–Meridiana High School, 8:30 AM–
"Lori! Get the hell back here with my jacket!" Mikae charged after the fleet-of foot teen, knocking younger students out of the way as the gang leader almost flew into a classroom, the offending jacket flapping freely behind her. Mikae wasn’t that far behind her though, and proved her agility when she vaulted over two desks and landed on Lori’s lower back with almost crushing force.
"Now... Give. Me. Back. My. Jacket, before I rip your fucking face off and ram it down your fucking throat!" Lori looked up at Mikae, a smile playing across her face for only a second before she saw Mikae’s eyes. Instead of being their normal icy blue shade, which sometimes darkened to an almost sky-blue shade when she was feeling mischievous, her irises were almost swimming in a sea of red.
Lori just stared at Mikae’s face for a few seconds, but was suddenly jolted back into reality when Mikae literally picked her up, and made ready to use Lori as a javelin from the second-floor window. "Y’know Lori, I’ve always wondered how far an idiot would fly when assisted. Let’s try it out." Mikae hoisted Lori into the air quite easily, but stopped when Lori waved the jacket in front of her face.
"Okay! I give! I’ll give you back the jacket! Now, can you please put me down?" Mikae reached out with her free hand, plucked the jacket from Lori’s grasp, and smiled.
"I was planning on taking the jacket from you anyhow, considering I don’t like my stuff going through plate glass. Of course, considering that your face will go through first, I don’t think closing your eyes will help any." Just as Mikae was hauling back for the toss, Skeeter, Lingo and Jitter, Lori’s three favoured gang members, landed on Mikae with enough force to drop the seemingly-psychotic teen to the floor. Skeeter, the heaviest by far, was sitting on the middle of Mikae’s back, but wasn’t having much luck maintaining his position as king of the pile, primarily because the base of the heap was moving around faster than a greased eel.
Almost before anyone could register what had happened, Mikae was again standing up, and all three members of the gang were lying against the far wall, moaning in pain. Just as Mikae again moved towards Lori, two iron-like hands grasped her wrists and halted all forwards motion. She turned her head to see who or what had grappled her so quickly, and saw Adrian’s unsmiling face. As Lori watched, Mikae seemed to deflate, her obvious anger and rage disappearing almost instantly under the cool anger that could be seen in Adrian’s eyes.
"Science office. Now." Adrian released Mikae’s hands, and she meekly headed in the direction of the office. Adrian then turned to Lori and gently helped her up. "Are you all right?" Lori nodded, gently massaging the deep purple marks already forming on her throat and arm.
"I will be after about a month of sleep. Damn, what put a bat up her nightdress? I only swiped the jacket as a prank." Lori coughed slightly, then smiled sheepishly, looking up at the person she once had a hopeless crush on.
"Well, obviously, it nearly ended with your face looking like you had been mugged by a cheese grater. Sometimes I think she’s in over her head in stuff that nobody should get into. Lori, right now, I think it’s best for all of us if you give Mikae a lot of distance."
Lori fervently agreed, and after reviving the still-mauled members of the gang, she left the somewhat wrecked room. Adrian looked at the devastation that was so easily apparent, shook his head, and walked over to the science office. Opening the door, he poked his head inside for a split second, pulled it back, and narrowly avoided being soaked by a jarful of formaldehyde. After the jar had finished splattering all over the door, Adrian opened the door again, walked into the small office, and smiled slightly.
"Well, now that you’ve managed to wreck all of Lucas’ work, not to mention nearly killing Lori, would you like to explain yourself?" Mikae seemed to be in an uncontrollable rage, but seemed to calm down slightly when Adrian walked over and simply cracked Mikae across the forehead with a right jab, stunning her. Mikae’s eyes cleared up slightly, leaving her irises to revert to their normal colour, but her corneas were still bright red. "Now, care to tell me why you’re more psychotic than Jose?"
Mikae shook her head, trying to clear something from her mind, but only gasped in pain before collapsing. Adrian gaped for a second, then dove over to the small phone inset into the wall beside the door. *What the? She’s tougher than that. Hell, a tap like that would only daze her for a few seconds.* muttering quietly, Adrian turned back to the phone and dialled an oft-used number.
–Jose’s Mansion, 10:30 AM–
The large Fixed Idea easily shouldered its way through the small groups of technos that dotted the halls, holding a sheaf of papers in its right hand, a rocket launcher slung over its left shoulder. The Idea paused in front of the double doors leading to Jose’s office, sighed under its breath, and knocked loudly, right before opening the door.
