Chapter 52: -Lying to Yourself
7:08 PM July 28th
Diana
“I-Indra?” I tried to speak up.
Her voice had never held so much venom in it. “N-no fucking-g wonder Rorsche has been-n all o-ver you! Fir-st he can’t stop comparing me to you, how you’re so perfect and complete… bu-t now you have fucki-ng Gold SIM? I-s this a joke?-?”
“Indra, please l-let us talk about this-s.” I couldn’t hold it in any more. “There’s a-a lot more about this-s than you know, let-t me explain.
“E-xplain?!” Indra’s voice chilled me. “Oh no. This changes a l-lot. A G-gold changes everything. We’ll talk this through… you don’t really need a Gold d-do you? So let’s find a com-promise.”
“Indra. Where are you taking her-r?” I wanted to scream.
“I wasn’t planning on-n doing anything to her today, but now… we’ll talk later. Once I have her in saf-fer hands.” Indra’s voice cut out, and my own was heaving in the constraints of my car. I tried calling up either of them, but the signal just bounced back, they were inaccessible.
“Fuck.” I said to myself, heart threatening to rip free. Things had gone downhill so quickly, and I wasn’t even there to see it. Was I just supposed to wait?
I couldn’t just stay still. I had the power to change this, I had to change this. If Indra was doing this because of Rorsche, out of his influence… we could beat him.
But if she wasn’t, if this was something she was doing out of her own will, then I would still try to change things. I knew she was saving up money for a better jaw, that she felt limited because of her Implant. My Gold could get her there… it could get her anywhere.
My breath began to betray me, the number of bad things that could happen to a cop in Little Requiem could never be counted even on a mutant with a hundred hands. Especially if they found out Yvette had a Silver SIM in her body.
But where would I even look? I didn’t know the first thing about… how to navigate that place.
I didn’t, but I knew someone who might, or at least, Ripley might know someone. It was a gamble, a long shot.
I started the call, as the next few seconds my thoughts fought against one another. Was this really the right thing to do? I barely knew Ripley. But I didn’t have any choice.
The call connected, and I felt my heart sink as my words choked out. “Ripley. I- I need help.”
He took some time to respond, but I heard the faint whisper of my name being said out. It seemed he wasn’t alone. When he spoke, it was strange how confident he seemed. “What’s wrong?”
My thoughts fractured, the disordered jumble of being unsure if I was overreacting erred my speech. “My- my friend, she’s been taken to Little Requiem. She’s… kidnapped—“ I remembered the important parts, “—You, you’re in contact with Missy right? Is there any way you can help me track her down? You know someone? You- you have to know someone! I- I don’t know, she’s just been-“
A feminine voice interrupted me, a quiet almost doll-like tone that made me freeze once she spoke. “Are you talking about Yvette?”
So… they were keeping tabs on me. Did they know anything about this? “Yeah, her.”
“Give me a moment.” The voice slipped away briefly, but I couldn’t help and feel like I’d made a mistake by contacting Ripley.
“Just take a deep breath, Diana.” His voice returned, and the sympathy in it only stroked my fears further.
Why on earth did I blurt out details of my Implant on a police monitored call? “I just- fuck! I might have fucked up!”
No show of remorse played back from either of the two on the other side, instead that feminine voice played straight to business of what I wanted. “She’s being taken into a Metal Heavens safehouse, I’m sending you the address.“
A message came through from Ripley’s Sigil.
Carrington Warehouse, has a gear symbol with a halo spray painted on it. Follow the signs in LR to a place called The Hellfire Club, then turn right and continue walking until you find a series of bars dug out into building frameworks, it should be next to a bar called ‘Gears n’ Spears.
“Thank you, thank you.” I’d find my way, one way or another. The call closed as my car started, lightning raced down my fingertips, the Golden warmth it gave me solidified my resolve. I had to get Yvette out of there.
7:42 PM
I’d parked my car about a twenty minute walk from where Little Requiem officially started. The entire region around it was just as crime-riddled, and I was taking a risk walking through it but I didn’t care. My pace racing, I strode through alleyway after alleyway until the old buildings appeared more ruinous and bare-bones, roads turning to gravel.
