A time of need
December 14th 2006 16:24
A time of need
Sunday, November 29th, 2054, 0302
Residence of General Jean-Paul Kinomoto, and family
Jean-Paul's eyes snapped open as a soft buzzing sound played throughout his skull. He tilted his eyes briefly, slid out of bed, and put on his dark shaded glasses.
Softly, clad in only military issue boxer shorts he padded into his home office, and tapped at an old-fashioned flat screen monitor sticking out of the edge of his desk.
Lieutenant Harker's face appeared.
“Sir? I'm sorry to waken you, but we need our reservist.”
“Situation?” He asked.
Harker took a deep breath.
“Three attack droids, like BD14. Broke into a large resource building and are looting it. They have killed four guards.”
“Who do we have?” He asked.
“Crone's still on sick duty, BD14 hasn't been deputized, DarkStarr is still en route to the area, and her eta is 07.15. Redeye is out on a mission, and Gears is just finishing up a mission. Our only reservist available is Mindbinder.” He said.
“Understood. Direct Gears to that location, mark Mindbinder as active. His eta is twelve minutes. Kinomoto out.”
He took a deep breath, reached into his desk and pulled out a vial of vicodin ex. He walked over to his wet bar, and poured himself a large scotch and washed three of the vicodin down, wincing as he swallowed. He pulled out his watch out of the front of his desk and set the timer for seven minutes.
He walked to what looked like an over sized gun safe in his office and punched in the security code. It opened up and a soft light shone from the top of it.
There were three black flight suits, each with an equipment belt, and a twenty-millimeter plasma shell pistol. The label on the flight suit read simply, 'Mindbinder'. As he zipped it up, Hannah walked into his office.
“Oh no.” She spoke softly.
He turned on a heel.
“I'm sorry, Hannah. They need me.”
Her sightless eyes looked at him. They held more emotions in them than most people who had vision. She stumbled a bit, but managed to get over to him as he put on his rubber-heeled boots.
“Can you try not to get shot?” She asked.
“Count on it.” He said, trying to raise her mood.
She leaned toward him, and kissed him softly.
“Call me when you get to the office, at least?” She asked.
“Of course. Anything for you.” He said, picking up his helmet.
She put her hand on it.
“Not quite anything.” She said, firmly.
“I've cut down quite a bit.” He said.
She nodded, and leaned over. She kissed him on the cheek, then on the lips, his goatee scratching at her face, and making her smile. “Looks good on you.” She said.
“You won that battle. Until it drives me crazy.” He said with a smile.
He put a dark pair of goggles that looked like old-fashioned swim goggles. It was solid black in his hands, and when he put it on, it became a sea of stars, as if painted on glass. Over this, he put on a smooth cloth like affair, and ended up looking much like a scuba diver without the breathing apparatus. When he spoke, his voice was electronically altered, and had a freaky, metallic sound.
“I'll see you tonight, honey. I love you.” He said.
She shivered as he spoke, and her stomach wrenched. He didn't mean to use his power, but because of the way the helmet was situated, he couldn't avoid doing so to a certain degree. She waved at him as he went down the stair, then went to the main bathroom and wretched violently, in a convulsive series of stomach spasms.
He went down the spiral staircase in the anteroom of the old house, and into a well-furnished family room converted basement. His children played here when they were young, and when the odd tornado came, they all huddled down here.
There was another gun safe looking object in a corner, and it was taller than the one in his office, just able to fit a man. He opened it, stepped in and closed it behind him, locking it.
He walked alongside a small tunnel, as it went down, in a ramp. It was sharp, probably about thirty degrees and about a hundred feet long, ending below a small outbuilding in the property.
Another keypad presented itself, and he dialed into it. A large, cranking of gears was heard, and as the door opened an odd motorcycle like vehicle had been seated just past.
It looked like a cross between the old streamlined bikes of the nineties and a pocket submarine. He lay into the vehicle, and as he activated it, rods came out and hooked under his knee and in front of his ankle.
The door closed behind him, and the vehicle was literally sling shotted into the air, going through the roof of the shed as it slid open. It was frightening in it's silence, and as it apogeed at no less than two hundred and forty feet, he kicked on it's engines, and took it into flight mode, screaming along at three hundred miles per hour.
In essence, it was nothing more than a giant scoop jet with handles and stubby wings, it could only fly from it's sling shotted housing, and could not actually gain airspace otherwise.
