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 Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 9:47 am
She sighed.
"I have a way to get you and Ichiro amnesty, or at least a few years off," she said, choosing her words carefully, "But you're going to have to tell me everything. No frills, no games. Just what is it out here that could have you arrested, and this place shut down?"
As if she didn't know. But she couldn't tell him that, could she? And all the while, she reached into her right pocket, pressing the record button on her palm recorder, making it seem as if she were getting into a casual position.
This will be part of what I need... the other part will be a bit harder.
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 10:53 am
"We've been trying to make money by helping people with prosthetics pass as non-prosthetics users. I do a lot a work on arms and leg systems to make them seem almost identical to real thing , even putting automatic remote hacking systems inside so they can fool metal detectors and X-rays. That's all there is to it, there are a lot of people who can't leave Aekea because the law discriminates against anyone with a prosthetic part of any kind. So instead of forcing them to rip of their arms and legs, why not help them remain mobile and get out of the city? That's all there is here, but it's enough to get us in big trouble, especially me, I did most of the work. Of course, we made a lot of money doing it, but why not, tons of other people a lot shadier than us are doing the same thing and ripping people off, we were producing high quality." Rizzo said.
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 10:37 pm
Stephanie nodded. "And I assume that the law also states that any illegal parts or trades made are subject to quite a few years in the big house. But if you let me know what you're working on this time, I can pull a few strings. Hell, I can even find out who's behind all this mess so you guys can get off scot free."
Give the cops a big case to break open, and they forget about everything else. Then again, while they were busy chasing bread crumbs, she'd be looking for links to Yaits Corp and this illegal parts trade. They might even be running an entire black market. Or at least, that's what she wanted to think. This could be the only time, or it could be one of many.
For now though, they were just suspicions. She needed proof.
"Well? How about it?"
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 1:28 pm
"Follow me," Rizzo said, going in to the back room.
He pulled the cover off the floor, reaveling a square drainage hole that had been enlarged, below the garage storage was another room. In the center of the back shelf was the semi-finished arms and legs of the man who she had first trailed to the garage, known simply as Joey. Despite being semi finished, it almost seemed as if they were of living flesh, only a few compartments and the thin clumps of nerve wires extending from the shoulders.
"Joey was to come down and get these installed today," Rizzo said, "I feel bad for the poor guy, he really dreamed of finding his wife and going to that new city out west."
"No one realy knows how any parts get on the black market, they just do," Rizzo said, "You know how the underground markets work, then again, maybe you don't, but most of what comes from the balck market, especially parts we deal in, is untraceable to the source for various reasons. Most of our parts come from the black market."
There were tons of prosthetic parts here, the problem, it was exacly as Rizzo said, serial numbers sanded off, missing pages in the manuals, tracers removed, insignias sanded off. The only way to identify who made what part would be to identify the overall design with the a companies product line-up, some research would reveal that there were parts from Yaits Corp enterprises, but there were also parts from a slew of prosthetics companies around Aekea. If Raven industries or Aesir did any thing in the prosthetics trade, it would be possible to find parts corresponding to their line-up. How they were obtained, black market secrets that surely involved many methods.
This garage wasn't even getting the parts directly, the users were getting the parts and storing them here to be worked on. It seemed Stephanie had ran into a dead end, or had she?
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 7:50 pm
Thing about that was...
She hadn't run into a dead end at all.
She'd found exactly what she was looking for.
"This will blow the lid off of anything anyone has planned," she whispered in awe. She took a good look at a few of them and found that she couldn't find any traces- serial numbers, product names, missing pages. Nothing from RI, thank goodness. She'd have to dispose of anything tied to her employer.
"These prosthetic arms and legs are hot. Very hot. I mean on fire. And I can guess that this Joey is the one who asked for them? Tell me," she said, her eyes narrowing. "Which city does he want to go to? Do you know the name?"
Then, the name clicked. Joey. A Charitable Order supporter. Charitable Order = Yaits Corp. Yaits Corp. = trouble. She could smell it already. And the city out west- another one of her team members was out west. And now that she thought about it, she remembered the name of that city as well.
The arrogant b*****d had named it after himself.
She made up her mind then and there.
"Never mind- I know now. I'll have to have a talk with this Joey before he leaves the city."
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 8:24 pm
"He won't be leaving the city for quite a while, unless he wants to be a quadrapelicanic," Rizzo said, "I feel bad for him, but it looks like I won't be instaling these parts. He goes to temple every Wednesday though, some Holy Temple of the Great God or somethin. It works for him."
Upstairs, an unwatched newscast, at least in this garage, would note that full scale rioting had taken place, the participants robots, synthetic users, and sympathizers, in the slums. Actually quite close buy, Ichiro's neighboorhood. The police were keeping the situation contained to one section.
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 8:42 pm
((Wonderful. So now what do I do?))
Stephanie nodded. "The Temple of Ymir... Then it looks like I'll have to get 'religious' a mite quickly, won't I? You need to go into hiding for a while. Make sure this place is secure, especially this section of the garage. I'll make the calls that need to be made and get you both a bit of breathing room. Mind you, if this doesn't work, we could all be in deep s**t."
