Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Van Leugen: The Normans

[Tiko]

as written by Calcos

The chapel was just as uninhabitable as the rest of the Normans, bearing the same tells of the entirety of the city district; crumbling, decaying infrastructure adorned the whole of the edifice, its once-pearly white columns cracked and dirty with ash and mold. The carpet on the interior portions were patchy, the rank scent of decay and mildew mingling together into a vastly unpleasant offense to the olfactory receptors. The paintings along the wall have began to fall apart with age and neglect, with others further damaged by knife drags across their ruined faces, all factors serving to destroy what once was beautiful works of art. Dead lights hung from the ceilings, abandoned, their illumination having died out long ago.

Altogether, this once hallowed ground served a perfect metaphor that illustrated how ephemeral hope and benevolence is within this city's arms, a manifesto to remind those who would traverse the abyss that is Van Leugen and expect to escape it with nothing more than loss that their lives -nay, their very existence- is forfeit within its limits.

A faint noise of choral voices echoed through the abandoned chambers, a haunting song reverberating off the dilapidated walls and crumbling ceilings, adding a sense of wonder to the rubble and debris that was the now the chapel. Within the worship chamber, they gathered; the pews that were not completely decimated by the swarms of termites and vandalism were moved aside, making room for the party of red robes that formed a circle around a roaring bonfire, the contents making up the kindling quite unspeakable, with many charms and totems surrounding it, seemingly giving off a strange aura. Their melodious chants, deep in tone and haunting in feeling, were spoken in a language unknown to any terrestrial tongue.

Their arms raised and lowered as their song continued. Above them, at the back of the worship hall, rested the baptismal chamber, nestled behind a thin layer of plastic pane, where a picture of Jesus Christ was mounted on the wall, the eyes carved out and a pentagram colored on the canvas in a red substance one could not be sure was paint. The crosses mounted on the walls had all been inverted, illustrating a sacrilegious intent, defying the gods of primitive times.

These men and women that chanted their songs were making way for a new era, the fire representative of a cleansing of their souls. Born anew from the ashes would be their true king, as they called his name from beyond the void. They sought to awaken the things which unenlightened man knew nothing of, and to introduce them to their meaningless existence, to reign from the darkness beyond and control mortal life with the power of ancients. It was with those timeless things that lay beyond the reach of man, that this brotherhood would bring order to the earth...

...and those things, with them, would bring madness.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Calcos

They gathered about the desecrated worship hall, having spent many tireless hours and consuming much energy to replace any previous imagery within this room serving to honor of this world's false gods with symbols and ornaments dedicated to their true gods. They huddled about in their crimson-colored robes, their collective whispers culminating into a rather noisy murmur that echoed throughout the chamber.

Standing before them, on the raised platform that rested a mere three steps above them, was their master, an aged man bearing the title of Grand Seer. He held his arms out wide as he acknowledged his congregation, all of whom fell silent as he commenced his sermon.

"My brothers. My sisters. Hear me speak, for I bring you fortunate news of the realms beyond sight, beyond mind and matter. Past the gates of this flesh-bound existence there lies a haven of infinite possibilities, infinite realities, and infinite opportunities. For us followers of the one true faith, this is the ultimate paradise; the realm of our rulers."

He paused, allowing his words to pervade over the crowd as they nodded in unison, acknowledging their speakers' wisdom in the way of the word. He resumed.

"Transcendence to the worlds beyond our mortal coil is a road that is only paved by dedication and strict adherence to the will of our masters. That is why, tonight, we will offer to our lords a bounty fit only for true gods: the very lifeblood of a virgin maiden, signifying the purity of our creators, given freely unto us unworthy. Ready the sacrifice!"

With that, a harmonious chant of "Sa-cri-fice! Sa-cri-fice!" burst forth from the eager-waiting crowd, their fists piercing the air above their heads just as their shouts penetrated the air before their mouths. The Grand Seer motioned to the area behind him and off to the right, where a pair of robed figures emerged from the back room.

Between them, a struggling blond figure, tiny in stature and age, merely eight in years she was at that time. However, the dagger procured from the Grand Seer's robe would ensure her years counted no larger in number, as the old man drove the wicked instrument downward towards her shocked and screaming visage.

The crimson of robe and blood intermingled, and the ceremony was done as the latter drained into a golden goblet, raised high into the air for all to see, before being poured onto an eldritch symbol of their gods.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Saarai and Calcos

Hannibal sat down at a dirty table in what was the closest thing to a bar you would find in Van Leugen. It was in territory controlled by the Russians, Hannibal and his people were good with them. There would be no problems.

Jacob sat close, arms folded and his expression one of anger and frustration. The young man had gone from loving affluently in his father's shadow to going to prison, and hanging out in shit holes like this one. He wasn't happy at all.

"How much longer?" Jacob asked, "Shut up. They'll be here." Hannibal responded.

"I was just asking." Jacob muttered.

____

Through the door leading to the interior of the run-down dive strode a man clad in armor that was very much out of place for someone in Van Leugen; wearing that sort of getup in the Normans especially warranted attention, whether it was wanted or not. Had anyone in the area the nerve to engage the Mandalorian, they'd find his equipment a good prize to hock for a considerable sum of money. However, anyone brave or foolish enough to raise so much as a finger of malice in Thalgan's direction would be met with a swift, gruesome death.

Behind him was the old man, Hesh, and a couple of Andarta's people. They had proven reliable, so Thalgan kept them nearby in case he needed their assistance. He scanned the bar, his eyes coming to rest on a pair of gentlemen he had seen before; they were his contacts.

He cut through the room with a quickened stride that suggested he wasn't here to waste time. He sat in the chair opposite the two men, not needing to greet himself. "Who needs to die?"

____

Hannibal raised a brow at Thalgan, turning his eyes on Hesh for a moment before they returned to the Mandalorian. "We'll see." The Tunisian man told Thalgan, "For right now, we're making a deal with a Devil." He continued.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the Invictus. Many mercenaries have worked with them, against them, or for them in some way. Prolific as hell, but in recent days less about the money and fights. More about doing good for the sake of good. They became a problem for a potential ally." The man explained.

Hannibal dug into his pocket, pushing an envelope across the table.

"In there," he began, placing a finger atop the envelope, "is the location of a military vehicle carrying a missile fired Rod From God. I need it, after this meeting, delivered to place called Volary."

"Helping our new friend with their own plans is a sign of good faith." Hannibal added, "We're meeting at a place in town called the Voodoo Chile. I just need you all there to make sure there's no problems."

____

Thalgan nodded, taking the envelope from the table and looking down at it, examining it before looking back up at the pair of men sitting across from him. "I've dealt with the Invictus before, and they're worse off for it," he said with a smirk.

"When do we leave?" he asked.

____

Hannibal glanced down at the watch on his wrist stolen from a Terran marine. "We meet in two hours. More than enough time to get myself, and Jacob here, something nice to wear." He said, "I'll have one of my people contact the mob that runs the place. See what we can bring in."

"Why? It's just a nightclub." Jacob said, unaware of Van Leugen's true nature. "You need more life experiences, kid." Hesh said, "Shall we?" He asked, gesturing to the exit.

____

"After you," Thalgan said, gesturing with his hand as he stood. He allowed the two Jupiter mercs to lead the way out of the bar, whilst he and Hesh took up the rear; it never hurt to be too careful, after all. They strode out of the bar together, into the open air of the Van Leugen night, a cluster of four speeders awaiting them outside.

"Unless you have other transportation arrangements," he began, "I suggest you hang on tight. Otherwise, we'll follow you to this 'Voodoo Chile' place." Without a moment's hesitation, the Mandalorian was ready to move out, making strides towards his vehicle. "If we're done here, that is," he said as he walked away.

____

"We've got a ride." Hannibal said, "I just need you to do your part. Make sure things go off without a hitch, or at least without our side of the negotiations coming up short." He continued, turning to walk off.

"Two hours." He reiterated, making sure everyone was on the same timeframe. Things needed to go according to plan if the Jupiter Corporation were to achieve their goals.

____

Thalgan sat back on his speeder, looking over the two men. It was becoming increasingly frustrating, having to wait all this time. He'd waited long enough making his way from Hera Prime to this godforsaken place. He was ready to put his blasters to use, possibly erase another poor fool from the bonds of existence, and line his pockets even further. However, his clientele had their orders, and he as the mercenary had to oblige them.

"I'll be ready when you are," he said impatiently.

____

The Normans was no place for James to be. He was a detective and he had a family. Though, those were two of the reasons he came to such a deplorable part of the city. He was searching for someone. A criminal.

Tiberius Grayson. Serial killer, child molester, jaywalker.

James hadn't gone this far in a long time. He was hanging back these days. Van Leugen was a pit that tended to swallow up it's inhabitants.

The detective walked through the forsaken neighborhood, ignoring the drug pushers, the prostitutes, and the gangsters all around him.

He kept his hood up and his leather jacket open. His pistols sometimes showing as he walked along.

Tiberius was busy indulging in another kill nearby in an alleyway. His dirty palms wrapped around the neck of a missing girl. There was glee in his eyes, satisfaction with his disgusting habit as he watched the life leaving the girl.

"Scream. No one cares." He said, "I do." James said, tackling the psychopath before he knew what was happening. He slammed his fists into Tiberius' body, knocking the wind out of him and keeping him from fighting back.

James stood up quickly, slamming his boot into the man's face hard.

As the murderer lay unconscious, James turned to the girl. "I'm a cop." He told her, slipping his badge out of his pocket to hand to her.

He approached slowly, holding out the badge for her. "My name is James. You must be Madison. I'm taking you home." He told her.

Madison smiled uneasily, taking hold of the badge. James smiled, turning to finish dealing with Tiberius. Unfortunately, the man had recovered. When James turned he found a bottle slamming his head.

He fell, trying to scramble back to his feet before he knocked back down by a kick to the ribs. And then another. And another.

Madison could only watch as her savior was beaten and bloodied by a killer.

Tiberius searched James' jacket, finding his pistol inside. He placed it against the detective's head and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. He did it again and still nothing. The safety was off, the gun wasn't jammed.

James laughed as he dropped several bullets, slowly getting up to his feet. He looked at Tiberius, seeing anger in his eyes.

"I know you. You can fight. You're sneaky. You can take a hit." James said, staring down the man only inches away from him.

"You're hurt. Just stop." Tiberius told James, "You're prolonging this. You shouldn't have come without backup."

Without warning James grabbed Tiberius' jaw from his mouth, pulling him down to slam into the concrete. As blood left the killer's nose, James pressed his foot against his head.

"I could have shot you. I could kill you. But, I'm better than you." James said, "You're under arrest."

 

[Tiko]

as written by Calcos

The worship hall was crowded, many new faces adorning the mass of followers that has assembled around the stage, voices echoing in the crowded room as they chatted amongst themselves happily, greeting one another as if it were just another ritual. Standing like a shepherd tending to his overly-eager flock was Father Silas; a rather unimposing man nearing fifty years of age, a bit on the shorter side of average height. The skin that did show from beneath the shadowy, enclosing garment he wore was a rather sickly-looking pale grey, betraying a bodily frame that has succumbed to emaciation.

He spread his arms out to his sides, palms upward, as his eyes scanned the vast sea of visages that had come in droves to hear his ancient, otherworldly wisdom. Truthfully, many of those within the congregation had nowhere to belong, nothing to call their own and no family to return to. They were simply, truly, alone in this world with nothing to embrace them.

That is, until the Voice of the Holy Cosmos took them into their arms.

A collective group of fanatics they were, lead by a very charismatic, and very dangerous, individual who harnessed more fanaticism than quite possibly everyone assembled in the worship hall had combined. He was very persuasive, and quite genuine, his beliefs leading him to call out to others and save them from the unpleasant chaos that was the mortal coil. He dreamed of a realm beyond mortality, one beyond flesh and mind.

He dreamed of the birthplace of the gods.

The voices fell silent as Silas commanded the attention of all eyes and ears that were present about him. "My brothers, my sisters. Today is, above all days, glorious. We, as the harbingers of the ultimate fate, are about to witness transcendence the likes of which not even human evolution could surpass. No, for tonight, we shall venture forth to the threshold of that world which awaits us beyond this...hideous, mortal plane!"

Cheers erupted from the crowd, accompanied by an uproar of applause, the occasional robed member shouting "Yes!" as they continued to bring their hands together in a joyous cacophony that echoed throughout the chamber.

Silas lowered his arms, palms downward, to silence their collective outburst.

"Tonight, my brothers, my sisters, we will beckon forth the gods themselves."

 

[Tiko]

as written by Calcos

White noise permeated throughout the chamber as the robed individual scoured the frequencies available on the radio; a crude device haphazardly assembled, bearing no real semblance of careful craftsmanship nor any attention to beauty. On the contrary, it was an abominable amalgamation on wires and knobs, circuits and assorted other pieces of metal, a true Frankenstein's monster of technological design.

Still, it served the purposes required of it by the Voice of the Holy Cosmos, utilizing the powerful signal afforded to them by the repurposed radio tower that had sat, abandoned, at the centermost sector of the Normans. The signal was assisted by an array of similarly-constructed amplifiers, each hooked to the tower to boost the power of its broadcasting signal. Additionally, the radio tower was adorned with a series of satellites, which were the key pieces to the cult's transmitting apparatus; these devices would allow them to make contact with their new gods.

Sitting in a chair, eagerly awaiting the call of the masters from beyond, the radio operator continued to turn the tuning dial, passing through channel after channel of white noise, finding naught but empty sounds of static on the airwaves.

Father Silas stood nearby, reassuring his flock that contact would be established soon enough, and that paradise was on its way. However, as the moments drew long and the anticipation turned to awkward waiting, hope was beginning to die in their hearts, as the prospect of finally meeting their new masters seemed like a faraway ambition, unrealistic so long as it was bound to the chains of this mortal coil.

Many people sighed, others began to doze lazily as the waiting had taken a toll on their brains and boredom had set in, nestling into them and casting a shroud of exhaustion over them. Even Silas himself was starting to feel the strain of worry, a pang of disappointment at the possibility that the gods just might be out of his reach.

It was then, just as all hope seemed lost, that they heard it. It was faint, but the sound was unmistakable. Silas perked up, pointing at the cultist operating the radio. "Get a fix on that signal, now! This is it! This is it, my children!" His voice thundered across the room, the crowd remaining silent, holding their collective breath so as not to disturb the radio operator's concentration as he tuned the device, trying to hone in on the signal.

For a few heart-stopping seconds, they thought the signal had faded back into the abysmal obscurity of space, but as the cultist continued to diligently hound the frequencies, he found he was getting a signal, attaining a stronger pickup the more he searched.

Finally, he came to rest on a frequency that emitted a noise that sounded like a metallic garble of words, high in pitch, and unutterable by any known tongue. The very sound of it was enough to tickle the mind with the very basis of madness, generating a sickening euphoric sensation in many of those present in the congregation. Silas approached the table where the radio was set up, hastily snatching up the adjacent microphone whilst trying to maintain his giddiness.

Finding his composure, he held down the call button on the device, allowing himself to intake a shaky, excited breath. "My lords...we've found you," he said, releasing the button. He waited in a silence that was as empty as the darkest void for what felt like a thousand eternities, his mind swaying to and fro with thoughts grand enough to span millions of galaxies, rehearsing in his mind over and over the words he would need to speak to his new masters. Suddenly, there was a prying voice in his mind; a sharp, painful, guttural sound that was simultaneously as thunderous as the footsteps of titans, and yet barely more than a whisper.

And it spoke to him thus: Wrong, it began. We have found you. No other words, once these had been spoken, could have made him any happier...


Nor could they have driven his madness any further.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Calcos and Saarai

Getting into the Normans by road was relatively simple, given that the Skull Society controlled the most secure ground entryway into the place. Usually, the Normans were locked down from outsiders, and it took a lot of deliberation to find a way inside. But for them, it was a piece of cake.

