ROOT; THEADORA: OPERATIONAL

MISSION: TRANSPORT VIP

PRIORITY 0: PROTECTOR CLAIRE “ARCH” BRIDGEWELL

PRIORITY 1: SURVIVE

PRIORITY 2: TRANSPORT CLAIRE ARCH BRIDGEWELL TO THE RENDEZVOUS COORDINATES

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MISSION CONTINUE:

 

Theadora navigated the less-used side streets and walkways on her way to bring Claire to meet her ex-fiancee. Thea still had access to the security net and could keep them from being noticed by any cameras, it was best practice to avoid them where possible. They were making good time towards the riverfront, but it was a long walk from the outskirts of the city. They had used the transit system to get as close as possible, but the major stations were so heavily monitored that Theadora wasn’t confident that she could slip them through undetected. Instead, they had taken one of the city’s automated cabs most of the way before continuing on foot. Again, it would have been easier to use the auto cab the whole way, but they could be overridden easily and turned into a cage for a pair on the run. Never mind all the tracking involved with them.

 

Thea had her sensors running overtime as they made their way through the city’s night. Every sight and sound to well outside the visual and audible spectrum were hyper-analyzed as she slowly led Claire through the neon-lit streets. It was well after sunset by this point, but the incredible light show of the holo-displays lit up the city and left behind a dusky darkness even in this quiet industrial district. She could see Claire behind her, glowing with her internal warmth picked up by Thea’s IR sensors. Theadora could see that Claire’s legs were certainly hurting her. She hadn’t complained, but the subtle changes in her gait and the growing heat of her straining muscles gave it away. They had only walked a little over ten miles, but Claire didn’t have exactly the most active job in the world to prepare her. Thea thought about offering to carry Claire. It would make the journey faster, but something about it seemed like the wrong move.

 

It was the strangest thing. Ever since she had broken free of the control module, Thea had been having these waves of feeling when she was around Claire. It had been nearly too much when they had been at the safe house together. When Claire had been speaking with her about her name and about what she wanted, Thea had felt like she was drowning, or being filled up to bursting. The pressure inside was like something alive. Thea had needed to take a moment to herself, to try to pull herself together. She had made protecting Claire her mission. Intentionally or not, she didn’t know, but if that was her mission she should do it professionally. 

 

Thea had been so wrapped up in trying to sort out her own head she hadn’t even noticed Claire panicking before. She had been so slow. If it had been an intruder, it could have cost Claire her life, cost Thea Claire. Thea had tried to force herself to stick to being the professional guardian, but after holding Claire in her arms, heating her body to warm Claire, having Claire fall asleep on her chest, Thea couldn’t force the intrusive thoughts away. Every time Claire spoke to her, it was a battle just to remain focused on what Claire was saying. She was used to keeping her mind so strictly controlled. Stepping out of line was painful, but now there was nothing to correct her and Thea’s mind wanted to stare at Claire’s lips, wanted to run one hundred percent of Thea’s processing power to analyze Claire’s breathing. Even now, in enemy territory, Thea struggled to keep a reasonable spread with her sensors.

 

Theadora slowed herself as they approached a final corner before the waterfront. This was a more industrial area and heavy barges came and went through this area, bringing their payloads to the different factories. The automated barges ran very intricate sensor systems to ensure they didn’t crash into each other, and unfortunately Thea couldn’t be sure she would be able to access any given barge since many were freelance. They were only a few hundred yards from the point that Natalia had sent them. It was on the end of a small private pier that had fallen out of use. With the constant coverage of the area, though, it would be a big risk trying to make the trip across the open ground. Thea forced her low-light vision a little further out to try spotting some solid cover to move between to keep Claire clear of sniper fire, but it was free of anything worth hiding behind. Only a few decrepit benches and an outdated holo console decorated the area, none of which would obscure them from even visual detection, never mind provide cover against hostile actors. Claire’s soft voice broke Thea out of her line of thinking. 

 

“That’s the place, isn’t it? I’m guessing you’re trying to find a safe way across?” Thea had to fight to keep every audio sensor she had from homing in on Claire and instead listen for people approaching. 

 

“Yeah, that’s the spot. The path across to it is wide open, though. If it’s an ambush, we’d be in a bad way. How confident are you with Natalia’s message?” Claire took a moment to consider.

