Bystander - Making a Point - pg 125-140

December, 2033

Lucretia shifted to the side unsteadily as she started to take in her surroundings and state of being as much as possible.

Her memories started about, five minutes ago, stumbling down the street.  She was still buzzing, with the start of a headache developing.  Of course, her first conscious act was to stop the graceless shuffling.  Instead she was simply weaving unpredictably.

"No one found the queen tonight," she muttered, losing memory of the statement only moments later.  She sighed as she wavered side to side.

That just left the question of where she was.

Stopping at the first corner, she looked up towards one of the street signs impotently.  In a movie, the sign would have been a sheer, featureless blue to imply how cold it was.  At least, that's what she heard from people that saw movies involving heat-viewing monsters.  Since most movie theaters had big screen LCDs, most of what she saw was electricity.

Lucretia had seen blue off and on, and cold didn't look like blue.

It looked…cold.

Incidentally, electricity was shown to be blue sometimes on movies.  Or yellow.

It really didn't look like either color really.

And it didn't look like cold at all.

So she really wasn't certain why blue was used for cold temperatures on movies…and sometimes electricity.

The silver-haired woman frowned as she came to the conclusion that her thoughts were much less controlled, or even coherent, when she was coming down from a binge.

Shrugging drunkenly at that profound realization, she turned her attention back toward the problem of deciding where in the city she was.

In any case, unless the wind and weather settled down, she wouldn't be reading anything that wasn't written with neon lights or raised lettering.

What was she wearing anyway…

Lucretia looked down at herself and snorted.  Nothing special, just one of her disposable, low-cost party-dresses.  

And it would certainly be disposed of.

"Kuso," she spat as she meandered around a corner.  "I smell like rotten fruit."

She looked up blinkingly to catch sight of an old garbage truck parked in the bulk of the ally she had turned in to.  It was radiating heat and now that she could see it, it was easy to tell that this was where part of the roar in her head came from.

A frown crossed her face, however, as the haze of alcohol came further clear and she felt a fuzzy sort of sensation in the back of her head.  

Someone was watching her, and she didn't think they were friendly types.

"What do we have here?" a voice asked somewhere behind her.

Turning about with a bit more steadiness than Lucretia had yet shown, she glanced to see a pair of men in what were probably work clothes.   One of them tossed a bag of garbage into the truck past Lucretia's small body.

"A little bit Asia, a little bit Europe," one of the garbage men said in a hostile tone.  "I think we've got a Siberian slut wandering into the wrong part of town."

"Whatever," Lucretia said, smirking viciously.  "I'm not part of your Canadian refugee drama.  Just point me out the right way and get out of my way."

A large portion of Lucretia was screaming for her normal supply of caution as the two men were joined by the rest of the garbage crew and started to crowd around her.  That was the part in control at the moment.  As it was, she could taste the vodka under her breath more and more clearly as the men got closer, and thought got a bit hazier.

The part of her that had once wondered if she could successfully break a bank vault was thoroughly in control at the moment.  Leaving her to stay despite how easy escape would be.

"I don't think so," another thug said.  "It's you Siberians that forced us out of our homes up North, eh.  Trying to steal our land and oil."

"Bakayarou," Lucretia grumbled.  "What part of my speech sounds fuckin' Siberian?  Just get out of my way."

One of them reached out swiftly, pushing her against the wall behind her.

"Listen, you little…" the man started to say.

That was as far as he got before Lucretia snarled and half-heartedly lashed out with her open hand.  The slap struck the man's jaw and even that minimal contact sent the surprised garbage man spinning away down the alley, stumbling to the ground.

The other four men stared at where the man was struggling to recover his senses and then back to the silver-haired woman, still somewhat stumbling about drunk.

"Damn peak!" one of the other men said, stepping in over his dazed friend as he slammed his fist into Lucretia's face, grimacing at the sting of striking her skin even as her head rocked back into the wall behind it.

The woman tried to swing at him, but despite how devilishly fast the motion was, it was easily read and ducked under.  Giving him an opening to lay another fist into Lucretia's stomach where it found something solid and unyielding, not at all like the soft skin the man had expected to find.  A third punch to her jaw felt as if it hadn't well connected despite the fact that she float a full foot off the ground before drifting back.

