Chapter Twenty Five Sy

When Sy gets off the phone with someone he never expected to hear from, yet again, he’s in quite the sour mood. Cris and Gerald, the now ex-investigators gone rogue, have really out warmed their welcome this time. After the shenanigans they got themselves into, he was sure he’d never see those two chimps ever again. He chuckles, thinking of how small of a world it really is.

He can’t believe the two of them had the balls to join up with Lions Security Group, or that they would go that far. It has to be so they could get back at them one way or another. The two have been at them for years. It’s too bad they weren’t actually on that ship, or maybe it’s a good thing they weren’t. It makes him wonder how it would’ve turned out if they were though. The rest of the Lions Group might be a bunch of overfunded idiots, but Cris and Gerald are not.

The thought of how it could’ve gone makes him suddenly nauseous, and clammy. He, Don, and Vaun have always expected their day last day to be around any corner, but now that they’re older, and have lived such lives, the thoughts of losing one another haunts him. It’s why he needs to get Aaron and Arma in action soon, and the Five-Series project in full swing.

The Lions Group has been waiting for almost two decades to get back at them for the moon job. They’ve never been able to recover their space program since. It makes sense why they were trying to capture themselves a nice shiny shuttle. Now that they’ve sank their ship and killed another forty men, the blood feud has escalated to all-out war now. What worries him, is whether the Lions are working with whoever built those robot drones or not.

The Lions Group is more than twice their size, but he still can’t imagine what it’s been like for them to lose as much as they have to them. The hate has to be pretty raw. He considers what he’d do to them if it were the other way around. Things are going to get downright savage. They’re all going to have to be watching over their shoulders for the rest of their lives now. It really sucks. But on the upside, they’ve made an enormous amount of cash on the rescue. Enough to recoup the cost of Aaron’s new ship.

He leans back in his chair and smiles anyway, thinking of Cris. “What a putz.”

Cris and Gerald have caused him enough grief already. Putting them in their places again isn’t going to cut it this time. They need to be gotten rid of. Maybe if they wait them out long enough, the Lions will go broke and they won’t have to worry about it. Not many customers are going to be looking to the Lions Group for much after word gets out of them getting their asses handed to them again, that’s for sure.

He calls up Vaun on his com to let him know what’s going on. He could really use his input on the threats Cris made. “Hey buddy, just wanted to give you a heads up. Cris just called to give us shit about what happened. He was all fire and brimstone about it too. What a sore loser right?”

“Are you fuckin kidding me! We got there first, and I put the flag out! I even gave them warning shots. That’s way more than fair. They have no excuse.”

“I know, I know… they had their chance, but no, they tried to kill all of you anyway. Serves em right.”

“So what’d he say?”

“He said that they’ll be waiting in every shadow for us. That if our faces ever see the light of day, they’ll be catching a bullet. You know, the same lame spooky shit we always get.”

He looks over at the long range rod-gun leaning up against the side of his desk. He remembers back when he used to get these kinds of threats and take them to heart. Sometimes he’d hang out on the roof, waiting, but nothing ever happened. What bothers him the most though, is how intimately Cris and Gerald know SSS, and the surrounding Welan City. They know about his new robots and pretty much everything about their business. This time, it’s going to be a problem.

He sighs, puts his elbows on top of the desk and then his head in his hands. They’re going to have to go into full lockdown again. No one’s going to be excited about it, and it’ll probably last for a while this time. Investigators like those two are not the kind of people that eventually let things go after a while.

Cris and Gerald have been trying to take them down for almost as long as the Lions Group has, and they’ve never once let up, not even after fleeing the continent. He figures they’ll have to go on the offensive and burn the Lions out like a bunch of ants to really get rid of them. Grudgingly, he walks over to the main security control panel, rests his forearm on the top of it, and then calls up Vaun again.

“Hey, where about are you guys at anyway.”

“Oh, another day from the coast I suppose.”

“Well, I guess I don’t have to tell you to keep your eyes peeled, but uh, I think we need to have our hackles up on this one.”

