Guest Update XXX.5: Henriette & Kessler with Centurion
Henriette and Kessler with Centurion
(possibly Update XXX.5. Who knows?)
"Hey, there were enough goddamn devil-worshipping vampires for both of us!" Kessler retorts. "No need to start kill-stealing these crazy fuckers!"
"Ah ha! So you are American!" comes the voice over the megaphone. "Looks like we have an American metal man! We do not hate you for the sins of your nation, American!"
Kessler smiles. "Well, that's nice of you. Now, if we can get back to…"
"Not when there are the sins of your Union to extract! Pray for forgiveness, and it shall be swift!"
John makes a run for it, remembering to shout "Go" to remind the Victors and Bobs to follow him.
"John! What are you doing?" booms the Centurion.
"Getting back to Henriette!" he orders.
"Ah, yes! We must protect the womanfolk!" the British power-armour-robot-spirit-thing states, beginning a lumbering walk backwards which is actually about the same speed as when it walks forwards.
This is too slow for Kessler, who is a man who prefers to go fast. Especially when chased by murderous priests. Who have full military gear with post-market modifications. And biohazard suits. And flamethrowers.
"Burn! In the name of our lord Je…"
Kessler kicks the androgynous flamethrower wielding maniac in the stomach before they can damage his epidermis, and they collapse. When he kicks someone in the stomach, they stay down.
"Just remember! I could have killed you!" he barks. "Guess I'm just a better man. Or one who doesn't attack people when there are demon-worshipping vampires to kill!"
And speaking of demon worshipping vampires, something screams as the Centurion steps on it. There is a vampire crawling on the ground on all fours, hopping up and down from the crushing weight of British Imperialism. It's probably female, but in all honesty it's hard to tell. Probably-she looks like she fell out of the ugly tree, hit every ugly branch on the way down, and landed in the ugly-swamp where the ugly-leeches feasted upon her really fucking ugly corpse.
So. You know. Pretty normal for a living dead monster which looks like Count Orlock. No wonder he hadn't seen it. It'd probably been invisible.
"Change of plans!" he shouts at the Progenitor vat-clones. "Hold 'em off!" He punches a button on his arm, and Old Trusty folds out. Good ol' Old Trusty. She was originally part of the inertial inhibition gear from the wreckage of an X29 'Saucer' which had crashed on that shithole of a planet back in the fifties. He'd field-salvaged her from that, because he needed something to recharge his batteries and there were lots of things which moved quickly around. He'd refined her, cut her down to just the bit which absorbed momentum and KE, and when that three-headed moth-dragon had eaten his third right arm, he'd added her into his replacement.
Hadn't lost an arm since then. Good ol' Old Trusty.
Of course, Old Trusty sometimes talks to him with the voice of the Void Engineer captain of that long ago Saucer, which is why he calls her a 'her'. But that's perfectly explicable psychic powers trapping the psychic imprint of the captain who'd loved her vessel and died on board it, and not anything at all Reality Deviant. Some people disagree, though, which is why he only asks her to do things outside her original design specs when people aren't in a place to ask awkward questions.
He aims, and locks the inhibition beam on the vampire.
There is a decidedly hot smell from his inertial inhibitor as Old Trusty protests at the abuse and a burning feeling in his arm, but he ignores the flashing icon of an impending overheat. The vampire struggles, finding somehow that something is leaching away all the kinetic energy (and incidentally using it to recharge some of his batteries) which leaves it slow and sluggish. He mentally apologises to Old Trusty and promises that he'll polish her up good next time.
"Hey, vamp!" he shouts, breaking into a floor-shaking sprint. "Sucker punch!" Wincing, it whirls and its hands reflexively go to shield its gut.
Then he hits the vampire in the mouth with most, but not all of his strength. Because he doesn't want to tear its head off.
Teeth go everywhere.
"The Union fangs you for your help," he adds, grabbing the vampire by the throat. It tries to gnash at him, but this is made somewhat difficult by a) the fact that he has a hand the size of a small suitcase around its throat and b) the aforementioned improvised dentistry. "Okay, go go go! Get to the car!"
Another Bob goes down, almost torn apart by the pinpoint accurate rifle fire. Beside him, the gatling gun roars, and their pursuers duck back into cover.
"Wretched Ruskies!" the armour booms in a very, very English accent. "I bet they're making trouble in the Crimea again. Russians just can't leave that place alone! It's like catnip to them! Well, we'll just have to saddle up the cavalry again and show them what for! Stiff upper lip, that's the spirit!" Another burst from the Gatling gun sends the brave warrior-priest ducking back into cover.
They lose a Victor on the retreat back to the car, but the remainder bundle in. Kessler stuffs the vampire in the fridge, after punching it in the head a few more times.
"Stake," Henriette points out, as she pulls away, tearing out of the building. She . "And… IFV!" Henriette yells, swerving to the left. The autocannon on the BTR fires, punching holes through the lorry between them and the BRT
Unfortunately, the lorry was filled with liquid nitrogen.
[Deploying ablative armour,] states the smart system. The freezing liquid hits them like a wave, filling the area with mist, and the engine stammers.
