Hope

They did not have enough explosives. Hope realized that by the time they got to the second aisle of servers. They weren’t even half done and they’d already exhausted their entire supply. Hope leaned against a computer and stood on her toes to see how much progress they’d made but the top proved to be just out of reach.

She tried jumping. No result. She tried using the base of the computer as a step. Still the same.

At last, she got down with a defeated sigh and kicked the computer with all the rage a five-foot-tall person could muster against a six-foot-two metallic monolith. “Stupid, stupid computer thingy!”

Hope had always prided herself on being the tallest kid in primary school. Then middle school happened and somehow every single doofus in her class had sipped a magical growth potion. Not Sebastian, though. That’s why she liked him. That was until high school when he went from five-three to five-ten over one summer break. It took her five years to get over the trauma.

“We still have a long way to go,” said Ren as he looked over the aisle with ease, much to Hope’s annoyance.

“Must be a nice view from up there,” she muttered.

“You do realize you can climb the computer with your rope-gun thing, right?”

“Well, duh. That’s not the point. Just look at that thing. Tall enough to be just slightly out of reach. Roland specifically designed these servers to mess with… vertically challenged people. He deserves to go to jail for that, I tell you. Once we get out of here, I’m filing an official complaint. I can see the headlines right now- Billionaire CEO accused of mistreating employees.”

Ren shook his head. “You really should hear your own voice sometimes.”

“I didn’t hear a no.” She smirked beneath her mask.

“Yes, yes, file all the complaints you want. But first, help me plant these bombs. Well, what remains of them anyway. These will not be enough. We need a new plan.”

“Hmm, what if we spread them out in a crisscross pattern?” Hope suggested.

“Negative. That would still leave a large number of computers safe from the explosion.”

“What about a circle?”

“The center.” He rolled his eyes. “Did you never study geometry?”

Hope scoffed at him. “Of course, I did. Shapes and stuff. But what about you, mister? As far as I recall, you never even went to school, did you?”

“No!” he yelled. “And even I know that wouldn’t work!”

“Pfft! Talk about a show-off,” she whispered. She could feel the heat of Ren’s death glare through her mask. “Relax, I’m just kidding. We’ll figure something out. Look, I know the situation is pretty bad. I’m only trying to lighten the mood. Just breathe, okay?”

Ren breathed in the cold and unsettling air of the claustrophobic server room and exhaled a lump of warm breath onto his dainty fingers. It felt oddly soothing. Like warm cocoa after traveling through a midnight Lucidean blizzard, it brought him some much-needed relief. Hope removed her mask and gave him a knowing smile. “How are you this calm?” he asked her.

Hope shrugged. “Well, what can I say? When you subject yourself to crazy life-or-death situations daily for seven years, you sort of develop a nerve for these things.”

“That is… deeply concerning. But, why do you do it? Subject yourself to those situations, I mean,” he asked, staring at her grey, stormy eyes with clear intent. If you want the truth out of someone, look into their eyes. You can train your face to be as still as the Mitsurugi waters. But your eyes will always betray your true intentions. That’s what Trent had taught him.

“You’re kidding, right? I mean, who wouldn’t wanna be a superhero if they could? I’m just lucky I got the chance, I tell you,” she said, staring at the wall on her right, away from him.

He didn’t intrude any further.

“Regardless, we need to find a way to-”

Ren held his breath and listened for what felt like approaching footsteps.

Metallic footsteps.

He held a shaky finger to his lips and signaled Hope to remain quiet.

Rolandroid’s garbled voice erupted from the entrance of the server room. “Y’know what, kids? Credit where it’s due. You folks did a helluva job messing up my exoskeleton. Seriously, I’ll have to make some major adjustments once I’m done here. Speaking of which, it’s time we ended this dance.”

Ren ducked to hide behind the servers and grumbled in a low whisper. “By the Gods! Does nothing keep this bastard down?”

“Nope! But thanks for trying anyway,” came the reply in a cheerful voice.

Before Ren could conjure the appropriate puzzled expression on his face, Hope put an arm over his shoulder and nodded. “Enhanced hearing.”

“Of course.” He shook his head. “So, what now?”

“I’ll see how long I can hold him off. You try and plant as many explosives as you can,” Hope answered as she put on her mask.

“That’s a mighty fine plan, dear! Too bad that it won’t matter.”

“You’re not part of this conversation, Roland!” She shouted back.

“I’d like to think I am, Hope!”

