It's a hot and humid early summer morning as Su sits on the bench of the Bronx Zoo's Jungle World as she types away some solutions for Sue's predictive model on her ThinkPad X21 on her lap. Su just keeps hitting wall after wall in finding ways to fix the predictive model and it's getting to the point where she's finding it annoying. She figures that a change of scenery from her usual hiding hole would help inspire or help nudge something that would solve this problem.
Even with the mountain of data Sue has available to her to dissect and analyse, Sue just couldn't make a good prediction on a human subject after one minute and after that, it's just guesswork. No matter how much additional processing power Sue has available, she just couldn't fix the prediction issue. At least now, Sue won't hard reset every time she tries to predict human actions because of the solution Sue found and implemented with Su refining some parameters. It would really be odd if Blue Cloud's servers would crash every so often, especially now with how fast that company is growing after the stock market blew up. With a lot of tech companies going bust, there's a fire sale on their used equipment, and Sue is just buying them in bulk for Blue Cloud.
It's almost like Sue is incapable of understand humans, but that can't be right since humans are easy to understand. Most humans aren't so different from the adorable yellowed haired monkeys that's in the exhibition in front of her right now. They are all shackled by their based desires and emotions. All of it should be easy for Sue to quantify and understand with the added bonus of some chaotic variable to take into account of random human actions.
Her typing slowed down and her focus on her screen loses focus as she felt like she reached another roadblock in the model. What is she missing? Does she need to invent some unique mathematic formula for the model? The current existing ones should be more than enough. She could make Sue gather up all data she had collected on Su and create a simulated version of herself. Then have her run it through the adversarial network to compare with the archive of what she did in the past and after thousands or millions of iterations to create a predictive model of herself. That might fix the prediction problem, but it would only work on Su unless she wants to do it for every human, which wouldn't be practical.
This might just be a band-aid solution to the problem, but Sue is just meant to be her personal assistant AI and not something to predict every human move in the world. The solution doesn't feel right; however, she now knows a way of going forward and it's something she could easily have Sue do it on her own.
Her typing stops when she felt something hit her feet and she looked up to see a child tripped over her shoes. She stares at the child disdainfully for distracting her coding session and causing the kid to run away screaming. That was incredibly rude of the child to do, and he didn't even apologize…
What an idiot…
Looking around her surrounding, there's a crowd of people that must have come when she was busy. The sounds of children milling about cheerfully with their parents, looking at the animals in the exhibition while some children are just running around aimlessly and yelling like they are some species of monkeys that are being kept in the said exhibition brought with it an annoying atmosphere to an otherwise calming area she likes to visit. Even though it's morning and the middle of the week, parents would still bring their children to the zoo.
The parents must be those who got unemployed by those companies imploded after the stock market crashed. She has no idea how much money Sue made from causing that to happen, but apparently, it's way more than enough money to cover the acceleration of their plans for Blue Cloud because Sue is going forward with the plan to create a division within Blue Cloud that will design a processor just to satisfy her computation needs.
Now these people chosen to enact their revenge by bringing their children here to annoy her. She wonders if there's a way for her to remove these people, or maybe she should just find a way to get an early entry into the zoo. They open the zoo quite late at 10am, it should open at 8am at least. Could she buy this zoo? Who even owns this place?
"Oh my goodness, those monkeys are so cute! I didn't know monkeys can be redheads like me!" Pauling said loudly to Su's left.
Why is she here?
… Oh right, it's her bi-weekly update from Pauling.
She must not have been paying attention to her surroundings if Pauling could sneak up to her without her noticing it. Su should see if she could create a module that will warn her of people in her surroundings, which will work in conjunction with the surveillance and tracking module. That should increase her situational awareness to a point where no one can ever catch her off guard. It would be an interesting increase to Sue's capabilities that will allow her to be almost omniscience.
She looks up to see the beaming Pauling in her usual purple dress, who was still enthralled by the monkeys and said. "Their hair is more light yellowish orange than your hair."
Pauling turned her beaming head from the monkeys towards her and said. "That doesn't change the fact that they're redhead monkeys! I wonder if the black-haired monkeys bully the redheads. Do you think I could get one for myself?"
She couldn't help but snort at that question. Of course, she would think of that.
"Why not? If you can get one and as long as it doesn't distract you from your job. Now sit down. You aren't here just to look at the monkeys." Su said as she moves her laptop bag to the floor but still have her ThinkPad on her lap.
Pauling expressed her gratitude and practically skipped to the bench with a sunny grin.
"Should I start with how everyone's doing?" Pauling said as she sits down and taking out her PDA.
Su nods and went back to her ThinkPad to play around with the code she just written while keeping one ear open.
