Well, here it is, in all its bonusey glory....is "bonusey" even a word? Eh, whatever. Here's the bonus chapter---enjoy!)---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Within the confines of the Silicon Dynamics plant, all was calm. The last of the Daikoku knockoffs had been collected by the ALPA, every terminal that had been shot was being repaired by Madison the Mechanic (even though she was still fuming about not getting to visit the Midwest SD plant due to the intruder alerts), and all of the robots that had been controlled by Faceless’ Psycho Mantis simulator program were once again running at their highest possible efficiency.
Little did any of them know that the calm was mere seconds away from being shattered.
Vicki Lawson’s theory about the twelve Silicon Dynamics delivery trucks having been stolen by Faceless was a good one---and 90% true. He did steal the trucks…
….just not all twelve of them.
The twelfth truck had been registered as “missing” before he even got a chance to comandeer it; that same day, it was brought to him without a driver, and with the expected cargo of knockoff Daikoku NVX 0050s stored in the back, waiting for an activation signal that would free them to wreak havoc inside the Silicon Dynamics plant once they arrived.
There was one slight oddity regarding that final truck---the weight was just the slightest bit off near the center of the truck, underneath the storage compartment.
Had Faceless actually bothered to investigate the discrepency, he might not have made it to the plant at all.
Concealed beneath the truck was a shallow, coffin-like niche, just a little bit bigger than such a niche would have to be for a 5’5”, 110-pound female to fit in if she held her breath. Because the knockoff NVX 0050s were well over that height and weight limit, none of them would’ve been able to fit in the compartment---which made sense, really, considering it was never meant to hold one of them. Nor was it a standard feature on the trucks that had been sent to replace the stolen SD vehicles---again, a fact that makes perfect sense considering the truck wasn’t even from the same company as the other decoy trucks.
To put it simply: This truck was not part of Faceless’ plans.
Within the main storage compartment, sensors activated---another feature added by the truck’s actual owner, just to make sure that their cargo wasn’t deployed at the same time as the NVX 0050 knockoffs. For a full minute, readings of all kinds---air pressure, temperature, motion detection, seismic disturbances and even radiation levels---were taken, analyzed and acknowledged.
On the dot of the sixtieth second, the coffin-like niche in the floor opened.
An automatic, servo-propelled riser---the main reason the storage niche was just that much bigger than the being inside---ascended until it was level with the floor, bringing a black PVC bodybag up from the niche. As soon as the riser finished its ascent, the built-in sensors kicked in again, “painting” the bodybag with a series of infrared beams.
As the last beam played over the bag, a split appeared down the middle.
Hands---feminine, smooth, graceful hands---played at the edges of the newly-formed seam, pulling the bag apart gently rather than ripping it to pieces like some kind of savage beast. Slowly, the formerly-featureless surface of the bag split all the way down the middle. The entire garage was silent, save for the subtle, almost gentle sound of tearing from the bodybag, which lasted for exactly two minutes and twenty-five seconds. By the time the seam had run all the way down the middle, the bag looked almost like a futuristic sort of plant pod, with some exotic, undiscovered form of vegetation waiting to burst forth and overgrow anything and everything in its path.
To be honest, no alien plant would’ve been anywhere near as intriguing as what actually emerged.
Dark, almost walnut-brown hair cascaded to her shoulders, framing her face. Her eyes were a deep royal-blue that even the best geneticists could never hope to recreate naturally. Lips with just enough volume to toe the line of “pouty” without looking bloated, puffy or swollen framed a set of teeth that any dentist worth his salt would instantly classify as perfect.
Not surprisingly, the rest of her body was just as impossibly beautiful as her face.
