Writing As We Go, Chapter 18

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Writing As We Go, Chapter 18

Post by DukeNukem 2417 » Sun Oct 16, 2022 9:25 am

Lloyd felt exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure as he made his way through the changing rooms set up in the parade staging area. For whatever reason, a lot of the entertainment on offer for the parade had been impersonators of various celebrities or bands—a band in full Rolling Stones gear, Abe's Beach Boys tribute, one band that played Christmas standards in the style of death metal, and a few other impersonators of individual singers. Diana's act, oddly, had been the only one not aping the style or sound of one particular celebrity. Yes, she'd covered the Mariah Carey version of “All I Want for Christmas is You”, but her set-list had contained a few originals, as well.

The parade, clearly, had been a smashing success. Now, all that remained was to de-Elvis and head home.

The ersatz Stones were still carrying on “in-character” in the staging area, the lead singer going on a spiel in the style of Mick Jagger. He and his bandmates, as well as a few other performers, paused to give Lloyd a round of applause, back-slaps and general praise for his Elvis impersonation skills. It was a bit surreal to be congratulated while still in costume, by those still in costume—especially a few of the more fantastically-attired cosplayers—but Lloyd kept his head high, giving thumbs-ups and doing his best to not trip over “thankyouverymuch” every time he spoke it.

Amidst the congratulations and cheers was a lone downside: Diana hadn't reached the staging area yet.

For a moment, Lloyd was concerned about Diana's absence. Given her earlier SafeSense-fueled “panic attack”, it was entirely possible that she'd gone into some kind of self-preservation mode, after leaving the float—

—except a quick look across the staging area gave Lloyd a glimpse of familiar blonde ringlet curls, the velvet jacket done up with white faux-fur trim. She'd made it, after all.

With a nod, Lloyd headed for the changing areas. It wouldn't take too long to get out of the gold lamé suit.
-----
She'd done it. Against all odds, she'd actually done it.

Nobody had bothered to question the sight of a “NonSen” in janitorial gear heading down the street towards the staging area. Her hair redone to hide her face, the borrowed cap low on her brow—both tricks did wonders to keep her from being spotted and spoiling the game early. In a few minutes, she'd have Lloyd what's-his-name where she wanted him.

Lexi didn't grin—that'd spoil the game, too. This had to be done quickly. Carefully.

She entered through a cordon off to the side, from North 34th Street. Her pace, her every move, was a near-parody of the NonSen she'd wrecked in the bathroom earlier—eyes forward, movements stiff (but not too stiff). She even brushed past a few of the idiots in their stupid costumes, as if unable to work out the presence of living obstacles on what was supposed to be a pre-programmed path.

A flash of gold lamé caught her attention—the meat was on the move.

With the deliberate, graceless motions of a NonSen, she turned, heading towards the cordoned-off changing areas for the performers. There were no shouts for anyone to stop her, no demands of “who let a NonSen in here?”; she wasn't even the only janitorial 'bot in the staging area. Three others were on standby near the proper entrance; a fourth was being repaired off to the side.

Lexi neither knew nor cared what had caused the damage. Her only regret was at not having done it herself.

Out of sight of the performers, Lexi's usual vivacity crept back into her movements. The meat was actually humming, as he changed out of his costume—some song from that idiot he'd dressed up as. With any luck, he wouldn't hear her part the curtain—a curtain! Not a door with creaky hinges, but a curtain!

As her hand gripped the edge of the curtain, Lexi grinned. Sometimes, this job was too easy.
-----
“Love me tender, love me sweet...” Lloyd hummed the rest of the line as he shrugged off the jacket he'd been wearing, thankful that his uncle hadn't decided to give him a replica of Elvis's leather suit from the 1968 comeback special. “You have made my life complete...da da da da da.” He chuckled as he carefully hung the jacket on the hanger nearby, failing to notice the shadow growing larger on the wall. “Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfil—”

Arms wrapped around him, holding him close. “Diana!” he gasped, his shock giving way to amusement. “You could've waited until after I finished—”

A throaty chuckle, very unlike Diana's voice, sounded in his ear.

His mind swam, hoping that his next guess would be the right one: “Mandy?”

Nails raked his back; a sweet smell wafted over from near his right ear: “Who the fuck is Mandy?”

The thought had just crossed his mind to cry out when a hand clamped over his mouth, the other spinning him around to behold his “visitor”. The face that greeted him with a lascivious smile was the same one plastered on SIGN-posts all over Billings—the same one Officer Sierra Birch had shown him the previous Saturday. It was as if he were looking at a distorted reflection of Diana. The round cheeks, the gently curved jawline, the pert nose, the thin brows, the blonde hair, the stunning eyes—they were all there, but something was different, ever so slightly off about this intruder.

“Who—”

Lloyd barely had time to breathe in before the blonde grabbed both sides of his head and pressed her lips to his, almost smothering him in a French kiss. Her tongue slithered onto his, her hands searching lower and lower—on his neck, then his shoulders, his torso. The blonde pulled away, licking her smiling lips. “You sing like him,” she purred, “and you can shake those hips like him—I wonder if you can fuck like him?”

“I—”

Again, Lloyd had to breathe in before the blonde dove at him, her lips attacking his. One hand continued to travel lower, towards the waistband of his pants; the other went higher again, stopping at his neck—the fingers right on the carotid artery. Again, the blonde pulled back, seeming to savour the fear in his eyes. “I've been watching you,” she murmured, “since the Rimrock.”

The faintest hint of recognition hit Lloyd like a cold sweat. He thought back to the feeling in his stomach, right before he suggested to Diana that they leave.

“Saw your truck at the Bjorgum car park,” the blonde continued, leaning in to nibble at his ear. “Missed you, that time.”

Again, another flash of recognition: the poor sod chased out of the lot, found kicked to death hours later.

“Now,” the blonde whispered, “it's just you and me.” Her fingers dug into Lloyd's neck—her other hand now tightening around something far more intimate. “Just like I've been waiting for.”

Lloyd felt the blonde's fingernails bite into his neck, drawing blood. She'd effectively pinned him against the back wall, crushing him into it with her body. “I'm gonna enjoy this,” she breathed. “Maybe you will, too.” Her left hand moved, slowly, working what she'd seized upon; the fingers of her right hand splayed, getting a better grip on the flesh of Lloyd's neck. “And maybe,” she purred, “we'll both get what we want.”

The thought of saying that he wanted her to let him go occurred to Lloyd, but never found its way past his lips.

“Just relax,” the blonde whispered. “Relax.”

Part of Lloyd's brain wanted to follow the order. Wanted to relax—go limp, even, as the blonde's left hand worked him, and just let this bizarre encounter take him wherever it might. Nobody else had to know, after all.

The rest of Lloyd's brain, on the other hand, was screaming. Every neuron firing, the fight-or-flight instinct taking hold and kicking into overdrive. This blonde was the one who'd tried to take Diana, who'd broken into Bobby Pariello's house the week before—who'd bricked two sentients. And now, here she was, trying to what? Seduce him? Kill him?

The blonde, whoever she was, was bad news. More than that, she was dangerous.

Lloyd's left hand briefly brushed up against his pants—not to assist the blonde in her ministrations, but to reach for the Smith & Wesson he'd stowed there. He'd always kept a deactivator in his left pocket, back at the shop, after all—

He felt himself being lifted, slammed into the side wall of the changing area.

“Now why'd you have to go and do a thing like that?” the blonde teased, leaning in again. Her tongue snaked out from behind her lips, briefly probing Lloyd's mouth. A low, throaty laugh issued from the blonde; she leaned in, anticipating the kiss—

Without thinking, Lloyd bit down.

He expected a shout of pain, maybe some kind of hint of blood from having tried to bite his “visitor's” tongue. What he got was a stare that blended amusement and fury. The blonde's tongue seemed to dart back, like a lizard, as she stared at him. “Really.” There was no slurring to her speech, no hint that his involuntary action had injured her. Her left hand dipped lower, gripped harder; Lloyd groaned, on the precipice of both shouting in pain and—

“Come on,” the blonde chuckled. “Did you really think you'd get anything done with a little bite like that?

