The V.I.C.I. Diaries: Valley of the Damned (Part 12)

[DukeNukem 2417]

“WHY DID YOU DRAG ME OUT OF THERE?!”

Vicki's angry shout sent an uncomfortably-familiar chill---the “real or imaginary” question was, at this point, totally irrelevant---down Elena Vlatko's spine. “The Man in Grey told me he could handle himself,” she replied, her voice still calm despite the fact that seeing the brunette gynoid this mad was nothing short of terrifying. “If we had stayed---”

“If I had stayed,” Vicki spat, “I could've....I might've been able...” She stopped, shaking her head. “Something's wrong. I...Elena, what did he do to me?!”

The Russian gynoid looked confused; “All the Man in Grey did was use a low-level EMP to freeze you in place,” she admitted. “He said the effects were temporary---it should have worn off by this point.” She made her way to the apparently stricken Field Agent. “Agent Lawson, are you okay? Is everything---”

Without warning, Vicki went completely deaf.
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“What....Elena, I can't---I can't hear you! What the hell?!” She clutched at her ears, stomped the floor, slapped herself on the thigh---anything to get a response from her auditory sensors. “I can't hear....why can't I hear anything?!”

“Good question....allow me to answer it.”

Something struck the brunette gynoid in the back of the head, sending her pitching forward.
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To Elena, it looked as if Vicki had tripped over something---except she hadn't. “Vicki, what's wrong?!”

“GET---GET AWAY FROM ME!” Vicki swung her left arm wide, as if trying to bat an invisible insect out of the air. “GET THE HELL---” Her right leg shot out from under her for no apparent reason, sending her face-first to the ground. “YOU'RE NOT REAL!” she shrieked. “YOU'RE CHAINED TO A HOSPITAL BED! HOW---” Her head snapped back, as if someone was punching her.

In that instant, Elena realized exactly what was going on....
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“Still don't think I can hurt you?” the now-staticky---yet still-familiar---voice of Faceless taunted. “Still think I'm just a bad dream?!” The heel of his shoe---heavily-pixelated and appearing to be halfway-glitched out with VHS-style tracking errors---slammed into the side of Vicki's face. “I am SO VERY REAL, 'Agent Lawson,” he taunted. “Real enough to finish what I started!”

“You.....won't,” Vicki muttered, only to get another kick to the side.

Even as she tried to stand, the brunette gynoid could see the figure of Faceless---parts of him fading into static or corrupted pixels---walking briskly towards her. “This isn't a game to me anymore,” he hissed. “This is no longer about humiliating you.......this only ends with me breaking you.” A stabbing pain tore through her gut, and for the briefest moment, Vicki felt the blade in her stomach again---as real as it had been on July 9. “I'm going to enjoy this, Vicki Lawson,” Faceless crooned. “Every single delicious, torturous minute of it....” He drew his fist back again, leading the gynoid to expect another punch to the face---only to feel her back panel buckle instead.

“You're in my world now, 'Agent Lawson',” the Butcher of Lake Gilmour sneered. “The only way out is to die.”
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“Just hang in there, Vicki,” Elena pleaded, removing cables from the opened panels on her arms and hooking them into the gynoid Field Agent's opened back panel as fast as possible. She knew that unless she did something rather drastic in the next few minutes, there was a good chance Vicki would be killed.

“Stay strong for me, Vicki,” Elena whispered. “Stay strong for both of us...”
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“You're.....not.....real,” Vicki murmured, crawling on her hands and knees to get away from the masked, black-clad killer. “You're just...data.....just a trick---”

A blade stabbed through her left hand, sending a surge of pain through her entire figure.

“Was that 'just a trick' too, Vicki?” Faceless taunted. “Is this whole thing just a dream?! Or is that what you're telling yourself...to make your broken mind believe it?!” He stomped on Vicki's already wounded hand.

Even as she tried to shield herself from this baddest of bad dreams, Vicki couldn't help but shriek in pain.
------------------------------
“This is impossible,” Elena muttered, staring at the rapidly-scrolling readout of sensory input from the mini-LCD screen built into Vicki's back panel. “Something's taken full control of her BIOS---she can't see, hear, or even feel anything that this program doesn't want her to!”