The hollow ribs of the fallen sky-city echoed in my sight now, and the various clientele were far more pronounced. No one hid themselves here, illegal firearms were brandished as a show of respect and fear. Grotesque mutations and body modifications on display out of pride, they eyed my hurried gaze and already several of them were following me.
I turned and shot, my blast just scorching the ear of one man with a pig’s nose. “Not. Today.” I growled, my eyes burning with the fury of a storm, then I walked away. Maybe I was lucky that no other distractions surprised me as I tracked down the warehouse, but it might have just been my eyes.
Because if they wanted to see what a Gold could do, then they would see it.
———
I found the warehouse maybe fifteen… twenty minutes after entering the town. This was too much, crammed with vilehood. What could be considered infrastructure was a maze of verticality, numerous layers to the spines and ribs as they stuffed dozens of illegal businesses into every fallen piece of rubble they could. The warehouse itself was half dug into the ground, some old museum they’d repurposed for official goods turned into a criminal outhouse.
Maybe I should have scouted more, scanned more, but I entered with only the superficial glance of my eyes. I snuck around the presences of two Neuroframes, kicking open one door and barging my way deeper past the gates when I saw one car parked out in the open. It was a police car.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
That was enough to ignite my body into action, I shot myself with my gun, regretting I didn’t carry more rounds on me as I bolted my way into the first door. The presence of frames around me swelled, and not just Neuroframes but the breath and life of electricity soared within the building’s denizens.
If there was one thing I was lucky with, it’s that all Metal Heaven’s goons used cybernetics, it made them easy to detect. As soon as two of them heard me enter, I’d already shot by the time they turned the corner. Electrical eyes burst as they fell backwards, stunned but not downed.
Another three shots were enough to fizzle their limbs, then a slam of their heads into the concrete walls rendered both unconscious.
“Shit, what was that?” One yelled from across the space, his frame coming closer to witnessing my intrusion.
I used my newer gun, the Shandian Leizhou, the weapon slowly charged itself as I squeezed the trigger. The hum quivered until it was a high pitch, and I unleashed that growing rumble into my arm. I saw my flesh burn and the pain was a hot flash that numbed up my shoulder, but just as quickly that wound had healed.
Before either of the three newcomers could figure out what was happening, I attacked. One’s jaw was cracked apart, the other’s steel clavicle dented and the third’s Shardware-arm burst into shrapnel by my jab. The last one was left standing, but a kick into the back of his knee snapped the steel limb into a stump, and I locked my gun on his head as my gaze burned through him.
“A cop was brought here, where is she?”
He was quick to spill his secrets. “Shit, that masked bitch took her underground! Bottom floor! Just leave me-“
I shot him square between the eyes, the thick visor he had for his vision bursting into debris. I didn’t know if that had been lethal, but the heat in my nerves were compelling me to act.
“Underground…” I repeated to myself as my senses honed on to the wires running beneath me. My sight swam through the labyrinthine rivers, piecing out the swells and markings of the individual frames lurking beneath. I recognized one of them, it was one I felt every day at work. Indra Harmony.
Finding a staircase was easy, but the pinpricks of flowing electricity beneath me began to shuffle. They’d grown wise to my arrival. A brief shiver to my right pulled my attention, a small camera was staring at me.
I raised my hand at it, and drained the life running through it as electricity snapped to my fingers. My range was now much better, but it cost my Warp Energy. Charging myself once more with my Braceshocker, I was comfortable at my current charge, but I could hold twice this amount.
The doors at the bottom of the staircase were open for me, two guards waiting there with guns at the ready, but they didn’t open fire. “You here for Indra?”
“My business is with her, yes.” I held back fire within my voice, keeping it’s inferno cold with my tone.
“Then get done with it quick. Don't like cops” His voice radiated from a speaker in his throat, jabbing his head towards the door.
I didn’t say anything, but I made sure to continue feeling the flow of their frames and weaponry. It was unwise to leave my back turned on them.
Then I looked around, amidst the buzz of machinery I’d undercounted the amount of Metal Heavens fanatics here — I was surrounded by maybe fifteen of them. All around me working were thick stations of various Shard Operators, their tables filled with what looked to be corpses.
Bodies with pried hearts that were still beating, half-drilled skulls, entire arms of both organic and inorganic origin strewn up on a drying rack. The entire room was vile, reminding me of Tongeulasher, and I felt my heart tossed into pieces knowing Indra took Yvette here.