The cars pulled up to the desolate locale of the chapel, decaying and falling to ruin as it was; it was an eerie destination that none of the Society's personnel liked setting eyes upon, but Samedi deemed these nut-jobs beneficial business partners, so they were obliged to deal with them. One of the Society's enforcer's, a guy named Nelson, stepped out of the car, looking up at the robed figured that descended the stairs to greet them, arms spread at the sides. Nelson snapped his fingers at the RDV bangers, signalling for them to usher Tony forth.

"We've got one for you to use later. For now, we need to have a few words with him, and we'll need your help to get him to talk." The robed figure nodded, gesturing towards the church with his extended left arm, beckoning Nelson to enter the hallowed ground. The enforcer held up a hand, shaking his head. "You lead the way, hombre. I don't know this place well enough." The robed figure gave a curt bow, walking towards the building, prompting Mitch to follow.

He gestured for the others to follow, taking the lead right behind the cultist.

____

The RDVs pulled Tony along, the man doing his best to slow them down. With his hands bound, his mouth shut, and the fact that he was in panic mode, he wasn't going to do much just flailing about.

Eventually he gave up, pretty much accepting his fate at this point as he was dragged along into the chapel. He heard enough about these guys to know that he wasn't going to be the same, even if he survived.

____

"You've perfect timing, my friend. We were just about to begin our welcoming ceremony..." the cultists trailed off as they strolled through the tattered halls of the old, decrepit church house. Nelson shook his head as the robed figure spoke. 'Fucking loons,' he thought. They circumvented the main chamber by taking a left down a rounded hallway, leading to the rear of the church. Eventually, they came to a rather eerily-faded, metal door that led to the basement. The cultist fumbled with the cord around his neck, procuring a simple key to remove the padlock on the door, swinging it open to the darkness that awaited below.

He reached outward and to the right, flicking a switch that brought to life a dim light bulb above the stairwell. They descended, the creaking boards penetrating the silence with a spine-chilling uneasiness. None of the gangsters present were comfortable here, Tony especially. Lugging him down the stairs, the others kept their eyes open, not thinking for a second to trust they were safe in this pit.

There was a chair in the center of the room, which they hauled Tony over to, throwing him down into it as the others formed a circle around him. Nelson stepped up, delivering a forceful backhand to the left side of the creep's face before leaning in close. He hadn't brushed his teeth today, and the stench of his dinner on his breath was strong and unpleasant. "Tell me all about your little friends, Tony, or this gets worse."

Nelson's gaze was unwavering.

____

Tony whimpered, pulling his head back from his interrogator. "I don't know much, I swear. They wanted to know where to find Skull Society members. Notable ones." Tony said, "They said they'd kill my mom if I didn't help. If I didn't do business with them."

"A bluff. They'd just kill you." An RDV gangster told Tony, "And, we'd protect you. You can always come to RDV or the Society." He continued, shaking his head at Tony. The gangster was truly disappointed by the betrayal.

____

Nelson sighed heavily, his frustration becoming more and more apparent as the night wore on. The cultist that had led them into the building had been watching from the stairwell; not finding any of this to his liking, he decided to leave the group of criminals in "peace". He had more pressing matters to attend to, at any rate.

They had finally arrived.

Ascending the stairs, the cultist exited the cellar through the creaky metal doorway, closing the door loudly and walking away. Nelson's eyes didn't eschew Tony's frightened visage, however. On the contrary, the Society lieutenant produced a rather large pocket knife, flicking the blade open and brandishing it in front of Tony's widened eyes before easing the sharp, stainless steel into the rat's mouth, pressing it to the edge of his mouth and applying just enough pressure to make it uncomfortable.

It was clear that Nelson wouldn't hesitate to do what needed to be done. "Now, you gonna stop feeding me bullshit and tell me who the fuck those guys are, or am I gonna have to make you smile like the fuckin' Cheshire Cat?"

____

"I don't know!" Tony shouted, wincing at the blade against his face. "They've got accents. Thick ones, most of them. I know where a safehouse is." Tony told Nelson, "Before they came to me, one of my guys told me about them. I didn't think anything of it. I just know they're new."

"Weird accents? Could be the same guys that turned The Nashtons into a war zone awhile back." The RDV lieutenant said, "Russians." He added.

____

Nelson stepped away from Tony for a minute, procuring his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket, thumbing through his contacts until he came upon a certain name, pressing "Send" and letting the lines connect. The phone rang a total of three times before a familiar, thick-laden Haitian accent answered on the other end, "Yes?"

"Boss, it's Nelson. We're here in the Normans with Tony, like you wanted. He told us something about tonight's incident you may find useful." Nelson paused to allow his boss a moment to soak his words in, and to give him a moment to respond.

"Go on."

Nelson inhaled, giving the voice on the phone his full attention. "Said he's dealt with the guys we ran into tonight; new guys on the scene, thick accents. One of the RDV guys here thinks they might be Russians."

There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end for all of a minute, and Nelson was beginning to worry, his eyes casting a hard sideways glance at the phone, barely able to see the speaker at the bottom of the cellular device. "Boss, you alright?" he asked nervously.

"Put Tony on the phone," he said calmly. Nelson raised a quizzical eyebrow, but shrugged to himself, turning around and reaching out, placing the phone to Tony's right ear.

"Hello, Tony," Mr. Samedi said.

____

Tony didn't know what to say. He settled at first for saying nothing until he looked around and noticed all the eyes on him. "Hello, Mr. Samedi." He said, trying to stop himself from shaking.

Tony was seismic. Fear did that to a man when you had to deal with someone like Samedi.

"I'm sorry. They didn't give me a choice." He continued over the phone, "Show some mercy to me, please, Mr. Samedi." Tony begged.

____

"Mercy?" Mr. Samedi began, "You're still alive, Tony. Is that not merciful enough for you? If you'd like, I could have Nelson dirty his hands with your entrails. Would that please you?"

He didn't wait for Tony to reply, nor did he care to hear any response the whimpering man had to offer. It was his show; it always was. And Tony was merely a member of the audience. Unfortunately, he was also a target for retribution. "We all have a choice, Tony. You could have chosen to die painlessly, honorably. To die for a cause. And now? Your death will be excruciating, and all for naught. You'll die nothing, and no one will mourn your passing. There won't even be anything left of you to bury, Tony. You do realize this, yes?"

His intention was to terrify Tony, to fill him with as much dread and guilt as possible, to guide him to understanding just how horrendous his last few moments would be before his life was eventually, slowly, snuffed out. Nelson looked down at Tony, who seemed to become more and more uncomfortable the longer the boss talked. It was too bad Nelson had nary an ounce of pity to spare the poor traitor.

Whatever the boss wanted done now was what would happen.

"But I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself, Tony," Mr. Samedi said. "You tell me everything -and I mean everything- about these men. Everything you can tell me, so that I can destroy them, and perhaps I'll consider giving you a grave worth marking."

____

"I told them all I know." Tony said to Samedi, "You have to believe me."

Tony was slowly coming to grips with the fact that he was probably going to die. Hell, he knew how futile it was to appeal to the humanity in Mr. Samedi.

"My phone. I can try to find the number they contacted me from." He suggested.

____

"Call them. Now." Samedi's patience wore thinner the longer he spoke with Tony. "And put Nelson back on." Tony gestured for Nelson to resume his own conversation with his boss. Placing the phone to his ear, Nelson gave his attention back to the crime lord. "Boss?" he asked.

"Listen carefully, Nelson. Back away from Tony, so the rat doesn't hear. Give him his phone first." Nelson did as he was told, procuring the cellular device from his coat and handing it over. Once he was finished, he looked the weasel over as the broker fumbled with his own phone. Following his boss' orders, Nelson walked to the other side of the room. "Okay," he said.

"Tony is going to attempt to contact those men. I want you to have them put on speaker, so you can hear their voices for yourself. Have him set up a meeting with them; feed them a lie, I don't care. After that, you can do with Tony as you please." Nelson glanced at Tony once more before turning his attention back to his phone. "Understood."

"Good. Don't let me down." With that, Samedi hung up on his lieutenant, leaving the rest of the operation in Nelson's hands. Pocketing his phone, Nelson sighed, turning towards Tony once more. "Good news, maggot," he said as he walked forward. He would begin to explain everything Samedi wanted him to do.

And neglected to tell him he'd be eating a bullet right after business was concluded.

____

"J-just gimme a sec-... a second." Tony stammered, searching his phone for the number that called him. It took a second, but eventually he found the number and put the phone to his ear.

"It's ringing." He said, pulling the phone away and putting it on speaker. After a few more rings a man answered the call. "We told you not to call us." The man said, thick Russian extremely prevalent.

"They know I helped you. I need your help." Tony told the man, "Too bad." The Russian retorted, "I can give you their leader. You have to protect me first." Tony pleaded, "We can handle them ourselves."

Tony sighed, deciding the best course of action was to be the best damned information broker he could be. "You can avoid a bloody war with the Society and their allies. Take out Samedi now and half the city belongs to you."

The man on the other end of the line was silent for a long moment, seemingly thinking over Tony's words.

"You make a good point. We'll meet at sauna. We talk and you relax. You know the one. Three hours." The man said, hanging up seconds later.

____

After the Russian ended the call, Nelson's eyes shot into Tony's; on his face was a look that demanded answers. And he would get them, no matter what. The boss wanted these men dead, for several reasons, and it was Nelson's job to ensure that happened. With his eyes on Tony, he spoke. "Where is this sauna, Tony?"

____

"It's on South and Rockford, just on the edge of RDV territory." Tony told Nelson, "What?" The RDV lieutenant asked, "We would have known if they were there." He said to Tony, "I kind of helped them move in without you knowing..." Tony admitted, "They probably been watching us." The RDV gangster said, shaking his head.

"Still got the element of surprise though."

____

"Yeah, hopefully..." Nelson said. Unexpectedly, the man procured a suppressed pistol from inside his jacket, aiming the deadly contraption straight at the space between Tony's eyes. With a smirk, he cocked the hammer back, looking onward at the broker's terrified visage.

"Do me a favor, eh Tony? When you get to hell, find me a seat and keep it warm for me."

The gunshot rang out in the enclosed space, the suppressor only quiet enough to ensure no one developed any acute cases of tinnitus. Blood and the odd bits of grey matter painted the area behind Tony, his head snapping backward in such a sickly way that lesser men would have lost their lunch over the sight. Fortunately for everyone's sake, the men gathered in this room were all well-versed in death, each of them having seen their fair share of corpses, be they friend or foe.

Slumped over in a bloody mess, Tony's corpse sat motionless. Returning his gun to its holster, Nelson turned to the RDV members, jerking a thumb at Tony. "Get him out of here. Least we can do is not leave his corpse for these fuckin' weirdos to mess with," he said, referring to the cultists upstairs. "Don't worry about the mess. We've done this kinda thing before." With that, he opted that they get the hell out of here as fast as possible.

They had several scores to settle, after all.

 

[Tiko]

as written by barney_fife and Ylanne

Kathryn had slowly pulled into the dilapidated district of Van Leugen known as the Normans. This lawless, crime infested neighborhood was the meeting spot where Marlene would provide Kathryn with her next assignment.

Kathryn's car crept through the parking lot of an old park, trees rustled in the wind, and the unkempt grass offered to spill out onto the sidewalk like unkempt hair.

Seated on the park bench under a large oak tree was a slender black clad figure. A wide brimmed hat obscured her face from prying eyes. The trap had been set.

Tidus Khaine, a War Adept under the employ of the IIA kept hidden, crouched low and hidden under active thermoptical camouflage. He was using enhanced thermal vision, along with augmented wide spectrum systems to watch for people following Kathryn down the street. Marlene had deliberately chosen an empty street lined with dilapidated houses to make her ambush.

A Jamming field was erected, designed to scramble even the most advanced communications once inside the field, which spanned half a kilometer around them. Three IIA Snipers were positioned strategically along the approaching street, communicating with laser signals to signal the approaching TIB Surveillance.

Marlene herself was not seated at that bench, rather it was a carefully crafted mannequin, with a note clasped in it's right hand. Marlene herself was positioned in a nearby row house, watching the park through a powerful scope.

Kat put the car in park, and slowly stepped out; she then closed the door behind her with an audible thunk. She adjusted her own wide brimmed hat, before she started towards the figure seated under the oak tree.

____

The pair had been working together for about the past two years -- long enough to develop a rhythm of sorts that offered some familiarity in how they exchanged light banter the few mornings on the job their work resembled normal hours, paged through freshly printed sheets in newly assigned operations files together, inhabited the closed space of their shared vehicle careful not to breathe too warm on one another except when the frost demanded it, grew worry lines and darkened shadows beneath their eyes with the ebb and flow of new crises ordinary. Nasiphi Amar, brown-skinned, green eyes, might have passed for full human under dim lighting conditions, but her companion had come to recognize her by the telltale mismatched eyes (one darker green, the other brilliant emerald) and unevenly spaced knobs of off-white exoskeleton protruding around her shoulders. Beside Nasiphi, Nudos Fessehaye, the pale-faced human with the haphazardly shorn black hair, might have blended better into the surroundings of a grungy basement cafe/bar occupied primarily by college-age malcontents convinced that hair dye and punk music were the stuff of societal rebellion.

The company car -- not readily discernible as government owned -- rumbled along the shabby streets of the Normans, its dents and chipped paint job perfectly at home in the neighborhood. Nasiphi had turned the radio to some popular metal band, the dull throbbing of the bass no different than the average car trawling the area. They had followed the Aschen agent from the outskirts of Van Leugen here, traffic increasingly sparse, and so the pair had begun to hang back farther. They knew that Kat saw them. The Director had been quite clear that the Aschen would know they were coming. It was supposed to be simple. Confirm the Aschen's suspicions. Wait. Pass intel to the secondary pair. Provide support if necessary.

For Nasiphi and Nudos, the sudden orders to divert course from their previous activity offered less surprise as time had passed. In the blackness of night rapidly enveloping them, a certain calm rested between them. The stars, Nudos noticed with a passing thought, glimmered beautifully between the rowhouse roofs.

____

The first sniper flashed his laser light at the row house Marlene was situated in. Three short flashes of green light to let her know that the car was in position.

The further the pair traveled the street, the more staticky their radio had become. A precarious omen of things to come for the TIB Team.

Marlene nodded slightly, as she surveyed the vehicle through the scope. Two people, nothing that Tidus couldn't handle. She then picked up her own signal light, and shined four rapid blue flashes towards the alleyway that the War Adept had been positioned.

The Adept grinned behind his helmet. The black skull shaped helmet with two green glowin eyes offered the intimidation factor for the ten foot tall powered armor walking tank. Now that his signal was given, he slung his heavy Magnetron over his back. He then started at a full run, folding his arm in front of him as he charged towards the car.

The pair of agents would have little time to react once Tidus was close enough they could hear his thundering footsteps. By the time they could react, his shoulder impacted the side of the car with enough force to send it literaly flying into the brick walls of the rowhouses.

Khaine followed up by stepping up to the car, and clasping his hand around the passenger side door, the initial impact had shattered the window, and Tidus had effortlessly tore the passenger side door clean off it's hinges.

"I have come to destroy you." He said in a deep reverberated, distorted voice as he brought his left hand around the torso of the passenger, and his right fist down on the hood of the car, denting it and likely pinning the driver's legs in the footwell under buckled metal. The assault was fast, and relentless, as Kat quickly turned around, a moment before oblivious to the TIB Following her, eyes locked on the towering War Adept assaulting the car.

Marlene too had started down the steps of the row house, to make her way across the park towards the bench.

____

Too late, Nudos slammed his foot onto the gas, hand gripping the gear shift now in reverse, wheels spinning uselessly in the upturned car. Nasiphi heard his screams before she registered the crunching sounds of the metal slowly crushing his legs. Minuscule glass shards rained over her side, strangely cool, slipping from her sleeves to her shoulders, along her cheeks to the roof. The radio blared static interspersed with the occasional electric guitar chord and the briefest snippets of the singer's voice caught in awkward syllables.

