Archer coughed into his fist as Xug led them through the Viper's Nest, his hastily drunk rum and coke burned through him as they weaved between the undulating crowds. Was this really a good idea? He mulled over the prospect, but the thoughts blurred at the edges as that blaring, godawful music banged against his skull.
"Are we heading to your office?" Torque's voice brings him back to the present, sidestepping a sticky stain on the floor as Xug stops at a stairwell leading to the second floor.
"I don't discuss my dealings in the open." Xug retorts, her serpentine body flowing like water up the steps.
A human leaning against the door to the office pushes it open, looking over to the pair of agents beside Xug.
"Thank you, Monroe." Xug says kindly, who replies with a curt mhm before returning to his post, closing the door behind them.
Inside is what, for lack of a better term, Archer chalks down as Xug's control room. It reminded him of standing before the holographic map of City 31. Only this map was pinned up against the wall and marked with a spider webbing pattern of push-pins threading together strings of various colors. Pictures, both digitally captured and physically printed, lay in several neat piles besides envelopes and sealed files.
Xug's organizational skills were stunningly precise, and the fact that it was almost entirely analog baffled Archer, reminding him of the old maps and briefing rooms during his time in the Resistance.
Of course, it was still an office, and the desk nestled snugly in the corner had a terminal atop it. A television mounted on the wall played the news. Xug simply rests back on a table in the center of the room, looking from Torque to Archer.
"Tch, this place is lived-in." Torque replies with just the faintest hint of sarcasm, resting her hands on her hips as she locks eyes with the smiling smuggler.
Archer steps in. "Well. You got us here. Now what?"
Xug chuckles. "Now, Egg. I'll give you a little recap." She gingerly reaches for the TV remote and hits a few buttons in sequence. The television fizzles to static before being replaced by a blurry home video. She hits play.
"Oh Elders.." An older woman's voice says, her voice as shaky as the phone's recording as she struggles to keep its subject in view. A truck barrels down a dimly lit street, a black smudge against the oppressive downward glare of the streetlights. The blue and red of a squad car's siren aren't far behind.
The footage jumps forward just enough to catch a steady look at a white viper leaning out of the sidecar, pistol drawn and firing. What isn't caught visually is more than made up for by the sound of popped tires, grinding metal on asphalt and a final booming crash before the video ends.
The two agents stand in silence for a minute before Torque speaks up.
"Ok? You got footage of what happened a week ago? So what? We've already been reprimanded. You want a piece, too?" She squares her shoulders and glares at Xug, who exhales from her nostrils in amusement as Archer takes her forearm gently.
"If a truck crashes in the Fringe and people are around to hear it, does it make a sound? It most certainly does. I had more than a few contacts call me in the dead of night to let me know about your little escapades. But what is more important than that, is what was on that truck."
"The Elerium." Torque answers.
"It was on that truck. But 31PD never found it, correct?"
A pause, Archer nods.
"Exactly, and it didn't just slither away on its own." Xug gestures to the map, the pins and colored strings. "There's something brewing in the underground, a former associate of mine is moving incredible quantities of Elerium throughout the City. They're going missing from stockpiles and smugglers across the city are more coordinated than ever."
"And why isn't this something that us or 31PD isn't already looking into?" Archer asks.
"Simple. When 31PD pulls a sting on one location, the rest go to ground, it happens just infrequently that the police never establish a correlation, they think it's all just independent incidents." She once more turns her attention to the map.
"But I think I know where to start looking."
Archer and Torque relax a bit, but still regard her with a skeptical look. "And why bring this to us? Of all the agents? You can't contact HQ directly? Or get in touch with the Agency itself?"
Xug raps her fingers against the table. "Imagine how it would look if an already questionable asset revealed that one of her ex-associates is moving huge amounts of Elerium under the noses of not just 31PD but the Agency? And besides, you two have already had experience, as you can clearly tell." She gestures once more to the screen, still frozen on the frame of Torque in the middle of shooting out the truck's tire.
Archer steps in. "Listen, Xug. We're already on thin ice for that." He points to the screen. "We can't go running around chasing leads that we're not even 100% sure of. What do we have? Just your good word?"
