ABC - Penance

Bobbi’s residence, Unity Townsite

January 19th V27 (2047AD)

I woke up, well rested and feeling great except for one small niggling worry. I had no idea what the fuck was going on.

“Luisa, Mabel says to get up now or you won’t get any breakfast”

That voice belonged to Catherine, the Pyro who worked in Bobbi’s crew as their ‘Fire Support’. At least I understood now what they meant by that, having seen the young redhead in operation yesterday.

I sat up in the lower bunk that dominated the woman’s bedroom and regarded her with remarkably clear eyes. She was dressed in hot pink shorts and a white tank top, glaringly bright in the early morning sunshine sneaking in through half opened curtains.

“Mabel says she’ll check your bandages after breakfast too” Catherine announced airily then left the room.

I swung my feet over the side of the bed, waiting for the spike of pain from my bandaged side. There was nothing so I pulled on the spare clothes that my temporary roomie had loaned out, dressing in vibrant yellow sweat pants and a blue t-shirt that declared I was ‘Hot Stuff’. Even my back didn’t complain this morning as I walked to the door, letting me stretch luxuriously.

The kitchen stroke eating area was at the back of the two storey house, one of the cheap and mass produced dwellings built for the Camp workers. Bobbi and Wade had rooms on the upper floor and Catherine and Nigel shared the ground floor. When I entered the kitchen I could see Bobbi propped up at the head of a long table, nursing the remains of a hangover.

Catherine was just sitting down next to a yawning Nigel, with Ghost seated facing me. Mabel was fussing in the cramped kitchen, putting the finishing touches on a mountain of pancakes, thin vege-protein sausages and fake bacon, all surrounding a pot of scrambled eggs.

“You’re alive!” Nigel said by way of greeting, his eyes roaming over my form in the borrowed clothes. “Damn! I was hoping you would wear the outfit from last night”

I gave him a one fingered greeting of my own and sat next to Ghost. I grunted in reflex as I sat, then paused while I assessed the way my body was feeling.

“Something wrong, Alvarez?” Ghost asked me. He was wearing a spare shirt and jacket of Wade’s, all black of course, with his own pants and boots. As always he looked combat ready and I noticed he had a pistol tucked in his waistband, partially hidden by the jacket.

“No, actually I feel amazing” I replied and started probing at the bandage on my right side. It was where the Flash had zapped me through his steel shield in the Arena. Mabel had treated the wound last night, clucking her tongue about the scar it would leave.

There was no tenderness at all and I was beginning to wonder how deep the damage was, if I had lost all nerve sensation in the area. Mabel deposited the food on the table then sat beside me, a look of concern on her face.

“Let me have a look” she insisted and lifted the shirt, exposing my stomach and the bandage she had taped over half of it. Nigel whistled at the sight, whether impressed at my firm stomach muscles or the extent of the injury I could not tell. My self-appointed nurse probed at the site, watching my face for a reaction.

“Can you feel that?” she asked gently and I nodded agreement. Mabel frowned in puzzlement, then with dextrous fingers peeled the surrounding tape and bandage away. I kept my eyes level, watching Nigel’s lecherous face instead of looking down at the blistered skin I had glimpsed last night.

“Well bugger me gently with a chainsaw” Nigel gasped as the bandage came away. “What did you treat her with Mabel?”

I could not understand what he meant, my eyes falling to my stomach of their own volition. There was a pale circle of smooth skin where last night had been reddened and split flesh. Mabel reached out and ran her fingertips lightly across the surface, tickling the sensitive nerves and making me flinch with a laugh.

“This wasn’t my work” Mabel declared and regarded me with wide eyes. “How did you do this, Luisa?”

“I didn’t do anything!” I insisted until I remembered the shot that Pony had given me. “Except the guy at the Arena who treated me, he gave me a dose of Fast Heal serum”

Bobbi had lifted her head and spoke in a low tone, her organic eye bloodshot and angry looking.

“Fast Heal will seal a small cut pretty quickly, but the damage you had would take the serum days to fix” she said decisively. “That kind of healing is something only a Stitcher could do”

“Are you a Stitcher, Luisa?” Catherine asked me eagerly. “Bobbi said you were a Kinetic Enhancer, so how can you have two Abilities?”

