A/N: So 's copypaste pretends it lets links work when it really doesn't. Well, fuck that.
Anyway, at the line "And found what she was looking for", go on youtube or whatever and play the full version of 'Red Fraction', Black Lagoon's classic opening. At the line "My name is Rock Okajima", play Gunship's The Mountain to get the proper opening credits experience.
Okay. Here we go.
November 2069
Gulf Of Thailand
40 Kilometers Southwest of Koh Kood Island
"You feeling good?"
Silence.
"Revy?"
"Never better."
"Good, because last time I jacked you into this thing while you had a full stomach the results were… well, you remember."
"I didn't eat this time." Revy fidgeted in the strikesuit, or tried to. The fiber-optic information superhighway running through her stemjack and into its frame meant every movement she made translated to its shape-memory-polymer musculature. She couldn't escape it.
Rock Okajima leaned up against the armory's wall, watching as Benny ran through diagnostics on his holofeed. When the time came, he'd be the one to bolt the hardplate sections into place, but for now it was the Black Lagoon's electronics guy's game.
"And… done." The American nodded and rose from his crouched position, yanking his interface cord free from Revy's wrist. "Nothing left to do but the motor tests before Rock seals you in there… running the instructions now."
Revy's eyes lit up, her corneal holofeed playing the motions she needed to make across her pupils. She swung her arms in circles, cocked her hips back and forth, clenched her fists and unclenched them. The cramped armory, not much more than a single dimly lit room aboard the Lagoon, echoed with the sound of her motions.
"O-kay," Benny said. "Rock, load her up."
Rock flipped open the case for the "XM-359 Neural Uplink Assault Chassis" and began laying out the foamed-alloy / ceramic nanotube plating on the bench. The suit had been made for US Marines back in the 40's and could supposedly stop anything short of sustained Norma Magnum. And it looked like it, all bulbous curves of gunmetal-gray plating not unlike medieval armor, except for the transparent aluminum oxynitride faceplate. But it was flimsy compared to the powersuits that most humans used in combat scenarios nowadays, if automata hadn't replaced them.
Then again, their clients would deal with the most serious opposition. Rarely was it the case that Revy Two Hands wasn't the one with the most kills under her belt, but this time was different.
Rock hefted the breastplate and walked over to Revy. He locked it into place at nodes on the myosuit's shoulders and abdomen, each bolt automatically rotating itself in. Then, he went back, ready to repeat the process with the shoulderplates, when Revy said, "I hate this fuckin' thing."
Rock didn't have a response to that. He wrapped the abdomen armor around her, giving the applique plates a sturdy knock.
"Seriously, it's just so goddamn–"
"It's the only practical way for you to dual-wield heavy weapons like those grenade launchers," Rock said automatically. "You were the one who gave all that money to Eda even when she started laughing at your request."
"Yeah. Well, I think I'm entitled to buyer's remorse." Revy frowned. "Swear when that bitch ain't fleecin' me at cards, she's fleecin' me with shit gear."
Rock silently agreed. Eda probably flooded Roanapur with shitty arms and armor to make sure that the syndicates saw action, but action that never threatened them, since they had their own supply lines. He could guess why. She needed to maintain an appearance of chaos, and hide the order underneath it all, a network of power relations as complex as a cathedral ceiling.
He clamped the leg plates on, then went back for the arms. "Up," he said, and she raised her arms so he could put everything into place.
On went the helmet, and the spare air. The suit wasn't a true NBC-sealed product, though in a hazardous environment it could give that impression for about ten minutes before something failed and the operator inside started vomiting blood or something like that. This was the part Revy really hated. Even though cameras lined the sides of the faceplate—
"Aaaand there goes my peripheral vision," she said.
"Aaaand here comes your integrated fire systems. Airburst and autotargeting," Benny said. "I'd say the pros outweigh the cons."
"Great, I get to rely on systems made by guys whose closest relation to combat is playing shooters in simstream."
"You could always rig up a little more," Benny replied, stowing his deck. "Build out your Kerenzikov a little more. No degrees of separation that way."
Revy shuddered. "Fuck no. It's not like I owe Sawyer money at this point, but you know she gets off from seeing my insides. The way she smiles at me… if I go on that table one more time I'm not gonna get off it intact."
Rock nodded. He popped the twin Rheinmetall SSW40's out of the armory wall, and the memory foam inflated into their contours. He handed them to Revy, and she stashed them on the mag-clamps on her back.
He watched as she picked over what 40mm magazines she wanted to use, humming to herself. Two mags HE, two mags flechette shot, two mags discarding-sabot HV. Internally, he hoped that she wouldn't have to use the last type. It would mean Revy would be going up against heavy GENOM-built armor, and even with that suit on she wouldn't survive that.
Revy stomped up the steps and Benny followed. Only Rock hesitated. Why did he hesitate? To pose the question was to know the answer.
He was scared. Scared of their clients. Scared of what Revy had to do alongside them.
Scared of the motherfucking Knight Sabers.
...
Because, well, who wouldn't be? They were real-life superheroes, hardsuited vigilantes-slash-mercenaries using tech that was decades ahead of the military cutting edge.
It wasn't like he had any sympathy for their targets, of course. The GENOM corporation was beyond megacorp status, they were a metacorp. Their artificial life forms — BMA's, or Boomers — replaced human labor in every industry by the millions except in the Chinese empire. They'd destroyed the cybernetics markets, automated national militaries, rebuilt entire megacities, all in their autocratic image. He had no sympathy for something so unbelievably powerful.
Also, they were his former employers. Spending all those years working for them in Megatokyo was what drove him to stay in Roanapur in the first place, kidnapped and then freed by the Lagoon Company. Fuck 'em. It was time someone stood up to Chairman Quincy and his machine legions.
But Roanapur, as free from megacorporate control as it was, had its own problems. Actually, no, scratch that, the whole city was one big problem. Drugs, guns, kidnappings, smuggling, piracy, assassinations, the list went on. The world knew, and chose to pretend it didn't exist.