"My word is a stronger thing than you might believe, Egg. Isn't it the point of the Agency to be above local law, to go where others can't? If this is even half as widespread as I think, this bust will certainly be worth any stern lecture your superiors can cook up."
Archer thinks for a moment, weighing the options in my head, besides him, Torque speaks.
"I had the chip in my hand…I think we have to trust her, Archer."
Archer gives her a look, only to be met by absolute determination. And once he sees that, he knows he's set his mind too.
"Alright Xug. Fill us in."
Xug was kind enough to provide them chairs while she gave a thorough briefing on the situation, finally explaining the meaning behind the board's chaotic sprawl of string. Piece by piece, she had tracked and attempted to identify several safehouses, suppliers and even routes used for Elerium smuggling into and across City 31.
"My former contact was an Andromedon named Kovac, he was competent and loyal so I had given him enough leeway to manage his own crew and his own span of businesses in the Switchyard."
"An Andromedon?" Archer asks.
"They're unsurprisingly versatile, they have an intimate knowledge of mechanics and any ADVENT technology, a side-effect of living in those suits. And it goes without saying that they're good for hired muscle or mercenary work. On top of all that, Kovac was clever."
She pulls out a file and slides it across the desk for the two of them to see, Archer's eyes quickly gaze over highlighted maps, a handwritten list of front companies, dead-drop locations, specially marked shipping containers from boats coming in over Riverside.
"He followed orders, brought in good product and was punctual. But eventually he started fading out of contact with me, first he'd be a day or two late on status reports, then he'd stop reporting entirely, then his tithe stopped coming in, finally he blew up one of my stashes. That apartment block that burned down in Old Town last month or so? That was mine."
"What?" Archer says, baffled. "We were told it was a gas leak lit by a spark from some faulty wiring."
"That does make sense, but what kind of gas fire starts an hour after everyone on the floor of the explosion is out for some reason or another? And all the other occupants are on levels where they can safely escape? He avoids harming innocents, which I can at least respect. Even if he is a traitorous ape."
"And what exactly was Kovac in charge of?" Torque asks, studying the papers in one hand.
Xug pauses. "He smuggled Elerium for me."
The pair gives the Viper a scorching look.
"An enemy of mine is an enemy of yours. Can we move on?" she says with a dismissive wave of her hand
Archer sighs and shakes his head. "What's this lead, anyways?"
Xug throws down another file for the pair. Pulling it out reveals the mugshot of a mean looking Hybrid man in a pompous looking suit surrounded by thuggish underlings.
"This is Jalgo Barta, extortionist, racketeer, thief, murderer. A model citizen. As I said before, your missing Elerium didn't just slither off, Jalgo's rats scurried away with them, and some of those rats wear 31PD uniforms."
"Blueblood won't like that." Torque murmurs under her breath.
"But dirty cops would make sense, especially if this has been going on for a while."
"That's what we're trying to establish, Egg." Xug faces the map and points to a specific neighborhood on the east side of the Fringe. "Jalgo operates out of a dump of a hotel called the Smiling Duck. I want you to find him and bring him back here, take anything you can find, too. The more intel the better."
Archer gives Xug a sideways look. "What are you planning to do to him when we bring him here?"
"Nothing that you'll lose sleep over, Egg. We're just going to have a talk. Now, any questions?"
They both shake their heads.
"Then let's go."
They were led to an unassuming old world junker of a car, one of those boxy gas-guzzlers that had long since been replaced with the sleek curves and quiet, electric engines of modern day vehicles, this one had been retrofitted with a charging port and battery, but it's body was still all rough metal and tarnished leather. A perfect choice for the rough Fringe streets.
Xug drove, Torque rode shotgun, and Archer scanned the dark streets from the back seat. The steady glow of the streetlights reminding him all too well of their hot pursuit. He hoped what they were getting into was worth it.
"One last thing." Xug said. "You two are still carrying your badges on you, right?"
"Yeah, it's standard, on or off duty."
"Good, Egg, lift up the middle compartment."