In it's HUD display he tracked his trajectory and he tapped at his COM link.
“Mindbinder to Gears.” He said.
“Gears here. I'm on the Hewlett building. It's an organized effort, there appears to be a cycle of activity. Civilian police have coordinated off the area, and they appear to be ignored.”
“What kind of firepower do you have. These things dropped Crone, they'll make mincemeat of us.”
“I'm thinking an EMP as a last resort, but the smallest one I could create would blow out everything in four city blocks.”
Mindbinder pondered this. It would be the easiest method, by far. Gteams insurance was incredible as it was, and this was the last thing he really wanted to deal with.
“I've got enough stuff here for some low res tachyon bursts, but again, we've got fallout.” Gears continued.
“You're on the point, and are logged as the primary.” Mindbinder replied. “I'll be in your area in two minutes.”
“One's taking off.” Gears observed. With a wave of his hand, a nearby microwave antenna sprouted wing like appendages and took off in a gyro copter like fashion. “I've got a tracker on it. Maybe it'll give us some information.”
The shuttle bearing Mindbinder roared over at it's slowest speed of one-hundred and twenty miles per hour. He bailed from it, a black ops chute billowing forth and landed on the roof about twenty meters from Gears. While the chute was still in drag, Gears dispersed a group of nanites, and they isolated it's plastic polymers under the direction of his mutant abilities and formed it into a large soupy mass near him.
He turned to Mindbinder. Gears wore a goggle like apparatus, both to enhance his vision and hearing and to protect himself from Mindbinder's ability.
“Two inside.” He said.
Mindbinder nodded, and pulled out one of his twenty-millimeter pulse pistols. With a sweep of his hand, Gears made the polymers into a ball, and bounced it off the roof, where it landed in the parking lot and came to rest against a van. The two of them went to the roof and Mindbinder shot the door open.
Down the stairs they went, both in excellent shape, and toward the elevator. Gear's hand on the control, brought it straight up, bypassing it's normal routine. It moved down as fast as the machinery allowed and opened up into the lobby. A guard at a security desk turned and looked at them.
“Hey, you two...” He began.
Mindbinder looked at him. His eyes went to a field of black, spattered with stars like a slice of the night sky. Mindbinder spoke in an almost melodramatic tone. “We're with the government, keep people away from the area. The Government is your friend, Gteams are your heroes.”
He and Gears walked through the door. Across the street was the side entrance to the building being burglarized. Mindbinder picked up the ball of polymers that had been tossed off the roof.
“Got an idea.” He said, turning to Gears. “I need you two separate this into two hollow spheres, and be able to put a current into one.”
Gears grabbed at his belt pack and slapped an ultra bright argon flashlight onto it. With his touch, it's wires sprouted as the sphere began to enlarge as it took in air.
Mindbinder looked around and found a public drinking fountain. Gears was starting to get the idea, and put one hand on the fountain, turning it into a spigot, which then filled the spheres. He then activated the battery packs and watched as the polymers expand a bit, as the two components of water were separated into oxygen and hydrogen.
“A couple of bombs, basically.” Gears said.
Mindbinder nodded.
“I'll be the bait.” He said. “I need to you recalibrate my visor, like you did the last time.” Mindbinder looked him squarely in the eyes.
“Took you a week to recover.” Gears said.
“You saw what these things did to Über and Crone.” Mindbinder said.
“I don't want to see your wife at your funeral.” Gears countered. The blow was low, and not entirely uncalled for. He countered, “what if we reprogrammed the shuttle jet to intercept the one coming back.”
Mindbinder thought about this, as Gears extruded a rope out of the mass of polymers. The balloon began to rise and he made a loop in the bottom of it, and stuck his foot in it.
Mindbinder pulled out his other pistol and rolled the other balloon, now slightly floating toward the other droids, which were now preparing to leave. He shot at them, and kicked the balloon.
They closed on the hero's position with little time, firing at them both. Gears' weight was not enough at this point, and slowly he floated in the air, rising at an ever-faster rate. They drew a bead on Gears and fired as Mindbinder lobbed a shell into the forward balloon. It exploded with a huge, explosive wave knocking Gears off of his perch, and Mindbinder into a car, stunning him.
Gears saw that both of the droids were stunned, and he ran toward them, grabbing at their chests, and using his mutant ability to isolate their internal power cells, literally pulling their batteries out.
