*All characters copyrighted to Poseidon Simons
Chapter 12
RS-01
Ania
watched as her son was taken away. The
pain in her wings seemed pitiful compared to what she'd just witnessed. Ralph was still crying...she bounced him up
and down to calm him down and went to look at Sarah...the girl was in the
ground...the fall...the ground she'd landed in had been so soft...she was in
the ground part way... Ania set Ralph
down and tried to pull Sarah out. She
succeeded, but not without causing herself enough pain to make her think she'd
broken more than just her back.
Now..."Sarah?..Sarah,
get up." She slapped Sarah lightly,
shook her head back and forth softly, "Sarah..."
Sarah
groaned, and blinked. An ear-splitting
scream suddenly filled the air. Ania managed
to calm Sarah down.
"It's
alright...you're not dead...yet. What
else is broken?"
"Mrs.
Cleave?..I...I don't
know...where are we?"Ania grabbed Ralph's arm
before he could wander away, "I don't really know...we aren't in the
city...but I don't think I can make it back...and we don't have any way of
calling them..."
Sarah
clutched her side, wincing, "My phone's back at the power plant we were
in...they took it away from me. If we managed to get back there, we could get
help..."
"But
we can't get near those men again."
"True..." Sarah sat where she was, afraid to move.
Ania
didn't do much either. She held on to
Ralph, hoping someone would come by.
Kia
stood over Pik's limp body. He hadn't died, thank god, but he was
seriously injured. The bullet had
pierced his mini-lung AND one of his normal lungs...another inch and it would
have pierced his heart. Kia had managed
to get Pik's bed by his mother's, who had been
recuperating. She was bandaged up in
many places...her legs seemed the worst though.
What had that kidnapper done to her?
Her leg was bandaged up and in a cast, her other leg was almost oozing
in antiseptic, but her operation had gone well enough. That particular sickness hadn't claimed her
yet. She had already called Player...and
they promised to keep a low profile...as well as come
visit.
He
waited at the diner...ah...there she was..."I got Pik."
Mrs.
Cray looked angry. She pointed to a TV
in a corner. It showed something on the
news. As he watched, he understood her
anger, "Damn..." He'd
missed. Pik was going to pull
through! He tried to stay cheerful,
"Well, Kain was planning to kill their kid today. He should have succeeded...after all, the
kid's only two."
Mrs.
Cray hmphed, "You didn't do your job! The job is stll
open, but for YOU it's only going to be half of what we originally discussed
because of this. You had better hope
Ralph didn't make it. It will put me in
much better moods...but if he did..."
She left that last part unsaid.
He
watched as she stormed out. The waiter
at the bar looked up from the glass he was cleaning, "Troubles?" The guy smiled and gestured to Mrs. Cleave's retreating form.
He
nodded, "You might say that."
With that, he left. Doing this
would still pay better, but it lacked much of the temptation from before. He sighed and thought through how he would do
this.
Kain
had Ace moved to a different cell when he returned. At least they'd managed to keep him...That
woman and Bill were still in their cells.
Kain made sure Bill saw Babe before heading on. He walked to the room where Bill had made
those adjustments from earlier...where he started working on Babe. It was hard to hold those small instruments,
but, with the aid of special gripping gloves he'd had made, he managed. He was finally able to get at Babe's insides
and set him right. When he fixed Babe
completely and reactivated him, he asked, "How do you feel, RS-01?"
"Request
does not compute. Request denied."
Perfect. Kain laughed.
Finally! He'd won!
RS-01
waited through the laughter, "Requesting mission."
His
master calmed down, "Good...good.
RS-01, your first mission is to seek and destroy Michelle Cleave."
"Affirmative. Carrying out mission."
RS-01 took off through an opening in the ceiling and began scanning for
his objective. Target found. Estimated time to
mission completion: 5 minutes 6.03 seconds.
RS-01 began to descend.
Anna
watched the sky...it was Babe coming down...but why was his arm cannon
activated? On a whim, she told Michelle
to find a place to hide.
"What? But I wanna see Uncle Babe..."
"Just
do it Michelle. I'll tell you when it's
safe to come out. Don't move or make a
sound until then."
Michelle fond a spot to hide.