Archer did as he was told and inside were a pair of stripped down mag-pistols and a spare magazine for both of them.
"And before you ask, they're loaded with non-lethal ammo."
"Are we going to have to use these, Xug?" Archer says, testing the weapon's heft.
"I'm not expecting a fight in there, but it never hurts to carry protection."
He only offers a hmph as he turns to face the sidewalk. They were going by one of the bridges connecting the Fringe to Downtown, the lights of the city glittering across the inky black water, shafts of moonlight cutting through the cold metal supports and scaffolding, and besides it, their target.
The Smiling Duck sat as a dingy testament to the unmentioned underbelly of City 31. There was no telling the number of illicit goods and acts that had occurred inside. The red brick of the building was cracked and weathered in places and the neon lighting that spelled out the hotel's namesake pulsed with a sluggish energy.
Their car hummed a steady whine as Xug pulled into a back alley, puttering to a stop as she cut the engine and threw her shoulder over the back of her seat, looking between the two agents.
"Jalgo will most likely be on the fourth floor, he commandeered it to manage his operations. Apart from that, expect anything."
"That's all you're giving us?" Archer says.
"We've worked on worse intel than that." Torque offers, sliding out her mag and checking it before sliding it back into her pistol and stuffing it into a pocket on the inside of her jacket.
"I'll be waiting for you right here. This should be in and out. Good luck."
With that, the agents nodded and stepped into the cool night. The steel of Archer's handgun pressing against the small of his back from where he stuffed it into his waistband.
As they cross the street, Archer turns to Torque. "So how exactly are we going to bring Jalgo in? He's not exactly been served."
"Same way we bring in anyone else that's uncooperative." She replies, pantomiming a pistol-whip.
"I don't want to shoot my way out of this place."
"Well, it's not like it can get any uglier."
Pushing open the metal door, the pair are greeted by a cramped room. A half dozen chairs lie at the ends of it and a table rests off to the side, the nearby windowsill ornamented with a wilting plant, it's dead, browning leaves gathered in a sad pile around its pot. Sitting at the desk is a bored looking Hybrid receptionist, the corner of her mouth twisted into a smile as she stares down at a video playing on her phone.
As they walk up, she turns her eyes up to the pair and furrows her brows in surprise, clearly not expecting to have any clientele at this hour. She snaps her phone off and sits up in her chair, hands folded neatly in front of her.
"Welcome to The Smiling Duck hotel. How can I help you?"
Archer steps forward. "We'd like to sp-"
"-see if you have a room available." Torque interjects, and Archer suddenly finds his arm interlocked with hers, she cozies up beside him as she looks down at the receptionist.
The receptionist pauses, then looks down at the computer in front of her, typing quickly with a tacka-tacka of keys. "Errr, sorry miss. We have no rooms available."
"Aww, are you sure? It doesn't have to be nice, and we're not planning on staying long, just one night." She gives a mischievous grin as she clings to Archer's arm, who at this point is happily playing along with the picture she's trying to paint.
"Yeah." Archer joins in. "Just one night, if anything it doesn't have to be a clean room, it'd probably be less work for you if you just gave us one of the dirty ones." He chuckles softly as looks over to Torque, her eyes narrowed to slits as her tongue flicks in and out of her mouth.
The Reception visibly flushes as she turns down to her computer again, another tacka-tacka on the keyboard and she finally looks up and lets out a long, slow sigh. "Room 210 is available, here's the key." She reaches back over her shoulder to pull a key-ring off the pegboard behind her, laying it flat across the desk before them.
"And please, don't soil the sheets." She says quietly. The pair snatch up the key and say their thanks, and Archer can swear he hears her murmur. "By the Elders…"
"I can't believe that worked." Archer shakes his head, a dumb smirk creeping onto his face.
"Really? This place doesn't exactly scream 'five-stars and an intercontinental breakfast', use your imagination, Archer." Torque replies saucily, her hand sliding down his arm as she interlocks her fingers with his.
At the end of the hallway was the elevator Xug had mentioned, but flanking it were a pair of doors, the leftmost marked with a sign reading "STAIRS" and the other "EMPLOYEES ONLY".