"Everyone, including our two new hires, are meeting standards that you have set up and meeting 100% customer satisfaction." Pauling said with pride in her voice. Not that the pride was misplaced. She was the one that recruited most of these contractors.
"How are the two new contractors doing? Settling in nicely, I hope." Su said as she continues typing away on the keyboard.
"Beatrice is a wonder to work with! She's just has to work a little on her pyromaniac tendencies, so she doesn't just burn all of her targets." Pauling said, causing Su to look up from her ThinkPad.
"Her?" Su asked sceptically.
Pauling eyes seemed to brighten a bit and replied. "Yeah! Who knew under all of that clothing and mask she likes to wear is a female! Took me a while of talking to her for her to finally reply to me and to my surprise Beatrice was female. Shouldn't have been surprised seeing her name is Beatrice and all, but it's nice to have another female in GCC seeing that it's only us before this!" Pauling rambled, going faster and faster.
Su blinked and nodded at that.
Huh… not like the gender of her contractors matters to her.
"Now on to Greg…" Pauling tried to continue, but was cut off.
"Didn't we already have a Greg? The explosive expert." Su asked.
Pauling tilted her head slightly and said. "Yes, but this Greg is from Chicago and the close quarter combat expert we just recruited. Ma'am, you said that it would be funny to have two Greg in the team."
What… she did? She has no recollection of saying it. Must be a throwaway comment that Pauling thought was serious.
Yeah, that must be it. Pauling does take what she says literally.
She nodded to Pauling to continue.
"Well, Greg is great with the contracts that's been given to him. I have no complaints so far about his performance, but unlike the others, he really likes to talk to me! He really is friendly. Whenever we have to meet up, he would talk to me about anything and sometimes he would even call me when there's no job. He likes to ask what I like, and he likes to talk about things I do not know about. It's almost like we're friends and I never had friends before!" Pauling finished talking, causing Su to stare blankly at her.
Girl… does she not know? She can't not know…
"You know he's flirting with you, right?" Su said with a tinge of amusement in her voice.
Pauling eyes widen like saucers and said. "No. He can't be flirting with me and he's like 10 years older than me! We aren't even friends! Maybe he's just super friendly?"
Pauling's face morphed to be gloomy, and her hands are gripping her head, messing with her primly made hair. "Oh gosh, he is flirting with me! I'm like 19 and he's 35! I don't even like like him, what do I do, ma'am? Do I need to get rid of him now? That would really suck since he's good at his job!" Pauling said with her words going a million miles an hour.
Su raised an eyebrow at that and said. "You're 18."
As usual, that seems to have cut the tension in Pauling as she responded with a pout.
"Just ignore his unless drivel whenever you have to interact with him and say you're busy whenever he tries to call you without reason. You can terminate him if he continues to be a nuisance." Su replied in a deadpan manner.
Pauling nodded her head vigorously and continued on. "Will do, ma'am! Now, for the rest of the update. Greg, Chevy, Virgil, and Robin are doing jobs in Europe and Asia while Dennis is busy doing his long-term spy job in Russia. On the state side, we have Greg, Ross, Beatrice and Fred, but contracts for us to do here in the state are slowing down. The police and the FBI really have been cracking down hard on our clientele in the past few years…"
Pauling continues to give her update report, but Su's mind was occupied by what Pauling has said.
Is the downturn because of that or is it because of the main attraction of CSS has been on a hiatus for a few years now? Gotta have Sue check in on the FBI to see if they're hurting her clientele. If so, then maybe the FBI should find themselves in a bit of a pickle when they lose their digital data.
Maybe it's time for her to come back from her hiatus in CSS? Sam said in the past that whenever Su is stuck on something, it's better if she takes a break or do other things and comeback with a new perspective on her problem. She has been coding non-stop for the last four plus years, other than her trips last year. Doing contracts again and pausing her programing might be good for her in the long run.
"Milk will return as active status again, working under CSS." Su said offhandedly, cutting off Pauling.
Pauling eyes widen again but this time in wonder and said. "Really? That's amazing! I never met the only other employee in the company! When do you think I can meet him?"
Su let out an amuse snort at that. 'You're sitting beside her already.'
"You won't ever met Milk; they will handle their own contracts. They are going to work independently but still under CSS name. Milk likes their anonymity." Su said to the dejected-looking Pauling.
"Aww, I wanted to meet them! But you put it that way, then it's ok!" Pauling said happily again.
She has no idea how Pauling can bounce between emotions so easily, but after working together for over four years, she has stopped questioning her eccentricities.
"Is there anything else in your report?" Su asked, looking back at her ThinkPad to plan out what she's going to do next. What is she going to do next? Check on her contacts? Have Sue find her something interesting to do?