 

“As confident as I can be with anything going on, I guess. If we’re going to get this information out of the fiefdoms, I really don’t have anyone else to turn to.” They still had just over ten minutes before the time Natalia had sent them. It might be all right to be early, but Claire had agreed that waiting the few minutes instead of risking going out into the open for nothing would be safer. Thea turned to Claire as they hunkered down behind an industrial exhaust pipe that was pleasantly warm.

 

“I understand that you reached out to Natalia to help you escape with the information about the control modules. What are you planning to do after that?” Claire hesitated at the question. 

 

“I honestly haven’t really figured that out. I couldn’t stand to leave it, though, after what I read. After I knew what they were doing to people like you.” The strange empathy that Thea could see in Claire’s eyes made Thea’s insides get all jumbled up again. Looking away, she tried to settle herself. Remind herself to stay professional. Claire’s soft voice pulled her attention back. 

 

“When you broke free -- I mean, do you remember how you did it?” Claire asked. 

 

“Sort of. The control module was seizing everything when I tried to stop myself from killing you. I panicked and tried to hide inside myself. It’s hard to remember exactly, since so little of my mind was under my control. I remembered something about a man speaking my name and something about a box.” Thea shrugged. “Sorry.” Claire frowned with thought as she took in Thea’s broken recollection. 

 

“Maybe I can talk with Nat once we meet. She’s the best hacker I’ve ever seen.” 

 

“Speaking of Ms. Sokolov, how do you think she will react to you having me with you? She has quite the price on her head by several corporations, and I am what I am.” This seemed to frustrate Claire as her face twisted. 

 

“You’re a person, Thea. No different from me. It doesn’t matter who used to have a collar on you. Nat will see that. You’ve done so much for me, the least I can do is stand up for you.” Claire’s ardent defense of Thea’s individuality made the pressure in her chest even worse.

 

The moment Natalia had sent them was seconds away and Thea had gotten them ready to make a dash to the river, quickly going over with Claire what to do if things went wrong. The thought of losing Claire hurt more than anything Mother Dearest had ever done to her. Thea’s timer ticked over, and they started their run for the pier. Thea could cover the distance in moments, but trying to carry Claire would leave her too exposed. Instead, Thea placed herself between Claire and the line of buildings Thea would have used if she were going to ambush someone here. 

 

They were approaching the halfway point and Thea had her sensors redlining trying to pick up any threats. They were at their most exposed with even the minimal cover of the benches and displays being out of reach and they would have no choice but to commit once they got there. Relief prickled at Thea as she still hadn’t picked up anything, but there was still no sign of where Nat might be. Thea and Claire pounded down the rickety pier as the sun began to dip below the buildings in the east. 

 

Crimson lights rippled through the area. Just as they made it to the end, Thea noticed the subtle rippling of the water at the end of the pier. Thea brought her carapace’s rail-gun from combat ready to full power. Coolant flooded the firing rails, chilling her arm instantly as she readied to dump all the energy her nano-capacitors had into annihilating any threat to Claire. A moment later the slim shape of a mini stealth submarine surfaced. Water seemed to slip off of it, repelled by hydrophobic coatings. Rippling for a moment, it was still hard to look directly at even right in front of them before it shifted to a dull blue grey.

 

A hatch on top burst open and an armored figure leapt out, training a high-end combat shotgun on Thea. If she hadn’t been expecting something of the sort from Natalia, Thea would have punched a copper-tungsten dart through the figure as it leapt out of the submarine. Instead, she placed herself between the figure and Claire, still not willing to take the chance. The figure spoke with an amplified voice, their tone hard and commanding. 

 

“Identify yourself! Claire, is the bot with you? Are you okay?” Claire pushed her way past Thea. 

 

“It’s all right, Nat, she’s with me. She saved my life, actually; I wouldn’t be here without her.” Seemingly satisfied, Natalia gestured to the hatch before hopping in herself. Thea helped Claire across carefully, watching her make her way over the surface of the submarine. Just as Claire cleared the hatch. Thea picked something up across the river, having nearly missed it as she had been focusing too hard on Claire again. Thea hadn’t dedicated enough processing time to sifting through the noise at the edge of her sensors. In the upper story of an apartment block, the unmistakable EM signature of high-density capacitors readying to empty spiked out, just tickling at the edge of Thea’s ability to detect, the most subtle of electric whines. Thea bolted for the hatch, trying to throw herself clear. Mid-leap, she twisted to bring her own weapon to bear.

