Anya slammed the door behind her and stormed off; Richard’s voice behind her muffled with the door now shut. She made her way to her bedroom and slammed the door as well, her face contorted with a mix of anger, frustration, and a feeling of being dragged down by what she felt were her own fears.
Her fingers moved up, and she wondered if she had properly captured everything in the meeting from her recordings.
As her fingers browsed through her recordings, her frustration grew. Frame after frame, there was nothing but static on the recordings. She screamed out in frustration, threw the closest thing she could from the bedside, and slammed herself onto her bed.
She looked at the ceiling as her mind raced. Her mind recalled everything clearly. She had brought up the question of why not Noa, as Noa was the eldest, and Richard flatly answered nonchalantly, “I have other plans for her… and you will not share this with anyone, especially Noa.”
Finally, she brought up her communicator on her HUD and called Noa, breathing deeply, then counting backward and exhaling slowly, trying to calm herself down.
“Anyanas? Is everything OK? Comms was out, so he must have brought you into that room yes? But… what went on? There was total comms blackout while you were in there, and it was quite some time too.”
Anya lay back on her bed and huffed, still frustrated at what had transpired.
“I have to get married to Alexander Xela,” she said flatly.
“What!? Why!?” Noa’s response showed how she was equally shocked at the news
“They are at their weakest, and Father wants me to move in and take over the reins, legally, so I have to be part of their family while I take control of everything they have.”
“What? No? That doesn't make sense at all.”
“That’s what I told him. He literally gave me a crash course on the law on that part. And yes, spelled out, while I could, in theory, take over all of a family’s interests and holdings as a formal signatory by being part of their organization, priority will always be preceded by an active family member who is part of the organization, and, according to him, Anton Xela is passing the reins of the family to his son… well, Alexander… so… I must be part of the family, formally, legally, to take over it”
Silence.
“Noakins? You there?”
“Yes… yes… I… so… there’s no other way around it?”
Anya sighed deeply as she shook her head. “Afraid not… and another thing. He had records of every contract we’ve had. Ever, every little detail, bonus parameters, target deets… everything.. he showed me the scrip copies, a-a-nd, he blames us for starting the war that is currently going on now.”
“What? You mean by raiding the Hyena’s factory? He does know that I did it to get you out, right?”
“Yes, he does.” Anya bit her lip. She could feel her anger and frustration rising as her voice trembled at the end of the sentence.
Noa stayed silent, picking up the tremble at the end of Anya’s reply.
“I’m gonna talk to him, moving my ass over to their place.”
“No point, babe. He’s going over to the Xela’s as we speak… I did ask him about you.”
“About me… in what way?”
Anya suddenly caught herself; she wondered how much she should tell everything. Perhaps bits and pieces over time? She knew how Noa got with anyone who hid things from her, but she had to protect them—Noa and her own father. And her mind kept coercing her; this was the time that needed it.
“I asked him what happens to you now and if he would allow us, um... You… to continue.”
“And?”
“He shrugged, he said as long as we don’t… well, you don’t start something else that will rock the world…”
“Hold up, what’s with the ‘you’ and not we…you’re not doing gigs anymore? Did he forbade you or something?”
“Not directly, but it was… heavily implied.”
“Hrmph,” came Noa’s reply; Anya could feel her sister’s mind churning.
“Noakins, please don’t do anything that will upset him; I’ve honestly never seen him that way.”
“He can’t do this shit… it…its…. Fuck dammit!”
Anya scoffed dryly. “Tell me about it… He said it was our duty as Essedars to keep building on what the family has and said that people like us can’t be too emotional, something along the lines of,”
Anya cleared her throat, then proceeded with a bad mimic of Richard’s tone and low voice.
“People like us do not have the allowance for emotional decisions. Everything we do must be made from a place of reason…”
she scoffed, then returned to her normal voice, “ whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Huh, ya sure, father, no emotional decisions… You should have told him to make more babies with mother, then he could pick on another sibling.”
Anya couldn’t help but giggle at Noa’s reply, turning onto her side as she looked out the plate glass window of her room.
“So, when is this…’wedding’ supposed to be?”
“A few weeks from now, I think?…” Anya’s eyes rested on the rectangular angles of a transport lifting off from the vast Essedar compound.
“So soon!? Wow… Can you come for any… going away gigs?”
