NIGHT TWO
Reading the Signs
The (artificial) moonlight streamed in through the window of the abandoned building unit. On one side of the window sat Zero, stoic, lost in thought. On the other side sat the Mutant, his eyes fixed on Zero, his brows furrowed in concern. Suddenly, Zero stood up and headed for the exit. "Where are you going?" the Mutant called out to Zero's back.
Zero stopped in the doorway, his silhouette outlined by the (artificial) moonlight. He turned his head so that his profile was illuminated and replied tersely "Out to kill."
"Don't!" exclaimed the Mutant. "Why do you have to kill? Please don't go..." But without another word, Zero's form disappeared from the doorway.
As he walked down the street, the events of the night before replayed through Zero's mind. Why had the woman apologized to him? Had she been someone he had known in his past lifetime? And, that name...Miria...why did he feel such an excruciating pain in his chest every time he thought of it? While engulfed in his ruminations, Zero came across a man leaning on a sign that said "Dead End Ahead". The man was talking on his i-holophone.
Sinistral was a new arrival in Affinion 7. So far, he had been having a great time. "Yeah," he told his girlfriend on the i-holophone, "I entered the 41Z3N look-alike contest today. It was a lot of fun, and I was fifth..."
He never got to finish his sentence. The mention of a Number had perturbed Zero out of his thoughts. The command kill resounded through Zero's mind. He grabbed the bottom of the sign post and tore it out of the ground. He pivoted it back behind him and then swung it forward with all his might.
Seconds later, Sinistral's body crumpled as Sinistral's head rolled on the ground a few meters away.
Deja Q
In the southeast quadrant, the figure of a human crept up behind a red hovermobile that was parked outside a home unit. The (artificial) moonlight glinted off its metallic top, creating a golden red glow. The Quantum Accelerator paused, listening for any sounds of activity. There were none. The QA reached to grasp the phaser in his belt with his left hand. He took a deep breath and then stealthily approached the door of the home unit. He listened for sounds that would indicate that his target had visitors. Hearing none, he waved his hand over the doorbell sensor and stood steady as he heard the sound reverberating inside.
"Who is it?" a voice called out from inside the home unit. Footsteps approached the door.
The QA opened his mouth and calmly replied "I'm with the 1R5, I need to talk with you."
The door of the home unit slid open. The man looked at the QA with a confused and annoyed look on his face. "D4mn, and I was hoping that woman would do something about you guys." The man sighed. "I must really be in trouble if they actually sent a human to talk to me. But like I told you guys, it's all a mistake, the system is messing up my data..."
As the man continued grumbling to himself, disgruntled, the QA whipped out his phaser and pointed it in the man's face. "I have come to kill you, Brandonb." he stated calmly. He flipped the safety off on his phaser and prepared to shoot.
"Not this again!" the man threw up his hands in frustration, "Like I told the woman, I'm not Brandonb! I'm BrandonA! I wish the system would fix our addresses already!"
The QA paused, taken aback by the outburst. The man shook his head impatiently, then reached up to open a panel on the wall next to the door. "Here, I have her image recorded on my doorbell holocam." He pressed a button and the image of the female QA was projected in front of the male QA.
The usually stolid QA nearly dropped his phaser at what he saw. "Mom?" he murmured softly.
BrandonA didn't hear the QA's words, he was too busy lamenting his own misfortune. "Aiz," he sighed. "Well, I guess you're not really with the 1R5 then..." Then his eyes lit up as he hit upon an idea. "Well, do you think you could do something to get them off my back?" he asked eagerly. "You seem like a smart guy, I'm sure you can figure out a solution and give me some peace for once..."
The QA stared blankly at the pathetic man for a moment. Then he shrugged. He lifted his phaser once more, flipped the switch to [stun], and pulled the trigger. He sighed. Now if only I could afford myself some peace...and some sleep!
A Wrong Number
Seven could not understand why liquid had been spilling out of the eyes of the people around him. He could not understand why they had looked at him in that way with their wet eyes. His enhanced mental functions could recognize that the expressions they were directing at him were called "pity". He also knew they sent him these looks because his caretaker, the BioEngineer, had died, had, as they whispered (not realizing his enhanced hearing picked up everything) "been viciously slaughtered" by an unknown assailant. The lab had also been destroyed, "as if by some mad beast". When they said this, they had what he recognized as "fear" in their eyes. But this was not an emotion he could feel. Neither was "grief" or "loss". He had been engineered to be the perfect (or as close to perfect as they could do in release 7.0) super-soldier, and emotions just got in the way.