Anyone who might have seen her emerging from the PVC bodybag would’ve struggled for at least a minute or so to figure out just what it was that made her so…..mesmerising? Enchanting? Hypnotic? All fine terms, but “scientifically designed to be attractive enough to warrant attention, yet ‘average’ enough to avoid getting too much attention” was the only real way to describe her---mainly because it was the absolute truth. No part of her was too curvy, too flat, too big, too small or too anything. Everything from her hair to her fingernails was literally calculated, measured and built to be as perfect as possible without looking perfect---and as seemingly impossible as it sounded, she was a complete success in that regard.
The gynoid emerged from the bodybag, her leather romper-suit, gloves and boots hugging every inch of her body below the neck. A quick scan of the garage revealed that no other individuals---human, android/gynoid or otherwise---were present, which was good; detection this early in the mission would not be tolerated, and her only recourse for such a failure would be….
She shook the thought away. The self-destruct built into her was meant purely as a last resort, when all other options had been exhausted.
After closing the delivery truck’s rear doors, the gynoid crossed the room to a computer terminal used by the maid robots who often cleaned up. A port opened on her torso just above her breasts, a trapezoid of honey-gold skin sliding clear as she pulled a cable from the base of the terminal. She drove the cable home with a quiet click, not even blinking as data appeared within her field of vision. Of particular interest was the day’s security camera footage---apparently, one Vicki Lawson had somehow routed an invading force of cheaply made Daikoku knockoffs, all of them poor imitations of the NVX 0050 series. The girl had also stood her ground against---
No.
Not “the girl”.
The footage proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Vicki Lawson was more than human. She shrugged off throwing knives to the hand without flinching. She lept over a flamethrower-weilding Cosmonaut with relative ease. She literally threw herself through the closed doors of an elevator as it plummeted to its doom.
“So….it is her…..”
After copying and saving the footage to her backup hard drive, the gynoid disconnected the cable from herself and returned it to its storage slot in the terminal’s base. She had heard about this Vicki Lawson from her superiors….supposedly, this was the girl who would change everything. She checked the date on the terminal; “December 19, 2010,” she murmured. “Not too early….and not too late.” She shut off the terminal and headed back to the delivery truck she’d emerged from, climbing into the driver’s seat this time. She would have to ditch the truck, obviously; the vehicle it had replaced had already been removed from the equation quite efficiently, and repeating the process with this truck wouldn’t be a problem unless she was unable to find another means of transport by the end of the day.
The gynoid looked around the garage again, fishing her ID card from the pocket of her pants; her serial number and “name”---MX-9950---blazed forth in bright blue. She tapped the card, causing the writing on the surface to ripple and pool until it read like a driver’s license under the name “Maxine Richards”.
“Max” sighed as she started the truck; it was going to be a long day.
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“Is she really ready for this?”
Oberon didn’t turn around to address the question. “You’ve asked me that five times already,” he replied with a smile, “and I’ve already told you….yes. She proved herself over the past few hours---“
“I wasn’t asking about the last few hours,” the Man in Grey shot back, wincing as he held a hand to his bandaged chest. “I’m asking about everything. She was never meant to be a fighter…if her reflexes had been off at any time, even by a fraction of a second, this whole thing could’ve escalated beyond the ALPA’s control…..for all we know, it could have turned into another Bloody Valentine---“
“Don’t you DARE,” Oberon snarled, no longer smiling as he turned to glare at the Man. “Don’t you dare try to make some sort of half-arsed comparison between what happened here and the Valentine incident.”
“There’s no comparison to be made,” Calista Swanson cut in. “The Valentine incident was nothing like this, and Vicki Lawson certainly wasn’t trying to---“ Oberon raised a clenched fist into the air, and Calista stopped talking; she knew all too well that talking about the Valentine incident was a sore point with him, and any mention of it was liable to send him into an inconsolable, fuming rage. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, watching as Oberon lowered his fist. “I…forgot that you……never mind.”
“Indeed,” Oberon muttered, calming down significantly. “Let’s just forget it was ever mentioned.”
After a few tense seconds of silence, Calista and the Man in Grey joined Oberon as he stared out over the ALPA Central Command courtyard; the view from the 50th floor balcony was one he often enjoyed on those occasions where he felt like meditating or just taking a break from the daily grind.
