章 9: Chapter 9: Loot

Lisa looked through the scanner's contents briefly and was relieved to see that nothing about the blueprints looked corrupted from being in the crash. A truly lucky break indeed. However, when she looked through the rest of the Hummer, Lisa was disappointed to find nothing else of much use to her.

Leaving the Hummer, Lisa began checking over the bodies of the two soldiers. They too had truly little worth keeping, however, she took their weapons. She quickly pocketed their large military styled knives and a half dozen battery magazines for the laser rifles. Lastly, she took their bulletproof jackets but chose to leave the damaged helmets behind. Lisa marveled at the futuristic lightweight guns in her hands; these two Laser rifles were called ZKZM-7000.

The ZKZM-7000 was far different looking than its predecessors, now less boxy and more streamline. The gun's outer shell was made of modified carbon fibers and plastics, giving it a light but sturdy appeal. The rifle consisted of two important components: the laser, which shot red lasers in a solid state, along with fiber optics doped with rare earth materials and its lithium battery, which accounted for most of the weapon's weight. It also had a digital counter built into its stock. This displayed the remaining battery power and allowed the user to adjust the power level of each shot.

The last thing Lisa did was to rip out the Hummer’s battery. The battery could power smaller vehicles or charge other devices for a long time. Her thought was that this battery would allow her to view the blueprints after she got hold of a computer or laptop.

Lisa then pulled out her long, thin katana from the destroyed turret. Its sleek and shiny, but still dull colored metal reflected well in the sunlight; not a scratch to be seen. Folding the katana back up into its sheathed state, Lisa grabbed her leather jacket from the ground, patted off the dust, and put it back on. Then she neatly placed the katana back in its place within the jacket.

Everything else the soldiers had was useless to her and nothing would have been worth reselling to anyone in this town. Taking what she had collected into her arms, Lisa decided to leave. Though not wanting anything left behind, Lisa took out a lighter from inside her leather jacket and lit the Hummers interior on fire along with the two dead soldiers inside. As she left the dam, black smoke billowed out over the river fed lake and towards the distant northern sky.

John was waiting nervously at the entrance of the dam power station. He dared not enter the place after he lost sight of Lisa. Upon hearing the massive amount of gun fire on the other side of the building, John was worried that she might be in danger. However, his fears were quickly subsided after seeing Lisa casually returning from the back of the building.

"What happened?" John asked while trying not to raise his voice. He didn't know if there were any other shooters around. "What was all the shooting and that helicopter about?"

Lisa sighed. She hadn't thought of what to tell him, so she decided to try and change the topic. "Well, I figured out who killed Hanna's parents. It was those gangsters that left not too long ago. Did you see or follow them?"

John took the bait. "Yes, I saw them leave the building and I started to follow them. It looked like they were heading towards the town's government district. I was going to follow them further, but then I heard all that gun fire. You hadn't returned yet either. Then that helicopter landed behind the building. I thought its symbol looked like it could have been from the AFR!"

At this point Lisa had now come to a stop in front of him and it was then that he noticed she was carrying two laser rifles, a battery and her pockets looked stuffed with items. Johns’ eyes widened with concern, "Where did you get those guns? What in the world happened?"

"Let's just say…" Lisa stated thinking quickly. "There were some AFR soldiers and now there are, uh, less soldiers. The details really are not important. Also, I got the dam's blueprints." Lisa beamed with a triumphant look while holding up the scanner to him.

John's face was riddled with confusion and more questions, but before he could say anything, Lisa interrupted him. "Well now that we know where the gangsters are likely hiding out, we need to come up with a plan.” She began to walk past John and adjusted the laser gun’s straps more comfortably onto her shoulder. “Let's go back to get my coffin and then go back to the others."

John wanted to say something, but it was clear this ever-growing mystery of a woman, whom he just met this morning, had some secrets. It would take time for her to gain his trust or for him to learn what happened himself. Yet John would not be daunted, after all he was a former police officer. Discovering secrets and clues was his former duty. He decided to silently agree and just observe her for now.

John decided to change his approach and curiously, but cautiously, probed Lisa with a question while following her down the road to where her coffin lay. "I tried moving your coffin to a more hidden location, but it was far too heavy for me. How can you even carry such a thing?"

Lisa answered without hesitation. "As you deduced earlier, I do have prosthetic legs and they are really great quality. Besides, I got used to carrying the coffin after a while."

"How did you get them?" John asked while watching her put the items in her hands into the heavy coffin before then shouldering it without any effort. "I mean, those prosthetic legs specifically. Sorry if I am reminding you of any bad memories or acting a bit pushy, bad policeman's habit." John corrected himself, feeling a bit embarrassed at his own forwardness.

"It's nothing to be embarrassed of. I will tell you the story one day, but for now you should know my profession truly is a merchant. I buy, trade, sell and steal if necessary, to make my earnings. I hope you don't mind this, but can you keep my legs a secret?" Lisa explained as they walked back towards the police station.

"I think I can do that much, but I will need answers eventually." John sighed. "The police around here, if you couldn't tell, no longer exist. To be honest, most of us couldn't have survived without stealing, as shameful as it is."

