15

The Governor of the United Provinces of America stood in his proud striped red business and with his white hair neatly swept to the back. He didn't seem surprised at the mutant's presence, and in fact, he had a gun pointed straight at her.

"Good afternoon, terrorist." He declared. "I'll introduce myself: I'm indeed Governor Ash Taylor, leader of this country and vice-head of the Department Twisted."

"I'd also like to present you my weapons." The man interrupted. "In my right hand is a Starline KXR pistol, gifted with energy projectiles and therefore an unlimited supply of ammo, along with the power of a standard heavy gun according to modern standards. In my left hand is one of my personal Westslicers, twin laser blades normally installed on androids. You are going to stay put and answer my questions."

The man grinned. "I was coming here to do a routine check on my brochette of mutants when I happened to see all those guards lying around in their own blood. I've already notified everyone of this. Expect the place to overflow within the next few minutes."

Alexanne shook her head. "...This is nuts, why such a leader like you, supported by my teammates because you work on settling the Mutant War, is involved in this?!"

"I always was, lady. Governing a country is simply a matter of knowing what to do and when. Yes, I did some real work, to attract journalists and generate publicity, but that was it. That's what everyone saw in front of the curtain, and no one suspected anyone of anything, simply because I was such a handsome and charismatic young man despite my age. Remember, Alex, when you still were a little kid? You would see me sometimes, and I looked exactly the same way I do now, more than fifty years later, huh? Can you remember that, my little spider?"

The guards locked the cell door behind him and she jumped for a hug. Ash's body was always cold to the touch, but she didn't really care. The feel of anyone next to her brought warmth to her heart.

Ash smiled. "Hey, don't worry, my girl. I'll try to find a way out for you. I know I say that everytime but those guys are tough. Just think that everyday, you are getting closer to freedom."

"Six! That's a nice age for you to be! Listen, I promise that by the time you reach six and a half, you will be out of here and enjoying life to its fullest. But I'm doing you a favor here, and that's because you're a really, really sweet girl. Normally, people stay here until they're eighteen!"

Exi nodded, knowing this fact already. Ash had told this many times over to her, to stress the fact that she was really privileged.

"By the way," she said, "I heard some guards say you're a big-time country leader. Is that true?"

"Yes, indeed! I know all the right people in all the high places. That's why I can pull some strings to get you out of here earlier than usual. Now, what is the magic word?"

"That's a good girl!" Ash beamed. "Well, I have some more work to do. You be a nice girl until next visit, you understand?"

Ash chuckled and waver her goodbye. She waved back with her three right hands.

The next day, she was put into another cell with a full metal door, and never saw him again.

Ash opened his suit to reveal a chest completely bare of hair. His hand seemed to reach deep into his skin and pulled, opening a panel covering his ribcage.

"I'm timeless. Nothing less than an android." Ash said with a grin, before closing the place. "I can rule this country forever and fuel Department Twisted anytime I want with more funds. Besides, why should you complain? Public opinion says I govern pretty well for a dictator. I'm no tyrant, am I?"

"It seems I have heard those words already, several times in my life... Oh yeah. In cartoons, whenever the heroine is out of arguments or insults... So, how do you feel being in front of Uncle Ash again, huh? You had forgotten all about it, huh? Too busy with your terrorist life and making my work hard, huh? It's a miracle I got here at the same time as you. I have the opportunity to settle a score."

Alexanne suddenly reached for her guns. "Not if you can't get through my armor!"

The mutant hopped away just as Ash pulled the trigger, releasing a bright bolt of green energy which went to blacken a spot on the wall. Alexanne fired her six guns at once, and Ash raised his arm-mounted shield to block most of the incoming projectiles, while replying with another shot of his own.

The bolt caught Alexanne right in the chest. She heard a beep confirming her armor dropping to yellow state and ran sideways while freely shooting the android, who preferred to simply stay there and block instead of dodging. The mutant didn't have much choice - she was forced to dodge because of her lack of shield.

Another bolt hit her armor, dropping her energy level to orange. Two of her guns were already out of bullets but the four others were still a quarter full. She emptied those guns and saw a look of surprise on Ash's face. Following his gaze, she realized one of her bullets had hit his gun!

This left her time to reload. Her spare clips were strapped at her side in specially made containers. She pushed a button to loosen the compartment, grabbed her guns by the cannon and shoved them inside the pockets to load the clips. That done, she grabbed them the normal way once again, and used the notches on her armor to click the first bullets into place. In the meantime, Ash had grabbed his other Westslicer and was already rushing for a quick hit.