So what brought the Sabers here in the first place? What prompted Balalaika, the great and terrible leader of the Hotel Moscow bratva in Roanapur, to call the Lagoon Company into her office and announce that they would help the armored vigilantes for a while? Four days of waiting as their WW3-era Fast Attack Craft was retrofitted with a separate battery system to charge the vigilantes' hardsuits and other gear, one late-night pickup of their team, and he still didn't know. He hadn't even seen them outside of their suits.
Rock didn't like not knowing things. He had no combat skills, which meant that in Roanapur he lived and died by information and his ability to manipulate it. Moving blindly through this world was a guaranteed way to die.
He had tried to save people before. He hadn't known everything. He didn't know everything now, but he knew the depths of his ignorance. That was what kept him moving.
...
Dutch was already on the deck when Revy arrived, armored up and leaning next to the ship's hypersonic anti-ship missile launcher. The five Sabers sat next to him, utterly still, at least until she arrived.
Their armor was nothing like the bulky strikesuit she was wearing. Their hardsuits were sleek and curvy, like riding armor crossed with an ultraluxury motorcycle. They were faceless, too, with slits near the jaw on only one of the suits trying to mimic something like eyes.
She knew they were talking about her, even though Benny couldn't intercept their comms. They were using an entangled-particle system, he said. More fancy fuck-you tech, all so they could gossip about how dumb her suit was.
The white one with the blue faceplate rose. "You're armed, I see," she said. Even through modulation, her voice was cool and deep. "You're sure you can handle that hardware?"
"They don't call me Two Hands for nothing," Revy said, readying herself to draw the launchers. "Wanna see?"
"I'll take your word for it, Revy," Saber White said. "Forty-millimeter ammunition is too expensive to be wasted, is it not?"
"Naaaaah," she laughed. "If I had to guess, ammo's cheaper in my city than it is anywhere else in the world."
"Even for military-grade support weapons. Fascinating." She paused for a moment. Revy took that moment to pounce.
"What're you talking about?" she asked, grinning. "Talkin' about me?"
Saber Blue, the one with the pinkish-red racing stripes and the fins on her helmet, shook her head. "She's parsing the fact that you can get last-gen American milsurp that looks like it hasn't aged a day, fresh outta the case, from where, exactly?" Blue's voice was intense and husky, a singer's voice.
"There's a church," Revy said. "Gunrunners under cover of the cloth. What, are you jealous?"
"More that the concept in itself interests us," White said. "While we brought our own equipment, to know such a thing exists is… a novelty, let us say." She paused. "Not to insult your fine city's institutions, but arms smuggling is far more difficult in Megatokyo. I speak from experience."
"Whatever," Revy said. "Hey, Dutch, how much longer? It's like talking with a fuckin' Sherlock Holmes cosplayer over here."
"Just turned the autopilot on," Dutch said. "We're in visual range of the target, actually. Look."
Revy looked where he was pointing, and saw it. A whitish glare echoed against the perpetual black of the ocean. A handful of crude industrial towers, lit up like Christmas trees, or maybe Christmas cactuses was a better description.
"That's it?" Revy scowled. "One little offshore industrial complex?"
"That," Saber Pink said, "is the above-water part of a rare earth seabed exploitation operation worth a cool ten billion US. Boomers jet around the bottom of the sea where Absolu Pétrochimie et Métaux bought the oceanic rights from ASEAN, they hoover up magnesium nodules, they refine the stuff right there and dump the toxic byproducts into the Gulf of Thailand. Once that stuff makes the surrounding water — around Roanapur, no less — beyond poisonous, they'll pack up and find some other corner of the Indo-Pacific to shit on." Her voice was light, youthful, but she was pedantic all the same.
"Still don't see why Balalaika didn't just bring in her own strike team to level it," Dutch said. "We've got some big missiles on this boat, but nothing compared to her own naval forces."
"You object to abductions, then?" White said.
"We've done 'em before, so no." Dutch scratched the back of his head, or tried to, rapping his armored hand against his helmet. "Nothing this big, though."
"Well," Benny said as Rock emerged onto the deck, "There's a first time for everything, I guess. It's the same with you guys, right? Is this your first time out of the country?"
Typical Benny, Revy thought. Play the understanding native to squeeze things out of people. Look like the rational one.
"For some of us, yes," White said. "As a team, maritime operations are new to us, but that's what you're for, is it not?"
Dutch hummed. "You're too kind, Miss…"
"You'll find out our identities soon enough," Saber Red said, all decked out in hot colors and with a soft, almost musical voice that contrasted with her suit's fiery colors. "It seems as though your regular patron wants our names spread throughout all of her control network. Presumably to keep us in line, but who can tell with someone like her?"
"She's not that bad," Benny said. "No more manipulative and ruthless than the other syndicate heads, that's for sure. Disloyalty's punished, but then again when isn't it?"
Blue laughed. "Y'know, White here has a line she likes to feed people about stuff like that. I was wondering why you haven't taken the time to trot it out, hmm?"
White squatted down. Revy pondered which one of the two — White or Blue — pissed her off the most. She could come to no clear answer.
"I could. I could say that necessary evil is still evil, and often it's not even necessary. But I doubt the city would listen."
She sounded more — somber? Christ, what a fuckin' whiner. Revy knew better than anyone that 'evil' was all that existed in the world, and so, lacking contrast, didn't really exist.
The refinery was growing fast as the Lagoon spiraled around it, closer and closer. Revy realized they were almost out of time. Good. She didn't feel like rehashing all the shit she'd laid down on Rock years ago, not with these people.
"So the plan hasn't changed?" Benny asked. "Rock mans the AA laser, I drive, you all go on deck, kill a bunch of Boomers and a few people, grab the onsite manager, plant some charges, and then the whole thing drops into the ocean, right?"
"No change," White said. "It'll be messy, though. Revy, Dutch, we'll feed you firing solutions and telemetry. As long as you stick to the plan and don't overindulge yourselves, we should be fine."