The second floor is no more decorated than the first, the ugly off-white walls made glaringly bright by the fluorescent overhead bulbs that illuminate the hallway. Paintings hang on the wall, breaking the monotony every so often, trying in vain to offer the building some imitation of class.
The numbering of 210 stares them down as they enter the room.
Archer coughs immediately against the smell of musty air and unwashed bedspreads. "Jesus Christ…" He mutters as he pulls up his shirt around his nose and mouth, Torque wrinkles up her nostrils in disgust. "You think that's bad, imagine how it is for me."
The room had been cleared out a day ago at most. The traces of their previous occupants literally smeared all over the walls. And while the duo of beds had been the primary target, the collateral damage extended to the end table in the corner nudged against the window looking out onto the bridge and bright lights of the city across the water. The kitchen was mercifully spared, however, and Torque and Archer made the unspoken unanimous choice to stay in there as they began to plan.
"Ok, the elevator goes all the way up to the fourth floor, but we'll still be able to take the stairs if something happens." Torque explains, her hand pressed to her face as she thinks over their options.
"I'm guessing we just go door-to-door until we find Jalgo?" Archer suggests.
"I don't know what our other options could be on account that we don't know where he is for sure. Just that he's on the fourth floor. Maybe we can-" Her nose scrunches up again. "That fucking smell. I can't get over it."
"Eugh, yeah. I never got the appeal of hotel sex. Just feels grimy to me." Archer offers in sympathy.
She looks up at him, her eyebrows suddenly cocked directly at him. "Not that! Archer, have you ever actually been near an Andromedon?"
The question strikes him oddly, and he racks his brain. As a resistance member, he had primarily fought ADVENT, a few Sectoids, even faced down a berserker once with a few other resistance members. He knew of the other aliens, of course, but not firsthand.
"I haven't…why do you ask."
Torque reaches for the tap, trying to get a glass of water before reconsidering and dumping it down the drain after the tap spits out a cloudy gray-green liquid. "When I was in ADVENT. Whenever I was attached to a unit with Andromedons, they'd almost always smell like this. That mix of oil and solvents and the soup that filled their suits. It smells like sex in here, sure. But it also smells like Andromedons."
Archer gives her a look like she's crazy. "You can't be serious."
"I swear it."
"They're covering up the scent of Andromedon…by using the Smiling Duck as a sex hotel?" For what was far from the first time tonight, Archer was in disbelief.
"That's my working theory. It should be confirmed if we can just…" Her eyes scan the room before settling on the ventilation grate on one of the walls. "Get me something to stand on." She asks, and Archer grabs an overturned chair from the end table, propping it up against the wall.
Torque slithers atop it and sticks her head close to the grate, flicking her tongue out once, then twice. She looks over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide. "Employees only." She mutters, realization dawning on her face.
"This building has central ventilation, right?! That should go to the basement!" Archer gasps.
Torque nods, getting off the chair before she rubs her chin in her hand again. "Fuck, that means we need to split up. See if you can head back down and get into that room, I'll try and find Jalgo."
"On it!"
As she turns to go, Archer takes her hand.
"One more thing!"
As she opens her mouth to respond, Archer kisses her, her grip tightening before lovingly interlocking around his, he pulls her in close for just a few moments, her powerful tail thumping against the sticky shag carpeting as her eyes go half-lidded and she leans into him.
As they pull away, her blush makes her white scales match her pink for an instant, and Archer grins at her. "You're so sexy when you're determined."
Torque snorts. "You're terrible."
He grins like a fool before opening the door.
Archer thuds down the staircase as the clatter of decades-old winches haul Torque up to the fourth floor. His legs pumping as he heads back down to ground level. Pushing open the door he catches his breath and proceeds nonchalantly over to the locked door. His head turns around to scan for cameras, and to his relief spot none. He tries the door only to have it not budge an inch.
"I need a key." He grumbles. "Figured.
