Noa picked up the pistol and tested its weight in her hand, smiling at its welcomed familiarity.
“Nice of your guys to help pick my stuff up,” She muttered, separating magazines she had just loaded before.
“It was nice of you to give us some of your blood so we could get past the locks,” Mira replied.
She looked over at Mira, who wore one of the extra Lipmen suits she had liberated from the job she and Anya did. “Did you wipe out the logs?”
Mira chuckled and nodded in silence as she stepped away from the table full of weapons to a familiar-looking crate by its legs.
Noa’s eyes followed her, and she recognized it immediately. It had the same makeout and markings as the one they found in the rocker boy’s van.
“What’s that anyway? Synth blood, right?”
Mira nodded while she opened the lid. A soft hiss followed by steam emitted from it as the stored cold escaped.
“If users don’t get in range, these will serve as the base for the com-stims the suit injects into its wearer.” She turned and tossed Noa a vial before returning to the crate, sliding a finger slowly over each as if she were counting.
“You insert it, top first, into the arm slots.” She turned to face Noa, one hand holding and guiding the vial into one of three slots on her upper arm, which received the tube smoothly.
Noa smiled, and her head bopped. “Ah, so that’s what these are for; I wondered why it could only just take a finger in it.”
“The synth blood makes up for the lack of genetic modification which you already have. For regular, more…’normal’ users like me. And just like me, Diggers and Overwatchers don’t usually engage in combat close enough with our quarry to allow for the use of the suit’s um... Appendages,”
She continued while she inserted two more vials into the remaining slots on her left upper arm. “Honestly? Those are usually used in emergencies where the synth-blood has run out… and besides, those blood-sucking appendages freak me out.”
Noa listened intently as she inserted the vials into the slots on her upper arm. Appreciating the walkthrough. She was more than familiar with needing a base and not having any targets from which to attain the blood.
Noa turned to the table again, shifting the pistol she had picked up to the side, followed by the magazines. She then picked up a beefier-looking weapon and checked it before sliding it beside the pistol.
Mira had leaned against her end of the table while she looked at Noa preparing.
“Sub Autos and Autos are good, but if you have a system that can take EMP rounds, I’d recommend that as your main, there’ll be lots of drones, walking, or otherwise, at the building.”
Noa looked up at Mira. “You said Belov and Xela are there as well, yes?”
Mira nodded in agreement.
Noa turned and continued with her previous work. “Then there’ll be plenty of soft-bags around as well,”
“Besides, don’t you diggers usually knock out the steel bags?”
Mira chuckled and shook her head slowly, her expression heavily judging Noa. “Yes, but some will be immune to diggers, trust me on this. You’ve never had a gig near or in a House’s corp HQ, right?”
Noa shook her head. “Yes, but I’ve been in them and seen what kind of security they have.”
“So, you know about the walkers they have then?”
Noa raised her head as her hands stopped moving, tilting her head inquisitively as she looked at Mira.
“Walkers? You mean military, war-zone-graded Walkers?”
Mira inclined her head ‘Yep, those”. She smiled as she saw Noa’s response, void of reaction, while the younger woman glared at her with her green eyes as if waiting for her to say more.
“They won’t show those to civis, on visitations, for example. They have backup, just in case diggers take them out. No thanks to diggers like me.” Mira smirked, almost proud of the declaration she had just made.
She lowered her gaze and hands and looked at a crate beside a table leg.
“So, Load up the shotguns with EMP rounds and remind your Overwatcher to do the same.” She muttered.
She paused, then continued as she looked up at Noa again.
“Listen… My recommendation? It's a higher risk, but…”
She chewed her lip. “Don’t bring the big guns? Bring your smaller weapons for soft bags only. If and when we make it to their top floor, there won't be any steel bags at all. Even if there was any, it won’t be Walkers. They won’t risk themselves with the kind of ordnance those things carry, might end up getting swept up by the strong winds so high up.”
Noa looked at her, brows frowning.
‘The woman had just told me to load for EMP rounds, and now this?’ Her eyes studied the woman next to her; she was serious.
Noa pondered as her eyes tried to read her counterpart's face as she contemplated on it; then, finally, she nodded curtly, her face showing comprehension as she understood what Mira was telling her.