She grinned. "That's the way I like it, though. I don't gamble without big stakes. I'll get this Joey to talk about what's going on, and then I'll see where to go from there."
With that, she went upstairs, checking around to make sure that no one saw her exit the door. As she emerged, she noticed the end of the newscast, her eyes wide.
What? No!!
She stood transfixed as the fighting broke out in full swing. This was not good... especially for what she was planning to do. The Charitable Order would be in full swing soon... Which was exactly what Yaits wanted.
Her eyes narrowed and her fists clenched.
This won't go unpunished. I know you're behind this, Yaits. You're not helping your case, though. Not for long, anyways.
She then noticed that it was close by. TOO close. If it came here...
She ran towards the riot at full tilt, her Beretta Compact already out and loaded with a full clip. It might not do much, but... it was all she had for now. It was extremely risky, but would all be worth it if she could glean some information about the situation.
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 9:20 pm
A brick going through a window, a dismantled streetlight, automobiles set aflame, all contained in a slum of about a half a square kilometer in area. That section of the city was aglow in flame, but for the most part, the rioters had only damaged there own property, and ran from the police. There was no real leadership, it was a spontaneous outburst of violence against material possesions.
Someone in the city heirachy would call in the SWAT teams to help contain the situation.
On the rooftops, the bugs watched. One swooped down on an armed SWAT officer, landing on the back of his neck and digging into his protective armor, black blending with the black kevlar suit itself. Hatred for the mechanical freaks who were causing so much trouble. A rifle was aimed.
A shot rang out through the city block. A man with synthetic arms and legs took a bullet to the skull, and collapsed in a bloody pile to the street.
Word spread quicker than fire, the bots were begining to take up real arms. Minutes later, police lines were being fired at from various direction.
The Aekea riots had begun.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 12:39 am
Chaos.
That's what it was usually called in these situations. When she had arrived, it was like this. No effective leadership and no real advances. She saw the rifle being aimed and her eyes widened in shock.
He's going to fire on the crowd?!
She was a mite late as the shot went off and nailed one of the prosthetic users. She could tell them apart now- it was easier. A slight discoloration in the skin, an odd behavior here and there. Stephanie had to stop herself from screaming in mixed horror and revulsion.
This was going exactly as the enemy planned it! There had to be a way to end it somehow... but she didn't see it just yet. She didn't... what could she do? Was there nothing to stop this from going into a full-scale war? Because that was what it was coming to.
They're not this reckless! They're Special Weapons and Tactics, dammit! Something has to be wrong...
She looked around, frantic to find something, anything...
And then, she saw them. They certainly were out of place here... the bugs. It was out of the corner of her eye, but for a brief second, she thought she could see them. A bug was like one of Evan's ravens these days- they could be used for anything.
In fact, she was sure of it now.
Damn you! That's how...
She didn't move towards them- If she saw them, they probably saw her. She had to do something else. That said, she moved into a nearby alley, as if to escape from the madness. Once concealed from sight, she climbed a fire escape, and reminded herself the effective range of this compact pistol.
Which meant squat to her. She was the team's sharpshot.
She aimed towards the crowd, looking as if she were going to snipe someone with that pistol of hers. She seemed to have gotten a bead on a random target and was taking aim...
And about 0.3 seconds later, a shot was fired.
Not at the crowd, though.
One of the bugs would hopefully go splat with devastating accuracy. And yet she was aimed at the crowd, making it seem as if she had fired in order to support the police. It would seem like there was a sniper in optic camoflauge somewhere. But the fact was, if one trained with a gun for long enough, one could aim and fire to the point where the path of the gun cannot be seen.
All she did was adjust her aim in that tiny margin of a second, fired, and returned to her position all in the same movement. The only thing she could do was pray that it was enough as she did the same thing again, and again... firing at one target after the next.
I hope I don't miss...
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 6:18 pm
~The City, Ichiro's neighborhood~
Three of his fellow officers tackled the offending officer immediatly after the shot was fired, pinning him down to keep him from firing again. By then, the insect like watcher that had latched into his neck had already detached itself and was flying away, and a protester had already been killed. The insect was tiny and black, only about 1 and half centimers long and a half a centimeter wide, blending into the night. Watcher variation 1, the easiest to produce, the weakest in combat, but quite capable of finding and exploiting hate, which they can then make people act on.
The SWAT team drew back, taking the rogue officer into custody, anything to prevent the situation from further deteriorating.
The shot at the watcher, flying upwards at about 60 kilometers an hour, would be next to impossible. The other bugs weren't out in the open, they were coddled in trash cans, behind eaves, taking cover behind roof precipices and chimneys. Someone had been very busy, slowly but surely leaving more and more of them in the area. It might as well have been swarm.
When flying, even if the bullet could hit such a small object, it would more likely knock it to the side than peirce it. Assuming Stephanie found the easiest shot first, an incredible shot managed to hit the one dead center, leaving it to disintigrate into a puff of dark smoke.