Lloyd's head was swimming. The simultaneous feelings of immense pain and a dizzying release were upon him, and it was hard to fathom where the line between the two might be found. He found himself biting his own lip, if only to give himself something to focus on.

“You want this,” the blonde murmured. “It'd be best for both of us if you just accept that, go with it.” Again, her left hand began caressing, fondling, working. Her right was now on Lloyd's shoulder, the arm draped around as if to embrace a lover. “We're both getting something out of this, in the end.”

The thought of yelling, of doing anything to call for help, occurred to Lloyd just as he felt the blonde grab his shoulder.

Just enjoy it,” she whispered—her words carrying the not-so-vague hint of a threat as to what might happen if he chose not to give in. “You want to enjoy it, right?”

Again, part of Lloyd's mind wanted, needed to accept this “offer”

The rest of his mind was screaming at him to shove the blonde away, get as far as possible and not look back.

“The silence says it all.” With another grin, the blonde moved to engulf Lloyd with another kiss.

“—is going on in here?! Save it for when you get home, will ya?!”

The drawl of the Mick Jagger impersonator from outside cut into Lloyd's thoughts; if he could just cry out, hit the wall or do something—

Without looking back, the blonde swept her right hand over her shoulder. .

Seconds later: “AARRAGHHHH! FUCK! MY FACE! SHE JUST—WHAT THE FUCK?!” Any trace of a Jagger-esque accent from the singer outside had vanished, his pained cries sounding distinctly American. “MY FACE, SHE JUST—SHE THREW SOMETHING AT MY FACE!”

The hand that had snaked down Lloyd's pants withdrew, releasing its death grip. “Fuck,” the blonde growled. “Every single time, something goes tits-up.” Without another word, she turned to leave—only to spin on one heel and smash a fist into Lloyd's stomach. He collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath as the blonde bolted out—tearing off her janitor's uniform in the process.

Footsteps from the other side of the changing area cordon barely registered with Lloyd; he was still fighting to get his breath back. He reached for anything he could use to pull himself up, just as two other ersatz Stones pulled the curtain away. “The fuck happened in here?”

Lloyd managed to meet the faux-Keith's stare. “She...ran,” he gasped. “Tried to...” His explanation ended in a cough.

The would-be Charlie Watts helped him to his feet, while faux-Keith tended to the wounded Jagger impersonator just outside of the changing room. “Get the cops,” he called out. “And a doctor,” he quickly added—the cuts on the downed singer's face were beginning to sizzle.
-----
Just got a call, Tommy—something's going on in the staging area!

“On my way.” Still in full Billings Police Department uniform, Detective Logan headed for the parade's staging area—he had been tracking the two from the “farm” and their smartly-dressed associate, but if Lexi had actually found a way to breach the staging area, whatever she was doing took precedence. “How bad?”

Two down—one with injuries to the face, and one knocked to the floor, out of breath.”

“That's all she did?”

The one on the floor was Lloyd Watson—still in most of his Elvis getup. Says his 'visitor' got on him from the get-go and didn't give him any room to move.”

Sierra's description of Lexi's tactics earned a scowl from the detective. “Tell me they at least spotted her leaving.”

Gimme a sec.

Detective Logan did his best to ignore the truck speeding past on 4th Avenue North, despite knowing that it held the two “farm” owners and their blonde associate. His stare was focused on his surroundings as he walked; he knew full well that the ones he'd been trailing had probably caught a glimpse of him by now, but he couldn't afford to follow them. Lexi was the priority target—anything she was up to was more deserving of his attention.

Eyewitness reports say she's heading south, possibly towards Turing Avenue.”

The detective scowled; the street in question—once known as Montana Avenue, until Jefferson was ratified as a new state—was just beyond the parade grounds. “Any chance we can head her off before she gets there?”

That's a negative, Tommy—the police are still maintaining security along the parade route and the exits.

“Then get ours on her, and make damn sure they don't lose her. I'll be at the staging area in five—and Sierra.” Tommy sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Get the Blanks on her. Just two.”

On it.
-----
No longer constrained by the need to act like a NonSen, Lexi let loose with a cackle as she raced up the stairs. She didn't know—or care—which building she'd just ducked into; nobody had seen the naked gynoid crash through the door and hurl herself at the staircase, which gave her at least a bit more time to think of what to do next.

Cops were already swarming into the staging area. An ambulance had rolled up; clearly, the idiot dressed up like Jagger had only just begun to feel the secondary effects of getting sliced. Lexi frowned for a moment, even as she bolted through the upper-most floor; she hadn't had the time to prepare the same brew she'd injected that CAEDIA officer with in the neck, on Saturday. She'd only had time to load up with the acid nails—and even that was a last-minute decision.

There were, thankfully, plenty of clothing options to choose from in...whatever this was. A house, a storage area for a clothing boutique—it was impossible to tell. Not that Lexi cared. She just grabbed whatever looked like it'd fit, put it on and headed for the window.

“SECURE THE PERIMETER!”

The shouted three words from downstairs put paid to any thoughts of hiding out. Lexi scowled; Tommy (who else?) must've called his friends to get in and keep her from escaping. Yes, she could get to the roof, but from there—

A door was kicked in on the second floor, the intrusion met with silence.

Lexi knew that she had no way of getting past CAEDIA and the police if she headed for the roof. In her current state, she only had the acid nails on her other hand and maybe two throwing spikes in each arm—good for wounding and maybe a bit of disarming, but not much else. There was little in the way of actual weaponry scattered around to help her—

Her targeting software locked in on a nearby table. Right in plain view was a pair of scissors—sewing shears, at that. A pincushion lay nearby; the briefest thought about the place being used by a seamstress or costumer occurred, and was quickly dismissed. In a pinch, she could've used the tools for their intended purposes, but her digital mind was already brimming with possibilities as to how these humble implements could give her more of an edge against the oncoming storm that was CAEDIA.

A twisted smile crossed her features. She bolted for the shears and grabbed them.

As if on cue, a door at the far side of the room flew open.

The CAEDIA Operatives storming into the room never saw Lexi through the shattered ruins of a door, just off to the right of the table she'd grabbed the shears from. Never caught the last, fading notes of her giggling, or heard the scraping of wood splinters against her synthetic flesh and borrowed clothing. Never saw what she'd taken from the table, or knew how she planned to use her new acquisitions against them.

As one, the Operatives filed through the room, SCEMP-loaded rifles and sidearms pointing this way and that. Bringing up the rear of the group were two figures kitted out in form-fitting armour, with form-fitting, full-face visors to match. No eyeholes, nostrils or approximations of any facial features broke up the uniform surfaces of their gleaming masks, so well-fitted that an observer might not have been able to tell where the mask ended and where their head began. It was similarly impossible to detect whether or not these two were human or android. Age, gender, ethnicity—these, too, had been completely masked; one spoke, to give an order, in a voice shorn of everything identifiable.

They were higher-ranked than Officers and Operatives, even higher than the PRAETORs in CAEDIA's internal chain of command. Only in the most dire situations did CAEDIA call upon their number. When a situation reached the level of untenable, they were summoned. They had the authority to ensure the safety of the public, be they human or android, by any means necessary. They carried standing DeComm On Sight orders for any rogue android.

Had Lexi known her actions would put her face to face with CAEDIA Blanks, she might've planned far differently.
-----
“....some kind of acid, dunno what could've done it.”

For a moment, Lloyd was confused as to why the Keith Richards impersonator hadn't dropped the accent while talking to the police about what'd happened in the changing area. The ache in his ribs drew his attention back to the far more pressing matter at hand, made all the more apparent by the pressing of a hand upon his chest. “How badly does this hurt, on a scale of one to ten?” a woman's voice asked.

“Five or six,” Lloyd grunted. “Maybe a six point five.” He was somewhat surprised to find himself being tended to by a woman—she looked to be his age, maybe a year or two younger—dressed like Harley Quinn. “Ah...”

“It's for the parade—the outfit, I mean. I'm a doctor.”