"FUCK." Nudos's eyes squeezed tightly shut, the profanity barely slipping through his gritted teeth, less an expression of surprise or fear than a small attempt to shut out the agonizing pain driving through his legs. Somehow, he still managed to draw his sidearm, firing anywhere past Nasiphi through the open hole where the passenger door had been only seconds before, at the hulking figure towering over the vehicle.

Two matching green eyes, quite unlike Nasiphi's, gleamed against the night.

Nasiphi's hand, slick with her own blood, reached around her comm, activating the distress beacon with the slightest pressure in the right place half-under the back panel, in a well-practiced gesture she'd never before had to use in the last five years. Something smelled of sulfur.

____

The Adept swiftly continued his assault. Massive armored hands wrapped around the seatbelt, yanking the belt clean from the car frame with an audible twang. As Nudos opened fire, each shot impacted the Adept's armor, richocheting in every different direction, his shields flaring violently.

He was working quickly, grabbing Nasiphi and yanking her from the passenger seat and jumping back, his jump jets engaging and putting several feet between him and the car. He had detected the faint smell of sulphur.

Turning his back towards the car, the car exploded, the intense heat and debris from the explosion washed over Tidus, and shrapnel impacted his back, nearly harmlessly as he continued to hold Nasiphi, squeezing her tightly before grabbing her arm and starting towards the park.

Fire and smoke plumed up behind Tidus, casting an eerie orange glow on his black green lit helmet. It could be as if Nasiphi were staring at the devil himself.

With the TIB Agent secure in hand, he started to walk towards Marlene and Kathryn. The Cops would arrive soon, Marlene would need to work quickly.

Once the two reached Marlene, she made a face as she approached the TIB Agent, looking at Tidus, who towered over all of them. She then turned back to Nasiphi.

"How many of you were tailing my friend here. Are there more?" She asked, nodding at Kathryn. Marlene then withdrew a piece of rebar, swiftly bringing it across Nasiphi's kneecaps to cripple her and keep her from running.


"How much does the director know?" She asked, narrowing her eyes. A nearby IIA agent could be seen assembling a large T shaped piece of wood on the ground. Nasiphi's fate was becoming clear.

____

They always said that things would seem like they were happening too fast in crisis, that she would lose her sense of time, that too many things would happen, that it would be too much, too much, too much. Nasiphi struggled to register the explosion, the heat, the blow to her knees, the pain, the words -- whatever was said -- it came jumbled, her sensory world imploding about her, but if it was too fast, it somehow felt too slow at the same time.

Someone was screaming. Her head pounded, her vision was blurred and unfocused, and bits of flame and glowing embers disrupted what little acclimation she'd begun to develop for the nighttime. The screams didn't help, bouncing as they did inside her brain. By the time Marlene had thrown a second question -- a set of words, really -- her way, Nasiphi finally realized that she was the one screaming. Her knees buckled from underneath her, but something kept her from collapsing to the ground.

Someone. The one with the green eyes. The one who . . .

She tasted blood, must have bit clean through her lip to stop herself from screaming.

". . . what?" Bleary eyes stared at Marlene, not recognizing the Aschen woman. "I don't -- I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about."

Sirens blared. Nasiphi caught sight of the rowhouses with sunken porches, peeling paint, rusting cars in some yards, dimly illuminated by flames that must have come from the car. She found herself hoping no one was home, no one had to run to escape the fire. Then her attention returned to her captors, and Nasiphi understood. Nasiphi remembered. Her fellow agent had still been in the car. And she was going to die.

____

Marlene sneered for a moment, before she brought the rebar across Nasiphi once more, this time it was across her left cheek. "Bullshit." She snapped, before she turned over towards Tidus.

"How many? Who are they sending?" She shouted, before she brought the rebar across Nasiphi's face once more. The nearby IIA agent gave Marlene a nod, the cross had been assembled.

"You're useless." The IIA Commander spat, before she spat in Nasiphi's face. "Your whole world is going to die and all you can do is spout ignorance and nonsense." Marlene barked, before she nodded roughly, and Tidus began to drag the TIB Agent over towards the cross.

"You can't tell me anything I don't already know anyway, so let's just go ahead and get on with the show." Marlene said, as she withdrew three large iron nails from her jacket.

"I'm going to crucify you as a message to Drulovic that I'm coming for her." Marlene said calmly, before Tidus yanked Nasiphi over towards the wooden T.

"You should be happy, you won't be alive to witness the coming slow extermination of your people." She said, as Tidus set to work restraining her to the planks of wood.

A moment later, a second IIA Agent returned with Nashiphi's communicator. Marlene took it in her hands. She paused for a moment to look down as Tidus was tying Nasiphi to the beams, Marlene then grinned, and with a nod the signal disruptor was disengaged, and Marlene keyed the communicator, clearing her throat.

"Ah-hem, Target location confirmed, inform the director that M is here to relieve the Director of her burdens, and that her target is secure. I believe your agent wants to talk to you though." Marlene said, as she held the Communicator to Nasiphi's mouth.

"Better report in." Marlene said, as Tidus drove the nail through Nasiphi's right wrist, and into the wood, Marlene was hoping to induce a scream from the TIB Agent.

____

The woman with the mismatched green eyes shook, blood pouring over both cheeks, her hands opening and closing their fingers in what looked like shock. When the enormous hulking monster slammed the nail through Nasiphi's wrist, it seemed the very air throughout the park was shaking with her feral screams.

Still, even as her body trembled, some part of her mind remained aware that her trembling had as much to do with the liquid pooling in the back of her mouth as it did with the searing pain of metal cracking apart bone.

Along with fracturing some of her exoskeleton, the blows to her face had loosened several of her teeth. Nasiphi remembered. One of them was porcelain, designed to conceal a cyanide capsule meant to be used if under extreme duress, if she thought she might break. The instructor had been clear in xyr clipped accent. "Bite hard to break that tooth; the poison will do its job in about thirty seconds."

Well. It seemed her captors wouldn't have the chance to finish their torture by crucifixion. Nasiphi suddenly understood Drulović much better. What a cruel, cruel contingency plan.

Nudos would have approved.

Instinctively, Nasiphi reached her other hand toward the empty space beside her. Though she felt nothing, she imagined she was holding his hand, that they could face death triumphant together, much as they'd faced the crisis ordinary together so often in their service.

Her flesh knew only pain. Yet somehow, Nasiphi found her lips turning upward in a smile.

____

Marlene slowly stepped back as she realized that the poison was about to set in. There were pros and cons, the cons being that Marlene couldn't toy with Nasiphi much longer. Tidus made short work driving the other two nails, one in her other wrist, and the other through both Ankles, securely tied and nailed to the wood, Tidus lifted it up, and secured it standing to the ground.

Marlene took a quick snapshot with her datapad, before she turned to Kathryn.

"We're going to disappear for awhile, and then we're coming for Drulovic." She said, patting the young IIA Agent on the back.

"Make sure they find her." Marlene said, as Tidus threw the communicator with distress beacon around Nasiphi's neck, to let it hang there with the dying TIB Agent.

"Let's go." Marlene said, as Tidus faded into the blackness, along with Kathryn and Marlene. The intention was for the trail to go cold here for Quatahni and Saigo.

There was rain now, water mixing with blood, as a crack of lightning illuminated the dark sky.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Ronin and Ylanne

"There they are."

Saigo and Qahtani looked out from a crater in one of the Norman's myriad flats - more wreckage than building. The TIB agent was examining the cross in the distance and the woman crucified thereupon, looking through a pair of binoculars that had detracted off his belt.

"It's agent Amar," Saigo confirmed, his voice flat and calm. "No sign of Fessehaye." A pause. "I can't tell if she's breathing. It doesn't look like it."

He activated the thermals in the binoculars, scouting out the area for any bodies that might lie in wait. "Scanning the perimeter now. No hostiles detected yet." The rain hammered the sidewalk outside in a steady, pulsing rhythm. "They left her here. Either it's a trap or it's a message." A crack of thunder. "Or both."

____

"Amar's dead. No pulse, if you look close enough." Qahtani exhaled, telling herself she'd have time to let the grief settle inside her later. It wouldn't be the first time another agent had died in the field since she'd been at the agency, but she'd never allowed herself to become used to the casualties of the profession. Qahtani hadn't known Nasiphi particular well, only passed her occasionally in the halls, once or twice joined the same table in the cafeteria, exchanged polite conversation in the elevator. But she knew, seeing the blood dribbling down the other woman's face, the torn clothing, the stiffened fingers curling around the nails driven into flesh, that something more than brutal -- something deeply violating had happened here. It was never supposed to end like this.

Qahtani shook her head, the slight movement indicating she was unsatisfied with Saigo's observations. "No, a little to the right there." She waited until he adjusted the binoculars accordingly, allowing them to examine the area immediately surrounding Nasiphi's body where she'd been suspended from the improvised cross. The charred, bent, and twisted hulk of the agency's car rested against the building where its impact had sent scores of cinderblocks tumbling to the street. They could see little through the aching tendrils of smoke drifting from the wreckage still. "Fessehaye is dead inside the car. Shot or killed in the explosion if he was lucky enough to die quickly." Qahtani paused, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "If he were still alive, he'd be up there on a cross next to her or sent crawling back to home base."

She ran her tongue along the inside of her lower lip, fingers tensing where she kept her hand near her service weapon. "Pan the other way, back to Amar." She pointed. "Her comm's around her neck. That's the message." Turning to Saigo, Qahtani offered a wry smile, the kind of look that suggested she'd survived quite a bit more than should have been possible, that suggested little worry in the face of imminent danger. "Who's up for springing the trap?"

____

Saigo did as instructed, nodding as his fellow agent pointed out the different scenes in plain detail. As she finished, he lowered the binoculars, staring out into the rain. He was calm and focused - expression and voice betraying neither grief nor anger.

"Who's up for springing the trap?"

"We ARE equipped," Saigo replied, "thermals didn't give me much. There's a chance they've got a vantage point, but..." Saigo frowned. He lifted up the binoculars again and once more ran over the scene, this time focusing his thermals on any distant buildings or hideaways that a sniper might be hiding from.

"It's the car that bothers me," he continued, "this was a wreckage. The dents mean it was impacted from the side, but the debris on the ground is all from that one vehicle. What hit it? And where is it now?"

After a short time, he shook his head. "Alright. I think we're clear. You lead, I'll cover you." He snapped back his binoculars, activated his shields and loosed his pistol from its holster.

____

Qahtani shivered despite herself, eyeing the damaged car again. She began making her way from the inner, curving surface of the crater to the flatter, higher ground surrounding it, finding herself soon surrounded by slowly decaying debris -- rusted cans, detached springs, bits of filthy paper fluttering with even the gentlest of disturbances in the air. A few shriveled, long ago used condoms made in various shapes and sizes to fit aliens from any number of dozens of habitable worlds within reasonable traveling distance. She was careful not to let the rubbish crunch underfoot as they meandered toward the scene.

"There's some kind of super soldier program they've got," Qahtani remarked, speaking in a low enough tone that really, only Saigo should have been able to hear her as they walked through the underbrush, hands ready to take quick aim with their weapons. "Super strength. Super speed. Knowing the Aschen, some kind of super armor. There's no kill like overkill, huh?" Though she could hear clearly the sounds of life stirring in the Normans -- distant music, unintelligible shouted conversations, motor engines revving -- she sensed an eerie hush over the land. Some of the equipment from the car seemed to have been torn from its innards, potentially after the original wreck. It wouldn't have surprised Qahtani. She'd always been told this neighborhood was bad news ... on steroids.

____

"The Adepts of War," Saigo nodded. He'd seen the footage from the Westeria landfall. Mean, ugly brutes with an innate love of heavy artillery and bloody warfare. It seemed unlikely that one would have found its way to Van Leugen, though. The hulking death machines were the opposite of stealth - meant for battle fields and warzones, not covert ops.

"I'm going for Amar," Saigo said, veering off from the wreckage towards the crucifix. Though he didn't doubt Qahtani's powers of perception, some part of him had hoped that she'd been wrong about pronouncing their fellow agent dead. As Saigo drew closer, he realized with dismay that his comrade had not erred. Amar was dead. Her body hung cold and limp on the wooden beams, blood dripping from the wounds covering her body.

"Should I bring her down?" Saigo swallowed the dryness in his throat.

____

Qahtani edged around the site, careful not to disturb any of the debris with her steps. "It can wait. Check for any signs that could point to the killers." She knew it was the Aschen, but they could use any potential markers to begin building a trail. "The moisture on Amar's face. Check that. See if there are any other biomarkers, little pieces of them the bastards might have left behind." She glanced sidelong at Saigo. "The comm. Check for prints. Probably will turn up absolutely nothing, but it can't hurt. Then see if there are any recent messages, outgoing or incoming. But don't take her down until we've checked thoroughly. Wouldn't want to disturb anything."

____

Saigo nodded. He stepped forward, stone faced, and looked into the dead eyes of a woman he had known and respected.

"Bruising and gashes to the face," he spoke plainly, "blunt force trauma. Moisture isn't sweat. Saliva maybe. I'm taking a sample." He removed a slate from his belt, scraping up a small bit of spit. The slate immediately folded over itself and sealed at the edges. He pocketed it and looked at Amar's mouth.

"Internal damage," he flicked the light from his gun on, shining it into her gaping maw. "Cyanide. She bit the tooth." He looked down at the comm. "I don't have a fingerprint scanner - lucky I brought the slates, to be honest. We'll need a forensic team down here." He looked back at Amar's corpse. "Though something tells me that we won't get much."

"Any luck on your end?"

____

"Yes, well, we all know the Aschen tend to like playing with their food before eating it. Even -- especially, really -- when leaving bits of it for us to find." Qahtani dug her heel into the ground, contemplating the sound of Nasiphi Amar's bones crunching upon impact. "Don't think too much about what they hit her with. You don't want to imagine it happening to someone you used to know. Before you realize it, you'll be shuddering at the thought of it happening to you next." She peered in resignation at the deep impressions, shoving one hand into her pocket and tightening her grip on the outside of her weapon with the other.

Qahtani bore up, exhaling slowly, facing away from her colleague. "No doubt about it. At least one of those super soldiers. As far as forensics, though, not going to be much point. This file won't be turned over to the coppers, probably not ever. If you haven't learned how the Director operates, time to start. She doesn't like involving domestic." The senior agent threw an unreadable look over her shoulder at Saigo. "And the comm? Any messages?"

____

Saigo took the communicator, replaying the message.

"A taunt," he said, "speaker is female, identifies herself as 'M'." A pause. Saigo's face betrayed nothing as Amar's screams ripped through the communicator. "Nothing else significant to report."

His eyes went down to the mud, suddenly noticing the gargantuan footprings leading away from the crime scene.

"Hold on..." his brows furrowed. He followed the footprints a ways over until they disappeared. Where they vanished, tire marks and a pool of liquid took their place.

"Another liquid sample," he said, reaching into belt and slating the substance as he had with the spit. His comm lit up.

"This is Natsuma." A pause. "Mhm. Thank you." He snapped the comm away and looked to Qahtani. "Results from the first sample are in. DNA looks human, but it's... expanded. Way more genetic information than your average person. Lab also found nanites in the spit." He gestured to the liquid, trailing onward in little specks. "And if my hunch is right, their getaway car has an oil leak."

 

[Tiko]

as written by Sentry and Script

"Hmph. You think they'd have a better welcoming committee."

Before the Normans stood two children, both crouching and rummaging a large duffle bag. One, a girl with soft pink hair, scrawny, and tall for her age. The second, a young boy, scrappy, small. He smirked. "Well, that just saves us all the trouble of escaping the orphanage, right?"

