Marc enters an empty room, void of any devices that would indicate this to be a control chamber. The only thing that cast a shadow came his father, spread in all directions of the room, murking their darkness even further. He was watching multiple bright holographic screens at once until Marc knocked once on the wall to grab his attention.
-” I’m back, father. And you were right, the clinic wasn’t where the logs mentioned. Sorry, I…I failed.” The boy still had difficulty looking his parent in the eyes, even if he never seemed upset with them.
-” Hm? Oh, Marchos, welcome back. Ah, it’s fine, I expected it to be a dud. Besides, I also failed to capture the two. The miner girl intervened”.
-” Angie…”
-” Yap. Still, it doesn’t matter. If their plan is to capture this location, then they will come to us, so no problem. And we are no longer outnumbered, see?”He pointed towards the bright screens, but the boy couldn’t see anything. “ Oh, right, you need the special spectrum frequency settings for these screens. Sorry then, boy, it’s still classified for you. But your lower father, mother, and sister just arrived. Along with some security drones. They should show up in a few minutes…what do you say, wanna go and greet them?”
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After she finished explaining her attack plan, Priya sat there, waiting for some feedback, and from the rhythmic beats of her fingers, it was clear that they had objections to it. Chirani, without much enthusiasm, was the first to say something:
-” So about those drones, what are we talking about here?”
-” Hmmm, well they were based on Ser…Billy over here, but only in terms of firepower and armor. Unlike the C.T.Ds, they are actual drones, programmed beforehand. But they are capable fighting machines, with simple A.I, that lets them adapt on the field. Sooo, somewhat smart, very strong and dangerous.”
Angie followed, mostly with comments about the line-up:
-” Are you sure about your part? I mean Syna has fought before, but she will probably be busy doing her hacking, but Savan has no combat experience”.
The clopy wanted to remind her about how they punched Marc but then realized that a lucky shot didn’t count as much as they thought.
-” Well they will have me”, Priya replied with a smug grin which made Angie even more concerned. “ Besides, you will probably need the backup more than we will do, since we just confirmed that the rest of the security team has arrived. So it’s actually going to be five of you against…ugh..maybe nine of them. And the stations' defensive system, unless Syna and Sovereign disable it, of course.“
-” And we will! Leave us already, you prick, I’m still learning the station’s code for now”, replied the hacker angrily.
-” I am still opposed to Savan goin…”, tried Vivar to add but was stopped by the clopy, who gave him a reassuring look and asked him to trust them. -” Alright, understood.”
-” I just want to say: good luck to us all, right?” added Savan.
-” Yes…and thank you all for helping get to this point…I’m sorry for all that happened, but I believe if there was a moment for me to be spiritual, this is it.” Priya was getting sentimental, which made the rest a bit uneasy seeing her like that. She then inhaled a lot of air at once, kept it in for a few seconds, exhaled, and dressed back in her confident attitude.
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Before they could each board their respective transport, Savan asked Angie and Vivar to stay back for a moment. -“ Sorry, it won’t take long.”- The clopy was flustered, and, now that they did as asked, was unsure on how to continue. “ So, uhm, I never actually expected to make some friends…a group…with you guys when I started. My desire was just to get enough augments and prosthetics and whatever else, then wander the outside…by myself.”
-” Savan, wait, what…”, but the clopy raised their shaky hand before Angie could finish.
-” Please, let me finish. But I no longer want that. I love my people, but it became difficult living alongside them, with how we were conditioned to think. I think I overgrew that, day by day, living like that made me think a bit differently about my…our situation. The County, the other workers...everything”.
Savan was now fidgeting with their hands, trying to find the right words, but a bit ashamed thinking that they were confusing the two or were making them feel conflicted about the clopy.
-” Please continue Savan, I’m listening”, replied Vivar in a warm, patient tone, which was enough to give Savan the courage to speak further.
-” All right. So, after Vivar told me about what my role might be, with the Guidance, I became happy to know I could have some new purpose. For a time, that original idea never left my mind. And I still carry it with me -that someday- I might just leave in the desert…but I want you to know that my desire to stay here, with you and Billy, Syna, Sovereign, Chirani, Priya…and maybe Marc.is stronger.”
After the abrupt finish, the red-faced clopy tried to walk away without saying anything more, but no longer felt their feet on the ground, and how something lifted them up from the collar of their jumpsuit. Vivar’s brought them to the same level for them to see face to face, just so he could say something to them.
-” I‘m proud of how you’ve changed, Savan; it made me happy hearing everything you said.”
-” Same here you little dummy. Have a little more trust in us, ok, we understand what you're trying to say. But until that moment, let’s get us a new home from which you can run from. What do you say?”
They didn’t know what to answer, or if they could respond. Savan’s face was shocked, no muscle moving, but tears still started going down their albino cheeks. It surprised them when they felt them pouring out, but all they mustered to say was an “ok” while busy wiping their eyes with parts of their sleeves.
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Hugs on all sides surrounded Marc; from his little father: a muscular man, two meters tall, who had his entire lower jaw and mouth replaced with a silver mask, with no orifice in it. His mother had the same contraption on her face, but also a missing eye, and the other was replaced with a robotic one. Only his sister showed no signs of her face being modified, but Marc already knew that she recently had her ear canal changed after a mission.
The two adults weren’t allowed to speak unless granted the right, and the Commissary gave them permission to use their synthetic voices to dote on the boy. His sister gave him small jabs on the shoulder but was also the first to console him.
-“ Sorry about Azin…she’ll be missed, Marcky; we’ll do something in her memory when we get back home, k?” He got teary-eyed and nodded to her proposal.
The Commissary chuckled and it pleased him to see his family get along, but his fun had to stop at some point, right when the scanners picked up two objects falling directly into the largest two hangar doors. It surprised them that Priya still had access to control transport cubes, but their attempt to trap their security drones failed:
-“We still can deploy them from the other two hangars”, replied the sister boredly. The other adults gave her judgemental looks so, with an irritated frown, she finished her analysis-” But only one drone can exit at a time from those, so they will probably try to snipe them as they leave. There, satisfied?”
-” Always give complete deductions”, responded the Commissary. “Still, I think something else is at foot here. M-Mother and Marc, you two come with me, we will personally check the exits. L-Father, you will guard this room while Melina will do a quick sweep of the premises. We can’t…”, but just as he tried to finish his thoughts, the system started to sound the alarm.
Just as the first drone was approaching one of the hangar doors, the shield on the door dropped and a beam hit the security robot while it was still in the hallway. Vivar’s railgun destroyed the first target and blocked that exit as well, while Syna and Sovereign managed to deactivate the security systems.