The two continued their preparation in silence.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Noa wrinkled her nose; she had never gotten used to this sharp and horrible scent. She rubbed her nose and looked at Mira.
She shook her head. “No other way, Noa, the best way to infil location is via these routes. The system leads closer to the basement areas than anything else… Unless you want to die in a blaze of glory crashing in the front entrance?”
Noa scoffed. “Blaze of glory is a misnomer, and there is no glory in death. All you do is… die,” she hissed, almost bitterly, as she continued to follow Mira’s lead through the sewer tunnel.
Mira smiled at herself as she continued walking as if she were taking a stroll in a park.
“Most of us lived in these types of areas after The Fall.” Mira suddenly said
Noa didn’t reply; her brows replied with a frown when Mira looked at her over her shoulder.
“That’s what I call it, The Fall. Historically, the real version, or otherwise. It’s known as the end to the Wars of Rebirth.” She chuckled sardonically as she continued.“I still can’t fathom the gall these people have… Wars of Rebirth, as if the world needed to reinvent itself.”
They reached a fork in the tunnels, and Mira squatted, checking each side before she turned to Noa.
“That’s when they slaughtered your family.”
Noa looked at Mira as the dark-haired woman rechecked the tunnel branches; her face had a sad bitterness. What happened still bit her deeply despite the years that had passed.
“The guys didn’t believe in that either, dying in a blaze of glory, but they stood where they fell, fulfilling the oaths they had taken,”
Mira scoffed and shook her head slowly, a wry smile on her lips. “A lot of good that did for them and their charges.”
Mira rose again and proceeded down the branch to their right; Noa followed suit. Silent, her mind preoccupied as they continued to follow the course of the tunnel. Their footfalls in the water and the sound of a steady stream of water were the only things accompanying them.
“You shouldn’t bottle it up, you know… What happened”
Noa frowned, her face annoyed.
“Don’t you ever shut up?”
Mira chuckled at Noa’s biting retort.
“I can, but I don’t feel like it. I have watched you grow in their care until they replaced the nanny who brought you up.”
Noa's brows pulled again,” You mean Nessa?” Her curiosity was piqued.
Mira nodded slowly and tittered, “Nessa, her real name was Evelyn. I helped build her background story and IDs and ensured she was the best candidate for the job when they put it out.”
“Heh,” a soft smile formed on Noa’s lips as she recalled childhood memories. “She was fun and was always tinkering away at something. I kinda picked up on her habits, I think. She made finding out how things work to be so much fun.”
Mira smiled back. She didn’t want to tell Noa that it was part of the mission parameters they had worked on. There was no point in spoiling this girl’s memories, she thought to herself.
“Do you remember what happened to her?” Noa suddenly spoke up.
“Evie? Yeah, we successfully extracted her when things got hairy at the Essedars.”
Noa nodded in reply, recalling back. Just then, Mira stopped walking and turned, grasping Noa’s shoulders firmly.
“I have thought you died twice. And I will never let that happen again.”
Noa was taken aback by Mira's sudden change in demeanor. She could feel the firm yet gentle grasp on her shoulder.
Mira smiled. “I had lost you during the evacuation. Blast nearly damn killed me, and I thought I had lost you then. After I found out you made it, Evie went in, and after that accident involving the Essedar family entourage, I thought I had lost you again.”
She stepped back and studied Noa with a broad, pride-filled smile. “But, it turned out that you seem to have the lives of a cat.”
Noa returned her smile and gently patted a hand on her shoulder. “I thought everything that happened to High Rise families would be on the evening news?”
Mira laughed and shook her head.
”Not everything. If I recall correctly, this was a security breach, so you won’t get any news for the gen-pop if anything of that sort happens. You can’t soil the invincible image of High Rise families you see. And no, I scoured the channels and backdoors, but no word of the silver-haired child who was with the parents.”
She sighed, her eyes distant, before she looked at Noa and winked. Then she pulled her hands back, turning around to continue on their heading.
“I think Mother…” Noa paused as she said it.
“Um… Criseyde was pregnant with Anya then,” she smiled momentarily.
She felt goosebumps as she remembered the time before anger suddenly flooded her. She could feel tears forming, and she shook her head, blinking her eyes.