"Like getting into a high security zone was ever easy."

"You've got drones all over the place. And no one shoots kids, right?"

"You're a smart kid, but you're kinda stupid, you know that?"

"Shut up!"

Snickers were shared as the kids pulled bracers underneath their sleeves. If anyone grabbed them, all they'd receive was a bitch of an electric shock two steps from frying them alive. The boy took up the gravity bombs, and the young lady picked up a baton. Swimming around right at that time were two small orbs, about the size of baseballs. They lit up and beamed down on the kids.

"Found a way through?" asked the girl. The orbs chirped, then began to zoom off. The kids followed until they came to a manhole in the middle of the street. The kids exchanged glances, but they hardly complained. This was how they escaped Westeria.

The sewage line was eerily quiet. Every little noise, something swishing around in the water, something that barely sounded like footsteps scurrying by. The boy's hair was standing on end. His counterpart put her hand on his shoulder and urged him on.

They followed the cameras a ways down until they came to another entrance. They lifted the manhole slowly, enough for the cameras to float out and confirm their safety. They rushed out and took a cautious look around at the Normans.

____

'Ding!'

The cheerful chirrup of the microwave jolted Kaiden from his dozing, sprawled halfway to upside-down in his computer chair. Blinking lazily in the mediocre light of the room's single dangling lightbulb and its array of computer screens, he wriggled into an upright position and yawned. He ran a hand through his mop of pure-white hair, scanning his video feeds out of habit.

On the monitors laid out in a grid before him, security footage from several points around the building and the city played out. He'd installed the local cameras himself, of course - the Normans was almost entirely off the grid, which was why it had made for an ideal place to set up his safehouse. Who would expect Verity, hacker extraordinaire, to be squatting in a shithole that wasn't even supposed to have electricity?

Spinning the chair around, Kai got to his feet and wandered across to the makeshift kitchenette, stepping carefully over the mess of wires that carpeted much of the room. Makeshift was a generous description for the pair of tables where his mini-fridge, kettle, microwave and toaster resided. Still, it was livable. He popped the door of the microwave open and retrieved the pot of noodles from inside. They smelled about as appetising as the dead dog that was out in the alleyway, but that was probably just because he was sick of them.

Dinner in hand, Kai trudged back over to his seat and slouched down in it with a sigh, putting his feet up onto the desk and staring at the ceiling. The steady hum of his computers and the power generator in the other room made for a constant background irritation, especially when he was trying to sleep. Maybe it was about time to 'acquire' some extra cash, so he could afford to make more upgrades. But that was dangerous. Even if you were careful, people paid attention to money that went missing, and there was almost always a trail to be followed.

His thoughts were interrupted, then, when a chime played through the headset lying on his desk, and a notification popped up on his main monitor. One of his cameras had picked up movement. Half expecting another dog, or a random hobo, Kai sat up and scanned the screens. What he saw, made him blink in surprise. He had not been expecting kids. Kids with ... drones?

Yep. Kids with drones.

Well, there was one thing for sure. They definitely weren't locals.

Without so much as lifting a finger to the keyboard or mouse, Kai directed more of his monitors to display feeds around around the area. One of the displays showed the camera moving through the air. It was time for a closer look.

Setting his noodles down, Kai reached out for the screen.

In a flash, the room was gone, and he was flying through the air over the Normans. It took him a moment to reorient himself, but thankfully, Happy already knew where he was going. Some might have said that 'Happy' was an odd name for a mil-spec drone equipped with automatic weaponry. Those people, unfortunately for them, were wrong. Happy was even painted a happy blue, how much more appropriate could you get?

The little bot drifted down towards street level, anti-grav humming cheerfully away. Before long, the kids came into view, and Kai slowed Happy down for a slow, non-aggressive approach. The drone hovered towards them tentatively, in what seemed an almost curious fashion. Though it was obviously armed, its weapons were retracted.

It beeped at them.

____

Both kids spun around and immediately pointed their weapons at the drone. They didn't yelp, didn't scream. They were tense, but sunk their knees and found their center of gravity. The two had been through this before, and many times.

Their own drones circled the surprise guest. Their bracers lit up in the dim street.

They didn't say anything. They just waited for it to make the first move.

____

"Rude. Is this how you greet everyone? Not even a hello, just straight to pointing guns at innocent drones, sheesh."

The voice that projected from the drone was identifiably that of a young man. It sounded slightly synthesized, as if generated by a text-to-speech program rather than a genuine person, although it did carry very human inflections and tone.

"Relax. If I wanted to shoot you, I'd have shot you already, not beeped. It wasn't even aggressive beeping."

Internally, Kai felt a slight pang of sadness at the kids' reactions. If it hadn't been made obvious enough by the very fact that they were here in this hellhole, it was clear now that they'd been through a lot. Kids this young shouldn't be reaching for guns with that level of practice.

'course, he hadn't been much older when his own world had fallen apart. Life was just a bitch like that. You did what you had to in order to carry on.

____

"Who're you?" spat the scrawny young boy. He had sweat pouring down the back of his neck. He could barely hold the weapon in his hand, it trembled so much. "Are you with the cops!?"

The girl, she kept quiet. Her drones had weapons, too, but not deadly ones. That had never been their goal, killing people. They were kids. Eventually, they were supposed to be heroes.

She knew that wouldn't happen if they died here.

____

"Hah! As if. Why the hell would anyone with the cops be out here?"

The voice paused, as though considering. "Seriously though, relax. Look closely. Happy's guns aren't even primed. Ah, this is the downside to more dakka. It's great for when you wanna, you know... dak, but otherwise? People get twitchy, kinda understandably."

The drone beeped again, bobbing up and down in a manner strangely reminiscent of a shrug. "I'm just curious what a pair of kids are doing out here. It's not safe, y'know? I mean, I guess this is case in point, but I reiterate that I'm totally not interested in shooting you. Not even a little bit."

____

The girl relaxed a bit, but the boy was like a cat thrown in a dog fighting ring.

"Then... who are you?" the young woman asked, letting her baton fall to her side. "I don't see a lot of people with personal drones. Didn't expect something like that here. We're just refugees, nothing special. Looking for a place to sleep."

____

"Me? I'm nobody important. Just a squatter with some toys. But uh, you could probably have picked somewhere better to sleep. I'm sure there are like, hostels or something in the nicer parts of town."

Refugee camps? Orphanages? Anywhere had to be better than this dump of a district. Unless...

"Wait, you were worried about the cops, right? I guess that would explain why that isn't an option. But sheesh, what'd a pair of kids do to end up on the run from the law?"

It was a somewhat hypocritical question. Kai probably hadn't been any older than the elder of the two kids when he started committing some serious cybercrime. But he was an exception to the norm, right?

____

"Nothing. No reason," replied the girl. "We just have our own agenda. A hostel wasn't really fitting." She put her hands on her hips and pushed her lips up in a pout. "Funny you'd be one to talk. You live around here, right? What kinda shady flapjack with a drone is interrogating a pair of kids, huh?"

____

"Forgive me for being concerned for your well-being. I'm probably the one guy in this part of town that's not as likely to shoot you, then sell you and your drones for parts as he is to say 'hi'." Kai retorted dryly. "Also, 'shady flapjack'? What? What does that even mean? I feel like I should be insulted, but I don't know why or how."

____

Or maybe you're just the local pedophile, thought the young woman as she walked around the drone. "And why would you be so concerned for us? I didn't think we'd be lucky enough to run into... let me guess... genius playboy billionaire philanthropist type?"

____

"Billionaire philanthropist? I wish. I live in an abandoned office building and eat microwaved noodles like, every day." The drone turned to face her as she circled it, keeping its sensors trained on her. "Playboy? Ehh... Not so much. Genius, though? Spot on there, and one out of three's not that bad, right?"

An audible sigh came from the drone at the girl's lack of trust. Of course, he could hardly blame her. "As a show of good faith, I'll even tell you my name. I'm Kaiden, or Kai. Your choice. Hey, do you guys have any sort of phone or other thing with a screen on you? This'd be much easier if we could talk face to face, even if it's a virtual face."

____

The girl puffed out her cheeks and blew air through her teeth. With a flick of the wrist, she beckoned one of her spherical drones over. A seam split its middle, and it slid opposite its other half with a sound not unlike a Rubik's Cube. The halves separated, and between them a thin, holographic screen flickered into view.

"Hook me up then, Kai. You can call me Mitzi. The squirt is Rory."

A groan of disagreement came from the boy. "I'm not!"

____

"Watch this shit," Kai managed to convey the impression of a shit-eating grin without his face actually being visible. "And don't freak out, there's gonna be a brief light show."

A flash of bright blue light burst from Happy, arcing like lightning through the air towards the spherical drone. The light contacted the drone and seemingly disappeared into it, leaving it briefly disoriented and unsteady in the air. After a moment, it recovered, and the screen came to life.

Upon it, the grinning face of a teenage boy - only a few years Mitzi's senior - appeared. He was pale, bordering on pasty, and his unruly mop of hair was an unnatural pure white. His eyes were a bright and piercing cyan, matching the colour of the light that had jumped from Happy to Mitzi's drone. He seemed to be in a featureless white room of some description, by the fact that everything behind him was blank.

"Yo," Kai lifted a hand to wave at the two kids, as the drone rotated seemingly of its own accord to face them. "Nice piece of tech you've got here. Sorry to hijack, but it's the only way I could get my beautiful face up on here. Well, not the only way - just the easiest. So, Mitzi and Rory, huh? You guys from Westeria?"

____

Mitzi couldn't help but exchange grins. She didn't meet a lot of other programmers that were at her level. Not this young, especially. "Nifty! Haven't seen anyone do it quite like that before, but I never did network with anyone in Van Leugen. Begs the question what other neat-o gadgets and tricks you have hidden in that office. Oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

"You heard right. Our house was destroyed by some mechdragon asshole in a big boss fight. Two kids without superpowers can't really last long without a basement to hide in, you know?" She flipped her hair over her shoulder and rubbed the back of her neck. "And what about you? Looking real at home in your... cubicle."

____

"I'm from here, though I lived in Westeria for a while as well. Till all that shit went down with the Aschen and the freaky stuff. Peaced the fuck out after that, came back here to my delightful new home in an abandoned shithole... but eh, it's better than the alternative. Safe, too. I mean, for me. Relatively."

Kai hesitated for a moment, biting his lip in thought before he spoke again. "You can come on by, if you want. I mean, I don't wanna see a couple kids get hurt, and there's some pretty dangerous people around this part of the city. Gangs, and worse. There's a reason I have a security grid."

____

Rory and Mitzi exchanged skeptical expressions once more. Something was communicated between them, and it took a long moment for the conversation to finish. The older teenager stared into the camera and suddenly the bags under her eyes and the gauntness of her face became startlingly apparent. The fear of being hurt was outweighed by the desperation of being housed.

"Really? You mean that?"

____

"I mean, I'm living in an abandoned office building... I'm not exactly using all the space, right?" Kai grinned. "I'm not that much of a hoarder. It's no five star hotel, but I've got noodles. Like, so many noodles. C'mon," He gestured over his shoulder, and Mitzi's drone began to hover backwards out of the alleyway.

Happy took the cue, and swiveled around to take the lead. The gun drone hovered a short distance ahead of the others as they set off, acting as the vanguard to their little procession.

____

Rory wasn't letting go of his weapon, but he did follow the drone alongside Mitzi. At this point, they really needed those noodles. Mitzi tousled his hair and sighed. "Lighten up, kid. Maybe this one's actually not some pedophilic flaptrap," she snickered.

The boy complained with a snort, but he didn't verbalize his distaste any further. Mitzi's drone twisted shut and its partner zoomed ahead, close behind Happy.

____

"I heard that!" Kai pulled a face at them from his screen, which remained on display. Mitzi's drone didn't appear to be responding to her commands, and instead moving of its own accord.

The streets of this part of the Normans were largely deserted, with not a living soul in sight.

"This neighbourhood is contested territory between a couple of gangs, so most of the time it's a no-man's land like this. Pretty good for not drawing any attention, since nobody tends to go in the buildings here, but it can be a bit touch and go when the gangs start to go at each other's throats."

The kids might - if they were paying close attention - spot an array of small, jury-rigged security cameras attached to street-lamps and buildings around the area. They all seemed to be equipped with the necessary attachments to broadcast their footage wirelessly.

____

Stifling a giggle, Mitzi blew a raspberry at Kai. She did notice the oddities with her bot. She'd given him access, but the drone should have listened to her when the time came. She didn't word her suspicions about that, but she was curious about the cameras.

"I had a similar setup like this. Most of the cameras weren't mine, though. Great minds think alike."

"Or paranoid ones."

"You ever think you're alive solely for those cameras, kid? If I ever showed you some of the shit that's happened-" Mitzi turned to the screen to face Kai. "Do you hear this kid!? You're talking about gangs and he's saying we're paranoid!"

 

[Tiko]

as written by Script and Sentry

"Yeah, there's a reason I have gun drones, and it's not because I'm compensating for something." He paused. "Other than my utter lack of capability in a fight. Which I guess is compensating for something. But not the thing that... anyway. Point being, yeah, when you live in a shithole with no cops and have anything remotely nice, you're gonna get looters. And they'll kill you if you don't see them coming. Hence, cameras. And gun drones. For, you know. After seeing them."

They drew closer to the office building, a four-storey affair that looked just as run down and abandoned as the rest of the buildings on the street. "Wonder if we overlapped at all," Kai remarked with a grin. "I had a cam network in Westeria too. Much better than this one, but yeah. I had to set all the cameras up for this one myself. Was a bitch. Two out of ten, would not do again."

____

"Well, you did a five out of seven job, over here," remarked Mitzi. As they came onto the looming office building before them, she took a pause. Even in a dump like this, a big building like that was so open to everything around it. It made sense that he needed gun drones around.

"Not as snug as out comfy basement space, but I'm not one to complain," she commented. Rory shrugged.

"Nothing will ever be like what we built down there."

____

"Heh. Well, this is the place." Happy ducked inside the lobby of the office building, hovering to a halt beside a near identical drone, painted gold instead of blue, with dragonfly wings marked on its top. "Meet Sparx. Sparx, say hi!"

The golden drone beeped.

"Just head upstairs. I'm on the third floor, in the big office. Watch you don't trip over any cables. There are a lot. And if you hear a disconcerting humming sound, that's just my generator and its fans. I'll meet you up there."

With that, the screen went blank once more, and control of Mitzi's drone returned to her. A flash of light - so brief as to almost be imperceptible - blinked from the drone and up through the ceiling.

____

Mitzi grabbed the spherical drone and looked within its eye, pink brows furrowing heavily. She spun it around, frowned, then let it go into the air, where it buzzed irritably. It had been manhandled enough!

With a shrug, the teenager pressed on, stepping over wires and bits in a familiar dance. Here and there, she would push or swing Rory out of the way before he could undo anything with his clumsiness. With a grunt, he walked out ahead of her, if cautiously as possible.

"If he turns out to be some serial killer creep, I'm using you as bait."

"Oh, trust me, he doesn't look like the type who goes after little girls!"

Ascending the stairs, the two fought to get ahead of the other. Even if there was a chance Kai was catfishing them so that he could do some horrible misdeed, he had promised food, and that alone was enough to rope both kids hook, line, and heavy sinker.

Long-legged Mitzi made it first and skidded toward the office, an accusing finger pointing towards where she was fairly sure Kai was located. "Show yourself, greasy sociopathic obese noodle murderer!"

____

The main floor of the office was cluttered with old desks and spaces from which computers had evidently long since been looted. Off to one side of the large room, a sizable and clearly jury-rigged power generator hummed away with a cluster of fans trained on it. Cables both large and small stretched across the room like a web with it as its epicenter, some trailing along the ground whilst others had been fastened to the walls.

