"Old Scars"
Finale: 'No One Bleeds Forever'
The haze of smoke was clearing from the warehouse floor, revealing the
mess of boxes and spilled contents. Confusion reigned as the Knight
Sabers searched through the wreckage for any clue to the current
mystery. Boxes were moved, revealing a reinforced concrete floor more at
home in a military installation than a common warehouse.
Priss swore in frustration, her anger building with no target. This was
not how it was supposed to go, she thought bitterly as she regarded the
floor with something akin to blind rage. Sylia was being her typical
shadowy self, refusing to speculate on what was happening. Priss could
tell she wasn't the only one irritated by the turn of events, as she
caught sight of Linna milling around the room, searching for...well,
none of them knew what they were really looking for.
"Check over there," Sylia instructed as she shoved boxes out of the
way. She moved three hundred kilogram crates with the no appreciable
effort in her search for the passageway she was certain existed. The
Tachibana suits had to escape somewhere, she reasoned, and that
somewhere was in this room.
"Sylia," Nene called, taking a moment out of her sensor sweep to
monitor the increasing activity on the AD Police's radio band.
"Something is going on outside."
"What?" Sylia asked, ignoring Priss' groan. What else could go wrong
now? She wondered idly.
"Another power suit just showed up. It dodged the roadblocks and
managed to evade the choppers. It should be inside the building within a
minute."
"Do they know who it is?" Linna asked as she readied her blades.
"Its nothing in their database. And from how they talk it sounds really
fast."
"The ninja," Priss growled, checking her rail gun.
"Lets not jump to any conclusions here. Lets try and be ready for
anything." After the way the rest of this operation went, Sylia wanted
to take no chances.
"I've got sensor returns," Nene shouted.
"Is it the ninja?" Priss asked quickly.
"I don't think so. Mass estimates are around double the ninja. No sign
of any cloak or ECM either. It's headed this way, moving fast."
The Knight Sabers turned to face the door, leveling their weapons as
Nene counted off the distance. "Twenty meters, ten, five, it stopped,
just outside of the door."
Priss moved to engage, restrained by a hand on her shoulder. She looked
back, seeing Sylia silently shake her head. The door opened, four sets
of sensors locked on the threshold. A rifle slid in, followed by a pair
of swords.
"Knight Sabers," a voice called. "I come in peace."
A dull gray suit stepped slowly through the door, hands interlocked
above its head. The faceplate was pulled up revealing a man's face.
Priss' weapon was trained on the man's head, targeting laser putting a
bright red dot above and between his eyes.
"Not again," Linna groaned, bracing for some kind of explosion.
"Who are you?" Sylia demanded, conscious of the red dot on the man's
head. She unconsciously lowered her own weapon, somehow convinced there
was no direct danger from this man.
"Matthew Warren," the man said with a mirthless chuckle. "A vigilante,
such as yourself. On a different track perhaps," he muttered as he saw
the hostility waiting for him. Should I expect differently? He wondered
idly. "I think you might want to hear about something."
"And what might that be?" Sylia asked, pieces coming together in her
mind.
"I worked-" he began, only to be cut off by Sylia.
"For the Special Research Plant. You did work on advanced biomechanical
interfaces until six years ago." You knew my father, she added silently.
"Yes," the man said, obviously surprised. His face settled back to its
expressionless state as he continued. "Tachibana Corporation was formed
around six years ago, by a man who caused an incident," he said,
fighting to keep his voice even, "that resulted in the deaths of most of
the people working there."
"Nearly everyone assumed you were one of those casualties. Why are you
attacking Tachibana now?"
"The man, Richard Irons, stole something from me there. I want to see
it returned to the proper hands."
"So you became a terrorist?" Priss demanded.
"Who would believe a man like me?" Matthew responded, his voice even.
"I have no quarrel with you, only Irons. He is here somewhere, as is the
final piece of what I want back." So I can end this horrible nightmare
once and for all.
"Mr. Warren, I think we can work something out," Sylia said, ignoring
Priss' shocked outburst.
Below the warehouse, in what had been a secret lab, Richard Irons
watched as the Knight Sabers and the Samurai picked through the room.
The presence of the vigilantes was complicating, he thought, but not
disastrous. He eyed the mercenaries working behind him. They had slapped
some repairs together, and with the help of the booby traps they could
be trusted to hold the Sabers for long enough.
