M.A.I.D.S. [season 1]

Episode 9: Walking Papers

M.A.I.D.S. Episode 9 – Walking Papers

The morning air had begun to reluctantly warm up, encouraged as it was by a loving sun.  The air thrummed with the usual sounds of civilization and commerce—personal vehicles travelling hither and yon, scattered beeping from service automata—completely uninterested in the ASV that was about to be rendered non-mission capable by a thunderous explosion.

Thunderous, indeed, was the explosion that erupted from the entrance of the main parking lot for FIST headquarters, accompanied with a harmonious flash of angry light and a billowing cloud of smoky debris.  A cheer went up from a few of the CROW operatives, and the pair wielding the deadly rocket-propelled grenade squinted against the morning sun to line up their victory shot.

The rear hatch of the ASV dropped and a metallic pink monocycle zoomed out of the opening, and with the speed only her superhuman-reflexes would allow Pandora closed the gap between the site where the improvised explosive device detonated and where rocket-propelled death waited.

“What the fu—” was all the spotter managed to say before Pandora was upon him, leaping from her monocycle and allowing the heavy vehicle to ram full-force into him.  The RPG-wielder dropped his anti-armor weapon and tried to pull his sidearm, but Pandora introduced his throat to the point of her right elbow as she spun off to the side.  She landed beside the crushed spotter and placed the business end of her Gward against his temple, removing him from the mortal coil with a gentle trigger-squeeze.

The man with the RPG tried to pull himself to his feet, hacking and gasping, clasping his damaged throat with his free hand. Feebly he raised his unsteady pistol to the pink-clad “combat drone” but she put a controlled pair into his torso before he could level the pistol; he was dead long before either his corpse or his weapon hit the ground.

Adam, being of superior breeding, was nearly as fast and agile as his Synthia.  He overtook the bus stop even as Pandora was using her monocycle as a weapon.  Sure enough, the rifleman Pandora had predicted was hidden near the bus stop was there, and was too slow in reacting.  The rifleman squeezed off a lethal three-round burst at Adam, but Adam’s MFCJ absorbed the impact and rendered it harmless.  Adam returned the favor with a burst from his HAMR, the rounds fired from it dancing gracefully from navel to sternum across Adam’s target.  Leaping behind the cover the rifleman was using, Adam spun and began laying down suppressive fire in the direction his combat-savvy Synthia had indicated.

Pandora zipped past the disabled ASV and into the FIST compound’s parking area, which consisted of a large expanse of pavement decorated with vehicles at the far end.  She dumped her monocycle beside the fountain in the center, taking only an eyeblink to admire the marble statue in the middle—a beautiful reproduction of a Greek goddess—before hopping into the water.  Propping her Onyks 3 on the edge of the fountain, she easily picked out the CROW sniper (who was in the window to the left of the one she’d expected him to be in) and put his sniping days to an end.

Everything was going according to Pandora’s plan, which suddenly struck a note of dischord within the biomechanic woman.  From her vantage point she could just barely see Adam’s position through the smoke, but using her helmet’s advanced visual capabilities, she was able to pick up his outline through the smoke.  Behind him she saw a CROW operative, a real beast of a man, raising his shotgun to buttstroke her owner.

“Adam!” was all she had time to cry out in warning before the weapon fell across her man’s head, rendering him unconscious.  The pink-clad warrior leapt astride her monocycle and sped through the killzone where Adam’s ASV roared with all-consuming fire, across the street where local law enforcement was quickly becoming a problem, and straight at the huge man who had now hefted the unconscious Adam across one meaty shoulder.

“Unhand him!” Pandora yelled as she skid to a halt just before the man.  Laughing at his smaller opponent, the man dropped Adam unceremoniously to the ground and kicked him aside.  He also dropped his shotgun and kicked it away in the opposite direction.  The massive man stood at least seven feet tall and was muscled to match, and grinned hungrily as he stared at Pandora.

“You wanna go, pinky?  Alright then, let’s do this!” the man said, taking a broad stance.  Pandora left her rifle on her monocycle and took her position before the larger opponent, her heart racing at the thought of hand-to-hand combat.  Oh, this is going to be fun! she thought, grinning ear to ear within her helmet.

The ham-fisted man came at Pandora like a rabid bear, throwing huge punches and drooling from bared teeth.  His aggressive offense was designed to keep his opponent close and occupied so that he wouldn’t have to deal with a counterattack.  Pandora adroitly dodged, blocked, and parried his attacks as appropriate, leading him on as she evaluated his fighting style.  The big man had uncanny stamina for a man his size, no doubt being genetically enhanced for combat prowess.  Pandora recalled what she’d read about CROW while on the way to FIST headquarters, about how they unscrupulously manipulated the genetic makeup of their operatives…sometimes with disastrous results.

OK, I think I’ve learned all I need to about this big oaf, Pandora decided.  She created an opening by crouching low under a haymaker, then rising up with a leaping uppercut that caught her assailant under the jaw.  The force of her punch, reinforced with her armored fist, sent him stumbling back into the wall behind him.

“Ooh, good! I was hoping you’d fight back,” the pugilist boasted with a cruel laugh.  From his armored boot he drew a heavy, serrated knife.  He beckoned to Pandora with the blade, daring her to make the first move.

Pandora pulled her bayonet from its sheath at her side, the blade looking pitifully small compared to the gleaming hunk of metal that the bigger man held with ill intent as he faced her.  Pandora struck like a viper, darting in and out of the man’s reach before he could react, drawing blood from his torso.  The wound seemed to encourage him, and he was able to out-muscle Pandora as the two fought, landing blows with fist and blade.  Only her pink armor—a top-of-the-line combat suit—prevented the man from drawing blood.  Bruises from the impact, though, were something Pandora knew she would bear in the morning.

Concern for Adam took precedence over the excitement of the fight, and Pandora decided it was time to end this.  The expert Synthia lunged inside the man’s reach and knocked the blade aside with a strike from her left arm.  She simultaneously brought her right knee to her chest, then lashed out with a kick to the man’s left kneecap, shattering the mobile bone with the heel of her reinforced boot.  He doubled over, knife forgotten, and Pandora wrapped her right arm around his head.  She palmed his head near his ear, then with a quick twist he was sent sprawling onto his back.  A bone-shattering punch to his right collarbone followed that rendered his massive arm useless.  He tried to roll to his other side and away from the pink fury that assaulted him, but this only gave her the opening she needed.   Seeing a likely weapon, Pandora hefted a stone that the recent explosion had flung to this side of the street.  As the big man tried to reestablish his vertical base she brought the fractured hunk of pavement down across the back of his neck, shattering bones like a crude guillotine.

“Seize the drone! We must have it!” yelled a voice from near the FIST headquarters.  Pandora spun to see the remaining CROW operatives moving warily toward her, flanked by members of FIST.

“NO!” she yelled, feeling an emotion that reminded her of the fear felt by characters in Adam’s books.  She grabbed his limp form and mounted her monocycle, heading back to his home with all the haste she could milk from the machine.

“Should we follow?” asked one of the CROW gunmen, his anxious gaze going between the retreating monocycle and a man in a FIST 5 uniform.

“No.  Give them a head start.”