The bulk of the smaller cables led into a side-room, what had once been a manager or executive's office. They were crammed beneath the door, through a small hole that had been cut for them. There was a pane of opaque glass in the wall of the office that emitted a soft blue glow (no doubt familiar to the kids as that of computer screens). It was likely a one-way window of some nature.

A few moments after Mitzi's call, the door of the office swung open. Stood in the doorway was Kai, looking a little more unkempt than he had on the screen, but otherwise true to what the kids might have assumed was a virtual avatar - including his oddly white hair and bright cyan eyes. He was dressed in a hooded top and jeans, and held an open pot noodle in one hand.

"Literally zero need for the insults," he remarked, "I may be a noodle murderer, but I am not greasy, sociopathic, or obese."

An array of computer screens was just about visible over his shoulder, and the familiar hum of a microwave was faintly audible over the deeper sound of the generator.

____

What a sigh of relief Mitzi let go. It wasn't apparent until she let herself relax, shoulders drooping, knees bending. Eyes that had been alert became half-lidded. "Wow, you like, don't even know," she chuckled, combing her hair from her face.

Rory walked right past her without an ounce of caution, staring at Kai with DETERMINATION intently. His hands clenched tightly into fists. His face pinched and pouted.

"... thanks."

____

Kai blinked, momentarily caught off guard by the show of appreciation from Rory. After a slightly awkwardly long moment where he struggled for a reaction, he grinned, shrugging his shoulders. "No problem, bud. Uh, make yourselves at home, I guess. There're probably a few intact chairs around the place. I, uh, put some noodles on for you guys, since you said you were hungry."

He glanced back over his shoulder. "It'll um. Ding, when they're done. I guess."

Another slightly awkward pause.

"So yeah! Hi, new friends. You can probably tell I don't do this a lot, so sorry for not having anything set up for er, guests."

____

Mitzi looked at Kai, then looked at Rory, who was looking at her, who did everything she could to suppress giggles, which ultimately failed, and caused Rory to snort in laughter as they both stared at Kai. "I'd say you need to get out more, but that's really not an option," remarked Mitzi. She shoved Rory towards the microwave and sat down, legs crossed, in front of Kai.

"Is this where you stay all the time?" she inquired. "You really have a lot going on! A whole office building filled with stuff. I can't even imagine how powerful that generator is. Did you do it all alone? Setting this whole thing up? All at the same time or did you build this up?"

____

"Hey, I get out." Kai folded his arms huffily, before grinning. "I bet I've been more places across this shitty planet than either of you losers."

He glanced around at the setup, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, most of my stuff is limited to like... this room. Aside from some cameras and security shit. It took a while, but I've got resources... and lots of time to dedicate to my paranoia. But yeah, this is my pad. Such as it is, in all its glory."

As Rory walked past him into the main office, Kai swiveled around to let him by. "Don't mind the mess. I'm uh, a complete slob. So. There's that."

Most of the mess consisted of discarded wrappers, and empty noodle pots. It looked like it hadn't been tidied for several weeks. At least it didn't smell (too) bad. Kai might have not paid much mind to the hygiene of his living space, but at least he was on the ball with his hygiene.

____

Mitzi snorted. "As if we could complain. Beats sleeping in sewage drains hoping killer crock doesn't swim by. Or, like. Back alleys. Shady back alleys." She shrugged. "And it's safe. That's the best thing we could have asked for."

The girl reached upward and took hold of one of her drones. She brought it down onto her lap and rested her chin on top of it. "You've really gotta tell us about those adventures sometime. He won't admit it, but Rory's pretty curious."

Ding

Mitzi could hear the kid hissing as he tried to guzzle down steaming hot noodles, hunger pushing aside caution.

"I forgot what food even tasted like!"

____

"I mean... it's less exciting than it sounds," Kai shrugged and grinned. "It was mostly for conventions."

He gestured towards the drone. "Did you make 'em?" he asked. "I bought mine. I'm a computer genius, not so much a robotics genius. I mean, I'm not bad. I made a generator, after all. But advanced military drones? Out of my league, mostly."

____

Mitzi pointed to her partner in crime. "He made them. I program them. If you leave him alone with your microwave enough, I bet he'll find a way to make it into a particle accelerator."

"Nuh-uh! I need way more stuff than that! All I could do is make an electromagnetic pulse rifle or something stupid that doesn't even work the way people want it to."

The girl sighed. "Mechanics, am I right?"

 

[Tiko]

as written by Saarai

It had taken some time and a wild goose chase to get rid of Lisa, but Nunez eventually got his chance to disappear and find his new master's people. He was a powerful brujo, but even he couldn't resist a power like that unprepared.

The Normans were a hellhole, criminals watching Nunez walk in his expensive clothes with his clean skin and straight hair. Robbing him was something they'd do out of spite, and they'd leave him alive to watch him become just like them. He'd become worse and they would know soon enough.

As soon as his master's power grew.

"Pretty boy, nice coat." A man shouted to Nunez, his face tattooed to resemble a skull. Several other men and women donning similar tattoos and face paint moving to step in front of the bruja. "Give it up." He ordered, moving to join his gang.

Nunez looked over his trench coat, "This old thing? Sure. Once you tell me how to find the chapel." He said, the gang members quickly began to chatter among themselves. This stranger was looking for the chapel?

"Uh... about half a mile that way..." The gang leader told Nunez, "Thank you." Nunez said, continuing on his way with no regard for the gangsters. As he passed by their leader he casually slipped his coat off and draped it over his shoulder.

"You'll die their, man." The gang leader told Nunez, "Vigilantes don't last long."

"I'm not planning to fight them, I'm joining them." Nunez said with a smile before merrily swaggering deeper into the Normans.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Script and Sentry

"Oh, yeah, jeez kid. An EM pulse rifle? That's total trash-tier. Like, are you even trying?" The sarcasm in Kai's voice was palpable, one eyebrow raised and his mouth turned upwards in a smirk. "Seriously, if you can do that with my microwave, I won't even be mad. I'll just be impressed. Until I need to cook another ready meal. Then I'll be kinda mad, but also still kinda impressed."

He turned and sauntered back into the office room itself, slumping down into his wheelie chair and spinning around to briefly glance over the array of monitors assembled on the back wall. Didn't look like there was anything out of the ordinary, for the moment. Nothing out of ordinary for the Normans, anyway. It looked like someone was getting mugged a few blocks away, but that was none of his business.

He spun back around to face the kids. "So. I uh, asked this before, and you didn't want to say. But now you know I'm not a cop or a serial killer... well, you know that I'm probably not a serial killer, I guess... how come you guys are trying to avoid the law and stuff? Why this shithole, of all places? If you still don't wanna answer, that's cool too, I guess."

____

Mitzi also glanced at the cameras. It concerned her a bit more, perhaps.

Through a mouthful of noodles, Rory spluttered at Kai. "I thought you were being serious!"

The girl rolled her eyes, then took a more serious note toward the discussion. Her hands wrapped around her knees. "Well, we're not really interested in being caught by cops and sent to an orphanage. We've kinda got our own agenda... and half a dozen weapons that wouldn't really be in our greatest interests to be caught with." And there was the code for Genesis in her pocket. Something that absolutely no one else could get their hands on. Not that anyone would know what it was or what to do with it, but they had to find a place for themselves. "We need to set up a base, kinda like this. We can live on our own. And if we're not in a system, it's easier to stay anonymous if we get up to any antics, right?"

She was beating around a bush with that answer. It's not like they caused a gigantic anomaly in the skies of Westeria City right before everything went to shit, right?

03-20-2016, 12:20 PM
Script
"There're better places than Van Leugen for that," Kai replied with a more somber, serious edge to his voice than before. "There's people trying to change that. But I don't know how far they're gonna get. This city's sick. The politicians are fucking the gangsters who are fucking the corps. Might as well all be one thing, for the difference it makes." There was an edge of bitterness to his voice, anger tempered by resignation.

A silence hung in the air just long enough to become uncomfortable, before he spoke again. "But in any case," he spun his chair around, shaking off his scowl to be replaced by another broad grin. It was obviously forced. "You're here now, might as well make the most of it till you find somewhere better, eh?"

____

Mitzi could have smiled. Had he only known that Van Leugen was exactly the place they had been searching for. Instead, she kept her eyes on the cameras, blank-faced.

"Oh, trust me. We'll even make up for the hospitality if you let us build stuff here. Ever felt like swinging around a laser sword?"

____

"I feel like I would probably cut my own arm off if I tried," Kai remarked, shrugging. "It's fine. Build what you want. Just... don't do anything that'll draw attention my way. It's pretty important I keep a low profile."

He gave the pair a nervous glance. "I'll warn you now, I guess. There's some pretty dangerous people out there who probably want me dead. If you stay with me for long, you could end up in danger from them too... I guess, do with that information what you will. I won't be offended if you decide not to stay."

Not offended, but maybe disappointed. Ever since he ditched Aiyo back in Westeria, he'd spent most of his time alone. He still felt bad about that, but ... the guy couldn't have kept a low profile at the bottom of the ocean, let alone somewhere like here.

____

Mitzi chewed her options. No, not hers. Not just hers. She glanced at Rory over Kai's shoulder. Rory, who wasn't taking anything seriously because he'd been in danger his whole life and thought he was untouchable. She was responsible for his life now. Whatever she chose to do would impact him most of all.

Stony-faced now, she stared at Kai.

"Why are they after you? Truthfully."

____

Kai bit his lip, frowning for a moment. He hadn't survived this long by revealing his identity, not to anyone. If even one person knew, that was a vulnerability. Someone he had to protect. Someone who could betray him, or be compromised.

"Let's just say I rocked the boat a bit too much. If I tell you any more, it puts you in more danger..."

But how long would it take for them to put two and two together? Verity was all over the news. That was the point, after all. It was no secret that they were being hunted.

He sighed. "Actually, fuck it. You'll figure it out anyway, won't you? I don't know whether you've seen the news since you got here, but if you have... I'm Verity. I'm the hacker that's been leaking all the corruption scandals for the last few months."

Kai ran an awkward hand through his hair. "As far as all those bigwigs are concerned? I'm pretty much public enemy number one."

____

The ramen cup Rory had been holding plopped onto the floor. Mitzi was grinning from ear to ear. There was a silence as she roze from her seat on the ground, and she started to laugh.

"You! You, of all people! No, you're lying!" She danced on her toes, then pulled something out of her pocket. "You! You're the whole reason I saved this. God, you don't even... you don't even!"

____

That had not been the reaction that Kai had been expecting. He blinked with surprise, before after a moment's hesitation, he cracked a grin. "So uh, you have heard of me then," he interjected into the silence, laughing. He enjoyed the recognition (perhaps a little too much). Staying anonymous meant that his work was usually a thankless job. It was nice to be appreciated.

"Huh? Saved what?" He raised a curious eyebrow, peering at the object Mitzi had pulled from her pocket.

____

"How much do you know about Westeria?" Mitzi asked. "About the fall of the big ship there? There was an anomaly that kept it from crushing the city. One of the things that stopped it was the code jammed inside this. Everything that Rory and I have worked for our whole lives since we met."

____

"Wait," Kai held up a hand.

"You stopped a falling spaceship with ... code?"

He stared at her.

"Wat?"

____

Mitzi's mouth clopped as it closed. Her fists clenched. "Dammit! Well... so we made a machine."

Everything about Genesis spilled out. The tests that changed the weather, created life at whim, and then destroyed it. They made things invisible. They created a state of zero gravity. They coated entire buildings bright yellow because they could.

"We never did anything more until the day the spaceship came down. We had things in the works, but... we weren't sure about the power supply. The last command I gave it was to compact itself enough to transport with ease. This is more than a terabyte of code."

____

Kai was speechles for the duration of Mitzi's explanation. For that matter, he was speechless for several long moments after it.

When he finally spoke, the first thing to come out of his mouth was: "Whoa."

He shook his head in disbelief. "So that thing in your hand can ... alter reality? Holy shit. That's terrifying. And amazing. If you plugged that into something that I could use, I could ... fucking hell, I could practically rewrite reality with my mind."

He wasn't sure if that prospect was incredible or terrible. Perhaps both. "Why have you guys not just ... rewritten reality to make yourselves billionaires, or something?"

____

"Because that..." Mitzi began, biting her lip.

"THAT'S NOT WHY WE MADE IT!"

Rory had stormed up to Kai, steam coming out of his ears. His little fists were clenched at his sides. His cheeks puffed beneath his eyes. "We didn't make it for us! We didn't make it to do that! We're supposed to be helping the word get better, not rewrite it! When someone gets sick you don't clone them and kill the original, right? That's murder!"

Mitzi caught the back of Rory's sweater and pulled him back. "Calm down, just-" She sighed, looked Kai in the eye. "He has this idea in his head... that we'll be heroes."

"It's going to happen!"

____

"How bout giving yourselves superpowers, then?" Kai tilted his head, looking down at the kid. "Look, I have literally no idea how this thing works beyond what I just got told. So if I'm getting any of this wrong... just correct me."

He flopped back into his chair, staring up at the ceiling. "Man, the things I could do with that... I could actually change this place. I could rewrite this city to somewhere worth living."

____

"It's not that powerful," said Mitzi. "Creating the anomaly in Westeria nearly destroyed it. We'd need a sufficient power supply. And I didn't... write it so that it changes things that are already there. The machine we need took Rory years to make, and it's been crushed now."

____

"Huh. Dang. But you could make another one, right?" Kai mused, leaning forwards and drumming his fingers on his lap. "What can it do now, then? Just make stuff? Why not use it to rebuild the machine? I'm sure that'd shorten the process."

It seemed he wasn't quite willing to give up on the prospect of altering reality, now that it had been dangled in front of him.

____

"It can't do anything. It's like having a program on a USB. You can't use it without a computer. Rory would need another supercomputer that specifically can carry out those commands. It's not easy to make." Mitzi frowned. She had become too excited. Spilled the beans too early. "The computer itself could rearrange atoms. Convert energy. Remember when I was talking about that particle accelerator?"

____

"Dang." Kai sighed. "Oh well, back to regular old reality, I guess. See, if you just needed a regular old supercomputer, I could help you out... but a special reality-altering super computer? A little bit more difficult."

He paused, recalling an earlier byte of the conversation. "Wait, so... what does this have to do with me? How come you saved that because of me?"

____

Mitzi placed Genesis back into her pocket, but never took her suddenly hollow gaze off of Kai. "Of all people, you have to have an idea about how lonely it's gotta be, thinking you're the only one who's trying to make a difference. I almost gave up. You know, there were just so many superheroes out there who could fly and summon dragons and punch people into space. I can't do any of that. What could some kid with a keyboard possibly hope to do?"

She raised a hand and indicated Kai's setup. "And then the whole Verity thing came along and you changed things by just leaking information- which isn't me downplaying it, it's not- you just... made me realize that being a hero isn't just about being able to slice tanks in half with a katana."

____

"Heh," Kai ran a hand through his hair. "Don't count your chickens yet. It's still early days. People are talking about the stuff I've leaked but so far, the only thing that's changed is how much my head's worth."

He smiled. "But hey, that's something, right? At least it makes it obvious I'm getting to them. Still kinda wish I could slice tanks in half with a katana, for if and when any of their terrifying murderous hitmen catch up to me, but... guess I can't have everything."

____

"Oh, they'll have enough to worry about, I'm sure. I mean, you've got your... shootey drones. And maybe... you'll have better stuff soon. Say, how much junk do you have laying around?" asked Mitzi.

Rory looked at Kai expectantly. "Where's the nearest junkyard?"

____

"Go outside and turn right. Or left. This whole place is a junkyard," Kai gestured vaguely towards the windows on the far side of the main office that overlooked the street. "The Normans is one big free for all. If you can grab it without getting shot, you can keep it."

He paused, frowning faintly. "I'm not gonna stop you going out there, obviously, but uh... be careful if you do. And don't lead anyone back here. D'you guys have phones?"

