The sealed door slides open.
Almost immediately, Emma wobbles. She almost falls faint, but Nono catches her, and slings one arm around her own shoulders.
Immediately, Alycia and Jason are on the lookout. Some kind of attack? Gas? Blowgun dart? Instinctively they look in different directions, to maximize coverage–
“Jesus god in heaven,” Emma mutters. She steadies herself with Nono’s supporting strength and rises, but clearly isn’t ready to stand on her own two feet unassisted.
“Report,” Alycia barks.
“Uh, holy shit… that is intense…” Emma backs up, and Nono helps her.
“Y’know, I’m pyro… what’s the word… pyrokinetic, right? Psychic. Shit… Whatever’s in there… is putting out some serious psycho mojo.”
The rest of the team look inside. What they see could be described as a trophy room. Old-looking artifacts under glass are placed on plinths, each with labels in Chinese.
“Is it dangerous?” Alycia asks carefully.
“Uh… uh…” Emma struggles to focus. “It’s like… staring at the sun…”
Alycia frowns in tight-lipped concentration. She takes a quick assessment of the rest of the team. Of everyone, only the psychic seems affected.
“Agent R, keep Firebrand outside. The walls may offer shielding. SNOWMAN, take point. Comrade X, be ready to close the door again. Brigand, with me.”
The robot makes his way inside. He wobbles, just for a moment, and shakes his head.
“Don’t tell me you’re psychic too,” Alycia mutters darkly.
“Nah. Strong EM fields in here, though,” John reports. “Generalized jamming, I think. Don’t bring any expensive phones in here. I’ve got shielding.”
Alycia nods in Jason’s direction, and the two of them follow. John can’t read Chinese, but they can. So with him watching for dangers inside the vault, and Alex standing watch outside, they begin reading the labels.
Alycia pales. She can see Jason’s face, and knows he’s come to the same conclusions.
She repeats aloud what she reads. “Yaoguai container. The soul-stealing gourd. Legendary artifacts from ancient Chinese stories. Cursed relics. Jails for wicked spirits. Ordinarily I would mark such labels down to the ostentation of the treasure room above, but…for this place to have such a potent effect on Firebrand…”
As she trails off, the people inside the vault hear an urgent call from Nono outside: “Incoming!”
The sound of gunfire follows immediately.
Alycia dashes for the door, with Jason close behind. They meet Alex, covering their head and running inside. Right behind them is Nono, dragging a protesting Emma through the doorway.
“Gunmen - coming from both ways–” Nono explains breathlessly.
“Nanobots are offline due to the jamming,” Jason says, looking down in equal parts regret and annoyance.
Alycia moves toward the vault doorway, and ducks back inside after a fresh hail of gunfire confirms the people outside are getting much closer.
“Other exits?” she asks tensely, in the seconds left.
Jason reports crisply. “None visible.”
Alycia takes in her tactical options. “If these artifacts are genuine - we can’t afford for them to take damage - there’s no telling what the consequences would be–”
Outside, the team hears voices in Chinese. “They got the treasure vault open - they’re trapped inside - shoot to kill.”
Emma is incapacitated from the psychic overload. Nono will be heavily distracted, and neither she nor Alex are bulletproof. Jason’s nanobots are offline, and neither he nor Alycia can dodge sustained automatic fire–
“SNOWMAN,” Alycia orders.
The robot doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s already walking out of the vault, having reached the same conclusions. Behind him, Alycia hammers on the button by the door, and the vault slams shut.
The sound of gunfire becomes distant, muffled by the thick vault doors.
The door closes behind John.
The corridor here has two directions to go. There’s doors here and there. Almost all of them are closed.
It’s clear what happened. Another team sneaked onto the island - perhaps by the still-unconfirmed rail system - and camped out down here. They must have put the vault under passive observation after trying and failing to crack it, reasoning someone else might try and succeed. Now that that’s happened, they’re here to vulture the vault.
Inside the vault is Emma, clearly suffering. Nono is with her, and suffering with her. He can imagine Nono threatening Alycia to do something.
He owes them something. He has to finish this fast.
He’s always been a good fighter. He inherited Leo Snow’s talent and mixed it with his own anger and robotic power. Leo gave him a new PINNACLE brain, capable of hypergenius. His quantum fighting instincts should be at their peak.
He’s got all the tools he needs. The last barrier is his attitude. He can’t just coast on anger and muscle any more.
Leo… my old self… my big brother. John wishes silently. Help me fight for something for a change.
There’s five intruders. He thinks most of them are Asian, though several are partially masked. One has a clearly advanced prosthetic left arm and sunglasses with some kind of mini-camera on the side. That’s Shades. Another is a tall man with an exaggerated musculature. That’s Brute. There’s two women, one tall and lithe with twin swords on her back, the other compact with a bicyclist’s build and grenades hung on a bandolier over her chest. That’s Blades and Bombs. The fifth John presumes is the leader. He’s got a thick black beard, and his hair is braided and hung over one shoulder. He’s the one calling out orders, in what sounds like some Chinese language. That makes him Boss.