Anya shook her head, tears slowly sliding from her eyes. “Nope, forbidden.”
“Okay, I will think of something. This is beyond ridiculous. He can’t do this, and I will not sit idly by while he tries to force you to do it.”
Anya smiled weakly, one hand moving to cover her eyes as tears welled up in them, “Did you know that mother is actually from .. okay, was…from House Mallifar?”
“Oh? Did Father tell you this?”
Anya nodded to herself. “Mhm, but she wasn’t from the family's main branch, like..second or fourth cousin or something.”
“Huh, imagine that, so history was incorrect when they recorded that every member of that House was eliminated then.”
Anya shrugged. “Apparently so.”
There was a long pause. Anya felt like she wanted to curl up and disappear. This was not happening—not to her. Maybe it would happen to someone else, someone she would read about… but not to her, never to her.
“Noakins... I…I’m gonna go, okay? I need some time to process this.”
Noa was slow to respond, “Okay, Anyanas, you hang in there. Remember, I’ll always just be a call away if you need anything, alright? And I, we, will see to it that this… so-called… plan doesn’t come to fruition.”
Anya smiled and sniffled “OK… and yes, I … should go… Love you, babe.”
“Love you, Anyanas, I’ll see you soon.”
The line cut, leaving Anya to her thoughts, as she closed the blinds to the large windows streaming in the sun from outside and turned away from it.
—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Noa sighed heavily and looked up at the mess on the table she had worked on before Anya’s call.
She packed up everything: gun oil and tools, then finally replaced her favorite pistol back to its holster on her hip.
She needed a distraction, something to take her mind away from this news. To say it was sudden and unexpected would be an understatement. She had only read about these types of unions in the history books, and it was ancient history, as far as the records that she did read anyway.
Bug Bunny’s communicator icon appeared on her HUD as she called her.
“Hey Noa”
“Hey, Bunbuns, busy?”
“Yes and no… I was about to call you.”
“Oh? What about?”
“Dug up more stuff from the archives… and I gotta tell you, these were deep,” she dragged out the word, emphasizing, “ archives… like, someone wanted to make sure the information would be buried forever kind of deep.”
Noa chuckled. “Not deep enough for the great Bunbuns, huh?”
Bug Bunny chuckled on her end. “Child’s play, even if I say so myself.”
Noa’s HUD scrolled with notifications of ‘files received’
“Whoa, this… is a heck of a lot.”
“Mhmm, I went deep down this rabbit hole, and it went everywhere.”
“Really appreciate it, Bunbuns, you’re the best.”
“Aww, shucks Noa… I know! But.. thank you. I’ll leave you to it then. Any news on Anya?”
Noa nodded “Yes, yes, I’ll brief you, then we meet up?”
“You miss my hologram already?” Bug Bunny sounded amused.
“Well… I need to meet up somewhere no one would ever guess me to be, and that goes for you as well, and I suppose our rigger.”
Bug Bunny sighed heavily. “I don’t anticipate anything nice from this.”
“Let’s just say that… we should meet up in a place where there are no friendly parties to Essedar.”
“Huh? What? You want to hang out in non-Esedar-controlled areas? Did someone hack your neural network or something?”
Noa sighed, her mind racing. “Okay, I’m gonna assume you got a direct ping on the loc of where the van went.”
“Defo on that... Why?”
“Migrant town, right? As far as I know, that place hovers between neutral and contested all the time, shoot me the deets of, say, a hmm, cafe or bar or something.”
“You know what, Noa, I’m gonna play along… this time, I did promise to come and see you guys in the real at least once, so you have that, this ONE time.”
Noa chuckled and smiled. “Really appreciate it, Bunbuns.”
“Do you have that old-school code thing you got as a present from Mama Baasan still?”
Noa walked over to a set of drawers and opened the bottom drawer, rummaging through small knickknacks. Finally, she paused, holding up an aged leather-bound book with a red string wrapped around it.
“Yep, still do, heh.” She smiled to herself,
“Okay, gonna send you something that requires you to use it, so be prepped for some rando shit from me.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Noa chuckled, nodding. “Sure thing, Bunbuns”
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The place was dimly lit, light coming from aged lighting designs on the walls and behind the bar. Noa patted her pistol, which sat low on her hip, as her eyes kept trained on the entrance. The patter of heavy rain outside seemed to add to the music inside.