“Calista,” Oberon murmured, “d’you really think Vicki Lawson is ALPA Field Agent material?”
“Yes,” Calista replied without hesitating. “I’m not going to bother with the ‘above and beyond’ clichés, or any of the usual BS that the front office tends to throw around in these occasions. She didn’t have to pursue that Prius when it left Tell’s house….but she did. She didn’t have to keep going after that first elevator drop…but she did. She---“
“I think we get the point,” the Man in Grey muttered.
Oberon allowed a grin to play at his features. “And what of you, my loyal apprentice? You intervened to save her life three times---the last time, unseen…..was it worth it?” The Man’s face contorted into a frown behind his mask, but his voice was calm. “I’ll be the first to admit that Vicki’s methods were…unconventional, at best. That being said, she got the job done without causing millions of dollars in property damage or sustaining any casualties. Those two facts by themselves are enough to warrant her promotion to field agent.”
“Indeed they are,” Oberon agreed, chuckling. “Little Miss Sunshine kept the clouds away after all….”
Calista smiled at the remark, resting her arms on the balcony as she took in the view. The Man in Grey chose to hang back, ignoring the puerile quip. “She succeeded this time because she had help,” he reminded Oberon. “The true mark of a field agent’s talent is whether or not they can function without any aid during a crisis…her reaction to the temporary failure of her communications uplink---“
“---was reflexive,” Oberon declared. “End of discussion…at least, as far as Vicki’s impending promotion is concerned. Now….I need to go make a phone call.” As Oberon left, the Man in Grey stared at the view below. He already knew, as Oberon did, that Vicki was more than qualified to be an ALPA field agent, and her latest triumph was perfect evidence of this. If anything, her actions at the Silicon Dynamics plant should’ve landed her a field-agent license as soon as ALPA representatives reached the facility; everything she had done was more than just textbook---she had reacted perfectly. Still, the Man in Grey had one question:
Why does it feel like giving her a field agent license would be a huge mistake?
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The Maestro laid back on the custom-designed bed that had been installed in his cell, sighing as he stared at what was once a fully-functioning portable hard drive. “Typical,” he chuckled, “just bleeding typical. The data transfer was at 95%, and the damn thing fries itself.” He exhaled, shaking his head. “Absolutely useless….”
Unlike most of the inmates in the penitentiary he’d been spending every day of his adult life in, the Maestro was actually proud of his new accomodations. A succession of easily-corrupted wardens, promises of “extra income” and the occasional threat had netted him enough anemities to make the 30-foot-square cell (which, in and of itself, was an example of his influence---it had originally been 15 by 15 feet and stank like a sewer) seem like a hotel room. The bed for instance, had a hand-carved mahogany frame with only the finest silk sheets, memory-foam mattresses and goose-down pillows---no boxsprings, lumpy bedmats and mold-stained pillows for him. A bookshelf across the room held a collection of computer-related literature (as well as one of his many hidden caches of contraband electronics), and he was even allowed access to satellite TV, his own private bathroom (always under the watchful eye of an armed guard) and a private table in the officers’ mess hall (where the guards and warden ate their lunch), with meals prepared by an executive chef.
Of course, there were some prices he still had to pay.
The portable hard drive, for instance, wasn’t his preferred kind---he’d requested a top-of-the-line, two-terabyte drive with a full WiFi suite and all the necessary anti-hacking measures to make sure his hacking wasn’t hacked by some enterprising young Turk with time to kill. What he got was a 900-gig, one-year old drive with 50 gigs worth of games and music already stored on it---a solid drive, to be sure, but not what he’d asked for.
And, of course, there was the matter of it bursting into flame before the data transfer could finish….