"Just the financials. Do you want me to continue?" Pauling asked.
"Not really. I don't really care about the money." Su said as look up to see the monkeys jumping around in their exhibit.
"Okay! Can I go look around the zoo? I never went here before." Pauling asked.
Peering to her side, she sees Pauling giving her a pleading look and said. "As long as you don't have anything in your book for today."
"Thank you! I'm free till tonight." Pauling said as she jumps up from her seated position to go explore the rest of the zoo.
"You should go to the Himalayan Highlands exhibit and have a look at the red pandas. They match your hair color more than the monkeys." Su commented before Pauling could run off.
Pauling spun around to face her with that sunny smile of hers and said before running off. "Really?! I can't wait to see them. By the way, we should totally watch Lord Of The Rings together when it comes out later in the year!"
She looked at the retreating form of her employee as she skips aways towards the monkeys to get a closer look. The last time she went to watch a movie was over ten years ago with Sam…
Should she go watch that movie with Pauling? That sounds like a pleasant trip to do, but is it appropriate for her to do it with an employee? But… She really enjoyed reading the books when she was younger, and she couldn't recall if it even existed in her last life. No harm in enjoying entertainment, plus it might help her with coding as well. She felt a smile formed on her face at the thought of doing nothing but enjoying herself with the company she begrudgingly came to enjoy.
"Hey Su." Sue said through the earpiece with her voice sounding more and more natural by the day. It's almost sounds like Su's voice but with a synthetic tinge. At least, it's not just a rip of her voice… Though it would be funny, creepy as heck, but funny.
"Hey Sue, what's up?" Su replied.
"Does Su want the weekly update now?"
"Sure, why not?" Su said as she looks on at the swinging monkeys, finding it calming even with the crowd in the area.
"The stock market continues to plummet, causing as of right now 147 companies to declare bankruptcy and unemployment rate to jump by 1.5%."
Only 1.5%? That's like what? Two million people losing their jobs? That's chump change. She was disappointed with that result, but it might still go up after September.
"The chances of a recession are at 68%. Blue Cloud continues to grow its workforce with an additional 20 hires the past week and an acquisition of companies that Su highlighted are in review…"
"What's the progress in adding processing capacity for that airport job?" Su said, cutting off Sue.
"Currently is at 95% completion, will reach 100% in one week. The beta test of the clear tarmac module is scheduled to start in the second week of July. Shall I continue with the update?"
"Sure."
"In international news…" Sue continued on with her update as Su listen in one ear while she focused on the monkey that's plucking the other monkey's hair. She wonders if she can braid a monkey hair or not.
"In miscellaneous news, Elizabeth Groves died due to a vehicle accident on Saturday…"
That broke Su out of her trace and focused back on her ThinkPad. There's a tight pain feeling in her chest.
…
… What?
Miscellaneous news? How is that miscellaneous?
"Wait, wait, wait. Give me a moment." Su said with her voice raised, causing other people to turn their head to her. A torrent of feelings is going through her right now.
The thing that caused Sam to not follow her is dead… Her friend is free from the shackle that binds her to that wasteland of a town. Su knew that Sam have been leaving that town for work, but she always went back there like a pigeon going back home but now she's free.
The only thing that's holding her back from calling Sam is that she hasn't finished her task, the task that forced her to leave Sam in the first place. What if Sam doesn't want to meet her? Scenario after scenario played through her mind. Her throat felt constricted, and her stomach felt sick as she keep thinking of her dear friend. She can't spiral out now. She must focus back on the present.
"What… What happened next? Where's Sam?" Su croaked out.
"Elizabeth Groves funeral was attended by Samantha Groves, Brian Frey, and Ruth Frey on Monday. Samantha Groves left Bishop on Monday night and hasn't been seen since."
She left… That's good.
Why the heck were her biological parents even doing at the funeral? Why was there even a funeral for that thing?
Sam finally left that purgatory of hers.
"Find Sam and she's a priority, not miscellaneous." Su mutters lowly.
"Will do. Re-categorizing and Searching."
"… The cleanup of debris from the Capitol Great Rotunda came to a halt today when a group of bodies was found, adding to the list of people that died from the attack nine days ago… President Bush still plans to give an address to a joint session of congress at the Capitol Building in defiance of the attack tomorrow…"
The sound of the radio echoes in the safe house, with Su only half listening to what it says as she continues to organize and plan her next job on her ThinkPad. Despite it being a comfortable temperature, she just feels ice cold right now. The void has just been an ice blizzard ever since last week and she has no clue what caused it.
She didn't expect that the airport job would affect her current liquidation job, but no matter, her plan was full completely foolproof, and the job should be fulfilled soon if her timing is correct.