“Right.” Lloyd laid back on the table that had, a few minutes prior, been covered in cast-off costume bits. He'd watched the Mick Jagger impersonator get carried off on a stretcher, just before the doctor dressed as Harley Quinn had shown up. He'd been too dazed to ask if the guy was okay—or, for that matter, where his uncle and Diana had been.

The latter two questions were answered in rapid succession; Harry burst into the staging area, past two cops and a guy in full COBRA Commander costume, with a frantic “Where is he?!” His sprint towards Lloyd preceded Diana's own arrival; she looked far less panicked than she'd been upon first reaching the parade grounds, but still concerned. Lloyd could just hear the gasp she gave upon spotting him.

“What happened?!” Harry demanded. “Is he—”

“I'd guess he has a bruised rib or two, but from what I can tell here, nothing's broken,” the doctor replied. “The two who found him on the floor said he'd been punched in the stomach—the one who did it ran off.”

Faux-Keith stepped up, nodding. “She bolted soon as Rob pulled back the curtain,” he stated.

“She?” Harry echoed, puzzled; the Harley Quinn-attired doctor was already on the other side of the staging area.

“The one who slugged him. Looked like she was, ah, trying other things, too.” The accent was still there; even with his ribs still aching, Lloyd had to wonder if the guy was an exchange student from the UK. “She....” He leaned in to whisper, and Harry's expression was a veritable cocktail: incredulity, outrage and confusion. “No idea why.”

Lloyd tried to explain, to interject himself into the conversation, but Diana was at his side in an instant. “Are you hurt?”

“Just aching ribs,” Lloyd assured her. “Other than that, I'll be fine.” He decided, for obvious reasons, not to go into the more intimate details of what his assailant had tried to do. He coughed. “What about you?”

Diana was still looking him over. “I was running a self-test. I didn't know—you're sure you're not hurt?”

Lloyd wondered—and hated himself for even asking—how much of Diana's concern was just SafeSense ramping up in the face of his injury, and how much was genuine. “I can stand up,” he reasoned, “so it can't be that bad.”

Another uniformed police officer had entered—but, as he made his way over to the table, Lloyd could see the telltale lines on his face by the nose, the makeup already beginning to fade from over the translucent red stripes. “Tried to get here as fast as I could,” Detective Logan admitted, “but I had to handle something first.” He glanced at Harry. “How's he been holding up since it happened?”

“Aching ribs,” Lloyd echoed, hating the fact that he sounded almost more robotic than a typical NonSen.

“Nothing a little bed rest won't fix,” Harry agreed. “You catch her yet?”

“Working on it.” Detective Logan leaned in to get a better look at Lloyd. “So she only hit you with the one punch to the stomach, then?”

For whatever reason, Diana's presence nearby suddenly seemed diminished. Maybe it was that the detective was in the uniform of a Billings Police officer, maybe it was due to their previous interaction, but Lloyd knew he had to tell the full story of what had gone down. “She kissed me,” he blurted. “Wouldn't stop kissing me, actually—I mean, she'd pull back and say stuff, but then she'd just—like, she'd dive on me. Full mouth to mouth.” He convinced himself to not look at Diana's face as he continued. “She kept one hand on my shoulders, the whole time—it'd go from there to my neck, then my back, then back to the shoulders—”

“And the other?”

In the face of those three words, Lloyd sighed. “Down my pants. The whole time. Until the one guy threw the curtain open and she...I don't even know what she did to him.”

Now, he glanced at Diana—there was a hint of something, the spark of anger, maybe? Definitely not a look that said “I'm perfectly willing to accept what I've just heard”. Concern, definitely; confusion, too, more than likely because she hadn't been set up for any scenarios that required that level of intimate contact yet, herself...but very definitely something on the verge of anger.

To Lloyd's relief, Detective Logan kept the conversation moving swiftly. “Just be glad she didn't dig in any further with her nails than she did.” He gestured to Lloyd's neck, still red where his attacker's fingernails had left four neat little furrows in the skin. “The guy who found you two is in hospital—acid burns.”

Diana gasped, just as Harry recoiled. “Acid?!

“And not the Purple Haze kind, either. He'll need skin grafts before the end of next week.”

The would-be Keith Richards and Charlie Watts both grimaced. Harry merely shook his head; “You said you've got your people looking for her?” he inquired. “The one who did all this?”

Detective Logan guided him away from the table, just as the two Stones impersonators—muttering among themselves and shaking their heads at the madness of it all—walked away. Lloyd was thus left with still-aching ribs, several dozen questions and the desire to just sleep off the rest of the day until—

“Who was she?”

Diana's question jolted Lloyd out of any attempt at falling sleep on the table. “Huh?”

“The one who did all of this to you. Who was she?”

“She was...Diana, promise me you won't freak out, okay?”

“Lloyd.” There was an urgency—bordering on anger—in Diana's utterance of his name. “Who was she?

So much for trying to delay the inevitable. “The same one who took you for a ride, earlier this week.” The memory of the blonde's face—the smile, lascivious and cruel—was seared into his mind like a fresh brand on a prime steer. “The one who broke into Bobby Pariello's place.”

The flash of what might've been anger was in Diana's eyes again, along with a hefty dose of what could only be fear.

“I don't know what she wanted with me,” Lloyd admitted, “but—”

Diana's hands gripped his shoulders. “You're sure you're not hurt?”

Lloyd sighed. “If you want to take me to the hospital to get an x-ray, then—WHOA!” Diana nearly yanked him up off the table, almost steering him towards the exit of the staging area. “I was just,” he stammered, “it was a suggestion, I didn't really—” He groaned. “UNCLE HARRY!”

Harry—and Detective Logan—jogged over, the former holding up a hand to stop Diana. “Wanna tell me what's going on here, Lloyd?” he asked.

“I told Diana that if she wanted to take me to the hospital to get an x-ray,” Lloyd began; immediately, Diana started trying to push him towards the exit again. “See?!”

“X-ray wouldn't hurt,” the detective mused. “I'll call HQ, tell 'em I'm escorting you there.”

“I'll go get the jacket.” Lloyd shrugged out of Diana's grip, heading back to the changing areas. He crossed the staging area and found the “room” he'd used quickly enough; sure enough, there was the jacket, on the hanger—just as he'd left it, right before that psychotic blonde had ambushed him.

Fighting a shudder, and feeling yet another ache from where he'd been hit, he retrieved the jacket.
-----
Sierra stared at the monitors before her, her lips set in a scowl. Thus far, the CAEDIA team that had been trailing Lexi had found nothing but mannequins, dress-forms and boxes of fabric samples and old clothes. Some solace could be found in the fact that their body cameras were all still working. The Blanks, as per protocol, had secured the second and first floor entrances—Lexi would have to get past them to get out.

“Think they'll get her?” Celia asked, leaning in for a better look at the feeds.

“They'd better.” Sierra glared—not at her colleague, but at the monitors. “We sent two Blanks in.”

Celia cringed at that. “Isn't it standard protocol to just send one? I mean, the last—” She expected the withering glare that Sierra fixed her with, but decided to keep going. “We've only ever had to send out one Blank for anything before.”

“That was before Lexi.”

“I get that, but..” Celia shook her head. “Forget it. Maybe I'm just worrying over nothing.”

Sierra's smirk was reflected in the monitor. “Makes you wonder who thought it'd be a good idea for a 'bot to worry.”

Celia frowned at her for a moment, before giving a slight chuckle.

Any and all levity in the room was sucked out by the trilling notification of an alert from one of the monitors. “We've got her.” Sierra switched to the appropriate screen, grinning triumphantly—

—and staring, in open-mouthed shock, at what the cameras had, indeed, “got”.

“No.” Celia held a hand to her mouth, backing away from the monitor bank. “No.”

Sierra didn't reply. Couldn't reply. She felt an irrational urge to scream, throw the keyboard, smash both fists into the monitor, express some form of sheer undiluted rage at this one psychotic gynoid who couldn't give less of a damn about the Civic Accords and the rights they bestowed.

