Jose's Mansion, 7:17 PM
Jose watched the video clip of the assault on the park, and cackled
in glee as he saw a
member of the new counter-ops team drop after being hit in the chest
by a long burst of machine gun
bullets, but he was cut short as the camera zoomed in on the person,
who got up and resumed firing
her ugly as hell rifle at the advancing horde. After several more Fixed
Ideas had been cut down in
withering volleys of gunfire, the remaining few managed to overrun
part of the six-person squad that
had held them off, but the few that had gotten into close combat were
beaten back.
After the video had run its course, Jose walked over to the VCR, calmly
removed the tape,
and launched the small black rectangle through a conveniently located
window. "How the hell do
six people survive heavy weapons fire without scratches, and manage
to kill almost a hundred-fifty
of my Fixed Ideas? Well? Maybe their guns can be recreated here, but
I have no clue what those
things are." Jose continued to mutter to himself for a few more minutes,
then grabbed a pencil, a pad
of paper, and started to scribble notes down onto the worn pad.
In less than ten minutes from the beginning of his writing spree, Jose
was finished, and he
walked calmly into a nearby laboratory. Inside the laboratory, two
technos were knee-deep in wires
and chunks of unidentified metal. "Hello Jess. I have something for
you to look at." Jose leered at
the tall techno he was speaking to, for she was rather well-proportioned
and had blond hair tied back
in a three foot long braid.
"Hello Boss. What do you want me to try and create now? As you can
see, Alex and I have
pretty much given up on this arm-mounted laser rifle." Jess motioned
towards the pile of metal and
wires sitting rather forlornly on the table, then shrugged slightly.
"No, I want you to take a look at this." Jose handed over his scribbles,
and Jess pulled out
a small pair of reading glasses to look at the almost undecipherable
words. She read the notes several
times, seemingly committing them to memory before she looked at Jose.
"Well, you may have better luck with a magnetically accelerated weapon
compared to this
hunk of junk. Besides, the focussing crystals that the FIs stole from
that weapons lab were too badly
banged up to be anything more than pretty paperweights." Jess frowned
slightly at the thought of the
delicate components being carted around by the strong, but abominably
stupid Fixed Ideas, but she
knew that things done in the past were worth almost nothing.
Jess re-read the notation, then walked over to a fairly advanced computer
partially buried
underneath damaged laser crystals and sundry other pieces of junk.
She quickly cleared a space by
sweeping most of the crystals into a nearby trash can, then started
punching in several algorithms
into a specialized program. In under a minute, a detailed wireframe
schematic of a gun's firing
mechanism had popped up on the monitor while Jess was continually punching
in more codes,
modifying the firing system's schematic as she worked.
After she finished punching in the last code, Jess leaned back and
ran the program to see what
the possible effects of such a weapon could do. The computer, obviously
overloaded, began to stutter
as its processor heated up beyond its fan's capacity to bleed off the
excess warmth. Just before the
fan would overload, the computer finished processing the algorithms
and showed a small readout
of what the gun could do.
"In the name of all their gods, this thing is amazing. Look here."
Jose hopped up on a nearby
stool as he looked over Jess' shoulder as she pointed out the spikes
in the graph. "The damage to
weight ratio is off the scale, and this rating for armour penetration
is almost sickening. If you look
here however, the projected power drain used to fire each projectile
is equivalent to making the city
suffer a brown-out."
"Then how could those people have guns like that without being connected
to nuclear
reactors?" Jess frowned, and tapped out a command on the computer,
which was beginning to make
some papers smoulder until she removed them and placed them on a workbench.
"Well, this thing
says that it's utterly impossible, but the evidence of that little
killing spree in the park seems to show
otherwise. Now, what would you like me to do?"
Jose thought for a few seconds, then grinned maliciously. "I want you
to steal one of their
guns and dissect it so you can figure out how it works." Jess lost
most of the colour in her face, then
shook her head. "And, in your inestimable wisdom, how do you think
I should collect this gun? If
the user sees me, you could probably see me as a pink mist drifting
over the city."
"Well, you'll just have to be careful, won't you? Take a few types
to distract the person, and
if you kill him or her, so much the better." Jose walked off after
his small pronouncement, most
likely to go and find some hentai games he had found on the internet
a long time ago. Jess looked
at the weapon schematics and shuddered as she noticed a blinking projection
of what a shot could
do to a human. The projection simply stated 'catastrophic dismemberment',
and its baleful red glow
slowly blinked at her until Jess turned off the computer.
City Hall Park, 8:21 PM
Mikae opened one of her eyes, trying to look around, but gave up when
her head told her that
someone was using it for a jungle beat. Instead, she snapped her eyes
shut when a beam of light
shone into them, and she heard a quiet chuckle as she felt the warmth
of the light recede. "Well, her
reflexes haven't taken any damage from that crack she took. I think
she'll be up and about by
tomorrow." Mikae responded with a weak groan and opened her eyes again.
She soon focussed on a very small person standing beside the head of
her bed, and recognised
the onyx eyes almost immediately. "Hello doc. What brings you to the
land of the dead?"
Doctor Pearce smiled and started to check Mikae's heartbeat with a
freezing stethoscope,
causing the younger woman to complain vehemently about surviving an
explosion only to die from
hypothermia. "Well, I'm here because I have extensive experience in
healing acid burns, and that's
what most of the injuries here are from. Besides, everyone knows I'm
the best doctor in the city."