Since she was looking for it, she would notice it, thirty three watchers in all shot out of their hiding places and swarmed in the dark polluted atmosphere, the next thing to invisible. Even to an observant watcher, they'd be nothing more than a harmless group of bugs. There wings didn't even buzz loud enough to be audible from a distance. To Stephanie, it might have looked like a conglomoration of big, angry, hornets had taken to sky in search of the one who shot their fellow mate, and more would be on the way from other parts of the city.
She had just kicked the hornet's nest.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 9:36 pm
She did pick the easiest shot. One of them just flat out went splat.
Now all she needed to do was... awww, shoot... more of them.
This was neither the time or place for such actions. She had taken one of them out, and now she had to get moving before she was found. But if she left, the situation would worsen and grow bleaker than it already was. What to do...
Well, the first thing to do was to get the hell off of the roof, and in a damn hurry. She didn't take the fire escape this time, though- too slow. Instead, she quickly rolled off the side nearest to the alley without the stairs... and let herself fall about seven stories, plunging toward the ground quickly.
If she had thermal-optic camoflauge, like R.I.O.T. Ten, she'd be able to pick more of them off. But for now, as it stands, a strategic retreat was in order. But not before leaving a little gift...
Once she landed in the alley on the balls of her feet, she withdrew a little something special- one that would hopefully have the combined effect of stalling the riot for a temporary duration and making the rest of those bugs go bye-bye.
She plugged her ears and pulled the pin on a sonic concussion grenade, which emitted a sound wave with a level in the ninety-decibel range. It'd be noisy, it'd hurt, it'd disorient. Even the bots would have a hard time, with their systems destabilized.
And the best part? It'd be a high enough frequency for those bugs up there to get vaporized! With that, she tossed it into the crowd from the alley and made a break for it, hoping that she got off scot-free. Because within the next two seconds, it'd all be over.
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Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 6:18 pm
The bugs dispersed as soon as the sound started emitting, still, nine of the bugs went poof before they could escape, disintigrating into a sulfuric stink gas. Another five bugs were grounded, injured beyond the point of viability, and commited a strange from of insect seppuku, thrusting their legs into their abdomans before disintigrating. One of them would land a few meters in front of Stephanie, destroying itself before she's have a chance to even ge a real close look. The other bugs would keep on the outer range of the sound for as long as it continued, which wouldn't be long, because the someone, either police or protester, identified the source of the sound and shot the device to hell and back. Once it was out of the way, the remaining insects would know they were dealing with no ordinary threat, and would act accordingly.
To her back was a fire-fight between police and rioters, all around her were hiding insects, at least 14 left, and on the other side of the alley she'd hear footsteps of a small group, about three or four people were approaching fast.
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 3:27 am
Okay, this looked bad. Very much so. Things were not looking good in this, but she wasn't giving up yet! There had to be a way... some way... Something had to be done. She knew the bastards were hiding, and she had to think fast. Fourteen of them had been decimated. Not as many of them as she had liked, but it was good. The one who took itself out in front of her made her jump a few feet backwards, thus evading the detonation.
The smell was hell, though. It was time to get out, now. Besides, the people who were after her probably weren't in the mood to talk. Fact was though, it was probably best that they catch her instead of this Yaits.
Then again, if anyone caught me now, I'd be ******** over. Time to get moving!
She pulled out a flash bang, pulled the pin, and crouched down on the ground, her eyes closed and her ear plugs still in her ears. Counting slowly from three to one, she waited until the last moment before leaping upwards, the blast of light and sound filling the alleyway!
The result- bugs blinded and disoriented, and she was on a nearby roof, heading for the safest route out of there. The people who were looking for her would find jack squat as she got the hell out of dodge.
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:36 pm
After the flash bang a big tall man with a crow bar entered the alley, the same one who ventilated Gil's chest with the crowbar. There was something black on the back of his neck, like a leech with an exoskeleton, and it was pulsing. The other man skidded into the alley after him, the one with the prosthetic left arm that had a clamp instead of a hand. He had the same insect on the back of his neck, pulsing as it filtered blood.
The andriod followed behind, walking, looking somewhat confused, whatever had affected the other two had not gotten to him.
"So you say you can smell her?" the prosthetic man said, "That's imposible, Human noses ain't that strong. Look, we can leave the city, if we get passed the wall and go to Yaits and they'll never find us."
"She took to the sky," said the man crowbar, who certainly couldn't leap buildings, "We'll follow the scent till we get her, I won't give up."
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 9:48 pm
She booked over the rooftops, looking for anything to use. That distraction would not last for long, and they'd be after her, one way or another. She doubted that the insects that were after her would find her, but she had to do something about this. What she needed was a better weapon.
This damned Beretta won't cut it- not anymore. Maybe... maybe something else will, though. What I'd need is something like...
She saw someone with an assault rifle- M4 SOPMOD. She grinned. This person didn't look like SWAT personnel, so she'd have little problems procuring the weapon from him.
She walked up to him silently, wrapping her left arm around the man's neck. She put enough pressure on his windpipe for him to pass out in about five seconds... and she'd hopefully have enough ammo in the clip to take her pursuers on. Even then, the man looked as if he had a bit of extra magazines on him.
Perfect, she mused to herself as she continued the sleeper.
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