Slowly the woman turned to look at him with a feral expression.  

At the corner of her mouth, there was a shallow, miniscule crack, like one would see in thick ice struck hard by a fist, but in moments, the hard edges of the crack softened, bruised slightly and then all trace of it vanished.  

There was not even a trace of blood to indicate a bitten lip.

Once again she lashed out with a fist in a clumsy haymaker that the man stumbled backward, falling onto his back, in order to avoid that strong hand connecting.  He scrabbled away then as the woman made a double-handed strike into the ground that made a small crater while pushing her five feet into the air.

Then the other three men were around her and reaching to grab her and hold her solid.  That proved near impossible as she bodily tossed about each of the men with the style of a child tossing aside an attacking trio of stray cats.  

Even as she was working herself free, however, one of the men came up behind her and thrust her into the press of the garbage truck.  The attacker found it ridiculously easy to push her, as if she were almost weightless.  Another of the garbage men closed the bin almost immediately afterward and started the hydraulic press.

"What are you doing?" one of the men shouted.  "That'll kill her."

"So what," the garbage man said as the press started to groan behind him.  "Better her than what happens if she reports us."

The two hydraulic arms pressing down on the garbage trucks bin thudded to a brief stop before slowly pressing down again.

"You were planning to kill her the entire time," one of the other crewmembers of the truck accused.

"So what?" the homicidal worker snapped.  "It's because of those Siberians that our homes in Canada are unlivable and…"

The man stopped his rant as the hydraulic pump started to whine.  It was a small sound at first, but as the pump built in pressure, trying to push at whatever had stopped the crushing plate's progress.  Both arms were shaking visibly as they tried to push harder downward.

"H..how much pressure does this thing make again?" someone asked.

"Something like four metric tons per square inch," the most hostile said.

All five were backing slowly away from the garbage truck as the arms shuddered down and back up, as if the truck were engaged in labored breathing.  Or as if something…someone…inside were leisurely taking the pressure on itself…herself…and arranging into a more comfortable or effective position.

Slowly, much slower than they should have moved, the arms worked downward again, still groaning and straining against whatever was pushing back against it within.  Some hint of hope that the truck was winning against the silver-haired drunk they had accosted leaked into their minds.

Then, with a rousing crash, the hydraulic arms launched upward, against the desperate groaning, breaking free of the mechanism in a burst of steam and water and launching up into the air past the roof of the three story building the truck was parked next to.  
Finally, the metal arms hit the end of their momentum and came down like metal spears.  One clattered on the road sixty meters away, almost crushing a white termite, while the other landed upon the roof of taller building two blocks over.

"That was more than four metric tons of force," one of the five noted silently.

"A lot more," a feminine voice agreed.

All five started to look towards the newly arrived witness.  Robles had two of them down and unconscious before even that motion was completed.  The third had enough time to see her before he followed the first two into blackness.  The fourth and the fifth were in the process of raising their arms up to shield their vital areas in what they took to be a block when they also went down.

Moving quickly to the garbage truck, the Sergeant wasted no time in opening the bin to let a thoroughly fouled and angry Lucretia spill out in an uncoordinated scramble.  Instantly, Lucretia was up on unsteady feet and looking around for signs of her attackers.  The peak was grumbling bitterly in an indecipherable mix of English, Japanese and French, as was usual when she was agitated.

"Lu," Robles said calmly.  Not getting an immediate response, she repeated herself with a much firmer tone  "Lu.  They're down."

Slowly, the young woman turned around to find Robles there, blinking as the feral expression faded away and she calmed down.  As the anger faded, she reached up to grab her head as the hangover started to come on her full force.

"Where the fuck were you?" Lucretia demanded.  "Aren't you supposed to be protecting me or some shit?"

"Dumping your bodyguards is not a way to stay safe," the Sergeant lectured, shaking her head as she stepped forward towards Lu's side.

By habit, she offered a hand for Lu to steady herself, but the silver-haired woman predictably refused the aid.  This was the sort of situation they needed Sightseer to handle.  

Lucretia actually let the sniper touch her.

"My car's over by your debris," Robles said, pressing the remote to unlock it.  "Are you fine to get there yourself?"