A loud clang on his cell door interrupted the Maestro’s reverie; a guard was holding a cellphone through the bars. “Phone call,” he grunted. “Really? A phone call, for me?” the Maestro gasped, feigning surprise as he accepted the phone. In truth, he’d been expecting the call ever since the hard drive he’d requested had been reduced to a lumpy pile of plastic on the floor. “Make it quick,” the guard muttered, stomping off to go yell at those inmates who didn’t have enough “friends in high places” to turn the entire prison system on its head if anyone so much as breathed funny.
With a flourish, the Maestro held the phone to his ear. “Hallo, you’ve reached the Maestro,” he declared, “the world’s most notorious master of electronic disaster and---“
“Save it.”
The ragged, near-whispering voice on the other end of the line did nothing to slow the criminal mastermind down. “Faceless, you old twonk!” he beamed. “How’ve ya been!”
“You…..nearly ruined me….with those…..damned syringes….”
“Ah, the LSD, yeah,” the Maestro mused, nodding thoughtfully. “And how’d the fight go---“
“I NEARLY DIED!”
The smile vanished from the Maestro’s face. “You…..what?” he asked, a fearful pallor creaping over him.
“Vicki Lawson nearly killed me because of your damned ‘cure-alls’….I was barely able to fight my way out of the ambulance when I woke up!”
“And you expect me to care about this…..why?” the Maestro drawled, his brief spasm of fear draining as quickly as it had come. Pissing off Faceless was one of the few joys he got out of prison life….that, and getting guards fired for little things like “tax fraud” or “illegal citizenship”.
“I expect you to care because MY PLANS ARE NOW OFFICIALLY RUINED!”
“I don’t give a toss about ‘your’ plans,” the Maestro shot back. “I lost a whole hard drive---I could’ve had Silicon Dynamics eating out of my hand if that cut-rate piece of crap you sent me hadn’t pulled an Icarus!”
The only sound on the other end of the line was Faceless’ ragged breathing. “Look,” the Maestro offered, “I’ll have one of my people pick you up and bring you to hospital….even though you technically sank both our plans, I’m willing to do that much for a fellow psychotic genius. After that, I can pull a few strings, get a cab to take you back to your estate---“
“I DON’T WANT YOUR HELP!” Faceless’ voice screamed, nearly blowing out the cellphone’s speaker.
“What the sodding hell do you want, then?!” the Maestro snarled. “I’ve got a schedule to keep---“
“All I want,” Faceless hissed, “is for Vicki Lawson to meet her fate by my blades.” He chuckled darkly. “She’s the sixth person to ever defeat me in a fair fight, Hannsen---“
“DO NOT use my name on an unsecured line!” the Maestro hissed. “How many damn times have I told you---“
The line went dead.
Matthew Hannsen---the Maestro---stared at the phone in his hand as if it were a dog turd. “Useless idiot,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I dunno what the Baron sees in that whackjob…he’s even worse than Bradford.” He glanced at the door of his cell, his annoyed scowl turning into a grin; the guard wouldn’t be returning to pick up the cellphone for another thirty mintues….. “All the time I need,” Matthew murmured, grinning sadistically as he pulled a toolkit out from under his bed. Within seconds, he had pried the cellphone apart and replaced the circuit board; by the time he was done, the phone’s speaker was a permanently-switched on microphone.
“All the better to blackmail the hell out of this place,” he beamed, reaching for the TV remote. “Let’s see what’s on the Beeb….”
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Within the Nighttime Campground 2 scenario chamber, Mary the Catholic Schoolgirl and Camp Counselor Julie watched as a new boat was brought into the lake. “Y’know,” Mary mused, “that Vicki Lawson girl was pretty cool…I mean, did you see the security footage of her in the showroom, beating the hell out of that masked weirdo?”
“She didn’t just beat him,” Julie corrected, “she pulverized him!”
Mary nodded in agreement. “He had it coming,” she stated. “Personally, I would’ve kicked him right in the groin and watched him cough up his nuts---and before you ask about ‘plan b’, something tells me that my usual approach wouldn’t have worked on him. He was just…..” She shivered. “There was something wrong with that guy,” she muttered. “
“Yeah,” Julie agreed. “Still, it sucks that Vicki had to leave…..”
