M.A.I.D.S. Episode 5 – The Unexpected
Thunder rumbled a warning, a watchdog standing between Pandora and the night sky. Occasional lightning threatened the Earth with its jagged probing. The evening rain had progressed into a full-on downpour by the time Pandora, pretty in pink, stepped out into it. Furious at her audacity, the skies precipitated harder upon the planet below.
Pandora walked to where Adam had summoned his vehicle and used the interface to access his subterranean storage. Her second surprise rose to join her in the wicked evening: a slick pink monocycle. With a few quick gestures Pandora had shifted her multiple displays from her left gauntlet to her monocycle’s navigation system. She rode off so quickly that the puddles disturbed in her wake were left to wonder what exactly had raced through them.
I shouldn’t be doing this! Pandora thought as she sped toward the Manufactory. Subconsciously she realized that the monocycle’s nav-unit wasn’t taking into account her exceptional riding skills, and therefore her ability to leave the prescribed roads behind in favor of alleys, walls, and other means of conveyance. In the blink of an eye Pandora was on a faster, more dangerous route.
If he didn’t want me to do this, he wouldn’t have given me the skillsets I have. Why did he make me so amazing? Pandora didn’t give herself time to explore the subject that quivered in her core. She pushed all thoughts of self out of her mind and focused on reaching Adam as quickly as she could. Rain continued to pelt her as she raced through Laramie’s drenched streets, but it was powerless to stop her. Pandora had one focus.
Adam.
The sniper was precariously perched on the steep, slanted roof across the street from the besieged Manufactory. Only his upper torso and rifle protruded over the roof’s crest; the rest of him remained completely obscured and tethered to the far side of the building. He used a telescoping bipod to hold his rifle steady as he took aim at one of the members of FIST 8 below him. The sniper’s teammates in Manufactory #2 were keeping FIST 8 preoccupied, which was perfect for him. Even though his computer had exploded, he was still able to effectively contribute to the fight by using the weaker computer system built into the rifle itself. He was cut off from his team of terrorists, but not from his rifle.
"I got ya now,” he mumbled as he gazed through his scope at Lauper. The sniper unconsciously adjusted his aim to account for the precipitation and distance. He never noticed the form sneaking up behind him on the roof—the proximity wards he’d had in place were knocked out when his wrist-computer exploded. So he was completely surprised when his rifle was yanked from his grasp and thrown off the roof behind him. The harness he was using to keep him in place on the slick, steep roof prevented him from defending himself effectively, and all he saw of his attacker before he was knocked unconscious was an armored pink boot.
“No, I have you. And I don’t particularly want you,” Pandora said with gusto. She unhooked the sniper’s harness and let him slide off the rooftop, unconcerned by any damage the man might sustain in the fall.
That was fun!
The sky roared its approval with a peal of thunder and a flash of lightning, and Pandora raised her rifle over her head like some barbarian victress. She scanned the ground below, feeling immensely powerful from her perch. With superhuman grace she descended the roof and headed to the Manufactory.
Pandora used the various feeds she received from the members of FIST 8 to navigate the battlefield. Seeing through their eyes made it easy to circumvent obstacles and remain undetected by the enemy. Pandora quickly located Adam, who was returning fire from his position behind a vehicle. Adam’s targets were in the second-story windows of the Manufactory; everyone involved had effective cover.
Well, this just won’t do, thought Pandora as she reviewed the scene in her helmet display. Emergency vehicles were arriving and cordoning off the area, and it was now a battle against time for the terrorists who had stormed the Manufactory. Even though the longer the battle went, the worse it would be for the attackers, Pandora still wanted to ensure a speedy victory for FIST 8.
A nearby civilian transport gave Pandora what she needed to accomplish her goal. She quickly overrode the vehicle’s electronic locks and let herself in. It was a tight squeeze for the fully-armored Synthia, but she managed. After a few heartbeats she jumpstarted the vehicle and drove it directly at the damaged area of the building. Shots rained down on her from the shooters in the Manufactory, but her transport and armor protected her. Within moments she crashed into the smoldering wreck of the vehicle bomb that started the whole mess, dismounted, and entered the damaged building.
Row after row of Synthia tanks greeted her, all of them shattered and destroyed. Pandora ran over to the body of an incomplete Synthia and knelt beside it. The inert thing on the floor before her was a nightmarish mockery of what it would have become if it hadn’t been aborted by the terrorists.
It’s still alive!
Pandora observed the strange chest rise and fall, which clearly showed her that the apparatus around the Synthia’s face was both intact and functional. The Synthia was clearly very far along its growing process. It had ten fingers and ten toes, and its hourglass figure was well-defined. The breasts were perfectly smooth mounds of flesh (sans nipples), only a handful each. The Synthia’s skin pigment was dark, like chocolate. It had no hair on top of its head, which Pandora suspected was a design choice as the hair was usually added early in the Synthia creation process.
Her superior mind racing as she worked, Pandora managed to get the monitor at the finishing station working.