Mira sneered at the name. “That Augaow bitch”, she hissed.
Noa was silent again. Mira checked over her shoulder before she continued. The breach location was getting close.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“This should be it.” Mira gently ran her hand on the callous surface of the wall she was facing.
Noa crossed her arms and looked skeptically at Mira, annoyed. This was the third ‘this should be it’ spot in the past fifteen minutes.
Mira looked over her shoulder and smiled at the younger woman.
“Okay, remember the cells with members who are part of the maintenance crew for the building?”
Noa nodded. Her eyes studied Mira critically.
“Throughout that time, they’ve been building hidden tunnels to access the basement area, but some have had to be covered and closed.”
She lifted the small half-spherical tool in her hand. “And this baby will tell me which ones are still... Operational, for the lack of a better term.”
Noa didn’t reply, watching Mira press the tool's flat side against the wall. Her other hand moved and tapped in the air before the tool started emitting a soft whirring sound. A few moments passed before a smile formed on Mira’s lips.
“Guess it can be true that the third time is the charm, eh?” she chuckled as she took out a long can from the pouch she carried and removed its cover.
Proceeding to draw a line with the gel-like contents in the shape of a rectangle. Affixing a small flat device that looked like a washer, she tapped the controls on her HUD, and the device started blinking with a blue light. Once done, she stepped back and pulled Noa away and to the side, her hand tapping the air as they squatted down.
“Fire in the Hole,” she called out before squatting down and facing away. Seconds passed before the device emitted a soft staccato of beeps. The gel that Mira had applied started heating up, glowing. An acridly vile smell emitted from it as black smoke seeped out. Finally the wall fell out into the sewer as if it was cut.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Coughing and waving away at the smoke, she patted Noa’s shoulder. “Welcome to Prism Towers, home of Prism Corp HQ,” she chuckled before checking the new entrance and stepping past it.
A weave of pipes greeted their sight, the space in between them conveniently sizeable for a person to squeeze through.
Mira paused and turned to Noa. “Pardon the smell,” she beckoned up with a hand, then slowly waved it down to the side.
“Piping chamber, this is where everything from up there comes down.”
Noa wrinkled her nose and silently followed Mira through the weave of pipes in their way.
Finally, they entered what seemed like a massive room with high ceilings. Control panels and large pipes were laid out throughout the room, and the two slowly made their way toward a set of steel stairs that led up to a platform and a door.
Noa unholstered her pistol from its hip holster and affixed a suppressor to it.
“You know something, I’ve always wondered why the design of this suit is… sort of half-assed,” She muttered.
Mira shot her a look, perplexed. “What do you mean?”
“When cloaking is turned on, everything appears to be just… floating?”
“Oh,” Mira smirked. “We never got past a particular stage with the prototype. Most of the field testing was done by those not expected to go into close-range combat. The Lipmen's strong suit was to disallow the wearer to be picked up by any camera, even with accessories on them. Their image on any camera would be blurred, so you can’t identify them.”
Noa shrugged in response as the Mira looked around, then walked off toward a large set of consoles.
“I need eyes.”
“Am sure Bunbuns has that covered.”
Mira squatted next to a console and removed a lower panel, her hands deftly working.
“Only one line goes in and out of this building. It’s their one way of having their tech talk to anything outside.” She paused, her hands feeling inside the belly of the panel, grunted softly while she pulled at something and then affixed two ball-shaped attachments to the exposed circuitry.
“It's arrogant if you ask me. But who’s gonna raid a Corp HQ owned by a Great House, right?” she smirked mischievously.
She stood up and paused. Her hand moved up, and she checked her HUD.
“Anytime now.”
The steady drone that was in the room suddenly stuttered before continuing on its original tempo.
Mira smirked just as Mira’s and Bug Bunny’s icons appeared on Noa’s HUD.
“Hey, ladies!” Came Bug’s voice over the communicator.
Noa can’t help but smile.
“Hey, Bunbuns, thank goodness. I thought I had to suffer alone with Mira chattering all the time.” She grinned mischievously as she shot Mira a look, who replied with an extended middle finger.
Bugs chuckled and continued, “So, I have control of their frequencies. Your guys did well on the air-gapped jammers, Mira.”