His eyes scan around the lobby, over to the receptionist who had returned to watching videos on her phone. Behind her, a few dozen keys hung from the pegboard, clearly labeled with their associated rooms, but beside them was a smaller steel key as opposed to the cheap and tarnished brass of the room keys. Archer had a hunch that was the one, but how to get it?
He looked around, noticing another door just short of the elevator. The bathroom. Slipping in, he eyes the toilet, an idea forming in his mind.
A few minutes later, and he was walking back up to the receptionist, a concerned look on his face. She looks up at him. "Can I help you?"
Archer sucks in a breath. "Um, your toilet's backed up."
The receptionist glares daggers at him before groaning and rising to her feet. "Nothing works in this place!" She exclaims in an exasperated huff as she walks past him. Her outrage only elevated as she saw the toilet water beginning to seep out the crack of the door. "Oh my-!"
Archer swiftly walks around to snatch up the key and stuff it deep in his pocket before following the Receptionist, standing in the door frame and tip-toeing around the slowly growing puddle at her feet, her nose wrinkled up in disgust as she yanks a plunger from the floor. The commotion lasts long enough for Archer to offer a cursory apology and edge over to the door, sliding the key into the lock and cracking it open. As he slipped inside and carefully shut the door behind him the Receptionist had gone from grumbles to outright cursing.
The elevator doors creaked open and Torque slithered out. She was taken aback by the stunning contrast between the lower floors and the fourth. Everything from the carpeting to the overhead lights seemed as if they had come from an entirely different building, once much nicer than the Smiling Duck, even the décor was better, with modest flower arrangements set in glass pitchers mounted on the walls. The doors flanked her on either side and ran all the way down the hall, one of them guarded by a pair of men. That must be Jalgo's.
Torque slithered along as steadily as she could, the guards leaning back, only noticing her when she had gotten about halfway towards them.
"Hey!" One yelled, pushing off the wall and motioning his partner to follow along, shoulder-to-shoulder, there was no way to sidestep them in the narrow corridor, so Torque put on the façade of a lost hotel guest, looking around at the walls and lights with a confused expression.
"This floor's closed off to guests, you're not allowed to be here." One says assertively.
"Oh? Huh? But my room is on this floor."
"You're mistaken, there are no guests here."
"Well that's a bit unfair!" She crossed her arms over her chest, sneaking a look through the gaps in the two men over at the door. "Look at this place, if the rest of the building looked like this it could give Riverside Inn a run for its money." She scoffs, internally she knew she could only buy time and analyze the situation as best she could, were there more guards she couldn't see? Was Jalgo tipped off in any way? Would she need to pull her gun?
"Who told you your room was on this floor?" One of the guards asks.
"The receptionist! She said I had room 410!" Torque said, uncrossing her arms and leaving them at her sides, she noticed a bulge at the guard's hip, and made out the distinct profile of handguns, her jaw clenching as she looked up between the two of them, the first guard glaring at her before bringing his hand to a headset at his ear, the second doesn't take his eyes off her.
"Katie. Did you tell the Viper her room was 410?"
Torque's muscles tighten, the tension building in her entire body like a coiled spring.
A small voice buzzes in response and the guard's hands tighten into fists, that's all the confirmation she needs.
She springs into action, jabbing her arm out to strike the guard in the throat. He stumbles back, gasping for breath while the second lunges for Torque, she pivots and smashes her elbow into his nose, letting his own forward momentum break it with a sickening crunch.
The first man grabs his throat as he wheezes, his other hand reaching for the gun at his hip, Torque's tail flashes about her and strikes his hand like a whip, sending the gun skittering to the ground.
The second man's bloodied face contorts as he winds up, coming at her with a brutal haymaker which she deftly ducks, her tail coils around his leg and yanks it out from beneath him, sending him crashing down to the ground with a grunt.
In the time it took for him to fall she feels powerful hands clamp down on her shoulders as the first guard, wheezing with every breath, throws her against the wall. An explosion of pain blooming from her skull as she smashes against it, her body aches as the guard pins her, leaving her unable to do anything but block the knees he keeps attempting to slam into her stomach.