"They're trying to ice us!" Kessler exclaims.
Henriette mutters something in disgust, and cranks the heaters to full. "It'll take more than that to stop fusion," she proclaims, deploying spiked wheels. She comes tearing out of the mist like a batmobile out of hell, and ramps up onto the pavement to dodge a truck, leaving a trail of crushed fire hydrants spraying water which solidifies into ice in mid air.
"Come on girl," she hears the cyborg in the back mutter. "Just make things easier for us. Make sure the surfaces we drive on are safe, you know?"
"What are you doing?" she snaps.
Kessler blinks. "Just talking to my inertial inhibitor," he says quickly. "Getting it to work proper, you know. It's playing up."
Henriette brakes sharply, cutting a tight corner which smashes through a phone pylon, sending cables tumbling all down the street. Dammnit, that fucking BTR is still on her tail, going for a clean shot. Something like that shouldn't be handling so well. And its tires should have been ruined in the cold. Goddamn RDs. Cheats. "That won't help," she mutters. "Just upgrade already, man."
"Nah," Kessler says. "Old Trusty's saved my life before. You just gotta know how to treat her right."
The autocannon thuds again, and the vehicle shakes.
[Abalative armour down to 45% percent.]
"Those aren't normal rounds!" Henriette hisses. "That's…"
[Primium rounds detected]
"… yeah, that! Fuckers!" Her face locks into a snarl. "Well, they think they can out drive me?" She cuts into the traffic, getting the other vehicles between her and the military hardware. The BTR doesn't care and still fires, presumably on the grounds that God will know his own. Or some kind of other RD justification for mass murdering civilians.
Henriette is rather glad Rose isn't here. She'd probably be all 'Oh, we have to stop and help them'.
"A woman should not be driving," booms the suit of armour. "Women cannot handle high velocities. Their uteruses rebel if they travel too quickly, leaving them prone to hysteria and irrationality. It is possible that married women from a good family might, with training, be able to handle a little light driving in the countryside, but in a city? It is irresponsible in the extreme."
"Shut the fuck up!" Henriette shouts back at the armour. "I'll show you fucking irrationality if you don't stop distracting me!" Gunning the pedal, she accelerates down the centre of the road, weaving through the oncoming traffic with mere centimetres to spare.
"How uncouth! John, from what alleyway did you find this... this female? I think she does not grasp which side of the road one is meant to drive on," the robot says in a voice which it probably thinks is a whisper. "You know, I think she has Oriental blood. Look at her eyes. All slanty. Are you sure it's wise to trust her?"
"I am fucking warning you!" Henriette yells. She glances in the wing mirror, which has a full tac-com display. "Oh, bullshit. They have a helicopter."
John blinks. "What?"
"Did I fucking stutter? That news bird. It's flagging up as hostile."
Kessler rolls over, and stares out the back window. His eyes glow as he zooms in. And then they widen.
There is a man in full black urban gear clinging onto the outside. He has a dog collar. He also has an RPG. And a sword.
"Sunroof! Open!" shouts Kessler, leaping to his feet and clambering out.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Henriette screams at him. "I'm…"
"Don't worry, I've got magnetic boots," he says, pulling out his minigun out from under his coat and pointing it up at the helicopter. "Count the bullets!" he shouts, opening fire.
"… going through a petrol station!"
"… wait, wh-"
It was either a stray bullet or an RPG-27 from God which set off the fuel. It was hard to tell because they happened at pretty much the same time.
The next few minutes passed in a blur of confusion. Kessler spent some of the first minute on fire, although helpfully the fact that he was starting to ice up from the liquid nitrogen helped counteract that. And then there was the bit where they went through the shopping mall. And then the pillow factory. Which then caught fire because Kessler was still on fire.
At the current moment in time, Kessler is fighting a priest with a sword on the roof of the car. That is to say, both Kessler and the priest have swords. The priest brought his own, and Kessler turned out to have one in his coat.
Well, on closer inspection it's the fang of a cyberdragon, but who's counting here?
"What is going on here?" Henriette yells, as she speeds down the wrong side of the road, trying to shake the maniac with the sword off the top of her car. The maniac who isn't on her side, anyway. "Fuck you, you fucking RDs! We just wanted to get some goddamn vampires! You're putting more effort into killing us than the fucking vampires! This is bullshit! You're terrible Christians!"
"Young ladies should not swear," the Centurion chides her. "Even half-breed Orientals. Think of your better half."
She detests that machine. She really does. It's sexist, it's racist, and it has no indoor voice. She has no idea how Kessler installed an AI core in that thing, but she's going to find that core and she's going to deploy all the magnets towards wiping it. "Shut the fuck up! Go shoot out the top!"
"Negative. I cannot reload my own weapon, and am out of ammunition," the Centurion booms.
Henriette checks the one remaining exterior camera. It's sort of a good news bad news situation. The good news is that they appear to have lost their followers. The bad news is they have a Klingon. She blinks. A cling on.
The really bad news is that the very badly burned Kessler is losing against a priest in a gas mask who's somehow staying balanced on top of the car. Another blow strikes sparks off Kessler's endoskeleton, and he staggers, joins screaming. He almost falls.
