Back at City Ops, Aria is receiving more and more bad news. It wasn’t just a squad of 20 soldiers. If anything, those are the stragglers. There might be ten times that many, already fanning out through the city.
Personal quarters and the emergency shelters all have doors which can be sealed shut from the inside. The system is mainly there to keep the entire city from flooding in the event of a catastrophic breach. There’s an emergency override in case somebody gets trapped inside a room, but it requires two people to operate a mechanism - one on site, one from City Ops. So holding this chamber is absolutely necessary.
Aria also has cameras positioned around the public spaces of the city. She’s got a rule - if a camera points at the area you’re in, there are clearly painted boundaries showing the camera’s field of view. Outside of that, you have the right of privacy. It also means she can’t be sure where the attackers are, nor whether there are citizens who haven’t made it into a shelter yet.
She sends out a tense broadcast. “Citizens, seal your doors please. Hostiles are spreading throughout the city.”
Now she has another choice to make. Stay here and remain in command of the city - or go out there and make sure her husband is protected, and that others are protected from him should he go too far into his feral fighting state.
She remembers what Summer told her. Leaders can delegate. She should do what only she can do.
She heads to the door, and turns to Mo. “If this room falls, the city falls.”
The steely determination of his gaze tells her he understands. “It won’t,” is all he says. But from Mo, Aria knows this is a sacred vow.
Bill has reached Somsak Panya’s quarters, and found the man has already sealed himself inside. He knocks urgently, and yells through the door. “Dr. Panya? Bill Newman. The power plant failed. Miss Aria sent me to bring you down to City Ops. She’s sure hopin’ you can help out.”
After a moment, the door opens. Dr. Panya is inside, holding a revolver at the ready. When he sees Bill, he visibly relaxes and lowers the gun. “I understand. I am ready.”
Dr. Panya’s quarters aren’t in the same sphere as City Ops. Big Bill will need to lead him through one of the few tunnels that connect spheres to each other. Getting there won’t be hard - Bill warns the doctor what to expect, then scoops him into his arms and simply launches himself through the air. He leaps and drops, bounding over barriers and descending levels in seconds.
He reaches the tunnel and halts immediately. Soldiers are coming. While Bill isn’t worried about himself, he is worried about Dr. Panya.
The soldiers raise their rifles as Bill charges in. Too late, he notices a peculiar purple glow emanating from the weapons. They open fire when he’s still ten feet away.
The rounds surge with energy as they strike him. Rather than bouncing off, they… wound him. The ammunition cuts through his carbon-allotropic skin. Some penetrate into his arms, raised instinctively over his face. It hurts - really hurts - and Bill stumbles. But he makes it to the squad, and begins fighting.
Now in melee, the soldiers can’t fire at him without risking hitting each other. They can grab and grapple. Bill is physically lighter, but far stronger. He throws soldiers this way and that, slamming them against the floor or ceiling, or into the walls. A few retreat. As Bill disposes of their comrades, they open fire again. But he’s wise to the dangers of their weapons, and he makes jet-assisted dodges that send him beyond their firing arc.
Another abrupt charge, more violence, and the remaining soldiers are down.
Big Bill falls to his knees. He’s losing significant amount of fluids - the coolant that keeps his systems operational, the plasma that animates his limbs - and he’s feeling woozy.
He finds himself slumped over on the ground, staring sideways down the tunnel. Behind him, he feels the grip of someone or something, picking him up.
An instinct for helping makes him speak up, even if it happens to be an enemy. “Be careful,” he slurs. “Plasma’s… still charged… my blood… it’ll hurt you…”
He hears Dr. Panya’s voice, and sees the man’s smiling face. He’s hauling Big Bill up over one shoulder. The other hand has picked up an automatic rifle, with a magazine full of this strangely effective anti-robot ammunition. “Don’t worry, my friend. I know about plasma. Now let us see about your Miss Aria.”
That’s the last thing Bill hears before falling unconscious.
John Black aka SNOWMAN was attacked with a similar type of ammunition in “418 - The Golden Dragon” – Ed.
