Echo and Keri were going to hang out with Keri's best friend when their lives got turned upside down another time.
When the two girls were little there had been in greater numbers, but they hadn't seen Libi in years. They had grown up in what only Echo remembered was named the Sternum lab in that terrifying labyrinth. All three of them had been marked with glowing green codes that they had chosen their names from; except for Echo, that is. She had always been the self aware, independent and uncooperative of the three and when she was old enough to realise what was going on she rejected it all. That was why she had been discarded. Keri was too emotional for their plans, Echo was too uncooperative and Libi was just perfect. Naively obedient despite her intelligence.
Yet, here were two of the soldiers she hadn't seen in a good 8 years, attempting to kidnap her and her sister and she would not have it. That training was engrained in her mind and body as if carved into her bones. If she couldn't get rid of it, then she was going to use it and make sure she made Korps and Sternum regret ever teaching her.
She twisted the arm that she was being dragged by and contorted herself and the soldier so that she was pinning the masked man, chest up. He struggled and squirmed so Echo thanked her lucky stars that Keri had forced her into a pair of, painful to get hit with, high heels for their afternoon/evening out instead of her every day ones. She positioned one sturdy foot on the man's chest, kicked him in the head with the other and then stood on his chest. Then the girl proceeded to stomp once, as hard as she could, on the man's groin.
He let out a howl and she jogged over to where her sister was being dragged away. She noted three teenagers in unfamiliar school uniforms maneuvering themselves into fighting positions and temporarily dismissed them. She clawed at the henchman's arms and was begining to pull them away from Keri when,
"Excuse me. Does the Number 12 stop here?" the dark haired boy she had seen called out as an obvious distraction. She rolled her eyes and separated her hands from the arm of her sister's assailant. In true Keri fashion, her sister said,
"I doubt those two will help you, they seem like they'd rather take you somewhere against your will over directing you to a bus. The 12 doesn't stop here," everyone came to a stop about two feet from each other and a dark skinned girl said,
"That's okay, we only said that to get close enough to rescue you." A blonde boy grabbed the Korps soldiers head and yanked it back, whilst taking a leaf out of Echo's book and kneeing him in the groin. the man released Keri and collapsed next to her comrade.
The blonde one grabbed Keri's arm and said, "Let's go," as he reached out to Echo and began to try and run off. And her sister butted in again,
"Hang on we don't want to go with you either." Echo glared at her sister for talking for her again, "We've had a really long day and you've clearly got us mixed up with some other people soo. . ." she made to walk off before Echo grabbed her arm,
"K, they just saved us from them, I think we can here them out." her tone made it clear that she knew exactly what had just happened and was not in a mood to be argued with by her less than responsible sister.
The girl turned to the blue clad boys, "Truth?" they nodded, "You're names are Keri and Hope," Echo stiffened,
"You have marks on your arms that I'm guessing include K3R1 and H0P3," The girls pulled up their sleeves and bared their marks. Echo glared at hers, "The greatest threat to the world is called the Mastermind; he created you both in a lab with his DNA, now he's looking for you so he can put his mind into one of your heads. We work for M.I.9 and we're trying to save your lives, any questions?"
Keri looked unjustifiably surprised, they had been eight when they left, it wasn't that hard to remember, especially when Echo reminded her of the danger and trouble their lives could have contained. Then again, Keri had never known about the mastermind despite sneaking about that Labyrinth. For all her learning ability she had very selective hearing and chose to block out most of the non fighting that Korps tried to instill in them.
"Yeah, do I have any superpowers?" Echo slapped her arm,
"Seriously, you fucking scatter brain, why am I cursed to love you? Come on," She turned to the three uniform clad spies and nodded, they all began to run.
"Keri, Hope, you may take off the blindfolds." an unfamiliar voice called. They did as was suggested and found themselves in a high tech, underground base of sorts,
"Welcome to M. ," the man, who she had now identified as the one wearing a suit, spoke. Before Keri could put her foot in her mouth Echo made one thing clear.