He felt nothing as he thought about the task at hand. He was going to kill as he had been ordered to by Genevron Corp. It was for the sake of protecting the citizens of Affinion 7, or so he had been told, and having no sense of right and wrong, he had no desire to ask why. Instead, he simply followed their orders, efficiently and wordlessly. That was how he had come to be outside the door of a tall apartment unit building. He looked up at the sleek seamless exterior. He could see the reflection of the holographic moon on the wall's shiny material. Seven counted the floors, 20 in total. His target was on the fourth floor. He mentally calculated how much time it would take to climb the steps as opposed to the average time it would take to wait for and ride up the elevator and decided that he could maximize efficiency by taking the stairs. So he did.
Since everyone was asleep (or suppose to be at least), the stairway and hallways were dark. However, as Seven reached the fourth floor, his genetically enhanced hearing detected a heartbeat, slightly irregular, coming from a creature in the dark. He used echo-location to determine the creature to be in front of the exact apartment unit he was heading to. Using his superior muscle control, he made his steps imperceptible to human hearing as he approached. As he closed in on the creature and the apartment unit, his superior vision detected the outline of a humanoid form. As Seven had intended, the creature had apparently not noticed his arrival. Without giving it a chance to make a sound, Seven grabbed the creature by the neck. He heard a choking sound, and then the body went limp in his hands. Seven tossed the body aside and entered the apartment unit using the Master Keycard that Genevron had provided him.
The inside of the apartment unit was sparsely furnished. The remains of a microwave dinner was sitting on the counter. Advancing to the bedroom unit, Seven's heightened senses allowed him to avoid stepping on a bottle of H2Ofina water that lay on the ground.
Even if he had stepped on the bottle, his target would not have awakened. Onetruth was sleeping deeply and soundly in her bed when the cold hand of Seven grabbed her throat and applied crushing force. Onetruth struggled, her arms and legs thrashing wildly. She managed to kick Seven squarely in the side, but he did not flinch. After all, he could not feel pain.
"Stop," a voice choked from the doorway to the bedroom unit. It was the creature who had been on guard in the hallway...it was the Mutant! "Please," the Mutant pleaded, "Please, Zero, don't kill her..." The Mutant came closer to the two figures. "Zero, I know you're not really a bad person...I can see the pain and loneliness in your eyes...please, please let me help you!" With this plea, the Mutant flung himself at Seven, knocking the super-soldier to the ground. Onetruth gasped as she tried to catch her breath. She patted around to search for a weapon to use. Nothing.
Meanwhile, the Mutant and Seven were rolling around the floor, in each other's death grip. The Mutant got the upper hand, pinning Seven tp the ground. "I can't let you do it, Zero, I can't..." but his words stopped as the (artificial) moonlight illuminated Seven's flawless face. "...You're not him, are you?" the Mutant asked, his grip on Seven's arms loosening "You look so much like him, but your eyes are different...cold..." In a burst of strength, Seven managed to knock the Mutant off himself and forcefully into the wall which was also a window to the outside. The wall/window shattered and the Mutant fell out of the apartment unit and to the ground four stories below.
Undaunted, Seven lifted himself up and moved walked over to finish off his target. Again, he grabbed her by the neck and lifted her up, squeezing hard. He could feel the last life going out of her, when...beep beep...
Seven took out his 633P3R device with his free hand and brought it up to the (artificial) moonlight. It was a text holo-message: the target had been changed. His hand loosened its steel grip on Onetruth's neck. She collapsed to the floor, panting heavily and inhaling greedily. Without looking at her, Seven turned and walked back out the door.
The Next Phaze of Development
A maintenance bot rolled down the street, sweeping, vacuuming, and waxing at the same time. It passed by an alley where a Quantum Accelerator stood silently, her body pressed to the side of the building that she had seen ThunderChicken walking into earlier. She waited, breathlessly, for him to come out. Her nervousness caused her sense of hearing to become more alert than it usually was, allowing her to notice the soft footsteps that approached her from behind. She spun around and froze, stunned. "You...?" she finally gasped out. "But I thought you were dead?"
The other "QA" shook its head. The creature could mimic the outward appearance of its previous victim, but it could not reproduce the voice. So it could not speak. Fortunately for it, it did not have to. The female QA was so relieved to have finally found a comrade that she did not notice the lack of vocal contribution. "Well," she said, her voice high-pitched, "I'm glad you're here. I guess we should get to work."
Taking her partner's silence as assent, the QA made the motion to move forward. She turned around the corner of the building and...
"OW!" cried ThunderChicken as he walked straight into the QA. "Hey watch where you're going!" he sneered, then began mumbling to himself "aiz, I'm having a terrible night..."
The QA blinked, disbelieving...had she finally managed to find her target? She stood motionless for a second, unsure what to do. The other "QA" made a soft noise behind her, bringing her back to her senses. She shook her head to clear it, and then reached for her phaser. "ThunderChicken, I'm here to kill you..." she declared as she raised her phaser to his head. But before she could finish her action or her sentence, she was knocked to the ground by a stampeding force. It was Seven.