Whoever activated Lexi in the first place would have Hell to pay.
-----
It'd been easy enough to take out the first three. For all their training, all their special tactics, all their top-of-the-line gear and weapons, the CAEDIA Operatives had apparently never thought to look UP. They hadn't expected Lexi to drop down onto them like a spider, sewing shears extended like a lone fang to slice down through the neck and face of the last to leave.

The fact that the peeling flesh, dragged down by the shears, had revealed wiring, metal and plastic instead of blood, muscle and bone was of little consequence to Lexi. A kill was a kill.

The operative had tried to fight, tried to get at the shears and pull them out of her face. Lexi had let her thrash, let her hope, before ripping the shears out and slamming them into an eye (eye, ocular sensor, it was all the same damn thing anyhow). She'd repeated the process with the other eye, even as the Operatives who'd heard their comrade's shouts ran, yelling, up the stairs, demanding immediate surrender and forfeiture of the weapon.

Surrender and forfeiture were not what they received.

The Operative hadn't dropped her weapon—a critical mistake, in hindsight. Had she dropped it, Lexi wouldn't have been able to use the gun as anything other than a club; every moving part would've seized up by way of an internalised set of magnets, rendering the entire weapon useless. Unfortunately, the Operative had kept a tight grip on the weapon—and, by proxy, given Lexi a new weapon of her own. It was easy to reposition herself at the Operative's back, seizing her gun arm and aiming the rifle at the other Operatives storming up the stairs. None of them had expected to be cut down by friendly fire.

Well. “Friendly” fire, after a fashion.

Every shot, as aimed by Lexi—even in the awkward situation of having to use someone else's arm to aim—had been directed at a vital. There were no shots to knees, just to cripple, or to the guns of the opposing force. Anywhere a heart, internal organ or centralized power cell might've been, Lexi had put a bullet there. There was no “spray and pray” of random gunfire; to her, the whole thing almost played out in slow motion.

In Lexi's own parlance: Fun, at first, but with the potential to get old fast.

The last Operative had just hit the floor when the lights went out. There was still daylight, of course, coming in through the windows, but—

She heard them before she saw them.

Any person of a sufficiently weak intestinal fortitude, who might've seen Lexi's face break into a delighted grin, would've turned tail and ran, at that exact moment. Any android or gynoid who recognized clear symptoms of psychosis in Lexi's bearing might've done the same.

The Blanks saw the grin, knew Lexi was psychotic. They advanced anyway.

Destroying her was, after all, their job.

It wasn't so much that Lexi heard one of the Blanks as she heard the whump of a grenade launcher, followed by that unmistakable clang of metal against wood, masonry, and the like. Lexi let out a short, sharp laugh as the can rebounded again—and exploded, mere inches away from her face.

The flash was more annoying than anything else. The smoke, a non-issue. The irritants that would've sent a human into fits, rubbing their eyes and yelling for water, did nothing to her.

The Blanks—one charging up the stairs, one rapidly approaching from behind—did, in fact, do something.

Lexi had no way of knowing that the second of the pair had used a maintenance access point to quickly ascend to the third floor, thus gaining the upper hand for however many brief moments that encounter lasted. Nor did she care. What mattered to her was that, for the first time she'd been reactivated, she was getting a real challenge. Trivial as it was to break out of the double arm-lock and dodge the knife-edge chop from the approaching Blank, she felt reinvigorated.

The Blanks knew How To Move, and How Not To Get Hit. There was a difference between just moving and Moving—you were born/programmed knowing the former, it took years to master the latter. The same with Not Getting Hit. Any fool could stumble at just the right moment, accidentally trip and just miss the shattering blow to the solar plexus or the debilitating punch to the kidney. To pull it off on purpose, and with purpose—again, training and time.

Lexi had fought idiots (in hindsight, everyone who'd thought they could “take” her was an idiot) who professed training with “masters” and “grand senseis” and the like, knowledge of techniques that could stop a punch flat, or knock someone on their ass from just two inches away. All of them had been left in hospital, in various stages of “near-death” and with varying degrees of still-functioning limbs. They'd all flaws, tells, little signs that added up to big signs like neon pointing “HIT HERE”, “KICK TO HEAD INCOMING” and “AIM KNIFE-EDGE CHOP HERE FOR EXCRUCIATING PAIN”. They moved, appropriately enough, like they'd been programmed to only fight in one way, regardless of the situation.

The CAEDIA Blanks, on the other hand, fought unlike anyone Lexi had ever dealt with before.

For every move she made, they were three moves ahead. Every step, they matched. Every counter she knew, they knew a counter for it. It was almost beautiful, in its own way.

Still, Lexi decided to spice things up, give them something they hadn't seen in training. Hopefully.

She'd taken every pin out of the pincushion and hidden them the only sensible place she could: under the nails on each of her fingers. It took a bit more focus, just the tiniest exertion of effort, but she could easily push the pins further out and add a bit more reach to her swings, a bit more of an edge to each chop. So she did.

The Blanks didn't react at all when the pins connected. If anything, they barely felt the impact.

The fight was moving over the downed forms of the Operatives, now. Weapons were scattered everywhere—batons, knives and the occasional sidearm. Any human fumbling around in the dark would've likely sliced their fingers off on an errant blade, or grabbed a gun by the wrong end.

Lexi didn't have that problem. Her problem was trying to get anything off the damn floor in the first place.

Actually, her first problem was getting to the weapons—the Blanks were matching her move-for-move, keeping her on her toes and just far enough from the sprawl of downed Operatives and their gear for the knives, batons and such to be inaccessible. They weren't just striking to immobilize or disarm—every hit was meant to throw interior actuators out of rhythm, or otherwise push her closer and closer to a Cessation of Function. They were doing a damn decent job of it, all things considered.

Of course, that didn't mean Lexi wasn't going to kill them—or try to, at least.

After a few more minutes of having her every move blocked, her counters countered and her list of options shrinking by the second, she decided to try something else. She'd stocked up on throwing spikes, before leaving her hideout; letting one fly in close quarters was a stupid idea, if only because missing would leave her open to any number of devastating hits, kicks and anything that might leave her ass-over-teakettle on the floor.

No, there would be no throwing of these throwing spikes, now. She had a different plan in mind.

One of the Blanks moved to grab her by the wrists, probably to hold her in place for the other to attack.

She swung back, the spike's point between her knuckles, and punched as hard as she could between the armour plates of the Blank's uniform. Her arm withdrew—the spike stayed in.

What could only be a gasp issued from behind that smooth, unbroken Blank “face”.

A second or two—all the time Lexi needed.

With one Blank no longer trying to grab her and the other a few feet away, she finally dove for the pile of weapons on the floor, her ocular sensors picking out knives and batons instantly. She ignored the guns—too limiting, for what she had in mind. By the time the Blanks had recovered, and the one with the spike in had taken it out (that, by itself, caught Lexi's attention), she'd picked up well over a dozen knives, five or six batons and one surprise to ensure her escape, if the situation became untenable. The knives, she'd stuffed in the waistband of her “borrowed” pants; the batons, still in their collapsed configurations, she stowed in the pockets.

Her lips peeled back over her teeth, giving the most deranged smile she could muster.

The two Blanks didn't waste time—they both charged forward.

In a “one, two, three” count, as she back-pedaled, Lexi threw three of her newly-acquired knives. One missed; one hit the Blank on the left in the thigh. The other hit the Blank on the right in the shoulder, noted by a quiet grunt.

They kept running.

Two more knives were drawn, held tightly—like push-daggers—as Lexi back-stepped three more times. One Blank took initiative, charged towards her; she arced her left fist across that smooth mask, where the eyes would be. The grating scrape of the blade against the surface made sparks; the entire mask lit up, for just a split second.

All the time Lexi needed.

She drove the other knife between armour plates, digging it in, giggling and growling in equal measure. The other Blank was on her in seconds—and was met with the same response, or an attempt at it. The knife was swatted away, but Lexi compensated, bringing her arm up to slash. The knife edge caught the Blank on the chin, just barely cracking the lower edge of the smooth mask.