"Do not call me Hope. That is not my name and never will be. I am Echo, not Hope, not J.2.H.0.P.3.Y, just Echo. I want nothing to do with KORPS and that includes the name they gave me. Or any derivative of it." She got four nods before Keri spoke up,
"How come I didn't get a spy outfit? I would look good in that stuff." That earned her another half hearted slap on the arm. The Blonde boy spoke up, clearly irritated with her,
"You don't get a spy outfit because you're not a spy. Now can you try and focus or at least listen to your sister because there's important stuff going on here?"
"If this is about the stuff that happened when we were little does that mean. . ." Keri trailed off looking at her sister, worried.
"Libi will be in trouble too." she finished grimly. Libi was always the one who cared the most and we both cared for her and clung to her like a lifeline, if anything happened to her then they both knew they would break. They loved their sister.
The techy boy spoke, "Who's Libi?"
"The other girl in the lab, our sister. We're not sure what happened to her because we were released first and together." Echo answered.
"We went through everything together, she was like a caring older sister even though we were, as far as we could tell, the same age. She stroked our hair when we got overwhelmed." Keri said, in a trance like state of emotion. Echo moved to comfort her like Libi used to.
"Nope, she's not on our files. No record of her anywhere." the geeky boy said, "But if she had the same treatment as these two then she'd also be a match."
"We need to find out what happened to her," The blonde one said.
"How did you get you get information on us?" Echo asked, she had a theory she was trying to figure out and was deciding whether or not to share it
"We have a friend," Aniesha, who had introduced her self, began, "She's like you. Created from the mastermind, I mean, she's been looking for her sisters for three months and has constantly been updating us. She's found almost all of them, Libi must be an undiscovered."
"Then she's probably still at the lab." Echo concluded, "There were no signs of a plan to abandon the lab when we were tossed away, and that was 8 years ago, 2 years after the original fall of KORPS. They did not stay dead for long. B was smart but naïve, she saw no problem with our situation and had even begun developing an interest in science. The scientists would let her do minor things in their tests, I would not be surprised if she was working there without realizing that it was an evil company. The one thing we both remember about B was her heavy belief in the black and white line between right and wrong. If she's not there and it has been abandoned, then we would still find records." Echo concluded. She twisted her crimson hair in worry for her other sister.
The older gentleman and the boy at the computers exchanged a significant look. The blonde kid looked puzzled,
"What?" he asked.
The suit clad man shelved his pride and sense of secrecy, "It's an underground base called the Mayze, the last team we sent to find it vanished 12 years ago. Nobody knows where it is."
Aniesha spoke up, "There are 2 people who might know." All of them turned to Echo and Keri, Echo looked at her sister and smacked her arm yet again and grabbed her phone from her,
"Were you filming our HQ?" the blonde boy, who had a lot of problems today apparently, exclaimed.
"Yeah, my friends are never gonna believe this." That earned her a bat on the head,
"Trina, Katie and Matt are never going to find out about this. This is an M.I.9 mission, you can't just brag about it. Secrecy is priority."
"Echo is right, this has to remain a secret." The group's leader agreed,
Echo silenced and pocketed her sister's phone, "You can have this back when we're done."
"Aww, come on Echo, you know Trina's gonna call me soon, we're missing our day out." Keri whined.
"Keri! This is non negotiable, you already know that Trina is a bad friend, how will this make any difference?" Keri could make no argument and they both turned to the spies.
"Girls we need your help." The suited man, who Echo decided she liked because he seemed fair, said, "Did KORPS ever let you outside?"
"Only once. When we left." The more responsible of the two answered.
Keri's mind was of course, elsewhere. If she wasn't a genetically modified, lab made clone the others would suspect she had ADHD,
"It's really cold in here and what's with all these white tiles. . . Did this used to be a toilet?" she gagged.
"No!" The blonde kid said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Of course he didn't remember that the two non identical "twins" had barely felt the elevator ride down and, in Keri's case, didn't realize the improbability of that.
"Keri, we need you to concentrate." Aniesha said.
