Sector 1 – Year 2236 – Month 2 – Day Twenty-Two

Ani felt bad leaving Mary behind to deal with the remaining forces hunting him down, but this wasn’t Asphodel. Just getting around in the paraharness was a hassle, physical combat was completely out of the question. The darkness of the elevator shaft made the world seem so much smaller as Ani descended, passing a floor each second, Mary’s shots disappearing into the void above. It was unclear as to whether Mary stopped shooting, moved from the elevator lobby or was now high enough above him that he didn’t hear the battle anymore.

He as no longer receiving the ofofficer's transmissions through his comms and assumed the Mary shut them off on purpose. Ani was actually relieved as he needed to focus on the task at hand and calming himself down to deal with the situation. When the combat glasses showed that Ani was twenty feet from the bottom of the shaft, he slowed the descent, touching down softly a few seconds later. Looking around, the glasses highlighted the shaft that he was supposed to exit through in bright blue. A good thing too as it the hatch leading into the shaft was flush with the wall, Ani would have had a hard time finding it on his own in the dim light.

Disconnecting the harness, Ani walked over to the hatch and searched for a handle, but he couldn’t see anything. Hoping that it wasn’t sealed shut, he felt around the edges, pressing against the hatch to see if it would give. After a few tries, he pressed the right side and it popped back out slightly, allowing him to get underneath the hatch and pull it open with ease. The shaft was a tight fit with Ani’s paraharness but he made do. Just as Mary explained, the glasses displayed a path for him to follow and a flashing arrow in the direction of any turn he had to take.

After ten minutes of crawling, the shaft ended abruptly, without any visible hinges or way of exiting. Hoping that this portion of the shaft was accessible through similar means, Ani braced himself and pushed on the wall in front of him. The wall gave way as he stumbled through it. Upon rolling out of the shaft, Ani was momentarily blinded by an intense light, until his glasses shifted the lenses to compensate for the difference. As Ani’s eyes adjusted, the lenses became more transparent, until they were once again clear.

Ani took a moment to soak in his surroundings. “Reggie, where are we?”

There was a long, concrete corridor ahead with high ceilings and windows on the right side about ten feet up. “It appears that we’re in a building up the street from your apartment. It seems that the vault Miss Mors secured for you is just ahead.”

The glasses agreed with Reggie, the old vault that Mary had secured for him was just around the corner. Despite every fiber of his being telling him to rush to the vault and secure it, Ani couldn’t do it. He couldn’t sit in a locked room while Mary was out there fighting to protect him; risking her life, for his. He knew that she could handle herself, but he had to know that she was okay, and part of him longed to see what else she was capable of. In that moment his skin grew warm and flush. He felt guilty for being so selfish, but he had see.

“Reggie is the rest of this building occupied?”

Reggie took a moment to respond. “No.”

“Is the security system for the building still online? Can you access it?”

This time Reggie took longer to respond. “Yes, I am currently monitoring all of the security feeds inside and out.”

Ani smiled. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but if we’re in the building I think we are, there should be a park between our current position and the my apartment building.”

“Indeed there is.”

“Excellent, are there any peace officers near this building, and can you get me to an elevated position, maybe floor four or five with a visual of my apartment?”

“It sounds like your attempting to watch Miss Mors battle the peace officers in the park below. I must warn you that I don’t agree with this course of action. Miss Mors led you to this location in order to keep you safe, and while the peace officers are currently dealing with Miss Mors, if they scan the building, I won’t be able to block their signals. You will be exposed, and vulnerable.”

Ani turned around and shut the hatch to the shaft, then started walking down the corridor. “Reggie Mary is risking her life for me. Not an avatar, but her actual life. I can’t just sit in a vault and pray that she survives, I need to know she’s okay. You can get on board with that, or I can find a vantage point myself.”

“Friendship is about loyalty, it’s about helping the people you care about when they’re in need. I will of course help you, but I needed to make you aware of the risk, for my own…conscience.”

Ani smiled. “You’re own conscience? Jesus Reggie, we’ll tackle that ball of wax later, how about you get me upstairs and we survive this first?”

“Very well.”

It only took Reggie about five minutes to direct Ani up to a floor where he could see everything going on near the apartment. As Ani approached the window, he squinted to try and get a better view of everything that was happening a few blocks away. The combat glasses responded and zoomed into the area in front of the apartment. “Oh shit,” Ani said under his breath.

The two hoverships were thirty feet above the ground, on either side of the entrance to the building. Their stunner cannons were pointed at the glass wall that preceded the lobby of Ani’s building. Two six men teams were on either side of the lobby with their stunners pointed toward the elevator hall at the middle of the building. Another six man team was outside the building to provide back up.

“That doesn’t look good. Reggie can you see if you can reactivate communications with Mary and give me access to the officer’s audio feed?”

“I have tried reaching out to Miss Mors multiple times in an effort to get an update on her condition and dissuade you from this course of action, but she has done something to block my access. I can continue trying, but it may take some time. I can indeed reactivate the officer’s audio though.”

“Thanks Reggie, let Mary be for now, I don’t they be so defensive if they already took her down. Last thing I want to do it distract her when she’s trying to focus on getting out of there. Patch the officer’s audio through though.”

Ani refocused on the forces in front of the elevator hall.

“Delta and Echo teams standing by in the lobby. All the elevators have been disabled by the targets save for one. We have access…rerouting elevator to lobby and locking out target. Hold for contact technical one.”

“Copy Delta and Echo teams, technical one and two providing support with Foxtrot providing back up…hold, new orders incoming. Delta and Echo be advised, Mr. Gouda has instructed that the target be brought in for questioning, if he has help, bring them in alive. He wants to kill them personally for the hassle.”