It was ironic, Irons thought as he watched Warren tear the room apart.
The only thing I haven't managed to reproduce from the SRP data was the
tactical interface housed in the Samurai. How nice that Warren had taken
the bait.
"Get ready, they'll find the door soon," he told the assembled
mercenaries. As they shuffled off, he took a moment to remember. It had
been a shame about SRP, he thought. A shame that Warren had found out
his secret employer. But it was thanks to Warren that things had gone
the way they had. And he's been chasing me ever since, probably driven
by some personal demons.
Sometimes, he thought as he went over to the towering suit he recovered
from the mess at SRP, its better to let the cut heal.
The Samurai suit dropped through the trapdoor first, expecting a hail
of fire from automated defense systems or the Tachibana suits. The
sensors fed him information, filling him with a sense of sharing the
suits perception. After six years the depth of the full interface was a
shock. The computer gently reminded him to move for the others, his
brain not really coming to terms that he was no longer solo.
He slid to the closest wall, autocannon drawn and targeting grid
dropped over his field of vision. He was acutely aware of the darkness
and silence, the utter still quality that permeated the room. He faced a
long hallway, thirty meters in either direction according to the laser
range finder.
The dark blue Saber followed him, covering the other end of the hallway
with the strange palm gun of hers. Matthew half worried about how easy
it had been to convince their leader of his goal, and yet something in
the way she spoke made him trust her, even through the modulator. The
others followed shortly, the one he had first encountered glaring at
him. She seemed much more sensible, Matthew thought, guessing how easily
the rail gun could punch through Samurai.
As if his thoughts had alerted it, his suit perked up. The pink suit
relayed a rough floor map to him, using the designated channel. He
pulled it up, amazed at the level of detail. Her sensors are better than
my old ones, he thought with concern. If this was some kind of double
cross...no, they would've caught me already.
With a thought he strolled forward, checking the reinforced doors, for
any signs of life. The Sabers followed, Nene focusing her attention on
the sensors. There was a good deal of interference clouding the scopes,
which seemed to indicate an ambush.
"Hello again Matthew," a voice said from the many PA speakers that
dotted the hall. "Its been what, six years or so?"
"Irons," Matthew grunted, unconsciously tightening his grip on the
autocannon. He moved forward with greater speed, the voice bringing back
the images from the day.
"Slow down," Priss barked at him, "its gotta be a trap." And I won't
have you dragging any of us down with you, she added silently.
"If you want me, come get me," Irons taunted as a door at the far end
of the hallway opened, letting light shine down the hall. The image
reminded Matthew of those cheesy recreations of a near death experience,
but he broke into a run towards it anyway.
"Wait!" Sylia yelled as the room flared to life. Several hundred flares
went off, filling the visual and infrared spectrums with noise as
aluminum strips exploded from concealed traps in the floor. Nene's
sensors went haywire, overloaded by the sheer number of contacts that
flooded the computer. Linna narrowly dodged the burst of shells that
erupted from one of the doors as the power suits reappeared.
"Here they come!" Linna shouted as she threw one of her spikes, gouging
a chunk of armor from her opponent's chest. She immediately charged,
hoping there'd be more space to maneuver if she could push the suit
back.
Priss fired a volley into her own foe, grunting as the 25mm rounds
pummeled her suit. Her HUD filled with warnings as she stepped through
the shells to slash the cannon off her target.
Six to four, Sylia thought as she tried to run the big black Tachibana
suit through with her sword. Where'd Warren go?!
He stepped through the room, the ghostly echo of his past tugging at
his mind. Matthew stared at the pale white room, mostly empty as if the
room's owner had decided to clear a suitable spot for a friendly
wrestling match.
"Well, here we go again, eh Matt?" Irons said from the center of the
room, wrapped in the same suit he had been wearing six years before. "A
bit of d�j� vu, isn't it?" he asked in that cocky voice Matt remembered.
Ignoring the words, Matt opened up with the autocannon, watching as the
rounds staggered the suit. The big mecha opened its hands, revealing a
pair of gatling guns which immediately spewed fire.
Matt's computer calculated the angles and velocities, driving the
Samurai out of harms way as Matt hosed the suit down. Irons moved
himself, weapons deploying from over his shoulders as he brought the
cannon to bear.
The threat warning sounded a microsecond before the 75mm round left the
barrel. The computer managed to throw itself out of the way, though the
shock wave lifted Matt off his feet and threw him across the room.
