238. It’s raining cat! Hallelujah
“Was it a good idea to leave three insta-heals with Vik like that?” Nozomi asked as Tomoka drove around night city. Truth be told none of them knew what the hell they were doing or going to do. This was a sort of unplanned vacation… kinda.
“Hell if I know, but it would be neat if he figures something out from them.” Not like he would, or could for that matter. Vik is a good ripperdoc, a really good one, he is no techie however. The nanites within insta-heal are so alien that she doubted even Arasaka or Militech could figure them out.
The thing is, each one of the millions of nineties hold a micro-laminated glass wafer with a piece of their code in it. What this means is that their code can’t be modified once it has been written in the wafers, only read. Second, unless someone can get each of the tiny winy wafers, then they won’t have the whole code. Third and perhaps the most important part. Tomoka’s code is so different from this world’s code that figuring it out is pretty much impossible.
“Anyway, it's getting kind of late, though I don’t feel like going to sleep just yet. How about we go and-” Before Tomoka could finish speaking a loud explosion reached the group’s ears from above. This made Tomoka hit the brakes hard out of instinct.
“What the hell was tha-” Before Hinata could finish her question something heavy fell on the roof of their car, deforming it by a lot. Fortunately it didn’t cause any harm to the girls. Not waiting for another such thing to happen the trio jumped out of the car ready for a fight.
“Uh… I swear I didn’t plan this in any way shape or form.” As soon as the trio saw what or rather who had landed on their car Tomoka spoke in her defense.
“Yeah… I don’t believe you. Doesn’t matter anyway, let's help her.” They could discuss this matter after saving Sasha’s life. Because that was exactly who had landed on their car.
Shrugging Tomoka got to work checking on the young woman. First thing she found was a few bullet holes in her abdominal and pectoral area. Second, her spine didn’t look good, at all. Fortunately, her head looked alright, so without further ado Tomoka pulled out an insta-heal.
“Wait a second, this is the last one?” Realizing she had no more insta-heals stored in her scroll, Tomoka sighed. She had been a bit too loose with the things. She had brought ten in total. Three had been used after the large firefight to heal their wounds. Three to heal after the cybernetic implants, and she left three with Vik.
“Whatever.” With another shrug Tomoka proceeds to inject Sasha with the thing. It was at that moment that her instincts screamed for her to move. From the way her girls jumped away as well, theirs had done the same. Where they had stood a moment prior a barrage of bullets flew by as the trio hid behind their car.
Tomoka could feel the roar of her heart beating against her ears. She could feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Even so, she needed to keep her head cool and think. Were the ones attacking her from biotechnica? How many hostiles were there? Those and many other questions she needed to keep in mind, otherwise, she would end up shot dead.
Once the roar of bullets stopped Tomoka took the opportunity to look towards their assailant. To her immense relief and disappointment, the one that had shot them was a rather large black man. One she easily recognised as Maine.
“God, fucking damn it all Maine, we aren’t enemies!” Tomoka shouted, getting out of cover. If the big guy tried and shoot at her again, then she would dismember him with her bare hands! How would she do it? Who could fucking guess, certainly not her.
“Who the fuck are you?” At least the goliath of a man wasn’t shooting them.
“We are the ones to save your cat from certain death, that's who you gonk!” Still behind the car Nozomi and Hinata could do nothing but sigh and giggle at the interaction. It was because they weren’t involved in it that they realized Sasha was waking up.
“What the fuck are you even talking abo-” Before maine could finish speaking he was interrupted by one of the other woman that had been hiding behind the car.
“Sorry to interrupt but she is waking up.” Yeah, at that moment Maine forgot about the whole argument. He was sure Sasha had died. Afterall, she had fallen from the twelve floor of Biotechnica’s building right before the explosion.
Ignoring the red head and the other two he dashed to the car where Sasha was currently trying to sit up with her hand on her head. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Her clothes had multiple holes, presumably bullet wounds, and yet her skin below them looked pristin if stained with blood.
“Sasha! Are you alright!” Maine’s huge hand fell on Sasha’s shoulder, his hold gentle yet firm, as if afraid to both harm her while not wanting to let her go.
“Ugh, what happened? Last thing I remember is falling from the Biotechnica building.” Although she was feeling much better with each passing moment as the headache she had was quickly going away, she still didn’t feel like opening her eyes.
“Do you mean that building? Also, we should delta, don’t know about you but I doubt we can fight against an army of Biotechnica soldiers. No matter how much I want to.” A new voice said, one she didn’t recognize. It was then that Sasha opened her eyes to see where she was.
The first thing to catch her eye was the massive frame of Maine right in front of her. The second was that of a girl, perhaps younger than herself with crimson hair with ice blue tips. Finally, she saw the building she had fallen from. The Biotechnica logo undisrupted by the explosion she had caused.
That more than anything sent her mind into chaos. The memory of the fire fight, of the data she had stolen and the one she had fought to send out to the news outlets. Of the bullets impacting her body. Finally, her fall. How was she alive? If she was to wake up again, it should have happened at a ripper doc’s clinic not here, not now. Hell, she didn’t even feel the pain of the bullet wounds.