“I’m not a Stitcher” I assured the young woman. “Nobody can have two Abilities, you all know that”

“Maybe you are an Adept then like Mabel” Catherine persisted, which earned her a sharp nudge from Nigel and a growl from Bobbi.

I twisted to face Mabel, who was watching me serenely through all this discussion.

“So what kind of Ability is an Adept?” I asked her. “Is it one that lets you Teleport?”

“Let it go, Alvarez!” Bobbi yelled, standing abruptly and knocking over her chair. “Mabel is just Mabel, that’s all you need to know”

The atmosphere had become tense very fast and I noticed Ghost had laid his hand beneath the table, resting on the pistol at his waist.

Mabel raised a placating hand, the tattoo visible on her palm as she gestured at Bobbi.

“Let’s all calm down and eat some breakfast” she said soothingly. “I went to all this trouble, it would be a shame to waste it”

Her palm still faced Bobbi, who nodded finally in agreement and retrieved her chair. After she was seated, Mabel lowered her hand and laid it on the table.

“That’s my girl” she said with a smile, beaming at Bobbi.

=====

After the strained breakfast, I asked if anyone would loan me a phone. Mine was MIA after the truck had hit me but I wanted to call some people in Spitfield.

“Won’t do you any good, Alvarez” Nigel declared, finishing his second coffee of the morning. “The local phone network is down and the data streams are being blocked. Has been since last night”

“What?” I said incredulously. “So all of Unity is out of communication with the rest of the Zone?”

“Yup” the Drone Jockey replied. “There is even random jamming across the radio frequencies so we can’t use those. Can’t even get a drone in the air, not that I have any decent ones left”

He shot me a glare over his coffee cup with that last comment. I gave him no apology whatsoever, since they had been the ones hunting me. Still, this was disturbing news.

“A complete lockdown would be noticed by the Board, wouldn’t it?” I queried Ghost. “The Archimedes Network should be running comms checks too, so it must be aware of the blackout?”

“Not necessarily” Ghost answered thoughtfully. “They must have an AI of some kind running all this, so it should be able to send false signals and reports to any queries that come in. It wouldn’t work for long, but it could give them twenty-four hours to extract what they need from the Camp and go into hiding somewhere”

“What we need is an AI of our own to combat theirs” I decided. “If we could get Charlie back online, out from under that damn Hoffman Bridge, he should have the processing power to break through”

Catherine looked perplexed at our discussion.

“Can’t we just drive out of Unity and find someplace to make a report?” she asked. “You could head to the central highway and call from one of the service stations”

“Nope, you won’t get out of town” Bobbi interjected. “They have a roadblock about five klicks from Unity on the Access Road. Nobody is getting out unless they have permission from Warden Acres himself. I heard that last night from one of my contacts”

“We could try an overland run” Nigel suggested. “Bobbi’s truck could make it, provided we took it slow and easy”

“They could have VTOLs or Helijets looking for that” Bobbi responded. “I don’t fancy an air to ground missile up my date”

“You never know, you might like it” I suggested brightly, which got a snigger from Nigel at least. “So it comes back to trying to get the Camp AI online. Any ideas on how to break into the Headquarters building?”

“What about your authority as Police Auxiliaries?” Nigel asked, looking at Ghost and I. “The contract that Campbell took out was only for an unknown female agent. It never specified your name or rank. I bet the same deal applied to the bulk of the Warden Corps chasing you last night. To them you were a dangerous escaped prisoner, not a serving member of the cops”

“That’s a risky bluff, putting ourselves into the jaws of our enemies” I replied. “If anyone knows Ghost and I are the same ones from Morituri’s we won’t have much of a chance to get away”

“We’ll back you up” Bobbi spoke up suddenly. “They know us at the Camp Headquarters, so we should be able to follow you in”

“That’s a big risk for your crew, Bobbi” I told her. She met my gaze with a sly grin and I waited for the punchline.

“Yeah, but your boss can afford our rates” she replied. “It’s always cheaper to hire the locals rather than sending in your own troops”

Ghost and I exchanged a non-verbal query with each other and the big guy nodded his agreement. We had a decent budget after all and Jericho-Three rarely questioned our expenses.

“Okay Bobbi, you’ve got a deal”

I stood and offered her my hand. She took it firmly in her metal hand, giving me a hard squeeze, then shot me a toothy grin.

