#009 - "Subterfuge"
Chapter 1: Trial by Fire
Me and Anna enter B-Wing and find a corridor lush with green.
Rows of trees line either side of the hallway, as humidity and the luminescent vapor hang heavy in the air. Behind the tree's soil beds are electronic displays. These displays are similar to the ones I’ve seen thus far, but with one stark contrast – They are designed to trick the eye, and shift perspective depending on where you’re standing. It's creating the illusion we just stepped into a vast forest, and it’s incredibly disorienting. I know that the only trees that are real are the ones at either side of the walkway, but my brain is telling me there are hundreds of trees past those. The fake wind is definitely selling the illusion. That said, oddly enough they didn’t choose to add a fake sky above the guard-railed walkway itself, making me feel like we’re on some sort of guided nature walk.
“B-Wing houses this station’s Hydroponics & Agricultural Labs, along with the recreational Botanical Gardens which is available to higher-tiered subscribers. It is the largest wing of the whole station. Fortunately we won’t need to go very far.”
Go figure the Botanical Gardens is a paid subscription. Having the mercenaries feel depressed, isolated, and alone is part of Hellman’s debt based business model. If he made the Botanical Gardens free, he would be giving them an out.
But it makes sense this station has its own Hydroponics & Agricultural Labs. Just a little while ago I had coffee, and it’s not like you just find coffee beans floating out in space. It either has to be imported or grown in-house. Considering all the smells I caught whiff of in the Fortune District, they have a wide variety of food. Anna said that the Red Dragon Palace has a seafood buffet, so I also imagine they must have a Terrestrial and Aquatic Livestock Farm somewhere. Especially if the casinos are doing the buffet approach. Buffets are too portion heavy and unpredictable to constantly source and import more food in the middle of Space.
But transporting all the initial water for the aquariums must have been a monumental task. I heard somewhere that back home, because of its weight, it costs $100,000 US dollars to send one gallon of water to space (or 3.75L). But who knows if that’s what they did. This place has technology way past anything we have. I could totally see them creating a machine which generates water molecules from scratch.
“But why would they stick the Armory in the Agricultural section of the station?”
“I never asked. But if I had to hazard to guess, it’s foresight on Hellman’s part.”
“Foresight?”
“Eventually the Colonel plans to convert this station into a tourist destination. The guests would be entering through A-Wing, which is the closest wing to B-Wing. He probably wanted it close to the area most likely to suffer a major invasion, while not intimidating the guests. Remember, this is going to be a luxury resort. Seeing rows of heavy weaponry as soon as you enter is a bad look, no?”
That makes sense. He probably wants to separate the station’s image from its thug like origins. I thought these mercenaries were space gangsters at first after all. So someone here with their family and friends would undoubtedly get the same first impression.
Anna continues, “Not only that, but the Botanical Gardens would be the most likely area for crime to occur. Because of the constantly moving and shifting dense vegetation, it renders ODSS more or less functionally useless in there. The ODSS overworks the station’s processors trying to keep track of each and every leaf fluttering in the artificial wind, and mapping the entire area in real-time. It causes the recorded mapping to be choppy, and notoriously unreliable. So they were forced to use traditional optical recording devices instead.”
That’s called a security camera Anna.
But basically, the issue they’re facing is the same issue New York Central Park has. It’s an expansive nature area largely devoid of police and security. Tourists would be isolated from both reliable surveillance, and a quick-response team if somebody chose to hide in there, and mug unsuspecting passerby. Having the Armory in plain view next to Botanical Gardens would make for a pretty damn good deterrent. Anybody thinking of making a quick buck off robbing people would think twice if they saw rows of light machine guns in spitting distance of their would-be crime.
Anna and I continue onwards passing by a few branching plain metal hallways, probably reserved for staff, eventually hitting a large atrium with a large technicolor tree as its centerpiece, surrounded by a faux pond.