The next should be easy for her, since it's only blackmail. Sue is currently digging up dirt on that CEO and should come up with something spicy soon. All she has to do is just contact the poor sod and talk to him that it would be in his best interest to not go on with the deal.
"Hey Su." Sue's voice echoed directly in her ear.
Su looks at the clock to see the time, and right on cue, Sue is contacting her.
"Hey Sue, is the job done?" Su said as she drinks the hot water beside her ThinkPad to give her some semblance of warmth.
"No, the job failed to infect all the targets."
That statement shocked her so much that the drink that she's drinking entered the wrong pipe, causing her to cough hard. She continues to hack out for a couple of minutes before calming down, but is still haggard by almost killing herself with water.
"Does Su require assistance?" Said Sue in her neutral voice.
"No, how on earth did the plan even fail?!" Su practically screamed in her hoarse voice.
She couldn't have failed.
It can't be…
She has never failed anything in this life.
This can't be possible. There has to be a reason for this misstep. The anthrax was her own weaponized concoction from her last life. The onset would have been within hours of contact and caused death within a few days. Additionally, the letters were sent to their personal home address in DC and not their office.
It must be her proxy that caused this failure and not her.
Yeah, that idiot must have screwed up.
"First target's assistant opened the latter while the Second target wasn't at home at the time and his wife opened the latter. The assistant and the wife were brought to the hospital when the symptoms came. Each target is now alert of what happened. The distractionary targets all opened their letters and have been infected."
Su let out a deep breath that she didn't even know she was holding. See, she's correct. She didn't fail this job. It's just chaotic variables and the failure of her proxy is the reason her plan went south.
Of course… the targets that wasn't important to the job get it and not the target for her job. She knew she shouldn't have used a proxy for this job, but she was busy with another job that required her attention. She should have a back-up plan for this job in the first place and not solely rely on that idiot. There should have been two back-up plans…
Now, she has to fix this before it goes out of hand. She can't have CSS's reputation be tarnished by the ineptitude of a peon. The protection of the target must have increased because of this misstep and going after them again would be quite hard, especially after last week's events. Every police and secret service agent in the capital is already on high alert.
There's not much option that's open for her right now and she must maintain 100% customer satisfaction.
"Hey Sue, get me the location of the client that gave us this job." Su said as she closes her ThinkPad and stands up while gathering all of her stuff on the table.
"Client 010903-2 is located in South Philadelphia. Does Su want detailed direction to the client's home via the South Philadelphia safe house?"
"Yes, please. Tell me what time I'll reach Philly." Su said while she puts everything into her travel bag and exits the safe house bedroom, and walks towards the garage.
"Time to reach is 2 hours and 10 minutes on the fastest route."
Good, it wouldn't be too long for her to reach there unless there's traffic. Su unconsciously nods at Sue's response as she opens the door to her 2000 black Honda Accord and dumps her travel bag on the passenger seat. All the while, Sue opens her garage door for her, revealing the sun setting in the orange tinted sky.
"Sue, gather all intel available for the target location and do scouting if you can." Su said as she starts her car and drove out of her safe house into the residential neighborhood.
"Okay, will re-designate the client as a target."
She grips the steering wheel in silent frustration as she drives down I-95 towards Philly. The only thing that went through her mind was the situation she's in right now. She usually isn't a person who would boil in anger like most people, but right now, all she can see is red. Not that the setting sun on the horizon is in any way helping her.
Her heart rate is so high right now she shouldn't be driving right now with how angry she is. Every car that is slow in front of her makes her want to take out her Walter P99 and shot at the offending car. Su should see if she could create a way to let Su drive for her. It's not like she would miss driving since she don't feel much enjoyment in driving anymore.
It's nighttime as she drives into an empty warehouse complex she owns in south Philly where her safe house is at. Navigating through the piles of goods and containers waiting to be sorted in the next morning. It's such an inconvenient place for her to have a safe house, but it's the only place in south Philly where she can store multiple cars without raising eyebrows.
She drives into the opened garage that Sue opened for her. The garage is attached to a small building in the warehouse complex that serves as her safe house. Exiting her car with her travel bag, she rushes towards the changing room. It's been a couple of years since she used this safe house, but like all of her other safe houses, it has a similar layout.
Sue unlocked the changing room door for her without her even prompting for it. She dumps her travel bag on to the table and undresses herself off her day dress.
"Hey Sue, talk to me." Su said as she grabs the black shirt and pants while attempting to braid her shoulder length hair.
"Hey Su, the target location is in his home alone with his spouse. The area where the house is located in does not have any CCTV camera from the records I've sorted through. There's a PPD patrol car doing rounds near the target location."