"There's no problem," Dutch said, hefting his MMG. "We've all seen you work on the stream. We know you're capable. Ain't that right, Revy?"
"Yeah yeah yeah yeah let's just get this fuckin' thing over with." Revy made a show of loading her launchers, one HE and one fletch, in seconds. She couldn't tell if the Sabers thought anything under those faceplates. Not like it mattered.
Honestly, what was Sis thinking? Megatokyo was many things, but it wasn't Roanapur. Whatever combat capabilities these Japs had, they were gonna go down in the first few seconds of a real firefight.
She'd bet good money on that.
...
Time passed.
The refinery loomed massive in Revy's eyes. Its towers reminded her of something almost living, a single organism taking the steel cores of the platform and wrapping itself around them, choking them through layers of pipework and wiring. How, she wondered, could humans build things that looked like the guts of an alien spaceship so casually? It was amazing.
It was like Manhattan when she was growing up. Out in the Recovery Zones, Brooklyn and Queens, the downtown skyline looked dead, an array of needle-shaped ghosts reaching up to gravel-colored skies and never quite reaching them. Get in close, though, and you'd see people moving around in those towers, living like the floods had never hit. The same uncanny feeling, of something dead coming to life upon closer inspection, pervaded her now. She shook her head to clear it.
The Black Lagoon pulled up to a lowering platform. Small recovery craft dangled above it like hanged men. A ladder jutted out from a metal pillar.
"I'll go first," Dutch said. "One after another. Hopefully–"
"Security feeds're already blanked," Pink said. "Did that like five minutes ago. Anyway, try to keep up!"
"The fuck–"
The Sabers, as one, hopped off the deck, and triggered their thrusters, zipping up to the ground floor of the refinery. Fifteen meters of vertical and they dealt with it like it was nothing.
Revy didn't do much more than look and gape, until she realized Dutch was already moving, and she didn't want to be left behind. He hopped from the boat onto the ladder, and she followed, scrambling up rung after rung. Behind her, she heard the Lagoon pull away.
Rock had disappeared below decks to plug into the guns without so much as a goodbye. Rat bastard. He'd gotten worse and worse on the job, quiet and twitchy and eager to do something. Even a year ago he hadn't been like that. Fucker.
K-TANG! The arcing clap of a high-power laser echoed from above them, close. Then, more, K-TANG K-TANG! Then, the rattling taktaktaktaktaktaktak of assault rifle fire. SIG Spear, sounded like.
K-THWOMP! Something that sounded like a payload rifle on hypervelocity steroids, then a white-hot fireball she could see even from her position behind Dutch.
"We've engaged security Boomers," Saber Green, her voice light and lilting and sounding too much like the murder-maid's for Revy's comfort. "Moving Pink towards a control uplink."
Dutch reached the top and slung himself over. Revy reached up, and he reached back, pulling the gunslinger up effortlessly. As one, they rose—
And saw what the Sabers were capable of.
Four security Boomers, humanoids armed with ARs and underbarrel grenade launchers, were sprawled on the loading deck. Or, rather, what was left of them. Revy traced their indigo guts, smoldering with corrosive fire here and there, towards one single point of impact, a galaxy-shaped crater in the wall near a shattered security checkpoint, still glowing white-hot.
"Oopsie," Saber Red said, laughing. "I got a little carried away with that one incendiary round."
Pink thruster-hopped over to the ruins of the checkpoint, casually yanking blocks of melted hardware out of the walls until she found something important-looking and slapped her hand against it. It hummed, and suddenly a stream of text streamed past the corner of Revy's holofeed, and when it stopped, dots lit up across her vision.
"The fuck–"
"IFF pinpoints for the enemy's security forces," Pink said. "I'd recommend not turning them off, Revy. You want to know where the next Boomer is in a maze like this, right?"
"Pink," White cut in before Revy could answer one way or the other, "Do you have eyes on the residential block?"
"I've got their location pinpointed, but I don't have control over their security right now. It's a separate network. I'd have to hit the main ops center to do something like that, and I can only keep the automated security scrambled for so long before the execs realize what's going on and head for the lifeboats. So once we start this in earnest, we're on the clock."
"How long?" Dutch asked.
"Ops like this…" Pink shook her head. "Five to seven minutes. If you two can grab the manager by then, we can take care of the rest. We're not here for a long-term pillage."
"Right," White said, and another bit of data popped up in Revy's holofeed — another 'pinpoint', fat and yellow-rimmed somewhere in the distance, and then in the bottom left of her vision, a shot of a middle-aged dude with beady eyes and a chrome dome.
"Revy, that's Francois Allerne, and the directions to get to him. Run very fast, get in there before they realize their security forces won't be able to stop us, and bring him back." She paused. "Alive. And intact. Ish."
Revy laughed. "Oh, bitch, I am so gonna exploit that 'ish' part."
"See that you do. Now, then." She turned to the others.
"Knight Sabers, Go!"
And Revy was already moving, sprinting down the corridor, a buzz in the back of her head as she cycled through her internal earphone's playlist…
And found what she was looking for.
The guitar started to grind out its opening notes just as Revy fired her first HE grenade of the night at the sealed hatch at the end of the corridor. A single tightbeam signal, and it airbursted inches from contact, the RDX-magnesium mixture blowing the hatch off its hinges effortlessly.
It opened out onto a bigger loading bay, a pit in the heart of the complex where those same refinery towers shot up into the darkness and seemed to close in on themselves like teeth. Pallets loaded up with boxes marked NEODYMIUM and YTTRIUM made the whole place into a virtual hedge maze, swarming with hulking Labor Boomers and a handful of human handlers. On the catwalks above, Security Boomers, the same make as the ones she'd already seen, calmly pointed their assault rifles in her team's direction.
"Okay, cocksuckers!" Revy shouted over her external mikes. "Who wants to die first?"