He turned as Mindbinder weakly fired on the third, returning for another load of materials.
Mindbinder's aim was fairly useless and a stray shot hit the now floating balloon.
It blew out windows in a third story of the building they had come up in, and caught the droid in the blast, thrusting it into the asphalt with a resounding slam. As it shattered, shrapnel flew into Mindbinder. Most of it, his suit caught, but a large chunk hit him in his goggles.
A black, star like dark synergy began to radiate from the mask.
Mindbinder gasped and clamped his eyes shut.
“Gears!” He shouted, “My goggles have been compromised. I need a repair job.”
Gears ran quickly to him, and put his hand on the rims.
“Close.” Gears said.
Mindbinder's eyes were already shut.
Gears pulled the goggles off, and slipped onto his face a pair of the standard glasses that Mindbinder used in his civilian life as General Kinomoto. Gears had him hold his face down and whispered, “Those will get you functioning, while I repair these.” and quickly he began to fashion a repair, and then returned the goggles onto his head.
“You've got two layers on.” Gears said.
“Thanks, Gears. I owe you.” Mindbinder said.
Gears nodded at him.
“I think, however we've been had.” Gears said.
Mindbinder looked at him as he held up one of the central battery units in his hands. “These aren't the same series of battle droids that BD14 is. In fact, these are several years old, just made up to look the same.”
“Makes sense. They weren't able to track you easily on that balloon and didn't have enough AI to work in a coordinated attack.” Mindbinder agreed.
A Skystriker soared overhead and hovered above them. Redeye was at the helm, and lowered the landing pull, and they boarded as reporters clamored in the newly formed crowd.
Mindbinder went out to the reporters, and began to publicly speak about the duty of mutants to come forth and work with their government. He took questions about his quasi retirement, and his reservist status, any of which would be found on the official Gteams website. He cited Gears profusely as the leader of this particular mission, and called it an, 'unquestionable strike against those who would mis-use droids in a terrorist manner.'
Gears waited in the Skystriker and as protesters started to form a block and a half away, gave Mindbinder the head's up. He took one last question and then climbed in.
Gears asked him, “was all that really necessary?”
Mindbinder looked at him. “Always.”
They traveled in silence back to Gteams Heartland Division.
Sunday, November 29th, 2054, 0302
Residence of General Jean-Paul Kinomoto, and family
Jean-Paul's eyes snapped open as a soft buzzing sound played throughout his skull. He tilted his eyes briefly, slid out of bed, and put on his dark shaded glasses.
Softly, clad in only military issue boxer shorts he padded into his home office, and tapped at an old-fashioned flat screen monitor sticking out of the edge of his desk.
Lieutenant Harker's face appeared.
“Sir? I'm sorry to waken you, but we need our reservist.”
“Situation?” He asked.
Harker took a deep breath.
“Who do we have?” He asked.
“Crone's still on sick duty, BD14 hasn't been deputized, DarkStarr is still en route to the area, and her eta is 07.15. Redeye is out on a mission, and Gears is just finishing up a mission. Our only reservist available is Mindbinder.” He said.
“Understood. Direct Gears to that location, mark Mindbinder as active. His eta is twelve minutes. Kinomoto out.”
He took a deep breath, reached into his desk and pulled out a vial of vicodin ex. He walked over to his wet bar, and poured himself a large scotch and washed three of the vicodin down, wincing as he swallowed. He pulled out his watch out of the front of his desk and set the timer for seven minutes.
He walked to what looked like an over sized gun safe in his office and punched in the security code. It opened up and a soft light shone from the top of it.
There were three black flight suits, each with an equipment belt, and a twenty-millimeter plasma shell pistol. The label on the flight suit read simply, 'Mindbinder'. As he zipped it up, Hannah walked into his office.
He turned on a heel.
“I'm sorry, Hannah. They need me.”
Her sightless eyes looked at him. They held more emotions in them than most people who had vision. She stumbled a bit, but managed to get over to him as he put on his rubber-heeled boots.
“Can you try not to get shot?” She asked.
“Count on it.” He said, trying to raise her mood.
She leaned toward him, and kissed him softly.
“Call me when you get to the office, at least?” She asked.
“Of course. Anything for you.” He said, picking up his helmet.
She put her hand on it.
“Not quite anything.” She said, firmly.