Her attention turned to Vicki herself, who was now seated near a wall---yet still occasionally twitching as if being pummelled by her unseen (and nonexistant) attacker. “Even the Coalition was never this cruel,” she muttered under her breath. “Falken, maybe...but not the Coalition as a whole....” Her thoughts briefly turned to the ALPA before Clive DuBraul and Oberon had taken control; in their own self-professed “dark ages”, even the group known now as a shining beacon of hope for the android/gynoid community had engaged in...sketchy behavior, most of which would land them in the unemployment line these days....but even they had never done something as heinous as this.

That thought by itself brought forth a rather crushing realization.....“I can't help her,” Elena murmured. “There's nothing I can do---”

“Not by yourself, at least.”

A notification in appeared in Elena's field of vision---someone was contacting her via her private (and internal) WiFi! “Who is this?!” she gasped, more shocked than pissed. “How did you---”

“There's no time to explain it right now,” the voice---young (probably early 20s), female, more than likely from further down Silicon Valley than Vicki herself---replied. “Every second is vital to Vicki's survival, so you're going to have to trust everything you hear from me....and before you ask, all you need to know about me is that I'm someone who wants to see Vicki Lawson do what she does best: beat the scrap out of the baddies.”

Something about the voice---a hint of familiarity with Vicki, perhaps?---intrigued Elena. “Tell me how I can save her, then.”

“Open Vicki's internal BIOS control panel and look for any programs started in the last seven minutes.”

All of five seconds passed before Elena found herself at the appropriate menu. “Now what?”

“Select whichever program was most recently opened.”

Elena's finger tapped at the air–-a force of habit, more than anything, since she didn't have a physical mouse to use. “I've selected it.”

“Okay, this part is going to require exact timing...there should be a vertical line of fifteen SD cards plugged into Vicki's back panel, about three inches to the left of the LCD screen. Can you see all fifteen of the cards?”

“I can.”

“Good. Also, you're going to have to open a panel of your own for this next bit...”

Despite her unease at following a disembodied voice's orders, Elena did so. “It's open.”

“If you've got any spare SD cards on you, prepare to slot them into Ports 5, 2 and 8. After that, just sit back and don't close any of your running processes...."
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“I know this must be very painful,” Faceless sneered, just as he planted another savage kick into the side of Vicki's head, “but don't think of it as defeat---think of it as your eternal epitaph.” He punctuated the taunt with another kick---this one, right to Vicki's midsection. “You thought you finished me, in July?!” he laughed. “You thought I was beaten, did you?!” He stomped on her arm, cackling at the sound of metal bending beneath his heel.

“You're not real,” the brunette gynoid whimpered. “You're....not.....”

Her vision exploded into a white-hot flash of agony.

“How many times must I say it?!” Faceless growled, drawing back his fist. “I AM REAL, Victoria Ann-Smith Lawson.....real enough to finally finish breaking you!” He planted his foot on Vicki's sternum; “You deserve every bit of this, Vicki,” he spat. “You will be broken when I'm finished....” He clasped his fists together over his head.

“You're....not......real-----”

Another white hot flash seared itself into Vicki's mind, as her entire body roared with pain.
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“....and all three of these processes can save Vicki from whatever it is that's killing her?”

Elena hated herself for even thinking that the Field Agent was being killed by this unseen foe, but no other word could come close to describing what was happening. “Seeing how the processes I just sent you were developed at the Stepford base for circumstances like this,” the female voice replied, “I don't think they'll let her down. Oh, and I should probably mention that the reps from Stepford are, indeed, on their way---they've just landed at Onizuka AFS, and they're on route now.”

“And you're helping her while they help her friends?”

“I've already done some thing to help her, actually. Those two who fell through the ceiling a ways back?”

The Russian gynoid's eyes went wide. “You rescued them?!”

“To be honest, I was hoping not to advertise,” the female voice admitted, “but....yeah. That was me. I've been getting memos telling me to change my default skin and hair color, but for the record, I happen to like the 'silver robot girl' look, and as for the hair....eh, well, it's an acquired taste. Anyways...back to the topic at hand.”