Mira smiled and nodded slowly.
“We’re all riding on their channels, but they shouldn’t notice it. Shouldn’t being the operative word here.”
Noa nodded, “What’s the word on the snakeheads?”
“They have arrived and should be deep in their meeting by now.”
Noa and Mira slowly ascended the stairs and squatted behind the door.
Mira reached out and squeezed Noa’s arm. “Remember, like a ghost; our prio are the heads; take them out and see them tear themselves apart without their heads to keep them in check. So, no loud stuff until we get there… Okay?”
“Heh,” Noa smiled at Mira and pulled up the hood that was attached to her Lipmen suit. She pulled down the veil and attached it to the bottom of the hood.
“Cya later,” she chuckled before the suit dissipated from view, and the wall greeted Mira’s sight.
Her pistol waved in the air, “See what I’m saying?”
Mira couldn’t help but giggle. Noa’s pistol, holster, and equipment belt seemed to hover in the air.
“We’ll get that sorted. Any takedowns must be silent if takedowns are needed on the way.”
“Oh, you can bet your ass there will be.”
“One moment, checking cams.”, came Mira’s reply.
“Head in the direction we discussed… Now.”
The door opened, and Noa crept toward the right after she passed it. Behind the wall that faced the door, a conversation was heard.
They proceeded down a long corridor until they reached a fork. Noa turned left and continued, but she paused when she heard a toilet flush.
A voice was heard behind the door in front of her, and then the door swung open to a man who walked out—seeming to be deep in conversation. He didn’t notice the floating gear behind him.
Noa darted a look into the bathroom and raised her pistol, aiming it squarely at the man’s upper torso.
The man was oblivious to it as he kept chatting away and continued walking toward the other end of the corridor that forked out from the bathroom door.
The pistol lowered as he turned a corner. Noa continued with Mira until they reached a large double door. The latter then manipulated the control panel on the side of the doors, opening up to an empty elevator cabin.
“In an ideal world, we could just use the shaft. But, because it's not ideal, we must take this to the top floor. We couldn’t find anything viable enough to shield our gear from the elevator's magnetic forces.”
Mira placed a hand on the cabin panel. Moments passed before the doors closed, and they could feel the cabin moving.
“Weapons and gear check. They have four in the main lobby. Bugs will use their jamming towers toward their comms, so we should be good on more coming up and, hopefully, other reinforcements. And remember, Noa; I need Richard alive until I have jacked all the info I need from his brain implants… The rest would be nice to have but not as important.”
Noa glared at Mira, somewhat annoyed, as she nodded, checking the extra clips on her belt, and moved her knife to its scabbard on her equipment belt.
Stimulant levels checked out, and she grinned; the suit had already synthesized from one of the three vials on her upper arm and had begun injecting fresh combat stims into her. At the same time, a camera view appeared on her HUD.
Four men in heavy tactical gear were situated on each corner of their hall, and two more were standing some distance apart in the corridor where the elevator was to end its journey.
Noa’s mind raced; this would make it hard to keep a silent approach when they reached their destination.
She and Mira knelt beside the door as the elevator slowed down and then stopped. On camera, she could see the one closer to the door turn, his weapon at ready. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, partly savoring the rush of the stimulants coursing through her bloodstream, before opening them again.
“Contact 12”, She muttered softly as she followed the man on her cam view, who was approaching the now-opened doors.
“On it, two secs,” Mira replied almost simultaneously.
Within moments, the man suddenly grasped his helmet, and his communicator implant started emitting a high-pitched wail directly into his hearing.
“Now!”
Noa leaned out and fired two shots before she leaned out of the elevator doors and aimed to her left, repeating the shots, three rounds this time. Both men’s full-face helmets burst as the rounds fired hit home, their corpses dropping to the floor.
“Jamming up,” Bug's voice came over the communicator.
Simultaneously, Noa sprang up and broke into a sprint. Voices were heard at the end of the corridor. The camera view on Noa’s HUD showed that two of them were approaching rapidly, while two stayed behind, aiming in the general direction of where their comrades were located.
Noa continued her sprint, pulling out her blade from its scabbard. Then, she slid down on her knees on the smooth marble surface. The momentum carried her forward just as the two rounded the corner.
