Chapter 22: Chapter 22 – Seventh Heaven (3)

Wave opened her eyes and saw black chairs and tables. A burgundy leather cover was draped over the chairs, and there were nondescript ivory decorations on the tables. She let her eyes wander further around the room, to a bar over which dead media displays were hanging. She was in a cafe, and the sun’s rays creeping through the huge glass walls told her that morning was breaking.

Someone cleared their throat next to her. Wave turned around. A young lady in a black dress, with blond hair and pale skin, sat next to her. Antennas grew up behind her ears and silver mirrored sunglasses covered her eyes.

"Fearless?" Wave asked, and the lady nodded. "Nobody’s here but us? This doesn’t look like the Arena lobby."

"Nah, we’re right in the mission briefing."

There was a click in front of Wave. On the table was a rectangular flat object with a black casing and glass lid. Inside two white circles began spinning.

"What is that?" asked Wave.

"It’s called an audiotape," Fearless explained. "An audio data carrier, of the earlier pre-ice age."

Noise came from that tape. "Good morning Mrs. N," spoke a female voice that somehow sounded familiar to Wave. "We have an assignment for you. Infiltrate the Kanter Corporation’s laboratory, rescue the radio host and free the robot that started it all. Ground plans of the lab will be uploaded to your lens. Normally I would advise you to get a team together, but for this mission, you only have Agent F at your disposal this time. If you or Agent F are captured or killed, the Organization will deny any knowledge of this operation. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Anna."

"What was that?" asked Wave.

"A classic," Fearless replied.

The tape began to steam and Wave instinctively pushed herself off the table. Her hands looked strange. They were men’s hands. Wave grabbed one of the knives lying in the silverware basket and looked at her reflection on the edge. A guy in his mid-thirties with an odd curl of blond hair and a black turtleneck glared back at her. What a strange camouflage.

"So we’re undercover agents today?"

"Looks like it. That should be fun." Fearless chuckled.

Weird, but fitting for what they were about to do. An Arena mission that was entirely tailored to what they’d planned. How was that possible, and why did the woman’s voice sound so familiar to her?

"Do you know who spoke on this tape?" Wave asked.

Fearless just smiled. A natural smile that suited this lady and highlighted her beauty.

"You know, but you won’t tell me?"

Fearless fell silent and looked outside the window.

"She sounds familiar to me, too," Aki cut in. "She was someone famous. A woman who used to be in the spotlight. Something about robots. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but ..."

"Why does everything have to be related to robots these days?" Wave snorted.

"Well, we’ve got to get going." Fearless pushed away from the table as well, straightened the skirt of her dress, and placed the chair accurately in its intended position. "The lab is just across the street."

"What?" Wave was confused. "I thought we had to break out of the Arena first?"

"I think," Fearless said as she strode gracefully toward the door, "that someone is supporting us."

"You don’t seem surprised."

"I’m a robot, have you forgotten?"

"Sure ..." Just a few minutes ago, Fearless had claimed to have feelings, a soul, and fear of entering the gaming cafe. Had that been just for show? Was it part of the hacker’s cover to fool her? Wave looked out the window of the cafe and saw .... Sergeant Lambert! He filled her entire field of vision with his grim face.

"Get the hell out of there!" he yelled at her.

Wave blinked. Past him, no longer onto the plaza in front of the cafe, but into the gloomy interior of the gaming cafe. He had come to get her.

"I’ve come to save you!"

His words and her thoughts were somehow contradicting. How odd.

"Come to yourself, Wave!"

Lambert reached out with his hand and slapped her across the face. Blood rushed to her head and anger sprouted inside her.

"How dare you!" she screamed at him. "When I’m out of here, then ..."

"Then come on out!" Lambert grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled her out of the goo she was still up to her ankles in, which was now bubbling and disappearing down the Synth’s drain.

There was a crash behind Lambert and Wave saw the reception robot flying into the wall. Sparking and wriggling, it slid to the floor. She could make out the outline of a large man stomping toward the robot in the dim light, and growling, "Where?" The robot pointed tremulously in her direction, then toppled to the side.

"What’s this all about?" Wave asked, still half dazed, the images dancing before her eyes. That’s just how it felt to be stuck in the middle of an Arena match and getting involuntarily and messily logged out.

"Those guys are obviously after you!" Lambert shoved her toward one of the walls. "We better get out of here."

"Shouldn’t you arrest them then?" Wave bumped into the wall. "And there’s no exit here!"

His hand clacked, Wave felt pressure on her ears, and a bluish flickering bullet shot through the wall beside her. Fresh air rushed toward her through the opening and her head cleared.

"Now we have an exit," Lambert bellowed. "Get out!"

Wave glanced back at the Synth where Fearless was still connected with the game. She’d figure out Wave was gone. She would be fine. Wave couldn’t imagine that she would want to accompany Lambert, anyway. So all she could do was wishing her good luck and she climbed outside.

"Run, Wave!"

There was a crash behind her and little stones trickled down on her from the façade of the gaming cafe. That was her signal to run for cover. Gunshots rang out inside, and Wave took hooks as she ran, just in case the shots were aimed at her. Seventh Heaven’s residents stared at her as if she were the odd one out and not them. When the first shot was fired in the open, the groups watching her scattered in panic.

Wave took cover behind one of the hover cars parking on the street. Lambert rolled over the hood, clutching his hat as he did so, and slid beside them.

