A/N- decided to update with a Boss POV chapter this time. For the duration of SR4, there will probably be more Boss POVs than Matt POVs, just because this part of the story has more to do with the Boss's development rather than Matt's. I hope y'all enjoy! Mondlichtvogel: i'm so glad to hear that! Personally, I don't like cliffhangers that much either. I'll try not to use them too often. ZorraVixen: it definitely sucks but people do change so... ;D BlackOutBlind: thank you for your support :) 3rd Street Saint: In general this half of the story will be more depressing than the other, but the ending is also a much happier one. Also, great job on your own story, I'm seriously enjoying reading it. StopTalkingToMe: thanks for your faith in me! ArkhamQueen: I'm glad you liked it! It's always good to get advice from you. Remi: i hope I don't disappoint DX Taserqueen: thank you! I play on a ps3 and Saints Row IV is literally my fourth favorite game of all time. I really hope you enjoy replaying it!
Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever own Saints Row or any of its characters. The content of this story was not meant to insult anyone in any way, shape or form. Rated T for violence, coarse language, and mild sexual content.
Chapter Twelve: With Vengeance
When I open my eyes again, after what feels like weeks, I find that my vision is impeded by a strange haze of pink. I don't even have time to blink before I'm unceremoniously dumped out of the metallic, sort of egg-shaped pod I was being held in. The floor meets me with a blow I would have rather avoided, and I make another note to berate Kinzie for her lack of thorough planning. She's always been more of a big-picture type of girl, our Kinzie.
Standing up is much more of a challenge than I'd thought it would be; the very second I attempt it I begin to feel sick to my stomach. The world spins around me as I turn for what looks like a door on my left and it takes me a few moments to realize that the gargantuan room I am currently in is some sort of holding chamber for pods like mine. My breathing catches in my throat as I realize that they probably hold humans, maybe even America's people. My people. Shaundi could be in one of them, and Pierce...and Matt. I need to find them. I take a step to my right, something that should have been simple, but I nearly end up on my hands and knees again. It's no use moving towards the rotating wall of pods, I realize, because I would be unable to pry them open in this state even if I could get to any of them. I have to follow Kinzie's plan if I want to help anyone.
I stagger through the door I'd spotted earlier and over to a stack of crates where my stomach abruptly decides to spill its contents out of my mouth. When I'm done puking I push myself away from the plastic containers and towards the wall. There's another door across from me and, if I remember correctly, the platform Kinzie had told me to get to while I was in the simulation is somewhere beyond it. I move towards it, stopping to vomit again halfway through, when it opens without warning. One of those alien fucks pokes his head through and I don't even stop to think. I grab him by the neck automatically and shove him into the wall I'd been using as support, wresting his gun from his grasp and using it to shoot him in the gut. The thing makes a strange sound when it goes off and after the "zin" hits the floor I study his weaponry. It's a laser gun. Aliens literally use laser guns, just like they do in all those suckish sci-fi movies. What a surprise.
The rest of my trek through what I'm assuming is Zinyak's ship is not very different from an average day in Steelport; assholes with guns insist on getting in my way and I insist on shooting them all down. I eventually reach the place Kinzie had instructed me to get to, but she's not there. Of course. I shove the panicky feeling in my gut deep down and blast through the hordes of zin sent to capture me, confident in only one fact: I am good at killing. The world may stop and life as we know it could cease to exist, but no version of a universe exists in which I'm not good at killing things.
"Ahem..is this thing on? Can she hear me?"
A voice booms out from somewhere above me, one that I could swear I've heard before. With a twinge of anger I remember that it belongs to Zinyak. He has Matt's accent.
"Well, hello! I see you're attempting a noble escape," the Zin emperor continues to speak to me (I'm assuming), "Understandable, given your situation, but I urge you to turn back."
My fury threatens to bubble over and I have to fight to contain the psychotic breakdown I feel coming on. I want to kill him so badly. The only time I've ever felt like this was after Carlos's death, when I wanted to avenge him. I never thought I'd be this way again.