I have a big gun / I took it from my Lord
She went high as Dutch went low, his machine gun roaring .338 death as he stomped forward. She leapt up onto one of the stacks of crates, swiveled into a three-point stance, and fired a fletch grenade out over the biggest cluster of dipshits charging at her she could find. Another signal, and it popped open in midair, two dozen 2*50mm cermet-sheathed tungsten spikes screaming out from it shotgun-style.
Sick with justice / I just wanna feel you
The results were nothing short of incredible. The three human casualties died instantly as the spikes buried into them, ripping parts of them away in sprays of viscera, and the labor models didn't fare much better, stumbling, then collapsing as the spikes tumbled around inside them and ripped open their indigo innards.
Revy barely registered the kill, instead choosing to focus on the AR fire that was pelting her from up above. She raised her HE launcher, ready to blow one of the catwalks up, but she didn't have to bother, because at that moment the machine's head was lopped off by something silvery and silent.
I'm your angel / only a ring away
According to her holofeed, that was Saber White, a ghostly wireframe methodically butchering the security forces. Fucking hell, the bitch could turn invisible?
YOU MAKE ME VIOLATE YOU
Revy turned, saw one of the labor Boomers crawling up one of the pallets it had just stacked. If it caught her – well, it wasn't going to catch her.
She leaped over it, twisting in midair, and fired an HE at it.
NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE!
She landed, guns akimbo, and started sprint-jumping from crate to crate, the number below the pinpoint shrinking in little increments with every passing second. She saw some woman out of the corner of her eye try to raise a pistol, and the poor cunt got a fletch grenade for her trouble, her body ceasing to exist as the spikes ripped her apart.
Saber Green was working alongside her, and she was fast, her thrusters letting her whip forward like a bullet past Revy. A Boomer rose, making a wild grab for Green's legs, and the Saber just leaped over it and punched it in the back. A lance of fire split the Boomer open in the front — some kind of explosive in the fists, Revy figured.
"You wasted ammo, by the way," Green said as the Boomer dropped. "It's not like that security operative could have harmed you."
"Be quiet, bitch. I'm having fun here."
Sure, the Sabers were dealing with the bulk of the Boomer opposition, leaving her to deal with the lighter stuff. But they weren't gonna tell her how to enjoy fighting baseline humans.
She heard Dutch behind her, the endless cycling of his MMG punctuated by the sounds of those heavy rounds ripping into the crates, and the Boomers that struggled to protect them. Labor models were big, and could take serious punishment, but even linked up to a hivemind they were a) dumber than half the people in Roanapur, which was saying something, and b) unarmored. Really, Dutch was just working his way through a shooting gallery, but the fun was going to be over soon. Red had already split off, according to her holofeed, planting the demolition charges that would blow the facility's generators and drop it into the Gulf of Thailand with a single signal.
It's all up to you / no one lives forever
"Revy," Dutch said. "See the elevator?"
"Yeah. Looks like it leads right up to our guy."
"Exactly. Which is why we're taking the stairs, 'cause any minute now a better-armed security detail is gonna come popping out of there, and then they'll stop running it."
Been burnt in hell / by all those pigs out there
"Correct," Pink said, and Revy wondered where she was in all this. Her suit didn't look heavily armed at all. Was she just the infobitch and exposition-dumper? "Slightly heavier riot-grade models were just woken up, and their cryocoffins are definitely close enough."
"We'll take care of them," White said. "You two, don't lose sight of your objective."
It's always been hell / from when I was born
"Understood," Dutch said. "Revy?"
She hopped down off the pallet, and put an HE round into one of the Boomers Dutch hadn't killed all the way. Chunks of its blue-black skull smacked into the crates that surrounded it.
"Fuck, what god died and made you Jap bitches–"
THEY MAKE ME VIOLATE THEM
Revy was cut off by the elevator door unceremoniously exploding outward.
NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE!
The six boomers that came out were still humanoid, barely, all bulges and bulk that seemed to swell upward into nearly non-existent heads and shoulders as big as their torsos. Heavy shotguns, looked to be 4-gauge at least, and opaque composite shields. They were big. They were mean. They moved like they had a plan. Finally, some real fuckin' action.
Get down / on your knees
K-CRACK! A line of fire split the air between Revy and Dutch, and suddenly the front Boomer had a gaping hole in both its shield and its chest. A quick glance, and Revy could see that the hole went through the one Boomer, through the one behind it, and straight into the elevator. It was like peering through a gory peephole, at least until the front Boomer slumped down.
Got a good head on your shoulders
Saber Blue dropped down from the catwalks, her back thruster hissing out compressed plasma, and her left arm growling as automatic fire lanced out and ripped into the Boomers in spurts of molten nanocomposite armor and more circ fluid. They stood, all the same, or tried to, their shields swinging up for all the good they did.
If it's / for your guys
"Fucking move already, mercs!" Blue hissed as she hit the ground. "We've got this!"
Dutch nodded, firing a one-second burst into the side of one of the Boomers just as it was about to bring its shotgun up. Revy saw the stairs, and made another big jump towards them.
Go to the ends of the earth
Her launchers facing up, up, always up, she sprinted up the stairs. Behind her, she could hear Dutch stomping up the stairs. Below her, she could hear the sounds of exotic violence, the K-TANG! of laser shots, punctuated by the krackackackackack of Blue's autogun.
Do / what you think
They cleared the loading bay, rising into a darkened stairwell. Safety signs in French plastered every corner. Above, Revy could hear the movement of heavy feet. She grinned. Now the Sabers couldn't steal her action.
Give it with dedication
They reached the top. Another door—
I'll put out your misery!
And another HE grenade to blow it off its hinges.
Revy stepped out into a hallway that looked like a hotel, all low lighting and floral wallpaper, save for the metal floor. The pinpoint was less than a hundred meters away. It was time to move.
There was a T-junction. She peeked out, and saw six more riot Boomers huddled in the next hallway. She'd have to go through them. And there was something else, too, something big—
"Dutch, is that a fucking combat model?"
