rule of three
Kat & Silk vs. Siren vs. Equus
Three names were called, but only two people stepped forward. Kat didn?t count Ssthsylkussen, he assumed most wouldn?t. It occurred to him that he had decided she was female entirely on the basis of her voice, minus the lisp. Apparently it was an affectation that ?tended to engender awe, or at least fear, in ages past?. Without the lisp her voice was quite feminine, sultry and, to be honest, simple.
The one who had answered to Siren, and was now standing beside him was by contrast unmistakably a woman. She was taller than he was (though that wasn?t saying much) and wore her rich brown hair cropped short. Kat wondered what it would look like long. Her profile was refined, her nose small, with high cheekbones. She wore a woolen trenchcoat, open at the front, with a couple telltale bulges describing weapons. Leather boots poked out underneath, practical things, but polished to a shine. As he watched, she turned, with a slight flick of her hair, and he could see a white business shirt over dark pants. He looked back up at her face, just in time to catch the ghost of a smile play across her lips. He got the distinct impression she had been sizing him up, too.
?Shall we?? she asked, and he nodded, walking towards the door. She leant over and picked up her sports bag, and the tension in the strap said it was heavy even if she did lift it easily. She strode over to the door, coat arrayed behind her, and smiled as he held it open for her.
?Watch it, kid, she?s trouble? his shadow murmured.
?Quiet, Ssthsyl- can I just call you Silk??
?Suit yourself. I?m telling you, though, capital T trouble.?
As they left, sound returned to the bar, chairs scraping, people taking up conversations where they had left off. Those without conversations gazed contemplatively at the door as it swung shut, except for Timmoth, who simply set down the glass he was wiping and picked up another.
***
A few minutes later, Equus exited the laptop he had quietly hijacked, having quickly searched up some pertinent details on the power plant: maps, plans, shift rosters and timetables. Some of them were quite sensitive information, and if he hadn?t been about to rob the place, he?d have sold them to profit a bit from his hacking time. As it was, he didn?t want anybody watching the facility?s computer systems any more than was usual. Map in hand, so to speak, he slid under the doorframe and infected one of the security drones there.
The other watched him speed away. It wasn?t programmed for curiosity, and, even if it had been, the drone could have just been following orders given over wireless.
The drone was a good-quality construction. At max speed he might even beat the other two there. Ah yes, the other two ? he perused the data again, calling it up into short-term memory. The Siren was well known, it seemed, having died in a fire she started that burned down rather a lot of people and property. That and she was a prominent figure in the global underworld. The kid had been harder to find, he was just a small-time cat-burglar for hire. Made his name kind of ironic though. Katherine? parents like that were enough to make Equus happy he had named himself.
***
The Siren?s laugh was deep and throaty, and she threw her head back, laughing with her whole body. It was infectious, and Kat found himself grinning like a loon. He hadn?t thought the joke was that funny, although it maybe if you thought of it from the sniper?s perspective?
Her smooth voice interrupted his thoughts ?you?re funny, kid, I?ll give you that.?
They chatted about the underworld again, the major players tip-toeing around each other, a magnificent heist in Russia. She was easy to talk to, and he found himself dredging up stories of his own exploits to tell. He was amazed at her familiarity with the big boys, multiple times he didn?t recognise who she was talking about until she caught his bemused expression and used their last name. Behind her, Silk had the arms of his shadow crossed, and was shaking its head. Kat ignored her, keeping his attention on the Siren, and her tale of the American embassy in France.
He held the door open for her without thinking when they reached the power station, and she smiled that small, scary smile again, setting her hand lightly on his arm to thank him before striding in.
?How did a nice young man like you end up in procurement?? she asked as they crossed the room.
?Oh, I?ve always been getting into places I shouldn?t. When I was in high school??
?Hey! You can?t go in there! You?ve gotta sign in first!? the receptionist interrupted him, and he blinked for a moment, only now taking in the room around him. It surprised him a bit. Usually he had scanned a room by the time his foot touched the floor. Then again, usually he didn?t have such good company.