"Hai, hai," Lucretia grumbled as she moved with something more like her normal ethereal grace toward the car in question.

Once there, the ex-con slipped into the vehicle and promptly fell asleep.  Then all there was to do was to wait for the police, and report to the old man.

She looked to where the filthy silver-haired woman was sleeping in her car, part of her wondering how long it would take to get the stink out, and decided that Lucretia needed a demonstration.

****

"What are we doing here?" Lucretia asked as they pulled up to a blocky building with raised black lettering over the entrance.

Raised lettering that Lu could actually read even in the unstable temperatures outdoors: Seattle Administrative Facility, North American Military Alliance.

"I need to make a point," Robles said as she let the termite power down and unstrapped her seatbelts.  "Come on, Lu."

Shrugging nonchalantly, Lucretia opened the car door and virtually floated out of it to follow Genevive, pointedly waving aside the garbage stench that was still lingering in the car.  

The glare that came out of the mercenary's face with that action clearly spoke of Robles opinion of where Lucretia stood complaining, even silently, about the stench that she herself brought into the car two nights ago.

The pair walked up to and through the front doors and to the guard station.

Robles handed over her gun, and Lu noted the widened eyes of the salt and pepper security guard that took it.

"We haven't seen one of these in a long while," he said, impressed as he put it into lock up.  "I thought all of you were discharged after that Pritchard bastard blew the program."

"We were," the woman answered.  "I'm on private business.  Don't play with the clips, it won't be pretty."

"Right," the guard said, leaving off one of the odd switches he found on the side of the clip and setting it down carefully.

Lu didn't appear to be listening to the exchange, but Robles knew better than to assume that the young woman, now that she was sober, wasn't soaking in everything she heard.

It was a short trip to the elevators where they were met by another man in a black suit.  He had the sort of non-descript appearance adopted by most government officials whether they were soldiers, police-officers or federal agents.

That anonymity that was supposed to protect them from criminals developing individual grudges.

The man looked toward Lucretia.

"Resource?" he asked quietly.

"Bystander," Robles said firmly, turning to look at Lu.  "And one that needs a wakeup call."

Lucretia rolled her eyes.

The man nodded.

"You have about an hour, Robles," he said.  "Is that enough time?"

"Should be plenty," the woman said.  "You got what I asked for ready?"

"Yes, all the units are prepped," he said, he looked toward Lucretia again.  "And given her file, I'd say this is overkill."

"This is more in the nature of a demonstration," Robles said.

"Ah," the MIB said.  "I see, well, if you'll enter the elevator, I'll key in the code to let you down."

"Good," Robles said, directing Lu to get into the elevator and followed the disdainful peak in.

As the elevator closed behind them, the man walked back to his terminal and took his seat to watch the camera of the two going down.

"That's odd," the man in the position next to him said.  

"The thermals?" the first asked.  "That's Lucretia, highest profile peak in the area, she doesn't register on thermal imaging."

"No, the elevator is only showing about one hundred thirty pounds in the car," the other noted.

The first man reached over to look at the weight read out and watched for a bit before shrugging.

"Must be a glitch, get someone in to re-zero it later today," he said.

The pair of women walked off the elevator and stepped into a something out of an old James Bond movie.  There were firing ranges and places for teams to go over scenarios and situations and there was a wide open space framed by thick concrete where eleven humanoid robots leaned against the wall.

"So this is where they make goddesses," Lucretia said crossing her arms and drawing Robles to look back at her in a bit of disbelief.  "Nani?  You're surprised?  I read modern history too.  NAMA facility, talking about Jerald Pritchard.  Point A.  Point B.  Short distance."

"Yeah, I suppose we're not the best kept secret unit in the world any longer," Robles said as she walked over to the open area with the robots and started looking them over.  "But most people still don't know much about us, pretty much just the people that matter.  A lot of us died after Pritchard decided to side with Canada over the continent and take what he knew from NAMA's black ops and put it to good use."

"He put Asiaq's whole file out for Canadian law enforcement and military personnel.  Within a day our unit name, tactics and training facilities were out on the wire.  Asiaq was KIA trying to get out of Canada, Kuan Yin was KIA mid-op in China."