She stopped him with two arms and pelted his stomach with bullet with two others, choosing to bring the last two to the rescue of those holding Ash's arms. After her guns were empty, she sent those idle hands to restrain Ash's arms, but even then she was losing the battle. One of the laser blades was slowly approaching her right eye.

She released her grip and moved to the side, hoping to make her opponent lose his balance, but the android simply spun around and dealt a massive downswing, causing her armor status to go black. The next hit was sure to cut through the hard metal if she didn't hold him at bay long enough to allow the energy to recharge itself.

She ran away. Ash dashed after her. Almost about to hit the wall, she jumped and backflipped, using the wall as support, putting two hands on the android's shoulder. Ash turned around to face her but she used his body's momentum as she landed to slam him right back against the wall, using two more hands to push his back and keep him stuck, while she emptied two more guns into his armor. A little beep came as sweet melody to her ears: she had heard the tone for code red - Ash was almost done for!

The android was showing signs of a strength surge. Quickly getting away, Alexanne stepped back, tripped and kicked Ash in the stomach as he ran for a passing downswing, sending him sliding for the next wall. With two guns pointed at him and the four others in the process of reloading, she yelled stop at her opponent.

"Your armor is in the red zone." She said while catching her breath. "Stop right now or I finish you off."

"Heh, you want questions answered?" Ash said with a smirk. "I can just hop away the same way you did when I confronted you."

"No, and for two reasons. Number one, your butt's on the floor, meaning it will take you longer to move away. Number two, I fire just a few more bullets into you and I damage your circuitry. So if you want to keep ruling this country, you're going to tell me everything there is about Department Twisted, and now."

"Like I'm feeling threatened." Ash raised his arms and slowly got up. "Knock knock, who's there? Pink! Pink who? Pink android's about to terminate you."

#66

If I had to sing the anthem of the fighters, I'd make the lyrics this way:

This is me. I am a fighter, willing to defend a cause I love dearly.
This is my weapon. Its body is common, but its soul is unique. It contains my soul and my strength.
This is my armor. Its model is seen often, but its soul is rare. It contains my soul and my willpower.
This is my shield. It is mass-produced, but it has my soul. My soul, and my intelligence.
This is me. I am a fighter, and my soul is willing to to work for victory.
For if I am not willing, I am already defeated.

Alexanne wasn't even done turning around when she got caught by a high velocity spin-kick right in the face. Ash, seeing his chance, got into his stance and approached the mutant, ready to deal the final blow. Elise replied by a quick kick into his chest, pushing him towards the door.

"Hey, forget about her and come with me!" A voice suddenly yelled from behind the slightly opened door leading to the main corridors.

Ash halfheartedly scurried out of the room while Elise was busy delivering her fourth kick, this time a hard sole heel hammer right into the mutant's back.

Before Alexanne could get up, she felt cold hands grabbing her by the collar and lifting her up.

"I thought I was done with you already!" She yelled in panic. The Insa's face was absolutely serious.

"I had seen the guy's face through the little window in the door, what's why I didn't push it further and exited into the inner corridors. I thought he would've liquefied you but when I volunteered to go check up and you and you were still standing, I changed my mind and decided to get a piece of my goal done and over with already."

Objective #2: Find a way to blow up the building. If the Crate wants DT out, I don't know a better way than this.

The android walked to the center of the room, still carrying her rival by the collar. "I did some probability calculations when I first met you and found out I was outshot right off the bat. This isn't right for an Insa Type android like me. I, Elisabeth Marquis, one of the most advanced and gifted androids of my time, can't even touch the heel of a simple mutant? Back then, we could make steaks out of people like you."

"Big deal indeed. Respect me when you speak, especially since you're on the short end of the stick right now! I had been thinking about it after our conversation. So far, all I've seen from mutants at the Crate are weird looks. They think I suck because I'm different from other androids, like they can't accept that! And then came you. You, who sent me on a bogus job just to fuck with your boyfriend. All you had to do was ask, you idiot! How am I supposed to trust someone who isn't even honest with me? Hell, how am I supposed to be under the orders of someone who right out laughs at me whenever I'm not looking?!"

"Yes you do! You think you're not, but you are! When I stayed at your place, you went to the restaurant, you went shopping, you went all over the place with your boyfriend. Did I even get a hint of an invitation to any of them? No. I was the odd one out. I was considered the freak even though the freak should've been you."