It was a pretty typical reception: Carpet on half the floor, stone tile the rest. To one side there was a door with a glass window, presumably going into offices, but the pair were more interested in the big, industrial door with the electric keypad. The receptionist yelled again, but Siren ignored her, and Kat followed her lead.
?Can you get through that??
?Yeah. Gimme a moment.? He lifted the bottom of his gray hoodie to get at his hip pocket, pulled out a couple of leads, some pliers and a screwdriver. He was about to take off the case when the Siren put the heel of her big heavy boot through it. The plastic casing cracked and fell away in pieces.
?We don?t have time,? she said simply.
Of course, seeing this the receptionist pulled a taser. ?Hands in the - ? There was a boom boom boom as the siren fired three rounds in her general direction. The receptionist squeaked and hid behind her desk.
?You done yet?? the siren asked so innocently Kat had to smile, and with a wry grin he returned his work.
A moment later he had it open. The light turned green and there was a quick beee-bebeep. A click, and he pulled it out and around. It swung on well-oiled hinges, almost silent, and he gestured for Siren to precede him.
?Oh, what a nice boy, letting the lady go first into danger.? She said it with no trace of sarcasm, and Kat found himself smiling again.
Then she was through the door, and placing neat round holes in the three security cameras she saw, by means of loud sounds and speeding lead.
***
Equus watched as tree security feeds died. They were here; it was time to move. Once the station?s security had been attracted to the pair, he could sneak in and abscond with the cores. No sense in wasting a perfectly good distraction by walking in too soon. Plus, if they both died, he?d win by default, and that would be much easier.
And there was no point in relying on the security system to do the right thing. Sitting in the mainframe, Equus painted the hallway he had just lost sight of with lots of little red flags.
It?s just like playing warcraft, he thought.
***
They were halfway down the hallway when the drones arrived. There weren?t many, not yet, but at least there was variety, and they
were coming from both ends of the hallway. Siren shot down one on treads, one that hovered, and two that scuttled along on spiders? legs. She was concentrating on the ones with ranged weapons, Kat could tell. That was fine. He settled into Waltzing the Mulberry, a bodyguard?s stance, for protecting a single ally against all sides. He?d have to modify it to avoid her outstretched arm and line-of-sight, but that just made things interesting.
The first to get to him fell to Rising Sun, the next to the simple Hummingbird, and then two at once were cut in half by Scythe in the Grain.
All the while Siren kept moving forward, picking off the drones carrying guns, or tasers, or flame-throwers, gun in her right hand and bag in her left. She set it down for a moment to reload, but was quickly up and moving again.
Kat briefly wondered what was in the bag, but turned his mind back to the task at hand. Treetop Thief fell into Froghunting turned and became No Stilts, and Siren was unscathed.
?Silk, you said something about corporealing?
?Corporating?
?Yeah. Could you do that??
?Not here. There?s not enough room??
?You wouldn?t fit?? he asked incredulously.
?I?m not fat, if that?s what you?re thinking! I?m long.?
She fell silent, and Kat left it there. There was a tricky bit in Throwing the Towel that he always needed to concentrate on. Wait, what? He hadn?t even known the forms for a week, and had drawn the sword a grand total of thrice! How could he have favorites? Of course, he reminded himself, he had bigger questions, like ?how do I know this in the first place? and ?what isn?t Silk telling me?? And:
?How the hell are we going to deal with all of
those??
?Hmm? Oh, finished talking with your shadow? I don?t think we?ve met?
?Oh, uh, Silk, this is Siren. Siren, Silk. I?m gonna go deal with those, ok??
?Go ahead, dear, I can take care of myself.?
He rushed forward, blade held low, and tensed his muscles in preparation for Fox among the Hens, a blisteringly fast, complex stance, with eight separate forms, each of which flowed into two of the others. The idea was you made one attack at each enemy, and dodge their attacks so you can kill them quickly.