____

Before Kai finished, Rory was already sprinting toward the door. Without looking, Mitzi grabbed his hood. With a choked yelp, the kid whiplashed onto the floor. "I've got my drones, and they can connect to various services, but I gotta be careful. Guess you do too... unless you have a private network," Mitzi replied, straight-faced.

____

Kai winced at Rory's fall. "Owch," he remarked, before returning his focus to Mitzi's question. "I can set up a connection for us through one of the VPNs I have set up, same one I use to get on the web from here without being traced. Just give me five minutes with the drone and we'll be able to get in contact easy peasy. Can take Happy with you as well, in case you need the firepower. He's not as smart when I'm not driving him, but I can make sure he knows you guys are friendlies."

____

Mitzi beckoned to her drone and floated it over toward Kai. "There you go. We're not going out tonight, though. One of us is dying of sleep deprivation and the other is not going out alone," said Mitzi, smiling tightly. "We'll find a corner where you can't hear Rory snore."

"DO NOT!"

____

"If you need blankets and shit, just steal a few from my nest on the couch out there," Kai grinned. "I'll see if I can grab some more next time I'm in the city. And uh, sleep well I guess. You'll get used to the generator hum eventually."

Kai spun his chair back around to face the monitors, musing on the suddenness of his new guests' arrival. He just hoped his goodwill wouldn't backfire.

____

Mitzi smirked. "It's better than sirens. It's better than footsteps." She pushed Rory towards the couch and closed her eyes. "Man, I can't think of anything better than sleep right now..."

Swaddled in the blankets atop the couch, the kids fell asleep like animals stretched across one another, Mitzi's foot in Rory's face, half swinging off the couch.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Script and Sentry

The next morning was devoid of the children as they scavenged the Normans for things to use. Rory was going crazy, picking up as much scrap as he could find and dumping it into the office in armfulls. Before afternoon crept by, Mitzi and Rory were in an office room surrounded by random wires, sheets of metal, speakers, circuit boards, nails- anything one could find that had little to no value to anyone else.

At some point, Mitzi loped into Kai's surveilance room and laid on her stomach, exhausted.

"It's all out of my hands now."

"As long as it doesn't blow up..." Kai had been idly observing the kids' antics off-and-on throughout the day, keeping one his his monitors fixed on Happy's video feed as the gundrone followed them around. He spun his chair around to face Mitzi, raising an eyebrow when he noted her position on the floor. "Whatever 'it' is. What is he making, anyway?"

Mitzi plopped the other side of her cheek onto the ground to face Rory's direction. She squinted her eyes.

"... no idea. Kinda concerned. He's smiling."

"Is that ... generally a bad thing?" Kai blinked. "Cause I really have no idea what to expect here."

The girl pursed her lips. "You will soon enough."

"... consider me reassured." With a sigh, Kai spun back around to face the computers. Later. If there were any problems, they were a problem for future Kai.

________


Later that night, the boy mechanic could be heard cackling in a room down the hall, followed by a barrage of high-pitched clatters against one of the office walls. Mitzi pushed herself up onto her feet and stared at the door, then looked at Kai, motioning toward the office.

"I guess we can figure it out, now."

"Can he be any louder?" Kai rubbed at his temples. "Sound carries a long way in abandoned dystopias, y'know." He swung himself to his feet. "Alright, fine. Let's go see what the damage is..."

Mitzi nodded and walked down the hall, looking for the room Rory had vanished to. As soon as she found the door she paused, then held out a hand to stop Kai in case he went any further.

As expected, something blasted out of the room and put an impressive dent into the wall to their left.

Peeking in, the young girl dropped her jaw.

Rory had a gun. Not a contemporary pistol or anything simple. No, to be more accurate, Rory had what looked like a mini cannon. In front of a reasonably large pipe barrel held under his arm, a variety of nails and small metal scraps were floating stiffly until he pressed the trigger, which caused them to shoot out at impressive speeds into the walls, where they left a million holes.

Looking up, the kid snickered through his grin. "Guys! Guys, look at this!" he yelled, pointing the gun toward what looked like a computer tower. It whiplashed upward in front of the gun like the nails, stiff and following the direction pointed.

"Magnet shotty!"

"I'm not sure what's more terrifying. The fact that you made a ... magnet cannon, or the fact that you're calling it a magnet shotty. Seriously. Like, how the fuck do you make that from scrap? Are you a wizard? Secretly?" Kai shook his head in disbelief, turning to stare at the wall.

"Also, be careful where you're shooting that thing. There are probably support beams ... somewhere. I dunno. Architecture. Also, noise. Man, I am just full of negativity, aren't I?"

Rory walked over to Kai, offering him the weapon.

"You need to blow off some steam."

"Noope. Nuh uh. Not touching that. I am not being responsible for something that I can't even fathom the possibility of." Kai held his hands up away from the gun. "Also, can we not shoot magnet cannons inside the building which we call our home just to blow off steam? For one thing, what the fuck. That's just not a thing that people do. For another, it'll attract bad guys. Which in turn will attract badder guys. And so on, and so forth."

"Then... we can shoot them with the magnet gun," Rory replied. "Problem solved. I just solved all our problems."

Mitzi reached out and grabbed the handle of the magnet gun from the kid. "Keep inventing... just... no more guns."

 

[Tiko]

as written by Script and Sentry

A day later...

There was a bit of a rattle in the room downstairs. This time, both kids had decided to work in a room away from Kai, so as to keep the peace. It wasn't something that Rory could work on alone this time, as well.

Sometime that morning, Rory cloppered over to Kai and clasped his hands behind his back. "Hey... um... Kai, can you help us with something?"

When Rory walked into the room, he would've been forgiven for thinking that Kai was lounging back and doing nothing. The teenager was sat at his desk, apparently completely ignoring the mouse and keyboard as his eyes flicked between the monitors. Closer observation revealed that he was doing something, however, as on-screen multiple web browsers and other programs were obviously in use, tabbing in and out and inputting lines of code.

He spun around lazily as the kid spoke up, and the activity on the screens came to a halt. "Yo. Whaddya need?"

Rory twiddled his thumbs and made circles with his beat-up sneaker. "I need you to come downstairs real quick. There's something she can't figure out and she thinks you'd know."

He began to walk away, raising up a hand to beckon to Kai.

Raising an eyebrow, Kai shrugged and swung himself to his feet, following after the kid. "Alright, I guess. What're you guys working on now?"

"Well, Mitzi told me I couldn't make stuff that could kill people anymore so I made something that could delay intruders," Rory said as he lead Kai downstairs into the hallway.

Then, suddenly, he sprinted.

"FIRE!" cried a voice from a cubicle over, and a small black box was hurled through the air toward Kai.

"What the f-"

BRRRRRRMP

What felt like a million tiny vibrations siezed Kai as the black box exploded. It ended almost as swiftly as it started, but left anyone nearby scrambled.

The exclamation of surprise caught in his throat as his body reacted to the explosive burst of painful sound. His ears were ringing and his head spinning, and for a moment Kai lost track of which way was up.

He was quickly able to deduce that it was in the opposite direction to the floor that very quickly rose up to catch him as he staggered forwards and vomitted onto the floor, clutching his stomach. In the same instant, several of the nearby cameras and other electronics burst into a shower of sparks, and there was the sound of a few metallic crashes from towards the direction of the exit.

Kai retched several times, spitting and gagging as the disorienting sensation faded.

"What the fuck?!" What had been intended to be a yell came out as a half-strangled croak.

With discontented gurgles, the kids stumbled out from behind the cubicles, Rory holding his head, Mitzi holding her stomach.

"Oh... god..." the girl spat, drooling onto the floor. "Rory... you asshole... you told me it wasn't supposed to be that bad,]/i].

Taking a fistful of the boy's hair, Mitzi weakly pushed the kid in front of Kai. It was enough to send him to his knees. "Apologise... right now."

Rory did no such thing, having planted on his face.

"Little fucking shits," Kai groaned, clutching at his head. "I can't believe- Fuck, I don't even have any words for this shit."

Slowly, his brain was starting to catch up to what had just happened. "How fucking loud was that? I asked literally one thing. One fucking thing. Don't draw attention! Don't ..." He trailed off into a wordless exclamation of frustration. Then he noticed the smoking cameras.

"Oh fuck, look what you made me do!"

Mitzi wiped the spit from her lips as Kai exclaimed, looking around at the cameras. She circled around back to Kai, lids narrowing until her eyes were but slits.

"What... what did you do, exactly?"

Rory was too occupied with the amount of damage he thought he had done. His hands flew up to his head. "I'm sorry! I'll... I'll make more I'll fix it I'llfixitIpromise!"

"Short circuited fucking everything, that's what," Kai pushed himself to his feet, propping himself up against the wall. "Uhg, I think Happy and Pan got hit by that too, they were just in the next room... I'm just glad we were far enough away from my PCs..."

He rubbed at his forehead. "You sent my brain into panic mode... must've sent out some sort of 'fuck this shit' pulse or something."

"What," said Mitzi. "What... what?"

Rory scrunched up his face, scrutinizing Kai. "You... what?"

"...you guys hadn't realised? I haven't touched a mouse or keyboard since you got here. I literally took a joyride in your drone." Kai frowned. "My uh, brain talks to computers and shit. Look, whatever, I need to go and check on Happy and Pan. The cameras can wait, but they're my door guards, and if anyone comes to check out that goddamned boom, I want them online..."

He started towards the door leading to the lobby. "And I am so not cleaning that up," he added as an afterthought, gesturing towards the vomit. "Little shits."

Mitzi and Rory were left behind in shock as he left. After a full minute, Rory pulled on Mitzi's sleeve.

"You... you got that, right?"

The girl nodded somberly, eyes wide as though traumatized. Rory pointed toward the door. "He's a superhero!"

Mitzi took the boy's hand and squeezed it in her own. Tightly enough that he began to complain. She swung him to the ground.

"He's right, you know. You shouldn't be making noisy things. He gave us one job." She kicked the dust up at her feet, then pointed to the splotch of digested ramen on the ground.

"Clean it up."

 

[Tiko]

as written by Script and Sentry

Out in the lobby, Kai was knelt beside the fallen Happy, muttering irritably to himself. "Uhg, c'mon, buddy. Don't be properly broken. You weren't too close, you shouldn't be too badly fried..."

He started to fiddle with one of the panels on the drone, attempting to figure out just what had been broken by the overload and what hadn't.

The other drone still had something of a semblance of life. Though it seemed to be immobile on the ground, the lights were still on and its sensors continued to scan the room. Tagged 'Pan', it was painted a light brown and decorated with what looked like a set of improvised false whiskers.

Mitzi soon followed Kai to the lobby, hands in her pockets, expression somewhere between a grimace of regret and a state of disbelief.

"Hey, I... sorry," she replied. "It wasn't... I didn't think... ugh." She wiped her fingers through her hair and stared at the ceiling.

"Yeah, no. I got that. A distinct lack of thinking was very apparent." Kai didn't look up from his examination of Happy as he replied, scowling into the electronics.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Haven't really been 'model refugees' since you took us in. Listen, I can get Rory to help you out with that last thing and then we'll just... leave."

"What?" That statement did prompt Kai to look up, frowning towards Mitzi. "No. Look, I'm mad, but I'm not kicking you out. Not this time anyway. You guys just need to fucking reign it in a bit. This isn't Westeria, where nobody's gonna notice yet another weird explosion noise down the high street. Where there's a vigilante on every corner to punch the gangsters and the bad guys in the face."

He shook his head. "I don't think you guys get that we're not actually safe here. It might feel an awful lot like it, with all the cameras and the drones... but if someone figures out how much tech we have up here, and a gang comes out here in force? We either lose everything and run, or we die. Four drones and a few traps won't stop two dozen guys with guns."

"I... I do get it," the girl countered. "I mean, having the daily bomb down the street made things easier, but I get it. Here, you have to watch out for gangs and policemen and mercenaries. In Westeria, we had to make sure that a vampire wasn't gonna come through the window and offer us up to some archaic ritual for the blood god. Or... something. But that's not the point. I should know better. That was my fault."

Mitzi kicked at the ground again, chin tucking toward her neck. "I'd been playing big sister for so long. No one older was ever around. I got stupid when I met someone who looked like they had everything under control. So yeah."

Kai nodded. "Right. Well, uh... I guess, alright then. Just don't do it again? Fuck, I don't know. I'm like three years older than you, it feels weird to be pulling the whole lecture thing." He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. "And just to nip that presumption in the bud, I in nooo way have everything under control. I have basically no idea what I'm doing, ninety percent of the time. I've been winging it for at least the last five years. Probably longer."

He was about to continue, when he abruptly stopped and looked up sharply. "Fuck. Something just tripped one of my sensors." Scrambling to his feet, he gave the fallen drones one last plaintive glance before shaking his head. "Grab Rory and get him upstairs."

Not wasting another moment, Kai stepped over to one of the lobby's still functioning cameras that was wired into his network. He reached up to it, and the moment his fingers brushed against it, his entire body was lit up with a bright cyan glow. With a flash, he vanished, bodily transforming into blue light and disappearing into the camera.

For a moment, Mitzi was frozen in shock.

So he is, she thought. [i\]He is different.[/i]

Before long, caution siezed her and swept her down the hallway towards where Rory had been pondering Kai's vomit.

"Rory!" she cried, grabbing the boy by the arm. She hauled him upstairs as fast as she could.

"What!? What's going on?"

"Shh! Someone's here!"

By the time the kids reached the office floor upstairs, Kai was already at his computer. The monitors had all switched to display a set of cameras around the street outside. Three figures in ragged and grimy looking clothes were making their way down it, occasionally stopping to exchange a few words.

There were two men and one woman. The first man was carrying a baseball bat filled with nails, whilst the second had a worn old looking rifle. The woman carried a pistol loosely in one hand. The picture wasn't clear enough to make out their details clearly, but from what could be seen, they did not look friendly.

As Kai watched them, two of the monitors changed to display different video feeds. One was high over the rooftops, moving at a rapid pace. The other seemed to be inside the same office building as they were in, weaving through the hallways towards the exit.

He didn't look up at the kids, staying focused on the screens as the trio kept moving along the street.

Mitzi skirted toward the room with Rory in tow, glancing at the screens. Her hands pressed up against the glass. "No, no," she whispered. Was that because of them? Had to be. No one had come around for a while. Not that she knew of.

"Kai! Are both drones completely down? Do you have any other way of keeping them out?" she called.

"Happy and Pan are out of commission. Thankfully, I have four drones." Kai replied, gesturing towards the monitors showing moving viewpoints. "Sparx is the roof guard, and Navi covers the back door."

He still didn't turn around, instead reaching forwards to place his hand on one of the computers. "I'll be right back."

Once more, a flash of cyan light, and he vanished into the machine. A moment after he did so, all of the monitors went black.

Only the continued whirring of the fans made it clear the computers were still running. For some reason, the video feeds had gone dead.

Rory's hair stood on end. "What happened? Where'd he go?"

"Inside the computer, idiot!"

"What if he doesn't come back?"

"He said he would! Could you just... calm down for a moment?"

"You're the one who needs a chill pill!"

Mitzi slid down the wall with her hands grasping her hair. Her forehead hit her knees. "How did I manage to allow us to screw up? We'd been doing so well before."

Rory stared at his partner in crime for but a moment. The weight of these situations never really hit him the same way it did other people. He was always in peril. It always felt like something horrible was going to happen. That's just how the world was. Safety was an illusion.

But... that's why there were heroes.

Mitzi barely saw Rory's legs moving before she heard the shuffle of something heavy scratching across the floor. "No! What are you doing!? Stop!"

And thus, the chase began.

Rory was a cannon throwing himself down the stairs. He rolled and miraculously popped back up onto his feet before Mitzi could reach him.

Eventually, he rolled down to the first floor and skidded to the exit, back against the wall. He listened for footsteps.