“For crying out loud, we’re not on a first name-”

Before Hope could deliver a fiery comeback, Roland launched a volley of explosive projectiles in their direction. Ren managed to pull her to the ground before the grenades tore through the computers, leaving a great mess of burnt wires where they’d stood a moment ago. One second late and they would have been turned to ash.

“Enhanced hearing. We have to stay on our toes,” Ren spoke in an even lower whisper. “And keep moving. His blasts are small but very powerful. Wait, what if we use them to destroy the servers? Try getting his attention again.”

“That son of a bitch!” Hope cursed, prompting another barrage of grenades to their location. The duo rolled along the floor to avoid the blast but in vain. The impact sent them flying into the adjacent aisle. This time, the explosion missed the servers entirely. Not one inch of Roland’s precious machines saw a single scratch.

“You lot must think me a bloody fool. I’m not trashing my own property. Who am I gonna sue for the damages? Myself?”

Hope was reminded of the first time she was pitted against a Class One Android. Strong silent type, that one. Yes, he was nigh unstoppable and devastatingly handsome but every time they fought; Hope was left wanting for more. “I swear, if he talked, he would be the perfect nemesis.”

Right now, she wanted to go back in time and punch her old self in her stupid face.

“I have an idea,” she spoke loudly enough that Roland could hear her. Ren let out an exasperated sigh of “not this again!” and “are you serious?”. She responded with a soft nod and whispered into his ear, throwing in the occasional loud word to throw off Roland. “I’ll get him… Stay close… Let me handle… Whenever you’re ready!”

“What?” asked Rolandroid, not quite clear on what they were planning.

Ren responded loudly. “Yes. Good idea!”

“What are you chipmunks babbling about?”

Hope used her stored momentum to somersault into the air and landed atop the second aisle with dancer-like grace. “Hey, doofus! Enough with the camping. Fight me like a real man… droid.”

Roland readjusted his cuffs and laughed. “Hope, was it? Do you have the slightest idea what you’re fighting?”

“Uh, literally the most corrupt man on the planet? The guy who’s ruined millions of lives, mine included?”

Roland shook his head and scoffed. “Not that self-righteous baloney. The real deal. What do you know about me? Do you have the faintest clue about what I do at Blink and why I do it? No, don’t answer that. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. Agent of justice. I thought you were supposed to be one of the good guys. And now, you’re working for the most dangerous man on the planet and you don’t even know it. You, Miss Vega, are a danger to society. Killing you will be valuable community service. Let me be absolutely clear when I say this: I will take so so much pleasure in putting you down.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that speech a million times. Let’s get fu- I mean, fighting already.”

“I think you mean bullying. In case you forgot, your guns are still dangling by that wall in the labyrinth.”

A soft beeping sound hummed from behind the entrance to the server room. Roland thought nothing of it for a while, choosing to aim with his one functional eye lens instead. Before he could pull the trigger, his enhanced hearing captured something strange. “What in the name of-” A gust of wind roared past his metallic face. In a sudden motion, the Whiplashes flew across the air so fast they nearly knocked his head clean off, and returned to the hands of their true master.

Hope leaped into the air in a corkscrew motion and zoomed across the room via zipline. The furious android missed his target by a mile. He fired another volley of explosives but the vigilante simply danced around them with her acrobatic agility. “Stop moving, you brat!” Rolandroid roared.

Seeing him flustered, Hope jumped at the opening and launched a sticky bomb at his metallic skull. A mound of emerald goo stuck to his face like a thick slab of concrete. “Hmmph!” Roland cried in a muffled voice as he struggled to remove the goo.

And then, Hope began the second phase of her assault. “Aww, what’s that? Did wittle Woland shtick his face in the sticky goo? Yes, he did! Now, his itty-bitty robot eye can’t see anymore. Poor baby.”

“I… cghn shtll… hrrr you.”

“What? I didn’t catch that properly.”

Instead of doing the exact same thing for a second time, Roland removed his right-hand glove and held up a mechanical palm. Looking closer, Hope noticed a tiny speaker at the center of his hand. A clear and rather scalding voice boomed from within. “I said, I can still hear you, bitch.”

“Ohhh.”

“Ohhh, indeed. Now, be a dear and stay still.”

Hope did not, in fact, stay still. Instead, she ran as fast as her legs allowed, leaped fifteen feet into the air, and ziplined halfway across the room. But when she looked behind, Roland’s grenades were still bounding toward her with predatory hunger. She waited atop an aisle of servers with bated breath as the bombs came right at her. “Come on. Come on. Just a little more.”. Just as the bombs were about to hit, she jumped back with stored momentum and screamed, “Now!”