It helped that his sword was unnaturally sharp. In fact, he could swear it was changing, growing serrations, barely visible on its black carven surface.
Steadily moving down the hall, they left broken and torn pieces of metal in their wake, some skittering and flailing as if in the throes of agony.
***
Equus was unfazed. Security protocol had to be followed, otherwise he might be discovered. And security protocol said, ?stay calm?.
Hehheheheh.
Who was he kidding? The only one who could have shut him down was the guy in the security booth, a cyborg warrior-guard, with tasers in his fingers and guns in his arms, and superhuman strength and speed to boot. That wasn?t why he was (or rather, wasn?t) a threat to Equus, though. He could just flip a switch and cut power to the mainframe, and Equus would have to work with something smaller. On the other hand, the mainframe only seemed to have access to the drones. Guess it wasn?t often you got experienced fighters entering the facility. Time for a more? personal approach.
Equus exited the mainframe and made his way to the security booth, and after commandeering the cyborg, he picked up the ringing phone.
?Hey, jerry. There?s alarms going off like crazy and we?ve had no news. What?s going on??
Equus rifled through the Cyborg?s memories, searching for that voice.
?Oh, we got trouble Hank. Get your boys down to sector 3A, there?s a pair of well-trained trespassers making tinfoil of our drones.?
?Acknowledged?
Equus grinned with Hanks face. Time to grab the cores and go.
***
?Hang on, how do you know where to go?? Kat asked Siren in a brief lull. They had passed through the hallway and were now in what seemed like a laboratory, with experiments still in progress. There were large metal benches in three rows, with glassware and plastic tubing tangled together, all suspended like some sort of museum exhibit. And there were what looked like analysis devices around the walls, and a cage made of clear plastic, or maybe glass. There were scorches on the floor inside, as if it were for testing explosives. Strange practice, for a power plant. There were three doors into the room, including the one they had come through, and it looked like Kat would have to spend another couple of minutes opening the one in front of them. The room was deserted, though, presumably the sirens had warned people to evacuate.
?It?s really obvious. From outside you can tell this place is arranged around the centre, where the big cooling circuits are. And I?ve got an unparalleled sense of direction.?
?And modest, too.? Silk said under her breath, but it made sense to Kat.
He didn?t get a chance to say anything, though, because at that point the door to their right buckled and fell inwards and the cyborg unit burst through and began firing.
?Shit!? Kat yelled as he and Siren both dove for cover behind one of the heavy metal benches. Siren poke her head around the bench fired a few shots around it at the approaching? um? people?
?Hmmf.? She grunted as her bullets bounced off them. ?This isn?t working.? She managed to make it sound like a strategy game. Turn-based too, so she had all the time in the world. She unzipped her bag.
There were guns, yes, of a number of sizes, and ammunition in plenty, but Siren handed Kat a grenade. ?Know how to use this??
?Roughly?
?good enough? and she pulled out a combat rifle for herself. Well, Kat assumed it was a combat rifle. It was about the right size, but he couldn?t claim to even have a passing familiarity with guns.
?That?s better,? she said as she pummeled the leading cyborg, putting dents the size of apples in a line running up his steel-plated chest to his head, where the bullets simply removed his optical augments. ?They?re about ten meters away.? She added for Kat?s benefit.
?Right.? And he pulled the pin and threw it.
When the explosion came, with lots of breaking glass, Kat had picked out an escape route. ?Keep em busy?
?What?re you doing??
?Getting us a way out? sheathing his sword, he dove and rolled across to behind the explosives cage, trusting it to be up to resisting firearms. Scrambling up onto a bench, he drew and swung the sword in one motion, tearing a gash in the ventilation grille. Always with the air ducts in places like this. He spared a glance aside and watched through the cage as one of the cyborgs casually flipped a bench toward it. There was a crash of shattered glassware, but the cage held, bench propped up at a crazy angle.