"My legs?! Your fucking arms!! They don't make clothes for nothing! I've seen you going out with two arms in the sleeves and four others hidden within the coat - don't you think you can fool me!"

"There's a thing you've never been able to do: it's called open your eyes and consider people around you."

#59

Butch's Law of Life: "You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool some of the people all the time.

"It's called arrogance, Alexanne Ilica. You think you're invincible. You think you can do anything you want. You take your boyfriend for a sex toy! It's the attitude of someone who doesn't understand the value of her gifts. It's that kind of attitude that pisses me off!"

"Of course not, I'm an Insa! A fucking Insa, the most different android you'll ever see!! And you know the best part? I checked out the Department hard drive I had stolen. There were archives about some of Twisted's more interesting encounters. You happen to be the artificially-born daughter of Nicole Ilica, who in turn had been adopted by none other than Sierra Ilica... Alias Sierra Naïnsev, the Insa Type android daughter of Shrike!! You're my idol's great granddaughter! No wonder she hated her kid - it seems to run in the family - the Ilica family may I specify. They didn't shit around in the Naïnsev family, that's for sure."

The mutant gasped as found out she was almost touching the room's ceiling. Looking down, she saw the Insa in full extended mode.

The metal hands let go of her and she hit the floor with an unusual jolt of pain. Looking back up, she saw something completely unreal.

The mutant screamed in horror and scurried away just before a spike heel came crashing down. She almost tripped trying to avoid the shotgun's beam following up, and had barely put up her guns that another foot was coming at her with surprizing velocity.

She tilted her head to the left, barely avoiding the spike aimed at her right eye, and shot. The android simply took a different stance.

The four bullets bounced against the Insa's natural leg shields. She grinned. No damage.

A beep informed the mutant that her armor had regenerated to code red. This gave her the chance to survive one more shot and...

Elise attempted a reach with her saber. Alexanne jumped over the swing and attempted to shoot but the android was already upon her, grabbing her by the neck and throwing her into the opposite wall. She had barely connected with it that a shotgun beam penetrated her stomach, effectively destroying whatever shielding was left and frying out the generators beyond repair.

"I have told you already. It's called adrenalin!!" Elise yelled before pressing the trigger once again.

Alexanne hopped out of the way but it wasn't a beam that came out - it was the standard five-way energy bullet cluster. Unable to avoid one of them coming at the lucky angle, she tripped but not without hurting one of her arms in the process. A quick check at the wound - too much pain to even look there.

Elise aimed once again. The mutant attempted the all-for-all. She dashed for her opponent, rolled under the spray of bullets, and grabbed Elise by one of the legs, using the momentum to take away the android's balance and slam her into the wall right next to the door leading to the inner corridors. With the Insa stunned, she took the advantage and landed on top of her, restraining the arms with four of her hands and punching the face with her other two.

She found out Elise was a strong one, but not as much as Taylor. Transferring two hands away from the restraining job, she used those to pry the android's chest plate open, hoping to reach and break as many circuitboards as possible to disable her rival and end the battle.

Something touched her left thigh. She looked down to see a foot making its way up.

The leg extended at breathtaking speed. The Insa android pushed herself upwards with her other foot to reach her objective...

Alexanne met the ceiling with a loud crack as the foot's hard sole pushed on with its concentrated force. The spike heel entered her chest, making her gasp in sudden painful surprise. The leg, briefly gone to three times its normal leg, went away, back to normal in a flash. The mutant dropped to the floor, accompanied by the defeated sound of her broken armor. Her eyes were closed. She was immobile.

Taken over by a sudden curiosity, Elise pulled the two halves of the armor apart, tore open the blood-stained inner suit, and examined the mutant's chest. Her eyebrows raised instantly.

"Something's going on here!" A voice yelled from behind the opposite door. DT guys. Good thing they're not early. "Foster! Help me open it up!"

She didn't intend to fight those guards without an armor-breaking gun in such a small room. Swift as a fox, she opened the door on her side and escaped to the inner corridors.

"I dunno - she's gone. I went to give a quick check to the outer corridors but didn't see her anywhere."

Lowlife punched the wall. "Shit! We needed just that... Listen, get over to the other corner and help us with the guards. They've spotted us and are coming up big time."

The android smirked as she ran to the other end of the corridor. "I just can't leave you guys for even a minute!"