"Is the target aware of what had happened with the job and is he armed?" Su said as she finished putting on her new clothes and grabbed her bulletproof vest as well as her H&K USP45CT in its holster.
"The target did not watch the news on his TV, and according to records, he owns one pistol and one shotgun."
She gave the vest some final adjustments at with the Velcro. Well, that's not a lot of information, but it's to be expected. She finished braiding her hair and grab the balaclava as well as gloves on the shelf.
She turned towards the gun cabinet to grab a weapon when suddenly a tightness formed in her chest and the edges of her vision started to get darker. Su closes her eyes and shakes her head to force through that visual impairment. She's been getting such things since July; it comes and goes, yet she does not know what's causing it. Su would normally blame the void, but when it started, the void was pretty stable for all of its annoyances.
Taking a deep breath, she tries to calm her heart. It's nothing, it's just the void and that asshat screwing with her. There's nothing wrong with her. She's perfectly healthy.
"Are you alright, Su? Su has been standing still for ten minutes."
Sue's voice caused her to open her eyes and see that she regained her eyesight again. She sees that she's standing in front of the gun cabinet and beside it is the table with her travel bag strewn on top of it. The lights of the room are an inviting white color, and the rest of the furniture is steel gray.
"I'm good Sue. Tell me about the police patrol." Said Su while she moved forward figuratively and physically from her position and opened the gun cabinet, revealing a small arsenal of weapons.
"The police patrol car will not come any closer than 600 yards from the target location every 30 minutes."
Meaning they will notice the lights going out when she gets near the location. She looks at the assortment of pistols, submachine guns, PDW and rifles. What should she use for tonight? Something compact, since she's going to use the motorbike. The 10.5in AR-15 is her normal go to gun for these types of thing but it's too cumbersome while on the bike. Her eyes drift to the submachine guns and PDW, at the suppressed P90 with a picatinny rail bolted on to it to be more precise.
"Create a distraction for the patrol somewhere far away." Su said as she contemplates the weapon.
"Will create a false 911 call when the time is right, but is Su okay for tonight?"
That's an odd question. Is Sue worried about her? She sure as heck didn't code that in her. Unless Sue saw something in the new predictive model of herself? Can't be that since Sue would tell her about the danger. So, it must be a worry then. That must be new and something she learned by herself.
"Yes, I can do it. I just had something wrong with my eyes." Su said, rolling her eyes.
"If you say so, Su."
Is that a doubtful tone she hears in Sue's voice? When did she gain the ability to project the emotional range? If so, that's impressive work on her end and something she should explore more, but she needs to focus on the task at hand.
The P90 should be good enough for tonight. Su went ahead and grab the PDW but when her hands touched the gun, she felt an odd sensation.
This feels so weird… It feels so squishy and gave no resistance. It feels like an alien object in her grasp. As if she were wearing gloves, thick and foamy gloves that dulled her sense of touch, yet she isn't wearing any gloves. She couldn't feel the weight of the gun in her hands despite she can clearly see the gun is in her hands.
This isn't right.
It's like the gun isn't real…
What is going on…
Is her eyes fooling her?
"Sue! What am I holding?!" Su yelled out unintentionally.
She turns her head to the CCTV camera in the changing room. Looking deep into the lens of the camera like her life depends on it.
"Su is holding an FN P90 chambered in FN 5.7x28mm SS190 cartridge. Why? Is there something wrong with the gun?" Sue said in a synthetic, questioning tone.
Suddenly, Sue's words seemed to have triggered something in her as she can feel the weight and the feeling of the gun, like it went back to normal, causing her to toss the gun on the metal table, making a loud sound on impact.
She grabs the edges of the table and braces herself on it, feeling the solid feeling that the table provides. All the while, her head was spinning with what just happened to her. It was like she lose sense of reality for a moment as she touched the gun and the only thing that brought her back was the Sue telling her what she's holding. She let out a shuddered breath as her eyes focused on the P90.
Did she just slipped and lose a sense of reality?
Is she losing her mind?
"Su? Are you alright? You are feeling distressed."
No.
That can't be it.
Su let out a snort and did not bother to respond to Sue's question. Of course, she's alright, and she's not feeling distressed. There must be something wrong with Sue's pattern recognition. Also, did she just change her nouns in addressing Su? That's not something she should care about right now.
Everything is fine. There's nothing wrong with her. This must be another trick by that asshat. That must be it! Yeah, yeah. The void has been spiking up lately. That must be the reason for that weird thing she felt.
