In the white-walled cell, Rainwoman sat on a futon bed made on top of stone slab.

She had her familiar black, pixie cut hair. Her deep green eyes stared at me, like urging me to release her before she gets angry at my sluggishness.

Anime fans always compared her looks to Audrey Hepburn in her youth, or the old British comic character Modesty Blaise, and I could see why people made those comparisons, but I always thought that her character design was inspired by the classic animated series Aeon Flux.

In short, she looked like a fragile idol or a fashion model, but appearances were deceptive. The most dangerous person in the room doesn't look like the most dangerous person in the room, as the old saying goes.

She was bound with white leather bands that worked like multiple straitjackets. She had a metal wire muzzle over her mouth like a wild animal, chains in her ankles bolted to the floor and chains in her wrists bolted to the wall. She was able to sit, stand and sleep, but she couldn't move more than a meter away from her stone slab bed.

It goes without saying that none of the other prisoners here were kept in straitjackets and chains even in their high security dungeon cells.

The bed, the white leather bands, the floor and the walls had dried bloodstains. Some of it was probably hers, some of it was from an unlucky guard or researcher. Was that a tooth on the floor? Can't be hers, she still has all her teeth. She probably headbutted some guard who came too close.

In the anime, no matter how much they drugged Rainwoman to keep her still during the torturous experiments, she resisted with everything she had, dealing damage to her captors and injuring herself in the process.

She seemed relatively healthy still, so the worst stuff hadn't happened yet. Whew. We made it in time to make sure that the worst stuff never happens.

“Greetings, Rain. We come in peace. We are here to help you. We can escape together. Stay calm when we open your chains, okay?”

I had previously agreed with Crys that I would take care of the dialogue with Rainwoman.

I concentrated on checking her eyes, just in case. Pupils normal size and shape, no signs of drugs.

I gave a nod to Crys – all clear.

“Just wait a moment, Rain, I'll open the locks. We can break out this horrible place together, there's no reason to attack us...”

She was still called Raingirl or Weather Girl in this facility; Rainwoman was the name written in her wanted posters after her escape.

I struggled with the locks a bit, so Crys had to help and use his lock picking tools.

Rainwoman kept quiet until Crys opened the heavy padlocks restraining her feet and I cut the topmost straitjacket bands with a knife.

Rain twisted her body suddenly and teared her hands out of the rest of the leather bands, snatched the lock pick from Crys's hand and jumped up to stand on the bed.

She stared at us with suspicion while shedding the rest of her bindings herself, ready to use the padlocks as brass knuckles if we were to step closer. She was like a wild animal driven into a corner and ready to bite.

Kimono was prepared to jump at Rainwoman with daggers in both hands, but Crys stopped her with a wave of his hand.

“We are here to help you, Rain. Look, we are on your side, we are not enemies. We will all take a step back now and you can open the rest of the chains yourself. We are friendlies, not enemies.”

“...Who are you?” (Rain)

“My name is Speedrun, this debonair guy here is Crystal Pencil, and the young lady with knives is Dragon Kimono. There's also a guy called Dancer in our party, but he's waiting outside. We are revolutionaries fighting against Caliph Tze, so we have a common enemy. We can leave further introductions for later, first we have to get out of here as fast as possible. We won't force you to do anything, but I suggest we work together because our goals coincide quite neatly. Crys, if you will –”

“Sure.” (Crys)

Crys opened the lid of the small weapon box he was carrying, placed the box on the cell floor and kicked it over next to the bed.

Rainwoman looked at the weapon box like expecting a trap, then took out the four revolvers (model Cavalier) and checked them carefully. Giving her loaded guns just to make her trust us was a scary bet, but it would have been even scarier bet to not give her guns – she would have definitely taken our guns with force on first possible opportunity.

Suddenly Rain convulsed like she was in pain and coughed. Some of the bullets on her hand fell on the bed.

“I know you feel irritated because your body hurts. The reason is the desert outside, it's too dry for regular rainfall. Your curse has to draw clouds from too far away and it's weakening you. The pain will ease off when we move to north and it becomes easier for rain to fall.”

“...How do you know... about my curse?” (Rain)

“I'll explain everything later in full detail, but let's just get out of here first, we're on a timer. You can lead the way and we'll follow. I can even reload your revolvers for you, if you want. I've practiced that a lot.”

“...Why these guns? Have we met before?” (Rain)

Rain talked slowly; her voice was raspy and fragmented. I guess solitary containment combined with a routine of torturous experiments does that.

“It's a long and complicated story, so let's leave that for later as well. We just thought that you would like to get your best equipment immediately. We also have a second Vampire Rifle for you, but it's outside with our friend Dancer right now... Anyway, don't worry about that now. There's someone else in this facility you want to release first, right?”

Yep, that last line hit the spot. Reminding her about Sorry Man was the trigger that focused her mind immediately.

Rain forgot her pain, fast-loaded the revolvers, gnawed off rest of her restraints, stepped down from the bed and walked out of the cell barefooted. I urged everyone to move out of her way.

Crys had a slight smile on his face. He had probably made an accurate judgment about Rain's skills at first sight.

“You seem awfully captivated, brother.” (Kimono)

“A young woman with the instincts of an old veteran. A rare sight indeed.” (Crys)

“Told you so. She's wild card, but we're lucky to have her in our deck.”