“Agreed. How will these processes save Vicki....Agent Lawson from this torment she is in?”

The voice sighed. “To be honest, this 'torment' was put in her back in July---and the prick who put it in her was able to make a few new friends before he showed up in San Jose. Turns out one of the workers at the ALPA-sanctioned facility where he's being held had acute financial dysfunction, and decided to cure it by getting in bed with some not-so-savory characters, specifically a redhead and a brunette. From what we can tell, they gave him the tools to install....something in Faceless that turned him into a human router---and the surgeons have been trying to dig it out of him ever since.”

“But why would---”

“The why isn't important right now. What's important is that we stop this Faceless virus---for lack of a better term---from completely and utterly ruining Vicki.”

Even though she had no idea how to completely eradicate the “Faceless virus”, Elena nodded.

“Glad we're on the same page. Now, when I give the word, remove the SD cards from Vicki's back panel in the EXACT ORDER I give them....”
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All thoughts of not cowering, “being brave” and taking a stand against her hated opponent faded swiftly from Vicki's mind as Faceless---or whatever the hell this thing was---continued to kick her around the room like so much garbage. “Still think this isn't really happening, Vicki?!” the apparition taunted, planting a savage kick in her back. “Do you still think I'm a nightmare?!”

The brunette gynoid heard herself cry “I don't know!” as if she'd just shouted the words in a tunnel.

“Pathetic...I expected more from you, Vicki.” Faceless swung his arm wide, allowing a three-foot blade to emerge from his sleeve. “Reality ends when your vital functions cease....at least, if The Matrix was, indeed, correct. Let's test that therory ourselves, shall we?” He raised the blade, preparing to decapitate Vicki----

“I have a better idea: Let her go.”

In that instant, every ounce of bravado vanished from Faceless' demeanor. “NO,” he thundered. “Not you...not here....not now!”

“Wrong, wrong and wrong,” the voice called out. “I hate to break it to you, Billy Boy, but---”

“DO NOT CALL ME 'BILLY BOY', DAMNIT!” Faceless turned to glare at the unseen figure (unseen, at least, by Vicki); “I killed you once before, pathetic bitch,” he growled, “and I will rip you apart again---”

A feminine yawn cut into the threat. “That the best you've got, CrazyMask?”

“I'LL MAKE YOU EAT YOUR OWN TONGUE!” Faceless screamed. “YOU WILL NOT SAVE VICKI LAWSON FROM---”

“From what? A pathetic showboating creep like you? I think that won't be a problem....oh, and you didn't kill me the last time we met, CrazyMask......you did me a favor.” A purplish glow on the far side of the room gave Vicki just enough light to see a feminine form; “And now I'm going to do Vicki a favor,” the voice emanating from the light continued, “and give her everything she needs to beat you.” Before the Butcher of Lake Gilmour could even think to react, the light shot across the room and swirled around Vicki.....

“Just trust me on this,” the voice whispered in her ears. “No matter what he says, none of this is real---he's just taken over your perceptual filters and effectively rerouted control of all five senses so that you see him, hear every stupid word coming out of his mouth and feel every attack....be glad he didn't go for taste and smell.”

“But.....how....how do you know---”

A female face---kind, smiling and looking a lot like someone Vicki remembered reading about in the news back in 1999---formed out of the light swirling around her. “I know because I've fought the prick before,” the face admitted, “and he did, in fact, 'kill' me.....once. After that....he never got the chance to again. Anyways, that was the ancient past---and this is the present. Well, it's a present, from me to you.” The face winked. “A little something to help you even the odds against Psycho McCrazyMask.”

Even as the question formed on her lips, Vicki found that she didn't have to ask what the “present” was: the light was forming armor (in purple and pink---interesting color choice...) around her, and a spear of crackling, purplish lightning turned into an ornate broadsword in her hand, its blade engulfed in silver fire.

“Now, then.....kick his ass, Vicki Lawson.” The face winked again and vanished, leaving Vicki clad in her newly acquired armor----and standing before a thoroughly-pissed off Faceless. “And don't worry,” the voice added, “even if he can't see me, I can still help you.”