She's not going to watch someone else die. Not like this.
Henriette's eyes widen. A moment of Genius strikes.
She punches the ejector seat button. Namely, the button for seat LR3. The roof seamlessly slides open and the rocket-powered chair sends the priest flying. Literally. One foot appears to be caught in the seatbelt and he's lost out of sight.
"Looks like Team RD is blasting off again!" Henriette says smugly.
There is a moment of awkward silence.
"Looks like you deseated him," Kessler says loudly.
"No, of course you didn't get the reference," Henriette mutters. "You've never even heard of Pokemon."
"For God's sake woman, keep your eyes on the road," booms the Centurion. "Or let a man drive."
"I will stick an arc welder in your eyesockets!" Henriette snaps, as she cuts across a busy road, swerves through a car park, and merges seamlessly into traffic. "Just wait until I find a safe place to stop and check the tires, while we wait for things to die off a bit. I don't like the pressure readings."
"Jesus fuck," Henriette manages, leaning against the car. They've lost the chasing murder-priests, and are hiding out in a nearly abandoned underground car park. The pressure sensor seems to be glitching, possibly from the liquid nitrogen. There's no way they've been followed here. Her hand is balled into a fist, and she's biting down into it. She is trying very very hard not to have a panic attack. Things have gone to hell, she's just crashing from the adrenaline high of quite possibly the best driving of her life, and - oh, did she mention she was doing that with a racist sexist AI in the back seat providing unhelpful commentary?
Director Belltower is going to blame her for this. Even though it's not her fault. How was she meant to expect that goddamn murder-priests would show up? She... she did her best! And they were all alive because of her! Well, apart from some of the clones, but everyone knows that Bobs are acceptable losses and some Victors dying against a Choirister ambush is totally okay!
Well, Kessler is in the car, performing maintenance on that damn robot which for some reason she can't see - which she finds very unfair because obviously she could help him better. She's the one with the up-to-date robotics knowledge, after all. Urgh. Unless he did the AI in some primitive way which he doesn't want to show her. Like, really primitive. From ages ago. Like the early eighties.
It's so hard being the youngest in your amalgam who isn't Rose, Henriette considers. Everyone is all "oh, things were better in the old days" and "Henriette, you'll understand when you have more experience". She had quite liked that Void Engineer AI when they met, and if Director Belltower had picked her, she'd have had someone closer to her own age who understood how hard it was being a prodigy when no one appreciated you. Also, she wouldn't have had to put up with Dr Rosario, who was, FYI, kind of a stupidly smart Progenitor bimbo.
"Miss... Langley," a man says, detaching from the shadows of the walls of the underground car park. "We've been... expecting you. Welcome, welcome. You took sssssslightly longer than was expected."
Henriette nearly chokes on her fist. He's wearing a dark suit, has reflective sunglasses on even at this time of night, and wears an ear piece. "Kessler?" she says to her companion, who's still in the car.
"No, Miss Langley, I am not 'Kessler'. I am Mr Tailor. The Agency has been keeping its eye on you, Miss Langley. We have notissssssed that you have come into some form of... ah, trouble with a local Reality Deviant presence. We are here to offer our... assistance. We wish an end to... ah, improper thought. Please ask us for authorisation, so we can transfer your requested... assssssets."
What is that accent, Henriette wonders. It is clipped, terse, and there's a faint American twang to it, but there's something else. Something she can't recognise. The elongated 's' sounds, especially are more like the static you get from a damaged voice synth than anything else. "Authorisation," she demands, as any good Unionist would.
The agent's bland expression twists into a very small smile. "Sigma Niner Niner Niner Clarity," he says. "Auth override."
Henriette frowns. She doesn't recognise the code. No, wait, there's a trace of deja vu. Just a trace. Like she once knew it, but doesn't know it any more. Maybe it's an old one. An out of date one from years ago? No, she doesn't remember having heard it at all... and yet there's the deja vu. She locks her jaw. Well, either way, that wasn't an up to date Auth code. She'll just play along, because... shit, this is a Chorister trying to pull the same trick on them that they've pulled on the local vampires. "Kessler!" she says again, more urgently.
"That was not… the correct response, Miss Langley," the agent says, tilting his head. "I must admit, the Agency had details on your… ah, possible backsliding. But we were inclined to give you the benefit of the… ah, doubt. Doubt. Yes, you doubt, do you not? You doubt me, Miss Langley. Despite the fact that I am an agent of the Union who hasssss given you the correct authorisation code. Doubt such as this is a weakness and… ah, evidence of incorrect thought."
Something metallic, almost insectoid squirms over out from under the collar of his shirt for just a moment, before vanishing again.
Henriette really wishes that she could reach her gun. Not the pistol at her hip which she's not all that great at using. She wishes she was in her armour and could have the warm comfort of her 20mm in her hands. Not that she can even draw the 9mm at her hip, because her muscles aren't responding properly. There's something in the man's glasses. Something which holds her gaze, leaving her like a cute fluffy animal in front of a snake.
