[OPEN] Uneasy Alliance

Toshiaki walked through the dark alleys, carrying his wrecked motorcycle across his shoulder.

The storm had grown stronger as dusk fell, and was now quite a torrential downpour. Toshiaki pulled off his helmet to let the cool rain wash over his scar-mottled skin.

As if the very heavens weep at our self-destruction…
Heh. Never was much for that poetic crap.
But the rain does feel nice.

I guess some things never change.

He looked into the buildings as he walked, searching for a place to rest for the night. He spotted several heat signatures as the base came into view again.

Chiharu and Veach…
Wonder how much they saw.

Suppose I should head back there too and make sure we have an understanding.
Then again, maybe it would be better to wait until morning. Give everyone a chance to sleep and clear their heads.

He soon found a building that appeared to be stable enough. He entered the small garage bay and set the broken cycle upright on the concrete floor. Lying against the wall, he started to drift off.

Omega's impromptu nap is interrupted by an incoming transmission from a masked source. A video feed appears on his visor and a darkened room shows on the screen, with a black helmeted head dominating the foreground of the picture.

"Omega." A metallic, yet decidedly female, voice rings out into his auditory receptors.

Toshiaki awoke when he heard the sound from within the helmet on his lap. As the exterior comms antenna had been fried by Wilson's EMP, it wouldn't work if it were fully closed up now.
Still need to patch that up too.

He shut off the helmet's display and speakers to ensure the conversation was private, instead observing the decoded stream of audio and video data directly in his mind.

"Speaking," he replied mentally, his thoughts effortlessly translating back into digital form. "Might I ask who's calling at this late hour?"

"A sympathizer." The voice replies, tone not betraying a single morsel of emotion. "I've been keeping tabs on you - you intrigued me." The voice continues, and the video feed changes to several HD snapshots of Omega in various places around the world. In and among the recent snapshots, a few pictures of him with Takeshi pop up.

"Another cyborg fighting against the father of cybernetics, how could I resist?" The voice teases, amusement creeping into the otherwise deadpan tone.

"Is that right?"

He summoned three of his six microdrones to his location. Within a minute, three tennis-ball sized metallic spheres floated into the small building and appeared to disassemble themselves in front of Toshiaki. He used the electronic components to repair the shorts he found in his helmet's exterior systems, one by one.

"It appears you know all about who I am and what's happened to me since C-Day, but I can't say the same of you. Care to enlighten me, huntress?"

Could it really be her? Then again, it could just as easily be another of Takeshi's traps. Have to be careful about this.

"I think we both know you know who I am." The voice replies, melding back into view. "Prototype Number One. The Alpha Cyborg, to mirror your own title, if you will."

My god… it is.
What has he done to you…

He stopped his work and focused on the transmission.

"If that's so… 'Alpha'…"

His voice shook slightly, a peculiar mixture of surprise, hope, and fear.

"… why have you waited so long to tell me?"

Do I really want to know the answer to that question?
If she's under Takeshi's control, he knows where I am.
He knows where they all are.

Have I led him right to them? Would they be ready to fight? Shit, shit, shit!

"Because I'm now finally free of Takeshi's control." The voice says, a hint of smugness playing through the microphone. "It's taken me seven long years, but I finally discovered a loophole in the system. He hasn't noticed yet, but I'm now able to operate outside of his wishes."

Seven years… so she was captured and turned 3 years after.
And I wasn't here to protect you all. Damn it.

A loophole… It is possible. Takeshi never was the best at keeping his programming secure.
Then again, that's exactly the kind of thing he would want me to think.

Toshiaki smiled.
"That's the best news I've heard in a long, long time, Hatsuhara.
Where are you now? I can come get you out of there if you need."

Toshiaki's absurd statement is met with laughter that bore no resemblance to the girls cheery and happy-go-lucky nature in her past life. While her laugh was musical as a human, as a cyborg it was almost grating and uncomfortable to listen to. Painful, in fact. The synthetic voicebox that Takeshi put in the cyborgs that required speech wasn't designed for laughing, as they were designed to be emotionless and cold.

"If I wanted to get out, I could." She replies. "I'm perfectly content here, in Takeshi's labs. I don't need your help, and I'd wager that I'm much better equipped for the job, too."