Seven seconds---of silent, seething rage, on Faceless' part at least---passed.

“You.....cheated,” the masked killer finally growled. “You got help.....from her----”

“Hate to break it to you,” Vicki muttered---or intended to mutter, at least; the words came out as more of a declaration (guess virtual damage heals faster than real damage, she realized, especially with talking purple light helping me....and I have a feeling I'm never going to have a thought process quite that unique ever again)---“but it's just the two of us in here right now...and in a few seconds, it'll be just one of us.” She hefted the broadsword; “So, ready to take on a target who can actually fight back?” she taunted.

Faceless' only reply was to charge ahead, swinging his sword-length blade at the brunette gynoid–-

---which ended up getting him nowhere, especially after Vicki chopped the blade off at his wrist.

“That's the way to do it!” the voice cheered. “Now chase him around a little bit, just for–-”

A black-gloved fist shot past Vicki's head, narrowly brushing her ear. “Of course you had to get help,” the Butcher of Lake Gilmour sneered. “You never could beat me by yourself...”

“You're forgetting July already?” the brunette gynoid inquired. “I didn't have any help then---”

“YOU HAD THE ELEVEN!” Faceless roared, lunging forward with a stab that came nowhere near any of Vicki's vital areas---she'd dodged to the left and bashed him in the head with the butt of the broadsword. “You had Ted---”

The sickening crunch of bone breaking---followed by Faceless' left foot splintering into pixels---cut him off.

“You don't get to say his name,” Vicki intoned. “You don't even get to think it....not here, and not ever again.”

“Nice touch,” the voice murmured in her ear. “Just don't get all 'For my family!' and slicing him to ribbons, or anything---you're trying to prove you're above him, not on his level.”

Before she could reply to the unseen speaker, Vicki cut a backflip just in time to avoid being skewered by a massive blade rising out of the floor. “Who's cheating now?!” she called out, realizing her words had synced up with the voice she'd just heard. “Wait, where's that coming from?!” She glanced to her left, seeing nothing, and to her right---where she found the same glowing purple figure she'd seen across the room earlier standing by, focused on Faceless. “Figured I'd give you just a bit more of a boost,” the figure explained, in the same voice Vicki had been hearing since the purple light had first appeared. “Seeing as how he is hacking away at every firewall in here while we're just standing around talking...”

“He's what?!”

“Relax, Vicki,” the light-girl beamed (Tell would be having a field day with that one...), “he can't actually hurt you or anything. Case in point---all those attacks he landed earlier? Notice how you're not aching all over anymore?”

A quick once-over proved that Vicki was, in fact, feeling perfectly fine. “Point taken.”

“Good. Now, then....time get Psycho McCrazy Mask out of your system for good.” The light-girl dissipated into a mist of sorts, though Vicki could still see perfectly---as for Faceless, the mist was apparenty a blinding fog that kept him from seeing anything. “Seeing as how I know he won't play fair,” the girl's voice informed a thoroughly-confused Vicki, “I thought I'd level the playing field a bit and let you take a few free shots at him while your system finishes clearing him out.”

“That makes sense....but I'm still wondering---”

“Fight now, wonder later. We'll discuss the hows and whys after this idiot's been flushed from your system.”

Despite her annoyance at having to wait, Vicki found the arrangement more than fair. “Sounds good to me.”

Faceless' blind lunge met only air as the brunette gynoid sidestepped, turning on her heel to plant a kick in his side. “Since you're so obsessed with the reality of this situation,” she mused, “tell me this: How real did that feel for you?”

Whatever threat the figure of Faceless felt like making was lost to a burst of static.

“The only reason I was ever scared of you was because I thought you were more than just some whack job in a mask,” Vicki continued, “but now I see you for what you really are. You're not just faceless...you're hopeless, because you're so far past the point where anyone could've saved you. And the really sad thing is, you were never a decent person to begin with---and I know this because I've read up on you. You're not like Gacy, or Bundy, or Dahmer---hell, you're not even like Myers. You kill because you find it amusing, because you think it's funny when they squirm...” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “....except I'm not squirming now, and I never will again.”

