–Inside Jose’s Mansion, 4:52 PM–
Jose giggled again as Mikae tried to squirm free from her bonds, but she only succeeded in exhausting herself after almost eight minutes. "Had enough?"
"Let me loose from this thing, and I’ll show you when I’ve had enough." Mikae jerked her left arm forwards, rattling the heavy chains, which were binding her arms together above her head.
"No. Now, ready for your little bath?"
"I’d rather breathe the stuff. Don’t forget that my lungs aren’t immune."
Jose smiled wickedly, then ordered the lone Idea out of the room while he pulled a remote control out of his pocket. The response was a rattling clank as Mikae dropped six inches towards the open vat of sustenance ten feet below her. *Ohhh shit. Where’s the cavalry when you need it? C’mon, someone, get me out of here!!!* Jose alternated the two largest buttons on the remote, causing Mikae to bounce around painfully as her arms were stretched by the chains.
"OWWW! If I get my hands on you, I’ll make sure you’ll only speak in falsetto!" Mikae continued to spew out threats that she would happily carry out if she had managed to get her hands on the sadistic little clone, but he remained out of her reach, sitting comfortably in his director’s chair with a tub of popcorn, as he cackled wickedly. Tiring of stretching her arms for giggles, Jose finally Mikae lowered towards the vat, ignoring her volleys of swearing. He actually began to hum to himself for a few minutes, but stopped when he noticed Mikae’s feet just touching the vat.
The pseudo-acidic substance had one other effect, which was less documented than its ability to burn holes through wood and other organic substances. Sustenance, when in contact with a substance it could corrode through due to its unique chemical composition, had the ability to cling to that substance until another force acted on the highly reactive liquid. Usually, that force is gravity, but if in large enough quantities, sustenance could literally crawl up almost anything organic.
Mikae learned that the hard way, as the volume of sustenance in the vat was enough to begin creeping up her legs even though only the soles of her feet were immersed in the vat. As the barely-charged sustenance crept further up her legs, she felt her pants begin to dissolve, slowly revealing more skin to the leering clone. Jose got too impatient and smashed the button on the remote, dunking Mikae up to her waist in the dull green liquid.
She hissed in pain as the liquid slowly seared off the remnants of her pants and underwear, making her skin feel like she had walked into a thicket of nettles. Looking at Jose prancing about the room in her jacket just made her angrier, but she was even more pissed when she noticed the dull red light in the corner, signalling that the security cameras in the room were on, and recording everything for future humiliation.
Jose giggled again, then dunked Mikae up to her chin before pulling her out of the vat by the chains that were still wrapped around her arms. "Now we’re getting somewhere! Let’s see what else is hidden by the green stuff." Jose laughed maniacally as Mikae swore loudly, and at the tops of her lungs. However, he was cut short when something knocked on the door. Opening the door, he came face to kneecap with an exceptionally large Fixed Idea, and he instantly hollered at the Idea to leave him alone.
The Idea scratched its head for a second, then said something. "Little blond guy want talk you. Said something ‘bout more soldiers." Jose sighed, then ordered the Idea to guard the door and not let anyone through except for him. After Jose had left, the Idea carefully walked into the room, ducking to get through the door. It moved quickly to the security camera, unplugged it, and walked over to the now-greatly irritated Mikae. Ignoring her swearing, the Idea carefully shoved the vat of sustenance over to one side, allowing gravity to take over, making most of the sustenance clinging to her body splatter in gooey strings onto the floor.
The Idea then carefully produced a key, and, ignoring the fact that its boots were beginning to melt, it unlocked the chains around her now-bare legs. It then reached up, unlocked the chains around her arms, and gently caught her as she dropped into its arms. Mikae’s immediate response was to try and crush the Idea’s throat, but it grabbed her hands at the wrists and chuckled.
"Now, is that any way for you to react to a friend? Come on. I have some clothes waiting for you, but we’d better get most of the sustenance off you first."
Mikae blinked for a few seconds, then squinted at the Idea holding her. "Mel? The last time I saw you, you were busy playing with Dr. Zack’s sustenance generator. What are you doing here?"
Mel grimaced. "My day job. Let’s get you out of this place before Jose gets back." Mikae smiled, bowed slightly, and realized she was naked from the neck down. "Umm, about those clothes?" Mel nodded, studiously averting his eyes from Mikae.