Behind him, the second guard grabs his own pistol with unsteady hands. "Get the fuck outta the way, man! Get the fuck outta the way!" He urges in a shaky voice, trying to steady his aim.
The flood of adrenaline reduces Torque's world to a haze, the guards before her the sole points of focus within it, her body blocks the blows on reflex, her heartbeat thunders in her ears, blood rushing like ocean currents. Her hands grope nearby for something, anything.
Her fingers wrap around something, and reflex sends it smashing against the head of the guard pinning her, it explodes into a refracting blossom of glass shards and spilled flowers. The first guard falls over, clutching his head as the blood seeps through his fingers, cursing profusely in a thin, raspy voice.
The second guard's gun goes off in slow motion, a triplet of shots that ping off the walls with a muted thwack, chips of brick and wallpaper fly off in small puffs. Torque's serpentine body becomes a blur and with no room to maneuver the guard doesn't even have time to cry out before Torque constricts around him, each coil of her body squeezing with an even-increasing, bone-crushing pressure.
She's waiting for the visceral crack of a snapped spine or neck. Just a few more pounds per square inch. The clatter of the guard's gun as he drops it onto the floor doesn't even register above the sound of her own pounding heart.
But then she realizes that's not what she's supposed to do, that's not who she is anymore. She loosens her bind, but just enough to keep it non-lethal. Waiting for the guard's struggling to become less vigorous, for his arms to fall across her body and for his breathing to slow.
She uncoils around the guard who had tried to kill her, unconscious and bruised, but alive. She looks to the other guard still clasping his head, staring at her.
"What are you looking at?"
And with one flick of her tail, he was out too.
Torque let out a long breath, running her hand over her face. Only then noticing the slow creaaaak of about half a dozen other doors opening all up and down the hallway. Men, Human and Hybrid, slowly file out, brandishing melee weapons of all sorts. They look at Torque for a second that feels like years, then charge.
Treading down a long flight of cement stairs, Archer entered the basement. The darkness illuminated by the sole beam of the flashlight mounted on his pistol, each foreboding step….step…step down the stairs was marked with another sweep of his gun over the lower level.
He fondled in the dark for a light switch, clicking off his flashlight as he let his eyes adjust.
His eyes widened. The basement was a treasure trove of ADVENT technology. Bioscanners, generator components, plasma conduits, parts for assembling everything from weapons to farming tools lay scattered across several tables and poking out of crates, he even saw the disassembled parts of a Sectopod control unit, laying on it's side in a corner.
But what truly struck him as odd were the seemingly ordinary components, he saw giant stainless steel blades that would've be more at home affixed to a harvester, oversized chainsaw teeth the size of his thumb were lined up on a workbench opposite the almost archaic boiler bolted into the wall, someone had ripped apart an old Purifier's flamethrower in an attempt to upscale it for something bigger than a human, much bigger. It was a sight that made his skin crawl.
He ventured in deeper, and near the back of the basement was a shaded area, isolated from the makeshift weapons and contraband tech.
"Holy crap." Archer mouthed as he faced a massive sealed reservoir filled to the brim with a swirling green liquid, something lay inside it, a cloudy black shape against the green fluid. It's like a giant fish tank, he thought to himself. Nestled beside it was a machine cloaked in a tarp. Archer slowly approached the thing, gun drawn, and grabbed a corner of the tarp in his fist.
He yanked it back in one forceful pull, and standing there was an Andromedon power suit. Archer immediately jumped back, instinctively putting distance between himself and the alien machine. It simply stood there, hunched over. After a few moments of calm Archer let out a breath.
"Inactive, it's just inactive."
He leaned in to inspect the suit, if it had been standing upright it would easily be a foot taller than him, the metal, rather than being its original gray metal sheen, was painted with a yellow and black checkerboard pattern Archer had never seen before. Was it a special model? Did Jalgo's men mark it this way as some sort of signal?
He didn't have time to question it. Turning to start recording everything he could, the Andromedon first and foremost. After several minutes, he heard the gunshots.