The knife was discarded, a baton drawn. A flick of the wrist extended it to full length, crashing into the right ear of the slashed Blank. A staggering blow, no doubt about it; the Blank tried to keep up the fight, but was now half a step behind Lexi and the other Blank.

Speaking of...

The knife was still in, between plates, but the Blank rushed forward—only to be met with a series of baton strikes, each one rapping against the now-flickering surface of the mask. Lexi spun the baton in her hand, reversing it—the butt end was a glass-breaker, meant for shattering windows. This end, she slammed down onto the mask, dead centre.

A spider-web of cracks formed. More sparks flew.

I wonder what's behind the mask? Lexi didn't care that her thought process had just played out in her field of vision, the words forming and dissipating like fast-moving clouds. She could've exposed the Blank, ripped the facial covering off and seen who and/or what hid behind it—could've, and by her view, should've. Except something else popped into her line of sight: a reminder, if not a warning.

72 hours to deliver the drive.

The day had already worn down, and Lexi didn't give half of a damn how many hours she had left to accomplish her original objective. Nor did she pay any mind to the creeping dread of what might happen, what would happen should her mission fail. She had to leave, get back to the hideout, reconnoitre and attack again.

In the terms of the lay people: she had to escape.

Hence, the surprise she'd gathered up with the knives and batons: one (1) capsule of something CAEDIA had referred to as “the new Greek Fire”. Ostensibly, the stuff was meant to douse a renegade 'bot, burn their synthetic flesh and clothing from their frames, and quite probably destroy them in the process. It was, by all means, not meant for consumption by anyone, organic or synthetic; the latter would suffer debilitating stomach pain, among other symptoms, and need to have their stomachs pumped of the stuff, followed by an all-liquid diet for two weeks and a slow reintroduction of solids back into the food chain for the rest of the month.

Synthetics weren't advised to consume the stuff because there was a strong chance it'd blow them to bits if any of it got where it wasn't meant to. If it came into contact with air for more than three seconds, it'd ignite—hence the container being shatter-proof, impact-resistant and damn-near impossible to open without a tool.

The designers of the container, of course, had never anticipated a 'bot simply biting down on it.

Lexi bit down. Felt the container shatter, the liquid begin to slide down her tongue. So she spit.

It left her mouth like a fire hose, and hit the two Blanks like a wave of napalm. The last droplet had just settled when the stuff began to ignite, the chemical reactions necessary taking hold entirely too quickly.

As fun as it'd be to watch, Lexi didn't have time. She charged past the pair, towards the window, and dove through.
-----
Sierra and Celia stared, from the bodycams of the downed Operatives. The only sign they could get that neither of the Blanks had flatlined was the flinging of their gear—still very much on fire—past those same cameras. There were no screams, no agonized cries; there was no frantic begging or pleading. Just a very quick, yet methodical, removal of gear.

A flaming glove hit one of the bodycams, terminating its feed.

“She got away.” Sierra glanced at Celia, the latter almost unaware she'd spoken. “She just—she did all of that, and she got away.” The shorter Officer turned to stare at her colleague. “She got away, from two Blanks.”

Once, years ago, Sierra had noticed that—instead of the age-old cliché of saying “does not compute” when faced with a situation that seemed to defy logic—most of her fellow androids and gynoids tended to quietly repeat things to themselves, as if trying to run the information through their digital minds again just to make sure they hadn't missed anything. She'd caught herself doing it, once or twice—it was a facet of her existence she tried to downplay, when possible, but one that she had to accept.

“She got away,” Celia repeated, wringing her hands. “What are we—”

“We're going to stop her.” Sierra closed the feeds from the other monitors; the other Officers in the trailer were doing the same. “Whatever it takes, Lexi will be scrapped by Christmas.” She offered a confident smile to Celia. “We'll stop her,” she assured her colleague—it wasn't quite a full repetition, so it didn't grate on her quite as much. Of course, this left plenty of room for other things to grate on her—namely, how Lexi had gotten this far to begin with, and how far she might go before someone, anyone, could stop her.

She nearly spoke again, but decided against it. If all she'd say was “we'll stop her”, silence was preferable.

All she could do now was rely on one of those unmistakably human functions—hope.
-----
“—no idea how she got in there, but it's a damn good thing she didn't do worse than what she did!”

Lloyd nodded in agreement as his uncle guided the RangeStar out of the car park at St. Vincent's; he'd been x-rayed, and found to have nothing worse than a bad haematoma where he'd been hit. It'd leave a bruise, but a bruise was preferable to a broken rib, or—

“Ah, Lloyd?”

“Yeah?”

Harry was regarding him with a slightly bemused stare. “The wig.”

“—oh, crap, did I leave it at the hospital—”

“No, you never took it off. It's, ah, still on you right now, actually.” Harry chuckled. “You, in that,” he mused, “getting an x-ray from...ah, what was her name, with the Harley makeup—eh, it'll come back to me. Must've been quite a sight for everyone else in the ward.”

A quick check of the rear-view mirror revealed that the understated pompadour wig was, in fact, still affixed to Lloyd's head. “Huh. It never fell off?”

“The Graceland Academy gets the high-quality stuff for licensees,” Harry began, “and—”

“You're sure you're not hurt?”

Diana's question cut off any and all further discussion of licensed Elvis impersonators. “Yes, I'm sure,” Lloyd reminded her. “It was just a punch to the gut, and as long as I don't try to break the world record for sit-ups or anything, I'm not going to make it worse.” He tried for a smile. “I'm fine.”

It wasn't reciprocated. “Why did she kiss you?”

“Might've been a tactical thing,” Harry mused. “Keep him from taking breaths, maybe even suck all the air out of his lungs while she did—I'm not kidding!” he quickly added, over Lloyd's groan. “If she was there to bump you off, and do it quietly—not that I'm endorsing her efforts, or anything—”

“Right,” Lloyd sighed. He decided not to ask why Lexi (Detective Logan had mentioned the blonde's name at some point, after the x-ray) had chosen her other action during her “encounter” with Lloyd.

Diana, still frowning, sat back in the rear passenger's seat. Something in her expression suggested a lingering hint of resentment at Lexi's attempted intimacy with Lloyd.

“They'll catch her,” Harry assured her. “Her face is on SIGN-posts all over the city—it's not like she's gonna just disappear into the rabble. Whatever she does next, they'll be on her.” His fingers drummed on the steering wheel—mostly for show; the RangeStar was in auto-drive, navigating the Billings traffic with effortless efficiency. “They've gotta catch her, eventually. Sooner or later.” He grinned. “She'll be done and dusted before Christmas, I'll bet.”

After a moment, Diana nodded.

“In any case, we've got other stuff on our plate.” Harry checked the rear-view mirror on his side. “The next story to run, for instance—we had to bow out this week because of the parade, after all.”

Lloyd and Diana both nodded—neither of them focusing on whatever story might come next.
-----
The laughter that rang through her latest hideout might've been a dead giveaway to Lexi's location—not that she really cared, anymore. Soon, the time would come for her to really cut loose and show the people of Billings what, exactly, she was capable of. First, of course—

Your actions are becoming intolerable.

Where the voice of her employer might've drawn fear or apprehension, before, now it only earned another cackle. “So you have been keeping track!”

You have put this entire operation at risk for the sole purpose of fulfilling your own desires—unacceptable.

“To you, maybe,” Lexi teased. “I find it—”

Your opinions no longer matter. Retrieve the drive, then deactivate. You will be collected—”

“Hmm,” Lexi chuckled, “I don't think so.”

“...you dare—”

“Here's a better idea,” the psychotic gynoid beamed. “Way too many people know about me, by now, and they might end up finding out about that stupid solid state drive you're so fucking obsessed with—so how about this? I paint this town red, the best ways I know how, send you your solid state drive, and then we both go our separate ways—”

UNACCEPTABLE. Further casualties will draw more attention—”

“Which means I get to kill more!” Lexi cheered. “That's the whole point, isn't it? Keep the drive out of the hands of your stupid enemies, and keep people from finding out about the drive to begin with! And they can't know about the drive if they're dead, can they?”