“Maybe she’ll come back one day,” Mary offered. “Who knows? She might bring her brother next time!”
A yell from the opposite shore caught the robots’ attention---one of the cheerleaders was about to do a “Tarzan swing” into the lake. “This, I have to see,” Mary drawled, grinning. Seven seconds later, a burst of water erupted from the lake as the cheer-bot let go of the rope, dropping in with a massive splash only to resurface a few seconds later with a mile-wide grin.
“It was nice of Madame to let us have the rest of the day to ourselves,” Julie mused. “Of course, we’ll all have to go back to our usual routines tomorrow…which is going to be boring after what happened yesterday….I mean, since when has anything that interesting happened here?!”
“Jules,” Mary replied with a grin, “I don’t think this place is going to stop being interesting any time soon…”
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While most would’ve assumed that Alicia was staring at the night sky to watch the stars, the truth of the matter was simple: She didn’t want to turn around to see who was behind her.
“Jake’s finished his part of the mission,” her own voice informed her, “and we, ah….sealed the deal already, in terms of me being with him….” Alicia turned to look over her shoulder, not the least bit surprised to see herself---in a black and white spandex outfit----standing behind her. “He wanted to do that whole ‘binding’ thing with me, and---“
“Save it,” Alicia 1 muttered. “I’m in enough trouble as it is thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me?!” Alicia 2 shot back. “WE’RE THE SAME DAMN GYNOID! You only activated me because you didn’t think this would be a one-woman show, and now Jake freaking Brytestar himself---“
Alicia grabbed her other self by the collar; “Shut up,” she hissed. “I don’t want to hear another damn word about Jake Brytestar, or the gynoids he took from the Silicon Dynamics facility---I’ve had to make up at least five different stories to explain why they’re missing as it is!” She let go of the spandex outfit her other self was wearing, glaring at her twin with an angry scowl. “The only reason I got Brytestar involved was because I knew something was going to happen at Silicon Dynamics,” she muttered. “And, for the record, I already know your whole side of the story---shared memory, and all that crap.”
“Then, you know about McMire?” Alicia 2 asked quietly as Alicia 1 turned to leave.
The mention of the name stopped the gynoid in her tracks. “What?!”
“McMire made Jake an offer,” Alicia 2 explained. “There’s this gynoid---“
“He didn’t accept,” Alicia 1 muttered, turning to face her twin with a pleading look in her eyes. “TELL ME he didn’t accept it!”
“He…..did,” Alicia 2 squeaked.
The two Alicias stared at each other---one shocked, the other apologetic.
“I….I tried to warn him,” Alicia 2 admitted, “but then we kinda sorta maybe….y’know…..did stuff….and then he wanted me to tell him more about myself---“
“Tell him MORE?!” Alicia 1 thundered. “What the hell did you already tell him?!”
“I….told him about the First Rule,” Alicia 2 replied quietly. “About how there can only be two of us active at once……” She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “I…also told him that my…employers, for lack of a better term, are also my family---WAIT! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?!”
“Back to the House,” Alicia 1 replied. “You’ve screwed up, and now we’re all in deep----“
“All in deep what, Alicia?”
The two Alicias turned to see Anton Malvineous striding towards them, looking rather unperturbed. “Anton,” Alicia 1 breathed, “you can’t let anyone else know about this---“ “Tell sort of knows already,” Alicia 2 admitted, “because we brought some of the SD gynoids to his shop for repairs---“ “WHAT?!” Alicia 1 shouted. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”
“Alicia,” Anton warned, “enough. We can sort this issue out later….April and Brie are handling a very important case, and the House can’t afford to waste anymore resources on this….”
“Tell him what else happened,” Alicia 1 ordered Alicia 2.
“Jake, ah, sort of accepted a mission from McMire,” the gynoid admitted, “and I….kind of got dragged into it.”
