Chapter 6: Augh, I Need A Medic Bag

Great, a narc. Ah, well. "NO, INTRUDER. YOU WILL BE ESCORTED TO THE NEAREST RECRUITMENT CENTER, AND THEN YOU WILL BE REBORN IN A MECHANICAL FORM," the stupid fucking security robot said, even as I was manipulating my holographic projectors to slowly shift out of the way of the gun without their knowing. Honestly, it was child's play — I had already taken a good look at the room, and I knew what I looked like, so I was able to simply redirect the light bouncing off of me and make a fake gasp as if I'd really been taken into custody.

To be fair, though, being threatened with robotification wasn't really a big deal to me. Like, I was a robot already. And Alice probably would get off easy because despotism. So jokes on you, unnamed (I hope) security robot number seventy five! I'm immune to your threats!

Before they could call in on their radio, I shot the guns out of their hands while dropping the illusion. Thank fuck for plug and play technology. A startled electrical screech jumped from their speakers, before they started to vocalize some kind of indignant stammering. I spun the revolver around in my hands. The thing had a good amount of kick, but with infinite ammo and my ability to not get my shoulder fucked up from firing half-an-inch rails at probable absurd speeds? Very satisfying. 

Just for show, I made a mockery of blowing on the barrel. The robot in front of me snarled and lunged, but Alice took them down with a single tacklepunch to the head... which was blown clean off. Damn, these things were flimsy. Wait, shit! Was that guy sentient? I didn't want to kill them, just disable their offensive capabilities!

Ew. "Offensive capabilities." I really was starting to talk like a robot.

In any case, I quickly scooped their head off the ground (whose blue screen housed a very angry emoticon trying to bite at my fingers) and wired it through their chest's power cords to the best of my ability. That was probably enough to keep them alive. Even if they kept screaming at us. There was probably already a good deal of people on their way here anyways, but that was water under the bridge.

Actually, I also pushed them up to sit their absurdly-dense frame against the door. Heh. Serves them right for not being made of more efficient stuff, like... not steel. God, their frame had to be at least 300 pounds. Why were robots so fucking heavy???  Whatever.

Alice quickly signalled me to help her grab some supplies with a grin on her face, and I shoved my revolver in my holster as soon as I could. Uh, the literal revolver in... you get the idea. We grabbed a little of everything — dark coin-like things, and rocket launchers, and oh my god was that a minigun??? — all while the security droid was screaming at us about... more kidnapping stuff. Seemed they were fantasizing about us being torn limb from limb. Rent-free already, damn.

Once everything was stored in our bags safely, Alice made me stand back from the wall. Apparently she was going to "print a hovercycle," which really didn't seem like enough to get us out of this heavily-reinforced room, but what did I know? I stood back as requested, patting the now incredibly annoyed-embarrassed-flustered robot to my left absently. "We'll be out of your hair soon, buddy. You really gotta consider a career change, security guard stuff doesn't sound fun."

More pissed rambling. What was this guy, a... I'm actually not gonna make that joke. It's a little too cringe even for me. But come on. Normally aren't you supposed to shut up if you get too angry, not start spouting constant threats and abuse and verbal harassment?

Alice had finally finished printing the hovercycle. It was apparently printed from some sort of hexagonal rod that opened up and... I'm not gonna pretend to know how it worked, but Alice was able to simply open up the rod like a scroll, set it on the floor, and then pull it up as if she was a magician revealing a table. Except instead of a table, the thing that appeared looked like a motorcycle featuring fucking belt sanders instead of wheels, and a lot of suspension. Woo! Hovercycles looked butch in this universe!

Sparing only a glance my way, and with sudden banging on the door to the armory spurring her on, my former-catgirl accomplice pulled the front hoverbelt of the bike up so it met the wall — almost as if she was trying to belt sand the thing down. She was actually starting it, however, on and off and on and off in quick succession, and the repeated... hover-waves? The hover waves were starting to disintegrate the wall. Within thirty seconds (not even enough time for the guards outside to get crowbars or forced entry devices), we'd tunneled our way almost to the outside, with just a few pieces of concrete sticking.

Alice theatrically bowed, gesturing towards the hole in the wall with impunity, and though it took me a second to realize what she was asking I was more than willing to acquiesce.

Wow, actually, that was a lot of words. What I'm trying to say is that I punched and kicked the hole into a bit more of a regular shape, removing some rebar and concrete at my partner's behest. Then, she offered her hand to me — like a proper gentlewoman, this one! — and we hopped up onto the hovercycle. The belts began to glow a bright white, then blue, then yellow down to a burning, dark, red. Fun! I really hoped my pants weren't gonna melt off. Er, my legs, actually. No pants.

Well, no time like the present! I held on tightly to Alice since I didn't know how to ride a motorcycle (let alone a hovercycle), and gave the horrified-looking robot over my shoulder a wink and a wave goodbye. Confidence came quite a bit easier when others were around, and when I was in this body. I really did need to set aside some time to have an identity crisis.

And then we were hovering off the ground, speeding away over hotels and shops and houses and apartments at great velocity. Alice was hunched down over the hovercycle's small windshield, the clouds drizzling rain down onto us like a particularly-emotionally constipated god had decided to start crying at that moment, and our path was taken through a series of sharp curves before we started to head out back towards the forest.