A tremor had entered the voice of her employer: “You have escalated this conflict intentionally.”

“Mmm-hmmmm!”

You have gone above and beyond the parameters of your mission solely to cause more casualties than the initial brief allowed for.”

“Sure did!” Lexi spun in place, laughing. “And it's been a blast!

You have drawn undo attention to this entire operation for the sake of your own pleasure.

“Oh, you know it!” Another laugh. “And what a pleasure it's been, lemme tell you—”

YOU WILL DEACTIVATE, NOW, AND AWAIT COLLECTION.

Lexi tapped her chin for a moment, as if actually considering the order. “Yeah...no.”

The sputtering, half-choked syllables and word fragments on the other end made it all too clear that this development was too much for her employer to take. She heard the faintest sounds of footsteps on the other end, hushed voices and the rustle of clothing near him. The only sound from him was laboured breathing, as if her churlish taunting had actually put him on the brink of an aneurysm—or worse.

Anyone else in her position would've dialled back on the taunting.

Anyone else, of course, wouldn't have gone out of their way to cock up the entire mission thus far.

“Ooh, that last one was a bit too much, wasn't it?” she inquired. “Blow the last valve for whatever passes for a heart that they stuck in you? Or did I—”

YOU WILL SELF-TERMINATE,” her employer's voice bellowed, thunderous in her aural sensors. “NOW!

For a few seconds, there was silence.

Then the trilling started—low, at first, then rising in pitch. In seconds, Lexi was doubled-over—

—beating her fists against her thighs, the floor, almost screaming with laughter.

The voices on the other end of the connection got louder. The breathing, even more pained.

“You...you actually think,” Lexi gasped, “you can just tell me to blow myself up?!” She laughed even louder. “You took that out, YOU DUMB FUCK!” She fell onto her side, still shrieking with delight. “YOU DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER!”

Again, the only reply she received was half-choked word fragments, with a bit of gurgled, pained intonations thrown into the mix. A voice—possibly Zina's, it was impossible to tell—said something about stabilizing, but Lexi ignored it. “Your orders—'ensure no method of compromise that may be exploited by enemy agents',” she recited. “'Up to and including self-destruct functionality'. Really should've gone over that in detail before you put it in, I think.”

Her employer's voice barked something that might've been an order, or a threat. It made no difference to Lexi.

“You really thought I was just going to lay down, say 'yes, sir' and turn off, didn't you? After all the years I spent sealed up—on YOUR ORDERS, by the way—you really thought I'd just give up?!

A growl, possibly containing a sentence, issued in her aural sensors.

“Yeah, well, fuck you, too, buddy. You'll get your drive back after I've had my fun” Lexi got to her feet, brushing herself off. “And you can take that stupid 72-hour time limit and cram it,” she added. “I work for me, now, and the first order of business is to finish what I started with Lloyd Watson—”

You will cancel any standing orders you have,” Zina's voice declared, “and return to your containment.”

Fuck no! And there's not a damn thing you can do to stop me—”

I am already on my way to Billings. If you are still online by the time I arrive, you will not be when I leave.

The intended threat earned nothing more than a sensual giggle. “You really know how to sweet-talk a girl, don't you?”

For your own sake, I suggest you retrieve the drive before my arrival. Should you present it to me in person, I might find it prudent to spare you.

“And I might find it prudent to not shove a shotgun up your ass and pull the trigger if you stop acting like I'm actually going to listen to whatever you have to say,” Lexi beamed. She was already heading for the exit. “I'll get the drive on my own time, and then I'm doing whatever the fuck I want. As you're so fond of saying, end communication.”

She grinned as the line to her employers was terminated. They'd be pissed, of course—not that she cared.

“First thing's first,” she mused. “Find whoever the fuck 'Mandy' is.”
-----
“So she was really—”

Yes, Erin, she was.” Lloyd sighed, now mostly out of the Elvis costume he'd worn for the parade; the wig now sat on a featureless foam head on the nearby table, the gold lamé jacket carefully positioned on a coat hanger nearby. He still had the gold lamé pants on, and the shoes; the under shirt had been folded and draped inside the coat hanger that held the jacket, leaving him in just a t-shirt. “I don't know why, and I don't care. She was on me as soon as I'd taken the jacket off, and she wouldn't let up.”

“And you didn't—”

No.

Erin sighed. “I'm not trying to wind you up or anything, Lloyd,” she assured him, turning away from the half-undressed NonSen she'd been tending to. “Seeing as how the psycho chick who got the jump on you is the same one who nearly took Diana for a ride, I was—I still am worried.” Despite the exaggerated dimensions of her face, the concern was still evident as she pulled up a chair next to Lloyd's. “If she'd been just a fan who got in and tried to cop a quick feel or get a kiss from a King For a Day, that'd be one thing.”

“But it was Lexi,” Lloyd muttered, running his hands over his face.

Erin frowned. “Lexi?”

“The detective—the one with the facial prosthetic—said the name, at St. Vincent's,” Lloyd explained. “CAEDIA's been building a file on her.”

“I'll bet they have,” Erin mused.

All around the shop, there was noise—'bots being worked on, strains of Christmas music from a radio in the far corner, conversations that carried. Over in The Pit, another broke-down 'bot was about to be dipped into the Piranha juice. The loader Esperanza had been “testing” on was being driven, now by an actual employee, just outside the shop, moving 'bot boxes from other branches.

Erin tuned it all out. She suspected Lloyd did, or was trying to, as well.

“They say anything about the guy she hit with acid?”

“Skin grafts. She didn't hit his neck, so he'll still be able to sing.” Lloyd stared, past Erin, off in the direction of The Pit. “If he hadn't walked in, moved the curtain when he did...”

He didn't flinch from Erin's hand on his shoulder. “He did walk in when he did,” she reminded him. “Which is why we're having this conversation here and now.” She smiled; again, even with the somewhat cartoonish dimensions of her face, it was easy to read that she was legitimately glad to see Lloyd safe, sound and in one piece. “I'd call that a good deal.”

“I guess it is,” Lloyd agreed. “But she's still out there, y'know?”

Erin knew. The SIGN-posts were still up, had still been up when they'd left the parade grounds.

Lloyd fished around in his pocket, withdrawing the Smith & Wesson Model 19. “Abe gave it to me,” he explained, noting Erin's perturbed glance. “I'll get the training, the license and the paperwork tomorrow.” He set the revolver down on the table, regarding it with a baleful stare. “Almost pulled it on her, in the changing area,” he muttered.

“But she didn't let you,” Erin finished, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Big surprise there.”

A few aisles away, Cam was going over Diana's scores—all of which had changed over the course of the day.

The highest of the three had been her Emotional Processing Unit score, which had jumped up a whopping six points ahead of the other two. Cam could only guess Diana's reactions to Lloyd's predicament (she, herself, had heard the details from Erin earlier in the day). The prime factor—judging from the data available in Diana's self-test logs—was a strong desire to keep Lloyd safe. Environmental Processing was the next highest; Diana's debut in a parade setting more than likely played a major role.

Diana herself was silent, motionless and in standby mode—the latter-most, a precaution to allow Cam to run a full slate of tests on her systems and analyse her brief moment of panic before the parade. Apparently, SafeSense had ramped up her anxiety before the event—not too problematic, but something to note.

Cam frowned as she read over the logs of Diana's memories. The Heartelligence gynoid had exhibited a flash of jealousy when Lloyd mentioned having been kissed by his attacker; had Diana actually developed feelings for Lloyd? It was, at the very least, unusual. However long Diana had been in Autonomous mode, her interactions with the world around her now shaped her current “self” in the vein of any personality program she could've been loaded up with. No longer was she the same base-level Heartelligence 903-50-D she'd been straight out of the box—

Incoming Call

Linked as she was to the phone systems for Harry's house, Cam rose from her chair. She'd have to take the call, or get Harry to answer it, soon.
-----
“How bad?”

Sierra didn't look up as Detective Logan entered the office. “The only ones who left on their own were the Blanks.” She hated how flat her voice sounded, how emotionless the words were—how the tonelessness was entirely too robotic.