Anton sighed. “I should’ve expected this,” he muttered. “Neither of you are in any trouble,” he informed both Alicias, “but you can expect the Directors to hear about this. I’m guessing the Alicia working the door at the City is still at her post?” The Alicias nodded. “Good,” Anton replied. “If she’d slipped her moorings, we’d all be in trouble.”
“She won’t ‘slip her moorings’ any time soon,” Alicia 1 assured him. “She’s programmed to stay at the City.”
“Seeing as how I’m the one who installed that programming in her,” Anton replied, “it’s not exactly that much of a surprise…” He allowed the sentence to trail off as another figure approached---this one, a 5’9” blonde in a pink/white dual layer tank top, fuscia jeans, white socks and sneakers approached; her face wasn’t the same as the two Alicias’, but something about her presence suggested that she shared a manufacturer with them. “The arrangements have been made,” she informed Alicia 2 in a soothing voice that sounded younger than she looked. “Your flight for Green Bay leaves in two days.”
“Good,” Alicia 2 replied. “And…Jake?”
“His team has reserved rooms at a hotel for tonight and tomorrow night,” the gynoid continued, “to allow them time to order extra supplies for the assignment.”
“Thanks for the info, Monique,” Alicia 2 stated, handing the gynoid a purse. “And….here’s your new mission, direct from the House.” Monique accepted the purse and stared at it for a full minute before nodding. “Does she know that you have acquired this for me?” she asked Alicia 2.
“If she did,” Alicia 1 replied, “we’d all be space heaters right now.”
Anton glanced at his watch; “As much as I’d like to stay and chat,” he admitted, “I’ve got tons of work to get back to---MG Cybernetics is putting the finishing touches on Sophie Starlet’s band, and I promised her I’d be there for the unveiling…of course, that comes after the halfway house project.” He glanced at Alicia 1; “Think Vicki would enjoy working there?”
Both Alicias gave him a knowing grin. “Definitely,” they replied.
“Glad to see you’re back on the same page,” Anton chuckled. “As for you two being in deep….whatever it was you were going to say, rest assured that the House won’t know about this. Being one of the founders does have its advantages, after all…” He winked.
“I always did wonder how he was able to start up the House,” Alicia 2 admitted. “Single guy with a talent for robotics heads up a gynoid-run order for androids and gynoids….mostly gynoids, really---“
“We get the point,” Alicia 1 drawled.
“Good,” Anton mused, “because I really do have to go. I’ll catch up with you…well, one of you later,” he added, grinning as he turned and left the Alicias to their conversation; both gynoids noticed (with the barest hints of amusement) that he was whistling Gowan’s hit “(You’re a) Strange Animal” as he walked away.
“Well,” Alicia 1 muttered, “I guess that’s that.”
“Guess so,” Alicia 2 replied quietly.
The two stared at each other for a few seconds before engaging in a brief, wordless embrace. After exactly 30 seconds, the two pulled apart and went their separate ways.
Each one knew that she wouldn’t see her other self again.
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“You know,” the Accountant muttered, “the Baron’s going to want an explanation for what happened back at the factory. Repairing an enemy agent, letting her escape without so much as planting a bug on her, letting Faceless get away again---hell, we didn’t even take sample the wares or ‘borrow’ some of the merchandise on the way out!”
“From what I understand, someone else already absconded with a fair share of the ‘merchandise’,” James Harrington replied. “As for ‘sampling the wares’, that’s not in the job description.”
The Accountant smirked. “Some might say the ‘job description’ needs a good rewrite,” he mused.
“Not my department,” Harrington chuckled. “You should be more worried about this…” He removed a device from his pocket and handed it to the Accountant; “It switched on ten minutes after we left the factory,” he explained, “and I checked it to make sure it wasn’t just bugging out on me….”
“If this is a glitch,” the Accountant replied, “then it’s the worst damn bug I’ve seen in years….