“I've cut down quite a bit.” He said.
She nodded, and leaned over. She kissed him on the cheek, then on the lips, his goatee scratching at her face, and making her smile. “Looks good on you.” She said.
“You won that battle. Until it drives me crazy.” He said with a smile.
He put a dark pair of goggles that looked like old-fashioned swim goggles. It was solid black in his hands, and when he put it on, it became a sea of stars, as if painted on glass. Over this, he put on a smooth cloth like affair, and ended up looking much like a scuba diver without the breathing apparatus. When he spoke, his voice was electronically altered, and had a freaky, metallic sound.
“I'll see you tonight, honey. I love you.” He said.
She shivered as he spoke, and her stomach wrenched. He didn't mean to use his power, but because of the way the helmet was situated, he couldn't avoid doing so to a certain degree. She waved at him as he went down the stair, then went to the main bathroom and wretched violently, in a convulsive series of stomach spasms.
He went down the spiral staircase in the anteroom of the old house, and into a well-furnished family room converted basement. His children played here when they were young, and when the odd tornado came, they all huddled down here.
There was another gun safe looking object in a corner, and it was taller than the one in his office, just able to fit a man. He opened it, stepped in and closed it behind him, locking it.
He walked alongside a small tunnel, as it went down, in a ramp. It was sharp, probably about thirty degrees and about a hundred feet long, ending below a small outbuilding in the property.
Another keypad presented itself, and he dialed into it. A large, cranking of gears was heard, and as the door opened an odd motorcycle like vehicle had been seated just past.
It looked like a cross between the old streamlined bikes of the nineties and a pocket submarine. He lay into the vehicle, and as he activated it, rods came out and hooked under his knee and in front of his ankle.
The door closed behind him, and the vehicle was literally sling shotted into the air, going through the roof of the shed as it slid open. It was frightening in it's silence, and as it apogeed at no less than two hundred and forty feet, he kicked on it's engines, and took it into flight mode, screaming along at three hundred miles per hour.
In essence, it was nothing more than a giant scoop jet with handles and stubby wings, it could only fly from it's sling shotted housing, and could not actually gain airspace otherwise.
In it's HUD display he tracked his trajectory and he tapped at his COM link.
“Mindbinder to Gears.” He said.
“Gears here. I'm on the Hewlett building. It's an organized effort, there appears to be a cycle of activity. Civilian police have coordinated off the area, and they appear to be ignored.”
“What kind of firepower do you have. These things dropped Crone, they'll make mincemeat of us.”
“I'm thinking an EMP as a last resort, but the smallest one I could create would blow out everything in four city blocks.”
Mindbinder pondered this. It would be the easiest method, by far. Gteams insurance was incredible as it was, and this was the last thing he really wanted to deal with.
“I've got enough stuff here for some low res tachyon bursts, but again, we've got fallout.” Gears continued.
“You're on the point, and are logged as the primary.” Mindbinder replied. “I'll be in your area in two minutes.”
“One's taking off.” Gears observed. With a wave of his hand, a nearby microwave antenna sprouted wing like appendages and took off in a gyro copter like fashion. “I've got a tracker on it. Maybe it'll give us some information.”
The shuttle bearing Mindbinder roared over at it's slowest speed of one-hundred and twenty miles per hour. He bailed from it, a black ops chute billowing forth and landed on the roof about twenty meters from Gears. While the chute was still in drag, Gears dispersed a group of nanites, and they isolated it's plastic polymers under the direction of his mutant abilities and formed it into a large soupy mass near him.
He turned to Mindbinder. Gears wore a goggle like apparatus, both to enhance his vision and hearing and to protect himself from Mindbinder's ability.
“Two inside.” He said.
Mindbinder nodded, and pulled out one of his twenty-millimeter pulse pistols. With a sweep of his hand, Gears made the polymers into a ball, and bounced it off the roof, where it landed in the parking lot and came to rest against a van. The two of them went to the roof and Mindbinder shot the door open.
Down the stairs they went, both in excellent shape, and toward the elevator. Gear's hand on the control, brought it straight up, bypassing it's normal routine. It moved down as fast as the machinery allowed and opened up into the lobby. A guard at a security desk turned and looked at them.
“Hey, you two...” He began.
Mindbinder looked at him. His eyes went to a field of black, spattered with stars like a slice of the night sky. Mindbinder spoke in an almost melodramatic tone. “We're with the government, keep people away from the area. The Government is your friend, Gteams are your heroes.”