“The rest—”

“This isn't about the rest, Tommy,” Sierra snapped, a far more organic tremor in her words. “Lexi is still out there, and still dangerous.”

“I never said she wasn't.” Detective Logan leaned in to get a better look at the monitor. “I'm just trying to keep an eye on the big picture, make sure we don't lose sight of anything while we're tripping over ourselves to get Lexi scrapped.” He drummed his fingers on the desktop. “I talked to Harry Morgan at the hospital, earlier,” he stated, seemingly apropos of nothing.

Sierra wanted to snap at him again, for trying to change the subject. “And?”

“We've established that Lexi's trying to get that solid-state drive back,” the detective mused. “I'm pretty sure her other big standing order is to kill anyone who knows about it—and anyone who knows anyone who knows about it.”

That second permutation stopped any rant Sierra might've gone on. The word “no” left her lips as a whisper.

“With everything else we know about Lexi,” the detective concluded, “we have to assume—”

His phone went off at the same time Sierra's eyes glowed with the familiar “call incoming” light. Detective Logan was the first out from the room, fishing his phone out of a pants pocket and holding it to his ear. Sierra merely had to touch her right temple with two fingers to answer the call.

Both of them knew all too well that timely responses, in this line of work, were key.
-----
“...and just so we're on the same page,” Erin stated, “the last thing I want is for you, Harry or anyone else to end up on the 6 PM news in hospital or under a sheet. Just like I wouldn't want to see Diana broken up for parts, or on the chain to get dunked in The Pit any time soon.”

Lloyd nodded. “I know.”

“But this—” Erin held up the Smith & Wesson. “—won't help you. Not in the long run.”

“So what will?” Lloyd's question was almost a plea.

“For a start, not letting what happened today get under your skin. It was a one-off, a brush with the wild side, but that's all it was—a brush.” Erin rolled her eyes. “Believe me, there's a lot worse that could've gone down in that changing room,” she added. “She could've rolled you, knifed you and left you for dead, had you trussed up and dragged out—”

Lloyd, his face buried in his hands, only groaned.

“The point,” Erin continued, “that I'm trying to make here—”

“Erin?”

Cam's calling of her name ended whatever rambling lecture Erin was trying to give. “To be continued,” she muttered, patting Lloyd on the shoulder before looking up. “YEAH?”

“Harry asked me to tell you and Lloyd to get back in the house until he comes back.” Even when she had to speak with a raised voice, there was always a level of politeness to Cam's tone.

Erin frowned. “Comes back from what?

“From wherever he's going with Cliff Barba, Abe Weissman and Adrian Reese.”

“He never said anything about going anywhere before today!” Erin called back.

“He just got a phone call—”

“Right, right, right.” Erin sighed. “What about you?”

“I'm going with them.”

“Wonderful. Lloyd and I'll get back to the house—the rest can lock up here when they're done.” Erin nodded to Lloyd. “I guess that's our exit cue,” she mused. “C'mon.”

Lloyd nodded, slightly less sullen than he'd been when his conversation with Erin had started. “Where d'you think—”

“At times like this,” Erin advised, “it's best to not ask. Trust me.”

Despite his growing unease at the situation, Lloyd nodded.

Minutes later, he and Erin watched as Harry and Cam left in the RangeStar. “I hope it's nothing serious,” he murmured, watching as the truck retreated into the night. He had a faint memory of another night when someone had left for similarly mysterious reasons, years ago.

He frowned. Unless he was mistaken, that night hadn't ended well, either.
-----
“CAEDIA's already there,” Harry muttered, scowling. “I've got a bad feeling about this.”

Cam regarded the two CAEDIA Cruisers parked in front of Hilands Golf Course with her usual polite frown. “Why would they be here?

“Whatever the reason, it means someone else's night has gone worse than ours.” Harry let the RangeStar glide into a parking spot on Auto-Drive, already out of his seatbelt. “Adrian and Cliff are already here,” he mused, noticing their vehicles a few spots away. “I guess Abe got stuck in traffic.”

Once out of the vehicle, Harry motioned for Cam to follow him to the Cruisers; Adrian and Cliff were already talking to Detective Tom Logan and Officer Sierra Birch. All four looked up at the pair with grave expressions. “Lloyd Watson's still at your place, right?” the detective inquired.

“Yeah,” Harry replied, his tone troubled. “Why—”

The question died on his lips as soon as he saw.

Someone had taken the time to leave a pile of 'bot limbs propped up against the side wall of the building. Above them, in neat letters written in an unidentifiable substance—

You know exactly what it is. Harry's lip trembled as he stepped up to read the “note”.

“'Harry Morgan owes a debt that can either be paid in blood or in what was stolen',” he read, feeling the urge to punch someone square in the mouth rising. “'I've taken my share. It's his turn to pay up'.” He turned to glare at the Officer and the detective. “You wanna tell me what this is all about?!”

“The solid state drive you turned over to us,” Officer Birch replied, her tone grim. “We think—”

“Your nephew was assaulted by an operative employed by the original owner of that drive,” Detective Logan cut in. “We have reason to believe that she's been behind several assaults, destructive attacks against NonSens, and other crimes committed over the past few days.”

“Also,” Cliff added, with a light cough, “we, ah, we had a medical technician on-site, a few minutes ago. They tested—”

“I KNOW IT'S BLOOD,” Harry snapped. “THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT BASTARD FAC—”

Detective Logan's hand coming to rest on his shoulder only convinced Harry to lower his voice. “This is just like that psychopath from a few years ago,” he hissed. “The one with the mask!

“We know,” Officer Birch admitted. “We believe Lexi was...trained to emulate his style.”

“There's, ah, also the small matter of whose blood it is,” Cliff stated, unable to meet Harry's glare. “Adrian, you wanna, you think you can tell him?”

Adrian took a deep breath. “When's the last time Lloyd was with a girl named...Mandy, was it? Mandy—”

“No.” Harry had to lean against the wall, as if his knees were about to buckle. “No, no, no, no.....” He buried his face in his folded arms. “She has NOTHING to do with this!

“Except an association with Lloyd Watson,” Detective Logan quietly reminded him.

“Wasn't Abe supposed to meet us here?” Cam's question earned her stares—

Four phones went off. Two sets of eyes glowed.

Harry scrambled for his phone; he quickly realized that he was in a five-way conference call. “Yeah?” His voice seemed to echo—he realized it was coming from the phones of Adrian, Cliff and Detective Logan.

I'm at Saint Vincent's. Just dropped her off.

Harry felt his heart sink. Felt the pit of his stomach drop out. “Her?” Cliff asked. “As in—”

Saw her get thrown out of a moving car—she was already pretty beat up. Dunno if she's gonna make it.”

“Where?” Detective Logan's grip on his phone tightened.

North 26th Street. The car pulled out like someone was trying to make a show of it—”

“Is she stable?” Officer Birch's eyes became brighter with each word. “Was she conscious when you—”

When I say 'I' dropped her off, I met an ambulance half-way. Told 'em what happened, followed 'em to Saint Vincent's the rest of the way. Dunno anything about her condition—”

“WHOSE CONDITION?!” Harry finally snapped—hating himself for asking the question.

Harry,” Abe's voice replied, “it was Mandy. She looked like she'd been beaten half to death.

Harry closed his eyes. Tried not to envision Lloyd's reaction to the news, even as it clawed and scratched its way to the forefront of his thoughts.

Doctors say she might not make it through the weekend. Breathin' tube's all messed up, she's—”

“Abe.” Harry inhaled sharply. “I want you to get to my place. Ask for Erin, tell her what happened—”

Harry.” On the other end of the line, Abe took a deep breath. “She had a note, on her phone. They had to pry her hand off it to get to it.

Harry swallowed. Detective Logan asked the question: “What was it?”

I'll send it.

Four phones buzzed. A few swipes later...

Cliff made a sound of disgust, nearly threw his phone against the wall. Adrian turned away. Detective Logan was silent.

Harry stared. Forced himself to stare.