“Way ahead of you bud. We’re all posted up here on the ship with the big’a guns all ready. Don is already back on the coast with the tilt-jet watching for anything incoming. He’s got the chain guns loaded and ready this time.”

“Hey, you’re the man, you know that. We’d all be fucked without you, and don’t you forget that.”

“Hmm. You say this every time you get all worked up. You really think they’re gonna come for us this time?”

“I don’t know. I’m still gonna to put the base under lockdown till we really know.”

“Dang, ok. I hope they don’t have you hangin from the rafters when we get back.”

Sy hits the orange toggle switch on the alarm board, making all of the warning lights in the building stay on a constant dim orange. Over the intercom, he addresses everyone.

“Due to the circumstances of the last mission, we are now on lockdown. You are all to assume that anyone on the outside has the intention of killing you at any given moment. Everyone is to at least keep a sidearm on their person around the clock. This goes for anyone staying inside, or leaving the building under only my specific orders. Keep in regular contact with each other and report anything suspicious. Thank you.”

As soon as he hangs up the com, there’s an echo about the entire place from everyone complaining. He figures he might as well head on downstairs and suffer with everyone else down in the bar. He looks up at the projector over his desk one last time before turning it off. The news program is showing a satellite image of the white space shuttle they rescued, all covered in red. The huge ship that the Lions Group had brought is on fire too, billowing smoke out over a stretch of more bloody water. It looks like someone got a look after all. The headline reads “SSS saves Mars Launch from Piracy.” That gives him a small smile.

On his way out the door, he looks at himself in the mirror. The big handgun in his shoulder holster doesn’t conceal as well as it used to. His shoulders aren’t as broad anymore, and his waist hardly has any taper to it either. It’s been too long since he’s seen any action, or anything but his desk and a phone for that matter. It makes him feel like he really needs to get his shit together again. Maybe he’ll skip the whiskey tonight.

On his way around the downstairs balcony, he catches a glimpse of how far Aaron’s shuttle has come, and has to go down to see it. He catches Britney as she’s handing over the check sheet to Aaron and Arma on her way out, instructing them to only complete the installations that she’s highlighted. She won’t have enough time for more than that tomorrow. Even though they haven’t made a single mistake yet, she’s too meticulous to trust even them.

It’s amusing to see that Arma has gone right back to wearing almost nothing again, especially after the whole spiel she put on up in his office. He figures at least a thong is better than nothing. He can’t imagine how distracting it is for everyone else on the floor. He could give her a talking to about doing what she’s paid for, but it’s not the right time for it. She’s even dragging Aaron down to her level too now. All he’s wearing is a pair of boxers. It’s getting ridiculous.

“Ok, now I’ve gotta know. What’s with you guys and not wearing any damn clothes?” He already knows the story with Arma, and how she still regresses to identifying as a machine and not a person, so he mainly looks at Aaron. He has no damn excuse.

“Oh, yeah… I kept snagging my suit on little things, so I just haven’t been wearing it. And it’s kinda hot in those body bags anyway, you know.” He looks down at himself. “I’m wearin a rubber suit anyway.”

He glances at Arma’s exaggerated bare breasts and then presses his fingers to his eyes. He isn’t up to explaining anything to her right now. The two of them are simply awkward. “Well, I’m pretty damned impressed with how fast you’ve been putting this thing together, so I’m not gonna be whining about anything. Britney says you aren’t cutting any corners either. Arma, I’m glad you convinced me to let you do this. We’re gonna be needing you a lot sooner than expected.”

She immediately grins and gives him a huge hug, squishing her chest against him. “It’s been incredible! You just wait!”

Aaron has a little bit of an embarrassed smile on his face. “She’s just like Five. Proby gonna be better at this stuff than me here soon enough.”

He really didn’t expect her to be so excited, or grateful. He’s never seen this side of her before. It’s quite something. It kind of feels like she’s always been an old friend.”