Mitzi was stooped behind a pillar, absolutely panicked.

It wasn't footsteps that the kids would hear, but screams.

Outside, the two drones had descended on the gangsters in unison, opening fire without warning and raining bolts of plasma down on the trio. The man with the rifle had gone down before they even had time to react, holes burned into his chest and stomach.

The woman was shrieking, torn between running and trying to help him. The other man had already started sprinting down the street in the opposite direction.

As they watched, the drones kept up their attack. The golden-painted drone with what looked like a pair of improvised dragonfly wings stuck to its back soared after the fleeing man and shot him in the back with a rain of white-hot death. He dropped to the floor, baseball bat clattering to the ground and rolling.

The other drone, light blue and decorated with four similar wings, unleashed a similar barrage at the woman before she could finish aiming her pistol at it. Her scream was cut short as she died when the first bolt struck her.

A heavy silence hung over the street as the drones regrouped and began to descend towards the ground.

The magnet gun dropped to the floor, heavy as the bodies outside. Rory's hands couldn't hold it with how much they were trembling.

He... he just... Kai just...

Before Mitzi could offer any words to console him, the boy took off again, this time swooping upstairs.

The pink-headed young woman grimaced. She couldn't follow him. As she approached the door to pick up what the boy had left behind, she peeked outside.

"Hey... Kai?" she called.

Blue light burst forth from the similarly coloured drone, coalescing into a humanoid shape before fading to leave Kai standing there. He looked markedly paler even than normal, his breathing shakey.

When Mitzi spoke, he looked up sharply, his eyes widening. "No, no! I told you to stay inside!" His voice cracked slightly. "You shouldn't have- You weren't supposed to-"

He turned to look back at the scene of carnage behind him, juxtaposed against the comically decorated drones, fumbling for words. "I had to- If they'd gone back to their gang and... You have to understand, I couldn't let them..."

He trailed off, turning back to face Mitzi with a decidedly pathetic expression of guilt.

Mitzi held up a hand. She was a cluster of barely contained hysteria. It showed in her eyes, how wide they were, their glossiness. "It's... okay. I get it, remember? I told you."

She walked outside, looking around, just making sure it was safe. She approached Kai, one hand reaching for his arm, hesitating at first. "Are you okay?"

He gave a bitter half-laugh, shaking his head. "No."

The older teen took a deep breath. "No. I ..." He turned, shrugging off Mitzi's hand. "I need to deal with ..." he gestured at the bodies. "This. You should go and find Rory. I'll probably be an hour or two."

"You look like you're about to collapse. I'm going to help you," she sternly replied.

"I'm fine, Mitzi." Kai clenched his fists. "I did this. I'll clean up the mess. Besides, someone has to check on Rory."

The young girl dropped her gaze, though everything told her not to leave Kai alone. She grit her teeth and began to protest.

Just leave him alone.

Mitzi let out a sigh, then turned around. "Okay," she rasped, bottom lip between her teeth. She disappeared inside, returning upstairs.

Shit.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Script and Sentry

When Mitzi finally found the young mechanic, he was curled up inside one of the office cublicles, hands over his ears. The pink-haired girl knelt down before him and clasped her hands over his.

"Rory."

He sank further into the cubicle. Mitzi's face scrunched up. This was the hardest thing about being a guardian. How was she expected to console this kid when she was as scared as he was?

"Rory. I know this is really hard for you to understand, okay? But you need to listen to me." She prised the kid's hands away from his ears. He didn't resist. "Watching that had to be really scary, right?"

The kid sobbed into his knees.

"This is what the world is like. There are some awful human people out there. Sometimes it's... not enough to disarm them or scare them away. Sometimes we have to hurt people to live. It's awful but that's the way it is right now. We can't always be heroes."

There was a lump in her throat. She could barely speak. Rory held onto his knees and took in a big breath. "Did you ever kill someone?"

Mitzi felt herself shrink. She got up hastily and looked away. "We'll... talk about that another time."

Unable to speak further, Mitzi left and made her way toward the main office.

---

It was close to two hours later that the sound of footsteps announced Kai's return to the office building. The day had long since begun to wear on into evening, and the sun was almost set, casting an orange glow through the streets and stretching the shadows.

When he appeared in the door of the main office floor, he was something of a state. His sleeves were rolled up, his hands and forearms grimy. There was a new and unpleasant looking dark stain on one knee of his jeans. It was his expression that was the most unsettling, however. His gaze, as he glanced across at the kids, was devoid of his normal energy. His face was set in a harrowed grimace.

He didn't say anything, instead crossing the room towards his office and disappearing inside.

Mitzi didn't stop him. She didn't have any words. The mechanic was quiet as well, hidden in his cubicle.

A few moments after the door swung closed behind him, the blinds in the window were drawn shut, cutting the main room off entirely.

It was a quiet evening.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Script and Sentry

Mitzi woke up to a cacophony of beeps. She lifted her chin and blinked through blurry lids, trying to deceipher what was bothering her.

"Happy?"

The drone was alive. Another danced behind it, which Mitzi recognized to be the other fried drone from yesterday. She got onto her feet with a wobble. She inspected the cubicle Rory had been in the night before, but he was absent. Calling his name heeded no answer. She knocked on the office glass. "Kai? Are you awake?"

There was no response for a few moments, but eventually the door to the office was cracked open and Kai poked his head out. There were dark rings under his eyes, and he blinked blearily at the light flooding in from the windows. Behind him, the office was dark but for the glow of the computer screens.

"What?" he murmured.

The two drones floated out behind Mitzi as she tried to look over Kai's shoulder. "Where's Rory? Is he in there?"

Kai shook his head, blinking at the sight of the drones. "Oh. They're fixed."

He let the door swing closed behind him as he stepped out to examine the two colourfully painted robots. "I don't know where he is," he added after a moment. "I haven't seen him since I got back last night."

Mitzi frowned. "Must be downstairs. He must have gotten up early. Hey, how are you holding up? Doesn't look like you slept."

"Meh," Kai shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first all-nighter I've pulled."

Once he was satisfied that the drones were fully functional, he nodded his head towards the door, and they hovered off to take up their positions in the lobby once more. "Had to make sure nobody came looking for those three from yesterday. Didn't want to risk not being woken up by my alarms."

"Right," the younger teenager replied. She looked at Kai, then switched her gaze to the floor. It was insufferable, trying to make conversation. "I'm going to look for him. Make sure he's not up to something. I'll be right back."

She hurried off to check the floor below them, calling out to Rory. "This better not be some game!" Mitzi cried angrily. She went to the first floor and sprinted around, tearing around the abandoned offices and desks.

"Kai! Kai, do the drones see anything?!"

"Nothing right now," Kai replied, having moved back through to his computers. "I'm looking through the camera feeds... looks like he left the building an hour or so ago. Headed out into the streets... I must've dozed off and missed him."

He grimaced. "I'm not seeing him on any of the cameras out in the street. I think he must've been avoiding them deliberately."

Mitzi ran her fingers through her hair. "Shit! What's he thinking? He can't go out alone!"

She hurried over to the pile of items they'd brought over the first day, spread out before a backpack. There had been two. Mitzi rummaged through hers and cursed. "The electric baton is gone. What's he trying to do!?"

"I'll send the drones out to search," Kai said, giving the mental command. Four of the monitors switched to show each drone's perspective as they set out, flying high over the streets in search of the missing boy, whilst trying to stay out of the line of sight of anyone else wandering the Normans.

"I'm going out, too! Keep an eye on me?" she asked as she made her way downstairs.

She had nothing with her save for her own drone, which didn't have the same offensive abilities as Kai's.

Even so, she couldn't leave Rory alone. Not after everything that happened the day before.

Mitzi dashed out into the street in a sprint, feet a blur. She swooped down alleyways and streets at a breakneck speed.

"See anything!?" she asked Kai.

"Get down." Kai's voice came through Mitzi's drone. "You've got company ahead of you on the street. Not close enough to home base to be a problem now, but they will be if they spot you."

Far overhead, Happy hovered, looking down on Mitzi and the strangers up ahead whilst staying out of eye and earshot.

The young girl slowed and strode down an adjacent alleyway. What if Rory had run into them?

"Are there any people or places around here that would have a particularly large amount of electronics? That you know of."

Before she could even get an answer, the jangling of a heavy backpack caught her attention.

"Kai, hear that? What do you see?"

Surely enough, if Kai's drone zoomed to the street over, he would see a kid in a black hoodie carrying more than he could handle, both in his arms and his backpack. A bit too close to the gangsters that Mitzi had almost run into earlier.

"Head down the alleyway you just passed. He's on the next street over."

Overhead, Happy swerved around and down towards where Rory was running, keeping a lock on the position of the threat. The drone swept down into his path, beeping furiously at him before Kai's voice took over, tinny through the low-quality speakers that had been jury-rigged into it. "What the hell are you doing? Do you want to die?"

Rory must have jumped ten feet into the air. He stared at the drone angrily when his surprise subsided.

"What the hell are you doing!? You're gonna get me killed!" He kept jangling forward, but crept silently as he came to an intersection. "How're you guys awake already? Why are you here?"

"I'm gonna get you killed. That's rich. There're some people a street over to your right, getting closer. Mitzi's on her way to meet you." Kai chose not to bother answering the 'why' and the 'how' of the situation, since all things considered, explanations were a low priority compared to not dying.

"Try to avoid getting noticed. I really, really don't want to get into any more fights with the locals."

Rory blew a raspberry at Kai and pulled down one of his eyelids in mockery. "I'm not gonna get you into trouble again! Jeez. Keep your panties on."

Leaning farther over the corner, Rory decided to sprint across the road before the gangsters came into view.

At the same moment, Mitzi turned the corner to sprint down the road and collided, loudly, with Rory.

Everything that had been in his arms was burying him. His glare was volatile.

"Ahh! Fuck! Um..." Mitzi hurriedly tried to pick him up and run the opposite way, but he stubbornly tried to recover his materials, instead.

"We can't do this right now! We're about to be caught!" she complained, grabbing his collar and hauling him down the street.

"No! This is important! Dammit! I really need this stuff!"

"I'll get it later! Come on!"

---

The older girl had taken the mechanic's backpack and sprinted until they got back to the office. She hadn't stopped even a moment.

Rory looked some measure between ill and frustrated. He snatched the backpack away from Mitzi and stormed upstairs with a temper. When she followed him, he was dragging his belongings down the hallway. "What are you doing?"

"Stop following me!" he roared.

Mitzi paused. Her heart flew up into her throat. A little wobbly on her feet, she made her way upstairs.

"Hey, Kai," she called. "Everything, um... good? No one followed, right?"

"Got a bunch of confused skinheads poking around in a pile of scrap for a few minutes after the clatter, but they didn't seem to care enough to invest in finding out who dropped it." Kai called back. "Thankfully."

"Did they take any of it?"

"Not that I saw. Was just junk to them, probably."

The girl sighed in relief. "Good. Maybe it'll be easy to go back out there later on." She sat in the door of Kai's office, forehead on her knee. "I can't wait for that kid to grow up."

Mitzi turned her head to look at Kai. "Thanks again. I mean, how many times am I going to say that, though?"

"I should start a tally," Kai joked half-heartedly, leaning back in his chair. "I'm just glad it didn't escalate."

"That's the upside, I suppose." The girl planted her hands on her feet and gazed at a piece of dirt lying on the ground. The edge of her lip went up. "How often do you have to deal with, uh... yesterday?"

Kai was silent for several long moments before speaking. "That was the first time. I've been careful. Not given them any reason to poke around here." A pause. "It wasn't the first time I've had to kill people. But, yeah..." he trailed off.

It was Mitzi's time to pause. She had been under the impression that this happened far more often. The guilt sank in her stomach so heavily, it was painful.

Her fingers drummed on her shoes. She refused to look up at Kai. It wasn't just something you said sorry for. Something like that warranted more than an apology, but Mitzi wasn't sure what else she could do.

Deciding it was best to leave it at that, the girl got onto her feet and dusted off her backside. "I'm going to go downstairs for a while," she said, turning to walk away.

"Alright," Kai replied, glancing up to watch her go. After the sound of her footsteps faded to nothing, he sighed, turning back around to face his screens. He tucked his legs up onto the chair and rested his chin on his knees, contemplating sleep. Despite his fatigue, the thought didn't seem particularly appealing.

It came to him eventually, though, as he stared into the glow of the monitors without really seeing them. Before the minutes could turn into hours, his eyelids drifted shut.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Script, Sentry and Glmstr

A few days had passed since Rory's escape attempt, and thankfully for Kai's blood pressure, they'd passed relatively uneventfully. He'd been able to take his focus away from babysitting and actually get back to his work - such as it was. He'd released the files he'd acquired from the personal computer of one of the city's most prominent justices, exposing several instances of accepting bribes.

Aside from hacking the planet, Kai had also made a few trips into Van Leugen's proper to fetch supplies and food for them, a far simpler endeavour than it might otherwise have been, had he not been able to quite literally download their shopping. Or at least, carry it with him when he transported himself through the net.

At present, Kai was - as ever - sprawled lazily in his computer chair. He was watching news feeds reporting on his latest leak on some of the monitors, whilst simultaneously scrolling through several darknet forums and helping spread the files around various activist communities both in Van Leugen and beyond.

All while stuffing his face with noodles. Such was truly the ultimate benefit of being able to meld with computers using his mind. No worrying about greasy keyboards.

The kids had been concentrated on their own projects. Mitzi had grabbed one of her drones and pulled it out into a small, but powerful laptop that she rarely left. Now and again, she wandered downstairs to check up on Rory, but came back upstairs with less energy than before.

It was rare when the young mechanic's inventions were silent. Rarer still, that he didn't share them. Mitzi took long glances toward the stairwell and sighed. She also looked toward the office door, but never for long.

It was a lonely few days for her.

____

Elsewhere in the Normans, the relative silence of the abandoned streets was broken by two strangers patrolling the sidewalks, albeit only one truly deserved the title of 'stranger', as the other was simply a black trunk with wheels whirring obediently behind its master. Asking for information had led her to this part of town, but the screams of agony and begging to live from Argyra's 'informants' resulted in poor directions.
Oh well, they didn't need those fingers, did they?

There was still no evidence of anything out of the ordinary in the dilapidated slums, but the Unionite's gut instinct was insisting that she was getting close. Either that, or walking around this place for several hours was getting so mind-numbingly dull that she wanted to take a break.

A ride home was a ride home, though.

Argyra's path took her across the field of vision of one of the many crudely concealed cameras set up on the streets surrounding Kai's hideaway, triggering an alert both on the monitors in front of him, and in his head.

He looked up from his noodles with a blink, scanning across the various screens until he spotted the source of the warning. "Oh, shit."

That was definitely not a random gangster.

His meal was set aside, and he got to his feet to walk across to the office door, sticking his head out to find Mitzi. "Get Rory up here. We may have company of the bad kind."

The girl's head shot up, staring at Kai with instant panic. Without asking any questions, she raced downstairs, nearly falling over herself, and found Rory where he'd been the past few days. Before he could yell, Mitzi grabbed him by his collar.

"Get up. We have to go upstairs!" she hissed, dragging the young boy in tow.

Just out of curiosity, Argyra pulled out a small gadget from her pocket, what had an appearance not dissimilar from ancient Unionite cellphones. The pirate flipped open the device and extended a small antenna, and clicked in one of the buttons on the lower half. The object, known colloquially as an anteater in less reputable trades back home, was developed to detect small electronics, namely bugs (as its namesake would imply), wires or even small cameras. It was a favorite tool of anyone that was important (or paranoid) enough to expect to be monitored.

The anteater gave a soft chime, and spoke in an alien tongue, Vorikos. "Device detected. Purpose: personal observation. User is within device's field of view." A little arrow on the backlit display pointed towards a nearby pile of trash, where the tiny lens of a camera could be made out.