It is easily the most breathtaking tree I have ever seen. It is something between a huge weeping willow, and wisteria. The crooked and winding truck is an assortment of rainbow-like colors, and the lush hanging foliage is full of radiant fall colors. Orange, red, yellow, it is stunning. The dense luminescent vapor makes the tree look like it’s glowing. The hill around the tree, and the hills along the edges of the atrium all have unnaturally green grass. The hills along the edge of the atrium have vivid green weeping willows, and the illusive displays along the walls make it look like we’re in some sort of magical forest.
The atrium has four branching paths including the way we just came. The one in front of us is also lined with trees and displays, and goes on for a ways. The one on the left and right are wider, shorter, and form an arched tunnel which lead to a set of large steel doors. The one on the left is just plain steel, with several branching hallways. Very utilitarian. The one on the right doesn’t have any trees lining it, but the entire surface of the arched walls and ceiling are covered in displays – Making it look like you’re walking under the thick foliage of the trees. Yeah, this is definitely a tourist trap.
Anna leads us right, and we walk for a short ways. Apart from two rooms with windows at either side of the end of the hallway, this tunnel is just a pure simulated walk through an extremely dense forest. I can see through the windows of the large door at the end of the hall a spectacular assortment of colorful foliage. This is definitely the way to the Botanical Gardens. So that must mean one of these rooms is an admissions office, and the other is the Armory.
We make it to the end of the tunnel, and through the windows of the room on the right, I can see endless rows of guns. The Armory has a front work room, and a back storage room. There’s a bored looking guy sitting at one of the workbenches smoking a cigarette.
Anna knocks on the doorframe, “Hey Clyde, Master Hellman asked us to pick up some Maelstroms for the exchange we’re going to be doing soon – Just in case he said.”
Clyde, who was disassembling a gun at his work bench with the speed of a sloth, disinterestly glances over his shoulder at Anna. His hair is unkempt and greasy, his eyes are red, he has messy stubble on his face, and his clothes are wrinkled and covered in oil and grease.
Clyde makes an annoyed face like we’re bothering him. He puts out his cigarette, and turns his chair to look at Anna.
“That’s fine, but if you want the ammo, he’ll need to fill out the requisition forms for it.” He says, lazily pointing to me.
I can basically hear Clyde internally begging us to go away so he doesn’t have to do any actual work. No matter how you look at this guy, he’s a deadbeat. I’m pretty sure he’s high just based on his eyes and dimeanor. That along with the sheer magnitude of cigarette butts everywhere. Now what’s he on? I have no clue. I can’t smell anything in the air apart from cigarette smoke, and all the drugs Anna mentioned before were types that didn’t even exist back home.
“That’s okay, somebody else is coming to pick those up later. We were just told to come collect the guns so we’d have everything ready beforehand. Where are they in the armory by the way?”
Clyde rolls his eyes and sighs as if to say “Goddammit, now I actually have to do something!” and rolls his chair across the room to a metal desk. He opens a drawer, and pulls out a binder, and begins flipping through it.
He sighs.
“Who makes it?” he asks, sounding as though we just handed him some great burden.
“Republic Interstellar Arms.” Anna replies.
He flips through it a ways, finally stopping on a page after taking way too long. Dude, just use the index, it’s not that hard.
“Section T-56.”
“Got it, thanks Clyde!” Anna says as she opens the black chainlink door to the Armory.
Clyde rolls back to his work bench and continues whatever it was he was pretending to accomplish, while me and Anna enter the armory.
The Armory is dimly lit and much larger than the front work room. While it’s not taller than the work room, it’s basically a small warehouse. It’s lined with rows and rows of metal shelves. It’s set up very much like the shoe section at a store. Where there’s a display gun hanging from a rack above several shelves of vertically aligned gun cases that are neatly slid in side by side like books. This organizational system is idiot proof, which is probably why Clyde could make it as the armorer.
As me and Anna go further into the armory and out of earshot, I had to ask, “How the Hell did that guy become the station's only armorer??”
Anna gives a wry smile, “Nobody understands it either. There are rumors that he’s supposedly related to Hellman, but that’s never been confirmed. It’s just the only theory that makes any kind of sense.”
“Nepotism huh? That I could definitely see. Anyway, where’s T-56?”
“Aisle 20, but we’re not headed there yet.”
“Where are we going?”