Her eyes light up with a thought. “Hey, how’d Alexis n Mikel do? I heard they went to save a shuttle way out in the ocean.” She wraps a hand up over her shoulder in nervousness.

“Sounds like they were thrown in way over their heads, but by god, they tore it up. Vaun says they were the real deal. Everyone’s in a good way and they’ll be back in a couple days.” He turns to let them get back to their work. “There’ll be some good stories I’m sure.”

When he walks down the hallway to the lab, he peeks through the Five-Series lab doors and finds an especially strange sight. Gabriel is standing in front of a big lecture touch panel, and has the full attention of both Valerie and Five. Valerie actually looks to be genuinely focused on what he’s saying too. Quietly, he steps in, rolls a chair of his own over to them and sits next to Valerie. Gabriel only nods at him and continues with his discussion on how neurons accomplish signal filtering.

He’s always wondered one thing about the brain, and figures it’s as good a time as any to ask. “So, how does the brain keep, you know, thinking? What keep it from stalling out, like if you don’t have anything to think about or whatever?”

All three of them turn to him, impressed with his curiosity. He expected Five to answer, but apparently, she doesn’t know, and looks up to Gabriel. “Well, you know what synapses are, right. So there’s different kinds, one of the rare ones being what we call an autapse. It’s a synapse that loops back to its own neuron and kind of keeps generating a constant signal loop, like an LCR circuit, or maybe even a quarts timer.”

It suddenly dawns on Valerie why Sy might’ve come in to sit with them like this. She spins around in her seat with an awfully worried look. “Is everything ok? Is Mikel and Alexis ok?” How come we’re on lockdown? What happened?”

He holds his hand up, to get her to hold off for a second. “Everyone’s fine. Vaun is fine too. They all kicked ass and they’re on their way home. We’re on lockdown cause they kinda killed forty of an competing firm’s guys and then sank their damn ship. It’s just a precaution for now.”

Five’s eyes get real big. “Oh… dang, that’s a lot. I know what I’d be doing if we lost forty of ours.”

Valerie’s mouth drops open. “Five!”

She covers her mouth when she realizes what it sounded like. “No, No, not that. Oh my god. I meant revenge. Not the… other thing.”

“Yep.” He gets up out of his chair and rolls it back over to where it was. “Just wanted to let you guys know what’s up, and see how you’re all doin. I’ll be see’n ya around. We’ll all be see’n each other around, a lot.”

Next door, in the machine shop, he finds Marek doing something other than what he’s being paid to do, again. He has Alexis’s runner parked in the middle of the floor, and he’s fitting what looks like some kind of mechanical skull onto it. He’s not sure what’s going on, but the damn thing looks like a battle robot now. If he thinks they’re going to run around town on something like that, they’re gonna be in for a big surprise. Just as Marek is lining the well-toothed jaw up to its hinges, he interrupts him.

“Woa, Woa there dude, what the hell is this? Where’s the shit you’re supposed to be workin on? Where’s the centipede?”

“Um… oh, its over there, under the tarp. It’s done.”

“Alright, that’s great and all, but this hobby shit you’ve got going on, that’s for your days off. Were under orange level alarm here. Everyone else is scrambling to get all our asses ready for a dick measuring contest with the Lions Security group. I need you doing something to help out around here.”

“Well, that’s kind of what I’m doing. I mean, you know how Aaron’s runner shredded all those rioters, well, this things even better. You said you wanted escort robots right, well, shit we’ve got two of em sitting around already.” He stands back from Monster, like it’s supposed to be this amazing thing. “Whatta ya think?”

“That shit’s not allowed out in public anymore, is what it is. I know breaking the rules is kind of our thing, but we can’t prance around town with that thing like that. We’ll have a team of squad robots on us in no time, and then god knows what.”

“No, no, we can swap em out real quick, see, this is for in the field.” He shows him how the whole thing comes apart with a single long pin. “Besides, this thing is going to have Alexis’s back out there. If I can’t be there, I can make sure she at least has the best I can give her.” He swallows hard, thinking of her out there. He heard what happened. “This thing’ll get her through anything, and do anything she tells it to. These runners could have all our backs if you give em a chance.”