And there they were, Indra held a gun out to Yvette’s head, her eyes dazed and unaware. “Stay right where you are! Diana!”
“Put the gun down, Indra!” I yelled, my body begging to surge at her.
“What the fuck is wrong with you! D-don't take a step! I drugged Yvette, so listen up if you want her to make it out!” The muzzle deformed the skin of my friend’s temple, Yvette’s eyes gaining some light as my own gaze caught hers.
“Diana?” She said weakly.
“Yvette, everything will be okay.” I seethed, but fought back the urge to step forward. Forcefully, I brought the flow of electricity within me to a dull throb, constricting it around what organs I had developed to absorb it. “What do you want, Indra?”
“Dammit, why did you have to go and make things difficult! If you just waited-” Indra positioned Yvette between me and her, the gun in her hand rattling against my friend’s head. “I fucking liked you, you know that! Genuinely thought you were a friend!”
“Then why do this!?” I screamed.
“Because not all of us have our lives gifted to us! Diana Ulrich! Not everyone has something like what you have! You know how terrible it’s been, hearing everyday from Rorsche about you! Cradleborn, perfect, SIMmed Diana! I lived my life suffering from one spot to the next, and all I ended up with was a fucked up face, an Iron BUG and a man who will never love me!” Indra had tears running down her face. “God, I feel like a fool! You really had me believing you were someone to… care for. Even if you kept your father a secret from me, I was willing to look past that!”
“Is Rorsche making you do this?” I asked, trying to know where she was coming from.
“He wanted me to scare you. To get Yvette a little injured today… that all changed when I heard… what I heard.” She eyed the Metal Heaven guards around us. “He’s been promising me a Bronze for years, been promising to help my face. To be with me when I was fixed as long as I let him control my body and help him out. It had become part of my routine, I was happy to survive like that… to be useful. Then I saw you, from the day you’ve appeared, everyone talks about how powerful you are. There was a time I thought it was because you worked for it, but now I get why.”
“I’ve never been ingenuine with you.” I pleaded. “Just put the gun down, and we can work this out!”
“You think they’re going to let either of us out? I may let scum like them slide if I can get a profit, but you’re not like me. You don’t need to make the tough sacrifices to get what you want… so I’m going to force you.” She heaved her breath. There was some part of her regretting all of this, I could see it on her. That didn’t stop her from pointing her gun at me, the barrel aimed above my nose. “Your life or Yvette. I’m sorry… but this is my way out.”
“Indra.” I stayed perfectly still, my vision fading as I saw the inner circuitry of her metallic arms. Every minute movement was preordained by some flicker up and down her body, and while I wasn’t an expert at reading them… I could be fast enough to react. “I-“
Indra’s arms tensed, and the briefest of gaps between her hand squeezing the trigger and the bullet firing was enough that lightning ignited my muscles into motion, closing the gap between us both. The bullet panged harmlessly into the far wall, gaining only a disapproving grunt from the biggest Metal Heaven goon.
“I don’t have to make that decision.” It was too easy for me to wrestle the gun away from her and toss it to the ground.
She tried to twist her grasp away from me, but I kept her still. “We can still change things, Rorsche doesn’t deserve any of what he has either! And you know what—“ I got a little more angry now “—fuck you for thinking I want any of what Brian Ulrich has given me! You’re so short-sighted that you can’t even see that I’m trying to more than what I was born as!”
I tossed her backwards, pushing her off Yvette who slumped in my arms, a little more awake now. Indra heaved against the wall, tears falling down the curves of her mask, a defeated cry in her voice. “I know Diana… I know I’m just making excuses.”
“Why?” I administered a police-issued AdStim to Yvette, her eyes opening wide and bloodshot as soon as the needle retracted.
“Because…” Her eyes fell on the guards around us. “Rorsche had nothing to do with this. None of this is because of him. It’s me. I would do… anything. For what a Gold Implant could get.”
My body grew numb even against the heat running within me. The Metal Heavens guards all shuffled with gasps and whispers at the sound of the golden word, their guns raising in attention as Indra continued speaking.
“Skeleton’s already got an offer for 40 million as long as I’m alive… half of it’ll go to you.” Indra explained to the nearest guard.
That was all they needed to open fire on me.