“To return that ‘gun’ of course.”
We make our way to the backside of the room, and find two thick sturdy metal doors. Anna presses the button beside the door, and the doors slide open. We walk into the pitch black room as the door shuts behind us. I can tell this room is much larger than the armory simply from the echo of our footsteps.
“Lights on.” Anna says in a firm tone.
All of the lights flicker on in sequence. One by one, revealing a large warehouse lined with tall metal framed shelves, packed with missiles the size of cars, large metal cylinders which look vaguely like massive hollow point bullets, and metal crates both large and small.
“Are…Are these bombs?”
“Yes and no. This is the Surplus Heavy Ordinance Depot. Some of the crates are simply spare rocket booster parts. Others are just effectively large solid metal cylinders for use in electromagnetic railguns. Those are used to capture ships rather than destroy them, by warping the ship's plating in order to introduce a vacuum. But there’s a wide variety of surplus munitions here as well such as interceptor missiles, shield distruptor rockets, attractor mines, heavy hull cracker missiles, and yes, some of these are old mothballed high-altitude airstrike bombs. Because there’s no oxygen in space, the vast majority of these weapons do not use conventional explosives. So exploding them through external means would not yield their maximum potential output. But the old mothballed bombs however do. As conventional explosives age, they become more and more unstable. We are going to be utilizing that instability.”
Anna points to a line of shelves on the far right-side of the room, which is entirely devoted to a single type of bomb.
Compared to the rest of the munitions, they look ancient. They look old even by my standards, looking something like an early development stage nuclear weapon. They aren’t even rocket propelled, just something you rain down from above. They’re dull grey, dusty, scratched, and massive. Each one has to weigh at least 3,000kg, and there are tons of them. They take up the entirety of the wall - stretching from one end of the room to the other, floor to ceiling.
Is she… Is she really planning on detonating all of these bombs!? Even if they’re purely conventional explosives, there’s got to be at least the equivalent of several atomic bombs worth of munitions here!!! Is she insane!?!
“W-w-wait, I thought we were just going to use the bomb in the armory so they couldn’t get to their guns!?”
“We are Master – This is the Armory.” Anna says with a calm, gentle smile.
“Anna you never said anything about this! If we use this here, we’re going to blow up half the goddamn station!!”
“Not to worry Master, this wing is surrounded by shock absorbing bulkheads. The resulting explosion will be limited to this section of the station. We will be quite safe.”
Wait… Is Anna trying to obliterate the entire Agricultural Wing?
That… Actually adds up.
If her original goal was to save the therians, destroying this wing would serve several functions.
One, it’s probably safe to assume B-Wing is this station’s primary source of oxygen. If it’s destroyed, it would render the station unlivable until damages could be repaired and plants replaced. Thus forcing the HMC, and subsequently the therians living here, to be relocated or sold elsewhere.
Two, even if they have another way of maintaining suitable oxygen levels, the livestock here would be reliant on this vegetation for food. I have to assume that the food distribution between mercenaries, therians, the Fortune District, and livestock is carefully planned out and managed. If it is even partially destroyed, it would cause a mass famine somewhere in the chain of mouths to feed. Something tells me that fate would befall the therians, and not the livestock. Knowing Hellman, he would use this opportunity as an excuse to sell off half the therians here before their value drops due to malnutrition, artificially creating a shortage in supply to meet the demand. He’d then raise therian subscription fees claiming it’s “only temporary inflation”, and then just keep the prices there after everything is said and done.
Three, attending to the damage would probably take priority over apprehending us. There’ll probably be a ton of fire assuming it doesn’t expose this wing to the vacuum of space. I don’t know what kind of power source this station uses, but considering the amount of juice the Strip probably takes up, odds are it’s not solar. I’m willing to bet this station is equipped with a nuclear reactor of some kind. Allowing a fire to spread to a running nuclear reactor, thus potentially causing catastrophic damage leading to a meltdown would render this entire station a worthless radioactive investment. Hellman would definitely prioritize the damage and probable fire in B-Wing over apprehending us.
As much as I hate to admit it, her plan makes sense. It’s absolutely ruthless and downright insane, but it makes sense.
