Shades of Grey by Pundit | Part One : Setting The Scene (Version 2)
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I acknowledge that there are characters in this story which belong to either Sega or Archie Comics. The text of the story itself, however, is copyrighted to me, and while it may be distributed in any form, must not be altered under any circumstances. You may not derive any profit from this story. Should you wish to contact me please use the above email address. I welcome comment, criticism, or flames, if you've got any. Thank you for reading.

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It would amaze you to know the amount of electrical energy this thing stores. It would astonish you if you found out just how many hours the craftsmen spent getting every little detail correct and squared away. But most astounding of all, perhaps, is the way he gently, lovingly cradles it in his lap as he sits brooding in this jail cell.

In the dim confines of the eight foot cube that he occupies, the only light sources are the soft winking of the status diodes nestled in between the panels of his arm, the warm red fire that burns in his left eye, and the crisp green glow over the top of the bars. The one that announces to everyone concerned that he, Kragok, poses absolutely no threat to the law abiding folks outside.

He experimentally flexes the tip of the claw, listening to the perfectly tuned hum of the servos. See how the light scatters along the sharp edges, as if it's too scared to occupy the same space. You could put an eye out with that thing, perhaps several if you put your mind to it.

All that doesn't come free though. Metal's heavy, even the fancy honeycomb type stuff. The replacement arm, although "arm" really isn't the right word, is something like three times the weight of the original. Kragok dimly recalls those days he spent years and years ago, his face and body scarred and pitted from the explosion, dragging the damn metal thing around like a lump of dead cadaver flesh sewn into his shoulder. And the look on the face of his sister, of course, not that she hadn't already seen it happen to tens of thousands of other similarly mutilated people. Somehow it had been different for Lien, seeing it happen to her flesh and blood.

"Lien," he thinks. He needs to see her expression again. That face, not particularly warm or welcoming, but proud and assured and confident. Right now, it feels like the most familiar thing in the world.

***

Another glow. This one's flinty and electric, and it casts deep shadows in the features of a personable young lady. Her fingers crawl like spiders on the keypads strapped to her knees. Unending waves of cyphers gush into her retinas and she rides them like she was born to do it. She is so deeply involved, so concentrated on her task, that she doesn't even notice that the two legionnaires behind her have started to twitch and fidget in their impatience.

Have you ever heard a class-D cyborg scratch itself idly? It's not pleasant.

But what she cannot fail to notice is the velvety hand reaching out from the darkness to her side. It descends and grips her shoulder tightly enough that she can make out the fingernails through the ballistic nylon, shaking her out of her trance. And then, that gravelly voice that they all know - the voice that will brook no delays, no compromises, but never really loses its mildly amused shell. Well, almost never.

"You were faster during the simulations. That's why I picked you."

She cannot fail to notice that the voice is high with tension, quivering like guitar string that's been plucked too hard.

"Ma'am, they updated their encryption scheme an hour ago. I need a few more minutes."

The hand on her shoulder goes limp, and she exhales as the tension drains.

"Technicians...", she hears Lien exhale, as Lien fades back into the shadows. Then she composes herself, takes a deep breath for luck, and dives back into the flow.

***

There's a little twinge in his right cheek. For now it's just a quiet whisper that beats in time with his heart, but he knows it's only getting started. Right this moment, as his body gets used to the stillness, as he comes down from the dizzying endorphin rush, he knows he is about to suffer.

Kragok raises a finger to the spot, and immediately the pain erupts - a blinding starburst behind his eyes, implacable like a freight train. He pounds his fist against the wall once, the sound metallic and ringing and deafeningly loud. This new pain in his hand is a welcome distraction. Immediately, the idle conversation at the guard station strangles itself as the guards hasten to their feet to check on him, their boots clattering dully on the floor.

And as they reach his cell he forces himself to keep his head down so they won't see the open gash in his face although he would like nothing more than to meet the gaze of his captors with his own. They rattle the bars and stare for a few seconds. His fingers quiver but he doesn't move, and the guards don't notice the dark red stream collecting on his chin like some grotesque drool, soaking in the black folds of his robe.