Two bright blue globes appear where the eyes of the girl would be on the black mask as Kuriko activates her optical sensors. "I thought I'd warn you that Takeshi knows exactly where you are."

The suggestion was of course just another phase of psychological profiling.

Maybe she really has broken free. I doubt Takeshi's control system allows for sarcastic laughter.

Such a damn shame though. You had a wonderful laugh. Another thing lost… all we can do is fight and hope to get some semblance of our lives back.

"Glad to see your sense of humor's intact, huntress," he said flatly as he resumed repairing the shorts in his helmet.

Toshiaki grimaced at her warning.
"I figured as much. He's been busy these ten years. Not the type to let me go unnoticed either.

"So, if you're staying there, what's the plan?
You have as much justification as anyone to be the one to put the knife in, after all."

[I assume the repost was to get my attention - could've sworn that I'd replied to this already....]

"It's not a simple case of sticking the knife in, Omega." Kuriko replies, "If we want to put an end to his legacy, we need to attack from two fronts... If I simply killed him the cyborgs would soldier on. I can make sure you don't get discovered while you take apart his operation out there..."

The previously folded hands are spread out to the sides, "What say you?"

Worst case, it's a trap and Takeshi will know exactly where I am. But I expected that already.
Best case, she can really help me shut him down.
Either way, he has to be stopped. And I have to try to get her out of there…

Sorry, Takeshi. I guess I won't be doing the honors personally either.

"Of course. Just saying, since you're there already, I'll leave that part to you. If you don't mind, that is.

"As to the rest… we'll have to break them out of the system one by one, unless you have some way of releasing the entire matrix at once.

"So I say, tell me more about breaking his controls," he said with a grin.

"It's.... difficult to explain." Comes the reply, sounding a little unsure. Well, more than a little.

"Us cyborgs are... controlled. By Takeshi." She begins, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back into her chair. "Sometimes he convinces people into becoming cyborgs. The majority of what they do is voluntary. Takeshi is very persuasive. If you want to convert those cyborgs, you'll have to convince them that they want to. Then... the hard part."

Kuriko pauses for a few moments, "You're familiar with The Mainframe, I assume?" The Mainframe was what connected Takeshi's system, every piece of technology was connected and remotely controlled by this system. "Every cyborg is connected to that, and the connection goes both ways. The ones who aren't so impressionable have to be conditioned - which takes months - and are kept in check by The Mainframe. If they step out of line, zap. If you want to free them... they need to be removed from that."

Toshiaki nodded at her mention of Takeshi's Mainframe.
Damn thing. Even with this power, I couldn't hack it remotely. Too fast for any single human mind to keep up with.
If I got in there, I could tear it apart, but that's a tough bet.

Pulling out the borgs' links on the other hand? Piece of cake.

"Fair enough. I'm assuming he's still using direct-line CNS implants for his kill switches? I'll need schematics."

"Everyone is wirelessly connected via a microchip implanted on the brain, if that's what you mean." The cyborg replies from the other end of the line. "Sending you the schematics now..." She mutters, and a reflection of the screen before her can be seen in the glassy-exterior of her helmet. She locates the schematics in the database on Takeshi's internal servers, and patches them through to Omega's HUD.

"Should be on your helmet now." She says pleasantly.

"Got it," he replied as the data came through.
He snickered as he looked through the diagrams.
Figures he would use that address for that function. Stuck in his old ways.
Your overconfidence will be your undoing, Takeshi.

As the last of the parts disappeared into the seemingly chaotic tangle of metal before him, it slowly flattened itself into position. He picked up the helmet and examined it.
"That oughta do," he said as he put it back on and reactivated the systems.
Not much damage this time. Cost me three more drones to fix, but could be a lot worse.
"Anything else I should know about?"

"Takeshi is still angry." The voice replies simply. "I suggest you find some help... One man won't be able to stop Takeshi. You need some friends."

Behind Kuriko, a bright light appears, and the connection is immediately terminated. A message follows the termination: "Contact me when you begin the purge."

Friends.
Right.
Thanks to Wilson's actions – then and now – all my friends have turned against me.

He called in his last three microdrones and his drone bomber.
The micros hovered in as the others had, and the small UAV landed softly on the street outside.
Toshi pulled it inside the garage bay, next to the motorcycle, and pulled the rolling door closed.

That's where you're off, Kuriko. I'm much more than one man.

The night is young. Let's get to work.