But if we do this… If we actually detonate all of these bombs… We’ll be priority number one on Hellman’s shit list.
This isn’t like just destroying some guns and killing one useless employee. This is full-scale terrorism. Even with most people being on the opposite side of the station, we’ll still end up killing scores of people. Not to mention the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dracan's worth of damage we’ll cause. We’ll effectively shutdown the HMC’s military campaign in Libertalia space, making us more or less war criminals in the DRAC territories. We’ll become the galaxy’s most wanted in an instant.
No… We were certain to become that anyway. If this VIP is worth 30,000,000,000 dracan to the DRAC government, by helping them escape, our fates will already be sealed. This changes nothing apart from royally pissing off one extra group.
Max, this is just like with Tony. Remember, be a machine - It’s us or them.
I’ll admit, this gives us tremendous benefits when it comes to our odds of survival, but…
“Anna – Are you absolutely certain the bulkheads will stop the blast?”
“Yes Master – I am absolutely positive the resulting explosion from these bombs will not spread past B-Wing.” She says with a soft, vacant smile.
Her face is smiling, but her eyes are deadpan.
I can’t detect any uncertainty in her words. That makes sense afterall. If she thought the explosion could spread and potentially kill the therians on this station, she never would have proposed this plan. But still, I don’t like the fact she kept this from me. Just like she did with the bomb.
“Okay Anna, we’ll go with your plan. But after this is all over, you have a lot of explaining to do. I expect complete and total transparency. You owe me that much.”
Anna’s empty smile disappears, and her eyes turn cold as ice.
“Understood Master.” Giving me a small nod.
We don’t need to say anymore than that. She knows exactly what I’m saying. Over these past several hours, I’ve started to be able to sense the connection between Anna and I. Is this Symbiotic Synthesis? Or are we just in sync? I genuinely can’t tell.
Anna is a very scary girl. But I am no longer scared *of her* if that makes any sense. I know she’s on my side. She would sooner die herself than do anything that would get me killed. But at this point I’m more scared *for her*. I’m worried for her mental health.
Since leaving the penthouse, her vibe has completely changed. Although she’s been smiling since I ordered her to return to me safely, I can tell it’s all fake. I can feel the hatred and rage radiating off her. But I think she’s trying to hide it for my sake.
We’re about to kill possibly over a hundred people in a ruthless, brutal fashion - And she doesn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed by it.
I understand these people treated her and her friends horribly. I get that. But we’re still going to be taking a sizeable amount of human life. She ought to be at least experiencing some form of hesitation.
But instead, there’s none.
All I can feel coming off her is cold determination, and silent fury. It’s in the way she walks, the small gestures she makes, the reflection in her eyes.
Despite being small compared to me, she’s been walking in quick, long strides.
Her hands looks stiff, her shoulders broad and tensed.
Her smile doesn’t show in her eyes. If it were real, it would encompass her whole face.
I think back to how Anna’s figurine looked. The person I see now, and the person Lior saw when she made that figurine seem like two completely different people. Anna seemed happy, playful, and full of life.
The person in front of me now feels nihilistic and filled with hate. The aura coming off Anna now is someone who has resigned themselves to accepting that their life is already over. She feels more like a ghost than a person.
I’m worried for her.
Anna swiftly strides over to the right side of the room, while I struggle to keep up. We walk past bomb after bomb after bomb. Eventually we reach the center of the wall, and Anna crouches down.
“The case please?”
I unzip my bag, and ever so carefully take the case out and hand it to her. She graciously takes it and crawls between two massive bombshells.
I look down at the hulking, dull grey bomb next to me and wipe off a thick layer of dust with my finger.
“How old are these things anyway? They look ancient.”
Anna, still underneath the shelf, “These were mass produced during the last Reclamation War, so they’re essentially antiques at this point.”
Reclamation War? I don’t know much about this country’s history. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m in the same universe. To be honest I’ve actively avoided thinking about it. I don’t know what is worse: The idea I could be trapped in a different dimension, that I’ve possibly been transported an inconceivable amount of distance from my home, or that I’ve somehow been sent into the future and this morally reprehensible reality is the end result of my timeline.
