, smiling peacefully, brushed her hand lightly against Aiko's cheek. "Aiko, honey," she said in a tired whisper, "You don't know how happy it makes me to hear you say that. Or how sorry I am that things have worked out this way. But, really, maybe this is for the best. I love you, and nothing will ever change that, but I don't think the world we live in is ready to accept a thing like that. And so, it's probably best that you move on. Just try to keep me as a happy memory. Like a favorite teddy bear, maybe."
"No!" Aiko said fiercly. "Don't belittle yourself like that, Jillian. I'll never think of you like a toy or a doll. I'll always remember you as my friend."
Still smiling, Jillian closed her eyes and, in a voice suffused with quiet happiness said, "There's nothing that I could wish for more than that, Aiko honey. Truly there isn't."
With that, something vital left Jillian, and she was suddenly just a limp, broken figure sprawled upon the pavement, all of the life and warmth gone from her.
Aiko buried her face on the boomer's shoulder and sobbed brokenly. Linna tried to lay a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder, but she shrugged it off violently and hugged Jillian's body even tighter.
Linna, feeling helpless and awkward, looked to Priss. For her part, Priss sighed and said, "Leave her be for a while. The kid's just lost her whole life in less than two days. We both know what that's like, and we both know she'll get over it eventually."
Linna just nodded and sat silently next to Aiko, not pushing but ready if she was needed.
Nene, crying in response to the little girl's grief, knelt down beside Linna. She also wanted desperately to help in some way but she had no idea how. There were, she realized then, some times when no one could help. When all you could do was stay near and wait and hope.
Leon turned to Priss and said, "Well, I guess that just about wraps this up. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but at least the little girl's safe."
Priss, frowning inside her helmet, said, "Yeah, I guess. So what happens to her now?"
"That's an easy one," Leon replied. "Her grandfather is her nearest living relative, so she'll end up with him I guess."
"Really." Priss said. "Any idea what he's like?"
Leon sighed and said, "He's not a bad guy. Not as far as retired politicians go. And I'm sure he'll take care of Aiko just fine."
"Yeah, I suppose so." Priss retorted cynically.
Leon frowned and said, "Hell, what other choice is there? I don't know how well Aiko and her grandpa have gotten along in the past, but it doesn't really matter now, does it? He's just about all she has left."
Priss shrugged, and staring intently at the little girl who still held tightly to Jillian's body, she said in a tight voice, "That may be how it is, but that doesn't make it right. This should've never happened to her."
Leon sighed, and said, "Yeah, who are you telling? Shit like this shouldn't happen to anybody. But all we can do for her now is try to help her pick up the pieces and move on."
"That's easy to say, Leon, but look at her. She's not going to just stop missing the boomer or her dad. It's like her old life was just taken away from her and she's got nothing to replace it, nothing to hold on to. Not even her bodyguard there."
Leon's jaw tightened, and in a serious tone, he said, "Don't fool yourself. This boomer had a screw loose upstairs, just like a lot of others. In this particular case, she fell in love with a little girl instead of going on a killing spree. But it could just as easily have been the other way around. And who knows? If she was still functional, who's to say it couldn't still happen?"
Priss turned to look at Leon and said, "So that's how you see it, huh? And I suppose that's how you'll write this one up. Just another rogue boomer bites the dust."
"Oh, for shit's sake." Leon said, disgusted. "I'm not blind, or stupid. I can see that she cared about the little girl. Enough to die for her, obviously. And I can't put that down. If all rogue boomers were like her, my job would be a hell of a lot easier. But they're not, and you know it. What I'm saying is, whatever happened to her must have been a fluke of some kind. And yeah, it seemed like a good thing now. But who knows where it would've ended up? Boomers just aren't predictable like that. You've got the first hand experience to know that."
Shaking her head, Priss said, "Yeah, that's true. But good luck trying to tell her that."
In a flat voice that held years of repressed pain, Leon said, "I'd rather have to do that than to be the one who scrapes that little girl's body off the walls six months from now. And don't give me any bullshit. I've done it before."
Priss swallowed and looked at Leon in a new light. She realized then that after the things he'd seen in his seven years with the ADP, nothing she could say would change his mind. She sighed and said, "I guess I can't argue if you put it that way, Leon. But it's still too bad for her."
Leon just grunted in reply, and then said slowly, "You know, the heavy response team should be here any minute. And as far as the law is concerned, the two of you are wanted women. Vigilantes are kind of frowned upon by the city council."
Unperturbed, Priss said, "Yeah, I get it. We've overstayed our welcome. Well, that's fine, we need to get the hell out of here anyway. But we're taking the boomer with us."
Not quite believing his ears, Leon said, "Huh? Are you kidding?"
"Do I sound like I'm kidding?" Priss asked emphatically.
Leon frowned, and said, "No. That's what worries me. You do realize that her body will be considered evidence in this case, right?"
"Evidence?" Priss exclaimed. "Why the hell do you need her for evidence? I'd say this whole thing is pretty well wrapped up, now wouldn't you?"
Leon shrugged, and said, "More or less. But I'm sure there are still questions that Fusikawa down in forensics could answer with an autopsy."
Priss moved a step closer, and, earnestly, said, "Leon, please. Just trust me on this. Like I'm trusting you with what happened in the Kanto Dump. I know you won't screw me over, and I promise I won't do it to you."