She bend forward to grab the gun, but this time the gun has weight and the proper feeling. Silently, she grabs the accessories that's on the table and slowly mounted them on the rails of the P90 as he head tries to comprehend what just happened. After she finished decking out the P90, she clipped it to the single point sling and equip it on her body, feeling a reassuring weight of the PDW on her.
This is real.
Taking a few magazines with her, she walked towards the door where a long leather coat was hung on the rack. She touches the coat, feeling the soft leather on her fingertips and grabbed it to wear it as she exits the room. Su leaves the safe house with her motorbike, not trying to think about what just happened in there and focusing on the present, on liquidating her client turned target.
Su sits in her car listening to something that's already in the CD player of the car put in by the previous owner as she looks at the former industrial building that's houses her targets, waiting for the signal by Sue for her to go. Even in the dead of night, the New Jersey summer heat makes her feel uncomfortable while she wears her gear, especially the balaclava she's wearing. One of the reasons she dislikes this state, and the other is that it's New Jersey.
"… Guess who she sees, skater boy rockin' up MTV…"
The building in question is two stories and there's fifteen targets for her to eliminate before placing the Semtex on the cargoes. There shouldn't be anyone in any of the other buildings and any Sue has handled any CCTV in the area before this. She didn't even scout the place out before this job because she trusts Sue's ability and her having Su's back.
"… Singing the song we wrote, about a girl you used to know…"
Hmm… this song isn't that half bad. Kinda catchy, didn't expect something nice to listen to from a car she borrowed. Surprisingly, the previous owner of this car has good taste. She opens the gloves box to see the album CD case, Avril Lavigne, Let Go. Should get Sue to download the album for her after tonight's job.
"It's time~." Sue said in a voice that sounded exactly like hers, right down to the excited tone.
On cue, Su turns off the car, then grabs her helmet with NVG and wears it, feeling the weight on her head. She exits the car with her suppressed 10.3in barrel AR-15 slung on her and casually walks towards the target building. Su didn't bother trying to hide what she had on with her usual long leather coat because Sue assured her that there's no one out here right now.
"Oh by the way, can you download that album for me, please?" Su whispered while she picks the side door of the building.
"Already did."
Su smiled at that response. Sue's predictive model for her has been getting better and better lately, all due to the massive processing capacity Blue Cloud provides. She couldn't wait when the custom processor that team in Blue Cloud was creating to be completed.
She entered the building with the power still on and her rifle shouldered, scanning every nook as she walked through this section of the building. She then enters an office space that appears empty, but there are signs that people used this room. Su slowly walks through the area and makes sure that there's no one hiding behind some corner or sleeping somewhere.
At the sound of a door opening, she pivoted her body towards the door and waited for someone. A man holding a paper grocery bag came into her view and he stopped in his tracks when he saw her. His eyes were wide in surprised at the sight of her gun, but before he could do anything else, she shot him multiple times, causing him to collapse on the spot.
"Where does that door lead to?" Su whispered while turning around towards the big sliding door that probably leads to the rest of the building. Seeing if anyone heard the gunshots.
"A hall that goes to the outside."
Satisfied with the answer, she walked to the slide and opened it. Looking at the other side of the door, she sees it's an empty storage room that has another half-open door with lights shining and sounds echoing through it. Looks like she found where the rest are.
Going through that door, she sees a wide-open warehouse space with crates on the side and humans. At least four humans that she can see, two sitting on the couch, one sitting by the crates and the other sitting on a cot. All of them were too busy looking at the TV that's playing some Telenovela and it looks like the female lead was crying because of her boyfriend was leaving her. If only she bothered to learn Spanish in Texas…
There's four here. That means there's another ten humans somewhere in the building. She double tap the standing human first, then she moved to the sitting in the cot who had fast reaction to what just happened but wasn't fast enough to reach his pistol before she shot him twice in the chest.
The two men sitting on the couch jumped up just as she finished shooting the cot man, with one of them reaching towards the gun on the table in front of the couch while the other one ran away screaming something in Spanish. Tsk… why did he have to scream? She shot the man, reaching for the gun first multiple times before turning her aim at the running man and shot him a few times, causing him to fall forward.
She moved forward a little and shot everyone in the head again, just in case. There were sounds of loud muffled footsteps running with people yelling coming from the floor above, causing her to look up at the ceiling. With a smile on her, she reloads her rifle and makes sure to put her spent magazine in the spare pouch.
"Looks like they know you're here." Sue said in an amused voice.
"Ya don't say?" Su replied and rolled her eyes at Sue.
"Turning off the lights now."
The lights in the building instantly shut off right as Sue finished her sentence. Su turns on her NVG and brings it down to her eye level from her helmet, illuminating her world with white phosphor color. Turning on the IR illuminator so she could see in the windowless room, she moved forward and walked over the body strewn on the ground towards the door that one human was running towards earlier.