"Don't crack my wall like that," Irons taunted as Matt drew himself to
his feet. The Samurai's diagnostics reported minimal damage, though the
autocannon was in pieces. "Have you just sat on that suit for the last
six years?" Irons asked as the katana slid out of its scabbard. "We
might as well just watch the last fight."
Matthew raised the blade and charged, zig zagging his way around the
slow moving cannon and ignoring the gatling fire that pounded against
his armor. He closed, overrunning the slower suit as it backed away, and
slashed his blade through one of the gatling guns. It jammed and
backfired in a suitably satisfying manner.
"Come on now, where's the witty banter? Did you use up your humor last
time?" Irons smirked from inside his suit. The Samurai was as fast as he
remembered, and with each graceful dodge that Matt managed to pull off,
Irons' anticipation increased. He would have the neural feedback
technology, a perfect sale for Tachibana Corporation. How much would
Genom pay for it? He wondered.
"You want wit? Ask all the people you killed back in Arizona how funny
you are," Matt barked, anger getting the better of him as he swung
wildly at the opposing mecha's face.
Capitalizing on the off balance strike, Irons slammed the damaged arm
down across Matthew's head, dropping the Samurai to its knees. Using his
greater mass, he began to bear down on it. Can't destroy it outright,
Irons thought as he slowly drove the Samurai down towards the ground,
I'll have to kill Warren outright.
The pressure on Matt's shoulders was excruciating, almost causing him
to miss the urgent beeping of the suit's diagnostics. Total articulation
failure was imminent. Reversing his sword grip, he slashed at the heel
of the bigger mecha, shifting his weight forward in an attempt to knock
the other off balance.
Sparks erupted from the leg motors as one of the big armatures grounded
out. The big mecha tumbled backwards, flapping awkwardly for a moment as
it slammed into the ground. Before it could regain its feet, Matthew was
above it, removing the 75mm cannon with a precision strike and poising
the blade above the mecha's head.
"Where is it," Matt said coldly.
"What?" Irons asked with mock innocence. "Oh, the neural feedback
system," he said, tone still flippant. "Don't have it. Never did." He
keyed a command into his suit, sending a few hundred thousand volts
across its skin.
The force of the shock knocked Matthew back, leaving him sliding across
the floor on his back as a stream of flame spouted from Irons' mecha.
The napalm coated his suit, driving the diagnostic software into a
frenzy.
"As you can see, I haven't been wasting my time on playing ninja,"
Irons said, regaining his feet. He limped forward, spraying more fire at
the cowering Samurai. "What does this remind you of, Matthew. Perhaps it
seems like those minutes after you pulled the trigger on that plasma
gun, when the heat spread through the lab. You really should've known
better than to try that around all those chemicals, you know."
"NO!" Matt yelled, driven further back as the stream of flame narrowed
to firehose like force. "I-I didn't mean to�"
"Oh, like that matters. You killed a lot more people in Arizona than I
did."
"It was an accident!"
"Sure, but does that make them feel any better? Does that make her feel
any better." The flame thrower ceased, leaving Matt encased in deep red
fire. "You can try to atone for the rest of your life, but the fact of
the matter is you killed your wife," there was a hint of genuine regret
in Irons' voice, one he couldn't hide. He really didn't want all of them
to die, but the self-righteous prick couldn't back down.
The secure door leading to the hall way picked this moment to fall from
its hinges, landing with a loud bang. Irons turned to face the noise,
seeing more smoke pouring in from the hall. Back lit by the flames, he
spotted the four Knight Sabers. They were all damaged, large chunks of
armor blasted off or dented, but they entered the room and charged at
Irons.
"Enough!" Irons shouted as the combined attack drove him back.
Irritation furrowed his brow as he saw one of them smother the Samurai
with a portable extinguisher. One last card to play, he thought as he
worked the link to his computer. A tone sounded, and the roof began to
collapse.
"Shit!" Priss shouted as a large chunk of concrete bounced off her
back. "Lets get the hell out of here!" she radioed to the rest of the
Sabers.
"I second that," Nene grunted as she finished extinguishing the fire.
Her sensor told her that six charges had gone off at the main structural
members and shortly the whole edifice would collapse on them. She
dragged Matthew to his feet, amazed when he broke her grasp and faced
Irons once again. "Do you want to die?" she asked him.