"The Cartels targeted most of us assigned domestically, I think I'm still on a list somewhere, but we'd already weakened them sufficiently to survive that.  That's all not counting the various women mis-identified as one of us."

"And the rest?" Lucretia asked.  "Aside from the bunch up North trying to kill Pritchard."

"Scattered about," Robles said as she finished looking over one of the robots.  "But today's not about a history lesson."

Lucretia watched as the currents resting in the automaton's batteries flowed outward into its limbs and body.  The thing stepped out somewhat smoothly, though not to Lucretia's standards of grace.

"These are class 2 training drone," Robles said.  "It approximates a peak with strength, resilience and speed about equal to what your files say you're capable of with basic combat skills.  The blood packs you can see through the transparent skin approximate damage to internal organs.  Take out the right areas and it shuts down, simulating death or unconsciousness."

"Yeah, so?" Lucretia asked, shrugging.

"Would you mind fighting it for me?" the older woman asked.

Lucretia blinked and looked at the thing and back to Genevive.

"Nani?" the silver-haired woman asked.

"I think you heard me," the mercenary said.

"You're going to let me break this thing," she said, pointing between Robles and the robot.

The sergeant nodded.

"No complaining?" she asked.

"Yep, go wild," Robles said moving to the wall.  "Just avoid breaking the room."

"That's why you told me to dress in something I wouldn't mind tearing," Lucretia said with a smirk as she cracked her knuckles.

Robles leaned against the wall as Lucretia moved forward to engage the robot.  
Or at least attempt to.

Given what she'd seen when those garbage men attacked her, Robles knew that Lu's strength was much higher than what the files said she had.  However, that wasn't very apparent at the moment.

The young woman's attacks were telegraphed by the huge motions she made.  She over-committed, forcing herself into predictable paths.  Even the simple fighting programs of the drones could mostly avoid her painfully ugly kicks and strikes.  The rare times she made contact, most of her force was just wasted or else ended up pushing back into her.  

There was one element that didn't fit with Lucretia's overall incompetence.  She never seemed to lose her balance, which should have meant that she could put all her power into her strikes.  She was balanced without being anchored, which was a paradox.

There were several times she thought that the young woman would fall, times she was almost parallel to the ground.  And then she'd bounce right back up like the child's balloon sparring partner.

The fight continued for nine frustrating minutes and a handful of seconds of Lucretia flailing about with ever more frustrated expletives in at least her primary three languages, with a couple more until finally Lucretia got a hold of the thing's legs somehow and started just brutally smashing the robot into the ground like an angry child with a doll.

"Wow," Robles said non-pulsed.  "That was…something."

"You can do better?" Lucretia asked, catching her breath and trying to recover her normal composure.

Several small bruises appeared on her face from where her opponent had struck her several times, but they were already healing.  The healing was going slow, since they weren't in sub-zero temperatures at the moment, but it was happening.

The mercenary waved Lucretia over as she started looking toward the other robots.  Moving over to the wall and leaving behind the sparking drone in its crater, Lucretia crossed her arms and gave the impression of leaning against the structure, though her back never touched the wall.

"You're going to fight all ten of them?" Lucretia asked, disbelievingly.

"Yes," Robles said as she went to each and activated each of them.

She stepped back a few feet and commanded the match to begin, Lucretia looking between her and the robots.

The training drones came at Robles in a near rush and the silver-haired peak started to shift her stance to move in and protect her normal friend.

In comparison to the robots, the mercenary appeared to be moving in slow motion, with movement swirling all around her as the drones attempted to encircle the woman.  To an untrained observer like Lucretia, it appeared to be a hopeless match up.

Robles moved in slight fractions of inches, getting into position long before the first of the robots even with their speed.  She was there to meet them, and in fractions of a second was through the wall of drones outside their attempted net.  Behind the woman one of the drones slammed into the ground head first, neck snapping at impact.

Robles was already turning, her momentum beginning and ending where she needed it, as adverse the drones that were still trying to stop their forward motion.  A palm delivered to the abdomen of another drone appeared to do no surface damage, but the blood packs representing internal organs shattered.