"Shut up and get to work. One teammate lost is one too many, and the count so far is seven too many."

She found out the guards inside this part of the floor were actually sword-wielding androids. She could see a pistol strapped to the side of some of them, but no experimental gun like she had seen in the outer corridors. Judging by the few metal heaps on the floor, she guessed the team was almost out of shots. That, or those androids were more top-of-the-line than she thought.

She picked one and went to help a teammate take care of it. Though it was a two-on-one battle, Elise had trouble even getting a swing or shot in there. She eventually managed to sneak one in, and was immediately followed by her teammate, who beheaded it with a long energy saber.

"Man, those things aren't jokes..." Elise commented while examining the dead black android.

"It's the ADSF!" The fellow fighter replied. "Android-exclusive branch of the Department."

"Sounds pretty kickass." Elise said as she joined the battle against another one.

"More are coming!" Lowlife yelled. "Punch through and make a run for it or else we'll be trapped!"

Elise was the last to enter this new section. Before continuing, she closed the door and shot at the knob, fusing the mechanism with the wall.

They were in a cell block. Several pairs of eyes were staring at them from behind the doors. Elise felt as if she was in the middle of a gruesome freak show.

"Signal's blocked." Someone said. "Must be because there are too many walls around us."

Lowlife cursed and stored the comm away. "Must be... All right. Let's free some people!"

Several smiles formed as the prisoners heard the words. A few phrases went back and forth between them while each teammate went in front of a cell door and opened it. Some, however, required more than just a button to be opened...

"Hey, guys. Come check this." Elise said. "It says PB ENGAGED; is that dangerous?"

"PB... PB..." Lowlife's face went from pensive to shocked. "Psychic Barrier! Shit, shit, shit, we're in Block 32!"

"The Alpha-Power cells!" A teammate added. "Quick, disable it and let the guy free! Hey, you okay? You're gonna be out in just a minute." He then said to the mutant inside.

They repeated the procedure on every other cell containing someone, sometimes forcing the door open when a password was required. They ended up with a score of twelve children, eight teenagers, and five adults. Exactly twenty-five, as Alexanne's report had told.

"We've got everyone." Elise said with a smile of satisfaction. "That's a wrap; let's go."

Yes, yes indeed. The security was back online, and the Department hadn't lost time notifying any idiot who hadn't been listening to the spoken reports. That meant we'd have a load of guards on our tail, plus the ADSF. I could already hear the sound of the door starting to weaken. What the hell were they using to ram it anyways?!

#30

Shrike's Law of Fighting: Pay attention to all the useful things you can find around you, for even the smallest nail is enough to put out an eye.

The prisoners pointed out that they were gifted with psychic abilities and told us they could help. All we'd have to do is take care of the shooting. I noticed, not without a chuckle, that we had all forgotten that Alpha-Power meant paranormal abilities.

One of the teenagers sat on a chair and proposed to use remote viewing to find us a way out of the building and back to the trucks. While he closed his eyes and did his work, I took that idle moment to check out one of the labs and its control room.

I found a brick wall in the testing room along with some sensors attached to it. Checking the control room thereafter, I found out through one of the binders laying there that it was in preparation for a pyrokinesis experiment scheduled for tomorrow morning.

Still no sign of the enemy (whew!) I checked out the next control room - its testing room was empty. I found a few more information binders and lap reports, but one thing attracted my attention more than anything else: it was a brown booklet, titled Alpha-Power of Concentra Weight.

Without any further thinking, I opened my chest plate and sneaked the little book inside my body. Hopefully it won't hit any circuitry - to prevent that, I made sure it was at belly level so that it was pushed against the plate by my organic stomach. I then took the rest of the binders and sheets to Lowlife.

"Oh man, nice call!" He commented. "I had forgotten about that essential step. Hey, anyone not holding weapons, please take some binders or sheets with you. The more info we bring back, the better!"

One of the rescued mutants hushed him. "Devyn needs some silence to work effectively."

"Got it!" Devyn suddenly yelled. "Follow me, I've found a way. There's a passworded elevator leading all the way back to the first floor."

Elise turned around as she heard a loud bang. The black androids had broken the entry door.

Everyone took one of the three directions. Elise found out only a little girl had decided to follow her along. No wonder - I look so weird to them, she thought.

They arrived at an intersection leading into five more corridors. Noticing a high ceiling, Elise jumped up, bounced back and forth between two walls, extended her legs and spun upside-down, doing the split and locking herself to the walls with her spike heels, shotgun pointed straight down. The perfect trap.