By this point, the ghostlike image of the Butcher of Lake Gilmour was fading in and out of existance. “You can't....beat me.....you never did....”

“I don't want to beat you this time,” Vicki replied. “Now...I only want you gone.”

Even with his extremities fading, Faceless managed a snarl. “I won't stay gone---you know that!”

“Actually....yeah, you will stay gone.” The words left Vicki's mouth just as the purplish mist surrounding the masked murderer solidified into glass-like shards. “You're just bad memories, corrupted data and a nightmare I should've deleted a long time ago....and even if the real Faceless manages to recover from getting his own blades driven into his back.....” Vicki's taunt was cut off by a scream as the image of Faceless charged, arms extended to skewer her.

“I'm not afraid of him,” she finished, just as the blades were about to pierce her, “and I'm not afraid of you!”

In a blinding, roaring instant, Faceless dissolved into blocky bits of pixels and static, which in turn faded away into nonexistance. His scream seemed to hang in the air for a moment or two, stuttering like a damaged CD before finally trailing off into something that sounded disturbingly close to a pained moan.

“And that,” the light-girl's voice declared, “is how you do that.” She materialized a few feet away from Vicki a second later, grinning; “Looks like you terminated the last few files he tried to corrupt,” she informed the brunette gynoid. “Just so you know, all the files he messed with were old driver files from your previous hardware configuration---in plain English, from your old body....and that stupid thing someone tried to hook up to his brain has been extracted without incident, so that's not a problem either.”

“I sincerely hope it isn't,” Vicki murmured, noticing that the air now felt a lot heavier, for some reason. “I feel...” She took a step forward, realizing that something was....off. “Why is the room stretching?” she asked, her own voice sounding distant. “I....I thought....” A purple hand---which slowly faded into a silver hand---grasped her shoulder. “Your systems are repairing the residual damages from Faceless' WiFi attack; give 'em a minute...”

Despite the fact that she felt impossibly tired, Vicki nodded. “That makes sense...”

“As much as I'd love to agree with you there,” the light-girl mused (while apparently not bothered with the fact that her arms were now silver), “I have to get going---but It's been epic working with you.” Creeping tendrils of silver began to flow around her face; “And for the record,” she added, “I'd love to work with you again.”

“But I don't even know....” Vicki sank to a sitting position. “Who are you?” she murmured.

“You'll know soon,” the silver/light girl promised. “Trust me on that.”

Slowly, the room around Vicki faded to white.....
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….and seconds later, faded back in---with Elena staring into Vicki's eyes from three inches away. “Agent Lawson, are you okay? Can you hear me?!”

“I'm....fine,” Vicki muttered, waving the Russian gynoid away. “I just....give me a minute...” She rose to her feet, glancing around. “Well, I think I can safely say that Faceless is finally---and I do mean 'finally---out of my system,” she declared, checking her system's secure memory logs to make sure. “All compromised files are gone....and someone opened my back panel while I was out.” She arched an eyebrow at Elena. “Care to elaborate on that?”

Elena sighed theatrically. “I had to slot in some SD cards to run the programs that purged Faceless' virus from you---and I'll admit right now that I had more than a bit of help....” She paused. “You're not angry at me, are you?”

“If I was angry at you for saving me from the nonexistant attack of someone who tried to turn himself into a human router,” the brunette gynoid replied, “I wouldn't be here right now....though I'd love to know who it was that helped you---” She stopped, the realization hitting her just as she said the words. “That girl, the one made of light.....she started turning silver right before I rebooted....” She stared at Elena, her eyes wide; “You got help from the girl who saved Aaron?!” she gasped.