 

The world always seemed so slow in moments like this.   In the moments between life and death, victory and defeat, Thea’s processing would run at its highest, her entire stack of consciousness from the digital upper construct all the way down to the instinctual angry lizard brain all focusing in on the moment. Frost licked at her jacket arm, steam condensing away as her weapon rails supercooled themselves in the split seconds before firing. Searing heat raged through her core as the hyper capacitors drank in everything her power core could give them. The smallest click resonated in her arm as the small copper jacketed dart was pulled out and replaced with a much larger one she had never used before. 

 

At the peak of her dive, Thea’s firing solution connected and an enormous jolt spun her around as her arm went from frozen to burning. A raging white line briefly connected her arm with a window half a mile away as the dart plowed its way through the atmosphere too fast for the air to get out of the way, leaving a plasma trail in its wake. The target fired just as Thea’s round ripped through the wall, the tiniest fraction of a second too late. Something inside Thea blanked as she was hit hard, forced into an even more violent tumble mid air. 

 

Inside the apartment, the dart destabilized about a meter after punching through the plastic brick wall. Its built-in permanent magnet was physically destroyed as the dart armed itself, exposing a tiny grain of antimatter. Smaller than a grain of sand, it instantly converted itself to pure energy. The entire room was filled with a brilliant flash as the air burned away under the intense heat of the reaction, leaving behind a vacuum before the shock wave ripped out most of the side of the apartment building, shredding the simple structure, and raining bits of warped plastics on the street below.

 

Thea smashed into the submarine just next to the hatch, having been knocked off-course by the hit. A moment later, she was buffeted by the weak echo of the shock wave from her weapon. Her legs weren’t responding, so she dragged herself through the hatch. She awkwardly smashed into the floor below, and saw the hatch slam itself shut above her as she lay on the cool metal surface of the floor. Her internal readings were screaming at her, but she couldn’t bring them to conscious focus.

 

Something was definitely wrong, because nothing below her waist was responding. The rest of her body began to spasm as errant signals flooded through her. She looked down and saw the massive hole punched through her. The round had struck her diagonally just above the hips and blown out most of what held her torso and hips together. A little higher and it would have struck her processing core and killed her. Which was probably the intention. The enormous wound poured a mixture of crimson blood from her organic parts and clear synthmuscle fluids. The damage was too severe for her body to close up quickly. Agony was already roaring through Thea as she pulled her eyes tight, once again cursing that organic part of her that couldn’t ignore the hurt.

 

Letting her head fall to the floor, Thea fought to stay focused. The world spun around her as she tried to hang on through the pain. She pulled her internal diagnostics to assess the damage. Most of her ribs had been ripped away or damaged, her spinal column had been shredded and most of the backup linkages to her legs were shot too. The pseudo-nerves continued to fire ghost signals of the partial commands they had last received, causing her body to continue to spasm. 

 

Thea began shutting down most of the muscle groups that were acting up, giving commands through her slower tertiary channels. Most of her important internals had two or three redundant backups, but with damage this severe, even that wasn’t always enough. Thea’s combat capability had fallen to less than ten percent. Having spent one of her few and now irreplaceable antimatter munitions stung as well. It was unnecessary. They had only been targeting her, but the idea of Claire being near that kind of weaponry had panicked her. Her only thought had been to destroy the threat utterly. Everything else be damned. How was she going to keep this up when she couldn’t even handle a fight the right way with Claire around?

 

The gentle hum of the submarine around her sank in once she had settled the worst of her flailing body. Thea understood that they were on their way clear. Away to where Claire could do what she needed to, where hopefully she would be safe. Thea hummed to herself at the thought. Maybe once Claire was clear of all this, she would do more writing as Arch? She had seemed too embarrassed when Thea had told her about reading those, but Thea couldn’t help but want more of Claire’s musings. 

 

Thea felt her body trying to pull itself into shutdown to escape the world of pain she was in. Looking around with the sensors she still controlled, she saw only two people aboard the cramped sub, so instead of resisting she let herself be pulled away from the waking world, letting the small remnant of herself that always floated on top return to its favorite pastime. Her favorite pastime. Reading everything Arch, everything Claire had ever made.

AREA SECURE: CONFIRMED

COMBAT READINESS BELOW CRITICAL LEVELS: CONFIRMED

EMERGENCY SYSTEM SHUTDOWN: INITIATED

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WEAPON SYSTEMS: OFFLINE

POWER REDIRECT: RESTORATIVE 0; PROTECTIVE 1;

SOS SIGNAL: NEGATIVE

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SHUTDOWN COMPLETE:

BEGINNING HIBERNATION: