Intrigue on Karthis: Part 12

12:30 am(local), Karthis II, Koari City, Old Industrial District
Zenith aka “Rob Stark”

     It had been nearly a week.  A week since I first declared war on Agent 7, and began to attack him with my little army of punks, freaks, and at least two geeks.  These freedom fighters had grown to trust and respect each other in that time.  It kinda brought tears to my eyes as I watched them now, preparing for our last strike, our final push.  We were in the Old Industrial District, a slum of mostly abandoned warehouses, plants, and factories.  I crouched on a rooftop, staring hard at one particular power plant.  There was nothing to suggest it was occupied, except a single guard and a big, black cargo truck.  Also in a nearby lot was a different truck. A grey one, with a row of flood lights on the roof.  I smirked so hard I thought the corners of my lips might break off my face.
     We drew Agent 7’s men outside on purpose.  My men hid in alleys, behind cars, under cars, even.  We took them by surprise everywhere.  They paired off in groups and went nosing down a dark shadowy corner only to be picked off.  Eventually there was only a small group in front of the doors.  Paranoid, terrified, jumping at shadows.  It was too easy.
     We broke down the doors to the warehouse and found only an abandoned interior. “Clever,” I laughed, even though my men were making disappointed groans. “Don’t worry, lads!  There’s a secret entrance around here somewhere!  Spread out and find it!”
     My men spread out and began to search.  I made to search myself, but Angel grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. “Robbie, I need to talk to you,” she said urgently.
     “What is it?”
     “I need you to tell me something,” she said. “I need to know why we’re doing this.”
     “What are ya talkin’ about?” I asked. “We’re stopping Agent 7, we’re rescuin’ Lilia.”
     “I need more than that,” Angel urged me. “I know there is more.  Look, I don’t like using my power to hurt people, and I’m really opposed to using it to kill.  But… I will, if I have to.  If I have a good reason.  So I want you to tell me why it is you’re really doing this.”
     “I’m… gonna need to think about it a second,” I answered her.  Then, for the first time, I sat down on a handrail and really thought about it.  After a minute I answered her. “It’s not for fun.” I said. “And it’s not just because I don’t like Agent 7, or just to save Lilia.  Agent 7 has a power generator set up in his warehouse.  This kind of generator can produce so much energy that it will blow every circuit and fuse on all of Karthis II.  If he sets his plan into motion, this planet will become a primitive rock and everyone here will be forced to live in the stone age.  Even generators won’t work for several years.  If we don’t stop this, lots of people could die… starvation, crime, etc.”
     “Since when are you this heroic?” Angel asked.  She didn’t sound like she was accusing me, but it did bear answering.
     “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I gotta do this.  It’s what’s right.  And I’ll need your help.”
     “Then you have it,” Angel said. “I’m right behind you, every step of the way.” I smiled at her, and she smiled back.  Her green eyes were enchanting, magical.  I leaned in close… “Oh!” Angel straightened up quickly, “I had another question.”
     I froze, my neck almost stretched out, my lips almost pursed. “Eh?”
     “How did you know so much about Agent 7’s plan?” Angel asked.  She didn’t seem to have noticed my movement at all.
     “Oh, well… I had been collecting intel on it since our first raid.”
     “Oh… of course.” Angel shook her head. “Of course you were.”
     “Hey, boss!” one of my men, a reptilian gene Mod. “We found something over here!”
     We dispatched a few guards inside the access tunnel, but then we ran up against a problem.  A big problem.  Eight foot two and six hundred pounds, to be precise.  This was one big gene Mod.  I thought Herig was a mountain, this guy was a range.  All of us took a step back as he stepped toward us.  He had a head like an elephant with expressive eyes that were narrowed with rage.  The huge gene Mod bellowed a challenge at us as he stood in the hallway, almost entirely blocking the passage that was big enough for large industrial forklifts to pass each other.  I slipped my crowbar into my hand and pulled my pistol with the other one.  Bucket stepped in front of me. “You want ears, Robbie?” he roared, almost laughing. “I’ll fetch you some you can make a cloak from!”
     I was too awestruck to intervene.  Bucket stepped forward, challenging the elephant Mod to a fight. “Mano a mano” as he put it.  The Mod tried to flatten Bucket with his massive fists, but our Orc just stepped out of the way and scored a painful-looking slice on his opponent’s arm.  If it hurt, the elephant didn’t show it.  He tried again and Bucket took a small piece off his trunk, then severed a tusk.  I had no idea those reproduction blades were so sturdy.
     Losing his tusk really pissed the guy off.  He came at Bucket with everything he could muster, and all he could muster was enough to take a few bricks out of the walls when he hit it.  Bucket scored another hit in the guy’s arm, and struck deep this time.  Fablemourn stuck in the dense flesh.  With a sweep of his arm, the elephant Mod threw Bucket into the opposite wall.  A couple of the boys and I took a step forward, but Twitchy stopped us. “This is his fight!” he insisted. “He’s got it.”  I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I stood down, my heart in my throat.  
     The elephant Mod slammed Bucket again.  I think I might have heard a rib crack.  But the Orc wasn’t done yet, not by a longshot.  He grabbed his opponent’s tusk and when the elephant Mod stood, Bucket came with him.  He clung to his enemy’s face and punched at his eyes.  The elephant made some funny sounds, from human-like screams to disjointed trumpeting noises, all the while scrabbling at his face.  He managed to dislodge Bucket and hurl him against the wall.  The orc lay dazed for a minute, but when the elephant Mod came barreling down on him, he woke up enough to roll out of the way.  Bucket just missed being smashed by both fists.  He snagged Fablemourn out of the elephant Mod’s arm, drawing the first real scream of pain from the Mod as the decorative barbs pulled a substantial amount of blood and flesh out as they came.  
     While the Mod was off balance, Bucket drew a long, deep gash from the elephant’s navel to his right pectoral.  That gave him enough time to duck under his opponent’s arms and hamstring the huge Mod.  The elephant collapsed to his knees and Bucket jumped onto his back and drove his blade through the back of his opponent’s skull.  The elephant Mod’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell forward, causing the ground to shake and another few bricks to pop out of the wall of the tunnel.  Bucket yanked the sword out of the mass of grey flesh and howled triumphantly.
     “I am Bucket!!!” he trumpeted. “And NO ONE can stand in my way!!!”
     

