Well, no new updates in my life, here! Just another chapter, as per usual. Hope you like it!
Sam drove the SUV to get Kira and Kai back to their respective residences. Despite everything seemingly normal once more, the driver was still quite tense.
"Jeez," she said, "I never imagined that simply the act of moving in with someone would throw me for such a big-ass loop!"
"Well at least we've gotten through the worst of it," Kai said.
Kira nodded. "Right now, we probably just need to lay low, and keep ourselves distant from Weyland while they look into Dr. Meyers' crimes."
"So, like..." Sam began, "...what do you think those bums are gonna do?"
"Who knows?" Kai said. "Meyers is probably gonna pull some strings to run off someplace where no one will ever find him. Maybe Paraguay, for all we know."
Kira wasn't listening. She was absently staring out the window as they drove, but something caught her attention. It was the tower in the distance... the same one that housed the classified Virax supercomputer in the basement. Narrowing her eyes, she noticed something about the pinnacle of the structure seemed familiar...
...Her eyes widened as she realized what she was looking at. "Kai..."
"I imagine they'd have to get some brand new identities, along with new phones numbers," Kai continued, not having heard Kira.
"Kai!" Kira spoke up.
Again, Kai didn't hear her. "Do people in that part of South America even have phone numbers?"
"KAI!" Kira shouted.
Kai jumped, turning back toward Kira. "What?"
"Look!" She said, pointing at the isolated skyscraper. "That's it! Bishop Tower! That's where he's heading! I saw one of Meyers' henchmen show him a holographic layout of the building; there's a beefy transmitter on the rooftop! She was telling him about a backup plan... something to do with a 'manual override'..."
"So...?" Sam asked.
Kira looked back at her peers, her eyes wide as ever. "...He's gonna set off the nukes and meltdowns himself!"
Kai and Sam both froze, staring straight ahead at the empty road.
"...I guess that means we're still not done here?" Sam asked.
"We'll need to stop at our house first," Kira said. "I have a feeling we'll need SORIA's assistance again."
"And we'll have to do it fast," Kai said. "No doubt, if Meyers is heading there, the FBI will be on his trail real quick!"
The trio made it to Kira's house, where Sugarcube, Star, and Chase had traveled to out of anxiousness.
"Mom?" Star asked. "What's going on? Why are you all rushing to leave so soon?"
"Because the bad man who indirectly got your father killed..." Kira said, "...he's about to... well... set the world on fire..."
"On fire?" Chase asked.
"Yes, Chase," Kai said. "We need to go stop him as fast as we can!"
Star made her way closer to the group gathering equipment they would need, as well as disassembling SORIA into her modular component for easy transportation to Sam's car.
"Let me come, Mom," the young female xeno said.
"Star, NO!" Kira retorted. "I'm not going to lose you, too!"
"Kira," Sugarcube began, "rest assured, I know Meyers' fighting style. I can lead a proper attack with the children to stop him! Trust me... I can tell Star's got a good fighting spirit!"
Chase stepped forward as well. "Yeah, if Star's going, so am I! I won't let her get hurt in the slightest!"
"I estimate your probability of neutralizing the threat posed by Dr. Hugh Meyers will increase by sixty-one percent if you are to bring the xenomorph drones to aid in your infiltration," SORIA spoke through her master unit's speaker, still disassembled.
Kira sighed. "...Alright, but we gotta hurry! The government is going to try and stop him as well, but they might not be quick enough. Also, we can't let them capture any of you three!"
"We'll need to be quick about it," Kai said. "So, let's load up and pull out!"
Baldwin and Meyers made it to Bishop Tower, both of them having used force to enter the building and ascend to the master transmitter terminal on the uppermost floor of the building. Meyers was able to login with his restored credentials, while Baldwin was given an assault rifle by Meyers, taken from one of the murdered guards. He remained stationed outside, in the vehicle they took.
"If anyone, aside from law enforcement, enters the building, shoot them," Meyers ordered.
"You got it, boss!" Baldwin said, proudly.
With that, Meyers immediately got to work, coding in the commands that the transmitters was to output. He did not have the original files backed up, but due to his keen memory, he was able to recreate the original code with some text documents he saved on his PDA computer.
It took no longer than five minutes for the heroes to prepare, and ten to make it to Bishop Tower. Sam pulled into a nearby parking lot, not directly in front of the building. Also, there were numerous other cars around, so Sam would not be considered involved; Kira and Kai and instructed her to remain in the car and monitor them remotely via SORIA.
From there, behind the cover of the solar panels, Kira, Kai, Sugarcube, Star, and Chase all rushed for the tower, making good use of their xenomorph stamina (enhanced for the two humans). Each of them carried a module of SORIA's full unit.
Fortunately, no one was in the parking lot at the time, which maintained the cover of the xenos in particular. The doors were unlocked, and they made their way into the building. Immediately, they saw the receptionist, and a few other employees, all dead, gunshot wounds penetrating their skulls.
"Shit," Kai said, "looks like he's already here."
They hastily reassembled SORIA, and plugged her into the front desk data terminal that the receptionist computer linked with.