Two more gashes and a section of the grille fell out on its own.
?Siren!?
?Coming!?
Good enough for him ? Kat scrambled up into the opening and turned to watch Siren leap gracefully up behind. ?Go,? she said curtly, and dropped something at the edge of the opening. Kat turned and scrambled on all fours, putting as much distance between himself and the opening as possible. Grenades weren?t all she?d had in that bag.
They?d just rounded the corner, the first few shots pinging off the metal behind them, when the boom came. The shockwave rushed down the shaft like a ravenous predator, pushing flame before it. Kat and Siren hugged the floor and let it wash over them. Kat felt his ears burn and his hair singe, but it wasn?t too bad. He was beginning to think that maybe he shouldn?t have gone unquestioning into this thing, but Siren poked him in the back and he started moving again.
***
and the rest, in dot-points:
 Equs tries to take over Kat, reasoning that at the time he was well positioned to backstab Siren. It didn?t even bother getting all its nanoparticles inside before attacking his motor fuctions, drawing the sword and raising it? but he fought it. No. this is not me. I will not do this. I am no killer. He chanted in his mind. Silk, cast onto the wall of the room, reached over and pulled a switch, and the cooling system roared to life, gargantuan fans quickly spinning up, directing a torrent of air at the walkway. Equs was faced with a choice: it couldn?t draw itself fully into him against the wind, but if it didn?t let go of his mind, it would be torn in two. Quickly, it analysed the memories contained in the external portion, even storing some in Kat?s short-term memory, in case staying should be its decision. As it did, it brushed a locked section, disloging something, but it had more important problems. It wasn?t. it had split once before, sending two of itself out into the world, but it had been much bigger, and had still had trouble recovering the mass. The decision made, it fled Kat?s body.
 Kat asks Silk, ?you turned on the fans?? and she replies, ?yes. It seemed a case of better the devil you know. Or in this case, the manipulable coward you know against the unknown airborne entity.? She carefullly made no mention of how she knew what was going on, and Kat didn?t ask. All to the good: the more secrets she could keep from him, the quicker he would die. [switch to Silk?s viewpoint]
 In the lull, kat wonders (out loud) at the memories left in his mind: he relates what he knows of the virus to siren, and then goes quiet, thinking about the new memories that aren?t his, but aren?t the virus?s.
 When they reach the cores, Siren pulls a pistol on Kat. ?you seem an honourable type, for a thief. Swear you won?t take the cores from me. Swear you won?t hurt me.? ?you really want to stay in this place, don?t you.? ?yeah. I wanna know what the grand prize is.? ?ok. I don?t think I?m really interested in this tournament.? except you want to find out what mr. King knows about the Fang, silk thinks. ?alright, then we have a deal. Didn?t you wonder though, what happened to the losers?? ?none of them ever came back.? An evil grin spread across siren?s face.
 Equs goes after, and successfully infects Siren. Kat goes into full-fledged action survivor mode, dodging behind things, diving, rolling, tells silk to "help me hide!" and she does her shroud thing. As he continues looking for a way out, Silk?s remarks quickly become more aggravated. She is angry at his incompetence. Eventually gets to the point that they are screaming at each other over the roar of gunfire: ?I am not?? ?a killer? or a coward?? ?neither.? ?prove it. Show me this courage you?ve been hiding. Show me what you?re made of. Surprise me!? ?Fine!? and he draws the sword.
 End result: siren lies bloody and bleeding on the ground, the virus has infected a drone and just taken the cores from Kat at gunpoint. It is about to kill him when the Siren shoots a core. Silk immediately corporates and grabs Kat before leaping off the platform into the water, as the core leaks hissing steam and the green lights along its side rapidly turn red. Boom.
 Kat wakes up in the bar, and Silk is back to being his shadow. she answers his questions, and thanks the depths for the ones he didn't ask. like "why?"