No matter which one is true, they’re all horrible.
But the fact she said the “last Reclamation War” implies that there has been more than one. Considering it’s called the “Reclamation War”, the DRAC government probably lost some territory to a foreign power at some point, and attempted to take it back. That or some domains chose to defect from the DRAC, which I could definitely see happening. Now whether or not they were successful, I don’t know. But if these munitions are old enough to be considered antiques, they either won or accepted the loss. Which means there could be a government out there even more powerful than the DRAC.
Anna crawls out from between the bombs, her clothes covered in dust.
“You might want to pat yourself off.”
She looks down, “Oh!” and quickly pats her clothes off, creating plumes of dust.
“Here, turn around, let me get your back.”
Anna turns around, and I pat off her shoulders and butt.
As soon as I start patting off her butt, Anna lets out a surprised “Ah!”, her face turning a tinge red.
I can’t help but give a slight lecherous grin. Sounds like somebody might enjoy this kind of thing?
Anna has a great butt. Actually she has an unnaturally perfect butt, which I’ve gotten the pleasure of seeing multiple times since we first met. I mean it makes sense, she was genetically engineered – Not born. So it’s understandable they would design her to be appealing.
After enjoying patting off Anna’s perky butt for slightly longer than I probably should have I ask, “So are we done here?”
Anna, still slightly flustered gives a quick nod, “Y-yes, we’re good here. Let’s get moving.”
We start making our way out of the bomb storage. I look around at the massive surplus munitions when I realize something – How the Hell did they get all these bombs in here?
There’s no other door that I can see, and it’s not like some of these missiles can be pushed through the regular sized doorways in the armory and front workshop. Is there an elevator somewhere? God help them if they had Clyde disassemble and reassemble all these missiles in here.
I look around and notice a series of massive pneumatic tubes on the wall of varying shapes and sizes.
Do not tell me that they use an oversized bank drive-thru pneumatic tube system to transport 3,000kg warheads.
I’m… I’m not going to ask.
“But hey, are you sure those things will go off? They’re basically World War II munitions at this point.”
“World War II? And are you kidding? They’re basically begging to go off at this point, they just need a little… Push.” Anna says with a devious grin, pushing the air with her hands.
You better not start talking about madness and gravity Anna or I’m leaving you behind.
“Hellman got those bombs from the military years ago for a song. He was planning on using them for a planetary subjugation contract. But after having a specialist look at them, he found out many of them were dangerously unstable. The price of disarming them far exceeded what he paid for them, so he just kind of left them here.”
“Is that why they built the bulkheads?? That doesn’t make sense, wouldn’t that cost way more?”
“No, no, the bulkheads were built because of the other bombs. It’s standard procedure to reinforce critical and vulnerable areas in case of attack.”
It’s nothing short of a miracle they didn’t explode in the pneumatic tubes then. That’s probably why he hasn’t moved them. This whole system is flawed. But it does make sense in a way. If I were a force trying to destroy or take over this base, the first thing I’d aim for is the hangar. Keeping the bomb storage here means that it’s hidden and safe from outside artillery. Under normal circumstances, the pneumatic tube system should be perfectly safe. But Hellman made a bad call buying all these unstable bombs. Either he was ignorant on the dangers of old conventional explosives, he was thinking with his wallet, or somebody convinced him it was a good idea. In any case, now he’s stuck with a major problem he’s trying to avoid paying for.
We exit out of the bomb storage and back into the Armory. Passing by aisles filled with guns. Most of it is pretty stock service rifles and machine guns, but some of the stuff is pretty weird. Pretty sure I just saw a DEW lever-action rifle. Now why they would make a lever-action directed energy weapon is beyond me. It doesn’t make sense on any level. We also passed by a shotgun that had what I can only describe as a steampunk boiler backpack attached to it. My first thought was it had to be some kind of flamethrower, but it has a pressure gauge on top of the tank and on the gun. I genuinely think that shotgun might be powered by steam. I could… *Maybe* see some practical uses for that??