He and Gears walked through the door. Across the street was the side entrance to the building being burglarized. Mindbinder picked up the ball of polymers that had been tossed off the roof.
“Got an idea.” He said, turning to Gears. “I need you two separate this into two hollow spheres, and be able to put a current into one.”
Gears grabbed at his belt pack and slapped an ultra bright argon flashlight onto it. With his touch, it's wires sprouted as the sphere began to enlarge as it took in air.
Mindbinder looked around and found a public drinking fountain. Gears was starting to get the idea, and put one hand on the fountain, turning it into a spigot, which then filled the spheres. He then activated the battery packs and watched as the polymers expand a bit, as the two components of water were separated into oxygen and hydrogen.
“A couple of bombs, basically.” Gears said.
Mindbinder nodded.
“I'll be the bait.” He said. “I need to you recalibrate my visor, like you did the last time.” Mindbinder looked him squarely in the eyes.
“Took you a week to recover.” Gears said.
“You saw what these things did to Über and Crone.” Mindbinder said.
“I don't want to see your wife at your funeral.” Gears countered. The blow was low, and not entirely uncalled for. He countered, “what if we reprogrammed the shuttle jet to intercept the one coming back.”
Mindbinder thought about this, as Gears extruded a rope out of the mass of polymers. The balloon began to rise and he made a loop in the bottom of it, and stuck his foot in it.
Mindbinder pulled out his other pistol and rolled the other balloon, now slightly floating toward the other droids, which were now preparing to leave. He shot at them, and kicked the balloon.
They closed on the hero's position with little time, firing at them both. Gears' weight was not enough at this point, and slowly he floated in the air, rising at an ever-faster rate. They drew a bead on Gears and fired as Mindbinder lobbed a shell into the forward balloon. It exploded with a huge, explosive wave knocking Gears off of his perch, and Mindbinder into a car, stunning him.
Gears saw that both of the droids were stunned, and he ran toward them, grabbing at their chests, and using his mutant ability to isolate their internal power cells, literally pulling their batteries out.
He turned as Mindbinder weakly fired on the third, returning for another load of materials.
Mindbinder's aim was fairly useless and a stray shot hit the now floating balloon.
It blew out windows in a third story of the building they had come up in, and caught the droid in the blast, thrusting it into the asphalt with a resounding slam. As it shattered, shrapnel flew into Mindbinder. Most of it, his suit caught, but a large chunk hit him in his goggles.
A black, star like dark synergy began to radiate from the mask.
Mindbinder gasped and clamped his eyes shut.
“Gears!” He shouted, “My goggles have been compromised. I need a repair job.”
Gears ran quickly to him, and put his hand on the rims.
“Close.” Gears said.
Mindbinder's eyes were already shut.
Gears pulled the goggles off, and slipped onto his face a pair of the standard glasses that Mindbinder used in his civilian life as General Kinomoto. Gears had him hold his face down and whispered, “Those will get you functioning, while I repair these.” and quickly he began to fashion a repair, and then returned the goggles onto his head.
“You've got two layers on.” Gears said.
“Thanks, Gears. I owe you.” Mindbinder said.
Gears nodded at him.
“I think, however we've been had.” Gears said.
Mindbinder looked at him as he held up one of the central battery units in his hands. “These aren't the same series of battle droids that BD14 is. In fact, these are several years old, just made up to look the same.”
“Makes sense. They weren't able to track you easily on that balloon and didn't have enough AI to work in a coordinated attack.” Mindbinder agreed.
A Skystriker soared overhead and hovered above them. Redeye was at the helm, and lowered the landing pull, and they boarded as reporters clamored in the newly formed crowd.
Mindbinder went out to the reporters, and began to publicly speak about the duty of mutants to come forth and work with their government. He took questions about his quasi retirement, and his reservist status, any of which would be found on the official Gteams website. He cited Gears profusely as the leader of this particular mission, and called it an, 'unquestionable strike against those who would mis-use droids in a terrorist manner.'
Gears waited in the Skystriker and as protesters started to form a block and a half away, gave Mindbinder the head's up. He took one last question and then climbed in.
Gears asked him, “was all that really necessary?”
Mindbinder looked at him. “Always.”
They traveled in silence back to Gteams Heartland Division.
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