"Such a shame, Miss Langley. I was hoping you could be recognissssssed as Agent Langley, and live up to the example of your forebears, who were… quite satisfactory in their role before their duties were sssssssadly cut short."
The hiss. It really isn't an 's' noise. The man flickers slightly whenever it happens. The shape when he flickers is different from his normal appearance, Henriette thinks through the fear.
"Perhaps we should talk about crime. About sin. Because the two are… ah, much of a likeness. When a religion says something is wrong, it is a sin. When an secular organisation condemn it, it is… ah, then it is a crime. But when your cause is the correct one, then perhaps sin is the better word. So let us talk of your sin, Miss… ah, Langley. The sins... of the father. No. That's not right. The father was innocent. So was the mother. We are instead here to talk to you, Miss Langley, about the ssssssins of the da..."
"Get down!" Kessler booms over the noise of a whine, and there's just enough of Henriette left that isn't trapped like a rabbit in the headlights to throw herself to the ground.
Then there's just noise.
After five long seconds the mutilated body of a woman wearing red dress falls to the ground. Well. Maybe it wasn't a red dress to begin with. It's rather hard to tell, given that Kessler has just nearly sawn her in half.
Henriette peeks from between her fingers, and sees the barrel of a minigun poking from the car directly behind where she had been standing. She gasps into her hands. She's panicking so much she can barely synch with her body. She can't really do much else but hyperventilate. That's just an autonomous response.
Kessler clambers out, holding his minigun. "Are you hurt?" he asks.
"It… it knew," she stammers, her voice mechanical box speaking instead of her vocal cords and all she can think of is it-knew-it-knew-it-knew and…
"Henriette!" Kessler sounds alarmed, and he leaps out of the car, still carrying the minigun like a normal man might carry a rifle. "Are you…"
He tugs at her arm. She is just a limp doll, unable to move.
"Women. Always prone to fainting. It's the womb, don't you know?" comes a booming English voice from inside the car. "Stops proper rational judgment."
That, at least, gives her enough presence of mind for anger to burn through the mind-consuming panic. Unsteadily, Henriette pulls herself to her feet, and leans against the now-heavily-damaged car. "Shut up you… you… you fucking stupid piece of armour! What… what was that?" she asks.
"I don't know," Kessler says grimly. "There was a… a presence in his body. Or her body, rather. A flesh-stealing spirit."
"It claimed to be a Unionist," Henriette says slowly. She can't think of it clearly. She'll lose herself if she does. "And we shouldn't talk about spirits."
John facepalms. "Oh, I know 'spirit' ain't the proper way to talk about it, but I'm just kind of freaking out here," he says. "It's an alien thing which takes over people and makes them look like them. I'm just going to call it a bloody spirit until I find out what the proper word is." He takes a deep breath, and takes in Henriette and her state. "I can call it an EDE if that helps," he suggests.
Henriette exhales. "Yeah. It does," she says. "Is… is… is it dead?" she adds, in a tiny voice.
"No," Kessler says, face like steel. His eyes glow faintly. "It'll be back. My gun and Ol… and the ammo will've given it a nasty sting, but that's all. It just has to find a new body and…"
"Go! We need to go," Henriette snaps. She's crying, and she doesn't even realise it. "It'll be back and… and…"
"Can you drive?" Kessler asks her. "I mean, not can you drive-drive, but, like, are you able? Feeling able, I mean. Because, shit, I thought I was a hotshot behind the wheel. If you could handle a transport like you did this thing and you'd been with us back in '94, I wouldn't have wound up on a goddamn dinosaur planet for twenty years."
Henriette tries to pull herself together. Yes. She's an incredibly good driver. And pilot. And material scientist. And she's attractive by the standards of any room which isn't packed with goddamn Progenitors. She isn't a scared little girl who… who… well, she isn't! The giant tank of a man wants her to drive. She sticks her jaw out. "I doubt I'd have been much use in '94," she retorts. "Even my brilliance has limits. Because, you know, I was born in 1995."
"Aww, shucks," Kessler says, shaking his head with mock sadness. "Stop making a man feel old. Well, okay, maybe you couldn't have been a better pilot, but you'd still have been a better commanding officer than the idiot who didn't give us a proper escort."
Henriette manages a weak chuckle, as she realises what he's doing. He's trying to distract her with banter. "You b-big dumb robot bear. You're not as stupid as you look, are you?"
"You know, that's a great idea! Next time we attack some vampires, I should totally go as a robot bear! I'd even be keeping the Russian theme going."
"Idiot."
"You could go as a pirate! Obviously you'd have to be a robot pirate to fit in with the robot bear."
"… you know what, forget that I said you weren't as stupid as you looked," Henriette says, smiling despite herself. "So, we have a vampire in a fridge, we still have some clones alive… let's go find the others and we can go have a probing party."
She pauses. And then turns bright red as her mind catches up with her mouth.
"Are we quite done fussing over the hysterical woman?" the armour demands. "There are treacherous curs to kill! And your other feeble female allies to rescue from uncouth outsiders who may threaten the virtue of those poor delicate flowers!"
Kessler has to hold Henriette back from dismantling the power armour right here and now. In the end he manages only because he points out that the robot had put Director Belltower on the list of 'delicate flowers'.