Dutch didn't have to answer, not when a ruby-red laser whipped through the air inches from her face and blasted the wall behind them into slag. Revy knew what that meant. She'd seen enough news streams of the 55C 'Jarhead' in action. Humans couldn't compete against something like it without massive enhancement — that was the point.
Revy popped her flechette mag, her other launcher attached to her thigh, and jammed in the discarding-sabot mag.
"Dutch, cover me!"
She dove across the hallway just as her partner opened up with his MMG, spraying the firezone with high-caliber lead. Her instincts kicked in, the art of dual-wielding etched on the surface of her brain, and she fired.
Have no prayer so / I keep my gun with me
The HE rounds went low, BWOOMP-BWOOMP-BWOOMP, and she saw the 55C without really seeing it, its blue-black armored carapace, the snarling ape-teeth that concealed its mouth laser, those dead red fish-eyes and the micro-antennae that poked out from where human tear ducts would be. She aimed high, and in less than a second fired a single sabot shot.
For my safety / I'll do it with no sweat
BWAM! The report from the depleted uranium flechette slipping its massive holder and screaming forward at hypervelocity would have deafened Revy were it not for her enhancements. It blotted out sound the way an eclipse blots out the sun. But she was still able to see the hallway better, slightly wider, slightly nicer, windows lining it that looked out over the refinery —
And the 55C with a DPU dart that poked out of a massive wound in its shoulder, and the Riot Boomers that had tanked the airbursts and were now aiming at her.
Oh fuck.
They mean business / no time for sissy pig
She darted back to the other side of the hallway just as sprays of triple-aught buckshot filled the hallway, and as Dutch pulled back. He grumbled something under his breath as he moved to reload.
"Revy, they're closing in! Suppress them!"
QUEEN OF THE OCEAN
"I'll do you one better," she hissed, and triggered her Kerenzikov. "I'll fuckin' kill 'em."
SING THE VOLGA TO YOU!
She'd barely used the speedware in the months since getting it installed. It wasn't just a matter of principle, of relying on nerves that weren't hers shaving a few dozen milliseconds off reaction time. It was more that every time her arms moved before she knew she intended to make them move, that awful uncanny valley effect, she thought of Sawyer, the last thing she saw before she went under the knife and the first thing she saw when she woke up, smiling wider than she thought that spooky bitch could smile.
But now, stepping out into the hallway again, using her suit's enhanced musculature to ping-pong up and over the next barrage of shot the Boomers threw at her — then twisting away from the 55C's next sweeping mouth laser? Being able to ride that laser-sharp edge of 'more than human' in ways she couldn't before?
She had to admit she liked it.
No need to think about it / you do it or you die
Another fast barrage of the last of her HE mag — but she wasn't aiming at the Boomers, this time.
She danced through the detonation shockwaves as the grenades airburst one after another, then ghosted behind the big Boomer — took aim as its movement seemed clumsy like a video game boss — her holofeed tracing the line between her launcher and the machine's neck —
Those aren't tears / don't let them —
Only for the Boomer to whirl around faster than humanly possible and backhand her, sending her tumbling across the metal floor, her guns bouncing out of her hands on impact —
"REVY!"
And only for it to turn back around as it suddenly realized that the passageway, not a corridor so much as it was a luxury catwalk, had just broken in half, sending around four of them plummeting to the bottom of the facility.
Revy rose. The 55C had hit her across the ribs, right where most of her hardplate was. If it had been the head, she would be dead. As it was, the only problem was that the tumble fucking hurt, every movement she made causing new pain to pulse across her body. Oh, and her music had just cut out, too.
She scrambled for her still-loaded launcher as the Boomer shuddered like a stop-motion monster, then swung around and charged at her. Didn't even bother picking up one of its comrades' guns. It probably thought, as much as one node in a localized hivemind could be said to think, that it would just be wasting time with one.
It was wrong.
BWAM-BWAM-BWAM-BWAM-BWAM! That was half her mag in one go, three full-bore slugs slamming into the machine's chest and gutting it every time, no time for the darts to slip their sabots. Then two more, one whiffing wide, one gouging an ugly streak across its neck. Even with its head all but falling off, it kept coming—
"Revy, run!"
Rock's voice in her ear, her mastimike somehow managing to communicate the pants-shitting fear the salaryman was doubtlessly feeling as he watched from her strikesuit's cameras. He'd warned her a whole bunch of times about how dangerous even a lone combat Boomer could be before the op, begged her not to take her Cutlasses because they were "worse than useless". And you know, given the way things were right now, he was probably right.
BWAM! One more shot, this time it split the head, its laser plate folding in on itself, its jaw a lunar crater of snarling teeth (why did a machine have teeth, anyhow) —
And it kept coming. Slower, but it kept coming. Close enough to attack.
Machine-gun fire behind it. Evidently Dutch was finishing off the last of the riot squad. That meant she had very little time, almost no time at all, to finish this.
Her eyes narrowed, and Revy moved.
There was no Kerenzikov this time, as she ducked under a blind haymaker, juked out of the way of a swiping roundhouse kick, then dashed around to the side. It was slow to turn, with the wounds it'd sustained. Good. That gave her time.
Because now she had the open pit to her back, and three shots left in her launcher. Not that she was going to use it.
The Boomer staggered forward, every motion just a little faster. Tendrils extended out from its ruined face and from its neck. Sensors, or the machine trying to regenerate itself even as it fulfilled its goal of kill-kill-kill? Revy didn't give a shit.
It sprinted forward.
Revy juked to the side.
It forgot the pit.
It fell.
For a moment, there was silence. Terrible, glorious silence save the distant whipping of wind.
Then Revy cheered.
"Yeah! In the land of the blind, the Two Hands is King! Rock, did you see that? Holy shit that thing was stupid!"
The mastimike only worked when it picked up speech and not unintelligible rambling, so now she could hear Rock, his voice small, his breath short. "I thought that was it. I thought you were gonna die at that thing's hands. I really–"
"Well," Dutch cut in. "What'm I, chopped liver?"