Faint pops from above, nearly inaudible from the basement, but they were there, and they set the hairs on the back of Archer's neck standing on end. The Receptionist was talking to someone in a panicked voice upstairs, and Archer whirled around and stormed up to the fourth floor to help Torque.
In his hectic rush, he never noticed the lights on the alien suit, now slowly powering up.
Torque's head whipped around, spotting the onslaught of goons rushing her from either side, she reels back and spit a glob of poison, hitting one of the men directly in the chest and knocking him over, leaving behind a thick cloud of poisonous fumes, the thugs behind him double over as they stumble through the mist, giving her time to deal with the thugs on her left.
She drew her handgun, firing into them as they rushed her. Several fell, incapacitated by the hypersonic rubber projectiles before her gun clicked empty. One made it through, whirling around a metal chain before whipping it downwards at Torque, she caught it with a hand before yanking in the thug and pistol-whipping him, sending him crashing to the ground with a thud.
She holstered her gun and swung the chain around herself, gathering momentum like an old-world Olympic hammer thrower, and hurled it into the duo of men that remained, hitting them of her assailants in the chest and knocking them down.
The other group pushes through the poison, covering their noses and mouths as they clear the haze. Torque tries loading in another magazine but is interrupted when one smashes a baseball bat into her hand, she feels a nauseating pop in her fingers as her gun skids across the ground. Another punches her in the side, the thugs overwhelming her as she cartwheels her arms desperately before hitting the ground.
They form a box around Torque as they beat on her, the Viper blocking her head and coiling up defensively as she struggles to get her bearings through the barrage of punches and kicks, she looks up just in time to see a fist racing down towards her.
She catches it with her wounded hand, bringing her other up to the elbow and breaking it at an impossible angle. He reels back and grasps his broken arm and Torque takes the momentary opening to lunge out of the dogpile. She can taste the metallic tang of blood in her mouth as she squares off with the half dozen thugs left.
The rapid pops of gunfire ring out and several of the thugs go limp and fall over, writhing in agony. The rest turn to face their new attacker
Torque surges towards them while their backs are turned, lashing out with fangs bared. She bites down onto the shoulder of a thug, and by the time he turns around her venom makes him slump over like a ragdoll. She sees glimpses of Archer on the other side, her partner holding his gun by the barrel as he pistol whips one of the thugs in the face.
It doesn't take them long to dispatch the rest, the last assailant's head whipping to the side as Archer delivers a hard backfist, a long line of blood and spittle painting a red mark against the wall.
Archer braces himself with a hand, his chest rising and falling as he tries to catch his breath.
"I fuh-I foun-" He wheezes before lifting his eyes to her. "Torque, your hand."
Torque looks down for herself and notices the pair of fingers bent askew, the dull throbbing it had been only a few moments ago now a deep pain. She clenches her jaw. "Damnit.." she mumbles, pulling out her badge and biting down on it as she takes the fingers and cracks them back into place, the tears well in her eyes as an instant of agony ripples through her hand, then fades. "Jalgo's room is over there." She nods her head back towards one of the doors, wiping the blood off her face with the sleeve of her beaten jacket as flexes her fingers tentatively.
"Alright." Archer huffs, pushing himself off the wall as he comes up alongside the door. "Let's get this bastard." He kicks open the door.
They sweep the room, which in reality was 3 adjacent rooms with the walls knocked down and quickly plastered over. Their barrels sweep over the marble table planted down as the centerpiece. All manner of trophies adorn the walls, a pair of ADVENT mag rifles face opposite from the stuffed head of a berserker hanging above the mantelpiece. Rich red carpet accents the linoleum wood floor, and within is a smaller room, most likely the bathroom or a closet. Jalgo is nowhere in sight.
"Go slow, he could be hiding." Torque murmurs, sneaking a glance at the window at the far side of the room.
They move in tandem, watching each other's blindspot as they act out the routine room clearing they had performed dozens, if not hundreds of times.
"You think he made a break for it when the shots rang out?"
