Intrigue on Karthis: Part 10

6:16 am (local), Karthis II, North of Koari City, Hwy 160
Alice “Angel” Breener

     I yawned and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, trying to clear my groggy head.  The other workers and hitchhikers in the back of the truck seemed to be in the same boat as I was.  But Rob wasn’t.  Maybe it was that he’d slept like a rock since we’d made it out of the Ash Lands, but he never did seem to be bothered by fatigue, even after working a steam engine all day. “Ey have you been listenin’ to me over ‘ere?” he asked suddenly.  I shook my head.  In fact I hadn’t even realized he’d been talking.
     “I was sayin’ we need to find Agent 7 and stop him.  He’s gonna wreck the whole planet if we don’t.”
     “Well aren’t you heroic?” I chuckled. “But didn’t he just try to kill you?”
     “If I held a grudge against everyone that tried to kill me I’d have more grudges than I could keep track of,” Robbie said in a somewhat philosophical tone. “And plus, he’s still got Lilia.  She’s still alive, so I gotta save her.”
     “Why?” I asked bluntly.  Robbie gave me a weird look.  Not quite angry, but not entirely happy either.  
     “I don’t know,” Robbie answered. “Maybe it’s just that I don’t like 7.  Maybe… Maybe I just think it’s what’s right.”
     I decided I could respect that, and I told him as much.  I got the feeling that there was more to it, but I let it go.  We rode on in silence for a while.  I was thinking about the past few days since I’d met Robbie.  My life hadn’t exactly been boring, but the past week had been a pretty wild ride.  Robbie looked to be deep in thought was well, and whatever it was, it was making him cross.  I tried to get his mind off it. “So tell me more about this Agent 7 guy,”  I asked. “Who is he?  Who does he work for?”
     “He’s a rotten bastard,” Robbie growled. “And he and I both used to work for the same company.”
     “What company is that?” I pressed. “Snake Company?  Maybe Black Moon? Don’t tell me it’s the Golden Blade Guild?”
     “It’s not a gene Mod organization, or a PMC,” Robbie hedged. “But… erm… It’s classified anyway.”
     “Oh come on,” I pressed. “Please?”
     “I can’t tell you.” I decided to break out my secret weapon: The same technique I’d used on that boy last night.  All I had to do was strike the pose and Robbie turned red and started stammering. “Y-You can do that all ya want, but I ain’t gonna tell ya,” he insisted.
     ‘Wow this is a tough nut to crack,’ I thought. “Why not?” I pleaded, “Don’t you trust me?”
     Robbie snarled something under his breath. “What was that?” I asked.
     “You really need to know that bad?” Robbie growled a little louder. “Fine.  It’s BioTech.  Agent 7 an’ I both work for ‘em.”
     I made a small involuntary gasp.  I couldn’t control the tears that began to well up in my eyes.  Images of my parents floated through my mind.  Their bodies, torn and bloody; destroyed in ways I hadn’t known were possible for sapient beings to commit.  I remembered the men in the armored hazmat suits, tearing through every bit of my parents’ research, looking for the secret.  Then one found a picture, a picture of me.  I remember the way that soulless visor had snapped to focus on me.  I remembered the BioTech logo on his forehead.  That armored glove reaching for me…
     “Look, Angel…” Robbie muttered, but at that moment, he represented everything that had gone wrong in my life.
     “Get away from me!” I shouted, shoving him backwards, not with my hands but with my mind.  Robbie hit the cab of the truck with a grunt.  I probably hurt him pretty bad, but I didn’t care.  I leapt out of the back of the truck, my wings keeping me aloft for several yards before letting me down gently.  That’s about all they’re good for, really.  I heard some confused and startled shouts from the truck as it drove away.  For a long time I just stood in the middle of that empty dirt road, glaring at the muck.  At first, all I felt was anger.  I was furious at Robbie for not telling me sooner.  If I’d known I never would have dragged his sorry hide out of the Ash Lands.  
     But after a minute or two, the reality of the situation sank in.  Robbie was no older than me, which means he would have been five at the time my parents were killed.  He wouldn’t have been the one who killed them, couldn’t have been one of the hazmat soldiers.  He wouldn’t have even worked for BioTech at that time, and even if he had, what control would he have over the decision?  The realization of how unfairly I’d blamed Robbie came down on me like a ton of bricks in a barrel made of guilt.  Tears streamed down my face as I choked back sobs.  He was the first friend I’d had in years, and I’d thrown him away because of my own problems that he had nothing to do with.
     I nearly jumped out my skin when a hand laid itself on my shoulder.  I turned to look at the owner of the hand and I almost lost control of myself completely.  Robbie was standing there, in the middle of that muddy road with me.  I quickly dried my eyes with the corner of my tank top.  I don’t know why.  I wasn’t going to hide that I’d been crying from him. “It’s Zenith,” Robbie said quietly.
     “Huh?”
     “My actual name,” he elaborated. “I haven’t used it in so long, I barely remember it.  But my real name is Zenith.”
     “I kinda like ‘Robbie’ better.” I said, smiling weakly.
     “Me too.” Robbie admitted, “And look I’m sorry for what happened, but I wasn’t there.”
     I nodded, then pulled him close enough that I could lean my head against his shoulder. “I know.”

10:26 pm (local), Karthis II, Koari City, Koari City Limits
Zenith aka “Rob Stark”

     “How is this better than actually riding the train?” Angel had to raise her voice over the rush of the wind in our ears.  We crouched on the top of one of the passenger transit monorails that rumbled down the track at a lazy 30mph.  At least, it was slow compared to the monorails in NYC.  
     “Less likely to be noticed,” I answered. “Plus… I ain’t got no money.”
     
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     “Home sweet home!” I declared happily, stepping into the wide, open sewer tunnel.  This particular section was home to one of the local power substations.  I had bribed the janitor who was in charge of it by agreeing to keep the substation in working order, so long as he pretended not to know we were there.  Win-win, I figured.  I get a place to set up headquarters, and he gets to cut an out-of-the way and somewhat pointless stop out of his route.  And of course, if he started having second thoughts I could always threaten to blow the thing.
     “Egh…” Angel wrinkled her nose at the dim, dingy place. “Do you always set up shop in sewers?”
     “Nah,” I answered. “Sometimes abandoned buildings work just as well.”
     “How did you get some of this stuff down here, though?” Angel flopped on the dusty old couch.  That, a refrigerator, and a rotting coffee table with a single StarNet laptop resting on it were the only parts of our new base that resembled a dwelling.  There was a janitorial locker room in the back with a sink, a shower, and several lockers.  
     “Most of it was already here,” I said. “Except the laptop, that’s from my dorm back at Koari Industries.”
     “Speaking of which,” Angel sat up when I came to work on the laptop. “What did BioTech want with Koari?”
     “Hell if I know,” I answered honestly. “Agent 7 might not even know.  But that’s gone out the window now.” Angel watched curiously over my shoulder while I worked on the laptop, shifting through several pages at a time.  I continued explaining. “Agent 7 once bragged to me that he had Karthis by the balls.  I’m guessing he might be over-stating things a bit, but he wasn’t entirely lying.  I heard a few things about organized terrorist attacks from the barkeep back in Keefauver.  They’re all going down at the same time, so we’ll have to stop them early.”
     “What are all those things?” Angel asked, pointing to the laptop. “What are you doing?”
     I grinned as I finished putting up a specially encrypted web page.  The title said ‘Save the planet, if you’ve got the guts.’
     “Drumming up an army,” I said with a grin.