This, Henriette decided, is bullshit.
Sure, playing Reality Terrorist dress-up might have been fun...while they were in the nice, heated, "my suit costs more than your house" Syndicatemobile. As she stomped her heels in the snow to keep warm, Henriette decided that maybe a dress and a skintight bodysuit might not have been the right idea for traipsing around Moscow.
In winter. At night. In a dark alleyway.
Sure, the suit was all-weather gear, but that left her head exposed to freeze, and the Russian winter was really not nice. She peered down the alley, the lights overhead already knocked out and leaving the passage nearly pitch-black. Her inbuilt optic augments handled the low-light conditions without a problem, but seeing the world in shades of pastel green didn't really help her mood. Besides which, there wasn't much to see here beside three of the Bobs and a few stacked body-bags.
Henriette shivered as one of the Bobs looked her way. She never much liked Progenitor vat-grown clones in the first place, and these ones were really weird since Director Belltower and Dr. Rosario had done that weird stuff with them. Henriette understood movement, in ways that other people probably never even thought of; it was a necessity of any halfway-decent mech pilot. You had to grok momentum and inertia in a practical sense, because a two-ton chunk of primium on two legs isn't going to stop just because you felt like it. The clones moved differently, with a fluidity and grace that she'd never seen before from the oh-so-awkward Bobs. It sure figures that a paranoid NWO agent would like having some little drones to order around, she thought sourly.
Movement at the end of the alleyway caught her attention, and Henriette frowned as Little Miss Perfect came down the alleyway from the nightclub around the corner, a body slung over her shoulder. Despite wearing basically nothing but high-heeled boots and too few strategically-placed belts, the stupid Progenitor wasn't even shivering.
In Moscow. In the winter. At night. When it was snowing.
Stupid Progenitors.
Either oblivious or uncaring of the orange-haired pilot's glare, Dr. Rosario casually tossed the body over her shoulder onto the ground. She opened her mouth to order the Bobs to cuff it, but the clones were already stripping the young vampire and pinning him with metal cuffs. Dr. Rosario stared at the Bobs acting on their own, before closing her mouth with a snap that Henriette could hear even through the background noise of the busy city.
"I should never have given that woman her very own mind-controlled minions," Serafina commented to no one in particular. Looking up to see Henriette, she smiled brightly and asked, "Well, that's one for starters. Do you know when the car's due back? I'd prefer to do my work in an actual lab, even if it has candles and fake skulls everywhere."
"No idea," Henriette responded curtly, her breath freezing the moment it left her mouth. She shivered and stomped her feet again, rubbing her hands together in the pockets of her dress to keep warm. Yeah, she would definitely like to be back in the decadence-on-chrome-wheels again. About the only one who seemed to really be enjoying it out here was-
"Hellooooo ladiiiiieeeees!" The noise echoed down the alleyway, and Henriette instinctively ducked before forcing herself to straighten up again. Two points of red light appeared at the end of the alleyway, slowly coming towards them. As she flipped on her nightvision, Henriette grimaced as she looked over John Kessler returning. Despite bleeding from several shallow wounds, Kessler was carrying three slumped bodies and wearing a very wide grin.
And not much else. I could grate cheese on those things, a traitorous part of Henriette's mind whispered.
"Good evening, John," Dr. Rosario responded smoothly, saving Henriette the trouble of thinking of words. "While I admire your enthusiasm, could you perhaps avoid alerting the rest of Moscow that a distinctly identifiable American is right here?"
"Aw, moooom," Kessler mock-whined, dumping the three staked vampires down next to the fourth body-bagged one. As the Bobs got to work, John put his hands on his hips and gave an ear-splitting grin. "I even disguised the 'do, and if a vampire comes running to investigate, that's just another test subject waiting to happen! Besides, I've really missed this."
"Couldn't you, maybe, put something on?" Henriette said, feeling grumpy. It wasn't like she was using her augments to take pictures of Kessler's chest, no ma'am! She was just feeling worried that her teammate was taking on groups of vampires, even young and relatively weak ones, with nothing but a loincloth and a smile. (and wooden stakes) Definitely that.
John looked down, confused, before his face brightened in comprehension. "Oh, the clothes thing." He shuffled his bare feet, almost seeming a little embarrassed. "Well, if you're stuck away from resupply for a long time, you tend to sorta make do with what you've got. And when you're alone except for robo-tigers, you tend not to worry much about wearing clothes an' all. I sometimes forget we're supposed to be always wearing clothes, to be honest."
As Henriette's brain engaged in open war between Pervert! and I demand evidence!, Dr. Rosario glanced over at Kessler with a frown. "While I can understand your enthusiasm, we really are trying to stay somewhat covert. Our disguises are a last resort, rather than a first one."
The seven foot tall cyborg pouted, before nodding sincerely at the two women. "Gotcha, ma'am. I think this club's tapped out for easy prey anyway, so I'll try the rave club with the blue sign next." Tipping a nonexistent hat at the two woman, the thankfully (temporarily) mullet-less man padded away down the alley towards the sound of music.
As the Bobs finished cuffing and packing the staked vampires for transport, Dr. Rosario turned to Henriette. "While I normally respect the privacy of my co-workers...please tell me you took pictures of that."
Stupid mission, Henriette thought to herself, blushing and shivering at the same time.