“Copy that technical one.”

Ani cursed at the window in front of him. His heart started racing as he wiped away the sweat forming on his forehead. His hands went clammy, and he started to nervously rub them together as everyone waited for Mary to reach the lobby. Ani knew that Mary was skilled, she proved that to him, but this was something else entirely. He had no idea what she had planned, but for the first time in his life, Ani was praying to whoever would listen.

“Technical one, elevator has reached the lobby,”

Ani could see one of the squads in the lobby moving toward the elevator hall, while the other stayed back to provide support. The center elevator on the right side opened, but from his current location, Ani couldn’t see inside of it. The team methodically moved forward, stacking it’s men and only allowing for one officer to move forward at time before clearing the next one. After what felt like hours, one of the officers moved directly in front of the open elevator, and pressed his back against the closed elevator across the hall.

“Technical one this is Delta team lead, the elevator is empty, please provide…”

Ani jumped as the team leader’s face exploded out into the hallway. The sound of the gunshot came through the audio feed a half second later. It felt like a knife had been jammed into Ani’s ear as he bent over in pain, rotating his jaw to try and make the ringing go away. The shot had killed the man, but missed his microphone.

“Technical one, team lead is down! Opposite elevator, Delta and Echo fire on opening!”

Punching the floor in pain, Ani crawled back to the window and zoomed in on the lobby. Bursts of blue electrical clouds emitted from the officer’s stunners as they fired a barrage of bolts at the slightly opened elevator door. After a few seconds of furious retaliation, the Echo team lead shouted for everyone to hold fire. Echo team joined Delta in surrounding the elevator doors behind the dead team leader.

Smoke started pouring from the Delta leaders head as a small wet ‘pop’ came through the audio feed. It only took two seconds for the elevator hall to be engulfed by a white smoke. Ani recognized it as the sensor blocking round that Mary had used outside the hall of his apartment. The events that followed could only be heard through the Delta Echo teams radios.

Chaos consumed the audio feed. Team members were shouting out locations and orders. Ani watched as Mary’s yellow muzzle flashes popped up in different areas of the hall. Blue flashes from the officer’s stunners responded, causing the smoke to morph into a green haze that consumed the lobby. The two hoverships opened fire with their heavy duty stunners, raining an electrical storm down on the building without any idea of where to fire save for the yellow muzzle flashes that continued to erupt below. For a tense fifteen seconds, Ani watched guns dance around the smoke, seemingly jumping from location to location before they finally stopped. The hoverships continued to fire for another ten seconds just to be sure Mary was down. Ani watched in fear, positive that she had been hit, as there was no way she could have dodged all that fire.

For a tense couple of seconds, the world was silent. Ani watched as the smoke continued to swirl around the lobby and the hoverships held their location outside. Team Foxtrot was spread across the front of the building in a semi circle, ready for anything to appear from the smoke.

“Delta and Echo this is Technical one, report.”

No one responded.

“Delta and Echo this is Technical one, anyone receiving, please respond.”

Ani’s heart raced with ever passing second. Between being abandoned at birth and getting bounced around between different foster homes as a kid, he never really connected with another human being. Mary was the first person in his life that he actually cared about, and it was very possible that she was unconscious in that smoke filled lobby below. The peace officers where kidnap her and drag her to Gouda to be executed. Ani wouldn’t be able to stop them, he wouldn’t even be able to put up a fight.

“Respond?” A low, raspy voice replied over the comms. The word floated off the air like a ghost, causing a chill to run down Ani’s spine. For the briefest of moments, Ani thought he was having a flash back to his encounter with the Dark Angel. Some people experienced hallucinations or heard voices after spending a large amount of time in Asphodel; the brain doesn’t fully recalibrate until a few days after logging out. Then he understood. Thinking back, the Dark angel did in fact sound like her sister. Mary was still okay, and she picked up one of the officer’s equipment to make sure that everyone left head what she had to say.

“Here’s my response,” Mary said louder and more aggressively.

A deep ‘thunk’ noise radiated from within the hazy lobby. The glass wall at the entrance of the building shattered as a round, short tube launched toward the two hoverships outside of the building. The ships swerved outward and away from each other as the tube exploded, radiating a nearly invisible wave out in ever direction.

The Hoverships’ continued to glide out and away from where there were stationed and quickly started to drop from the Sky. A smile crept across Ani’s face as he noticed the engines had shut down. He turned his attention down to team Foxtrot to see the officers looking at their stunners. Mary had set off an EMP.

With the front wall of the lobby gone, smoke started pouring into the sky. Ani’s grip tightened around paraharness in suspense, searching the lobby as it cleared for any sign of his friend. A dark mass appeared in the center of the lobby and quickly took shape. At that moment, when the situation of what happened under the mask of smoke became clear, Ani felt pity for the officer’s fumbling with their weapons in front of the building.

At first, Ani could only make out a dark shape in the white, swirling mass below. The outline tightened and Mary’s form became clear, while details remained opaque. Mary purposefully marched forward out of the smoke, her face covered in blood, he black clothing soaked with the life force of her enemies. Her shoulders launched forward and back with each step and the sheen of her blood soaked clothing became clear.

Mary’s eyes tensed, focused on the objective before her. Ani had never seen the intensity Mary displayed, the fire in her eyes that allowed her to accomplish the impossible. The veins shoulders bulged, her hands were clasped onto something. Her lips quivered under the weight of Lisa’s memory. “You want him?” She shouted to the officers. With a flick of her wrists, a kukri appeared in each hand from behind her back, their blades crimson from the stolen life force of the peace officers who tried to stop her in the lobby.

“COME AND TAKE HIM FROM ME!” she roared.