All of them have automatic weapons. The AR system in John’s head identifies them by silhouette as the QBZ-97, a modified bullpup rifle chambered for 5.56 NATO rounds, a typical weapon you’d find in the black markets of southeast Asia.
They’re all dressed in black leather of some kind, decked out with cool weapons and toys. John can’t help but think of them as Matrix cosplayers, except that they seem to be the real thing.
Boss, Shades, and Blades are coming from the left. Bombs and Brute are coming from the right. Their weapons are already raised and they open fire immediately. John feels the metal rain across his body, and the accumulated force of it staggers him slightly. But it won’t stop him.
They’re coming in at an angle, hugging the far wall so their crossfire doesn’t hit the other members of their team. John leaps toward that side of the hall, hoping to drag their fire toward each other. Boss notices the move immediately and barks out a command, presumably “hold your fire you fucking tools”.
Bombs is going to be the biggest problem. He rushes her. Brute drops his rifle and reaches for him. John ducks under the bulging arms, firms up his fingers to maximize the force of impact at one point - the “one finger spear hand” strike. He goes for the armpits, the opening that Brute carelessly left.
Brute probably thought his muscles would be thick and dense enough to deal with attacks to this area. Brute thought wrong. Now his arms are useless as his nervous system is rebooting from the deep impact. John rises and drives an elbow deep into the man’s solar plexus, through the meat of his carefully sculpted core muscles. Brute lets out a gurgling gasp and falls over backward.
Boss is realizing that he’s up against some serious shit, and is yelling something at Bombs. She’s obediently dashing around her buddy and John, trying to regroup with the rest of the team. Blades is already ditching her rifle and pulling her swords out.
What’s the play here? Their pincer movement forced his team into the vault - only they didn’t count on a bulletproof enemy. They’ll try to lure him away from Brute and throw grenades. Or maybe they don’t give a shit about Brute. But either way, he’s a melee guy.
Is he?
He feels Leo’s presence. Fight with everything you have.
He fires two grappling lines in front of Bombs as she runs. The impact trips her up, but she leans into it, tumbling and rolling coming up on her feet to continue the run.
Blades is on him. As the grapples retract and snap shut into their recesses, he raises an arm to block the first sword. To his great surprise, the sword blade suddenly glows a nasty purple hue, and it digs a half-inch notch into his otherwise-impervious carbon skin.
Blades smirks, knowing she’s suddenly in the spotlight for this fight. She drops back and drops into one of those weird elaborate Shaw Brothers fighting stances, swords at the ready. Boss is already yelling at the others, and gestures for Shades. John doesn’t need to know what “get in there!” translates to in Chinese - he knows he’s just heard it.
He can’t afford to wait around for this sword duel bullshit. He charges at Blades, just as Shades reaches her position. Shades swings with his prosthetic arm. John ducks under it. Blades tries to bring her swords together in a cross parry, to get John to cut himself as he throws his attack.
He’s got a different idea. As Shades is pulling back, John grabs hold of the prosthetic arm - and jams it right at Blades’ cross parry. Shades jerks back. John doesn’t have enough mass to resist, but he doesn’t have to. He gets Blades to do what he wants - open the parry, in an effort not to cut her own teammate. In the gap she leaves, John throws a side-kick, and Blades tumbles backwards onto the floor of the corridor.
That leaves Shades, who seems to be charging up something. A pulse of energy bursts out of his open palm straight at John. It feels like a concentrated EMP blast. While his Newman core systems are resilient, some of the robot’s after-market modifications aren’t, and he feels a searing pain as some of Alex’s additions to his system short out.
Shades falls back immediately, and from her place next to Boss, Bombs tosses some grenades at him. He sees it, but is too busy with the burning sensations in his head to react. The grenades go off in his face, knocking him backward down the corridor and landing him next to Brute, who’s struggling to get up after having the wind knocked out of him.
Blades is up, and rushing him. So far, two of the five have realized they have weapons that could actually do some damage, and one more has ways to knock him around - until she runs out. Fine.
He kips up, kicks Brute savagely in the face, and tries to figure out Blades’ deal as she comes.
She swings one sword, then the other, in a pinwheeling attack meant to push him back. He rolls left instead, and fires a grapple at her ankle. She can’t see it coming, not in the moment of the attack, and he yanks her off her feet again. Blades lets out a frustrated growl.
Shades is rushing him again, but off center. He sees why instantly. Boss has drawn a wicked-looking pistol with a bunch of tacticool accessories pinned on and slapped in a magazine full of some kinda funky anti-John Black ammunition, most likely. Just in case, he raises his arms over his face. Sure enough, Boss fires, and John finds a few bullets lodged in his torso and forearm.
It hurts, but not seriously - pain is the body’s way to attract the mind’s attention, and this nonsense won’t kill him. But now his arm is leaking ionized fluid and coolant, and that’s not good.