“You sure this was the place she said?” Duke suddenly piped in, his hands nursing a pint glass, his fingers tracing the sweat on the thick glass.
Noa nodded. “Unless I forgot to read and do simple math, this is definitely the place.” She paused and looked at Duke.
“We still have at least 7ish minutes to go. Don’t get your panties in a bunch, ok?’ She grinned teasingly at Duke.
Just then, a woman walked through the door, flapping her arms to wave away the water running down her coat and hoodie. Noa’s HUD zoomed in on the person and searched for her ID profile. Her HUD came back with ‘No record, please try again.”
She scoffed and leaned back in her seat, her left hand grasping the grip of her pistol.
The woman turned and walked in their direction. Her gait seemed confident, she wasn’t tall, not short either. Noa’s eyes studied her gait and motion,
“If this is Bunbuns, I think we may have the coolest digger in all of the quad-cities.”
The woman stopped at the bar and pulled her hood off; long dreads in a wild array of colors tumbled free as she made an order, which was immediately taken care of before she picked up her glass and walked straight to their table without pausing.
Noa noticed the woman’s eyes emitting a soft blue hue from her irises and smiled.
“Noa? Duke?”
Noa smiled wider, instantly recognizing the tone and accent of the voice, she nodded in reply and nodded toward the only empty chair at the table.
The woman sat down and smiled, extending a well-manicured hand to her. Instead of skin on her palm, she had a dull, nude-colored plate that imitated a human palm, with four dull metallic strips extending under each finger.
“Luz Martin, aka Bug Bunny, so nice to finally meet in the real” She almost purred, her dark eyebrows very nicely adding to the defined angles of her jaw and face.
Noa grasped both hands at her outstretched hand. “Oh wow, BunBuns, you are hot! Nice to meet you in the real, yes, yes.”
Bug looked to her right. “And might I assume, Duke?’
Duke nodded and extended his hand, which Bug shook with her free hand.
“Wow, I’ve never met a digger that looks like you.”
Bug chuckled, highly amused. “Oh gosh, guys, you’ve spent too much time watching crappy holo shows I see.”
The three of them started conversing, exchanging their respective points of view. Duke mostly sat back and listened as Bug and Noa exchanged expressions about more than a few of the jobs they had gone through together.
“So wait… where’s Princess Anya? I wanted to meet Miss Deadshot in the real, too!”
Noa shook her head more dejectedly than she had intended.
“No Anya, for now.”
Duke sighed. “What? And here I thought I was gonna exchange notes with her!”
Noa flashed a glare at Duke. “You guys are so not in the same hemisphere; you can forget your fantasies about her.”
Duke grasped his chest ‘Ouch, Noa… that hurt.”
Noa chuckled and shook her head. “Okay…”
“Yes, why are we meeting in the real again? What’s so important that we had to meet this way?” Bug leaned forward, her fingers entwined.
Noa shrugged. “Ok, I MAY have been a tad paranoid. I mean, it was something I was already worried about ages ago, but that worry kind of slipped my mind, and well, some things aren’t adding up.”
She looked at Bug Bunny and nodded slowly. “Then, with the information that Bunbuns have found, I correlated that with whatever has been going on since we started as a team; something definitely stinks, and it's not aged Augaow cheese either.”
Duke shook his head, his brows frowned as he looked at Bug, then at Noa. Bug shot him a shrug and looked at Noa.
“Explain?”
“The com-suits that we picked up for Anlidar, I found mention of those in some of the documents that you sent to me. It's not an exact d…okay, it may have been in mid-dev at the time, but it was definitely not foreign, as Anlidar had said,”
Bug leaned forward; her eyebrow cocked up. “Oh? So it's a local dev that made it?”
Noa nodded. “Yep, definitely local.”
Bug leaned forward on the table, her fingers entwining as she grinned. “By the way, I dug further into the so-called client that contracted us for that retrieval gig Anlidar sent us on.”
Noa frowned. “And?”
“There was none; it was Anlidar.”
“What?!?”
Bug nodded slowly. “Exactly. The scrip order came via two ghost entities, and no, Mama doesn’t have a clue.”
“Who the fuck is this guy anyway? Anya and I always figured he was sus.”
“Indeed, you did. But then again, you do sometimes get too paranoid for your own good.”