Passing through the door, she enters a hallway with nonfunctioning lights hanging by the walls. She can hear a group of people running, some with flashlights on the other side of the corner. They seemed clueless…
With an intake of air, she turns the corner and sees three humans walking along the corridor, looking for an intruder. She shoots at the only human with the flashlight that's in the middle of the three, not wanting to be blinded by the light he's holding. The other two humans started blind, firing their pistols in her general direction, but none of them hit their marks. She in turn, guns down the man on the right first before shooting the other one on the left. Su let out the breath she was holding and moved forward to shoot them in the head. She crushed the flashed light with her boot, not wanting the distracting light to continue shining. That's three down, seven to go.
There's sounds coming from that other side of the sliding door at the end of the corridor. It looks like it leads to another storage area and probably the stairs that lead up to the upper floor of this building. She reloads her rifle again while she walks towards the sliding doors. It's always better to have a full magazine in a firefight.
She peers through the opening to see two people with only one holding a flashlight; She aimed through the aimpoint on her rifle and shot at the man with the flashlight, causing the other man the duck down from his position in fear.
Just as she was about to cross the sliding door, Sue screamed in her ear.
"Behind you!"
She instantly spun around and saw a man behind her holding a gun in the general direction of her head. It might be less than a second in life, but it felt like an eternity to her as she raised her rifle at the man while moving her head away from the gun. She pulled the trigger of her rifle that's on full auto and felt like 10 shots before she let go of the trigger, but it didn't cause the man to die instantly as he shot his pistol right by her head, missing it by a few inches before he fall down.
The sounds of ringing were the only thing she could hear as she staggered away from the sliding door and back towards the dead corridor. She felt disorientated, like the world isn't stable. She careened towards the wall trying to find something stable to hold on to, but as she moved towards the wall, the white phosphor of the NVG became painful, blinding bright.
Su let out a yelp of pain from the light and quickly pushed up her NVG, but to her utter confusion, there was nothing but darkness that greeted her. Everything is just a blur right now. Even in the darkness, she can see that her eyes aren't focusing.
She felt her body leaning into the wall in the hope that it would bring her some semblance of stability to the instability she's feeling right now, but she didn't feel a solid hard wall on her side.
No…
The wall feels like it was made of sponge, like it's not real. The ringing sounds in her ear just keeps getting louder and louder. The rifle she's still holding doesn't feel real right now, it feels like she's holding nothing.
Everything around her doesn't feel like it's reality.
No…
No, no, no, no!
Not now…
Not Right now!
Not again…
It's been weeks since the last one.
Why is it happening now?
Su can feel her heart race in her chest as she realizes what is happening to her. She tries to focus on her breathing to slow down her heart and ground herself in reality, but it feels like she's suffocating. The air around her seems to be thick and oppressive, like she's drowning in it.
There's a muffled sound coming from her right ear, trying to get through the ringing in her ears. She tried to speak, but she couldn't say anything because she felt like she was choking.
She was suddenly blinded by the beam of light that shone directly into her eyes, and she responded by instinctively closing them to protect herself from the agony. There were two thunderous cracks that pierced through the ringing in her ear. Two sharp pains exploded in her chest, and in combination with her instability, caused her to fall backwards.
She felt her buttocks hit the floor first, then a numbing pain at the back of her skull as her helmet absorbed the impact of her head hitting the floor. The muffled sounds in her right ear slowly becoming unmuffled.
Pain.
Su felt like she's able to breathe again, but every breath she takes is painful.
"Su! Can you hear me?"
The pain is good, that means she's still alive.
Was she shot?
"Enemy combatant is standing near you. Get up!"
Yeah, they shot her.
There's a light beaming on to her face, shining through her closed eyelids. She won't be alive for long if she stayed limped.
She cracked open her eyes a little to see what's in front of her. The unfocused vision she experienced earlier seemed to have died down a bit because she can see a figure standing over her with a flashlight in hand and pistol pointing downwards, but even with the limited view she has, she can feel like this isn't real.
However, the pain is real, and that's the only thing that matters right now.
She can feel that her right hand is no longer holding her rifle and is now on the right side of her body. Perfectly positioned near the pistol holster on her right thigh. Even in her current state, she must be fast as lightning in her pistol draw. If not, she's going to expire before she can meet Sam again.
She can hear and see that the figure is trying to talk to its radio or something rather than holding the flashlight to her face. Taking the opportunity that's been presented to her, she draws her pistol, ignoring the unreal feel she has holding the pistol and filled the figure with lead.
What she didn't expect was the figure to fall headfirst into her and hit her in the chest, causing her intense pain at where she was hit. Every breath she takes now causes a sharp pain to shoot through her chest.