“Look, I know we can get a little carried away with things sometimes, but we’re still technically a business. Our customers come to us because we’re the baddest private security force that one can hire, but also because we are legitimate. They feel that they can trust us with massive amounts of money, and their lives. We can’t go out in Welan City and look or act like gang bangers in public. Because of Cris and Gerald, our relations with the local law area already strained. They’ve been trying to take us down for years. With them gone, it’s a good time to patch things up, not make them worse.”

“Alright, I got ya man. But that’s not what I meant for these though. I wanted for us to have something like the centipede, that you guys could take out there in the field with you, but something you can trust to not eat you alive the second you look away.” He raises a finger. “On that. I’m also working to get us no-eat-me tags to wear. In case we do take the damn thing somewhere.”

“OK, I get what you’re sayin. I was kind of a little wound up already. I didn’t mean to be a condescending jerk about it. It’s just that things are going to be getting a little tense around here. For a while.”

“I would suspect so. Alexis told me about what happened. Some Lions Group firm or whatever showed up with a whole war ship and like forty guys. She said it was… real close.”

Sy hangs his head. “Yeah, they could’ve gotten buried this time.”

Marek’s eyes are welling up and he’s getting pretty upset. “That’s my girl man. She said didn’t think she was gonna make it.” He wipes at his eyes and turns from him.

He doesn’t really know what to say. Death being part of the job has never been an excuse to throw family into the line of fire. It was never a job for him, Vaun, or Don when they started the business, it was their way of life. They never had anyone to love or miss them if they didn’t make it. It’s hard for him to deal with it when it’s other people.

He puts his hand on Marek’s shoulder. “That’s why we’re doin the robot thing bud. We just gotta hang in there for a bit.” He lowers his hand. “Hey, you think you might still have any connections out there, underground?

Marek turns back to him. “I doubt it. Like what?”

“Well, I doubt the homeless folk will ever forget Cris and Gerald’s faces. I’m sure they’re already on that watchlist thing you guys do. I need to know if they’re ever spotted returning to5 Welan City.”

“Yeah, I could probably get you hooked up. We connected Valerie to the killer robots before the almighty investigators did. I bet we could find em no matter where they’re at. It’s a global system you know.”

“Alright. So what does, say, about two hundred thousand get me? Will they disappear for that much? I’ll even give you a hundred extra if it works.”

“A hundred thousand?”

“Yeah. You can do the whole job for the three if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Not with these two.”

“Damn, you really want these guys. I was gonna say like ten thousand bucks.”

“There’s too much at stake here. I need this done.”

“K, but fair warning. Its full tracking payment up front, and you don’t get that back. People don’t look for free. With that much though, I can guarantee they’ll be found. That, and you will be at the very front of the notification list.”

“All right, cool, it’s time you to do some real work for once, eh. Get ahold of your palls and get this done.” He shakes Marek’s hand firmly and starts to head out. Just as he gets to the double doors, Marek calls back for him.

“Hey, um I don’t really have a way to get around, and with this whole lockdown thing… it kinda has to be done in person. And uh, I’m gonna need that cash up front.”

He waves for Marek to follow him. “Well come on then.”

As Marek catches up to Sy, he pulls his phone out to show him something. “I kinda feel stupid for asking now, but do you think you could maybe help me out with this. I just need to pick it up. I really wanted to get one and it’s the only one I’ve been able to find.” He shyly shows Sy the listing he found of a rather sad looking runner he found scrapped at a local chop shop.

Sy looks at him, a little more annoyed than anything, but agrees. “Fine, we can do it when we go and make the deal.” He looks at his battle com. “Actually, give me about an hour and a half. I’m gonna make my rounds and then I’ll ring you.”