“Paranoia is good in our line of work; keeps us alive.” Duke suddenly said.
Noa smiled at Duke’s reply and bit her lip before she continued.
“Okay, so. The suit actively uses compounds that are already embedded in it to produce SimDs by breaking down blood and mixing it. Don’t ask me about the details of it; that’s how I understand it; just take it as gospel.’ She looked at Bug and Duke, who seemed unphased by what she was saying.
She cleared her throat and took another swig of her glass,
“Okay, now… remember that case we found in that van?”
Duke shrugged and leaned back. “I didn’t attend that gig.”
Noa ignored his retort and continued,
“Well, enhanced blood makes for more potent SimDs; they spike it with some compound I don’t even know how to pronounce. I’m going to assume that the blood in that container in the van was it. It had the same consistency as the example vids I found among the files I was going through.”
Bug leaned back, lifting her glass, and found it already empty. Noa waved at the bartender for a refill, which the bartender acknowledged.
“Okay… so we’ve confirmed that Anlidar is some ramp artist of the highest degree…”
“With a ton of contacts and financial backing,” Noa blurted in, a raised finger waving back and forth.
Bug nodded. “But that isn’t worrying; the worry is why he employed you guys specifically. I’ve gone through the audio files of the meeting you had with him, and my soft confirms it, as well as my instincts, that guy… he wasn’t lying when he said it was only you that he wanted to do it.”
Bug looked at Noa, who suddenly went silent. “Noa?”
Noa’s eyes blinked as if Bug had called her back from somewhere.
“You know what really bugs me though? I… it’s all tied with Mallifar.”
Bug shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Well, at first I thought it was my paranoia… but… I just can’t hold it back anymore. These suits were envisioned by their tech heads, they were also the owners of Genietech..”
“The most advanced research company for nanotech and genetics in the world during their time,” Duke said.
Both women looked at Duke, who had been otherwise quiet the whole time. He shrugged. “I like history, okay? Sue me.”
“Anyway, Genietech was wholly owned by house Mallifar, among other things.”
Bug shrugged. “I still don’t get where you’re going with this, Noa.”
Noa slipped a hand into a small pouch on her pistol’s holster and produced a small info-shard, sliding it over to Bug. “It's locked from air transfer, manual only.”
Bug nodded and slipped the info-shard into a port of her own. The information scrolled up on her HUD as she focused on it.
“Huh…”
“I know, right?”
The drinks arrived, and Noa tipped the server generously before passing a glass to each person at the table.
“Okay… so…” Bug looked at Duke, then Noa.
“I’ll try to sum this up as simply as possible then.”
Noa leaned back, sipping on her drink, “Go ahead.”
“Hyenas gained their rep from ripping off chrome from people, but it seems that they didn’t do it wholesale, only certain hmmm, groups of people..”
“Lokhs,” Noa piped in without hesitation.
“Yes, every one of the reported chrome scavenging they did were people from lowbie town, none from High Rise, not even plat-heads nor security employed by the great houses. Okay, hmm…”
Bug’s fingers scrolled the information, her other hand moving as well, picking out information from one slide and merging it with others onto a fresh document on her HUD.
“... Mallifar kept everything in check; their continued control of the masses was because everyone was cared for, even those who didn’t earn legally, at least. Huh, free Chrome, to be field tested, then ‘scavenged’ by Hyenas, who worked for them. Damn, nasty people.”
Noa chuckled. “You gotta remember, it's the same today, treatment of those not from High-Rise, I mean.”
Bug nodded sagely as she continued perusing the information Noa had given her.
“Ah, here we go, synth blood.”
Duke shrugged. “Synth blood? Nothing special about that.”
Bug chuckled. “Not these. Okay, let’s call it enhanced blood, then? It's not made for use in a human body at all, at least not from the test results… says here that, according to their research, the synth…”
She paused and looked at Duke: “Enhanced blood would be the best base for the SimDs synthesized by Noa’s com-suit. Huh, interesting.”
She continued perusing, mumbling to herself “Okay, more than a few articles and CP reports that show none survived the purging of House Mallifar.”
Noa nodded, “Check out the symbol of the pin on the man’s suit. The one shaking hands with Richard in the news article I marked out.”
Bug enlarged the image. The man's lapel pin bore the same symbol as those on the cases containing the combat suit and blood that Noa had encountered: a stylized version of a phoenix, its pair of black, red-lined wings pointed diagonally upward, akin to the letter V.