He recalls his last encounter with the Guardian. The feeling at the moment of impact. The look on both of their faces that said, "This is personal." Indeed it had always been personal, even before either of them had been born. Standard bearers for a conflict with roots in events centuries past, each successive generation piling outrage on outrage, revenge upon revenge, the whole affair consuming every waking moment of each of its participants. An unimaginably heavy burden to bear for a lifetime. Any lifetime.

The bile rises in his throat; he chokes it down and tries to listen to that calm voice inside him.

"I'm bowed, not broken. It's not over. Not yet."

He smears his fingers on the wall, forming the letter 'K' from the congealing blood on his chin. K for Kragok, of course.

***

The two quiet (except for the aforementioned grating sound of titanium alloy on itself) legionnaires sense a change in the mood. You don't build a successful paramilitary career without learning to detect little nuances like this. That cute technician girl looks positively glowing, and when she's happy Lien's happy so they're all happy. Any minute now.

"Got it! Authorized, applying backdoor patch... done. Just say the word ma'am."

There's a beat while Lien digests the implications. Then she pads softly into the light, not bothering to hide her satisfaction.

"Contact the escape zone and make sure they're ready. The two of you, remember fast in fast out, minimal contact. My lead. Tasers charged?"

It's a rhetorical question, but the two of them nod for form's sake. No self-respecting soldier would ever enjoy using something as wimpy as a little electric prod, but this isn't the time to argue about that.

"Boys..."

And suddenly they're both totally still.

"... it's on."

And they're off.

Technician girl grins delightedly to herself as she brushes a maroon dreadlock out of her face. This is the payoff, where she finally gets to screw with the systems she's spent the last hour cracking, and she intends to enjoy every single minute of it. Truth is, she loves her job.

***

"Kragok," he thinks. What a name, all crackly consonants and plosives. The kind of name you spit, not that you could pronounce it any other way. His father gave that to him, he thinks, refusing to dwell on the one mental image of his parents that he has, refusing to acknowledge the memory. That memory dissolves like sugar in a cup and he's alone again.

He only rarely admits this to himself, but he feels tired. It's not just insanity of the last two days, no, more like the feeling that an old man must have, worn out and broken down by the weight of the world. When was the last time he'd had a decent conversation with his sister; something, anything that didn't involve their "work", as it were? When was the last time they hadn't concealed, with mutual complicity, the deep affection they had for each other? Maybe he- no, both of them, maybe both of them've lost something along the way.

His gaze sweeps over the panel set into the top of the cell, and the irony of the techno-worshipper being detained with the assistance of technology isn't lost on him. A snort escapes him, at once amused and furious.

But there is nothing to be done, and he knows that sometimes it's just better for everyone concerned to go with the flow. He leans back against the unyielding wall, feels it leech the warmth from his back, and tries to doze.

***

She feels the adrenalin singing in her veins. When you're this high, you can do anything. Doesn't matter that the last wet operation she participated in was years ago, or that she prefers the dry thrill of a nicely calibrated plot to the bloodbaths her lieutenants have for breakfast every day.

They bound down the hallway, the three of them, class-A, class-C prime and class-D. Three different weights, three distinct steps - light, medium and earth shattering the way an elephant's foot is massive, all weirdly in cadence like kettledrums playing the overture. They are the wise men (and woman) bearing gifts, the horsemen (and woman) of the apocalypse, seraphim on a mission.

Lien raises a finger to her temple, and the other two smoothly copy her gesture. The world is submerged in the fuzzy pink of infra-red radiation, and she sees ghostly swirls in the ether as her hot breath comes fountaining out of her mouth. Up ahead, she sees the security bulkhead, and she hesitates for the briefest moment. But it's her brother, her sibling, her flesh and blood. As surely as Dimitri lives, she's going through with this.