1:12 am (local), Karthis II, Koari City, Old industrial District
Lilia K. Freewill

I had a bad feeling, and not just a little one.  I vaguely remember a time when I was in ballet class, as a little kitten, and my dad was taking forever to pick me up.  The instructor wouldn’t have told me so, but I could feel her silent anger at me.  As I sat, chained to a chair, still crossing my arms over my chest, I had the same feeling about Agent 7.   It was way worse than before though.
     Outside there were gunshots, and shouts.  A couple times, bullets went through the wall of Agent 7’s quarters, in which I’d stayed since the night I spent in the showers.  Agent 7 didn’t flinch at all.  I didn’t either.  Guess I was just too dazed to react.  I was also occupied with keeping an eye on Agent 7’s lieutenant.  He wasn’t openly leering at me like the other guards had, but I kept catching him sneaking glances at me.  In between watching the door and Agent 7’s right hand man, I thought about my situation.  It was mind-boggling to comprehend.  I was simultaneously relieved that Robbie had finally come for me, worried he’d never make it, and terrified that Agent 7 would kill me as a final parting shot.  I wouldn’t be able to escape if he decided to do that.  Even if I sacrificed my last shred of modesty for the use of my hands, my feet were still chained to a chair.  No amount of luck would let me get away.  I might dodge the first shot somehow, but Agent 7 had more bullets.
     While I was thinking about all that, the door broke inwards and I couldn’t believe who I saw there.  Guruk, the IT guy, leapt in, dodging to the right as he came.  Agent 7 and his lieutenant fired at him, and through the door.  More guys, all wearing hoods, masks, and bandannas rushed the room.  Three or four came in.  Agent 7 and his guard killed them all.  Guruk wasn’t killed though.  He rushed my captors, who had just run out of ammo.  The lieutenant didn’t bother trying to reload.  He jumped Guruk, wielding a big knife.  Guruk had a weapon of his own, some crazy-looking sword I had never seen before.
     I guess I should have known; he was still a nerd, counter-terrorist freedom fighter status notwithstanding.   Guruk ducked the lieutenant’s first attack, then parried the second, and struck a killing blow.  The fight lasted seconds.  Guruk wasted no time in swinging wildly for Agent 7’s head.  7 caught his arm and shot him point blank in the head.  I felt a surge of pain, fear, and sadness that escaped my throat as a choked cry.  
     Guruk’s sword clattered to the ground by my feet.  I didn’t have time to think about it, though.  Agent 7 looked at the body of his right hand man and got really mad.  Mad enough to take a few shots at me.  Since I was already bent over looking at the sword at my feet, I went the most natural direction, forward.  I felt one bullet pass my head, and another bit through the back of the chair.  A few inches closer and it would have ripped right through my spine.  The chains kept the chair attached to me, but I was freer now to move.  Agent 7 stopped shooting at me for a moment.  I didn’t look, but I heard him growl in frustration, a bullet pinging, and the gun clattering to the ground.
     Once I’d escaped I looked back, looking past myself, and the chair I was still chained to.  More people came through the doors.  At their head was Robbie.  It had to be him.  The figure was taller than most cat-Mods should be, and there was white dappled hair hanging down from the edges of his hood.  He wore a red bandanna around his face.  Robbie had a smoking gun in one hand.  He’d just shot the gun out of Agent 7’s hands.  Agent 7 stared up at him, glaring, waiting…  Robbie dropped the gun and a crowbar fell from within his sleeve.  I wondered how he was keeping in there the whole time, and at the same time cursed him for not just shooting the evil prick.  Why’d he have to go and make it a production?
     I wrestled with my chains.  Behind me, I could hear the sounds of the fight between Agent 7 and Robbie rage on.  Agent 7 had some kind of weapon.  I could hear the telltale ring of metal on metal.  Finally, I got the chains loose.  They were only tied, not locked.  As soon as I got them a little looser, I slipped my slender ankles out of them easily.  Folding one arm over my chest, I used the other to push myself up and watch the fight.  Robbie was taking long, fast sweeps with the crowbar.  He looked to be aiming for Agent 7’s legs, planning to use the hook end to catch his leg and tip him off balance.  Smart, I thought.  In between Robbie’s attempts at Agent 7’s legs, he had to doge wicked stabs from a huge knife.  Agent 7 growled and snarled like an angry animal as lunged for openings in Robbie’s defense.  But Robbie was fast.  Almost unnaturally so.
     I felt kind of like he was a valiant knight fighting against an evil warlord to free me.  I might have swooned, except that I was currently half naked and still chafed from the chains that had been around my ankles and wrists. It hardly seemed like a romantic moment in a fairy tale.
     