Pelagios closed the anteater and stuffed it back into her pocket, and slowly strode towards the pile. She sifted through the trash and picked up the camera, letting it point at her face. The Vorik spoke a single word, the steel half-mask translating her voice into a modulated and somewhat garbled form of the local tongue.

"Verity." With that, she crushed the camera in her hand, cutting off the video feed and leaving the crumpled piece of plastic and metal on the sidewalk.

Back in the office, Kai stared at the now blank monitor wide-eyed. "Oh, fuck."

Okay, now wasn't the time to panic. They had time. Chances were she wouldn't even find the right building any time soon, and as long as he could get the kids out ... well, that was the clincher, wasn't it? He could get out as easily as touching one of his computers, but the others couldn't.

He stepped away again to the door, just as Mitzi was coming up the stairs. She had Rory by the shirt.

"What's the news?" she asked Kai.

"Some fucking terrifying chick in body armour is in the area, and she's looking for me." Kai answered, grimacing. "Found one of my cameras and said my screenname into it all intimidating-like. Was some action movie villain tier shit."

Rory's expression was torn between fear and amazement. "Are we gonna figh-"

"No," Mitzi replied swiftly. She looked at Kai very seriously. "What's your plan?"

"Working on it," Kai ran a hand through his hair. "You guys need to ... get somewhere safe. I can get out of here easy, any time. But I can't take you with me. Maybe I can run interference with the drone squad if it looks like she's getting close. I dunno. She can't check every building, right? She had some weird piece of tech that let her find the camera, but I don't know if that'll help her find us here?"

"We can leave now. I'm sure she won't know we're affiliated, especially if we don't have anything on us. My drones will help us around. They've got enough charge to get us into the nicer parts of town. You don't have to worry about us, Kai." Mitzi stared him down hard, but soon softened her expression. "You've done so much already."

"Because there are tons of kids wandering around the Normans. You'll be lucky if she doesn't think you are me." Kai retorted, shaking his head. "Only way I'm letting you guys make a break for it is if you have a clear path and no chance of accidentally running into her."

He turned back to the monitors, scanning them for an update as to Argyra's whereabouts.

As the pirate wandered down various streets and alleys, the glint of light from a piece of glass would inform her of another camera, and another, and another. She must have been getting close. Just out of curiosity, she whipped out the anteater again, and clicked scan.

"Device detected. Purpose: personal observation. Device detected. Purpose: communication. Device detected. Purpose: inter-Device detected. Device detected. Device dete-Device dete-Device d-"
The soft ping from the anteater quickly devolved into a chorus of tones and pings, dozens or even hundreds of various electronics were being picked up from a single building. Argyra silenced the cacophonous gadget and put it away, it was only proving annoying at this point. Looks like I found the den.

First things first, instead of entering the building, Argyra briefly walked around it, looking for any power lines, transformers or other external cables running to or from the building.

"Oh, good. She's outside." Kai stated. "That's great. Fantastic. Okay..." He took a deep breath. "I want you two down by the back exit, ready to go. No, side exit. She might go for the back door. As soon as it looks like she's coming in one of the entrances, I'll signal to you, and you run for it. And don't come back, this place isn't safe any more. I'll find you."

Even as he spoke, he was directing Happy across to the exit in question, moving the little blue drone through the building to wait for the kids.

"Going to do what I can to keep her busy to give you guys a head start, then I'll get out."

"Gotcha," said the younger programmer. "Stay safe, Kai. And don't you wait to the last second to leave! You get out of here!"

The kids were ghosts sweeping down the stairs, adapting once more into a lifestyle they were all too used to by now.

Mitzi's drone flew out of the window and in the opposite direction. The kids were stationed at the side exit, holding their breath.

The lack of power lines and external cables was unusual to say the least. It seemed to imply that there was something inside giving power to the gadgets, maybe some solar panels or a generator. Out came the anteater from Argyra's pocket again, but before hitting scan she punched in a few other commands, filtering the hits to just 'Power Generation'. Upon tapping 'Scan', one device was found, the gadget implied it was rather large, and the display pointed to what looked like the third floor on the building. Good a place as any to defang a hacker, I guess.

She popped open the Blackbox following her and retrieved her assault rifle, shutting and locking the small automaton before ordering it to stay out of the way outside the building.

Once again the Vorik circled the building until she found a window on the same floor as the generator, and climbed up onto a rooftop next to it. She took a deep breath, took off along the rooftop in a full sprint, and then leapt across the gap at the window, bursting through the glass and landing inside on the third floor.

"First order of business," Pelagios muttered to herself and began wandering through the floor, rifle raised, looking for the generator in question. Her heavy footsteps clomped and thudded throughout the lower floors, and were likely audible by everyone inside.

The moment that Argyra had leaped, Kai had given the word to the kids to run for it. Now she was inside, she wasn't going to spot them leaving, so they'd be safe. Probably. If nothing else, having Happy following them would make dealing with any of the Normans' regular inhabitants less dicey.

Kai took a breath. She was already on the same floor as him. Whatever she was using to pinpoint his location was annoyingly versatile.

While Sparx, Navi and Pan were making their way up to him, he expanded his awareness to seek out the approaching woman's digital loadout. It was easy enough to get a lock on some sort of scanning device. She was down the hall from the office floor.

As Argyra approached, her anteater once more piped up - this time without prompting. "Device detected:", it began as normal, before continuing in a jerky and uneven fashion that made it clear that what it was saying had been knitted together from the various audio files it was normally capable of playing. "Psychotic murder-bitch. Get fucked."

And with that, it promptly went dead, shorting out and becoming wholly unresponsive.

The Unionite growled as the hacker managed to ruin her device. It didn't matter either way, the anteater had worked enough to get her here. Eventually, she reached the generator. The machine was currently running, providing the office building with power. She approached it, giving it a quick examnation and a mental praise for its ingenuity. However, seeing impressive machinery wasn't the purpose of this visit. Pelagios crouched down to the generator and drove her fist directly through the machinery, sending cascades of sparks scatterring across the floor. The foreigner ripped out the piece of metal she grasped and threw it aside. She repeated the action a few more times, until it was surely disabled.

Now, there was no escape.

As the monitors and lights powered down, one room in particular caught her eye. A nearby corner office, with the familiar glow of computer monitors and displays quickly fading. Before she lost track of the room, she approached, her almost-metallic footsteps reaching a crescendo as she made her way to this office.

Without warning she gave a single solid kick to the door, sending it careening from its hinges and crashing into the wall. The pirate stepped through the empty threshold, and leveled the rifle towards where the monitors once were.

She remained silent.

Argyra would find the office chair empty, with only a discarded bowl of still-hot noodles as evidence that anyone had been there recently. The room was full of discarded packets and a random assortment of comics, games and gadgets. One screen in the room remained lit - that belonging to a laptop on the edge of the desk.

At first, all it displayed was a desktop, of which the only interesting feature was the fact that the wallpaper was of a rather suggestively posed anime boy, but after a moment the display shifted to show what appeared to be footage of a blank white room.

"Sup, gatecrasher?" A figure stepped into the shot, then. He was obviously a teenage boy, but his features were hidden by a white mask decorated only with a pair of large, pure-black eyes and a crude smile that was little more than a black curve. His hair was bright cyan, and luminous, falling to his shoulders. "Never heard of knocking?"

The figure clad in black lowered her rifle and approached the laptop with surprisingly few steps, owing to her naturally long stride. She smirked behind her mask at the display, clearly some last-ditch attempt by her prey to be clever. "What kind of bandit would I be if I knocked?"

The pirate reached towards the computer and poked at a few keys lazily, not expecting much of a reaction from the laptop. "Funny, I didn't find any hidden electronics to imply a secret room nearby, and there's no way you could be getting wireless reception at this point. Care to explain?"

"Not really," the figure replied, shrugging. "What kind of ..." he paused, clearly considering what title to give himself for several moments before continuing "... houdini? No... eh, whatever. Pretend I said something cool there. What kind of that would I be if I explained all my tricks?"

He flopped backwards, lounging onto apparently nothing. "Guessing someone's paying you to come kill me, huh?"

"Either kill you, or just keep your mouth shut. Either one works, really. Hell, could just take your fingers off and leave it at that, if you'd prefer."

"Say, this planet is already weird enough, I've got a theory," Argyra pressed her finger onto the laptop and started slowly pressing down, the case of it buckling and cracking under the pressure.
"Could you be one of those things in those sci-fi stories that can get inside computers?"

"What, like a hamster?" Kai snorted, even as the image on the screen started to flicker with the laptop's breaking. "That's just an internet joke, y'know? Your computer's so shit, you oughta feed the hamster so it can start running faster on its wheel."

He made a show of glancing down as though looking out from the screen. "Hey, that's kinda rude, you know? This thing was expensive."

Just as the laptop gave up the ghost and the screen went dead, the voice continued - this time from behind her.

"Besides, haven't you ever heard of a mobile hotspot?"

As one unified formation, the three drones swept into line of sight of the office, weapons levelled at Argyra, and opened fire. Bolts of plasma seared through the air towards her, punching through the glass and the wall with ease.

The movement in Argyra's peripheral vision caused the Unionite to duck away from the flurry of plasma bolts, raising her own rifle with one hand and opening fire. The crack of gunfire echoed throughout the abandoned building, announcing the release of each subsequent bullet on its supersonic path towards one of the three drones.

The drones in question seemed vaguely similar to those found in her homeland, albeit simpler and less elegantly packaged. Thus, some of the same tricks should likely work in theory.

Pelagios scrambled towards the edge of a room and picked up a small videogame controller, throwing it with all of her might towards one of the drones, the makeshift projectile breaking two hundred miles per hour in its flight.

The gunfire largely ricocheted off of the drones' armour plating, as they continued to blanket the room with plasma. The room was ablaze now, fire spreading across the carpet and the wooden furnishings. The thrown controller, however, struck true. It slammed into Navi, and though it shattered on the drone's armour, the impact was enough to disrupt its flight.

It spiralled away, but upon doing so immediately ceased firing, and after a and after a few seconds corrected its course.

Pelagios noted the apparent strength of the drones' armor. Clearly, she needed to be much more personal with them. She reached down and threw several more controllers and systems at the other two drones, before scrambling out of the room and after Navi.

The alien leapt at the drone, reaching out to grab it and promptly attempt to tear it apart with her bare hands.

Sparx and Pan fell back to avoid the hail of projectiles, giving Argyra the moment of opportunity she needed to break cover and close on Navi. The drone opened fire as she charged, the plasma scorching across her armour before she reached it and pulled it from the air.

"Hey! Hey!" Kai's voice echoed from one of the other drones as she began to dismantle it, sounding very much distressed. The other two drones quickly retrained their weapons on her, firing off another burst of plasma bolts.

"What? Stop shooting and I might stop breaking your toys," Argyra gripped the dome-like top of Navi's hull and pried it away akin to splitting an oyster, crumpling some of the rest of the drone in one hand and pitching it at the other two drones. Now, she could use Navi's armor plate as a makeshift shield to help guard her advance on the next of the three.

The drones swept aside to avoid the makeshift projectile, retreating backwards to avoid allowing Argyra to close to melee again. "And what, just let you kill me? Sure, that'd be convenient for you, I bet!"

"Well maybe I could make it quick for you," the pirate smirked again under her mask and drew her laser pistol, taking several shots at the drones from behind the 'shield'. The laser pistol in question proved to be a surprisingly effective weapon at nonlethal takedowns, even if the weapon could burn through almost any kind of flesh and through many kinds of armor. The hole itself would only reach a centimeter or two in diameter, and the intense heat would instantly cauterize the wound. Minimal bleeding would insue, and the only real threats of death came from directly hitting a vital organ or from the cauterization interfering with blood flow.

The pistol bored a hole through a portion of Sparx's armour, and the electronics within, but it remained flightworthy, continuing to strafe and buzz around the room to avoid giving Argyra a clear shot.

"You're so generous," Kai answered. "And if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes right now. Well, whatever. I'm done here, you can bite my shiny metal ass."

And with that, both drones swerved aside and shot out the window, raining glass down on the office floor.

"Hold on," Argyra continued pursuit of the drones across the room, making her way towards the window the pair shot at. She steadied the pistol on the shield and continued squeezing off shots, letting out a little over a dozen streaks of reddish beam in the short volley. The shards of glass did little to deter her, such a distraction had lost much of its effectiveness on Pelagios over the years.

The drones were agile, and evasive maneuevers spared them from many of the shots. One struck home, however, and with a burst of sparks and smoke, Sparx spiralled out of the sky to crash into the building opposite. Pan, in the meanwhile, swept down and into an alleyway, disappearing from view.

The pirate sighed. She dashed back into the office, grabbing the laptop and snapping it in two before diving out of the window and into the alley below. The concrete below her shuddered and small cracks scattered from the point of impact. Argyra did not wait, calling her robotic companion to follow her and continuing in a full sprint after where she last saw Pan.

The drone had long since fled the alley and zipped away into the depths of the Normans. By the time Argyra reached the far end of the alleyway, little awaited her but an empty street. With no tracks to follow, and a sizable head start, it was likely that the little machine had slipped the net - at least for the time being.

 

[Big Brother]

Some nondescript warehouse inside the Normans.

Van Leugen was a city of crime, corruption, darkness, and Marlene found it one of the perfect places to base her operations against the TNG. Unfortunately that meant she had been cut off from her superiors, and had to plan her next series of attacks without the input of the Imperial Government.

She had put the word out through the various underground connections her and her people had made since she arrived here, various deep net postings like 'Cash Strapped, need toys.' and other cryptic messages. Specifically she was looking to source VX, Sarin, and mustard agents for her next attack, as well as conventional firearms to further obscure the fact they were all Aschen. She knew one of the things the TNG looked for was the use of disruptor weapons, a fact that if every baddie in Van Leugen and beyond were using them, then it would look more like a local malcontent, than Aschen operations.

So she sat, low pressure sodium lights glaring overhead, among three SUVs parked in a semicircle around a stack of crates. This was Marlene's last ditch effort to liquidate non-essential assets, and raise some cash for her continued war against the Terran Government.

Checking her watch, she nodded slightly, Kat kept up on the balcony, armed with a Type 53 Disruptor rifle concealed in the shadows, zoomed in on the exchange through her holographic scope, she would provide cover in case the deal went sour.

Michael Samuelle, an elite Section operative stood to the right of Marlene, his dark trench concealing his own Type 03 PDW, buckled securely to his armored vest.

And lastly Tidus Khaine, who was wearing a white jacket and blue sweater, a well dressed 8 foot tall super-soldier, who appeared unarmed.

A table, and several chairs were situated across from Marlene, where potential "Customers" would sit, and vye for her business. A proverbial "Criminal shark tank."

 

[Saarai]

Kiril, flanked by three men, made his way into the warehouse. It wasn't the cleanest place, but he didn't care. It was probably one of the reasons he was sent to handle the deal. Usually one of the other bosses would handle things, but they were keeping a low profile.

The law was trying to come down on them a bit more, that meant more secrecy and keeping your nose clean. No face to face meetings in public places, no phone calls, and no talking business with outsiders.

Kiril let his gaze find Tidus first. He was a soldier, Kiril recognized one when he saw them. He was once a soldier himself. Back in a different life.

"We are listening." He said, slowly shifting his focus to Marlene and the man beside her. "You should be talking." Kiril told them.

"Not yet, my Russian friend." Came the voice of another man behind Kiril and his crew. They were all Asian men, well-dressed and the man at the head of the group donned a pair of very dark sunglasses.

"The Chinamen are here? We didn't order sushi." Kiril taunted, "Never heard that one before." The man in the sunglasses said sarcastically, "Sushi is Japanese, by the way. I'm Chinese, Ivan." He added.

"My name is Kiril." The Russian gangster told the other man, "Nice to meet you, Boris. I'm Joe. What exactly is going on here?" Joe asked, looking to Marlene and Michael.