Unless I’m analyzing that thing wrong, theoretically it could have been a viable alternative to the Shredders we’re about to get. It uses steam for a propellant, and the ammo probably would have been a Hell of a lot easier to make.
But you get hit once in that tank and you’ll be engulfed in a pressurized cloud of flesh rending molten hot steam.
Yeah – Anna made the right call.
But it is kind of fascinating to see the future recognize the potential of steam. Most people think of steam power as old, outdated, and underpowered. But in reality, steam is tremendously powerful – It’s just inconvenient. I know toward the final days of the steam automobile era, somebody actually made a steam powered car which could go 210kph (130mph). It apparently had tremendous torque due to all the power being driven directly into the rear wheels. Steam was already dead by the time that car came out. The hassle of having to light the pilot, and wait for the car to heat up is what killed it. But it definitely makes you wonder what could have been had the technology been given the time to be perfected.
I’m not an engineer, but that shotgun probably has way, way more power than it looks. Steam expands several thousand times when superheated. I bet that shotgun, with the right ammunition, will tear straight through armor plating… And your arms.
Ahhh – It must be for cyborgs and robots. Unless it has a limiter of some kind, the recoil on that thing must be insane. Not to mention the weight of the water. The only people who could use it safely would be augmented cyborgs or robots. Robots wouldn’t need to worry about their flesh melting off if that tank exploded afterall.
Eventually we hit aisle 20, and head straight for the Maelstroms. Anna apparently already knows where it is. She probably only asked to keep up appearances. She’s moving with purpose. She might be tiny compared to me, but boy she can walk fast.
Finally – There it is.
I look upon the displayed RIA Maelstrom, or “Shredder” and… It’s definitely a wierder one. Not as weird as the steam powered shotgun, not by a longshot – But it’s definitely an unorthodox looking weapon.
It’s made of brushed orange metal, much like Anna’s collar. It’s a one handed weapon with no shoulder stock, and a long, round, fat enormous barrel. It looks like a mix between a high-end cordless vacuum cleaner, and an antique grenadier hand motar. The bore of the barrel is so huge that if it shot actual bullets, it’d need small tank shells. It’s got to be at least a 60mm bore.
They use this thing for bodyguard duty!?
I cannot imagine this thing is accurate in any sense of the word. It has got to take the “Spray and Pray” approach, because there is absolutely no way this thing doesn’t have a tremendous spread. It really is a sci-fi blunderbuss, this is insane.
Anna crouches down and pulls out 4 cases, opening and inspecting each one. Each gun is neatly encased in a foam cutout, with empty slots for what I presume is meant for the ammo. Anna picks each one up with ease and looks them over with a discerning eye. Despite being a one handed weapon, they do not look light. Yet Anna can hold them with no sign of strain. Is she actually really strong? That supports my theory that therians might have some sort of standard strength augmentation. Because her arms are dainty compared to mine, yet I can totally envision the recoil on this thing flying my grip straight towards the ceiling.
“Everything looks good Master, here take these.” She says handing me two cases.
I swing my bag around my back, and take a case into each hand. Yup! They’re heavy!
It’s not an unbearable amount of weight. I’m guessing if you use the long fat barrel as a handgrip, the recoil is within an acceptable range. But the idea of duel wielding these things like Anna plans to is simply unfeasible for me. Anna must be way stronger than me. But if that’s the case – How strong is Rubrum??
“That should be everything Master, I think we’re good to go.” Anna says as she stands up, picking up both cases with ease.
“Anna – Has your strength been augmented?”
Anna gives a small nod, “Yes most therians here have received some small genetic modifications which makes us naturally stronger than most normal humans. Why? Are you struggling Master?” She asks, inquisitively tilting her head.
Having a girl who’s half my size asking me if I’m struggling to carry something might be one of the most emasculating moments of my life.
“No, no – You just make it look so easy.”
“My muscles are denser than yours, increasing our capacity for strength several times. Our metabolism also encourages maintaining a consistent level of strength, even without exercise. But my modifications are minor. With proper diet and exercise, you could definitely reach my level.” She says with an encouraging smile.