When he reaches the bottom level training area, he stops and chit chats with nearly everyone he comes across. There are a lot more people around than usual too. It’s good to see them all taking the orange alarm seriously. Everyone is all suited up and packing. It’s probably because of Arma’s fight, but a lot more of the guards are suddenly motivated to work on their hand to hand combat skills. Some are even attempting to pull off the same kick that won her the fight.

So far, the only two that are even able to kick that that high have ended up smacking themselves in the face. There’s at least a dozen people on the range refreshing their moves, filling all the lanes. He puts his earplugs in and goes down the short set of steps into the range pit to see how they’re all fairing.

He meanders between the racks loaded full of rifles, subs, and heavy weapons, trying to decide if he wants to give one a go himself. It’s all quite motivating to see such an arsenal at his beck and call. When some of the guards notice him moseying about. They come over to hang out with him. He can see they’re surprised, but also thrilled that he’s come down. It lifts his spirits to find that so many still hold him in good esteem. It’s never easy being the boss.

When he grabs a rifle and lays it down on one of the precision bench rests, Tony, Becky, and even Selner come over. It’s like a little reunion of the first guards. Becky eyes him for a second, looking at him like he’s got something funny going on, and then looks to Tony.

“Yeah, he’s got it. Of course he does. He probably sleeps with it on.”

He hopes they’re not razzing him. “With what?”

“That old ass cannon you call a pistol.”

He looks down at his heavy antique fifty caliber automatic and smirks. “Yeah, I’ll never leave er.”

She pinches open the other side of his suit to look at the double mags underneath and then nods to Selner.

He swipes her away. “Now What?”

“C’mon… we know you’ve got it under there, bring er out Sy! We even brought some jugs down.”

“What, Arma?” They laugh when he looks around jokingly. He knows what they meant.

Becky points over to a small stack of old milk jugs that’ve been filled back up with water. He didn’t really want to blow any of his special rounds, but they’re a little old and he figures he might as well. When he looks down, it’s like the titanium-gold tiger striped beauty seems to look up at him from its holster, begging for him to put his hands on it. Blushing, he puts his hands up. “Ok ok, there’s no need for any chanting, I’ll do it.”

Becky skips over to the lights and dims them a little bit more before while he pulls his pistol out of its holster. Selner goes ahead and starts placing a bunch of the jugs on the target stands while they wait. All they really want, is to see is the famous ring of fire it kicks out, and what his special rounds do.

He smirks as he grabs ahold of the fifty in both hands and tucks his jacket in back behind the extra mag pouches. Becky points out the blue wax tipped rounds in his clips to the other guards that don’t know what they are.

“See those, he’s stuffed his hollow points with potassium metal and then sealed em over.”

“K, what’s that do?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Turns a person into a roman candle for about a second is what.”

Tony ties the last jug on the rabbit and waits for Becky. When they’re all ready, she holds her hand over the red timer button, for him to go whenever she presses it. Everyone laughs when she fakes him out with a false move. He doesn’t shoot, but he almost does. He flinched like crazy, already expecting the recoil. As soon as the buzzer goes off, he unloads as quickly as he can, but without missing. It’s far slower than most others with their trick combat pistols, but the power of the rounds more than makes up for it.

The huge booms and muzzle flashes turn heads everywhere. He does his very best to make sure the shot surprises him every time he squeezes the trigger. He won’t be caught flinching again. The sound of the gun is better than lover’s moans. The jugs of water explode in huge shows of spray, one after another, with a violet colored flashes of fire erupting through them.

Before second the slide locks open, and he needs to change the magazine again, the sound of the rickety metal trolley slashing down the floor track spurs his heart rate even higher. Tony knows damn well how many rounds his gun holds, and knew to send it on its way at the worst time. It’s been so long, he doesn’t remember the zig zag pattern it makes down the steel floor track anymore. As soon as the target comes into view out of the corner of his eye, he jerks over and locks onto it.

The rabbit is nearly half way down the range by the time he unloads on it. His vision is all spotty and his ears are ringing, even though he put in ear plugs. With one more buck of the heavy gun, the jug on the rabbit explodes downrange in a spectacular show of bright burning spray. Everyone else in the entire place is grinning now too.