“And now we follow her?” (Crys)

Crys was probably creating backup strategies on how to take Rain down in case she runs out of control. I'll let you chew on that, Crys; taking her down is a hard problem indeed.

“Yep. We'll head back to the upper floor first, then back down to this floor, but different wing. Follow Rain, party boys and girls!”

Can I already say that Rainwoman has joined the party? I guess she kind of has.

---

Rainwoman headed straight to the guard room at the end of the corridor we had completely avoided during our descent.

She shot the lock before kicking the door in, killed three guards in the room with casual headshots, moved to the next room without stopping, shot another guard in the head through a partition wall, picked up a pair of boots for herself from the guard's locker, then continued to the next corridor where a small group of guards was already fighting with escaping prisoners, and –

– well, to put if briefly, she eliminated everyone in her way, guards and escaping prisoners alike.

Just like in the anime, she didn't give the randos any time to respond, yet you felt that one misstep or stray bullet could lead to her death. She wasn't invulnerable, she was just very skilled at dodging damage.

In the game, her ability was called Trajectory Perception – when you played as Rainwoman, you could see incoming attacks as dotted lines flowing out of weapon barrels and move out of the way before the dotted line turned solid and the bullet was actually fired.

This ability worked in sync with Rainwoman's two other special abilities: Berserk Blink/Flicker and Hysterical Strength. In game-mechanical terms, player could double her dexterity value (time seemed to slow down around her) or strength value (melee attacks dealt double damage) for a limited amount of time using external triggers, like Sorry Man being in danger, or by drinking alcohol, or by using battle drugs.

The latter two external triggers were out of the question now, of course, but the first trigger seemed to work here even when Sorry Man wasn't in the same room.

Caliph Tze had the most overpowered weapon and a completely cheat mode defense, but Rainwoman was the most naturally overpowered character with multiple special skills and a full lifetime of actual combat experience gained from strange time travel hijinks.

Truly an easy mode, especially in Kill All Enemies missions. If the twins were SR-71s, Rainwoman was an advanced attack helicopter.

When a sneaky guard tried to ambush her from behind a corner with a scimitar, she slapped the blade away with her revolver and put a dagger through the soldiers throat. Where did she suddenly get a dagger? Probably took it from some guard on the way.

When soldiers rushed down the stairs from fourth floor, Rain shot their feet and used the first soldier as a meat shield while killing the wounded ones, then killed the meat shield last.

She improvised an optimal route through a chaotic battlefield, making sudden jolts and jinks here and there, using minimal movements for maximum effect, keeping enemies cornered by herself and picking them one by one.

She had eyes in her back, it seemed, or she could feel the positions and movements of enemies around her, as long as she didn't let her skill gauge go empty.

Many old VRFPS gamers tried to achieve similar advantages by messing with their field of view settings, but in a neurogame this was a bad idea – if you turned up your neural FoV to 300+ degrees, your brain got so used to it that real life FoV made you feel sick. Maybe it was worth it, if you were a tetraplegic professional neurogamer and spent most of your life in virtual reality anyway, but...

We simply followed our wild gunslinger girl, shot the ones that came after she had moved forward and collected useful loot from the dead guards. Too easy, just as planned.

“Her short term tactical sense seems exceptional, but she doesn't think in long term.” (Crys)

“Well, she was born to shoot people in a storm.”

When other predators hide from the thunderstorm, she hunts. Those were cheesy-cool lines from her character profile flavor text.

“Crys, your criticism is spot on, and that is exactly why you should work closely together with Rainwoman from now on. You are strong alone, but together with Rain you can rule the galaxy. Your long term strategies combined with her footwork is the secret recipe behind the strength of the Revolution Movement. It's like they said in the old times: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, but Rainwoman can dodge that punch and continue the plan, your plan. Or like the other old saying goes: no plan survives contact with the enemy, except your plan, if you have Rain.”

“I see. I should treat her like a sidearm.” (Crys)

“I guess that's one way to put it...”

“Brother, she's... (Kimono)

“Don't worry, Kim-chan, you're still the bayonet for your bro's main weapon.”

“Shut up about bayonets already.” (Kimono)

While having this relaxed conversation, I suddenly caught a glimpse of a guard hiding in the shadows of the stairway and shot him immediately without thinking.

Whoops. I shot him before Crys and Kimono. Rainwoman was already ahead under the stairs so she couldn't see him.

Did I really notice and kill that guy faster than them? My body reacted on its own. Neurogamer twitch took over.

Maybe I can actually run this like a game, if I just trust my instincts.

Four guys coming from the left, regular guards in line formation just like in the game – throw one shot in the middle to make them disperse, then shoot the one on the left to keep them going for cover. Don't waste time looking at them, just take the two shots and keep running. Trust that they behave according to their straightforward soldier conditioning, and trust that my body reacts according to my self-inflicted speedrun conditioning.

Shoot and run forward to move out of the way. I have party members that can finish them after I break their attack formation sequences with my first shots.

“It seems you are better at this than you think.” (Crys)

“Yeah, maybe I am.”

A rare compliment from Crys.

Am I subconsciously holding myself back? Maybe I should go for it and trust my instincts instead of being overly cautious.