Nikke: Godess of Victory {Lose Yourself}

Chapter 7- Rehab Centers

"Admiral Privaty!" The sergeant of the strike force calls out, saluting as I'm drug behind her, my hands cuffed.

"At ease." Privaty nods to the sergeant and tugs on my cuffs a bit, sending a tige of pain through my wrist. "Admi and Yulha have contained the Pilgrim Nikke and are headed back to the Central Government, I've come to relieve you of your duty and allow you to return." She says.

There's a wave of relieved sighs, assuming they'd been here most of the night and the slacken the grips on their rifles.

"With all due respect, ma'am, why didn't you just contact us over the radio?" The sergeant asks, placing a hand on his radio and squinting at Privaty.

She pauses a moment, quickly trying to think of a reason. "It's been acting up. I've been able to receive, but my responses weren't coming through." She explains, giving him a rather wry smile, no sign of tears on her face other than the few streaks left.

The sergeant lifts his helmets visor to scratch an itch on his forehead before nodding slightly. "All right then. I'll see you back at the Central Government!" He flicks his visor back down and raises two fingers into the air. "All right, men! Let's move!"

A few men are hesitant, shooting Privaty and I a few suspicious glares before they fall into line behind the rest of their comrades. We stand there before I reach out towards Privaty, nodding towards my cuffs. She pauses before unclipping the lock and letting the chains drop to the ground. I rub my wrists a bit and then look around.

"Snow, if you're out there, you're good to come out!" I call, cupping my hands to my mouth. There's no reply for a moment before Snow emerges from the cover of a small alleyway, slinging her sniper rifle over her back. It was clear she was scoping down Privaty from the shadows.

"Is she safe?" Snow says suspiciously, just a bit shorter than me as she pulls up to stand beside me, eyeing Privaty.

"She is." I nod, letting them stare it down for a brief moment before clearing my throat and stepping into the elvator, both of them following. Before we can react, Privaty presses the 'Outpost' button just beside the 'ARK' Button. Snow's hand shoots forward and grabs Privaty's wrist, causing her to recoil in surprise. 

"You're turning us in!" Snow accuses, pointing out that Privaty had pressed the 'Outpost' button, which would take us to the Commander's outpost on the surface. 

"I'm assuming you want a few more members to your Surface Squad so you're not completely overrun." Privaty points out. "So I have a plan to get you one."

Snow squints at her for a moment. "I've survived on the surface long enough by myself. I don't need the necessity of other members." She pauses before adding: "You'll be a burden enough as it is."

I can tell Privaty is about to light into the Pilgrim, so I intervene. "Hear her out, Snow." I offer, and the white haired girl grunts ever so slightly.

"A girl I know. . . Well, a girl I know of. Her name is Sin. She's in the rehab center at the Surface Outpost, I'm sure we can convince her to join us, especially since she's dying to get out of there too. . ." Privaty explains.

"How do we bust her out, seeing as we're all wanted ourselves." I point out, causing Privaty to get her mischievious smile about her.

"News of the Ark usually has a day delay on getting pushed through to the surface outpost, and is on a secure radio wave to avoid Rapture's detecting it, so, that leaves a day gap to get in, make the deal, and get out." Privaty explains.

I muse over that in my head as the elevator comes to a stop, the powerful hydraulics hissing as I nod. "All right, how do we infiltrate the rehab center?" I ask as the doors creak open.

There's hundreds of Nikkes at the outpost. Where as my small one is a mess hall, bunk and commander quarters, this outpost is more of a small, funcional town for Nikkes.

"That's the easy part." Privaty says. "We simply go in and ask for a rehab session."

"And if they say no?" Snow asks as we make our way into the crowd.

"I'm an Admiral and Hisagi's a Vice Commander." Privaty reasons as she leads the way. "I wouldn't imagine that they'll try to turn us away."

There's a moment of quiet that falls over us. We'd all passed through this place at one time or another, but none of us have ever really noticed the attractions or posters, or the friendly faces. It was similar to the Ark, only less shady and more homey.

We cross the outpost in the span of 5 minutes, and find ourselves standing outside the compound, it's a large building with tall chain-link fences and barbed wire coiling the tops. Guard towers were stationed about every 200 feet apart, and there's not a square inch of this place that can't be seen from a camera that nests above you everywhere you look.

We're stopped outside to scan for weapons, which are put under watch as we visit.

"She's my rookie." I declare as the lady at the desk questions us about Snow.

"She  looks rather battered to be a Rookie." She points out, sticking her pen in her shirt pocket. 

I think fast and make up a semi-truthful cover. "She's a Pilgrim." I point out, startling her. "Where she excels in combat, she lacks in Military Mannerism." I flash the clerk a patient smile and when she nods, jotting down our visit time, Snow and I join Privaty and one of the iDoll guards at sector A's blast door.

We're led past a large, barred window that looks into a mess hall with a small group of criminals and other Nikkes that were written off as too 'dangerous' of models. The iDoll opens the door for us and then leads us over to a more isolated table where a rather attractive Nikke sits.

Since this is a rehabilitation center, prisoners aren't required to wear prison jumpsuits, so this girl wears a paint spattered sparts bra, jogging tights and a rather nice pair of tennis shoes. She also wears a warm up jacket that hangs off of her shoulders in an untidy manner.

Her eyes watch us with a clever gleam to them, as if she was some sort of fox. But she has a converter over her face that makes it hard to see what the rest of her face looks like. Her hair is jet black and in a long pony tail.

"ÄÐmïrål þrïv冥" She says, her voice slightly masked by the converter as she watches me sit down. "fคຖ¢ฯ ๓ēētiຖງ ฯ໐น hērē." 

"It's a rather odd happening." Privaty nods, keeping her voice formal. "And we have a proposal."

"𝕎𝕙𝕠'𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕔𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕖?" Sin asks, nodding towards me as I lean on the table.

"We're offering you a chance at total freedom by tonight." Privaty continues, ignoring Sin's question as the rehab patient puts her chin in her hand.

"ₐᵣₑ yₒᵤ ₛᵢₙgₗₑ?" Sin teases me a bit more before Snow pipes up.

"She's not listening." Snow declares, seeming to get rather annoyed for no apparent reason.

"She is." Privaty says calmly in reply, not taking her eyes off of Sin. "That's just her playing with us."

"𝓒𝓵𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻 𝓖𝓲𝓻𝓵" Sin teases, keeping direct eye contact with me.

"As I was saying, we can break you out." Privaty says. "On one condition; you stick with us as we traverse the surface and kill raptures."

Sin takes a moment to muse over the rather cheap deal. Finally she leans forward with a broad smile under her mask. "🄸🄵 🄷🄴'🅂 🄶🄾🄸🄽🄶, 🄸🅃'🅂 🄰 🄳🄴🄰🄻!"

"Good." Privaty says with a smirk, leaning back in her chair. "Hisagi will return tonight for one last 'visit' and we'll kick the ball into motion."