She grabbed at one of their legs as the appendages sprung up, embedding themselves into the man next to him. The men behind them fired high, missing Noa as their targeting reticules couldn’t fix her transparent form properly.
Noa’s free hand slammed up toward the man she had held onto, rapidly stabbing at his inner right thigh. Perforating the thinner armor there, the blood sprays fell on Noa, giving a more distinct form to her shape.
As his partner slumped forward, the appendages draining his lifeblood, Noa unholstered her pistol and fired three shots at the pair at the other end of the hall, her rounds hitting one and sending him flying back against the plate window. In contrast, the other ran toward the other corner, tightening the angle and using his wounded comrade as cover from Noa’s aim.
Recharging Stimulants. A message flashed in the corner of her HUD.
A sudden jarring knock hit Noa’s head, and this threw her back. Her legs reflexively swiped under the man who had delivered the blow, knocking him onto his back. Noa rolled away just as he hit the floor.
Her knife stuck out from the man’s thigh as she aimed at him and let out two rounds towards his full-face helmet.
She checked on the ammo count of her pistol and deftly ejected the magazine, immediately replacing it with another. There was a sudden lull as the remaining man knelt in his corner, his muffled voice heard behind his helmet as he tried to raise anyone on his communicator.
A sudden movement caught his distracted attention, and he raised his weapon and fired it, landing hits on the corpse of his comrade. Noa leaned out at that exact moment and let out two more rounds, both connecting the man, and he was violently thrown back, head first, against the plate glass window behind him.
“Clear,” Noa announced, more out of habit than necessity, as Mira strolled beside her.
Noa glared at Mira. “Where the fuck were you?” she hissed at the older woman.
“You got your battlefield, and I have mine. Shut it”
Noa fumed. This was why she preferred to go in alone, her mind reminded her.
“I can’t get a bead on the snakeheads in the room itself.”
“That was what I was working on, Noa. Please be patient. We have control of the upper floor. No comms are coming out or in.”
“They don’t know what’s going on up there. I’ll be sure to give a heads-up if that changes, "
Bugs added over the communicator as Noa knelt beside one of the corpses. She had holstered her pistol and picked up one of the automatic rifles. She grunted with dissatisfaction and replaced the rifle on the floor. “User locked… Huh… should have figured that.”
A second camera view appeared on her HUD; this time, she moved it to the upper right corner of her HUD.
“Heh,” Noa muttered. Belov, Xale, and Richard were on-screen. They seemed to be having a heated argument. Four armed robots were in the room, all aimed toward the single door in the middle of the wall adjoining the wall they were in.
Custom Setting: ON. Confirm Option. Yes.
Noa fully appeared again as she pushed the hood covering her head back.
“You’re up” " she muttered as she watched Mira, who was already working on nullifying the threat.
Noa squatted down, her arms resting on her knees as she looked at the door before them. She could feel her rage coming up as her mind imagined the ways she would end their lives.
“Get ready,” Was all Mira said after a few moments.
Noa moved into a kneeling firing position, her pistol aimed at where she gauged the three to be, according to the camera on her HUD.
“Code downloading. I got right. You take the two on the left?” Mira patted Noa’s shoulder as she walked to her side of the still-closed doors.
The robots' arms suddenly slumped on the screen, and the lock to the large door unlocked with a soft clink.
The two of them pushed the double doors open, their weapons aimed at their agreed-upon sides.
“Noa,” Richard muttered in a gasp, more in fear than shock.
The sound of his voice reaching her prickled at her ears.
“Hello, Father,” she replied without taking her aim away from Belov and Xela, stressing the second word with a vitriol that seemed louder than how she sounded.
She pointed her weapon at Xela.
“The two Antons of the quad-cities, heh,” Noa muttered as her aim moved between Xela and Belov, finally stopping on the former.
“You… were you around during the Wars of Rebirth?”
Xela gulped. His mouth opened, yet nothing came out.
“Of course you were… you’re that decrepit.” Noa stood away from the two as she paused. Her mind raced.
“He supervised the wipeout of the then Hyenas and helped sell the story of the Mallifar’s tyranny over the masses.”
Xela turned to face Mira, “No, but…”
Noa fired a single round that exploded the rear half of his head, his body crashing down to the carpeted floor before she turned her aim to Belov.