Mikae chuckled at the true statement, primarily because Dr. Pearce
looked like she was still ten.
Pearce told her to rest for a few more hours, and Mikae decided to
listen when her skull
started to throb again. Soon, Mikae had dropped into an uneasy doze,
and when she was awakened
by someone walking in, she was somewhat disoriented for a little while.
Rubbing her eyes, she
looked at the person who had walked into the small tent, and her mind
flashed a red flag. Wilson
smiled at Mikae as he sat down on an empty cot beside hers.
"Well, you seem to be a bit healthier. After all, you no longer look
like someone whose skull
had been rearranged." Mikae responded with a weak groan and a raised
finger. Wilson chuckled
slightly at her responses, then leaned in a bit. "You remind me of
my goddaughter. She speaks what's
on her mind, doesn't take any guff from anybody, and is cute as a button
when she's not covered in
mud."
"And? Why do I remind you of her?" Mikae frowned slightly as she struggled
into a sitting
position, and grimaced strongly when she heard her mother's voice outside.
Wilson chuckled as he
listened to the vocal complaints coming from outside of the tent, and
rubbed his beard.
"I told you already. You just weren't paying attention. Now, I'll just
let your mother in and
let her bite your head off." Wilson stood up, squeezed Mikae's hand,
and walked out of the tent. In
less than two minutes, Mikae's mother was inside the tent, showering
her injured child with hugs,
kisses, and threats of impending death if she ever pulled something
like that again. Mikae managed
to squirm free of her mother's grasp, and held her off for a few seconds.
"Mom, please. I know you're worried but I'm fine. Now, can you try
and get me out of here
before I go crazy?" Mikae tried to reason with her mother, but gave
up after being drowned out by
nagging. Eventually, her mother calmed down enough to be totally lucid,
but had firmly latched
herself onto Mikae's neck, slowly cutting off her daughter's air supply.
"Um, mom? I know you don't want to let go or anything, but if you don't
I'll sorta turn
purple and drop dead..."
"Oh! Sorry dear. Now, you'll have to stay here until tomorrow, but
I'll pick you up at about
nine. Love you." Mikae's mom ave her a parting hug and kiss, then disappeared
into the growing
gloom outside. Mikae, wide awake and bored out of her mind lay back
on the cot and closed her
eyes, trying to guess why all those Fixed Ideas had attacked at once.
Oroborous, 8:30 PM
"Grandpa!" John sat up as a small bundle of blonde hair and sun-bronzed
limbs jumped into
the air, landing on his lap with enough force to drive most of the
air from his body. He coughed
slightly as he regained his breath, then looked down into the beaming
face of his great-
granddaughter.
"Well, hello munchkin. Aren't you supposed to be in bed right now?"
Sebena wrinkled her
nose at the mention of bed, then snuggled closer to one of the most
important people in her life.
"Bed's for the young'uns. I'm a big kid, so I get to sleep at Nine."
John chuckled slightly,
rolling his head to the side as Gudrun appeared and tickled Sebena,
causing the six-year old to
collapse into a gigglefit. However, Sebena soon calmed down and she
looked at her surrogate parents
with her owl-like eyes.
"I wanna see my mommy. She's not doing too good, I know that, but I
still wanna see her."
John frowned and stroked Sebena's hair before replying. "So do we.
After all, she's part of our
family as well, and we're just as worried about her. Now, we'll talk
about this later, but you really
need to go to sleep, unless you want to watch the news."
Sebena shuddered, and stuck her tongue out. "Ick. I'd rather kiss a
frog." She then hopped
off of John's lap and walked quietly into her room, tugging Gudrun
along with her by firmly latching
both hands around three of Gudrun's fingers. John listened from the
living room as he heard
Gudrun's melodic voice reading 'Goodnight Moon' to his darling.
Undisclosed Location, 9:00 PM
The woman was sitting on the edge of a large bed, idly flipping channels
on the Wall-sized
TV when she felt something begin to nibble at the back of her mind.
For several seconds, she thought
it was the precursor to another onslaught, but the nibbling sensation
began to fade as she started to
contemplate the small twinges that were coming from her left hand.
She looked down at her hand,
and idly followed the traceries of the scars that had replaced the
bottom two fingers.
She knew that her hand would bother her for the rest of her life, but
it still rankled. She
massaged the scars, trying to get some of the tension out of her hand,
but only succeeded in moving
the tension into her shoulders. Finally, she gave up and flopped backwards
onto the bed. Turning
over, she rummaged around in a large cloth locker beside the bed, and
pulled out two things. The
first was a Polaroid of someone she knew she should recognise. After
all, she saw the same face in
the mirror every morning. In the arms of the picture was a young girl,
seemingly all blond hair and
blue eyes.
The woman put the picture back, closing her eyes despite the pain.
Her left eye was the same
shade of cobalt blue as the child's, but the right one was almost entirely
black with the exception of
a dull red pupil. She turned to the second object; a well-worn and
one-eyed veteran of childhood
wars: a faded teddy bear that always seemed to offer unconditional
love to anyone that looked upon
it. She looked at the teddy bear, slowly cuddling the patchy fur to
her chest as she curled up into a
foetal position and started to cry.