The drone continued to make an attempt at fighting as its programming registered that it was "dying".  Next to the flailing of the defeated drone, Robles moved and caught the next robot's chin, snapping its neck with a slight motion.

Lucretia actually had to struggle to keep her shock off her face.  It had barely been two seconds and Robles had already taken three of those things?

The next robot coming straight at her had its knee snapped out from under it, breaking its balance and sending it hurtling downward into Robles knee.  The force of the impact eliminated that drone at the same time as throwing it backwards into the path of one of those coming in on Robles' side, leaving her free to focus and move forward.

The mercenary sidestepped the attack of the next drone and twisted, once again placing all her attackers either blocked by their own forces, or following their own momentum past her position.  

Once again, she decimated the drones nearest to her.

And there were only three drones left.

The first two went down swiftly, but Robles took her time on the last.

Lu didn't so much watch the movements of the last robot, she was more taken by the succession of injuries.  

Ribs broken.

Heart and other internal organs shredded.

Spine snapped.

Lucretia knew, personally, what that added up to.

A short painful time to find a cold place.

Followed by three months of therapy and hospitalization.

Less, if she let people in on how she healed in freezing temperatures.

Robles had effectively repeated her vivisection in the space of a few seconds or so.

Dusting her palms and not even having broken a sweat, she walked over to where Lucretia was staring at her with grimace that barely restrained her shock.

"Let's talk about this in the car," Robles said, walking back to the elevator.

Lucretia kept her face expressionless as Robles walked toward the elevator.
The silver-haired woman knew vaguely what the thing she fought was capable of, but just wanted a bit more confirmation.  She moved to one of the robots in her normal graceful manner and bent down to grip the thing's arm.  

The ex-con squeezed until she could feel the skin start to dent, and then went to grab her other hand.  Pressing down, she felt the soft, smooth skin slowly harden as it compressed in response to the pressure.  She continued pressing until she felt a small crack and watched a stream of red slowly flow out, growing thin and colorless soon after it left her body.

Robles was right, these things were about as tough as her right now.  Outside, in the cold, however, she would be tougher.  But then, she didn't think how tough her skin could be would matter against the sergeant.

"They'll pick them up and refit them later, Lu," Robles said, watching her.  "They're designed to be broken down…well, maybe not so badly as what you did to your drone…"

"Eh, was just curious," Lucretia said, shaking out her hand as the cracked skin softened from icey-hardness to snowy-softness, and then it was just another bruise on her skin that would heal quickly outside.

It wasn't long before they were in the termite and driving away from the unassuming building.

"I am not a peak, Lu," Robles said after a few minutes of driving.  "Being a peak doesn't make you invincible.  In that world, you're a bystander in more ways than one.  If you catch attention, you'll be broken.  In that world…in my world, it's not whether you're born with beyond human abilities or not that determines who's strong.  It's how you're trained.  How you stay cool."

"So I can't fight," Lucretia said quietly, her bravado more than a little hollow.  "I know better than to try, especially now. I can take care of myself…"

" …when you're sober," Robles said, interrupting Lucretia's statement.

"You don't get out of shape with anything else," Lucretia noted.

"That's because you make a point of not being obvious," Robles said.  "Though the rumors about you being good luck are starting to get a bit specific, we can deal with that."

"And you make a big deal out of this stupid fight?" Lucretia asked.

"Because it was a stupid fight," Genevive snapped.  "Something you, in your right mind would never have been involved in."

"What can I do about it?" Lucretia asked quietly.

"The simplest thing?" Robles suggested.  "Don't drink."

"Simple, hai," Lucretia muttered before trailing off into French.

"Just try," Robles said.

****

"The report will say the garbage truck malfunctioned," Robles said to Eric.  "But this means her files aren't reliable."

"We knew that to start," the old man said.  "I'm not all that certain of taking her to an old pantheon.  The more she sees and learns of our world, the less chance she has of staying out of it."

"She needs to know what the danger is," the woman responded.  Her voice was strained and choppy as she continued speaking holding her emotions just broiling under the surface.

"I think I know how it looks to you," Novac said.  "She's tearing herself to pieces."

"That's what it is," Robles corrected him.

"No, she was in pieces to begin with," Eric said.  "What she's doing now is finding what pieces go together."