“And you? Like to kill children, too, do we?”
Belov opened his mouth, about to reply, when Noa’s pistol whipped him across the face, followed by a blow from her knee between his legs, then another slam of her pistol butt to the back of his head. The man crumbled to the floor face-first before Noa turned to face Richard.
She sneered, her eyes started to well up with tears at the sight of him. Mira had guided him onto his knees.
“Father,” the word tasted like poison on her tongue as she struggled not to spit after uttering it.
His eyes darted at the dead body of Anton Xela, then dashed to Anton Belov. Mira’s gloved hand pressed on the top of his head, preventing him from moving his head. Meanwhile, the other hand seemed busy doing something on her HUD.
“Shhh,” Mira patted Richard’s head with her gloved hand, indicating that he should stay still as he started fidgeting.
“Noa, please, my petitsa…” His words were cut short as Noa whipped his face with her pistol, standing over him as he fell to his side
“Shut the fuck up! Don’t call me that!” She was screaming now; tears had started to roll down her cheeks.
Mira looked up from what she was focused on, the sudden cutting of information transfer infuriating her.
“Noa…” she started.
“What!?” Noa glared back at her, her gun still aimed at Richard
Mira studied Noa’s face and aggressive posture over Richard. Slowly, she shook her head, her hands already up and to the side, indicating passivity to Noa.
“I’m not the enemy here, Noa. I just need the information from him.” She gently replied to her.
The look on Mira’s face seemed to have hit a chord with Noa as she visibly shuddered, her pistol hand relaxing as Mira knelt and pulled Richard back up onto his knees.
“Just a bit more,” she declared as her hand returned to the top of Richard’s head and pressed slightly.
Noa started to pace away, then closer to where Richard and Mira were.
“What’s taking so long?”
“Damn kerbie has some excellent ICE on his head implants,” Mira replied absentmindedly, her free hand tapping the air as she worked on her HUD.
“Well, hurry it up. I wanna send this guy to meet my sister.”
Mira paused, and her eyes darted at Noa as she frowned. She didn’t know what to say in reply.
Just then, Richard spoke up shakily.
“Anya...”
Noa’s pistol again slammed against Richard’s face, throwing him back.
“You do not mention her name! You fucking killed your own fucking daughter!! What sort of a monster are you?!?” She screamed at him, her voice cracking. Her booted right foot swung, hitting his face again, the force enough to turn him.
Mira stepped back, her eyes blinked and her mouth open, and decided not to say anything.
Noa continued screaming as she started kicking Richard repeatedly.
“No! Wait!” Mira shouted out as she saw Noa taking her knife out and knelt.
Before she could move, Noa had already plunged the blade at Richard’s back and continued upwards to his head, screaming unintelligibly as blood sprayed out. All she could discern from Noa’s screaming was, “Die already!”
“Fuck this,” Mira muttered to herself as she accessed the program she had used to knock out Noa when they had first met.
Noa was screaming; her knife hand was still moving up and down in deliberate movements, stabbing at Richard’s now lifeless body before her suit suddenly whirred up and exploded in a burst of current. Knocking her out before she fell beside Richard’s corpse.
She stepped toward Noa’s unconscious form and sighed heavily, taking a moment to look at her target’s now lifeless corpse before she shook her head.
“Bugs, we still good on the others?” Mira picked up Noa’s dropped pistol and fired two shots at the unconscious body of Belov before she turned to kneel beside Noa. Gingerly, she picked up the now bloodied knife and slid it back into its scabbard.
“Y…Yes, we’re still good...”
Mira nodded, then sighed and shook her head. She holstered Noa’s pistol back, grabbed Noa under her arms, and started to drag her backward toward the room’s door.
“I need at least one guy to pick us up. Were you listening?”
There was a momentary silence before Bug replied, somewhat hesitantly, “Yes. I… I’ll get someone to infil, same route you guys took?”
“Yes, keep tabs on the guards on the main floor. We left what looked like a one-man patrol. Others are pretty much static posts.”
“Got it, Mira. Take care of Noa, okay?”
Mira sighed slowly and nodded. Looking down at Noa with a melancholic face, ”I will.”