A Bug in the System | Part I
collab with @RawkIt took some time for "Specialist Irons" to get her bearings, and when she did she turned the blowtorch off and tossed it away. What the hell was she doing, anyway? This is not what she came here for! This here was the last of humanity, the final representation of what was and will be. And despite her hatred towards this specific plan and whoever was in charge of it, there were no other options left. It was time to make oneself useful, and obviously Engineering would not do.
The woman turned at the general direction of the loudest screaming in the power core bay, in search of her commanding officer, in time to see Rorq briefing two security guards and very obviously gesturing at her. She braced herself - she was never good at lying and the only reason she wasn't in the brig so far was because of the team's complete trust in their AI, whom she managed to avoid, and the security being busy with civilians. But all of this will end now.
Almost poetically, at that exact moment her sight went black from the EMP, and she managed to get a strange reading from her accelerometers before her head collided heavily against the pipe she was fixing.
The cyborg came to her senses a moment after the admiral's announcement, missing it entirely. And while her software was rebooting and recalibrating, she switched its priorities to allow her to stand up, toss away the cracked hazmat helmet, and take off the torn suit. What appeared in front of the security guards was a person so heavily augmented her humanity may have not survived the appropriate math, armored from head to toe in some sort of interlocking bodysuit. She blinked her black eyes at them just as a sharp red light came to life in each.
"Y-you." The 'long metal pipe effect' of her voice was even more noticeable now.
"Take me to your leader"The two Agents headed toward the woman who Lt Rorq had filed a complaint against, and no sooner had they reached her, that both men presented their sidearm at the ready, loaded with non-lethal stun rounds that have the capacity to bring down even the largest of men, or otherwise...
“Down on your knees; hands behind your head, now!” The one patrolman demanded, not sure what to think of the two red-eyes staring back at him. “Noah, we need an ID scan please, send information to HUD
G-Lowery and
A-Scott, also copy
SecCom.” Both Agents helmet screens lit up with scrolling information, and a moment later, NO4H’s response in their earpieces.
“The record of one ‘Mai Irons’ has undergone severe editing, using rather archaic Nagasaki Conglomerate tools. A cross reference with existing personnel database selection algorithms sets the entire file as forgery.”
“Hm. Re-run the scan just to be sure.”
“Your request was run twice, Agent Lowery, and records have yielded the same results.”
“Shit” The Agent muttered before turning to his partner. “We’ve gotta call it in.”
The cyborg’s proverbial ears perked at those words.
“Yes. That’s perfect.” She slowly raised her hands. Her HUD was going nuts at the pistols in the guards’ hands in conjunction with their stance. From this range, she could probably make the blood from the left one’s neck splash into the eyes of the right, and busying her assault assistance algorithms with these calculations was all she could do to avoid leaping at the two.
The real challenge was deciding whether these guys were the ‘not my problem’ type, since the right kind of pressure would make them kick this encounter up the ranks. Considering what the guard said, she decided to risk it.
“You might want to put those guns away.” She said, a little louder.
“Fire one of those in here, and you might just get lucky enough to blow up the entire ship.” This warning had the exact required effect - half of Engineering were now staring at the guards, watching their next move.
“We’re not looking to escalate this any further, so I need to ask you -again- to get down on your knees and keep your hands behind your head.”
Agent Lowery turned to his partner, signaling to keep an eye on the perpetrator, while he contacted
Security Command. The exchange between the Agent and SecCom was brief, essentially being instructed to escort the woman via transit system to “Central cell block A”, which was the adjacent building nearest to the Security Centre in the Hub. And considering she was the Ark’s first prisoner and a potential stowaway, keeping her close for questioning was the viable option.
“Look,” the woman was slowly becoming confused. Did they really want to turn this into a hostage situation?
“You’ve got this all wrong. I am not surrendering, but I will come with you for debriefing, preferably with your commanding officer, and otherwise cooperate. But none of that ‘get on your knees’ crap.” She gestured around them at the engineering team and the sensitive devices scattered around the power core hangar.
“Look around you. To put it lightly, this place is not the best place to have this sort of exchange, yes? And the only reason you’re not neutralized right now is because it’s complicated for me to avoid casualties or collateral damage. You should seriously put your guns down. This is the last time I ask politely.”Despite all of this, the cyborg did not step forward. She could clearly see the guards’ fingers twitching on their triggers, and the moment she’d move towards them was the exact moment collateral damage would become unavoidable. Her voice was calm when she spoke, to lure them into a feeling of safety that would allow them to parlay instead of making decisions with their guns. It was all up to their training now.
That is, if they were the only factor in the equation.
A loud bang broke the standoff. A young engineer, with a healthy combination of bravery and stupidity, decided it was a good idea to try and defuse the situation by hitting the cyborg over the head with a heavy pipe. The pipe flew from his hands by the resulting backlash, and he stumbled back as her head turned towards him with dramatic slowness.
“What are you doing?! You’re in their line of fire!” She hissed at him, ignoring the guards for a moment.
Both guards shot each other a puzzled glance as the usual scene unfolded, and the lead officer, Lowery, decided it was in everyone’s best interest to clear Engineering. Signalling to his partner, Agent Scotts, to start moving out all personnel in the area, Lowery then added a query for Noah to do a full bio scan of the perpetrator, giving any visual intel that would be helpful in dealing with the situation.
“SecCom - Lowery, immediate backup requested in Engineering, Sector B...standby for further info...”
The Agent skimmed through the scrolling scanner readout on his visor HUD as Noah continued feeding him what details could be ascertained about the strange female, relaying what he could to Security Command and Dispatch.
“Sending diagnostic scan of perp now; appears to be somewhat human but severely augmented and encased in some type of exoskeletal bodysuit. Currently unarmed, but resisting arrest. Agent Scotts is clearing area,
over.”
“Acknowledged, backup is en route, ETA five minutes.”
“Agent Lowery.” Noah’s voice immediately followed in the officer’s headset. “My calculations of the subject’s outer suit shows a high probability that it will be greatly resistant to any lethal or nonlethal standard issue ammunition.”
Meanwhile Officer Scotts was busily ushering out all personnel from the immediate area, relieved as well that backup was on it’s way momentarily, and hoping that the situation doesn’t snowball into anything more drastic.