Before Elena replied, she eased Vicki into one of the only chairs that hadn't been obliterated by falling ceiling debris. “The girl didn't give me a name,” she admittede, “but she did say that she was the one who'd saved your friend....” Her smile faded. “Also, you said quite a lot---screamed quite a lot, to be accurate---during the attack....you were screaming about someone named Sharon, begging her not to die. You also mentioned a boy.....'Jamie', I believe.....” She stopped, noticing the brunette gynoid's gaze now thoroughly affixed to the floor. “Were they close to you?” she murmured. “Sharon and Jamie, I mean---”

“Jamie still is.” Vicki was surprised at the calmness of her voice, especially given the fact that she didn't remember screaming anything other than “you're not real” at the phantom of Faceless. “He's my brother---my human brother, obviously my only brother---and Faceless....nearly killed him earlier this year. Carved his face up like a turkey, and....” She wiped a tear away from her eye. “Sharon Wilson was my roommate at San Jose State University,” she continued, “and she had no idea what I really was, or that the ALPA existed. She was my best friend, too.....and then Matthew Hannsen broke into our dorm while I was out, tracking him, and...” Her shoulders heaved. “He.....took her. Right out of the dorm---right out of the state---dragged her all the way to Greece, and then tried to make me choose.....” The memory of Singapore rose up in her mind, and she tried to push it back....

….but in the end, she had no choice but to let it consume her one final time: “....and then he killed her, right in front of me. Stuck a Colt Python against her head, pulled the trigger....”

Through her tears, Vicki felt the Russian gynoid embrace her, whispering in Russian....then again in English: “I share your pain, Agent Lawson....we no longer endure this alone....” Slowly, Elena pulled back, staring into the brunette gynoid's eyes; “Boris felt we were cursed, many times,” she explained. “My parents---the parents of my namesake---were rendered non-existant due to their political views.....Boris lost his sister when we fled the country.....and then they came for Vladimir. Boris hid me---he did not want to lose me to a random glitch, or an accident---but he could do nothing to save Vladimir. If he had even tried....”

“I get it,” Vicki murmured.

The two sat in silence for a few minutes, calming themselves after Vicki's near-death.

“So....what now?” Elena finally asked. “Faceless has been purged from your systems, and we know that Aaron Cardwell is alive.....do we still make our way to Professor Malvineous, or should we do....something else for the time being?”

“Isn't it obvious?” Vicki grinned. “We fight our way to the Professor.”

Elena found the reply more than a bit strange. “There are no enemies to fight through, Agent Lawson...at least, none at the moment. The fembots seem to be retreating---”

“Hold that thought.” Vicki held a hand to her ear; “More fembots are entering the building,” she informed the Russian gynoid. “A lot more. I think we may need to get to Anton a lot faster than we thought we'd have to---no offense to him, or anything, but he's a lot better as a thinker than he is as a fighter.....and why are you looking at me like I just let a fart?” Vicki's rather bizarre analogy was met with a chuckle from Elena. “You've forgotten already, haven't you?”

“Forgotten....what, exactly----”

A vivid, almost overpowering memory from the previous year seemed to rise up from the ether.....
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“Is it just me, or does this Professor guy look like the new lead singer from Styx?”

Vicki Lawson barely heard her roommate’s observation; she was too busy reading up on the San Jose Retro Toy Fair. “Hmm?” she inquired.

“This Professor Anton Mal….something or other. See?”

Vicki’s view of the SJRTF article was suddenly blocked by a picture of a 50-something man in a dress shirt and pants, an unruly mane of hair crowning his head. “Ah, Sharon,” the brunette gynoid stated with a frown, “I’m trying to read an article here…”

“You’re missing the resemblance, though!” Sharon Wilson insisted. “Look---that’s a picture of the Professor, and….” She fished around in her backpack for a photo of Styx vocalist Lawrence Gowan. “This is the lead singer of Styx. See? They look almost like twins!”

Vicki sighed and studied the photos, surprised to find that Lawrence Gowan and Prof. Anton Malvineous did, indeed, look like long-lost twin brothers. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” she replied, “though I’m a bit curious as to why you’re so freaked out at this; a roboticist who looks like a Canadian prog-rock singer isn’t exactly headline-making material…”

“The Professor will be here next week for a lecture,” Sharon stated, “and supposedly, he’s also going to be interviewing students for an internship position!”

“And you’re telling me this….why?” Vicki asked, slowly becoming annoyed.