"I AM GOING TO KILL ENOUGH OF YOUR SOLDIERS TO BUILD A FUCKING LADDER BACK TO EARTH, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"I scream back at him. He chuckles at my threat, that stupid little 'mwa-ha-ha' thing bad guys in tacky action movies usually do, and starts to answer me. Luckily, I'm saved from hearing the boring monologue he's cooked up by the arrival of one very late press secretary.
"Boss, stay down!" I hear her shout at me through whatever speaker system they've got on that spaceship she's commandeered and she proceeds to shoot down the remainder of my attackers. That thing's got some amazing fire power. A hatch opens on the bottom of the aircraft and, to my surprise, Keith David is standing there with his hand extended towards me. I have never been so happy to see my vice president.
"Come on!" he yells and I drop the alien gun I'd stolen and start sprinting towards him as fast as I can. I leap off the edge of the platform with my arm outstretched and Keith catches me. My heart drops back into place as he helps me clamber onto the ship.
"I picked the right running mate." I grin at him. He smiles right back, not even flinching at the fact that I'm completely nude.
"Damn right."
I make my way over to the helm of the ship where Kinzie is hard at work maneuvering us away from the warzone. She doesn't turn to look at me as I approach, but I get the feeling that she knows I'm here.
"Why don't you let me fly this thing for a bit?" I suggest as I come to a stop beside her. She rolls her eyes and immediately takes a defensive tone, something I should have anticipated knowing her as long as I have.
"Gee, Kinzie, thanks for saving my life!" she does an unimpressive imitation of my voice before going back to her own, "Why thanks, Boss, I love being appreciated. Boss? I'm the president now. When did you turn in to such a jerk? Surprise, Kinzie, I've always been an asshole."
I grimace a bit, feeling a tiny bit guilty for not showing my gratitude the way she seems to want me to. The truth is that I've never been one for thanking people. It's not very often that people give me things to be thankful for anyway, I usually have to take whatever I want against the will of some authority figure. The one exception to this rule, I remember with a pang, was Matt Miller. He used to bring me gifts without ever asking for anything in return, little things like new headphones when mine stopped working and surprisingly large things like a Saints-style X-2 Phantom motorcycle. It takes a lot of effort to thank Kinzie the way I'm supposed to, but I force myself to do it.
"Thank you, Kinzie. I mean it."
Her expression softens at this and she looks over at me with the slightest hint of a smile, a gesture that I return habitually. However, we both soon remember that I am entirely unclothed.
"You're not wearing pants." she says awkwardly.
"This just got weird." I mutter.
"A little bit."
"Can I fly now?"
"Knock yourself out."
I speed the spaceship down the path Kinzie had set for me on this thing's GPS system, amazed by the great difference between the Zin's technology and ours. The GPS somehow transmits directions directly to my mind and the ship turns in whichever direction I want it to at my slightest thought. It's amazing how easy it is to use this stuff I'd never imagined could exist. After a single rendition of What is Love by Haddaway, (I had no idea radio signals could reach this far) we're clear of Zinyak's mothership. Kinzie urges me to fly towards the closest planet the very first second I've put on a spacesuit.
"If we get back down to Earth, we can gather reinforcements."
"I can't just leave Pierce and Shaundi in there," I argue, bringing the ship to a halt. My press secretary looks more than a little peeved at this and goes on the offensive.
"You just want to get your stupid boy-toy back!" she exclaims, "You don't care about the others!"
I feel another flare of my temper rearing its ugly head at her words, but I force it back down where it belongs. If I'm being honest with myself, Kinzie's not entirely wrong. Getting Matt back has been weighing heavily on my thoughts since he was first taken from me back in the White Crib.
"Don't you dare tell me that I don't care about my people, Kinzie," I hiss, "You only want to get back to Earth so you can make sure Oleg is okay."
If looks could kill, I'd probably hit the floor right about now. Keith David steps between me and the furious glare of Kinzie Kensington, bringing logic back to our argument.
"Fighting isn't going to get us anywhere," he rounds on me, "You're the President of the United States. Make the decision."