“How?” That was all she could ask the red-headed woman. Sasha knew she should be dead right now, if not in a critical condition. Maine is no medic so there is no way he was the one to heal her. This entire situation feels so… bizarre.
“Explanations for later, we really need to get going. Also, seeing as you kinda crushed our car could you get big guy here to give us a lift?” Sasha was confused for a moment until she realized she was in fact sitting on the deformed roof of a car.
A while later Tomoka, Hinata and Nozomi found themselves seated in the back of Maine’s car. Had any of them planned for things to end up like this? No, were they happy things ended up like this? Yes. Now they had an in with an edge-running crew!
“So… how did you do it?” Sasha couldn’t contain her curiosity anymore. She is a curious person by nature. Now that she had a few moments to contemplate her situation and the fact she is alive, she couldn’t help but wonder.
“You mean saving your life? Experimental drug we stole. We had ten doses of the thing, the one we used on you was the last we had. It’s a miracle of tech that can heal pretty much anything short of death.
That made both Sasha and Maine worry. Sure, it had saved her life but experimental stuff almost always had side effects. Hell, some drugs that weren’t experimental still had them, like securicine. Just thinking about it made her blood boil.
“Side effects?” Maine was the one to ask the question in both their minds. Nothing came for free, and a drug that could heal her like it had done had to have side effects.
“None that we know of. We have used the other nine doses on ourselves and we haven’t felt any side effects. At most she will start feeling really hungry in a while.” Suddenly all five of them heard the roar of agreement coming from Sasha’s stomach.
“Damn do I have great timing.” Sasha ignored the comment instead focusing on how hungry she felt. If she had to put the feeling into words, it was like she hadn’t eaten anything for the past three days. Ignoring the feeling as much as she could, she instead focused on the conversation.
“There must be other side effects.” There had to be, no way a corp would hide such a miracle cure. After all, with something like that they would be able to sell it for a premium and earn a shit ton of money.
“As I said, there is none we know of. Though I can guess why you are so skeptical. Truth be told we kinda… screwed up and got the entire project fucked while getting those ten doses.” Sasha focused on the sheepish expression of the girl. The narrowing of her eyes, and intensity of her glare all that was needed to indicate her disbelief.
“So, we may or may not have killed the main group of scientists in charge. while blowing up the building and therefore the data banks with the research data. These ten doses being the only thing that could be used to recreate the thing and well… they are used up so… yeah.”
At that even Maine raised an eyebrow. The story was likely but even so, to screw up that bad was something amazing. Not to mention whatever corp had been developing the thing would probably want them dead more than anything else.
“Then why use one on me?” If these things were as precious as the girl was saying then there was absolutely no reason to use a dose on her.
“Because she is a ball of barely contained chaos. Truthfully I don’t know how we haven’t gotten killed yet.” This time it was the girl with purple eyes the one to answer. The tone with which she spoke a sort of fond exasperation.
“It's because no one expects the Spanish inquisition.” That sent Sasha for a loop. What was that girl even talking about? What Spanish inquisition? Whas that how their group called itself?
“As she said, a ball of chaos incarnate. Would you believe she wanted to, in her own words: “Pull a silverhand” which is to nuke Arasaka tower.” Sasha and Main both hissed a little hearing that. Instantly Sasha’s gaze fell on the other girl, the on with red eyes.
“What? it’s viable! A nuke is nothing more than a bomb-bomb and I know where to easily get fissile material! Hell, I could make a hydrogen bomb taking into consideration its a bomb-bomb-bomb!” At that the car stopped suddenly as even Maine turned around to look at the girl who had a rather familiar grin.
“We can’t let her meet Rebecca.” Maine said with all the seriousness in the world. Sasha had to agree. Who knew what kind of apocalyptic event those two would cook up should they meet.
“Uh, is this Rebecca a short girl with pink tattoos?” Hearing the rather specific question made Sasha have a bit of a bad feeling.
“Yes, how did you know?” Instead of answering, the purple eyed girl just pointed outside the car where… Quickly turning back Sasha realized that yes, the red-headed girl had somehow left the car without her notice.
“Well, shit.” Maine’s eloquent comment was the perfect resume of her own feelings at that moment. Just outside the car the red-headed girl was shooting the shit with Rebecca. From the looks of it, Maine had driven them back to Aldo's, stopping a bit further away than usual.
To make matters worse, the red-head had pulled a set of grenades out of god knows where. From the way Rebecca’s eyes shone Sasha could tell those nades wouldn’t stay unused for long.
“Should we stop them?” Sasha asked, turning around towards the other two girls who just shrugged.
“You can try. We learnt long ago that the best thing to do is buckle up and hunker down.” As soon as the red-eyed girl finished speaking a loud boom resounded. Turning around Sasha saw Rebecca and the red-headed girl cackling like mad-woman.
“Maine?” Instead of answering Maine just sighed, stepping out of the car. Followed by the other two girls. Finally Sasha too got out of the car while a single thought kept bouncing in her mind.
‘What the fucked kind of mess did I get involved in now’