(possibly Update XXX.5. Who knows?)
"Hey, there were enough goddamn devil-worshipping vampires for both of us!" Kessler retorts. "No need to start kill-stealing these crazy fuckers!"
"Ah ha! So you are American!" comes the voice over the megaphone. "Looks like we have an American metal man! We do not hate you for the sins of your nation, American!"
Kessler smiles. "Well, that's nice of you. Now, if we can get back to…"
"Not when there are the sins of your Union to extract! Pray for forgiveness, and it shall be swift!"
John makes a run for it, remembering to shout "Go" to remind the Victors and Bobs to follow him.
"John! What are you doing?" booms the Centurion.
"Getting back to Henriette!" he orders.
"Ah, yes! We must protect the womanfolk!" the British power-armour-robot-spirit-thing states, beginning a lumbering walk backwards which is actually about the same speed as when it walks forwards.
This is too slow for Kessler, who is a man who prefers to go fast. Especially when chased by murderous priests. Who have full military gear with post-market modifications. And biohazard suits. And flamethrowers.
"Burn! In the name of our lord Je…"
Kessler kicks the androgynous flamethrower wielding maniac in the stomach before they can damage his epidermis, and they collapse. When he kicks someone in the stomach, they stay down.
"Just remember! I could have killed you!" he barks. "Guess I'm just a better man. Or one who doesn't attack people when there are demon-worshipping vampires to kill!"
And speaking of demon worshipping vampires, something screams as the Centurion steps on it. There is a vampire crawling on the ground on all fours, hopping up and down from the crushing weight of British Imperialism. It's probably female, but in all honesty it's hard to tell. Probably-she looks like she fell out of the ugly tree, hit every ugly branch on the way down, and landed in the ugly-swamp where the ugly-leeches feasted upon her really fucking ugly corpse.
So. You know. Pretty normal for a living dead monster which looks like Count Orlock. No wonder he hadn't seen it. It'd probably been invisible.
"Change of plans!" he shouts at the Progenitor vat-clones. "Hold 'em off!" He punches a button on his arm, and Old Trusty folds out. Good ol' Old Trusty. She was originally part of the inertial inhibition gear from the wreckage of an X29 'Saucer' which had crashed on that shithole of a planet back in the fifties. He'd field-salvaged her from that, because he needed something to recharge his batteries and there were lots of things which moved quickly around. He'd refined her, cut her down to just the bit which absorbed momentum and KE, and when that three-headed moth-dragon had eaten his third right arm, he'd added her into his replacement.
Hadn't lost an arm since then. Good ol' Old Trusty.
Of course, Old Trusty sometimes talks to him with the voice of the Void Engineer captain of that long ago Saucer, which is why he calls her a 'her'. But that's perfectly explicable psychic powers trapping the psychic imprint of the captain who'd loved her vessel and died on board it, and not anything at all Reality Deviant. Some people disagree, though, which is why he only asks her to do things outside her original design specs when people aren't in a place to ask awkward questions.
He aims, and locks the inhibition beam on the vampire.
There is a decidedly hot smell from his inertial inhibitor as Old Trusty protests at the abuse and a burning feeling in his arm, but he ignores the flashing icon of an impending overheat. The vampire struggles, finding somehow that something is leaching away all the kinetic energy (and incidentally using it to recharge some of his batteries) which leaves it slow and sluggish. He mentally apologises to Old Trusty and promises that he'll polish her up good next time.
"Hey, vamp!" he shouts, breaking into a floor-shaking sprint. "Sucker punch!" Wincing, it whirls and its hands reflexively go to shield its gut.
Then he hits the vampire in the mouth with most, but not all of his strength. Because he doesn't want to tear its head off.
Teeth go everywhere.
"The Union fangs you for your help," he adds, grabbing the vampire by the throat. It tries to gnash at him, but this is made somewhat difficult by a) the fact that he has a hand the size of a small suitcase around its throat and b) the aforementioned improvised dentistry. "Okay, go go go! Get to the car!"
Another Bob goes down, almost torn apart by the pinpoint accurate rifle fire. Beside him, the gatling gun roars, and their pursuers duck back into cover.
"Wretched Ruskies!" the armour booms in a very, very English accent. "I bet they're making trouble in the Crimea again. Russians just can't leave that place alone! It's like catnip to them! Well, we'll just have to saddle up the cavalry again and show them what for! Stiff upper lip, that's the spirit!" Another burst from the Gatling gun sends the brave warrior-priest ducking back into cover.
They lose a Victor on the retreat back to the car, but the remainder bundle in. Kessler stuffs the vampire in the fridge, after punching it in the head a few more times.
"Stake," Henriette points out, as she pulls away, tearing out of the building. She . "And… IFV!" Henriette yells, swerving to the left. The autocannon on the BTR fires, punching holes through the lorry between them and the BRT
Unfortunately, the lorry was filled with liquid nitrogen.
[Deploying ablative armour,] states the smart system. The freezing liquid hits them like a wave, filling the area with mist, and the engine stammers.
"They're trying to ice us!" Kessler exclaims.