"Customer Order Number RPB01-21520127-21741130-090-02. Status: 165:05:09 until completion. Special Instructions: Employee Customer enhancements enabled. Valued Customer enhancements enabled. Scheduled for in-store pickup Wednesday, May 17, 2175, undetermined time.”
So it has a week left before it’s finished? Pandora wondered as she ran a basic test on its vitals. The Synthia was alive and stable. On her PCG Pandora brought up a schematic of the Manufactory she was in, making adjustments for the damage. The results were disconcerting.
This entire building will collapse in upon itself in four minutes, she thought gravely. She grabbed a TIGER reader from a nearby finishing station and used it to replace the one on station # 90. Pandora had to work quickly.
“You there! The hell you think you’re doing?!” shouted one of the rag-tag terrorists from the opposite end of the room. He leveled his assault rifle at Pandora, who was still kneeling over the unfinished Synthia.
Pandora dove between the finishing stations, drawing the man’s attention away from the Synthia. Pandora recognized his accent as Indian, but didn’t have time to dwell on this information. Gripping her assault rifle, she steeled herself for what was about to happen.
“Where did you—” the man began, but when Pandora popped up from behind the finishing station, she did so with her assault rifle up. She did not spray the man with automatic fire, but rather rose up, planted her feet, knocked a small box off of the finishing station because it was in her way, took aim, and fired a controlled pair that struck him center mass. She did this all so smoothly and fast that the man never had a chance to twist his weapon toward her. Two shots, both of which found their final rest in the man’s heart. Pandora had put the safety back on her rifle and slung it before the man fell to the ground, newly dead. She tugged off her right gauntlet and removed her helmet so she could interact with TIGER, then quickly put her gear back on in case more thugs found her in the Finishing Room.
“Thumb-scan accepted; Retinal-scan accepted; IIN accepted: thank you, Eve. ABORT Customer Order Number RPB01-21520127-21741130-090-02?” Pandora left the screen display there and turned her attention to the apparatus lodged in the Synthia’s mouth. She searched her memory for information about finishing stations and Synthia tanks, and the knowledge came to her.
There is a cyanide capsule in the apparatus that is administered to the Synthia when aborted. I need to remove that before I disconnect it. I can’t safely disconnect the apparatus without aborting the Synthia due to anti-theft precautions. If I had time and a scalpel…but I don’t!
Pandora quickly located the compartment on the mouthpiece where the cyanide was stored. She produced a multi-tool from her utility belt quickly unscrewed the cap, then carefully removed the capsule. That done, she gave the monitor the order to abort.
I hope this works.
The trapdoor beneath the Synthia tank opened, debris and broken glass clattering into the chasm. The apparatus hooked up to the Synthia made a whirring noise, then disconnected, sliding out of the Synthia’s mouth. The door in the floor grinded a little as it closed, after which the finishing station proudly announced that it would begin its cleaning cycle. Pandora held her breath, her eyes on the unfinished Synthia.
It took a breath. Then another. Its breathing came regularly, the pattern matching someone in a deep, restful sleep. Pandora sighed with relief.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed, realizing that she was almost out of time. She hefted the Synthia in a fireman’s carry, marveling at how light the biomechanical woman felt, then sprinted out of the unstable Finishing Room. Pandora didn’t stop running until she was back where she had stashed her monocycle. She could hear the rest of the Manufactory falling in upon itself as she gently deposited her charge beside the cycle. It was with a grim heart that she turned and ran back toward the firefight.
The cordon was in place, and local law enforcement personnel had the site closed off. Pandora marveled at how easy it had been to slip out while carrying the unfinished Synthia, but she didn’t worry about it for long. The simple fact was that she had achieved her goal, and now she was focused on putting an end to the Indian terrorists to keep Adam safe.
The first order of business for Pandora was eluding the highly-trained officers who had sealed off the area. Manufactory #2 was, like most Synthia plants, a lovely place that the public was encouraged to visit. The avenue leading to the building was lined with tall trees, which Pandora easily brachiated through, passing unnoticed above the police line. She dropped from the trees near a large refuse container and took a moment to plan.
Pandora turned her attention to her personal computer gauntlet and the vast amount of information she was tracking on it. With a simple command she projected several of the feeds on the side of the container, making it easier to follow the information. Consulting a layout of the ruined Manufactory, she was able to overlay the positions of both FIST 8 and the terrorists by using the hacked feeds she had from both teams. To Pandora, it was a strategy game.
FIST 8 was clearly ahead. Monroe, Square, Toad, and Jackson were still at headquarters guarding the Canadian senator. Jackson, Lauper, Warrior, Zuko, and Adam were fighting and were unharmed. Only Coleman was injured, though his wounds were not life-threatening. Bennet was dead.
On the other hand, the terrorist group appeared to be fifteen individuals, or at least, fifteen that Pandora was able to track. Six were trapped in the rubble of the Manufactory, the collapse of which they had not planned for. One was dead by Pandora’s own hands, and the sniper she had dispatched of was in critical condition. That left seven terrorists in the area that she could track from her relatively safe position between the west loading dock and the refuse container.