She motioned the girl to pick a direction - she'd wait for a guard to come up in the meantime, so that she could provide cover. In fact, she heard an android-like voice yell, though it was unclear from which direction it came due to her unusual position.

The girl couldn't seem to make up her mind however. She looked left and right. All the corridors looked the same: unused cells, row after row of them, covered with dust from lack of use.

Come on, run... Elise pleaded to the girl. She didn't dare yell her suggestion for fear of blowing her cover.

She saw a golden android come into her field of view. It suddenly froze in place, and landed face first on the floor. The five little girls came back to the intersection, looked up, and smiled.

Three odd-looking androids had just come around a corner. She shot a beam at them but her new opponents dodged the attack with unnatural speed and replied with a flurry of lasers. She dashed for cover in one of the other corridors, accompanied by the girl who had merged back as one body.

The three androids, one white and two red, among them a female-looking one, passed by the intersection without even a look in her direction. Surprised by the lack of further response, she walked back to the intersection and yelled at them.

The red female one turned her head around. A pair of green eye-orbs stared back with defiance.

The girl came by and looked at the three fleeing androids, who ran turned around another corner and were now out of sight. Elise stayed motionless for a few seconds, wondering why that red android knew her name in the first place.

"The red one who spoke to you - she often accompanied uncle Ash. Her name is Severance Seven. She's really cool. She tells me cool stories and stuff!"

Elise made a face. "Yeah, brainwash to my ears. Let's get to the elevator. They must be waiting for us... Though that Devyn guy didn't point out which of the five corridors to take."

The girl instantly split into five again, taking each corridor. After a look around each corner, she came back and pointed the way.

Elise didn't say another word, picked up the girl and sprinted for the elevator.

"We were waiting for you!" Lowlife said as Elise reached the spot and put the girl back on the floor. "The rest of us are part of the last trip. There; the elevator's back up. The team is guarding the spot on the first floor while waiting for us."

"Good." Elise said. "I can't wait to get out of this cursed place. It's been making me feel bad the second I put my foot on their carpet."

Another friendly team suddenly popped around a corner. Lowlife glanced over at them and shouted a cry of victory.

The young man looked completely different in his heavy full-body red armor. He clipped his two energy guns to his side and high-fived his teammate.

"I heard your call for Works." He said. "Thought you might have been in danger, so I sent my men to quick-check some of the floors above and below until we found dead bodies. We were one floor above you, man!"

"No sweat. We caught them by surprise just as they were about to finish up the door. A few of them got in as you've seen, but my men are back there and covering you up while you take the elevator."

"Excuse me..." Elise interrupted. "Did you happen to see three androids run by you? One white and two reds, one of them female-looking?"

Masahito turned his head around at the sound of an explosion. "Damn, looks like Butcher's really working his shotgun! Where's my sweet sexy Exi by the way?"

Lowlife and Elise looked at each other. Finally, the response came out of both mouths. "She's missing."

Elise entered the elevator, and leaned against the far corner. Turning her energy saber off, she clipped it to her side and waited for the long way back down.

A beep sounded once at the ninth floor. The waiting scientist found himself aimed at by several guns.

This little incident had injected some calm into the android's mind. She was almost feeling easy when the door opened at the first floor.

Everyone got out. The area seemed clear and quiet. Several mutants had already been led into the alleys towards the trucks. She could see Xian and her team coming from an adjacent corridor. The only team left was Masahito's.

On a sudden impulse, Elise stayed inside and pushed the button for the basement.

The elevator seemed to darken around me as I approached the basement level. For some reason, the descent felt longer than usual, as if the actual basement was miles and miles below the surface of the earth.

I was beginning to feel uneasy again. The air felt cold and hot at the same time, my simu-skin feeling one molecule of burning energy and another of pure ice. My legs were the worst victims. Being organic, I couldn't turn off their sensory inputs like the rest of my body, forcing me to feel every sensation at once through them. Desperate to end this painful sensation, I began scratching at them madly.