"Not at all.” Lisa replied looking far away, as if she were somewhere else. “This strange world we live in is harsher than anyone can imagine. The future is never going to be clear, so we must do what we can to survive today in the present."

John saw her disconnected expression and decided not to ask anything else for now. From just looking into her troubled, lazy gray eyes, it seemed she had likely gone through a lot. Soon they arrived back at the station and saw that the three had finished burying the Marshals. Joan had even tied some wood together with rags to form a cross over each grave and carved the Marshal’s names into them.

"You're back.” Richard called out waving to them. “Did you get the guy?"

John shook his head. "Not exactly, but we did confirm who the culprits were. We need to come up with a plan to get them and here isn’t the place to do it."

Joan interrupted him quietly. "But first I think we need to pay our respects to the Marshals."

The others began to look sad upon hearing this. Lisa could tell they had lost some apparently good friends and the gravity of this was still settling into their minds. After each one of them had said a few words about the Marshals they left the quiet police station without another word and walked back home in reverend silence.

Suddenly, Lisa's stomach growled uncontrollably, squeaking, and gurgling without restraint. Hearing the funny sounds, the tension between everyone broke and the group chuckled amongst themselves.

"Let's get something to eat." Lisa said as she rubbed at her stomach attempting to quiet it. "I haven't had a full meal in a few days."

"Well in that case let's head home and I'll cook something nice." Joan said, putting a friendly hand on her shoulder.

All three of the men let out a whoop of excitement. Richard and Benny even high-fived each other. Lisa surmised from their reactions that Joan was a great cook and her stomach growled once more with anticipation.

…

Special Officer Daniel Hawkins was furious! Not only had he allowed some random woman to not only destroy his Hummer and kill his men, but he had lost the blueprints too! Hawkins had never had a simple mission such as this go awry before.

The helicopter's blades hummed loudly as it flew just a couple of meters above the treetops towards the temporary AFR base. The base was situated in a deep, but small, canyon on the far side of the mountain. There were only two routes to get there, and neither were easy to navigate. The first was from the air, via helicopter or hover transport ships; or by a thin dirt road that went through the mouth of the canyon. The base's position was so neatly located that even by satellite, if they still existed, would struggle to find its location.

The helicopter pilot skillfully floated down into the tightly walled canyon and onto the base's roof landing pad. Then as soon as the pilot had landed the Special Officer jumped off. He headed straight for the transmission tower building. He had to survey his body camera video to see if he could identify his attacker.

Barging into the building, Hawkins startled the four military personnel inside, who then immediately jumped up and saluted upon seeing his rank. Hawkins went right up to the first soldier and took off his own small camera that was on his chest.

"Search the video and identify the woman near the end of the recording immediately!" Officer Hawkins yelled while thrusting the small camera into the soldier's hands.

"Yes Sir." The soldier saluted before taking the camera to plug it into the transmission tower’s computer.

Officer Hawkins waited impatiently as the soldier found the correct footage and played it, while simultaneously running a facial recognition software on the woman's image.

After several minutes, the soldier finished running the program. "Sir, the findings were inconclusive. It seems that because of her hat and the speed of which she moved at; we couldn't get a proper identification."

"Are you sure? Run it again." Officer Hawkins commanded.

Yet the results in the end were the same. Hawkins grumbled to himself as he left the transmission tower building carrying the data from the program. However, before he left, he submitted his findings to his superiors back at headquarters. Perhaps they could find out more?

Hawkins went right to the headquarters of the base straight away. After going inside, he went directly to his office. The office was a medium sized room with a large, thick window looking out towards the dusty canyon road. On his desk were piles of paper and data reports that he had yet to organize since the base's recent formation. This secluded location had extraordinarily little strategic purpose to the AFR and there was no apparent need for a military oversight of these lands either. This wilderness zone currently had no resistance forces at all.

Officer Hawkins tossed the data onto the growing pile on his desk and sat down exhausted into his padded chair. He rubbed his temples as he thought about what had happened. “Why did she suddenly attack us unprovoked? That was only my third time coming to that decrepit town. Not only that, but her skills and movement were far superior to that of any normal or even modified human I had ever encountered. Just who was she?”

There was a sudden knock at his door. He was surprised to hear the rapid knock and called for the person to enter. The door opened quickly and his assistant, Second Lieutenant Mark Caswell, stepped inside.

Caswell stood in attention while reporting. "Sir, the Commander is sending a transmission to you. He's on screen now."

"Already? I just sent my findings only a few minutes ago." Hawkins grumbled while quickly getting up. As soon as Hawkins came into the control center he saw on the big screen in the center of the main wall, was his superior.

"Reporting Sir." Hawkins said whilst standing in rigid attention.

"Special Officer Daniel Hawkins." The Commander said with an aged but powerful voice. His gray hair was shaved down in neat Military style and his decorated yellow trimmed black uniform was impeccable. "It seems that you have indeed found a person of great importance there in that little town. It was unexpected that you would find such a high priority target so soon. Though we can't confirm her identity, we know that she's a dangerous Queen type soldier."

コメント 5のコメント

投票

ギフトを贈る

Load failed, please RETRY