Harrington tapped on the glass separating the passengers’ area of the limo from the driver’s seat; “We need to get a bead on this signal,” he informed the driver.
“Not a problem, sir,” the uniformed chauffeur replied; he flicked a switch beneath the dashboard, and a whole layer of the limo’s roof retracted to reveal WiFi signal-boosting panels. “Better?” the chauffeur asked.
“Definitely.” Harrington returned his attention to the signal tracker; “It’s not ALPA, and it’s definitely not local,” he muttered. “Even more interesting, it kicked on around the time the Maestro’s connection to the plant was severed---and was transmitting the exact same data he was about to download before that external hard drive he was using went kaput.”
“You’re saying someone out-hacked The Maestro?” the Accountant replied.
“I’m saying that whoever activated that transmission now has exactly what the Maestro was after in the first place,” Harrington corrected. “None of the independents have enough pull to even think of trying something like this….” He leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingers, frowning as he reflected on the various happenings. “I think a new player has just entered the game.”
The Accountant frowned; “What makes you think it’s a new player?”
“Nobody else would have the balls to try something like this,” Harrington replied. “And before you even think of mentioning it, McMire’s already occupied---he’s extended an offer to Brytestar and some blonde regarding the procurement of that nice little doll from Venus Industries….” He smiled. “The same doll, in fact, that I paid good money for a few months ago and had specially programmed to take him out. He thinks it’s going to be easy---“
“And it will be.”
Harrington and the Accountant nearly fell over each other; the in-car speakerphone had kicked on. “Did you really expect me to let something like this go so easily?” the digitally-altered voice of McMire taunted from the speaker. “Mr. Brytestar and his allies will be heading to Green Bay to procure the…’doll’ you spoke of in two days’ time, and unless you want to find yourselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit, you should order all of your men in the Green Bay area to give them full clearance wherever they go.”
“You’re in no position to give any orders, McMire,” the Accountant stated. “Any and all authority you had over Coalition personnel was nullified when you cut your ties with us two years ago, and there is no way in Hell we’re going to jump when you tell us to---“
“And yet,” McMire mused, “here you are at my beck and call.”
“That’s a lot of tough talk from someone who refuses to be seen in public without an army of bodyguards and flunkies,” Harrington countered. “Maybe we should meet face-to-face and hash something out---“
“Not a chance, Stinger. I still remember how you obtained your nickname. Speaking of which….”
A sharp ripping sound split the air, seconds before the limo spun out. “We’ve lost all four tires!” the chauffeur shouted, nearly tearing the wheel off the steering column as he fought to regain control of the vehicle. “Get it to the side!” Harrington commanded; the chauffeur nodded, barely managing to steer the crippled vehicle to the side of the road.
“As you can see, Chairman,” McMire continued, “I still have quite a bit of authority…even if it only extends to your pathetic vehicles. Your assassin gynoid will be added to my collection, and her programming will be swapped out to fulfill her new duties…..as for the three of you, I suggest you find a reputable auto-shop to repair your vehicle. Goodbye…”
The phone clicked off.
Harrington chuckled despite himself. “I’ll say this about McMire,” he admitted, “he’s more than earned the nickname everyone seems to use for him….I’ve never met anyone else worthy of the title ‘Grand Intellect’.”
“He’s just as bad as Rengold used to be,” the Accountant muttered. “The only difference between them is that McMire is still technically sane, whereas Rengold refuses to adhere to anything remotely resembling normal behavior.” He shook his head; “We should’ve killed them both when we had the chance.”
“Killing people isn’t our game,” Harrington reminded his associate. “Anyways, that’s not what we need to worry about right now….we need to get this car to a decent garage…”
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“Seven gynoids taken from this facility, their personality cores copied by an unknown individual….I thought the only problems I had to endure were caused by the Maestro and that abominable cohort of his.” Madame had just gone through the security logs of the last 24 hours, and she was not happy---there were significant lapses in her memory of events that added up to only one possible (and very bad) scenario: Someone else was in the facility along with Vicki, the investigators and that infernal psychopath, Faceless.