The ding of the arrival felt more like a gloomy church bell than a welcoming sound. I went out in complete darkness. There were a few windows here and there, tiny light spots only six inches high, allowing whatever maintenance team to work down here without having to turn all the light bulbs on. They hung from long wires. I looked up and saw a high ceiling at some places, and at others it was so low I had to bend over to get through. It was like walking into a coal mine, where the slightest spark could cause a gigantic explosion. I was sure that if I made any sound, something bad would happen. This is why I chose to walk without using my hard soles. I checked up on the bottom of my cute black feet after a while, and discovered them to be covered in some kind of pure dark soot mixed with dirty oil, so contaminated it seemed solid, like a piece of jello or a chicken soup left in the refrigerator. Either way it was a gross feeling. I felt as if my foot was covered by thousands of slimy slugs, stopping at nothing to damage my skin and transform it into a sticky nest for soon-to-be baby slugs. I could almost see them. I wiped my feet with the highest horror in my face. It was a gruesome task that required guts and courage. Yet, I didn't want to use my hard soles yet. The event was worse than the slugs contaminating my vision.

There was a soft and low hum nearby, the sound of a furnace or some other essential system. A heat wave passed by me. I looked to my right to see a blower, seemingly placed here to serve no other purpose than to annoy me. I kept on going, always against the wall. Taking a look through the window, I saw I was on the side facing the main street. I couldn't believe it, but no sound came through those windows. It was as if I had entered another world entirely. I learned from the archives that Department Twisted was working on a possible dimensional portal... But would they have installed one in an elevator? Was I in a real basement or had I stumbled into an alternate reality?

I looked at my hands. They had their familiar dull gray color and were made of metal. I poked one of my eye. It was an orb, a hard android orb. I hadn't changed a bit. This must be the real world.

A growl hit my right microphone. Turning my head to its source, I saw a river of dirty oil, slowly making its way to a drain in the center of the corridor. There were no windows in that section. Everything was pitch black. I turned my infrared vision on, but nothing came. As I got close, the place felt even colder. My feet went into the disgusting oil for the first time, a step so hard to do, yet so inoffensive by the looks. There was bad stuff in this oil. There was no way it could be so dirty, even if it had been left into an engine for a million years.

I passed by the very last window. The sun ray felt like a reflection of Death's blade over my left shoulder. I could sense its ice cold breath coming from everywhere. For a moment, I was tempted into taking out my saber and swinging madly at it, hoping to kill it, no matter how nonsensical it sounded. But, after several through checks behind me, I realized I was completely alone.

Elise stopped just a few inches short of the heavy cell door. The steel bars were even thicker than thick, covered by claw marks, bent and sometimes even bearing bite marks.

The green angel who had been protecting her all along had stayed on the first floor. It was too afraid to look at this.

Like a wild animal being thrown by some unknown force, Shrike the android slammed into the steel door with a resounding noise.

Her face was almost completely broken. The simu-skin, torn apart, revealed all the mechanisms and the circuitry behind the ability to convey emotions. The hooks, normally attached to the simu-skin, were bent or broken, their silvery reflection making the area seem like a gruesome mine field, behind which a small purple brain pulsated irregularly. Her pride, her sharp-toothed grin, was completely revealed by the lack of lips there, the mobile chain jaw broken on one side, letting the lower set of teeth hang and dangle, a channel to the oil slowly dripping on the floor. Her green eye orbs, normally glowing with life and energy, were almost black, the left one cracked, with some pieces taken away, letting Elise see the camera behind it.

The rest wasn't so pretty. Shrike's chest place was completely missing. Pieces of her ever useless intestines hung outside, probably there just to show themselves at the worst moment like right now. The circuitboards seemed intact, but were covered in this dark and dirty oil. The wires, the resistors, even the central processing unit was brown with the stuff. The stomach, barely visible behind a bubble, seemed to be coughing, attempting to fight something bothering it. Elise stared further down to discover a crack between Shrike's legs. The broken android's thighs were stained with the dark oil, the boundary forming a sharp and definite line, almost as if something had exploded into her and splattered all over them. It made Elise recall blood and defecation at the same time, a mix of red and brown now visible in her tricked eyes.

#87

Women give birth through the same hole they use to piss, and men piss into women to create the child.

Hence, a child is the product of two wastelands, born in blood, pain and tears.

The prisoner seemed to growl or moan... Elise couldn't choose which of those two options. A feeling of hate injected itself into her fear. For a moment, she loathed the fellow Insa in the cage. She wanted to sell her soul just to be able to get out of here and leave her there, despite what Shrike had done for her, despite all she had worked for, despite the injustice that had been laid down with terrifying success. She wanted to leave Shrike there and forget about this incident forever.