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"What’s going on here?" asked Wave.

"It’s me who should ask you that." Lambert breathed heavily. He must not have been used to running. Strength training just wasn’t everything. "If I hadn’t happened to be on hand, I would have had to scrape your remains out of the Synth."

"What do you mean?"

"I was looking for my hover car, which you kindly parked for me in this neighborhood, and I picked up your name, paired with 'too dangerous' and 'shoot on sight.'" Lambert pointed a thumb behind him toward the gaming cafe. "When those guys tried to get in there, I pushed past and luckily found you right away."

"That’s when you played white knight and saved me? How noble."

"Don’t get me wrong, Wave. I’ll still put you in a cell. And from what I’ve seen, in a really sturdy cell."

Something flew against the hover car and the window above Wave splintered.

"You mean if we survive this?"

Lambert nodded grimly and gripped the handle of his gun with both hands. "On the count of three, you run down the street to my hover car!"

"Okay!" Wave readied herself.

"Three!" shouted Lambert, turning and straightening at the same time. He fired twice. "Run for it!"

Wave pushed herself off the hover car. More shots rang out, then she heard a bang. She jerked her head back as she ran, and a flaming piece of technology immediately caught her eye, plummeting from the sky above the road. A drone, probably. Further back, she saw two men rushing toward Lambert. One with a broad face and glasses, the other bald.

"Brontoshit!" she cursed. It was those Akimoto guys. Why did they show up just when she was so close to getting Aki out?

"Security Corps!" roared Lambert. That didn’t even cause them to slow down. Instead, the hover car Lambert was using as cover burst into flames. "At the fucking Top of the Citadel!"

Wave kept running, only to see the Sergeant’s coat catch fire out of the corner of her eye. That spurred her on to a sprint that would surely have broken a few records. At least in Citadel City. She reached Lambert’s XLARTN and rattled the door. But it did not open.

"Wave," Aki breathed in her ear. "If the Sergeant can’t make it to us and Fearless is still in the Synth, no one can open it for us. We’ll have to find another way."

Yes, Aki was right. The rushed log out of the Arena and the attack had put her in a state where she couldn’t think straight. It wasn’t panic yet, but it was a certain restlessness. She had to act, that was clear, but didn’t have all the information to make a plan yet. Until then, escape was simply her best option.

"I’m looking for a subway station," she explained her next move to Aki, activating her lens' navigation.

"Subway stations," she commanded as she left Lambert’s hover car behind and continued running down the street. Passing gawking prostitutes, she hooked around them when they didn’t move aside.

A semi-transparent map of the city appeared in her field of vision with red dots marking the subways.

"Select the nearest destination! Calculate route!"

The city map disappeared and instead, a pale green arrow appeared in the margin. It described a curve. A turn back in the direction she had just come from. Bummer. Wave turned back around, hoping Lambert would hold on a while longer. No, she sincerely wished he’d come out of this in one piece; after all, he’d just saved her life.

Something exploded in the distance, people screamed and realized that they too better ran for their lives now. But why towards her of all places? She dodged a half-naked guy with four arms who yanked them wildly into the air and swung them around, collided with a fur monster, and then she had made it. The street in front of her was empty.

Empty except for Lambert, who stood in the middle like a Western hero at high noon. His hat was a few feet away from him. and rolled away, carried by the autumn wind. His coat, which he had somehow extinguished, hung from him, smoking and with holes in it. He pointed his gun at the two brawny guys who were running toward him, also with their weapons raised.

Lambert fired and a ball of energy was dispersed in mid-air. Those guys must have had some kind of force field. But that only intercepted his shots, because the bullet that shot toward Lambert pierced his chest and left another hole in the back of his coat. Lambert staggered and Wave tore herself away from the scene. She turned down a side street by which she would reach the subway. If she still reached it in time, since there was no one to stop them now.

Should she fight? But with what? A direct confrontation with them was madness, even Lambert hadn’t had a chance, and she simply didn’t know this place. So she couldn’t even set a trap for them, because they were right on her heels.

"This is bad, Wave," Aki grumbled. "Can you handle it?"

"I’m used to the race. It pays off that I run every morning and run a lot more every night in the Arena."

"Anyway, watching the road fly by like this, I’m really getting out of breath," Aki gasped. "Hang in there."

She saw the finish line getting closer, but something was strange. There were supposed to be virtual boards hovering over the descent, showing travel times. Wave couldn’t see them anywhere.

"Crap!"

"What’s wrong, Wave?"

"I think this station’s been shut down."

"So what now?"

That was the question. Were all the stations in this neighborhood shut down, perhaps, because the city didn’t want innocent citizens straying in? No, certainly not. More likely they didn’t want to incur maintenance costs or invest money in Repair Synths.

"Show Sec departments!", Wave tried desperately. No symbols appeared on the map of the area. So the Security Corps had abandoned the area, as well. Where to go next? She needed a place where there were people who could fend off an attack like this. There were certainly a few bars where the gangsters of the family clans were hanging out, but they weren’t listed in the navi for sure. That left only the ... "Corporations?"

A single dot popped up.

"You got a destination, Wave?"

Akimoto Robotics.

"Yes."

She could only hope that Hammer was right and Akimoto didn’t employ guys like these two. That it was all a hoax.

"Navi, create me a route!"

Then Wave ran for her life.

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