I think she knows I feel slightly emasculated right now. If that’s really the case, how beefed up can she get with proper diet and exercise? I look Anna up and down, and I’m just imagining her with chiseled abs and roided out biceps – Gross.
“But how are your muscles different from Rubrum’s?”
“Heh.”
Anna gives a small chuckle and looks away distantly in thought.
“Although we both have denser muscles, hers are in a tier of their own. Although on the outside she looks normal, internally she’s completely different from a normal person – Therian or otherwise.”
“…Different how?”
Anna’s stern eyes meet mine, “Well for starters, because of her hyper-dense muscles, she’s far heavier than she looks. This gives tremendous weight behind any of her blows. Not only that, but her muscles have a genetically coded in ‘organic hydraulic system’, which works off of a second heart. This heart can work independently of her primary circulatory system, or as an auxiliary heart in the event of primary heart failure. But this second heart’s main function is to operate the organic hydraulic system, which massively increases her speed and strength. She can even increase her own body temperature in selective areas to vaporize her own auxiliary arteries, further increasing her own power output for a limited time.”
That’s… That’s beyond anything I was envisioning.
She’s essentially a living killing machine. If I’m understanding Anna correctly, she’s exactly like that steampunk shotgun on the inside. She can utilize a second circulatory system to hydraulically enhance her own natural strength like a hydraulic press. Assuming her body can take the strain, through the principles of expansion and compression, she could potentially increase her own strength several hundred, maybe even several thousand times. If that’s not enough, she can swap from hydraulic power to pneumatic power by vaporizing her own auxiliary circulatory system.
The normal temperature for the human body is 37°C (98.6°F), and water turns to steam at 100°C (212°F). If she is able to vaporize her own auxiliary circulatory system, she’s essentially cooking herself from the inside out. I have to imagine this ability comes with significant risks, not even just from the heat, but the overwhelming increase in pressure. What are her veins made out of!?
Actually hold on, what does that second heart run on anyway? I haven’t the slightest idea on what the flash point for blood is, but blood is not made of just water. There’s also iron, fats, plasma, etc. If you vaporize your own blood, you’re going to be left with a lot of unatomized solids. These could coagulate into a conglomerate and cause artery blockages – Thus causing a heart attack. So does her second heart only pump water? Oil?
Water I could believe. Our bodies are mostly made of water and carbon. Though I have to wonder how her second heart manages to get oxygen transported to it then if it’s not pumping blood.
Speaking of carbon, her bones must be carbon reinforced or something to keep them from compressing into dust from the expansion alone.
The fact I’m talking about a living being right now is horrifying. The more I think about it, the more I’m realizing she’s an absolute abomination of nature.
Anna was right – Rubrum is a monster.
Waiting in the penthouse for an hour was the right call. I’d rather not encounter that *thing* on our way out.
Wait…
Anna said they spared no expense when making Ionna, so she *might* be on the same level as Rubrum…
She also said she might attack me when I try to override her CS…
…Ahh… She really might break my arm in two afterall…
Anna and I make our way through the armory, and into the front workshop. Clyde is digging through his desks, swearing quietly to himself.
“Fuck – I guess I’m out of smokes.”
Anna makes her way out of the front workshop and into the hall, while I stop short of the door. I set the case down and dig through my pocket, pulling out Tony’s pack of smokes.
“Here – Catch!”
I toss him the pack and Clyde catches them from his chair. He smiles, and pulls one out.
“Hey, thanks man, I was dying.“
He tries handing me them back, but I just hold up my hand.
“Keep them, they’re yours.”
“You sure man? These are them primo Red Dragon Palace smokes aren’t they? Don’t they cost like thirty dracan a pack?”
“All good man, just enjoy them.”
“Thanks bro!”
Please don’t thank me. It might not be a last meal, but it’s the least I can do.
I pick up the case and head out into the hallway where Anna is already waiting. She doesn’t say anything, instead opting to just stare vacantly at me.
Don’t look at me that way. Clyde might be a deadbeat, but he at least deserves a final smoke before he dies.
We head straight down the hall, around the soon to be flaming tree, and through the large steel doors on the other side.
All the while a cloud of guilt hangs heavily over my head.