All of a sudden, the animal seemed to be tamed. Shrike slowly put a hand between the bars, but stopped midway. Her bladed organic hands were twisted into all sorts of odd angles, squirting blood and giving pain everytime they touched anything.

Elise came to her senses. The two were Insa Type androids, and as Insas, they were bound by a friendship of blood.

She would have wanted to shed a tear now. Nevertheless, Elise passed a finger below her left eye.

Shrike, like a shadow, glided through the corridor at breathtaking speed and suddenly took a left. Elise smelled something burning just a few seconds later.

Without any further thought, she dashed for the elevator and stuck herself against the farthest corner until it was back on the first floor.

She was the last to hop into the truck. Lowlife briefly looked at her and after noticing her weird, nervous glances, didn't say anything.

She sat at en empty spot on the side bench and put her head against the back window. She wasn't sure if she had done things right or wrong through this mission.

I still felt something stabbing my innards. Shrike was alive despite that explosion.

Gradually, as I got out of range of her influence, I realized I hadn't freed a friend, but just a walking body. A corpse.

Nevertheless, I felt accomplished. I had done what Shrike, the real Shrike had told me. It was up to her now. I was sure we'd meet again someday.

More thoughts entered my mind as we made our way back to the Crate. Things locked away before had been freed, and I kept on thinking why hadn't I thought of that? What was I thinking then? Had I really done that?

I would have done this operation differently, had I known... And should I have to repeat the same thing over again. I couldn't believe all my actions. I had done things I thought weren't possible even in the wildest fantasy novel. In retrospect, my new life felt like an emotional drama on a sci-fi background. For a moment, I came to think I was nothing more than a character being manipulated into thinking things I really didn't want to think about.

Masahito was in the same truck as I was. He was completely defeated. I realized he wasn't as strong as he looked. Without his girl, he was helpless. She had been making decisions for him all along, taking him by the hand and making him live. Now that he was on his own again, he would gradually fall into a routine. He would stop putting his clothes away. His bed would always be undone. He would start masturbating in the shower, unable to contain a sex drive he couldn't put to creative use anymore. He's grow angry more often. I later found out he was angry whenever he felt cornered. It was like a kid doing a tamper tantrum, and all the Crate had done is use that trait to help him in his fighting capabilities.

Lowlife had earned his nickname in my opinion. I don't see why I had liked him at first. He was tougher than Masahito, but he was too tough, too hard, too down to earth and serious. Below this skull was a shallow pond of thoughts, where everything came around in a record time, where worries and projects were limited. Lowlife was condemned to a simple life with simple problems. That was why he wasn't leading the Crate along with his twin brother. Officially, he was the co-head, but to me, he was rather a figurehead. He was only good as a fighter.

Works came out to be the best after all. Though he seemed like a creep (he still looked like it even after that,) he knew his stuff, and knew how to do his job. His work was always impeccable, his devotion to the team was limitless, and his virtues were true and good. He knew the risks of running the Crate, but he had thought about it, and had made a decision after considering all the facts and probabilities. Even though his team was labeled as a bunch of terrorists, he knew that this wasn't true, and he had all the arguments to prove it. Had he not run the crate, his current facade business could have easily grown into a multinational. He could have lived on a yacht and toured the world... but no. He had devoted his life to a cause, and he believed it wasn't a waste of time at all. He just needs to be "broken in" by those who meet him for the first time. When you know him, you learn to appreciate him. On another note, I never got to learn his real name, nor his twin brother's.

Xian Hikosa, the chief operative and trainer, proved to be a little better in my book too. I recognized her being effective and capable, able to put her skills to good use. We just didn't rub each other the right way. Whenever we spoke, it degenerated into an argument. We were alike in our methods but different in our opinions - we were polar opposites. She didn't understand my devotion to Shrike either. That's why I decided to keep quiet about it from now on.

I thought and I thought and I thought, and the truck rolled and rolled and rolled for years on end. We came out of the truck one hour and forty-five minutes after the beginning of the operation. It was 4:15 PM. The sun was already quite far on its descent. It was fall season all right. All along the way, the trees had been stripped of leaves, despite the region's desertic environment. The United Provinces of North America was famous for having winter in a desert of sand. Summer meant one hundred degrees in the shade - winter meant negative thirty under the noon sun UPNA was a weird country.

I hadn't finished thinking and the trip was over already, even though I thought we had passed a century just traveling back to the base. More questions were taking root in my mind. More unexplainable events were coming back to me...