Blades is up on her feet again.
John needs a new strategy. He lets Shades charge him, sees him fire another EMP blast at close range. This time, despite his real pain, he fakes another sudden burst of agony. Shades, thinking his blast worked just as well a second time, closes in to administer a coup de grace.
John ducks down, then comes up with arms outstretched. He grabs hold of Shades around the torso, lifts the man bodily up, then charges down the hall with Shades as a human shield.
Boss yells something. Bombs is readying some kind of gizmo. Blades is rushing him from behind.
John may not have a mass advantage, but he has a definite strength one. Though Shades is beating on him with both arms, John can ignore it. He tosses Shades at full speed into Boss, who decides too late to try dodging instead of shooting through his man.
John wheels. Now he has a plan for Blades.
He fires a grappling line at her left leg. Sure enough, she brings the sword down to chop at it. Sure enough, the purple glow flares up and his grapple is severed. But the second one is launching itself - at her exposed wrist, at the end of her downward swing.
She realizes the attack, and brings down her other sword. Too bad she only has two hands. John Black has six grapples.
The third line takes hold of her left wrist, and yanks her off her line. She tries to flip the blade in her free hand, bring it up to sever the cables and free herself, but good old grapple number four grabs hold of that wrist.
Now - now he’s got her. He reels in all four lines. He feels Boss shoot him in the back of the head. The exceptionally armored skull eats the impact of the bullets, but he knows he’ll need to attend to that before too long.
A wrenching motion almost breaks her wrists, and she drops both swords.
Bombs, meanwhile, has been trying to maneuver around him. She’s got something in her hand, which John guesses is one of those limpet mine things you use against tanks.
Boss and Shades are on their feet, and they take stock. One guy down, probably for the count. One more in the enemy’s possession. Limited tactical options. They could push it, maybe wear him down. John can see Boss doing the mental math.
He doesn’t speak Chinese, but maybe this asshole speaks English. “Get lost,” he says in a stern voice, deep as he can manage. “Or else next time I won’t play nice.”
To emphasize his point, he deploys his twin swords from their recessed slots at his wrists.
The sight of the unused weapons gives Boss pause. “We can share what’s in the vault,” he offers, in rough English. “No need for either of us to be too greedy, eh?”
John shakes his head. “What’s in there isn’t treasure, it’s death. And I’m not repeating myself,” he says, standing firm.
Boss recalculates, and nods. “We walk. You won’t see us here again. But I’ll remember you, cyborg.”
John releases Blades. She glances at him, then down at her fallen swords, then up at him again, asking the silent question. He steps back and makes an offering gesture with one hand.
She scoops the weapons up, sheathes them, then bows. “Maybe I see you sometime. Maybe we dance again,” she remarks.
Bombs and Shades are scraping Brute off the ground, evidently struggling to hold up the man’s weight. But they do it. Boss leads the retreat, and doesn’t look back.
Only when they’re gone does John breathe a sigh of relief, and pound a few times on the vault door to signal his friends that the coast is clear.
After a few moments, it slides open. Nono immediately hauls Emma out. She’s delirious, and John feels an immediate stab of guilt.
I could have killed them. That would have made things go faster. But… no. I couldn’t have, could I.
“Report,” Alycia orders, breaking him out of the momentary reverie.
“Team of five, high-tech mercenaries by the look of it. Special kit.” He holds up his injured arm for inspection. “I told 'em to bail. No telling if they will but I’m hopeful. Just in case, I recommend you break the lock on the vault.”
Alex checks out their micro-terminal, still attached to the vault door’s security mechanism. The terminal has been smashed up by gunfire. “I think it’s already broken,” they admit. “No more DEJAVU from here on.”
“But no security response,” Jason points out. “You can’t tell me someone didn’t notice those grenades going off.”
Alycia nods. “Still. We should leave. SNOWMAN, please examine Firebrand.”
The next few minutes are a strange chain of diagnosis. John examines Emma’s mental state through the limited indicators the human body permits - pulse, respiration, pupil dilation, and so on. Meanwhile, Alex is checking John’s injuries, assessing any interior damage, and trying to bandage the leaking ionic fluid. Accidental contact with the stuff gives them a nasty shock.
“Don’t do that,” John says quietly over his shoulder. “Just let it bleed. The exterior nanotubes are self-healing. I’ll be weaker but I’ll be functional.”
He turns back to Alycia - and Nono, who’s been intently watching him, waiting for a status on Emma.
“I don’t see signs of immediate damage. Vitals are steady. If she doesn’t regain consciousness in about 20 minutes, we’ll re-assess. I’ll carry her.”
Alycia nods. “Very well. We’ve learned that information on the network at this levels is somewhat trustworthy. That was indeed a vault of forbidden artifacts. I suggest we confirm the presence of a rail system, then continue downward and see if we can find a zone containing our strategic goal.”
The others nod their assent, and the team packs up their stuff and keeps walking the strangely empty halls of the Golden Dragon’s lair.