“What the fuck…but… that dude is House Mallifar”
Noa smiled and nodded. “Yep. That’s what I said.”
Duke sat up. “What? C'mon ladies, I honestly feel like a third wheel here.”
Noa shot a look at Duke. “Don’t worry, Duke, I’ll pass you another info-shard as well, already have it prepped.”
Duke looked at Noa; his face expected something from Noa now.
Noa chuckled and dug into the same pouch she did before, sliding it over to Duke.
“Wow, thanks, Noa,” Duke blurted out sardonically.
“Don’t start.” Noa darted him a look before she turned to Bug Bunny again.
“Bunbuns, Mira is definitely connected to this. She was security head, right? So, we really, really need to find her.”
Bug looked at Noa and shook her head.
“She combat-picked your suit’s ICE in moments. Noa, I don’t think we should get into a fight with her anytime soon… yet.”
Noa shook her head. “Not to fight; I need to have a … chat with her.”
Bug chuckled flatly. “Ouch, the only ‘chats’ I remember you having with those types usually end up rather… not very chatty.”
“I’m serious. Can you reach her somehow? You know, do your digger magic thingie?”
Bug giggled, highly amused at Noa. “Digger magic thingie?”
“You know what I mean. In the meanwhile, I will try and talk to Richard, he hasn’t been truthful to me about things.”
“About what? That he worked closely with the big bad Mallifar? C’mon Noa. That’s how the houses of High-Rise work, right? You know that.”
Noa sighed, nodded, and stood up, “I need to go to the ladies.” She crooked her head and winked at Bug.
“I’ll go with you; all the rain outside and these beers making me wanna go as well.”
Duke glared at the two of them, waving them away almost dejectedly.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bug Bunny locked the door while Noa made sure the stalls were empty.
“Okay, Noa, what issit?’
“I perused through the notes on the experiments and field tests that you sent.”
“Yes, I saw them, figured they might help with your research.”
“You didn’t go through them?”
Bug shook her head. “I just scan the first couple of sentences from the starting para of each section to make sure the doc is relevant. Why?”
“The simulations and continued testing of the suits showed that a user's continued usage changed their hmm… demeanor? Behavior? Something about the blood base of the SimD breaking down and having cumulative effects. Well, they get agitated, and their tempers usually end up very, very short.”
Bug leaned against the door she had just locked and shrugged. “I haven’t noticed you getting angry any faster or any more than normal.” She grinned mischievously at Noa.
Noa groaned and rolled her eyes. “I’m serious, Bunbuns! Have you noticed me raging more?”
Bug shrugged and shook her head. “Nope. Still, pretty normal Noa raging going on.”
Noa inhaled deeply, her nose wrinkling at the chemical smell of the bathroom, then nodded.
“Okay, if you notice anything different, gimme a heads up, please.”
Bug chuckled and nodded. “Sure thing… anything else?”
Noa bit her lip, seeming to have a discussion in her mind, and finally, she nodded.
“Anya’s getting married.”
Bug lifted her arms in shock. “Whoa! What?”
Noa nodded. “Mhm, alliance marriage with House Xela; it’s in a few weeks from now.”
Bug folded her arms now, focusing on Noa. “And you’re just gonna let it slide?”
Noa scoffed. “No fuckin’ way.”
Bug smiled and nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought; any idea on how?”
“I’ll tell you when I come up with something; in the meantime, I wanna try and get in a chat…” she paused and glared at Bug, who shrugged back. “... with Mira… then, from there, evaluate what we have. Maybe I can get Duke to dig into Xela.”
Bug chuckled, shaking, then nodding her head. “I’ll program some drones to scout their areas; send me locs on Xela properties, official and non-official; least we can do is know what they have if you plan anything loud?”
Noa nodded, her mouth opened before Bug continued again.
“Although… Only ranged scouting and flights for their High-Rise. Won’t be able to go past their security without raising eyebrows on their end. Can definitely do their city areas, though.”
Noa seemed deep in thought as she continued to bop her head slowly, as she carefully listened to Bug and examined what she had in mind.
“Okay, scout, intel, for now.”
“You got it, Noa. Shall we then?”
Noa nodded. “You go ahead; I actually really needed to pee.”