"This way. There’s a shower room about two hundred yards down the hallway, on the left, and you can probably find some clothes in there. The package of clothes I left you is in the last guard room before the stairs, but it’s currently surrounded by about seven Ideas. I forgot about the shift change." Mel shrugged slightly, then turned to leave the room. Mikae followed him, trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible. Before she left though, Mikae turned to Mel and raised an eyebrow as she cracked her knuckles.
"What about you? It’d be very suspicious if I just waltzed out of here and didn’t knock out the guard." Mel shook his head, then pointed at a rather low wooden beam.
"Person run past, me chase. Crack head on wood." Mel grinned stupidly, then shooed Mikae down the hallway. Mikae sprinted down the hall to the shower room, quickly rinsed off the sustenance still clinging to her lower body, and started hammering on locker doors to open them. After smashing open five lockers, Mikae found what she wanted; clothes.
She quickly pulled out a pair of tight-looking cutoff shorts, a super-tiny t-shirt, and mentally cursed when she saw that there was no underwear in the locker. Sighing, Mikae squirmed into the extremely tight shorts, wondering how she’d be able to face her mother with these clothes on. She pulled on the top next, and wasn’t surprised to note that it barely covered herself to any amount of decency.
*When mom sees me in this, I’ll be lucky if she only grounds me for a century. Maybe I should take a few weapons along with me, if I’m lucky enough to stumble into the armoury on my way out.* Mikae grimaced slightly, then left the shower room, thankfully into a hallway that was empty except for the unconscious hulk of Mel lying next to the doorway to Jose’s little torture room. Mentally thanking the fortune that the old Fixed Idea was so damn smart, and an ally of CyberSix, Mikae turned down the hallway, feeling a pang of guilt for not leaving something for Mel as a gesture of thanks, and, keeping to the shadows, she started moving along towards where she thought the exit was.
Ten minutes later, Mikae opened the wrong door, said ‘oh shit’, and charged into the room to kill three Fixed Ideas that were all armed with machine guns. She easily snapped the first one’s neck by running towards it, jumping over its shoulder, and slamming her foot into the base of its neck. The second one died almost as quickly when Mikae slammed her right hand underneath its ribs, literally gutting the huge being with her bare hand.
The third Idea was just beginning to raise its gun when Mikae arrived in front of it, and smiling viciously, she jammed the tips of two fingers into the Idea’s eyes. The Idea howled in pain, its fingers reflexively tightening around the machine gun’s trigger, sending a long burst into the far wall before Mikae shattered its spine with a mean one-two punch and kick combo. The attack was so quick and brutal that the last empty shell casing from the machine gun hit the ground after the third Idea finished disintegrating.
Mikae, feeling exceptionally spiteful, grabbed one of the full machine guns, picked up three extra magazines for it, and swiped all three vials from the clothes left in crumpled heaps. Mikae then looked around the room for anything of use, and grinned when she saw something that could be very useful. Mentally exulting, Mikae studied the map of the basement level of the mansion, figuring out where she was, and where the exit was. Just as she finished memorizing where the exit was, Mikae heard the alarms start to blare.
"Well, I couldn’t expect to get out of here totally undetected. Looks like I’m gonna have to kill some stuff on the way." Mikae grimaced, then patted the stock of the salvaged gun. *Well, time to pry into some of the neural training dear old Reichter gave me. Hopefully I remembered to take the safety off.*
Mikae left the room, moving carefully, and managed to get to the stairwell leading to the ground floor without incident. Once she was on the ground floor however, she was almost instantly seen by three technos, which were almost immediately cut down by the extremely pissed off teen. The slashing burst of gunfire brought her to the attention of ten more technos and five Fixed Ideas, all of which were armed with rocket launchers, flamethrowers, and at least one sniper rifle.
Mikae glanced around, and seeing an exit, she threw the machine gun through a large window, following the explosion of glass with her body as two rockets blew the stairwell into steaming rubble, and hopefully trapping Jose in the basement for a long time. Mikae dropped into a shoulder roll as she landed on the well-manicured lawn, and as soon as she got back onto her feet, she made tracks into the forest at close to mach two.
By the time she slowed down, Mikae had put a good kilometre between herself and the mansion, and she was very close to a police blockade sitting on the dirt path leading to the place. She stood in the middle of the road, blushing almost beet red because of her current clothes, and exhausted from everything that had happened. Just as a cop stood up from behind the blockade with a picture in his hand, Mikae finally gave up and fainted.