Jose jumped up at the intrusion, ready to tear a strip out of the intruder, but stopped when he noticed the papers in its hand. "What in hell are those? Never mind. Give them to me!"
The Idea placed the papers on Jose’s desk, then left the room as fast as possible. Jose looked through the papers, chuckling at some, but a small handwritten note halfway through the heap caught his eye. He read the note three times, memorizing every word, then gave it to Helmut, who had arrived as he was reading. "What do you think is meant by this?"
Helmut took the note and read it for himself. "‘To all ye who enter this abode, run the gauntlet to find the person ye seek.’ Well, it looks like the kicker for an old-fashioned quest, but I wouldn’t know why the hell it would be in the middle of these things. What are these anyhow? Fatality reports?"
Jose snorted derisively. "Would I be reading these if they were fatality reports? No, I’d make a techno read it and give me the most important information. They’re blueprints for the Sentinel Hotel. Considering that the note was taped to the top floor, I think we can figure out where the leader of that damned force is at. Now, the only question is whether we can kill her before she tries to kill us."
Helmut grinned slightly, then shook his head. "Well, we’d better think of something, considering that I reactivated the X-1 programming, as well as injecting the subject with that systematic psychosis drug. I assume by now that she’s already managed to tear at least one person apart."
Jose grinned, then turned back to the blueprints. "I want that commander dead, and hopefully the ones I’m sending there will also kill off everything else."
Helmut chuckled. "Well, wouldn’t it be better to send in a few technos, rig the basement with a few tons of C-4 and bring the entire building down on their heads? Lots of collateral damage, lots of killing, and the thorn in our side will be quite dead."
Jose laughed, long and loud. "Good idea! I’m glad I thought of it! Helmut, grab the first four technos you see. You’re going on a wrecking crew."
Helmut sighed. "Yes sir." *You fucking moron. You’d go for a repeat of what happened at the park, and then what? We’d be totally defenceless, and there would be no money or weapons to arm our Ideas.* he sighed again, then turned and left the office, wondering who he would select for the sabotage.
–Meridiana General Hospital, 11:20 AM–
Reba ducked suddenly as one of the reinforced straps holding Mikae’s arms down snapped, sending fragments of leather and metal flying across the room. Swearing under her breath, Reba easily avoided being cut by the sharper bits that pelted her, and watched with a slight amount of amusement as three immensely strong security guards piled onto Mikae, trying to restrain the now-dangerous teen.
"Christ on a crutch! She’s stronger than an ox! Doc, you’d better get that mood stabilizer ready, or we’re gonna be forced to taze her." Reba heard a wet cracking sound, followed by a strangled gasp, so she turned, tapped the needle twice to remove any air pockets, and rammed it into Mikae’s leg, emptying the chemical stabilizer into the teen’s system. Mikae’s struggles became weaker, and she soon stopped trying to fight her way free.
The three guards all moved carefully away, one of them cradling his right wrist where blood had begun to seep through between his fingers. "Jim?" the guard looked down at Reba, then squatted so she could look at his injury without straining either the wound or her neck. Reba carefully and gently examined Jim’s wrist, noting that it was a rather serious fracture, as three bones were totally crushed, and several splinters had gone right through the skin. "Ouch. Look, I have to make sure she doesn’t get free and pull another stunt, so head down to Hemstreet. He’ll be able to help you more than I can, at least right now."
Jim nodded, and moving carefully, he left the room. The other two men securely bound Mikae to the bed again, making sure that the drip feed in her arm stayed put, keeping her nice and tranquillized until everyone could find out what had happened.
–Sentinel Hotel, 3:47 PM–
Helmut and the four technos were in the parking garage of the hotel, and they were ‘altering’ several of the maintenance panels in the concrete pillars supporting the massive building above them.
"Three more after this one, and when we blow this place it’ll telescope right into the dirt. Ever see the WTC collapse?" The technos nodded among themselves, evil grins plastered all over their faces as one wired the ten-pound block of C-4 into the wiring that ran up into the hotel before replacing the metal cover. The techno then wired a proximity switch, calibrated to go off if there was any motion within six inches of the bomb larger than that of a rat.
Helmut finished supervising that pillar’s alterations, than ran over to the last three pylons which he had marked with pieces of chalk before anything else had been done. He chuckled to himself, then heard the elevator’s chime ring out. Helmut hid behind the pillar, keeping away from the opening doors of the elevator, and could barely suppress some laughter when he heard the exchange between the two people
"Mooommm! I’m borrred! And my feet hurt! Why are we down here?"