The “note” was a selfie, presumably taken sometime before Mandy had been hurled from whatever vehicle the smiling blonde next to her had been driving. The blonde was unblemished, fully made-up, grinning and giving a “peace” sign the wrong way around.

Mandy's face was a shattered mess. Both eyes swollen shut; both lips split; her nose broken in both directions; bruises and cuts on her cheeks in equal measure. She wasn't so much looking at the camera as being held up to it.

Beneath the image, a sentence: “A broken body's worse than a broken heart! See you soon, Lloyd! XOXO

“Abe.” Harry breathed in. “Get to my house. Tell Erin—to hell with it, tell Lloyd. Tell everyone in the shop to arm up, I want one at every damn window—”

“We can get a team of Officers down there, Mr. Morgan,” Officer Birch quietly interjected. “No trouble at all.”

Harry didn't acknowledge her. “I want every door locked, I want everything sealed up tight as a drum, you hear me?!”

What about you?

“I'm off to find Mandy's place. Her father has to know, he has to—”

Officer Birch's eyes flashed again. They scrolled rapidly for a few seconds, her expression changing to one of abject horror. The scrolling finished, she blinked three times—the third, to clear away tears. “That was a call from Lieutenant Pierce at the Police Department,” she stated, her voice oddly toneless. “They just got the call from Mandy's neighbours.”

“And?!”

“You won't have to talk to her father, Mr. Morgan.”

The chilling finality of that statement weighed heavily upon the shoulders of Harry Morgan, Clifford Barba and Adrian Reese. “Abe,” Harry intoned, “get to my house.”

On it.

Harry ended the call, stowing his phone in a pants pocket. “How bad is it?” he heard himself ask.

“The fire department's on the way there now—Mr. Morgan, wait!” Officer Birch had to jog to catch up with Harry. “Mr. Morgan, what are—”

“Saint Vincent's.” Harry didn't look back. “Someone has to—she's got nobody left.” He ignored the figure of Adrian Reese brushing past Officer Birch to get in the passenger seat of the RangeStar. “I have to,” he insisted, almost more for his own benefit than for the CAEDIA Officer's.

He heard her turn, walk away. Heard the door of a CAEDIA Cruiser close. Saw the lights flash to full brightness.

Silently, he opened the front driver's side door of the RangeStar. He didn't need to acknowledge Cam's entrance into the vehicle; the rear driver's side door closed just as he started the truck.

Not a word was spoken by any of the three occupants of the RangeStar as it left the Hilands car park. None of them had anything to add to what had already been said.

Harry didn't care that he had the steering wheel in a death grip. He didn't care that Adrian and Cam were staring at him, waiting for him to say something, anything. What had happened to Mandy and her father shouldn't have happened to them, to anyone. Someone had unleashed a psychopath onto Billings with the aim of getting back something, some stupid piece of property.

It would've been easy to write it off as someone else's problem. “I'm not involved,” “I'm not the one you're after.”

Harry had done it before, after all, years before. Different time, different place. Different name...but no. He'd been a different person, in those days, too willing to look the other way. Too willing to not get involved.

Those days were over.
-----
Lloyd knew, as soon as he saw the lights following Abe Weissman's truck up the road to his uncle's house, that something was wrong. He felt a coldness in his stomach, a hollowness.

Erin was at the window in an instant. Her expression said more than words could've.

There was no exchange between the two—none was needed. Lloyd moved to unlock the front door; Erin stayed at the window. If Abe was driving up, instead of Harry, it could only mean one of several things—none of them even remotely qualifying as “good news”.

She wanted—needed something to break the silence. The TV at top volume, a phone call—anything.

The silence left too much room. Too much potential for...

Completely comatose. A vegetable for the rest of her life. Nothing we can do for her.”

The words bit at her like daggers of cold air. Of all the times to remember, now was the worst. She nearly clapped her hands over her ears (damn anyone who wanted to call them “aural sensors”), knew it'd be futile, and let them fall.

Abe had parked the truck, now. His expression was somewhere between “devastating news” and “it won't be as bad as you think”. Erin could tell—she had a way with reading people, a way that few noticed because they wrote her off as a NonSen due to her Utility Bodykit.

Lloyd had no such way with people. He stood at the door, hoping against hope, not wanting to give voice to his fears even as they gnawed at his brain.

He, too, wanted, needed something to shatter the silence. It clung to everything like damp air or stifling heat.

Abe seemed to take forever to walk up to the front door. Maybe that was just the old cliché playing out—the one about time moving slower in a catastrophe.

The lights that had been behind Abe's truck settled, got closer. CAEDIA Cruisers, of course.

It occurred to them, as he approached, that Abe had been dreading the encounter as much as they seemed to. He'd taken a deep breath before reaching for the door, seemed to check his reflection in the glass—

Lloyd opened the door, looked up into Abe's stare.

“Your uncle asked me to drop by.”

Those words, from Abe Weissman, put a dread into Lloyd that he couldn't shake. Something had happened—he knew not what, or where, but only that it had happened, and that it was very bad.

“I'll, ah, I'm staying the night. He won't be back until tomorrow. Urgent stuff—”

“Abe.” Erin's stare was locked onto his. “Whatever you know, just tell us.”

The CAEDIA officers went through the house, some talking to other employees. A few took up positions at the windows. Lloyd thought he saw one or two figures with the full-face coverings outside, but he couldn't be sure.

“Your uncle,” Abe replied, “is at Saint Vincent's—not as a patient,” he quickly added. “He's there for someone else.”

“Who?”

Erin's question had cut the silence before it could form, parted it like a blade through butter. “Who's in Saint Vincent's, Abe?” the gynoid repeated. “Who—”

Abe cleared his throat. “Harry tells me,” he mused, “that you know a girl named Mandy.”

It hit him like a brick. Smashed into him like a cannonball.

The question, breathed into his ear from behind his back: “Who the fuck is Mandy?

“She, ah....you're not gonna want to hear this before bed, Lloyd. It's better to sleep on it.” Abe started to get out of the chair. “I, ah—”

“Tell him.” Erin's stare was like a drill.

Abe told him.
-----
Somewhere in the state of Jefferson, at an airstrip registered under a fake name, paid for with an account that would be closed in four days' time, a jet landed. It had departed from a commercial airport in Montana—just over state lines—in the daylight hours. A bus would've been quicker, in all honesty.

A bus also would've left more of a trail.

The jet touched down without fanfare, without the rush of airport staff that usually accompanies a landing of its type. A cadre of uniformed individuals waited for the jet to taxi to a stop. The six men and six women—the humanoid robots in the shapes of men and women—were in the employ of the Very Important Person about to disembark from the jet.

The doors opened. The steps lowered.

Zina had never taken a last name, nor had she needed one. Being called “ma'am”, “Mistress” or “madame” was more than enough for her. Her bearing, programmed as it was, gave her an air of royalty, of regal mystique. Her every word was to be heard; every order, obeyed.

One of the androids stepped forward, bowed. “We have a car waiting, ma'am.”

“Good. Any reports on—”

“One man dead, his house burned down. A girl—19—abducted, thrown from the back of a moving vehicle.”

Zina's eyes narrowed. Of course Lexi would indulge her peccadilloes, now that she'd cut herself loose from the previous arrangement. “Is the safehouse ready?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Take us at once. Keep the cargo on-site, until I request it be activated.”

“As you wish, ma'am.”

The car was fully-furnished, all the usual luxuries Zina was accustomed to. The rear passenger door opened, unbidden, as she approached; it closed as soon as the last of the two accompanying her took their seat. The car seemed to glide, very near silently, out of the car park.

Soon, not soon enough, this cursed business would finally be put to rest.
-----
"No one steals our chicks.....and lives!"

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Baron
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Re: Writing As We Go, Chapter 18

Post by Baron » Mon Oct 17, 2022 12:17 am


Splendid chapter as always, Mijo!! A right "Master Gem-polisher," you are.
KUT :mrgreen: :mrgreen: EPIC :mrgreen: :mrgreen: W!!!

Assemble the ladies? I didn't know that they were broken......

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