"Ok the missing teams last report came from the tower estate, the base must be near there." The boy wearing a pun shirt said to the room at large, "Any more detail will help narrow down that location."
Echo didn't miss a beat, "A running track and a railway bridge overhead. A canal,"
"Maybe two or three," Keri assisted, "A phone box and a clown face painted on the wall."
"It was a poster of a woman wearing gaudy make up, not a clown face." Echo corrected.
"Got it!" The tech wiz exclaimed.
"We need to get there if we're going to find Libi before KORPS," The boss said, "Take Keri and Echo, being there may help their memory. It should be safe, the Mayze most likely was abandoned years ago."
Echo nodded and Keri stick her foot on her mouth yet again, "Fine. I don't want to stay in this freezing cold toilet all day."
The blonde kid groaned, "It's not a toilet!" as they left.
Echo stood between all of her companions, scanning their surroundings for KORPS members and the entrance. She kept an eye trained on Keri at almost all times and scanned the walls, she didn't recall going up any stairs immediately before exiting the Mayze. Her ears latched onto a conversation between Dan and Tom (who had finally introduced themselves) that was probably louder than intended.
Tom: "So, Dan, you fancy Zoe, and Keri and Echo are basically the same girl, so which one do you prefer?"
Dan: "I'm trying to work here, Tom"
She giggled as she turned away,
"What's he saying? Mr Flatley's got my communicator, remember?" Aniesha, who was too far away to overhear the boys' conversation, called,
"Nothing important!" Dan dismissed it, "Girls, see anything familiar?"
Echo heard Tom's mocking, " See anything you like? Maybe a hunky, blonde spy?" Her eyes were drawn to him to see if Tom's words were true and, in turning away to hide her blush at the truth of his words, saw the edge of a familiar poster.
"Seriously Tom." Dan growled.
"Dan, what is going on?" Aniesha asked,
"He's just winding me up!"
"Found it!" Echo shouted, thoroughly enjoying the spies' commentary.
Dan and Aniesha jogged over to the two sisters who peered at the door. Dan moved a wooden board away from it and pulled Echo away from the door gently whilst Aniesha did the same to Keri.
The dark skinned spy scanned the door whilst Dan spoke to his friend,
"Tom can you...?"
"Ten year old defenses? Please." Two seconds later the door split in two and lights began to flicker on as they watched it open. Echo heard Tom comment on the size of the Mayze and just before they went to go inside she told them all to stop.
"Keri gave me an idea earlier,"
"I did?"
"The Mayze is huge and complex. We should record our every turn on one of the spy pods, that way we or Tom can watch the footage and tell us which way to go on the way back." She pointed out.
"Oh yeah, there are extra walls inside that can cover pathways, we should be careful to wait a minute if we get stuck." Keri agreed.
"Good idea," Dan agreed,
"Enter with extreme caution, Aniesha give Echo your extra headcam just in case." Tom said over his friend communicator.
"Shout if you remember anything, okay?" Aniesha said,
"Yep," the twins confirmed,
"Oooh, can I say 'roger' now that we're on a mission?" Keri asked. Aniesha clearly had more patience with Echo's sister than Echo did herself.
"Yep is fine."
"Roger that." Keri mimed a salute. And the two sisters took a small lead, dazedly looking at the walls in remembrance.
"Tom can you see what I'm seeing?" Dan asked only to get a not very witty remark from his friend,
"Yes, you seen to be looking at Echo. D'you love her?" she could hear the grin on his face and called.
"You know you really should modify the speakers on those things. I can hear Tom from here." she took satisfaction in the two boys' sputtering. She turned away from Dan, who's cheeks were tinged with pink, as he tried to sound more composed than he looked,
"Tom, can you please be a little more professional?"
They continued on, listening to Tom's commentary as they went, it ranging from helpful to disturbing to tension alleviating. At those points Keri wod join in, Echo and Aniesha got the feeling that the two would be great friends. Eventually they reached a small dead end and got a nasty surprise in the form of a pile of M.I.9 uniforms and multiple rotting skeletons.
"Eew," Keri whined as she twisted her thumbs. Aniesha knelt down by the bones holding up her spy pod so that Tom got a clear view.