Things like this make him feel like he’s lost his way, and misses going out and blowing shit up. Then things like what happened the other day, makes him glad he gave it up. It appears, he still has some of his clout though, and everyone just saw it. He needed to prove it to himself more than anyone else, but it’s good to show the guards that they don’t work for a fat twat that sits behind a desk all day. After some high fives and joking around, they talk a little bit more seriously about the lockdown.

“So, you guys… on a more serious note, this last gig Vaun took the newbies on, was a little bit of a surprise. They could’ve been pretty easily outgunned, but they got lucky.”

“Yeah, so what’s the deal with that? Is that why we’re on lockdown?”

He looks around at them. “A few of you were here back in the day when the Lions Group was a one horse show, right? When us small-timers had only gotten our first shuttle. We were the ones stupid enough to blast ourselves off on a one way mission to the moon without even thinking about it. We had dark military funding, but we just went for it, didn’t we.”

One of the guards that hasn’t heard the whole story ten times, like most of the others, wedges himself in a little closer. “So how did you guys survive that anyway, or even get back? Didn’t like a couple hundred people get stranded up there and starve to death way back during the war?”

Selner explains how it happened for Sy so his point doesn’t get derailed. “As soon as word got around that our military was going to cease the lunar base, everyone tried to beat them there. Our forces were going big, and the size of their campaign slowed them down. They thought they had time, but they underestimated everyone else. When the Lions tried to beat them there, and claim it for themselves, Sy, Vaun, and Don pitted their lives against all odds to pull off a hail-marry.”

Sy is more than happy to oblige the question, so he waves Selner off. “By the time the Lions had made their first lap around the moon, the we had caught up to em. No questions asked, we engaged them and there was a hell of a gunfight. Both Vaun and I were outside the shuttle with our rifles while Don handled the big guns all on his own. We hit them from every angle and, needless to say, our ship was the only one that made it to the surface in one piece that day. Once we got in, no one had a chance in hell of taking that base back from us. All of its defenses were still operational.”

“I heard you guys spent weeks underground, in that base. You had that much food with you?”

“No, we did not. There was still some water, but we were flat out of food for a week by the time the big landers finally showed up. So, my main point was, that the Lions Group used to be a real big deal, before we cut them down. We set a precedence that made us both feared and famous. There’s always been bad blood between us and them. On this last little mission, they came at us with a warship and forty guys. They were out for revenge. Lucky for three of our finest, the Lions were proud, impatient, and stupid. We massacred all forty of them and sank their ship to boot.”

Becky has a cringe on her face. “And then we made them look like pirates and outright asses on national news.”

He looks at all of them with a little bit of sadness. “If forty of you just didn’t come home one day, no bodies, no nothing…” He shakes his head. “And then I see some fuckers laughing about it on the news. I don’t know what I’d do. Whatever it be, it’d be pretty treacherous. I can tell you that much. That’s why we’re on lockdown.”

“Did they say something, like threaten retribution or something?”

“Well, yeah, of course, but a little more specific than that. You guys remember Cris and Gerald, those big-shot investigators that would never leave us alone?”

All of them are nodding. Someone shouts out. “Yeah. Those guys were cocks.”

He chuckles and then looks grim again. “Well, those crooked fuckers went rogue after they ended up gunning down all those rioters. Not saying they were wrong, but you know how that shit goes. It’s bad P.R. They knew what was in the pipeline for em. Well, It looks like they joined the upper ranks of the Lions Group, maybe to keep on our tails, maybe not.”

Tony folds his huge forearms over the front of his armor. “Lemme guess, now they’re totally off the leash and gunning for us all over again.”

“Yep. It’s personal with these guys, or something like that, but you all know they aren’t gonna let this one go until they hurt us in a big way. You guys all know as well as I do that those two aren’t the kind of crazy we can just brush off as being part-of-the-job this time.”

“So what’s the plan then?”

“We’re gonna send em to hell first chance we get.”