Henriette mutters something in disgust, and cranks the heaters to full. "It'll take more than that to stop fusion," she proclaims, deploying spiked wheels. She comes tearing out of the mist like a batmobile out of hell, and ramps up onto the pavement to dodge a truck, leaving a trail of crushed fire hydrants spraying water which solidifies into ice in mid air.
"Come on girl," she hears the cyborg in the back mutter. "Just make things easier for us. Make sure the surfaces we drive on are safe, you know?"
"What are you doing?" she snaps.
Kessler blinks. "Just talking to my inertial inhibitor," he says quickly. "Getting it to work proper, you know. It's playing up."
Henriette brakes sharply, cutting a tight corner which smashes through a phone pylon, sending cables tumbling all down the street. Dammnit, that fucking BTR is still on her tail, going for a clean shot. Something like that shouldn't be handling so well. And its tires should have been ruined in the cold. Goddamn RDs. Cheats. "That won't help," she mutters. "Just upgrade already, man."
"Nah," Kessler says. "Old Trusty's saved my life before. You just gotta know how to treat her right."
The autocannon thuds again, and the vehicle shakes.
[Abalative armour down to 45% percent.]
"Those aren't normal rounds!" Henriette hisses. "That's…"
[Primium rounds detected]
"… yeah, that! Fuckers!" Her face locks into a snarl. "Well, they think they can out drive me?" She cuts into the traffic, getting the other vehicles between her and the military hardware. The BTR doesn't care and still fires, presumably on the grounds that God will know his own. Or some kind of other RD justification for mass murdering civilians.
Henriette is rather glad Rose isn't here. She'd probably be all 'Oh, we have to stop and help them'.
"A woman should not be driving," booms the suit of armour. "Women cannot handle high velocities. Their uteruses rebel if they travel too quickly, leaving them prone to hysteria and irrationality. It is possible that married women from a good family might, with training, be able to handle a little light driving in the countryside, but in a city? It is irresponsible in the extreme."
"Shut the fuck up!" Henriette shouts back at the armour. "I'll show you fucking irrationality if you don't stop distracting me!" Gunning the pedal, she accelerates down the centre of the road, weaving through the oncoming traffic with mere centimetres to spare.
"How uncouth! John, from what alleyway did you find this... this female? I think she does not grasp which side of the road one is meant to drive on," the robot says in a voice which it probably thinks is a whisper. "You know, I think she has Oriental blood. Look at her eyes. All slanty. Are you sure it's wise to trust her?"
"I am fucking warning you!" Henriette yells. She glances in the wing mirror, which has a full tac-com display. "Oh, bullshit. They have a helicopter."
John blinks. "What?"
"Did I fucking stutter? That news bird. It's flagging up as hostile."
Kessler rolls over, and stares out the back window. His eyes glow as he zooms in. And then they widen.
There is a man in full black urban gear clinging onto the outside. He has a dog collar. He also has an RPG. And a sword.
"Sunroof! Open!" shouts Kessler, leaping to his feet and clambering out.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Henriette screams at him. "I'm…"
"Don't worry, I've got magnetic boots," he says, pulling out his minigun out from under his coat and pointing it up at the helicopter. "Count the bullets!" he shouts, opening fire.
"… going through a petrol station!"
"… wait, wh-"
It was either a stray bullet or an RPG-27 from God which set off the fuel. It was hard to tell because they happened at pretty much the same time.
…
The next few minutes passed in a blur of confusion. Kessler spent some of the first minute on fire, although helpfully the fact that he was starting to ice up from the liquid nitrogen helped counteract that. And then there was the bit where they went through the shopping mall. And then the pillow factory. Which then caught fire because Kessler was still on fire.
At the current moment in time, Kessler is fighting a priest with a sword on the roof of the car. That is to say, both Kessler and the priest have swords. The priest brought his own, and Kessler turned out to have one in his coat.
Well, on closer inspection it's the fang of a cyberdragon, but who's counting here?
"What is going on here?" Henriette yells, as she speeds down the wrong side of the road, trying to shake the maniac with the sword off the top of her car. The maniac who isn't on her side, anyway. "Fuck you, you fucking RDs! We just wanted to get some goddamn vampires! You're putting more effort into killing us than the fucking vampires! This is bullshit! You're terrible Christians!"
"Young ladies should not swear," the Centurion chides her. "Even half-breed Orientals. Think of your better half."
She detests that machine. She really does. It's sexist, it's racist, and it has no indoor voice. She has no idea how Kessler installed an AI core in that thing, but she's going to find that core and she's going to deploy all the magnets towards wiping it. "Shut the fuck up! Go shoot out the top!"
"Negative. I cannot reload my own weapon, and am out of ammunition," the Centurion booms.
Henriette checks the one remaining exterior camera. It's sort of a good news bad news situation. The good news is that they appear to have lost their followers. The bad news is they have a Klingon. She blinks. A cling on.
The really bad news is that the very badly burned Kessler is losing against a priest in a gas mask who's somehow staying balanced on top of the car. Another blow strikes sparks off Kessler's endoskeleton, and he staggers, joins screaming. He almost falls.