"Well, if your feet are sore, I’ll carry you for a few minutes, but we’re down here to try and find out where those goons stashed the motorbike I rented. I wanted to go for a ride, and probably take you along as well."
"Really? You’d do that? Maybe you can find it through the key remote in your pocket."
"Oh yeah." A muffled giggle followed, and Helmut carefully peeped out from behind his hiding place. He saw what could only be described as the most interesting pair to have his eyes ever set upon them. The taller one was easily five and a half feet tall, and was wearing tight-fitting leather pants and a tank top. However, Helmut’s eyes were drawn to the person’s face, which, according to him, was one of the most beautiful faces he had ever seen.
Helmut stared for a few seconds, mentally removing the one blemish he could see, and just absorbed the image into his mind. He actually had to pry his eyes away, as he looked down at the small child standing right beside the woman. Helmut’s gaze flicked back and forth between the two, and he realized the girl, when grown up, would be a dead ringer for her mother.
Ducking back behind the pillar, he let out a long sigh, and looked up at the ceiling. He waited for ten more minutes as his technos continued their work, then heard the elevator doors open, with the young girl complaining about not being allowed to go because she had deflated all the tires on a car. The doors hung for a few seconds, then closed. Mentally shaking his head, Helmut listened as the woman started up a motorcycle, and he sighed in relief as the cycle tore out of the garage, sounding like it had peeled rubber all the way up the ramp. He then went over to the last wired section and took the detonator from the willing hands of the techno. He twisted the knob on the detonator to set the time, then pushed the little red button to activate the timer.
–Dr. Zack’s House, 4:25 PM–
Data 7 was at least moving about enough to irritate Dr. Zack, as the immensely strong panther was busy emptying Dr. Zack’s latest supply of filet mignon and T-bone steaks. However, considering the pile of cooked meat on a platter for the damn cat, it seemed that 7 was milking his injury for all it was worth.
Dr. Zack didn’t seem to mind too much about the panther emptying his freezer of meat, as he was busy puzzling over the unique gift given him by Miss Del Naryen. Currently, he was sitting in front of one of the many computers in his basement, studying the readout on what the damage scaling of the gauss pistol could do to differing substances.
The readout was relatively simple, showing in a bar graph what would happen if the spikes fired hit flesh, metal, or wood. Overall, metal took the least damage, but even then at least six inches would be totally vaporized from the impact of the spike alone, not counting the variables such as kinetic energy, the possibility of plasma-based disintegration, and other nasty little surprises.
Just as he finished studying the readout, he heard the doorbell ring, followed by a muffled volley of curses, which surprised him, not because he could hear the cursing, but because every word was heard loudly and clearly. Standing up, he looked at the CCTV image of what was standing at the front porch, and smiled slightly at the image of Sel standing there, looking very pissed off.
He smiled slightly, and, walking upstairs, wondered what the young commander could be up to. He opened the door, and stared for a second at the sight of Sel looking about as dishevelled as humanly possible. "Miss Naryen! It’s umm... good to see you. So, would you come in?"
Sel smiled slightly, then stepped into the house, consciously making an effort to try and avoid kicking the door, which would have likely broken her foot. "Well, it’d be a bit less surprising if you didn’t have the damn video camera trying to look down to my navel when I was waiting. Still, considering the so-called folklore about the security system here, I was wondering if I could talk with you for a while."
Dr. Zack nodded, then heard something behind him that caused Sel to stiffen slightly and reach for something hidden under her jacket. Dr. Zack looked behind him to see Data 7's body detatch itself from the shadows and he carefully placed himself between the Panther and Sel.
"What the hell’s that cat doing here? It your pet or something?" Sel slowly tried to relax, visibly tensing her fingers before removing them from the gun she had almost pulled. Dr. Zack grinned slightly, then removed the bandage wrapped around Data 7's head. He examined the almost-healed wound that had carved a gouge out of Data 7's right eyebrow, then slapped the panther on the side before the cat slunk out of the still-open front door.
"No, he’s not my pet, and I’m betting that he’s still holding a grudge against the person who nearly took his head off a few days ago. Still, he’s a good friend, despite his idea of fun being to clear out my entire stock of filet mignon."
Sel grinned and pulled her hand free from her jacket. "Well, if you vouch for something like that, I guess I’ll trust the furball. Oh yeah, just so you know, he would have gotten away without a scratch if he hadn’t turned his head at the last second."
Dr. Zack’s eyes increased in size slightly, and he smiled. "Well, at least I now know that his injury was an accident. So, what would you like to talk about?"
Sel smiled and closed the door. "I thought you’d never ask."