An armed guard entered. His hand was on his gun, but fear was in his eyes. He knew who I was.
I didn’t.
My hand shot forward, crushing his throat. While he gurgled, I followed with a vicious kick to the side of his kneecap that broke something with an audible snap. As he fell wordlessly, I snatched his mech pistol from the holster. Without hesitation, I turned and fired.
The shots scattered wildly. The mech gun was an older model. Massive firepower, horrible accuracy. Expensive-looking equipment caught most of the barrage.
“Wait!” The labcoat rushed forward, waving his arms wildly. “Wait! You don’t know what you’re doing! This place will blow sky high!”
I have to kill him.
The first shot practically spun him completely around. He looked astonished as he clutched his ruined shoulder. A large canister exploded nearby, searing my vision with flames. The rest of the lab quickly followed its example.
In the background, I saw the silhouette of the synoid the labcoat had been operating on. It staggered around, seeming as disoriented as I was.
I ignored it and concentrated on the labcoat. I fired as I ran; managing to drill a few more slugs before I collided into him. Seems as though he had armor on under his lab clothes, but at close range at least a couple of rounds had penetrated. He screamed curses as we tumbled, and his hand shot up to grasp my head. I barely had time to notice the rounded contraption strapped to his glove before it latched onto my temple.
Daggers of fire torched my brain. I screamed as a million flickering images seared across my consciousness. The labcoat stared at me with a mixture of fear and triumph.
“You brought this on yourself, assassin. You can’t report back to your masters because you’ll never remember what your mission was. You won’t remember anything! You—”
Another explosion interrupted his tirade. Fire separated us, along with a force like being run over by a dump truck. And then hit by a freight train.
When I regained half-consciousness I was in the West River. The lab still mushroomed in furious explosions. Dark choppy waves surrounded me, along with the labcoat’s hysterical laughter. He floundered in crimson waters, devoid of all his marbles. Flashing lights approached from the distance. It seemed New Haven’s finest were on the way.
Good for them. Not quite so good for me.
Whatever the labcoat had done left my brain flickering like a cheap picjector. My consciousness faded in and out before finally settling on somewhere in between. Black waters closed over my head, bubbles anxiously scattered toward the surface. I tasted the scum and filth of the river water as I tried to scream…
Something dove into the waters. A dark shape with glowing eyes filled my vision, and something seized me under my arms. As I experienced a sensation of rising, I blacked out.
When I came to, I was on the shoreline coughing up the river. A pale face glowed from the shadowy form of the synoid who pumped my chest.
“It’s ok,” he said. “You’re going to make it.”
“Who… who are you?”
The synoid hesitated. “Hunter.” He looked back, where a crowd of curious people gathered outside of a decrepit old nightclub. The Valentino.
“My name’s… Mick.” I winced, wondering why it was so hard to remember. I knew who I was, after all. “Mick Trubble.”
I sat up with a gasp when my brain flickered back to normal. I couldn't have been out too long, 'cause when I came to we were still in the parking garage, which had pretty lousy security if you ask me. My back was firmly pressed against Maxine’s smooth alloyed frame.
My pants were missing.
I was stripped down to my boxers, the ones with the rocket ships on 'em. Poddar knelt just a few feet away, bleeding from a few shallow cuts. His mitts were tied. He looked at me and shrugged. I figured he must have surrendered like a gentleman.
The dames stood over me wearing the same stern expressions. There must be some school for dames where they train how to master that look.
Too bad for them, because I still had a trick up my sleeve. “Maxine?”
“I’m sorry Mr. Trubble. Something is jamming my defense system. I’m unable to help you.”
I had put some major berries into modifying Maxine’s voice activated defenses. If those dames were blocking it, they had to have their mitts on some righteous tech. Still, I'd been in tougher situations than that. And even if they were leather-clad dominatrixes with blades, they were still dames, after all. I put on my most seductive grin.
"Well ladies, it looks like I underestimated the lengths a gal will go to get a prime slab of pure manliness. Whaddya say we get out this dingy little garage and upgrade to a nice can-house. I know a truly wild joint Downtown that—"
My voice cut off with a girlish squeak, thanks to Christina and that damn staff of hers hitting me right in my boys. The experience was nothing to brag about.
Jen's long blond hair swung as she crouched down to my level. "You might want to save your voice. After all, you're going to need it to tell us everything we want to know."
"Well, of course I am, sweetheart. Who says I wasn't? You might wanna think of me as your complete source for news, weather, and—aagh!”
Another rap to the nether regions. Not gentle-like, either. I glared at Christina as threateningly as I could without a pair of pants. I really hated that staff.
Jen cupped my chin in her hand. She had a pretty strong grip for a dame. "What did you and Tommy Tsunami talk about?” Her voice practically dripped with sugar. Course it would've been sweeter if she hadn't emphasized the question by planting her razor-edged sword about a half-inch away from my goodies.
Ok, those gonzo dames meant business. Still, I had to stall while I tried to figure out what their angle in all this was.
"Tommy… Tsunami? You mean the gangster Tommy Tsunami? You think I — you think we gabbed with him?” I laughed hysterically. "Boy, do you dames have your lines crossed! I mean, me and the Prince did go the Gaiden to check out the scene and all, but then some crazy chumps busted in and started fogging the joint. Gunfire, explosions — you wouldn't believe it. It was like a scene from the picture show. We were lucky to get out in one piece."
I could tell my Pinocchio didn’t go all that well by the way the dames exchanged looks. Poddar looked downward as if embarrassed to be in my company.
Christina didn’t even blink her pretty gems. "Kelly? Looks like we got us a bad boy. Should we show him what bad boys get for lying?"
Kelly laughed.
I heard the click of her heels as she stalked back to the cherry red wheeler. The trunk opened and shut again. When she came back, I looked at the nefarious instrument of torture in her hands.
Poddar gasped.
It was a black box, hooked up with dials and levers. But what was worse were the twin metallic cords that gleamed dully in the flickering lights of the garage. They both ended in mean-looking pinchers, like the jumper cables used to kick-start vehicle batteries before the Cataclysm.
"What…" I swallowed hard. "Whaddya got there?"
"Oh, I think you know what this is." Kelly stroked the thing like a pet poodle. "But I like to call it… the Bitchmaker. So this is how it's going to be. We ask the questions. You give us answers. Otherwise we hook these up to your little boys. And then—” She set the box on the floor and hit a button.
The pinchers vibrated, shooting off sparks and thrashing around like eels on amphetamines.
“Roasted nuts.”
I'm ashamed to admit I almost fainted.
Still, I've never been in a fix I couldn't shoot my way out of. Since I was missing the heat, I had to settle for shooting off at the mouth.
"Listen, all I know about Tommy Tsunami is he's a lousy card player. The Prince and I went out for a chew. The chopper squad started spraying, and I caught a slug in the arm. We got the hell outta there, now you broads show up. Whaddya want from me?"