She's not going to watch someone else die. Not like this.
Henriette's eyes widen. A moment of Genius strikes.
She punches the ejector seat button. Namely, the button for seat LR3. The roof seamlessly slides open and the rocket-powered chair sends the priest flying. Literally. One foot appears to be caught in the seatbelt and he's lost out of sight.
"Looks like Team RD is blasting off again!" Henriette says smugly.
There is a moment of awkward silence.
"Looks like you deseated him," Kessler says loudly.
"No, of course you didn't get the reference," Henriette mutters. "You've never even heard of Pokemon."
"For God's sake woman, keep your eyes on the road," booms the Centurion. "Or let a man drive."
"I will stick an arc welder in your eyesockets!" Henriette snaps, as she cuts across a busy road, swerves through a car park, and merges seamlessly into traffic. "Just wait until I find a safe place to stop and check the tires, while we wait for things to die off a bit. I don't like the pressure readings."
...
"Jesus fuck," Henriette manages, leaning against the car. They've lost the chasing murder-priests, and are hiding out in a nearly abandoned underground car park. The pressure sensor seems to be glitching, possibly from the liquid nitrogen. There's no way they've been followed here. Her hand is balled into a fist, and she's biting down into it. She is trying very very hard not to have a panic attack. Things have gone to hell, she's just crashing from the adrenaline high of quite possibly the best driving of her life, and - oh, did she mention she was doing that with a racist sexist AI in the back seat providing unhelpful commentary?
Director Belltower is going to blame her for this. Even though it's not her fault. How was she meant to expect that goddamn murder-priests would show up? She... she did her best! And they were all alive because of her! Well, apart from some of the clones, but everyone knows that Bobs are acceptable losses and some Victors dying against a Choirister ambush is totally okay!
Well, Kessler is in the car, performing maintenance on that damn robot which for some reason she can't see - which she finds very unfair because obviously she could help him better. She's the one with the up-to-date robotics knowledge, after all. Urgh. Unless he did the AI in some primitive way which he doesn't want to show her. Like, really primitive. From ages ago. Like the early eighties.
It's so hard being the youngest in your amalgam who isn't Rose, Henriette considers. Everyone is all "oh, things were better in the old days" and "Henriette, you'll understand when you have more experience". She had quite liked that Void Engineer AI when they met, and if Director Belltower had picked her, she'd have had someone closer to her own age who understood how hard it was being a prodigy when no one appreciated you. Also, she wouldn't have had to put up with Dr Rosario, who was, FYI, kind of a stupidly smart Progenitor bimbo.
"Miss... Langley," a man says, detaching from the shadows of the walls of the underground car park. "We've been... expecting you. Welcome, welcome. You took sssssslightly longer than was expected."
Henriette nearly chokes on her fist. He's wearing a dark suit, has reflective sunglasses on even at this time of night, and wears an ear piece. "Kessler?" she says to her companion, who's still in the car.
"No, Miss Langley, I am not 'Kessler'. I am Mr Tailor. The Agency has been keeping its eye on you, Miss Langley. We have notissssssed that you have come into some form of... ah, trouble with a local Reality Deviant presence. We are here to offer our... assistance. We wish an end to... ah, improper thought. Please ask us for authorisation, so we can transfer your requested... assssssets."
What is that accent, Henriette wonders. It is clipped, terse, and there's a faint American twang to it, but there's something else. Something she can't recognise. The elongated 's' sounds, especially are more like the static you get from a damaged voice synth than anything else. "Authorisation," she demands, as any good Unionist would.
The agent's bland expression twists into a very small smile. "Sigma Niner Niner Niner Clarity," he says. "Auth override."
Henriette frowns. She doesn't recognise the code. No, wait, there's a trace of deja vu. Just a trace. Like she once knew it, but doesn't know it any more. Maybe it's an old one. An out of date one from years ago? No, she doesn't remember having heard it at all... and yet there's the deja vu. She locks her jaw. Well, either way, that wasn't an up to date Auth code. She'll just play along, because... shit, this is a Chorister trying to pull the same trick on them that they've pulled on the local vampires. "Kessler!" she says again, more urgently.
"That was not… the correct response, Miss Langley," the agent says, tilting his head. "I must admit, the Agency had details on your… ah, possible backsliding. But we were inclined to give you the benefit of the… ah, doubt. Doubt. Yes, you doubt, do you not? You doubt me, Miss Langley. Despite the fact that I am an agent of the Union who hasssss given you the correct authorisation code. Doubt such as this is a weakness and… ah, evidence of incorrect thought."
Something metallic, almost insectoid squirms over out from under the collar of his shirt for just a moment, before vanishing again.
Henriette really wishes that she could reach her gun. Not the pistol at her hip which she's not all that great at using. She wishes she was in her armour and could have the warm comfort of her 20mm in her hands. Not that she can even draw the 9mm at her hip, because her muscles aren't responding properly. There's something in the man's glasses. Something which holds her gaze, leaving her like a cute fluffy animal in front of a snake.
"Such a shame, Miss Langley. I was hoping you could be recognissssssed as Agent Langley, and live up to the example of your forebears, who were… quite satisfactory in their role before their duties were sssssssadly cut short."