"It's the missing team," Aniesha said unnecessarily, "They were so close to the exit, why didn't they just leave?"
"Moving walls, remember?" Keri said, being helpful for once. She turned to see her sister's reaction and instead saw the girl staring at the corpses and looking like she was reliving a traumatic memory, "Ec? You okay?"
''Let's keep going, there are some places I'd rather not revisit in here."
The 4 teenagers walked through a door and came into a lab. On the wall was a sign labelled SKOTOMA. Echo and Keri instantly seized up, Echo was rendered nearly catatonic while Keri seemed to be in shock. Their companions didn't notice, Dan went to inspect one of the robots whilst Aniesha analyzed the sign.
"Some kind of Android," He noted.
"How many divisions of KORPS are there? I've never even heard of Skotoma before. I wonder what they do."
"They kill people," Keri said as she held her sister's limp hand, too deep in shock to realize something was wrong with her, "Lots of people. I used to sneak up here sometimes. All they talked about was the invisible death."
"They weren't always talking." Echo choked out, she seemed to be sobbing mutely but did not shake much. The 3 others could not figure out why, there was no way they would push her to talk and she didn't respond to anything for a few minutes.
"Blind spot." was all she said that was audible to the others and Dan explained that it was what Skotoma meant. At one point Keri thought she heard Echo say something along the lines of 'say' but dismissed it.
Keri continued to talk,
"The lab's still five floors down but there's a shortcut this way." She turned to a door and gave Echo's hand a little pull. She began to walk and went back to normal once they began going down the stairs.
Tom began to tell the two spies about Sternum whilst Keri and Echo guided them to the lab,
"We're going to need records of about 14 years ago if we're going to find her,"
"Forget it. We already found her." Dan said as four sets of eyes met a set of green ones. Libi was there.
"D'you have orders from the scientist general?" She saw the two redheads, "Keri, Ho-Echo."
"Libi?" The girls asked in unison.
Libi ran over and hugged them both. while Aniesha asked the obvious question,
"If Sternum already have Libi, then why do they want Keri or Echo? They can't put his mind into multiple bodies."
Tom's voice rang out, "They can. That's why they want all three of them. They want to make three Masterminds. Imagine three working on different parts of the planet. Nothing could stop them."
"We brought Keri and Echo right to them. We need to get out of here now." Dan stressed.
"That's not gonna be so easy," Aniesha said, pointing to the three sisters. They were walking back to their old beds in a reverie.
"We shouldn't have come back," Keri said.
"I pleased you did," trilled Libi, "There'll be more fun now there's 3 of us again." Echo pulled Libi up and whispered something unintelligible to the others in her ear before saying out loud,
"Libi, we need to leave. KORPS are evil and want to kill us. Just like when we were 4, they won't help us in an attack, they'll lead it."
Aniesha spoke up, "Libi, you can't stay here. You need to come with us." The sheltered girl stumbled.
"But. I'm- not allowed to leave."
"Libi," Echo urged, "If you stay you will be destroyed. Let us help you, you can be free and safe." The sisters looked at each other.
"Okay, let's go" They had just begun to move when the lights turned red and alarms began to blare.
"What's going on?" Aniesha shrieked,
"The scientist general must be back. He will have seen you on the sensors." Libi supplied, Dan swore,
"Come on, we've got to go." and the 5 of them ran out of the door.
"Talk to me Tom."
Tom talked, "Security systems are lighting up all over the Mayze, getting out is not going to be easy. Uh oh. We've got company. Sensors show there's a Korps team in the Mayze."
Dan grimaced, "The scientist general."
"I think I can get you out without them seeing you but you'll likely have to hide at one point while they pass right by you. It's time to put that footage to use."
They made their way up to just underneath the Skotoma level when Tom cut out.
"Tom?"
"Tom!"
He gave up communicating and pushed open the door to the Skotoma lab. Echo forced herself not to freeze up this time because, as scary as it was, she knew what was coming this time. Libi was hyperventilating and Echo blindly pushed Keri towards her, "Keri, calm her down and whatever you do, stay behind me."