“The ALPA only sent one operative to the facility,” Oberon assured her from his private offices at the ALPA headquarters, “and as you yourself have noted, her actions kept this building from descending further into whatever hell Faceless intended to unleash upon it.”
“I have not forgotten Miss Lawson’s commendable work,” Madame admitted, “but these lapses in security are troubling….several of them occurred on levels Vicki had already visited, and at least three levels she did not pass through at all suffered blackouts as well!”
“We’ll figure it out,” Oberon assured her. “We’ll find out who did this…and you have my guarantee that they will be punished.”
“I assume Miss Lawson will be deployed against them?” Madame mused. “If anyone is qualified to bring these miscreants to justice, she is.”
“Actually,” Oberon replied, “I have a somewhat different idea in mind…” He smiled as the image on the screen winked out; “Methinks it’s time to bring someone new into the game,” he murmured, his chair pivoting to allow him access to another screen. “Hopefully, she’s not doing anything too important right now….” He pressed down on the tablet-like controls with both hands, focusing…..
“Always when I’m in the middle of something….what’s the problem this time?”
Oberon smiled. “The kind of problem best solved by someone like you.”
“Already dipping into the flattery? I’m touched….it’s about the Silicon Dynamics thing, isn’t it?”
“You catch on quick! Yes, it is, as you said, about ‘the Silicon Dynamics thing’…” His smile faded. “Several of their gynoids were removed from the building with copied personality/memory cores, and the ALPA hasn’t the faintest idea of who it could be---“
“And you want me to track them down….what a surprise. You do realize this is going to---“
“I’ll make sure that everything remains as it currently is while you’re doing what you do best.”
“Fair enough. Oh, and one more thing….when are you going to drop the Oberon name again and go back to your old one?”
“As soon as you get back from this mission,” Oberon replied with a chuckle.
“Then I guess I’d better quit wasting time---send me the info in an hour, and I’ll be on my way.”
“Not a problem.” A pause…. “It’s nice to hear your voice again, Galatea.”
“The feeling’s mutual…’Oberon’.” The screen winked out, leaving the man called Oberon in darkness.
“You didn’t tell her the full truth, did you?”
“No, Tell, I didn’t.” Oberon didn’t bother to turn the chair around. “I already know that Alicia 2 visited your shop with the Silicon Dynamics gynoids---you should be thankful that I haven’t allowed the security footage of that to fall into the hands of the ALPA enforcement division, by the way---and that those same gynoids are currently in the company of one Jake Brytestar….” He sighed; “You could’ve told me beforehand that you’d contacted him, by the way.”
“So that’s it?” Tell replied. “A warning and a slap on the wrist?”
“That’s all I can afford to dole out right now,” Oberon admitted. “Sending Galatea out to confront Brtyestar and Alicia 2 isn’t exactly low-key, you know…this entire thing is a saber dance. One wrong move, and the blood starts flying.”
“Don’t remind me,” Tell muttered. “If you knew about Jake and Alicia 2, though, why didn’t you stop them?”
Oberon’s reply sent chills down the mechanic’s spine: “The one who’s going to stop them will be a lot less forgiving than I’ve been….and I already know which one of them won’t be coming back.”
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The Silicon Dynamics mission had ended, and everyone involved already had their own views on how things turned out. The ALPA saw Vicki's intervention as a successful, eleventh-hour save against what could have been a massive catastrophe; the Coalition regretted having to meddle in the affairs of an ALPA-based company, but knew that they had saved face by clearing their names.
None of them had any idea that the events they had taken part in would change the course of human/android interactions for years to come...
...for better, or for worse
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(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Well, that about wraps it up for “Metal Gear Vicki”---125 pages is enough, right? XD Anyways, keep an eye out for “The Family of Steel”, coming next month to Fembot Central. Take care!)
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