Ren tossed a vat of explosives into the air. The two bombs collided in a blazing fury and singed half the room in a vortex of destruction. The impact shook the entire underground. Hope popped off with a resounding “yes!” even as she was thrown across the room and fell splat against the back wall. A feat morbidly common for her.

Roland watched, erm, listened in horror as his life’s work came crashing before his eyes, well, ears. A soft but pained “no” escaped the speaker on his right hand. Twenty years of surveillance data on every single person on the planet. In an instant, nearly half of it had been wiped away.

Ren aided Hope to her feet as she coughed and wheezed in the choking miasma of burning titanium. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, going headfirst into walls is my favorite activity.” She brushed the dust off her armor and looked around the smoldering wreckage. That’s gotta be the third biggest mess I’ve ever made. “Did you plant the rest of the bombs?”

Ren nodded. “They are all set to detonate in two minutes. What is our escape plan?”

“Uhhh.”

“Oh, Gods. Please do not tell me there is no escape plan.”

“Of course, I have a plan. Just give me a minute to figure out the details.”

“We do not have a minute, Miss Hope,” Ren insisted.

“Hey, you actually used my real name. Talk about progress, buddy!”

Ren did not indulge her any further. Instead, he chose to cross his arms and judge her silently, which was somehow infinitely worse. Hope ignored his stare and thought of the last time she had to escape from an underground complex. Raid on the local mafia. Huge bust. And to escape, she had….

Taken the stairs.

She took one look at the collapsing debris, the burning mess of computers, and the catatonic android awaiting them at the entrance, and wondered if there was a God and if he truly hated her.

“I have an idea,” said Ren, snapping her back to reality. “Your suit, it allows you to jump very high, does it not?”

She nodded with a shrug. “Ye-es? I mean, as long as I’ve built up enough potential energy. And considering all the jumping around I had to do…”

“Yes, or no?” he demanded.

“Yes, yes. Very much, yes. Why?”

Ren pointed to the roof of the complex. The once pure white tiles were now ruined by a thick layer of ash and smoke. Hope followed his finger with a puzzled expression on her face. “What? What about the roof- Oh!” Her brain started working two seconds after her mouth and soon, she was on the same page as Ren.

“Yes. What do you say?” said Ren, shifting his first to the wreckage, then to the time bombs behind them.

“Okay, sure! But how are we gonna tear through the roof without turning into human ketchup?”

“Earlier, you said your guns have explosive rounds.”

A devilish grin formed over Hope’s face. “Ren, you beautiful bastard.”

“So, are you ready?”

“I dunno. Do we have time for rehearsals? Of course, I’m ready! Just, climb on my back and hold on tight. And pray to whatever God you believe in that I don’t fuck up.”

“Hope, it is okay. I believe in you.” Ren reassured her with a smile so pure it made her heart skip a beat. But it wasn’t just his smile that touched her. The look on his face was so… surprising, that she was overcome with emotion. It was the look of absolute faith. Over her many years as a career vigilante, Hope had rescued people from all walks of life. And yet, none of them, not even her parents, had displayed such faith in her as the man who stood before her right now.

Hope took a deep breath, nodded, and crouched down as Ren climbed aboard her back. Even through the protective frame of her armor, she could feel the comfort of his warmth. He believes in me. He actually believes in me.

“Detonation in thirty seconds,” Ren insisted.

“Yeah. Fine, jerk.” She fired an explosive round at the roof. The concrete structure fell apart like wet paper as the smoke cleared to reveal a gaping hole above them. “That’s one down. God knows how many more to go. Yeesh! Let’s hope I’ve got enough momentum for the rest of the ride.”

“Oh, who said anything about leaving? You’re not leaving. Not on my watch. Nuh-uh. That’s… that’s not gonna fly.”

Justin Roland readjusted his damaged sleeves as he limped across the wreckage. The mound of goo had nearly melted off from his face, as had most of his clothing revealing a damaged hunk of metal with a vengeful look in his one functional eyeball. Hope raised her guns in warning. “It’s game over, Roland! You’re finished.”

“On the contrary, you, my darling, just signed your death warrant. This unit’s gonna self-destruct and incinerate anything within a half-mile radius. Have fun!”

The android shut down and fell to the floor with a thud. The blue haze of its eyes was replaced by a blinking red which appeared to be beeping faster with every passing second.

“Uhhh…”

“We should leave,” said Ren.

“Yep! Let’s get the hell outta here. Hold on tight! And don’t look down.”

The masked vigilante jumped with all her might, flew through the gaping hole, and landed on the floor above. The earth shook beneath her feet.