"I have obtained a full technical schematic of the intranet architecture," SORIA said. "The building's master transmitter is coupled to a high-bandwidth, low-latency optical relay on the rooftop, in addition to a power output accessible at the base of the rooftop stairwell, concealed beneath waterproof PVC plates."
"Hmmm," Kai hummed. "It sound like pulling out the power plug will be our best option to stopping Meyers from turning this entire world into Chernobyl."
"So let's go!" Kira said.
"Agreed!" Sugarcube said. "And after that... we ALL have a score to settle with that tyrant!"
All of them got aboard an elevator, which, fortunately, rapidly ascended to where they were going.
Outside the tower, many police, FBI, and Weyland Security Division vehicles stormed into the parking lot, their sirens all blaring simultaneously. The officers and agents, many of them in full body-armor and brandishing assault rifles, scrambled to get into position, surrounding the building.
"Takeout positions!" A commanding officer ordered over his radio.
All possible exits from the building were secured, and other squads, each with at least one sniper, took position farther away for a clear shot into the building if necessary.
Meyers' code had finished compiling, and the signal was ready to transmit.
"System ready," the terminal's AI spoke.
Without hesitation, Meyers pressed the "EXECUTE" button on the horizontal touchscreen in front of him. He looked back at the primary, upright display, which displayed a schematic of the transmitter, along with big letters displaying the word "INITIALIZING..."
"Beginning intercontinental transmission..." the computer spoke.
The rooftop transmitter, in the shape of the Weyland-Yutani logo with the wing design, began to open its horizontal shutters around the spherical part, exposing an internal, latitudinally-segmented sphere. All the while, a deep resonating hum sounded for between one and two seconds, followed by a bell-like tone as a red light flashed inside the segmented sphere.
Both the light and tone faded slowly, before hum started again, and kept repeating the cycle for a moment as it transmitted its signal in pulses, before...
"SYSTEM ERROR" flashed on the terminal as the entire screen went from its default blue tone to red, and a warning tone sounded repeatedly.
"Warning: power loss," the AI spoke. "Transmitter offline."
"Huh?" Meyers uttered.
Slowly, he directed his gaze upward, narrowing his eyes. He suspected someone did this on purpose...
"Satellite uplink interrupted," the AI said.
Kira stood on the roof, holding the thick male end of a cable attached to the transmitter that she had just unplugged from the socket on the actual roof of the building. She pried up the protective PVC boards to get to it. Over the falling-pitch hum of the machinery powering down, she heard a sudden voice.
"Put it back where you found it, Ms. Sykes!" came the voice of Meyers.
Kira turned around to see him emerge from the door to the roof. She gave him a gold glare while starting to back away. Meyers began to walk towards her menacingly.
"...I said… put it back where you found it!" Meyers demanded.
Kira defiantly tugged hard at the cable, snapping up the rest of the PVC boards that covered the gutter where the cable had been placed into, as she continued to back away from Meyers. This prompted the latter to reach into his trench coat… and pull out a handgun, which he pointed straight at her.
Security officers and snipers took aim at the building, especially around the roof. After a while of waiting, they all received a transmission.
"Control, this is Unit Charlie!" The agent spoke. "Confirm, two POIs on rooftop!"
"Confirmed," a commanding officer responded, "do we have positive ID?"
"Control, this is unit Foxtrot," another agent said. "We have P-ID on Meyers, other suspect is female and unidentified. She appears to be... swinging a cable at Meyers, who is brandishing a firearm. No female has been reported to be associated with suspect. The two appear to be hostile to each other. Standby..."
Kira whipped the power cable as a crude bludgeon at Meyers as he forced her to back up the stairs, onto the roof. It was not doing much to deter him, however, as he was able to block each strike with his arms.
"Get away from me!" Kira shouted.
Finally losing his patience, Meyers snatched the cable from her by catching it with a very quick reflex. He promptly discarded it out of her reach, and leveled the gun on her.
"So, Ms. Sykes..." Meyers spoke, raising his gun on her, "...you will now learn a painful lesson about what happens when you interfere with my ambitions to purge this world of it's biggest problem: mankind!"
Kira hyperventilated as she processed the fact that she was very likely about to die, right here, right now...
HISS...
Meyers turned around to see Kai and the three xenomorphs all staring him down. Kai himself had a handgun pointed at Meyers, while Sugarcube, Star, and Chase were on all fours, baring their teeth and secondary mouths, flailing their tails, and hissing. It seemed like they were all ready to charge the evil man. SORIA was also alongside them, her defensive security hardware enabled, consisting of an electroshock device, a toxic gas nozzle, and a dart launcher.
"Drop your weapon!" Kai ordered.
"Ripley!" Meyers shouted. "Where did you come from?! And... where did you procure more xenomorphs from?!"
"It doesn't matter!" Kai responded.
"Yeah!" Kira added. "Face it... your little game it over!"
Meyers darted his gaze about, from the young man, the xenos, and the SORIA unit, as well as the tactical squads he was certain he could spot in the distance. Realizing that making any move could well be his end, he remained in the standoff for a good long while...
Another cliffhanger! Well, guess we'll just have to find out what happens at a later time, huh? So, that's it for this chapter. Stay tuned for more! Keep holding on...