1:20 am (local), Karthis II, Koari City, Old Industrial District
Zenith aka “Rob Stark”

     I was doing well, and that’s how I got cocky.  I made one sweep too deep, too slow.  Agent 7 grabbed my arm and shoved the elbow upward.  I managed to keep him from breaking my arm, but my crowbar went flying.
     “Damn.” I hissed, just as Agent 7’s fist dropped me to the ground.  I had to roll to one side to keep my head from becoming a kabob.  I swear that combat knife was, like, a foot longer than a normal combat knife.  
     “Robbie!” I heard someone call my name.  I looked for a split second and saw Lilia sitting on the floor, one arm crossed over her bare chest.  Her other arm was stretched out as she threw something my way.  I had to turn my attention back to Agent 7 and just in time to avoid a sweep that was aimed at my throat.  I punched him hard in the face to give myself some distance.  He reeled back far enough for me to get up.  Agent 7’s no weak guy; that was one hell of a punch.  I felt it almost as bad as he did.  I nursed my hand and rolled to my knees.  It was then that I noticed what Lilia had thrown to me.  It lay there at my knees, glinting steel and glistening blood. Fablemourn.  I wasted no time picking it up and swinging it back toward Agent 7’s head.  At least, where I thought his head was.  I missed by an inch or two, and took one of those weird, ugly ears off.
     Agent 7 howled in pain and rage, grasping at the bleeding wound.  He should have thanked me.  It was an improvement.  I didn’t say as much, even though I really wanted to.  I took the opportunity he’d laid out before me and stabbed him right in his unguarded heart.  Falemourn tugged out of my hand, the barbed blade stuck fast in Agent 7’s chest.  I let it go and Agent 7 fell backwards, leaking out a pool of blood onto the floor.

2:57 am (local), Karthis II, Koari City, Koari Company Offices
Zenith aka “Rob Stark”
     “Yeah, here’s the files…” I muttered.
     “Delete them!” Lilia huffed. “And don’t you even think about looking at them!”
     We were sitting in her office, what remained of my men standing guard outside.  I grinned in the pale blue holographic glow of Lilia’s comm station.  I thought about sneaking a peek, but decided against it.  It would have made me feel too guilty, especially with Lilia sitting right there, wearing someone’s hoodie and someone else’s pants.  Her tail flicked in agitation while she awaited my announcement that it was done.  A moment later I gave it. “They’re deleted, for good,” I said. “And for the record, it wasn’t your fault.  Agent 7 drugged you.”
     “I guessed as much,” Lilia said. “Thanks, Robbie.  Thanks for rescuing me, and for helping me fix the mess that bastard made of my life.  And… Angel, was it?”
     Angel wasn’t paying attention.  She was staring around the office, thinking, wondering.  Lilia was about her same age, but the difference in how they lived was staggering.  Had her life been different, she might just as well have been here, or someplace similar. “S-sorry.” She snapped out of her reverie.
     “It was nice to meet you, Angel,” Lilia said, “Regardless of the circumstances.”
     “Nice to meet you too,” Angel agreed. “Best of luck.”
     With that we left Lilia to her office, passing my men on the way out.  I asked them what they planned to do now.  None of them had expected to come with me, but most of them wanted to keep doing what they were doing.  Twitchy told me that they were starting what had been tentatively named “The Stark Family”.  He also said that he’d be the Family’s eyes and ears, as well as looking out for Lilia.  I didn’t think she needed it, but I let him do what he wanted.
     Lastly, Twitchy gave me something wrapped in cloth.  I took it, and dropped the shroud from it.  Fablemourn glinted in my hands, cleaned of blood now, at least physically. “He’d want you to have it.” Twitchy said, choked.  I accepted it willingly.  I don’t normally use swords, but then I didn’t used to actually have one.  
     The Stark Family watched us go, Angel and me.  We walked side by side down the street, away from the Koari office building and to the spaceport that would eventually take us offworld. We had many more adventures, the two of us, and I inadvertently started at least two more vigilante groups.  But I’ll tell you those stories another time.