ThunderChicken looked relieved. "You're here to kill the QA and save me, right?" he asked the super-soldier. "I guess you're not such a bad guy after all..." He raised his arm to give Seven a pat on the back, but before he could finish his action or his sentence, Seven performed his patented neck grab and slammed ThunderChicken into the wall. TC choked for air and tried to pry Seven's steel grip off his neck using both of his hands, to no avail. "Helllppp..." he choked.
The female QA sat on the ground, still dazed by Seven's attack. The other "QA" rammed its body into Seven, knocking him off balance. The other "QA" then threw a jab at Seven's face with his right hand, which connected with Seven's jaw in a loud crunch. The female QA watched in awe. Wow, she thought, this guy is really strong! She frowned. I'm such a bumbling moron, maybe I should just let him handle it...
Seven intercepted the next punch, catching the "QA"'s right fist in his left hand. Then he raised his right hand and crushed it into the "QA"'s cheek. Its neck twisted with a sickening cracking sound. The female QA let out a loud gasp. She shuddered in fear at the strength of her adversary. Bringing her knees up to her chest, she began shaking uncontrollably...then she heard a voice in her head, Jed's voice. It has to be you, the voice said. Yes, it had to be her. Only she could save the future, only she could save Jed. She had to! She gathered up as much strength as she could, more strength than she ever knew she had. She pushed herself up into a crouching position, and then she lunged at Seven. Surprised, Seven backed up, tripping over the body of the other "QA" and toppling to the ground. The female QA pummeled his face with wild, furious punches.
Meanwhile, ThunderChicken had taken advantage of their mutual distraction to crawl away from the commotion and around the corner into the alley. Once safely out of sight, he managed to bring himself to his feet. He brushed off his scuffed pants and took a deep breath. But he couldn't afford to feel secure yet, he had to get as far away from his attackers as possible. TC hurried, limping, towards the other end of the alley and into a side street. He turned left and passed by several more streets, then turned right. He crossed diagonally through the main square of Affinion 7 and past three more streets before he arrived at his intended destination: the prison unit. He stopped and panted in front of the steps. There has to be some guard bots here, or the Wraith, he thought to himself. He looked around but didn't see anyone, except the maintenance bot that was sweeping, vacuuming, and waxing the floor at the same time. What he did see was a holo-sticky-note projected onto the front door. He approached and groaned as he read it: Prisoner's been let out. Gone home for the night. -Your friendly neighborhood Wraith.
TC stepped back from the door and sighed. He sat down on the steps, exhausted from his cross-colony trek. Well, at least I've lost my attackers, he thought, leaning back on his arms and staring up at the (holographic) moon. It was good to be alive. It was good to enjoy the meticulously monitored and filtered night air. It was good to feel the simulated breeze on his sweaty skin. It was good to look at the holographic stars and try to see the shapes that the ancient texts had called "constellations". It was good to hear the mechanical hum of the maintenance bot that was sweeping, vacuuming, and waxing at the same...
Time? Suddenly something occurred to TC. Wait...I thought maintenance bots weren't suppose to be out at this hour...
Fear and realization crept into TC's eyes as he lowered them to gaze at where the maintenance bot had been working. But it wasn't a maintenance bot now. It had lost its form and was a dark amorphous shadow. It advanced on him, slowly, and the way it absorbed the light instead of reflecting it made the shadow seem like an apparition floating towards him. It stopped a meter away from where he was sitting.
TC held his breath. He had to stay calm. Maybe he could reason with it? No, that seemed unlikely. No, he needed to make a run for it. Yes, that was his only choice now. He waited and watched it for a minute, then two, then three...Then he took a deep breath. Alright, ready, set, GO!
He turned and sprung off his legs and...RIP!
TC's body was suspended in midair. Drip...drip...was the sound of his blood hitting the (newly swept, vacuumed, and waxed) ground. Finally, he turned his head jerkily down to stare at the metal spike going through his chest. The M4F14 had transformed into a lance, which now ran through ThunderChicken's heart. TC closed his eyes, and his life phased out.
(to be continued...but not for TC!)
Host AIs: Y-S4N and L1S
Roster:
1) Frozen
2) Mekal
3) ThunderChicken - DEAD [?] (killed by...Everyone???)
4) onetruth
5) twoaday
6) Kat
7) Crazypainter
8) GC
9) Nayana
10) Slickster - DEAD [bioEnginner] (killed by M4F14)
11) Dusty
12) Dawh
13) Sinistral - DEAD [?] (killed by Zero)
14) taliesin
15) woon
16) Ben Law
17) Phaze - DEAD [?] (killed by Mimic)
18) SoKrisky
19) Brandonb
20) Joe's Student