“Welcome to the team, Alvarez. I told you that you were one of us”

“Yay!” chirped Catherine and clapped her hands excitedly.

=====

The Restful Kingdom, Unity Townsite

Bobbi drove me to the motel in her truck, throwing me amused side glances all the way. Catherine had dressed me in her best disguise I was assured, promising no-one would recognise me. I was inclined to agree and tilted the rear view mirror to check my appearance once more.

“Fuck me, I’m gorgeous” I said to Bobbi and she burst out laughing. I had to laugh as well, observing my heavily made up face and long red hair, courtesy of one of Catherine’s wigs and about half the contents of her make-up case. I was wearing a green blouse with frills and a pleated white skirt, white trainers and green socks completing the transformation.

“I’d do you” Bobbi affirmed and patted my knee with her flesh hand.

“Don’t touch the merchandise” I warned her, only putting a little growl into my tone. She pulled her hand away and concentrated on driving, both of us tracking a grey Warden vehicle that roared past us, heading to the east.

“Not much traffic out today” I observed. Even the parade of Auto-Trucks had died away to a trickle, with none coming into the town for a while.

“Yeah, everyone is hunkering down, waiting to see how this plays out” Bobbi drawled. We arrived at the Restful Kingdom and she reverse parked the big SUV in the bay for Room Six. The other bays were empty and the whole motel had a look of being empty.

My companion got out first and took a desultory seeming look around us, yet I knew she was scanning with her Enhanced vision. After a minute she circled to the passenger side of the truck and opened my door, giving me her metal arm to brace as I exited the high seat.

“Welcome to the Restful Kingdom, Ma’am” she drawled. I gave her some stink-eye in reply, thinking she was enjoying this way too much. The big woman chuckled and I wondered how different she may have been, before she chose to live as female. Probably the same I reckoned, just with bigger balls.

I approached the door to my room, Number Six, observing the broken panelling around the lock. Busted open with a ram I decided, the same way a Police Auxiliary team would go in. I drew the pistol I had tucked into the back of my skirt and slowly prodded the door open.

From the light coming in through the door, I could see the room had been ransacked. That was to be expected and I stepped in, swinging my pistol two handed into the corners of the room. The bathroom was as empty and wrecked as the main room, my small collection of toiletries broken and smeared underfoot.

The house maid had definitely stayed clear of this disaster, probably waiting for the town to calm down before coming back to work. I checked the closet space and found what I was looking for, giving me a moment of happiness.

My uniform had been stripped off the hangers, but other than a few creases it looked intact. I went through the rest of the room’s debris, locating a spare bra and a pair of knickers. That was all that seemed salvageable so I told Bobbi we would check out Ghost’s room.

Room Eight had been given the same treatment as mine, except with less personal items to be thrown around. Some of the black equipment cases were still there, cracked open and the contents removed.

A sound from the bathroom made Bobbi and I go into sudden high alert, each of us glancing worriedly at the other as we cradled our guns.

“Didn’t you check the bathroom?” I hissed at the tall woman.

“No, I thought you did!” she snarked back at me. “This is your partner’s room after all!”

I gave her an angry sigh then stepped lightly to the bathroom door, my ears desperate to pick up any new sound. Then I heard it again, the sound of metal clinking off ceramic, maybe the sink or toilet bowl.

“We know you are in there, asshole!” I called out. “Show yourself or we’ll fill the place with lead”

There was a shuffling, clinking noise, then the door swung inwards. Glowing red eyes shone from the darkened room and Unit Three stepped out, battered and chipped like it had been put through a grinder.

“Don’t shoot Three” warbled its vocoder, hissing static and distortion filling its words with the semblance of pain.

I lowered my gun and after a moment Bobbi did the same.

“You look like Hell, Unit Three” I told the mechanical.

It nodded its head once in silent agreement. The bullet marks were all over the machine, plus other damage from knives and Shock Rods. Whatever the reasons, it had risked its own destruction to let Ghost and I escape the Wardens.

I put my gun into my left hand and extended my right in a handshake. Three tilted its rectangular head to examine my hand, then extended its own to clasp mine firmly.

“Thanks for helping us” I told the mechanical.

It nodded once more and withdrew its hand. We looked at each other, the machine towering over me by a good half meter.

“Do you need a lift?” I asked it.