Anna
waited as Babe landed. He approached
Anna rigidly, "Scanning...Anna Brown.
Incorrect target. Relocate target...target found. Scanning...Michelle Cleave. Correct target. Carrying out mission. He lifted his arm cannon, aiming at the spot
Michelle hid.
"Babe,
stop!" Anna threw herself in front
of the cannon.
Babe
lowered his cannon, "Incorrect target.
Relocating target...target found.
Scanning...Michelle Cleave.
Correct target. Carrying out mission."
Babe pushed Anna aside and aimed his cannon once more.
Michelle
screamed and ran.
Babe
watched her leave, "Target mobile. Readjusting cannon. Carrying out mission."
Babe followed her, cannon still raised and ready to fire.
RS-01
followed the target as long as she ran.
Michelle Cleave's energy was dropping. He would outlast her. A sense he couldn't instantly identify seemed
to ride at the edge of his sensors. What
was it called?..Dictionary reference searching...objective found.
Identity: Fear. Secondary indentity: Feeling. Computer malfunction.
Ceasing search. RS-01 left it alone and continued on his
mission.
Player
watched the skies as he walked. Nino and
Crystal flew around his head, keeping him company...slightly annoying company,
but better company than that dreary bunch back at Pik's
place. He was going to check on Kia and
Pik. He wondered what would happen...
"Still
angry?"
"I
told you before Nino. I'm not
angry...annoyed. This has gone on way
too long. And--" What the hell? Wasn't that Babe's niece running? Why did she look so scared...and out of
breath? He jogged up to her, "Hey,
what's wrong?"
She
glanced up, "You're big...can you keep him from me?"
"Keep...who?.." Player
watched as Babe walked toward them, cannon raised. He growled, "Right...find someplace to
hide." He could tell that wasn't
Babe. Babe never did something like
this...He charged the robot and managed to get him to the ground. The robot calmly got back up and continued on
towards Michelle. Player grabbed it and
threw it back. It got back up and looked
at him.
"Threat
identified: James Elias. Action:
Termination." The robot raised his
cannon. James barely managed to get to
the ground before a shot blew above him.
He scrambled up and looked around for something he could use...he was in
the open...Nino and
"What
with?"
Player
nodded toward the Babe lookalike, "You think you
can get inside him and mess with his controls?"
"We will try." The two fairy
dragons flitted over to the robot and slipped under its armor. In a few moments, the robot ceased
moving. The red glow in its eyes faded
to black. Nino and Crystal emerged, Nino looked like he'd been burnt a little...
"You
did it! How did you do
it so fast?!!"
"I want home!" Nino
shouted. He sounded worse than he
looked.
James
held back a chuckle as the fairy dragons chirped and demanded him to open his
mouth. He did, letting them inside. He looked back at Babe's niece, "I think
you can come out now..."
She
did, looking frightened, "You stopped him?.."
"I
think--" Player
was cut off by the roar of engines. He looke back to see the robot flying
away.
Bill
leaned back against the wall, "I
need to DO something!" He was
stiff...and worried. Had that been
Babe? Had Kain MANAGED to get
Babe?! How?..he groaned and lowered his head.
Bill
jerked when he heard his door being opened...he'd nodded off...he looked up
groggily. Someone with a gun pointed at
him was reaching down to pull him up. He
heard--and felt--bones crack as he stood.
The gunman didn't let him stretch.
He tried to clear the fog from his head, but he couldn't for some
reason...
Kain
growled, "DAMN! How did this
happen?!!!!" He fumed and
reconnected the tube that had been broken.
Something had gotten INSIDE RS-01's body and found the exact tube to
cut. It had shut off nearly all of
RS-01's systems! The gunman he'd sent
brought Bill in, "Good...Doctor, I need you to sit down over there." Bill was still sleepy from that odorless gas
they'd put in his cell...good. He
wouldn't know what was going on until it was far too late. He was half pushed into the chair. The gunman strapped him down so, when he
finally DID realize what was going on, he wouldn't be able to leave. Kain dismissed the gunman and quickly
finished his work on RS-01. Once that
was taken care of, he turned to Bill, "Are you ready Bill?"
"For
what?.."
Bill asked, eyes half open.
Kain
smiled, "I'll take that as a yes...now, this will hurt..." He chuckled.