“The bombs are going off now. We should hurry,” said Ren.

“I know! I know!”

With another blast and a leap, they reached the next floor, and then the one above it. There was no time to catch her breath. She kept jumping. Her footing was surer with every step. Her gunshots, unfazed by the darkness, tore through the roofs like they were nothing. The end was nearly in sight.

And then, it happened.

Despite warnings from Hope, Ren cracked an eyelid to steal a look at the ground. What he witnessed, made him scream like an herbivore in the maws of an apex predator. Roland’s android had self-destructed almost in tandem with the planted explosives. The result was a fiery inferno raging toward them at a blazing speed. “Hope!”

“I know. I’m going as fast as I can!”

The flame seemed to leap and bound past the preceding floors, consuming everything in its wake. Even going as fast as she could, and even with a twelve-floor head start, the inferno was quickly on their toes.

“I do not think we will make it. I am sorry,” Ren cried.

“Just hang on! We’re almost there. I can feel it!”

Hope fired another explosive round at the next roof and as the smoke cleared, she saw light. With the last of her strength, even with the flames burning her feet, she jumped as high as her exhausted body allowed, and leaped into the streets of New Manhattan, finally free of the fiery demon behind them.

We made it. We actually made it.

The duo collapsed onto the ground as a spout of flame rose high into the atmosphere and died just as rapidly as it had begun.

“We’re alive.” Hope laughed. “We’re actually alive! Man, it’s so cold out here. It’s so- Ren?”

Hope jumped up and discovered her partner lying unconscious on the ground. They’d been on the surface for less than a minute and his skin was already gathering frost.

“Ren? Ren! You, okay? Hang on. Crap!” She hurriedly emptied a bottle of Blue into his mouth and raised his head to pass it down the throat. “Please, be okay. Be okay,” she begged, resting his head on her thighs.

Within seconds of ingestion, the boy’s skin became warmer and the frost melted away. Hope could feel his heart beating through his chest.

Ren opened his eyes and once more, breathed in the cold air of the streets of New Manhattan.

∆∆∆

“Y’know, you scared me back there, your big dummy!”

“I am sorry,” Ren told her, observing the empty streets from the corner of his eye. They were nearly at the hotel. The underground complex was big. Much, much bigger than they had anticipated. The escape route, if you could even call it that, had led them to the other end of the town. As such, the return trip took them over an hour by foot.

“Whatever. I’m just glad you’re okay.” Hope blushed and let out a long, weary sigh. Her first big adventure in over six months. How did I ever give up this life?

“So, do you have somebody you love?”

Hearing the dreaded L-word, Hope’s mind collapsed in on itself. Her cheeks, no longer hidden by her mask, became the deepest shade of crimson. Her mouth became drier than the Great Wadin Desert and her voice became so high-pitched it could only be heard by whales. “What?” she answered after thinking for an awkwardly long pause.

“Oh, forget about it.” Ren shook his head in frustration. “I meant, like how I love Sir Trent, do you have somebody like that?”

“Oh! Like a mentor!” she gasped. “Pal, you seriously need to phrase your sentences better.”

“I am still learning your language. It is very different from mine. You say words one way and write them another. And in some places, even the words mean different. It is like learning three languages at once. That is a shit language. How do you live like this?”

“Honestly? Can’t even argue with you on that one. Hey, look, we’re here!” Hope pointed to the hotel next to Dr. Boon’s strange building. The Thinking Glass Nerd, Alicia had called it. Hope laughed to herself.

Opening the door to their hotel room, the duo was greeted by three familiar faces and one terrible news.

Trent welcomed them with a bow, the everlasting smirk plastered on his face. Sebastian assaulted Hope with a bear-hug, almost knocking her to the ground. Alicia sat in the room next door, munching popcorn and watching TV.

Before the team could be congratulated on a job well done, Alicia called them over in a foreboding voice. “Yo, jackasses! Check this shit out!”

Hope shot Trent a questioning glance as they walked over to the TV. He gave her an oblivious shrug. Sebastian wore his signature deer-in-the-headlights look and Ren, emboldened by their recent adventure, was the first one to ask, “What is the meaning of this, Miss Miller?”

Alicia gave him the finger and directed everyone’s gaze to the TV as the evening news played out at full volume:

“We come to you live from Raytech Multinational where renowned industrialist and automobile giant Dr. Arthur Boon was found deceased in his company penthouse. A preliminary investigation has confirmed death by gunshot but the culprit has, as of yet, not been identified. Keep watching as we bring you more updates about the situation as it develops.”