She did as told, "But wh-"
"Please! Stay, behind me." Everyone looked puzzled as to why she was so scared. At least until, "Stealth androids, they'll be part of the defense," As if they had been waiting for recognition one if the droids sprang into action punching, kicking and swiping at the two spies in front of her. She watched the items around her whilst her friends pushed themselves up. She saw a stool get pushed ever so slightly and launched at the droid with a turning kick, it became visible as it collapsed, its wiring having been damaged by the kick.
She ran to the tool table, "K, B, help!" she began to throw tools and parts on the floor and slightly in the air. Once all the pieces were on the floor all five of them watched carefully. Aniesha spotted a chunk of metal get kicked and screamed, "There!" Before Echo could do anything, Keri vaulted the table and took out the android with a perfect turning kick. The door lock opened and the three girls pulled the two spies to their old hiding spot by the filing cabinets. The Scientist General and two more henchman walked past.
They all stalked out of the room and into the corridor, Echo took charge,
"Aniesha pull up the video we took, we need to hurry. Once Libi is discovered to be missing we will have very little time. We'll have to do this without Tom until he fixes his problem."
"Where'd you learn to do that?" Dan asked as they ran,
"After getting out of here I took martial arts classes for years. Keri and I can learn a move by watching it once, twice or even having it used against us. I knew how to do that move and I'd guess that little miss socialite here reacted and acted on instinct and memory." Keri only nodded once as they kept jogging.
They continued for about 5 minutes when Dan got a call, "Dan, I'm back online." they all sighed.
"Great, you can take over the directions because Neesh is getting confused." Tom was about to agree when Echo help up her hand,
"Wait, if you get us to the old M.I.9 team, I can get us out from there, I memorized the 10 turns we took."
Tom if course chose to annoy Dan, "Ahh, at times like this I can see why you fancy her."
"I- I don't fancy her!" he shouted and things got slightly awkward.
They continued on and only met one problem, a single, patrolling, KORPS agent. Echo took him down in a fist fight, she swung intentionally badly at his head, he sucker punched her and she realistically faked a collapse. Her friends cried out. The soldier made as if he was going to step over her body but was caught by surprise when a strong hand had a hold of his ankle. Echo had a hold on him and jabbed the back of his knee. He collapsed and the bitter girl managed to painfully punch his groin too.
"Right, forward, wait." Echo called as they made the last few moves towards the outside. She slipped her hands into the hands of her sisters and gave them a comforting squeeze. The wall moved to reveal the door to the outside not ten meters away.
"There, we've done it, come on!" Keri exclaimed and made to go forward but Echo didn't move as Libi stepped back anxiously.
"Libi, you can go to the light and be safe and free, or you could go back and be destroyed." She said, Libi looked forward and nodded. Together, three sisters and two spies exited an unbeatable maze.
"It's gonna be alright," Keri said to her sister who was being bathed in sunlight for the first time, "I promise."
Echo turned to Dan and Aniesha, "Is every day as quiet as this?"
"No, this is just a Monday," Aniesha laughed, "The rest of the week, that's when it really gets crazy."
Keri and Echo stepped out of the supply closet elevator with poker faces and badass outfits. Echo herself was wearing a matte black, boat neck, boot cut jumpsuit with a studded black belt and bomber jacket to match her sister's. She wore black Doc Martins and a pair of fingerless gloves. Overall she looked like a professional at kicking ass as she walked into the M. base alongside her sister. Keri, of course, felt the need to ruin the moment.
"Do these outfits come in red? I would look so good in red. Can we take a selfie to send to Trina?" She hoped over to Frank, "Say cheese." Tom, of course, was unhelpful as ever while photo bombing.
Echo walked over to Dan, "It's official, the girls outnumber the guys." He was staring at her outfit, impressed at how good she looked. She lifted her mouth up to his ear, "Hope the female to male ratio doesn't mess with your masculinity complex."
She backed away and giggled over with Aniesha. Oh yes, this would be fun.