Another squad of soldiers warps through the Hula Hoop. Otto, in car form, is waiting off to the side. As they finish coming through and form up to make their next move, he roars to life and plows through their assembled ranks.
Another minute passes, and the Hula Hoop loses plasma pressure.
“Bill hasn’t checked in,” Mo advises him via radio. “Last contact was Hypatia Sphere, tunnel C1. Check it out when you can.”
Otto looks up and up, toward the distant control room that oversees the Launch System. He honks his horn, and sees Summer wave back in acknowledgement.
“Fuckers gonna pay for what they did to my city,” he growls to himself.
He wastes no time activating the Bulk Access doors. Just for a moment, he wonders - hopes - if he’ll see Leo still on the other side. No such luck. It’s just a bunch of tied-up soldiers.
He remembers that some of them were bleeding when Leo was finished with them. And for a moment, he worries.
Then he sees the bandages around each site of injury. There’s blood on the floor of the corridor, but it isn’t fresh and isn’t spreading.
He transforms into his car mode again, and drives past the bound and unconscious soldiers.
A pair of Atlantean medics arrive to take charge of Minato. Summer yanks the power circuit out of the Launch Control console, tells them to seal the doors behind her, and heads back out into the city.
She finds people in the corridors and hallways, all moving this way or that. Most of them were performing late-night maintenance on the Launch System and associated systems, and now are retreating to shelters.
She takes charge of a large group of such technicians, a mixture of human refugees and Atlantean Blood. “I’ll go ahead in case there’s trouble,” she explains. “Please watch out behind us, in case someone tries to sneak up on the group.”
Sure enough, when they reach one of the interconnecting tunnels, there’s a squad of soldiers.
Summer tears holes in her PJs wide enough for her to launch her drones from their access ports. “Everyone behind me,” she shouts, and deploys drones.
The shouting attracts the attention of the soldiers. They turn, aim, and fire. Bullets bounce off of Summer’s drones. Curiously, they glow purple when they strike.
That’s unusual, Summer thinks at first. But then - she remembers the metamaterial railguns wielded by the Atlantean soldiers last year.
This happened in “232 - Hidden Depths” – Ed.
Could this be something else like that? Something specially designed to take out her and her friends? It would make sense that invaders would prepare for their likely targets. She’ll have to sort it out after she beats these guys.
She charges in, keeping her shields up. The soldiers try to spread out, denying her melee engagement, but her jets and mobility more than make up for it.
The fight is exhausting, given that she must also keep a bunch of civilians shielded from every possible stray bullet. And every moment she spends here is a moment she can’t ensure the safety of someone else, somewhere else. Are soldiers even now rounding up people to use as hostages - or just executing them?
The medics made it through to get to Minato. But they might not have, Summer belatedly realizes. Has Aria dispatched anyone else anywhere?
Too much thinking. Need more fighting.
Aria finds Leo in the open area of Curie Sphere. He’s fighting a whole platoon of soldiers. He’s all alone. And they are all armed.
Normally she’d rush in and join him. But there’s something about how he moves that grabs her attention.
It’s poetic. It’s balletic. It’s perfect.
The soldiers will aim, but Leo will duck and dodge and weave, and suddenly they’ll be firing at one of their own comrades. They’ll try to spread out, get him solidly on one side to avoid crossfire, only he’ll rush them and be back in melee.
All the while, he’s throwing knives. Aria had watched him craft them on an old mill in Australia. She worried he’d cut himself. She’d seen him practice against bottles and stationary wooden targets. She’d never imagined seeing him use them this way.
And he never, ever misses.
His core muscles - his arms - his legs - everything is moving in concert.
She glances down at the device on her wrist, the one that relays Leo’s mental state to her, and gives her some control over it. It’s solid red.
He’s lost to the - well, she once wanted to say berserker rage.
But as he flips over one soldier, and takes out another with a thrown knive, he sees her. And as part of that dance, as part of his performance of violence, he extends an open hand. Just for a moment, then he’s back to it.
She knows. He can see me. He knows me.
It’s not rage. It’s not - it’s not anything, except a martial art being performed. But by the gods, it is art!
She rushes forward, uncertain of how to join him in the dance, but certain that she must.