"You were both fine," Benny said. "Besides, that's a last-last-last-gen combat model that she was dealing with, wasn't it?"
Silence, again.
"Oh. Huh." Rock sounded like he was getting his breath back. "You're right, Benny. Those sabot rounds wouldn't have been able to even penetrate a current gen 55C's armor."
"So that wasn't the greatest thing you've ever seen me do?" Revy turned around, and went to pick up her other launcher. She popped the HE mag and put in the second one, then swapped sabot for fresh flechette. "Way to ruin the mood."
"More to the point," Rock said, "if you just blew the main connector between the residential block and the loading bay, you're going to need an alternate exit route for our hostage. Saber Pink?"
"Yep, still here," Pink said. "I'll map a path out. Revy, you just nab Allerne and I'll have something for you by then. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that he'll try to run."
Revy hefted her launchers up. "Got it. Dutch, what's your angle?"
"Get to our rendezvous point and wait," her boss said. "The Sabers haven't exactly asked for backup, so I'd rather not get caught in that crossfire."
"That's 'cause we don't need it, buddy!" Blue shouted. "These Boomers are industrial-strength pushovers!"
Revy winced, and turned her music back on.
— trick you
She barged into the residential block war-whooping at the top of her lungs, even as she found no resistance, no dipshits to pump full of flechettes. For the home base of the non-automated staff, she had expected a little more luxury, but that same old-hotel vibe remained unenhanced and undiminished. Allerne's home office was so close, barely twenty-five meters out.
I am hard as steel / so just get out of my way
Another door, this one locked. Another flechette blast — another swift kick against the frame —
PAY BACK ALL AT ONCE
And she was in.
SUCK AWAY THE TENDER PART!
Eight guys in the room that followed. Easy enough to sweep with her launchers. Easy enough to track. Everyone had pistols. Revy laughed.
You / made a mess
She saw Allerne, who was shorter than she expected and wearing a really awful Tour De France tank top. She motioned at him with one launcher.
"Francois Allerne?" she said, grinning. "We made all this mess juuuust for you."
For fuck's sake, this rotten world
He shuddered. "Stay away or I'll shoot!" he gasped. "I'll kill you, I swear I will!"
Revy's other hand swiveled to track one of the other guys, and she fired. Under other circumstances she would have found the man disintegrating into so much meat slurry amusing, but she was starting to hurt a little again. The minimum amount of Revy Two Hands-branded sadism would still be applied, but only the minimum. She didn't have time.
Shit / out of luck
"Michel!" Allerne gasped again. "Oh God, Michel!" He fired blindly, Parabellum shattering against her chestplate. Revy vaped the dude next to him just as his mag ran dry.
I'll go with my vision
"Come on," she purred. "Don't make this any more memeable than you absolutely have to. Just come with Mommy, okay?"
She said that last part the way the boys liked at the dom shows she used to do, and Allerne strummed like a guitar string. Good. Improvement.
Light up the fire
Allerne walked forward, his gun dropping from slack hands. In one practiced motion, Revy slung him over her one shoulder—
Right on the power
And then unloaded the last of the flechette mag into the rest of the room.
Until I have it all!
"Waste of ammo," White said. "Is this a regular pattern with you?"
"I've got the VIP, don't I? Besides, aren't you guys supposed to be dealing with the rest of the security?"
A long-suffering sigh on the other end.
"Ha! Knew it. Then there's no problem, right?"
"Quit teasing our clients and get back to exfil, Revy," Dutch said. "Benny, bring the boat back around. We're just about done here."
On cue, a pink streak of light materialized on the floor in front of her, through her holofeed. "Follow that," Pink said, and Revy did, stowing one of her launchers to get a better grip on her captive before sprinting off after it.
Get down / on your knees
Out past the residential block.
Got a good head on your shoulders
To the left, past conference rooms.
If it's / for your guys
Stairwell.
Go to the ends of the earth
Three flights of stairs.
Do / what you think
Opening out onto the guts of the facility, all pipework and humming machinery. Revy ignored all of it.
Give it with dedication
"Security forces dealt with, and charges planted," White said. "Moving to exfil."
I'll put out your misery!
"Uh…" Rock sounded hesitant. "You might want to take a raincheck on that one. Sonar just pegged something big coming up from the seabed."
"How long until it breaches?" White asked.
You / made a mess
The pinpoint marked EXFIL on Revy's HUD was growing closer. She didn't dare slow down.
"Ten seconds ohnowaitshit it just breached!"
For fuck's sake, this rotten world
"Doberman!" Benny shouted. "Repeat, breaching Bogey is a BU-704B Doberman!"
"Oh hell," White said. "Dutch, permission to burn a HASh-M on the enemy?"
Shit / out of luck
One more door, marked TERTIARY LOADING BAY. Revy didn't bother with a grenade this time.
"If I use one of my precious missiles on one dinky Boomer, that'll be coming out of our pockets to replace it," Dutch said. "Is a Doberman–"
I'll go with my vision
"Doberman models are the heaviest walking Boomer models GENOM builds short of the tank types," Green said. "The last thing we want to do is fight one on a time limit."
The door opened out onto a bigger loading platform, flat and entirely too open for Revy's preference. It was where she was supposed to be. Dutch was there, too.
Light up the fire
There was something approaching out on the water.
The Sabers entered behind her…
Right on the power
And suddenly a shape the size of a bus leapt from the sea, arcing up with surprising gracefulness for its bulk, and smashed into the platform.
And suddenly, Revy knew what a Doberman was.
Until I have it all!
Her music stopped. She watched as the Boomer unfolded. It had to be ten feet tall at least, all glistening white armor and clutching limbs, its head a mass of snarling teeth and twitching sensor systems. No part of it resembled its namesake, save for that sense of tamed cruelty police dogs had, how they would tear you to pieces without knowing why they did it.