"Could be." Torque replies, while slowly gesturing to the door of the small room. She and Archer share a nod as they slowly edge toward the door, Torque hugging the wall beside it, slowly she reaches for the knob. Then turns it…
…and whips her hand back as the door explodes into splinters.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ESTABLISHMENT, PIGS!" A gruff man shouts, punctuating his words with the angry bark of his shotgun, blowing the wooden door off its hinges as he bursts out. Archer and Torque go scrambling for cover, firing blindly as they dive behind a finely upholstered sofa.
The shotgun in Jalgo's hands jumps as another scattering of pellets shreds a cushion, Torque and Archer tense up as they try to make their profiles as small as possible.
Torque begins pantomiming directions to her partner. On three, I go around, you cover. Archer nods in agreement. Torque holds out 3 fingers. One. Two. Three.
Torque bursts out from behind the couch, Jalgo quickly swinging around to compensate, taking his eyes off of Archer long enough for him to pop over the top and fire about half a dozen rounds into the Hybrid, he winces and curses as the rubber bullets smash into him.
Archer ducks down just in time to have a round of buckshot whiz over his head and smash through the window. He hears the shotgun rack only to be cut out by grunting and struggles.
"Got him!" Torque shouts, and Archer vaults the couch to see the Hybrid's face quickly turning red as he's put in a bind by his partner, Archer kicks the shotgun still clutched in his hand and sends it to the ground, unloaded.
"He should be out in a couple of seconds." Torque grunts, simply waiting for Jalgo to stop struggling.
"Too long." Archer says, promptly hitting the crime boss across the face, sending his lolling around, unconscious.
With a huff, Torque unbinds Jalgo's limp body, looping an arm around his chest as she presses a pair of fingers to his throat. "Pulse is steady."
"Good." Archer checks the magazine of his pistol.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Torque goes rigid. "Did you hear that?"
Before Archer has time to answer, the door to the room explodes in a hail of drywall and brick. Trudging through the rubble is a fully active, black and yellow Andromedon, a ludicrously large blade fused onto one of it's massive gauntleted hands.
"You're not supposed to be here." It blares out through speakers mounted into its frame, booming out in a low, gravely voice.
The agents drop Jalgo and scatter, Archer going for the shotgun before the blade comes down and bites into the floor, sending splinters flying up. He stumbles back and dives out of the way of another slash. Torque fires off her entire mag of non-lethal slugs, which bounce off the suit to no avail. It pivots before swinging an armored fist down at her.
She dodges just in time for the Andromedon's hand to smash into the marble table, reducing it to chunks of rock, the centerpiece collapses under its own weight as papers go fluttering into the air. In that time, however, Archer has the chance to steal away the shotgun and a handful of shells from inside Jalgo's coat.
He jumps out, and with a roar he shoots, slam-firing a half dozen rounds into the Andromedon's back, shredding the less heavily armored rear of the suit with buckshot.
A round tears a hole through the reinforced glass layered around the pump in the back, and a duo tear through the joint of the bladed arm, rendering it useless. The viscous sludge seeps through the holes peppering the back of the Andromedon, leaking onto the floor and melting through the carpet beneath the injured suit. It lurches back, turning around to face Archer.
It spasms uncontrollably, metal limbs seizing up as it charges forward. Giving a guttural, digitized roar of anger. The world seems to slow down around Archer, he drops the shotgun as he watches the Andromedon rush towards him, eager to smash his body against the wall behind him. "There's no time to dodge." He thinks "This is it."
But then he feels something slick and rubbery coil around him, pulling him away with force of a pneumatic winch. He flies across the room and into Torque's arms as she leans against the kitchen counter, her tongue slowly curling back into her mouth.
And together, they watch the Andromedon fall.
That much metal going that fast can't hope to stop itself, and where Archer would've been there to break the momentum of the suit and it's alien pilot, there was only the brick wall. The suit smashes head first into it, the combined wear and tear from both their fight and the one with Jalgo is finally too much for the building to bear, the brickwork crumbles, and the suit plummets down into the river below, landing with a tremendous splash.
Archer and Torque stand at the shattered edge of the building, looking down as the acidic liquid of the suit bubbles away in the water.
"I think-" Archer says in between breaths. "-it's time to get out of here."
"I couldn't agree more."