The gray suit ignored her, drawing the last sword in its scabbard.
Squaring his shoulders, Matthew readied his strike at the waiting mecha.
A strong hold grabbed his shoulder. He turned to face the interloper and
was greeted by the steely gaze of Sylia Stingray.
"You?" he said, recognizing the grown face of the little girl he had
seen at the great Dr. Stingray's lab.
"You don't need to," she told him. "You could help us."
"I can't help anyone," he said with shame in his voice. "I couldn't
help Ai when she needed me. I don't deserve to live."
"That's right. You don't. Unless you want to run away like you did last
time and leave the another one to die," Irons said. He had grabbed Priss
in the confusion, locking a pair of secondary arms onto the helpless
suit. No amount of struggling seemed to free the struggling form.
"Priss," Sylia shouted. She glanced around quickly, noting that the
other Sabers had followed her orders and withdrawn. While her attention
was diverted, the Samurai reversed the grab, twisting her arm in an
unnatural direction and shoving her out the door.
"I'll get her," she heard the Samurai say as a blast door slid shut,
sealing the room off.
"Sylia, where's Priss?" Nene asked, a quiver in her voice. "She's not
still�
"She'll make it," Sylia said, using all her control to mask the worry
in her voice. "She'll make it."
Irons was edging towards the back of the room, having ripped the power
cells from Priss' back, leaving the hardsuit limp in his grasp. Matthew
strode towards him, shoulders squared. He walked as if he was on his way
to lift the world from Atlas' shoulders.
"What, no snappy insults or well aimed jibes," Matt asked as he drew
his last weapon from over his shoulder. Irons stiffened in recognition.
"So you kept it."
"What else was I going to do, leave it around for some eight year old
to play with?" Matt responded, sliding the device over his forearm.
Impedance jacks connected to the weapons CPU, warming the hydrogen still
charged in the pressure vessel. The thick barrel was trained on Irons'
head.
"Don't," Irons warned, squeezing down on the helpless hardsuit in his
hands. "I'll kill her."
"I'm sure you would," Matt said evenly.
Inside her powerless suit, Priss raged. The ceiling was coming down
quicker now, and there was no time to settle this score. Lights began
blinking on the plasma gun, signaling readiness.
Then the Samurai broke into a sprint spraying a single burst from the
plasma gun into the wall behind Irons. Irons barely had the time to
start swinging his hand down on the hardsuit's head for a blow that
would easily kill the limp pilot. His arm was deflected by the Samurai's
back, knocking Priss out of Irons' hands. Then the plasma gun was even
Irons' chest and the Samurai kicked Priss towards the newly opened hole
in the wall. He winced in sympathy as the hardsuit was knocked through
the opening into the sewer overflow pipe.
"Ai," Matt said quietly as he pulled the trigger and let the overload
blast wipe everything away.
The Sabers tracked Priss' transponder to a holding tank six hundred
meters downstream of the collapsed building. The current had carried the
silent hardsuit as the water protected her from the heat and shock of
the blast. The warehouse itself was a flat pile of rubble, portions of
it still smoking from the heat released by the overloaded plasma gun.
Over the next three weeks, Nene kept a close eye out for anything
recovered from the site, but nothing more than assorted circuits or
pieces of armor ever surfaced. Life continued for the Knight Sabers,
despite never receiving the second half of Tachibana's payment. It
turned out that the only stockholder was a man named William R. Irons,
whose past stopped six years prior to the incident.
On a cold, gray day Sylia stood by the sea, letting the brisk wind
tustle her hair. Priss had been close mouthed about the entire time she
had been in the room with Irons and Warren, but Sylia had gotten most of
the story from her the night after.
What would I have done? Sylia asked herself as she watched the sun set
above the water. Semiconsciously she held the picture in her wallet, of
her and Mackie and Dr. Stingray.
Some scars never heal, she thought as the sun finally passed below the
terminus and the angry red light slid from the sky.
Author's Notes:
Finally finished. Unfortunately I watched the Crow last night and it
sort of influenced the ending, dragging it down a notch or two closer to
dark. I hope you've enjoyed reading this, since I enjoyed finding out
where it was going as much as you did(quite possibly more).
For more like this, plus several things completely different, fell
welcome to visit www.brandeis.edu/~jmele or email me at
jmele@brandeis.edu
Insert Snappy Product of Jerico Mele line here.