Its eyes glowed green — Revy hefted her launchers, unsure of what they could even do against a monster like that —
"Revy? Dutch? Stand back from the Boomer, will you?" Pink said. "Otherwise you're gonna have a bitch of a headache plus some other problems in about three seconds."
"What the fuck is that supposed to–"
Skr-ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!
The world went white. Her body seized up, and she dropped to her knees. Her holofeed flickered and died. Even under her helmet, she could smell ozone. What the fuck just happened?
She blinked. Once, twice, three times. Her vision started to clear — oh fuck, there was the headache, a ricocheting stabbing arc of pain that started at her stemjack and spread like a metastasizing tumor to the front of her skull. She made out the outline of the Doberman, stuttering forward like a toddler, arcs of electricity dancing across its armor.
Its lower jaw split in two as its laser spiraled into place, then stopped midway, jerking like the rest of it. It would have been funny to Revy if it was possible to think straight. Had she dropped Allerne? Was he still alive? Was the Boomer aiming at him?
Then something exploded right in the Doberman's face, and that last question became irrelevant.
It staggered back, face twisted outward, just in time for Saber Green to dash forward between its legs. Glimmering wires whistled out from her forearms, passed through the machine's ankles, and suddenly torrents of circ fluid blasted into the space where the hardsuited woman had been moments before.
The Boomer roared, at once guttural and painfully high-pitched. Its arms popped open, barrels of massive guns dropping down, and from them screamed laser pulses that threw up chunks of vaporized material in a pattern painting itself towards Revy and Allerne.
K-KRACK! Another railgun shot as Red and Blue entered the scene, burying itself in gut armor that cracked and molded around the spike as it spun deep into its innards. The Boomer charged forward, or tried to. Having brutal gashes as thick as a human arm in its ankles made that difficult.
It stumbled forward, but caught itself, just as Red and Blue danced out of the way of its guns. Blue jetted up and over the Doberman, calculated bursts from her autogun popping little bloody craters where the Boomer had already been wounded. Red dashed between its limbs, slapping two little circular things on the inside of one elbow, before frontflipping over the other arm grabbing at her and somersaulting up it to plant another one.
Blue fired her railgun into the machine's upper back, where even now its thrusters strained to keep it upright.
Red made a motion with her hand, going from an outstretched palm to a clenched fist.
The Doberman's propellant stores, armored as they were, ignited at the same time as Red's limpet mines blew its lower arms off right at the joints.
A wave of light and sound washed over Revy. She flinched, or tried to. The strikesuit's hijacking of her motor cortex's commands was inescapable, even immobilized. All she could do was shut her eyes for a few seconds.
When she opened them again, the Sabers had already moved in to finish their enemy, flanking it on all sides. Its leg wounds were healing, but not fast enough. Its head was half-slagged. Its forearms were gone. Its back was a column of smoke and hydrogen-blue flame. It kept trying to get up, and kept failing.
Then, Saber White materialized on the Boomer's neck, sinking an arm-mounted sword into it. A flash, and the thing's head fell off. There wasn't even a second where it stayed on, like in a samurai movie before a guy fell apart from Toshiro Mifune's katana strike. It just smacked into the loading bay floor, anticlimactically.
Which, Revy finally realized, didn't take away from the fact that the Japs had just done… all that.
Okay, fine, maybe she could have made a kill like that if she had a real-ass hardsuit, not this POS that froze up on her the minute a whatever-the-fuck-that-was hit. Her headache was subsiding, at least. Fuck.
Pink walked over to her, reached behind her, and yanked something, and suddenly she could move sluggishly again. "Word to the wise," the Saber said. "When I tell you to get clear of my Pulse-Strikers, and you're wearing hardware that doesn't have integral hardening or neural redundancy, you do that."
Revy whirled around to bash the hardsuited heroine in the jaw, or tried to. It was like she weighed twice as much, all of a sudden. Pink took a step back all the same. "Easy there!" she said. "Your neurofeedback systems were totaled by the EMP. I just unplugged it from your stemjack, but even now you're fighting the strikesuit with every movement you make. The salaryman'll have to cut it off you when we get back onto the boat."
Revy blinked. Her eyes narrowed. "This thing cost me twenty five grand and it shorts out that easily? Because you just happen to have magic lightning lasers or whatever the fuck? You couldn't have warned me in advance?"
Pink shook her head. "Okay, good point. I should have done that. I'm… sorry? For what little good that does."
"If our patron is willing to give us access to a few specific types of nanofoundries during our time here," White said, placing a hand on her shoulder, "I'll happily build a better model for you. It'll have to be disposed of once we leave, and it won't be able to use every piece of proprietary technology I can bring to bear, but it won't short out so easily and you won't have to cough up the price of a sedan for it."
"Don't patronize me, bitch," Revy breathed. "I never asked for your help, and now you've fucked up my priciest piece of kit? How about once we get out of our suits Pinky here and me settle this? I'll even lend her a Cutlass if she wants to make it even."
The hand on her shoulder tightened. "I'd rather you didn't, Miss Revy. I think our mutual employer would take poorly to needless violence, as would I."
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of you sucking your own bitchcock–"
"Let it go, Revy," Rock said. There was an edge to his voice. She'd heard that edge before. Lovelace, Yifei, Le Majeur, all the other times when the weird little salaryman wimp suddenly straightened out just a little. "She's offering you a way out of having to buy a replacement from Eda, right? I mean, if you want to go back to the Church and get laughed at for fifteen minutes straight and then upcharged beyond the reach of rational animals then knock yourself out."
Revy seethed. The worst part of dealing with Rock when he buckled the fuck up and started saying shit was that, more often than not, he was right. Not all the time, but most of the time. Ugh.
She stumbled over to her charge. Allerne was still breathing, though the look in his eyes was that of a man who wished he wasn't. The piss stains in his pants contributed to that impression.
"Fine, whatever," she said. "I'll think about it. Let's just move Frenchie here and fuck off back home."