–Somewhere over Lake Superior, 5:42 PM–
"Nnngh. That’s the last time I trust one of those weenies in the vans." The woman sat up, groggy, tired, and sore. Listening carefully for a few minutes as she massaged her forehead, she heard the now-familiar noise of the stealth helicopter’s rotors cutting through the air. Putting on a new headset, she instantly heard the pilot whistling an old song to himself.
"It’s been a while since I’ve heard anyone whistling anything near me. What’s the song?" The pilot’s whistling stuttered for a second when he heard her voice, but he responded by finishing the song, which took him about thirty seconds, then chuckling. "It’s an oldie. I think it’s called ‘Alone in the Universe’ but I forgot the words about two years ago. So, do you wanna know where you’re going for a week?"
The woman shrugged, then noticed a duffel bag beside her. "Sure, never hurts." The response was a chuckle, and the pilot paused before speaking.
"Well, you’re going to be dropped off near a sleepy little town called Osgoode, and after walking south for about a hundred metres, you’ll be at the front door of your grandparents house. I think you might wanna get changed into casual clothes before we arrived, and I took the liberty of buying a ‘divorce Barbie’ for your daughter. Please tell her to take care of it. The damn thing put me out three hundred." She giggled at the exasperation in the pilot’s voice, then dropped a bit of a bomb on him.
"I might wanna tell you that she uses barbies as target practice for her BB gun."
"She uses a BB gun at six? When’s she gonna be weaned to elephant rifles?"
"Har de har har. She wants to be just like me, so grandpa started her target plinking with my old crap cannon three months ago. She’ll graduate to his personal rifle when she’s strong enough to stand up to the recoil."
"Huh. Well, you’d better get changed soon. We have about an hour before we’re at our destination." The woman grunted in response, then opened the duffel bag, which had a nice collection of casual clothes.
"If you look, I’ll kill you and fly this thing myself."
"Okay. Wouldn’t dream of it anyhow. I’m married."
–Police Headquarters, 6:12 PM–
"ENRIQUE!!! Can you tell me why you called off the search for that girl?" The captain looked at the huge detective, who smiled back.
"Well, the search would still be on, if she hadn’t walked out of the forest into one of the older blockades on the road there. Apparently, our little psychopathic goon in the mansion decided for a bit of abduction. She’s currently at the hospital, under observation."
The captain’s eyebrows shot to the roof, and he waffled for a few seconds. "What? She reappeared? I thought that almost nobody came from that place unless they were genetically altered."
Enrique nodded, then grabbed his coat. "Sorry cap, but I have to go and see if she’s awake. After all, we need her statement so we can figure out what happened."
"Yeah, whatever. Who’s her doctor?"
Enrique turned back towards his captain, his foot propped in the door to the stairwell. "The doc’s Reba Pearce. You know, the person who’s permanently stuck at the age of ten?"
"Oh. Well, there goes that idea. I hope the rest of the week is uneventful."
"Same here. Have a good day." Enrique left the room, leaving the captain standing beside a desk, looking pensive.
–Oroborus, 7:00 PM–
The farm hove into view as she walked down the half-kilometre long driveway, and she carefully readjusted her sunglasses so nobody would be freaked out by her appearance. Looking at her mutilated left hand, she sighed and carefully hid it in the half-open duffel bag she had slung over her left shoulder. As she passed an ancient oak tree, a small figure jumped from the old branches and landed in her arms with enough force to send both people onto the ground, raising a cloud of dust.
"Mom! You’re here! I’m sooo glad! Didja get me anything?" Sebena had firmly latched onto her mother’s shoulders with her dirty little hands, accidentally dislodging the sunglasses so her red eye was exposed to her daughter.
"Mom? What happened to your eye? Did it get hurt or something?" She nodded, and carefully replaced her sunglasses before hugging Sebena tightly to her chest.
"Yeah. I’ll be fine. So, what have you been up to for the last little while?" She stood up, still holding onto her daughter as she continued walking towards the old house.
"Jimmy bugged me while I was using the BB, and he sorta got whacked in the hand. Oh yeah, granma and granpa miss you lots, and wanna see you as much as I do. Can we play a game soon?"
"Yeah. Oh yeah, one of my friends got you something."
Sebena’s eyes sparkled at the idea of something new to play with, and she started to pester her mother about what it was. After almost two minutes, she gave up and put Sebena down. "Well, my friend got you a divorce Barbie."
"Barbie? Ecchhh."
She smiled. "My reaction as well. It also comes with Ken’s house, his car, and his boat, so it’s not a total loss. Besides, I managed to bring you a souvenir from out west for you."