Despite his professional reservations, Leon felt himself swayed by the sincerity in Priss's voice. Grudgingly, he said, "Ah, hell. I guess we never would've recovered the damn body if you hadn't dragged her up here. I don't want to know what you've got planned, but as far as I'm concerned, she never came out of the sewers." And, spearing Nene with his gaze, he added, "Right Nene?"
Caught in a very strange position, between friends she couldn't acknowledge and a boss who was suddenly tossing professional ethics aside for personal reasons, Nene gave the only reply she could. "Uh, sure Leon. You're the boss, I guess."
"Huh!" He said. "Glad to finally hear somebody say that."
Priss limped stiffly and painfully over to where the fallen boomer lay, able to move at all only because her suit's auto-doc systems had locked the knee and hip joints into place, forming a sort of walking cast for her. This was only a stop-gap measure, of course, and she knew that sooner or later someone would have to reset her hip. Needless to say, she wasn't exactly looking forward to that.
Reaching the group gathered around Jillian, she tapped Linna on the shoulder and said, "Hey. We need to go. But first, turn your damn suit radio back on. There's something I need to talk to you about. In private."
Linna nodded, and re-activated the system with a sub-vocalized command word.
The two Knight Sabers conversed silently for perhaps a minute or more, all internal sound contained by their helmets now that the voice-mitters were turned off.
Nene waited, frustrated to be the outsider this time around, and finally the two came to a consensus. Re-activating her externals, Linna knelt down beside Aiko. By now, the little girl's sobs had worn down to occasional sniffles and hiccups, and she didn't flinch this time as Linna laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Aiko?" She said. "Aiko, I hate to say this, but we can't stay here anymore. We need to go."
Her face still muffled against Jillian's shoulder, Aiko said, "No. Not yet. I can't just- I can't leave her here like this. For those cops to poke and prod and whatever else it is they'll do. She deserves more."
Blinking back tears, Linna said, "You're right, honey, she does. I didn't think that before, but what I've seen between the two of you changed my mind. I guess I've been carrying around a lot of baggage that I didn't even know about, and I was all set to off-load it on her. I'm glad you stopped me."
The little girl looked up, a strange expression on her face. "You sound so familiar. Not your voice, it's all electronic and stuff. But the way you talk. Do I know you?"
Linna, taken aback by the little girl's intuitive leap, bit her lip and contemplated for a split second. She almost started into a stock answer, a casual side-step of some kind, but something inside of her told her that she shouldn't. Aiko had lost almost everything, but maybe, Linna thought, she could give her one little thing to hold on to.
Making sure her back was to Leon, who was several meters away anyway, she cracked her helmet's external visor just enough for the little girl to see her features. As Aiko's eyes widened in surprise, she said quietly, "Yes, Aiko, you do. And what's more, you can trust me. Just like I have to trust you now."
In a stage whisper, loud enough for everyone except maybe Leon to hear, Aiko blurted, "Miss Yamazaki!"
Grimacing, Linna said quickly, "Shh! Not so loud. Aiko, this is a secret, one that needs to stay between the two of us. Do you understand?"
Nodding emphatically, Aiko said, "Sure, I understand. You're like a super-hero, in the comics. You have a secret identity so that the people you fight can't mess with you or the people you care about when you're not wearing that suit. Is that right?"
Linna was impressed to say the least. Obviously, Jillian hadn't been exaggerating about the little girl's intelligence. To Aiko, she said, "Yes, Aiko, you hit it exactly on the head. Now, I shared this with you for a couple of reasons. One, because I- thought you needed to know. So that you'd know that you weren't completely alone here. And two, because I need you to trust me with something big too."
Aiko frowned thoughtfully, and said, "Trust you with what?"
Linna sighed, and, indicating Priss said, "We need to take Jillian with us, Aiko."
The little girl bridled, and in a high, almost panicked voice said, "Why? For what?"
Linna considered for a moment, and then said, "It's complicated, Aiko, but I promise you, it's not for anything bad. In fact, it- no, I can't tell you now. I really can't. Please, just trust me on this."
Aiko looked down at Jillian's torn and lifeless body for a long moment, and then, in a tiny voice said, "Alright, Miss Yamazaki. I trust you. And I guess there's not much of anything worse that can happen to her now. Whatever you want to do can't be as bad as what the cops would do to her."
Linna smiled warmly, and said, "Thank you, honey. We've got to go now, but I promise, I'll see you again. OK?"
Aiko smiled, and replied, "OK, Miss Yamazaki. I'd like that."
With no further words, Linna reached up to secure her visor, and then reached down carefully to scoop Jillian up. With the suit's servos behind her, she pulled Jillian's body into her arms and cautiously stood. While not really heavy with her suit's augmented musculature, the limp boomer was dead weight and proved awkward to carry. But in her present frame of mind, Linna didn't care about that at all.
With a determined stride, slowed by Priss's limping gait, they left the alley and moved as quickly as possible from the area. Firing up scrambled comms as they moved, they soon re-established contact with both Mackie and Sylia. And while she had a great number of pointed questions regarding the little outing they'd just been on, she acknowledged that the first priority was to get them out of the area.
No more than three minutes later, Mackie came barreling around the corner, screeching to a halt next to the two Sabers. He hopped out and threw open the van's back doors and then said, "Well get in, already! And what the heck do you want to do with that?"
Fixing him with a stare that froze him in his tracks as she painfully climbed in, Priss said, "We're taking that to Pops' place. Any questions?"
Mackie gulped, and replied, "No! No questions! Pops' place it is!"