I held onto Alice's body just a little tighter, my arms finding home around her belly and not letting go. The performance earlier had taken a bit more out of me than I'd thought, but I felt a low level of ecstatic energy coursing through me even as the wind and rain chilled my form. I could probably have projected an umbrella, but that would be a lot of effort... and would it even really work? I mean, we were travelling pretty fast...

"Hey. Berry." I perked up at the sound of Alice's voice, having drifted into thought for a moment. "You there?"

"Where else would I be? I'll have you know, I have a little more balance than you think."

She stifled a chuckle, barely audible over the whipping winds and rushing rain. "I suppose you're probably right. I just wanted to check. Are you... okay? In general?"

"Hm?" I considered that for a moment. Was I? "Yeah, probably. Why?"

"You just seemed a lot more confident when we were back in that room all of a sudden. That generally comes with compartmentalization and can be a sign of dissociation or derealization," the catgirl-once-more said without taking a breath. Unfair. I had only fake lungs and I would still have struggled with that.

"Uh... I guess I'm dealing with a lot. Used to be a guy, and all... I think? But I'll be okay. If things are going the way I think they're possibly going, I might be more than okay. Eh. It's probably gonna hit over a couple weeks minimum, if I've learned right, so there's really nothing to worry about."

"If you say so."

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We sped through the air for just a bit longer. We'd done away with our disguises. Nobody was gonna look up anyways. Alice's hair was cut in a very messy bob, and it was flying around like... well, like you'd expect for being up in the air and flying around. My hair was a touch longer, but I got backseat privileges of not having someone else to get hair in. Still. Even from a shit position, Alice looked good. 

I was hugging her pretty tight. I should... probably have asked before I got on the seat, actually. No time like the present. "Alice?"

"Hm?"

"Am I, uh, making you uncomfortable at all? It's just, we're pretty close and I don't want to pass boundaries or anything, I can loosen up if you want —"

"I'm flicking you on the head right now," Alice groaned.

"W-Wuh? But? You're not doing that?"

"Then I'm doing it as soon as we get on the ground. Seriously, Berry, I don't give a crap. I... admittedly have very little in the way of actual friendships, but I've been living on my own for at least two years now. You're pretty much the first..."

She trailed off in the middle of her sentence. I was about to ask what she meant when I felt her muted trembling in my hug. Yeah, that was... same. I'd never loved physical contact. Valor occasionally hung out with me, but it was primarily just. Myself and nobody else. I nodded into her back. "Yeah, I get that. Uh... want to land somewhere and wait a bit?"

I got my answer when Alice started to guide us down for a landing in some alleyway, near enough to where the forest was that we could definitely walk back without being noticed. She didn't hop off, though. Instead, she leaned more on the handlebars; all her weight pressed down on them, as if they were the only support for her metaphorical mental Sisyphean rock. I couldn't imagine it, honestly. How old was she? Maybe the same age as me? That meant 22 years of probable mental torment from being the child of a gigacorp CEO, and then the trauma of being kicked out wholly and sent to live in the fucking wilderness. She'd radicalized real quick too, apparently.

Shit. Was I supposed to say something? I really didn't know. Alice was taking deep, measured breaths, probably trying to stave off tears. I'd done the same thing myself, a lot. It seemed unfair that I wasn't the one dealing with that right now — I'd probably done much less — but... well, what kind of person did I want to be?

I thought about it for another second, and it was obvious. I wanted to be a lot of things. But most important right now was being a good friend.

"Alice..?" 

She reached back and pulled me close with one of her arms, in an actually pretty impressive display of dexterity. "W-Woah, uh, yeah. I'm, um... I'm sorry for what you've gone through. Can I help? At all?"

A shudder ran through her body, and it was only after a second that I realized she was stifling her laughter. "A combat android, d-destined at first build to be a force of nature in espionage and battlefield scenarios, trying to help?"

Some more shuddering stifled laughs wrought her chest. "S. Sorry. I know it's not your fault, it's just woefully... ironic, that's the word. You're doing more than enough by just being here. We both did good, right?"

"Pff. More than good. I'm sure we'll be fine — even this gun is absurdly powerful. I dunno how your world isn't fully destabilized yet. And you were fucking amazing back there. I still have no idea how you seem to just... totally own your confidence. It's like you can pull it out on a whim."

"Mm." Alice turned around to give me a glance, face carefully schooled into neutrality. The tearful eyes and shit kind of gave it away, though. "It's because it is a whim. I'm really just angry. All the confidence stuff is me faking it, there's a reason I know that stuff about derealization and shit."

I gave her a smile to the best of my ability, because truthfully my eyes were beginning to water a little too. "Well, maybe we can fake it together. It'll make it just a little more real, because you'll have someone believing in you!"

Alice's careful expression was quickly replaced by one of annoyance and irritation. "God, t-that's the campiest shit I've ever heard. You believe that?"

"I believe you."

She turned back away, revving up the belts of our hoverbike again. After we started to hover upwards — the hoverbelts powerwashing the ground beneath us — I heard her respond. "...yeah. I believe you too."

The smile came a bit more naturally, this time, and we sped off back towards her hut with just a little more confidence in each other, and ourselves. At least, that's what I believed.