White followed her and slung the catatonic corpo over her shoulder. "Agreed."
...
The boat pulled up. Dutch and Revy were lowered down by Blue and Green, respectively, every Saber drifting down on their thrusters. They drove off.
The refinery shrunk into the distance. Red made a motion like raising a conductor's baton, and little starbursts of light rippled around the refinery towers. As the Sabers left for their storage hold, and as the rest of Lagoon Company left for their stations in the interior of the ship, Rock watched as the whole thing folded in on itself, its glimmering towers reaching towards each other in one final embrace over painful minutes, before the sea swallowed them all whole.
It had taken every ounce of willpower Rock had to not use the Lagoon's AA laser cannon against the Doberman. Even when his prior instructions from Dutch had been not to intervene, the temptation — the imperative — was there. He had believed, in the moments before Saber Pink fired and the Sabers ripped a multimillion yen piece of hyperwarfare hardware to bloody bits, that Revy and the others were going to die unless he did something.
Only the knowledge that he was wrong stayed his hand. More often than not, whenever he got involved, whenever he tried to push against the currents of fate, he… well, he got shot in the ribs and called a piece of shit. That thought kept his brain away from the fire controls long enough to watch as the Sabers did something that four years of corporate indoctrination told him was impossible.
He heard the characteristic stomping of Revy's combat boots up onto the deck. He considered telling Revy about the laser, then decided against it. She knew, in her own way. She didn't need to hear about his worries.
"They still haven't gotten out of their fuckin' suits," she said. "Cunts're just luxuriating in the hype. They'll pop out of a cake or something, I bet."
Rock smiled. "You want to know who they are? Would it even matter to us?"
She sat down next to him. "It's not like it matters-matters. Just want one of them to look me in the eye. They're all shit-talking me, I bet."
"You don't know that."
"I can guess."
"Yeah." He didn't have anything to say after that.
The lights of Roanapur, a sickly blanket of fluorescent-yellow and LED-white pinpricks, glimmered just over the horizon. Beyond that horizon was a cruel city the likes of which only the fervid imaginations of madmen could dream up.
Beyond that horizon was his home.
...
My name is Rock Okajima.
At the bridge leading into the city I live in, there is a noose hanging over the girders. No one knows who put it there, or why. If anyone was ever hung from it, that body is long gone. But no one has ever bothered to take the noose down.
Perhaps because people know its true significance. Symbolically, I mean. Cross into Roanapur, and you are already dead. You have entered a city where the instruments of power are held by ruthless villains, people who the rest of the world pretends do not exist. If you do not end up shot or strung out on designer drugs, if you do not cross the murderous assassins and syndicate soldiers that serve those villains, you will wake up one morning and find that, as much as you yearned for freedom, you are a slave to power again.
You exist in a floating world, where torrents of blood run through the streets weekly, where violence is not a means to an end but the very point of existence. You can try to escape, but spend just an hour in the city as anything other than a vice tourist and it will have already smeared its rot across your soul, and you will be unable to see the world as it once was. You can try to change things, but the city's kings and queens have mechanisms in place to deal with you should they note your deviation from the path of evil. If you are unlucky, they will do things to you that will make death seem like a relief. If you are lucky, you will not be destroyed in body, but in spirit.
That was what happened to me.
STMPD FICTITIOUS PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS
That was why I did what I did.
BASED ON THE WORK OF TOSHIMICHI SUZUKI AND REI HIROE
I wish you could tell you I regretted it. I don't.
A NEW STORY OF THE KNIGHT SABERS AND THE LAGOON COMPANY
This is the story of a city that reflects the secret history of the world.
This is the story of what happened when the world broke, and the city broke with it.
This is not my story.
I was but a part of it.
BUBBLEGUM BLACK:
FOR A WORLD WITHOUT GOLD
STARRING
DAISUKE NAMIKAWA AS ROCK OKAJIMA
MEGUMI TOYOGUCHI AS REBECCA 'REVY TWO HANDS' LEE
ISOBE TSUTOMU AS DUTCH
HIRATA HIROAKI AS BENNY BLACK
YOSHIKO SAKAKIBARA AS CELIA STINGRAY
KINUKO OOMORI AS PRISS ASAGIRI
MICHIE TOMIZAWA AS LENA YAMAZAKI AND ROBERTA CISNEROS
AKIKO HIRAMATSU AS NENE ROMANOVA
YOSHINO TAKAMORI AS SYLVIE HANATSUKI
MAMI KOYAMA AS SOFIYA 'BALALAIKA' PAVLOVNA
TOSHIYUKI MORIKAWA AS MR. CHANG
TOORU FURUYA AS JUNAYD LAKHANI
JUNICHI SUWABE AS RODRIGO 'LUCIFERO' CRECIENTE
YOUKO SASAKI AS SHENHUA
ASAMI YAGUCHI AS FREDERICA SAWYER
SUGITA TOMOKAZU AS LOTTON THE WIZARD
KAYANO AI AS LI XINLIN
AND JUN KARASAWA AS 'EDA'
COSTUMES AND MAKEUP BY STINGRAY LUXURY GOODS, LTD.
PYROTECHNICS BY INDUSTRIAL DEATH AND MAGIC
WEAPONS AND TRAINING BY PARAMILITARY ARMS OF NEW LIBERTALIA
ENHANCEMENTS, PROSTHETICS, AND AUTOMATA BY NORBERT WIENER AND SONS, LTD
MECHA BY ARAMAKI PANINDUSTRIAL
CGI BY BAUDRILLARD METATECHNOLOGIES
ALL OTHER SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS BY WEEBOVISION 2000
SPECIAL THANKS TO TOEI ANIMATION, AIC RIGHTS, STUDIO MADHOUSE, AND SHOGAKUKAN'S MONTHLY SUNDAY GENE-X
...
If you want some painstaking notes on this chapter, check out my tumblr at:
mechanicalinertia/719788973857406976/bubblegum-black-for-a-world-without-gold?source=share