He's right. I keep forgetting that I'm not just "the Queen of the Saints" anymore. I'm the leader of the free world and my job requires sacrifice more often than not.
"Fine." I say, gripping the steering stick yet again and placing us back on a trajectory that would lead to the planet I can see through the windshield, "We're going home. Kinzie, can you get a call through to Oleg?"
Our disagreement forgotten, she practically prances to one of the many computers on this ship and begins typing away.
"We should be in range." she assures me as, with one final click, she brings a phone interface onto one of the screens before me. I hear the connection tone as Kinzie pushes through with the phone call and we wait with bated breath through one...two...three rings. He never picks up. I resist the urge to slam my fist into something important.
"Want me to leave a voicemail?" Kinzie doesn't seem put off by this at all.
"No, just try calling ag-"
In less than one second, my entire world is blown into smithereens. Light and fire erupt from the very core of the planet I call home and I imagine that I can just faintly detect the screams of the seven billion lives that have gone up in flames with it. My heart stops completely and tears spring to my eyes as I watch the destruction, unable to stop it, unable to move at all.
"NO!" the scream erupts from my throat without my permission. My parents were down there...Oleg, Viola, and Josh Birk were all down there. An entire country of people who depended on me existed on that planet and now, because of me, they do not exist at all.
I collapse to my knees as Kinzie and Keith David continue to shout words that I can no longer comprehend. I'm crying. For the first time since Johnny's death all those years ago, I am sobbing openly. Zinyak's hideous head appears on each of the many screens that surround us and he speaks to the remainder of my friends, but I can't understand him either. The combination of fury and melancholy that I feel right now has turned me into something even less than the lowest mammal; I want to fight. I want a place to rest. I want to draw his blood, but I want to save everything I've lost too. There's too much going on in my head and I can't make sense of any of it.
Kinzie approaches the navigation system of the ship and cuts our nemesis off mid-sentence.
"We're done talking." she shuts off the screen system with a single push of a button and I'm glad to find that I can understand her again.
"He's not getting away with this." Keith David dictates.
"Right," Kinzie agrees, a little weakly, "What are we gonna do?"
It's silent for a minute or so after that and I eventually realize that they're waiting for me to chip in. I want to help them, I do, but I'm still frozen. I've forgotten how to move.
"Boss?" Kinzie sounds genuinely afraid for me. I cringe at the sound of her voice and wipe my tears away on my sleeve. Keith David steps towards me and extends his hand out once again.
"Make the decision." he repeats his advice from earlier. I nod and grab his hand in mine, using it to pull myself up into a standing position. It's time for this president to make a move.
"Can you put me back in the simulation?" I ask Kinzie tonelessly.
"Yeah, I should be able-"
"Do it."
I head back towards the main hub of the ship where all the simulation pods are located, Kinzie and Keith right on my heels the entire way.
"You want to go back in there? You can't kill Zinyak plugged into a computer." my vice president tries to dissuade me.
"I can kill a lot of things with a computer." Kinzie says harshly. With satisfaction, I register that her thirst for revenge has conquered any uncertainty she might have felt earlier.
"You, sure." he then gestures at me, "I've seen you get stuck just trying to defragment your hard drive."
I ignore the fact that I'm not even sure what a hard drive is and lower myself into one of the simulation pods.
"We took over, what, two percent of the simulation and that let Kinzie get me out of there alive." I explain my thinking process, "Taking over the whole damn thing has to do something good."
"She's right." Kinzie wastes no time in agreeing. For once, her desire to do things in a logical, rather than in an emotional way is not impeding me at all.
"What are you planning?" Keith asks her.
"Whenever the simulation is disrupted I have a small window to work my way inside the Zin security network. The more it's disrupted the more time I'll have to map out Zinyak's mothership. Following that logic, I could…"
I close my eyes and allow Kinzie's words to blend into one another as everything I am returns to the simulation once again. If there's one thing Zinyak is going to discover in the days to come, it's that there's nothing I do better than revenge.