"Really? Is it another bullet?"
"Nope. A toy crossbow." by this time, the two people had reached the expansive porch wrapping around the front of the house, and several other people, all around Sebena’s age had torn out of the house and swarmed the two.
The two didn’t react too well, with Sebena being the louder in her protests. After about ten seconds of the younger girl hollering, John walked out from one of the four outbuildings, wiping his hands on an old rag. Seeing his granddaughter surrounded by a swarm of six-year olds, John waved and broke into a limping jog, heading towards her.
When he arrived, he saw that she was already having the life squeezed out of her by Gudrun, so he waited for a few seconds, then looked at her, appraising her new appearance. The whitish-pink hair and sunglasses threw him off for a second, but when she shook his left hand, he also noticed the absence of two fingers on her left hand. "Hey kiddo. You seem to have stretched since the last time I saw you."
"Not likely grandpa. Can we go inside before the mosquitoes get hungry again?"She gently disengaged several children from her thighs, and picked up Sebena again. John nodded at the question, and told the kids to get inside before the bugs ate them alive. After all the children had entered the house, the three older people walked in, talking about life and what’s been going on since her last visit.
The three people sat down in the kitchen, talking and playing cards as Gudrun fussed over her granddaughter, speaking in her native language. "Seh dich an, du bist bloss noch haut und knochen und kaum etwas anders"
"Grandma, I know I’m skin and bones because I’ve been too busy to eat properly. As for everything else, you know I regret being away from my family, but I did sign a non-disclosure agreement with the company I work for."
Gudrun switched back to English, and continued to berate her for leaving them in the dark, as well as abandoning her daughter onto a pair of people who were easily in their late seventies. John just chuckled as Gudrun eventually stopped.
"Got any eights?" John continued with the card game that had been interrupted by Gudrun’s rant.
"Nope. Go fish. So, wanna know why my eye’s like this? By the way, got any sixes?"
John paused as he looked through his rather sizeable hand, then nodded. "Yes to both. Here’s your six, and please spill the beans about your eye."
"Thanks grandpa. Last card. Anyhow, I got pummelled by a hail storm while trying to get some photos of a Siberian tiger, and one of the stones managed to smash my sunglasses. The shards went right into my eye, and totally destroyed my vision in the eye. Actually, I could’ve gotten it fixed, but it took too long to get to a hospital with staff that could do the repairs. By the time I got to one, my eye was useless. This thing is mainly for aesthetics, but it has a very small camera in it that’s much better than that old lump I used to lug around with me."
"Heh. Well, at least one of your eyes still looks good. Got any tens?"
She smiled. "Go fish. So, will I have to hide in the loft again?"
Gudrun piped up as she planted a plate on top of the deck of cards. "No. You’ll get the newest outbuilding. Now, eat! You’re too skinny for your own good." Gudrun planted at least three eggs on the plate, adding a side of fried potato slices and a huge glass of orange juice to the set.
"Gee thanks. I’m only a hundred-fifteen, and it’s not that bad as a weight."
"Ha! If you want to be one of those damn super-models that fly away if you sneeze near them." All three chuckled, and she started to dig into the rather sizeable meal.
"Y’know grandma, this has been the only food I’ve had since about three this morning, not counting that slime called airline food. I’ve been in the air for almost twelve hours today, and it’s not pretty."
"Well, all the more reason for you to fill your hollow legs. Eat!" Gudrun quickly hijacked the card resting in her granddaughter’s hand, won the game, and ragged at her for a few more minutes until she started eating.
About twenty minutes later, she retired from the main house and walked over to the farthest outbuilding, where a comfortable bed was waiting. Gudrun and John watched from the porch, following her path with their eyes as they held hands.
John looked down at his wife, smiled, and led her back inside after the light outside the building flickered out. *After forty-five years of being married to my Goodie, I can’t believe that we’re still together and living a good life, doing what we love. If only Sel retired from her job and settled down with us. She loves children as much as we do, despite what her father did to her. Maybe we should call in a few favours with Charlie. Well, I’ll talk to her about it tomorrow, but I’m glad she’ll be able to stick around for a few days at least.
*Heck, maybe I’ll be able to finish her present before she leaves this time. After all, a true rifle is too bulky for her job, so this modified gun could help her greatly.* John sighed slightly, shook his head, and closed the front door before a thumb-sized mosquito could get to him. Two minutes later, the light beside the door switched off, and the old farm fell into slumber as stars twinkled above the old buildings.