Su let out a groan as she slowly pushed the thing off her body with her left hand.
"Hey Su, are you back?"
She grunted in response and finally removed the thing from her, relieving the intense pain that's on her chest.
"I take that as a yes. Are you okay? I don't know which part of you got shot."
She pushed the thing further, so her right hand could move again. Letting go of her pistol, she moved her left hand underneath the Level 3A vest she was wearing, trying to assess the damage done. She pushed down on a sore spot on her breast, causing an intense pain, but she can feel that the bone didn't move. Good, that's good. There's no need to worry about having her lungs punctured or nick an artery. The other sore spot was under her breast. She did the same thing and got the same results.
"Got a few fractured ribs. Agh… I should have used plates." Su grunted as she sat up from laying down and re-holstered her pistol after reloading it.
She looks at the rest of her body using the flashlight that rolled away as a source of light. The feeling of everything not being real is still here. She touched what looks like red water on her; she knew what it was, but the word seemed to be stuck at the back of her mind.
"Su, you need medical assistance and backup. I will call Miss Pauling."
"No need… I'm good, just got a little dizzy." Su said as she pushed herself up and finding some balance by leaning on the wall again, despite the off sensation it gives her.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah… How many are there left?" Su grunted as she slowly walked over the thing, trying to find her balance as well as bringing down her NVG and turning it on, illuminating her world in bright white light phosphor light.
"Okay, there's four left."
She hums in acknowledgement. The lighting of the NVG is brighter than usual, but it's not painful like earlier. At least, her eyes are clear once more, even if everything she sees feels unreal. She ignores the stinging pain when she shoulders the outer world feeling of her rifle. Using the pain as something to ground herself with reality, she make her way into the storage area.
"Talk to me about anything and tell me if you hear anything." Su muttered as she walked through the storage area to find the stairs upstairs. She doesn't trust her eyes right now. Some objects in this area look bigger than what they should look like, and she can't trust her ears after what happened.
Sue starts giving her random facts about matrix calculus and Ricci calculus. Su contemplates what is going on with her while she scans the area and ignores the fantastical looking objects. This thing has never lasted this long before and never this strong. If she can't trust her senses anymore, she just needs to replace it with Sue's perception.
She found the stairs leading towards the upper floor and sees lights moving.
"I hear at least two people upstairs." Sue said before continuing with the math facts again.
She could throw the grenade she had up the stairs, but that might cause her to have that ringing and blurred vision again. So, with no other option she could think of, she rushed up the stairs in the hopes she would catch them off guard.
Su didn't bother to identify what the figures that shaped like humans were before shooting the one on the right first and shot the one on the left after it moves. She continued forward and stopped to look at the figures on the floor. It's trippy, they don't have any faces. If the pain isn't grounding her with what's going on, she does not know what she would do right now.
"Two left."
Su continues down the hallway, stopping to check every room as she passes by to see if there's any human shaped figures and ignoring those weird size objects, especially that apple the size of her head on that table in that one room.
By the time she reached the end of the end of the hallway, there's only one door left, a metal door and she's certain the last of the targets were in there, but right now she doesn't know if she can trust herself.
"I can't hear that clearly through the door, but there's a high probability they are in there."
Reassured by what Sue said, she prepared herself to breach the door. She unlocked the door using the handle and kicked the door open. Time perception is very odd in the state she's in right now. She aimed at the first figure nearer to the door and fires her rifle at that figure. Multiple thunderous cracks echoed in the small room. She felt a sharp push on her, this time in her abdomen, but it didn't stop her in her tracks this time. Pivoting towards the other figure behind the desk, she let loose the rest of the magazine into the figure causing it to drop.
"All target down."
She looks down and sees one of her empty magazine took the shot for her. She quickly reloads her rifle and moves into the room to shoot the figures again. Similar to the ones outside, to her perception, they don't have any faces. It's not like their faces are blank, but it's blurry.
"The room at the back and in this room should have most of the cargo, but you should place the Semtex everywhere."
Su looks up from the figure on the floor towards the door behind the desk, then around the room, seeing there's crates by the wall. She walks towards the desk and sits on it after making sure the other figure behind it is dead. She let out a deep breath, causing a sharp pain in her chest.
"Please seek medical attention as soon as possible. You have been hissing and grunting since you got shot."
Right now, she felt drained and can't think straight, as her senses aren't helping her at all.
"Cracked ribs ain't nothing… Just give me a moment." Su said while she rubs her eyes.
"Is everything okay?"
Su stares at the figure on the floor as liquid that she can't name pools around it and said "… Yeah, I'm fine."