“Warrior, you have a target approaching from your seven o’clock, 50 meters,” Pandora transmitted. The voice modulator in her helmet disguised her feminine voice, rendering her electronically neutral. It did, however, sound completely fake, and she worried for a moment that the FIST 8 operative would not heed her warning.
“Roger!” came Warrior’s reply. He was a professional and didn’t question useful intel. She watched through his helmet feed as he took cover and adjusted himself to the new threat. Within seconds Warrior lined up a shot on the approaching terrorist. The man was poorly armored and ill-prepared to meet the FIST 8 soldier head-on, and Warrior took him down quickly. Pandora smiled.
Six left.
“Lauper! Two targets in the storage shed at your ten o’clock. One in the loft, one on the ground floor. The door is trapped; use a grenade through the south window,” Pandora ordered, then watched with pride as her order was carried out. Coleman provided covering fire as Lauper moved up to the south window and cooked off a grenade before lobbing it through the broken pane. A scream of pain was nearly drowned out by the explosion.
“Who the Hell is on my frequency?” demanded Adam over the FIST 8 secure channel.
“Who cares? He’s on our side!” replied Coleman.
Pandora peeked out from her position and could clearly see Lauper and Coleman near the storage shed. She could also see the target in the loft, who was peering out of a vent near the roof. From their position neither Lauper nor Coleman had a clear shot on the gunman, who was preparing a grenade to drop on the pair of FIST 8 troops.
“Grenade! I’ve got him!” Pandora yelled in her strangely modulated voice.
The pink-clad warrior rose up from her position, leaping onto the refuse container with the agility of a jungle cat. As she moved through the air she brought her rifle to her shoulder, sighted down its length, and squeezed the trigger once. The rifle spat death at the man in the loft, the round striking him through the right eye before Pandora’s feet touched the container’s lid. She had just put a round into a tiny target from 400 meters, and the accomplishment felt good.
Thank you, Adam.
There was an explosion from the top of the storage shed as the dead terrorist released his grip on the grenade he was preparing and it exploded. Lauper and Coleman threw themselves down at the sound, then realized that they were in no danger. Pandora returned to her position where she could monitor the battlefield.
And then there were four, she thought with a grin. Changing her tactics, she rapidly and efficiently began to overload the wrist computers of the remaining terrorists, causing them to explode the way she had done to the sniper. She clapped when she saw that three of them were then captured by the local law enforcement.
The fourth had located her and was moving directly toward her. She could see what he saw through his helmet camera, noting that this terrorist must be some sort of leader to have military-grade combat armor. She sent a signal to the man’s assault rifle, causing it to jam. She smiled with satisfaction when she observed him throw it to the ground in frustration and draw his hand-cannon instead. The man approached the seemingly unaware Pandora with the wicked close-range firearm drawn. Pandora allowed him to approach.
He’s not going to kill me. He’s going to take me hostage!
“Throw me your rifle,” the man snarled the order. Pandora put her hands in the air and stood up, the feeds projected on the container flickering out. She left her rifle on the ground and kicked it backward to her aggressor. The man stooped to pick it up, and Pandora leapt into action.
She turned and tumbled toward the man with viper-like speed, the tactic catching him completely off guard. The rain-soaked air rang with the sound of his hand-cannon, but the shot was fired at chest level. As Pandora came out of her roll she pushed off the pavement with her powerful legs, rising like a shot and catching the man under the jaw with her armored fist. Even though he wore a military-grade helmet, the force of her strike was enough to knock him on his ass. Pandora mounted him before he could come to his senses, pinning him to the ground. Though the man clearly outweighed the Synthia, she was several times stronger than he.
“Get off of me you pink freak!” yelled the struggling man. When it became clear to him that he was no match for his assailant, he ceased struggling beneath her.
With two quick movements Pandora hit the release on the man’s helmet and popped it off of his head. His brown skin was scarred, and his head was poorly shaved. Pandora knocked him out with a head-butt, quickly bound his hands and ankles, then fled the scene.
Once back at her monocycle, Pandora was pleased to note that the thunderstorm was moving on. As if to make up for this loss, the night sky poured rain down with a vengeance, but she could tell that this was the rain’s last-ditch effort to soak every terrestrial thing it could.
Pandora draped the naked Synthia across the front of her monocycle as gently as she could manage. The unconscious form was shivering with the cold, and Pandora patted its leg gently. She was glad that she would be able to navigate the back roads to Adam’s house so that she could avoid detection and get the Synthia there quickly. Pandora pulled up her last message from Adam and replied to him.
___________________
May 11, 2175 at 0043
Adam:
You will find the terrorist cell leader bound and unconscious behind the dumpster by the west loading dock. There is also an enemy sniper critically wounded behind the boutique across the street.
I like my pink armor. It’s very twee that you customized my equipment for me.
Pandora
P.S. We have a guest.
___________________
I’ll see you at home.