The hiss. It really isn't an 's' noise. The man flickers slightly whenever it happens. The shape when he flickers is different from his normal appearance, Henriette thinks through the fear.
"Perhaps we should talk about crime. About sin. Because the two are… ah, much of a likeness. When a religion says something is wrong, it is a sin. When an secular organisation condemn it, it is… ah, then it is a crime. But when your cause is the correct one, then perhaps sin is the better word. So let us talk of your sin, Miss… ah, Langley. The sins... of the father. No. That's not right. The father was innocent. So was the mother. We are instead here to talk to you, Miss Langley, about the ssssssins of the da..."
"Get down!" Kessler booms over the noise of a whine, and there's just enough of Henriette left that isn't trapped like a rabbit in the headlights to throw herself to the ground.
Then there's just noise.
After five long seconds the mutilated body of a woman wearing red dress falls to the ground. Well. Maybe it wasn't a red dress to begin with. It's rather hard to tell, given that Kessler has just nearly sawn her in half.
Henriette peeks from between her fingers, and sees the barrel of a minigun poking from the car directly behind where she had been standing. She gasps into her hands. She's panicking so much she can barely synch with her body. She can't really do much else but hyperventilate. That's just an autonomous response.
Kessler clambers out, holding his minigun. "Are you hurt?" he asks.
"It… it knew," she stammers, her voice mechanical box speaking instead of her vocal cords and all she can think of is it-knew-it-knew-it-knew and…
"Henriette!" Kessler sounds alarmed, and he leaps out of the car, still carrying the minigun like a normal man might carry a rifle. "Are you…"
He tugs at her arm. She is just a limp doll, unable to move.
"Women. Always prone to fainting. It's the womb, don't you know?" comes a booming English voice from inside the car. "Stops proper rational judgment."
That, at least, gives her enough presence of mind for anger to burn through the mind-consuming panic. Unsteadily, Henriette pulls herself to her feet, and leans against the now-heavily-damaged car. "Shut up you… you… you fucking stupid piece of armour! What… what was that?" she asks.
"I don't know," Kessler says grimly. "There was a… a presence in his body. Or her body, rather. A flesh-stealing spirit."
"It claimed to be a Unionist," Henriette says slowly. She can't think of it clearly. She'll lose herself if she does. "And we shouldn't talk about spirits."
John facepalms. "Oh, I know 'spirit' ain't the proper way to talk about it, but I'm just kind of freaking out here," he says. "It's an alien thing which takes over people and makes them look like them. I'm just going to call it a bloody spirit until I find out what the proper word is." He takes a deep breath, and takes in Henriette and her state. "I can call it an EDE if that helps," he suggests.
Henriette exhales. "Yeah. It does," she says. "Is… is… is it dead?" she adds, in a tiny voice.
"No," Kessler says, face like steel. His eyes glow faintly. "It'll be back. My gun and Ol… and the ammo will've given it a nasty sting, but that's all. It just has to find a new body and…"
"Go! We need to go," Henriette snaps. She's crying, and she doesn't even realise it. "It'll be back and… and…"
"Can you drive?" Kessler asks her. "I mean, not can you drive-drive, but, like, are you able? Feeling able, I mean. Because, shit, I thought I was a hotshot behind the wheel. If you could handle a transport like you did this thing and you'd been with us back in '94, I wouldn't have wound up on a goddamn dinosaur planet for twenty years."
Henriette tries to pull herself together. Yes. She's an incredibly good driver. And pilot. And material scientist. And she's attractive by the standards of any room which isn't packed with goddamn Progenitors. She isn't a scared little girl who… who… well, she isn't! The giant tank of a man wants her to drive. She sticks her jaw out. "I doubt I'd have been much use in '94," she retorts. "Even my brilliance has limits. Because, you know, I was born in 1995."
"Aww, shucks," Kessler says, shaking his head with mock sadness. "Stop making a man feel old. Well, okay, maybe you couldn't have been a better pilot, but you'd still have been a better commanding officer than the idiot who didn't give us a proper escort."
Henriette manages a weak chuckle, as she realises what he's doing. He's trying to distract her with banter. "You b-big dumb robot bear. You're not as stupid as you look, are you?"
"You know, that's a great idea! Next time we attack some vampires, I should totally go as a robot bear! I'd even be keeping the Russian theme going."
"Idiot."
"You could go as a pirate! Obviously you'd have to be a robot pirate to fit in with the robot bear."
"… you know what, forget that I said you weren't as stupid as you looked," Henriette says, smiling despite herself. "So, we have a vampire in a fridge, we still have some clones alive… let's go find the others and we can go have a probing party."
She pauses. And then turns bright red as her mind catches up with her mouth.
"Are we quite done fussing over the hysterical woman?" the armour demands. "There are treacherous curs to kill! And your other feeble female allies to rescue from uncouth outsiders who may threaten the virtue of those poor delicate flowers!"
Kessler has to hold Henriette back from dismantling the power armour right here and now. In the end he manages only because he points out that the robot had put Director Belltower on the list of 'delicate flowers'.
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