“Well,” Sharon replied, her grin fading a bit, “it’s just that….your dad does stuff with robots, and all….he owns a robotics company…..and I thought you might..I dunno…want to learn a bit more about the field….” Vicki’s annoyed scowl turned to a smile. “Since you put it that way,” she replied, “tell me a bit more about this Anton Malvineous guy…”
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“.....I remember now,” Vicki realized. “I ran a quick search through what I'd heard about Anton from Dad after Sharon mentioned him---and I remembered he was with the Great Dirty World Wide Web!” The mention of the long-dead hacking collective prompted another raised eyebrow; “You think he'll use what he, ah, learned from there to take out the fembots?” she inquired.

Elena nodded proudly. “If ever there was a time for him to revisit those days, now would be it.”

“That makes sense,” the brunette gynoid reasoned. “It's a lot better than him trying to pick up a rifle and go all Rambo on them, or anything....” The mental image of Anton with an M-60 almost triggered a giggle-fit, which was thankfully contained.

“And I take it our business here is finished, then?”

“Well, Elena, that depends on if we have to double back or not---but for now, it is.” Vicki surveyed the room one last time. “No fembots waiting to bust out of the walls, no Aaberg-employed idiots with riot guns running in to perforate us....we're in the clear.” She grinned. “And thanks for saving me from Faceless' virus, by the way.”

Her remark earned her a smile. “Anything for a friend....Vicki.”

“So we're officially friends now?” the brunette gynoid beamed. “Even though you're, like, five years older than me....and I can't believe I just said 'like'---I sounded like a total Valley Girl!” She lapsed into a giggle fit at the thought. “Anyways...let's save the banter for later and get to Anton before something stupid happens---just let me check to see if Anton's still waiting for us.” She tapped her ear (out of reflex---her uplink to the building's communications systems was an automatic process) and waited; “Anton, Elena and I are on our way. Do you need any help?”

A staticky---but otherwise normal---voice sounded in her ears: “Other than the fact that someone just opened the fountain outside, everything's okay here.”

V.I.C.I rolled her eyes; I guess Reaver wasn't kidding when he said there was a way in under there...

“There is the small matter of a group of fembots entering through the main lobby a few minutes ago, but since the entire ground floor has been cleared out, there weren't any casualties---”

“So they're just hanging out on the first floor?”

“More like they're waiting for a confrontation. Someone staged a pretty effective diversion earlier---one of the secretaries screamed, the fembots headed towards the sound, and all the security shutters were pulled down before they could change course. Long story short: they're trapped, waiting for anyone who shows up to fight them.”

“Except they've been destroying everything at random before now. Why would they---”

“Oberon mentioned something about a binary algorithm hiding in them, one that would only trigger when they were within range of the fembots already in the building.”

“So Hannsen didn't want them to just go on a rampage...” V.I.C.I considered her options carefully; “How many of the fembots deployed here are still active?” she inquired.

“None of them right now, though we've got at least two or three of them in containment.”

“Good call. Send me your current coordinates and wait for Elena and I to arrive---I have an idea.”

“Looking forward to hearing it, Vicki.”

The call ended with Vicki blinking a few times (again, out of reflex; her HUD sorted itself automatically as soon as the conversation ceased). “Well, looks like we just got a massive hint as to where we should go next,” she informed Elena. “Anton's got a fembot in containment, and the fembots that are stuck on the ground floor are using half of a binary algorithm---the ones we've already beaten have the other half.”

“And that means.....what, exactly?” the Russian gynoid asked, more than a bit confused.

“It means we have a pretty good chance of beating them now,” Vicki replied. “Unless something really, really stupid happens between now and us getting to Anton, it should be smooth sailing---and I know that particular euphamism doesn't fit this situation exactly, but it's the best one I've got for this occasion. Now, if we're all done with our grammatical discussion....”

She grinned. “Feel like helping me save Silicon Valley?”
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[DollSpace]

Breathless chapter, really...it was...well, let's say I could certainly relate to a lot of that...and it's an amazing chapter. Again, I'm not to keen on your storyline, but...definitely well written and enjoyable, very enjoyable to read!

[Uhoh]

With the virus gone, it looks like she's got everything to save the day now. I wonder who that silver gynoid is though... Great piece, looking forward for more.