"Door and lights," she whispers, and there is a thud as the locking mechanism in the door disengages, accompanied the soft and welcome sound of relays tripping one after another in an ever widening circle around their location.

"Map overlay, optimal path."

A spidery outline appears over her vision, with a thick green line snaking its way through the maze that lies ahead of them. Yes, everything is as it was during the simulation.

Wordlessly they draw their tasers - the spindly black hopelessly effeminate things that Lien made them bring. Lien has always been a very firm belief in "good enough", and in any case she prefers a helpless guard writhing uncontrollably on the floor to an angry pissed-off guard with a bullet in his shoulder and a gun in his hand. Actually the sight of the little plastic taser in his oversized fist is one of the very few things in the world that Xenin finds funny, not that he shows it.

The door gives way and they dash down the corridor in a tight arrowhead, leapfrogging around the corners.

"Kill the cameras."

None of them flinch, as the camera at the far end of the corridor begins to swivel around to face them. The blinking red light on its front winks out for the last time.

"Patrol schedule says you have four minutes. Hurry! They're tracing me!" The voice of Technician Girl squawks in their ears.

And as they pound deeper and deeper into the bowels of the EST headquarters the institutional corridor begins to accquire a very sterile feel, all smooth white flooring and latex paint on the walls. Lien would willingly wager a month's worth of duties that the walls are some shade of taupe under proper light. She knows they're close.

The vault entrance looms in front of them.

"Get us in. Now!"

"Working on it..."

For a moment, Xenin thinks he sees Lien go a whiter shade of pale. But he can't be sure.

"Done."

The assertive whoosh of three tons of hardened steel sliding on well mantained rails.

"So far so good," Lien thinks, trying to keep it all straight in her head. No patrol has stumbled across the darkened section of the floor, and they'll probably wait till tomorrow to fix the "malfunctioning" cameras. So overconfident, these EST people. She knew she'd have done things differently, if she was in Remington's place.

"Shutting down the building on three. One, two..."

Lien flicks off her safety with her thumb. Click.

Click, click.

"Three."

As she flings herself into the vault, Lien can hear the angry shouting of people who want to know what's happening five minutes ago, the thuds of doors being flung open, and the messy clatter of footsteps. The mental image makes her smile widely. But it's time to take care of the three very spooked guards.

Three puffs of smoke, the zip and zing as the fine wires slice the air. Three horizontal guards beating out irregular rhythms with their heads, hands and legs. From experience, she knows they're going to be in for one hell of a hangover the next morning.

Easy.

***

The annoying green glow at the top of his cell suddenly dies with a high pitched electric squeal, and it takes a second for the implications to register.

"I'm free," he thinks, and the knowledge is powerful.

And in the next instant he's on the door, wrenching it aside like a slave throwing off his shackles, bursting out of the cell in a marvelous fury. In the infra-red spectrum, he sees the three guards in the guardroom. They'll just have to do for now. He coils his legs, preparing to spring into the room. It's time for a little bloody reckoning.

As he leaps off the floor, a familiar face kicks it open, and Kragok's eye widens with recognition. It's Xenin. Xenin means Lien. Hopefully. He feels Xenin's metal hand reach for his shoulder, the fingers curiously gentle, restraining his trajectory so he lands very neatly on his feet. He looks up and sees her face. The red mist drains from his vision.

She smiles playfully.

"Aren't you glad I came?"

Kragok feels a very strong urge to hug her, but that wouldn't be right. So he settles for a slow grin that creeps across his face - and winces for the second time in half an hour.

"I know you don't normally do this-"

"Hush," she whispers, reaching for his face as the other two look away dutifully. They know not to notice. It hurts, even more than the pain, to cut short the first tender moment they've had in five years, but he knows there can't be much time left. He gently pushes her hand aside with his robotic arm.

"No time for that now. Let's go!"

"I can't keep the backdoor open much longer!"

The girl's voice explodes in Lien's ear, and she's already moving, the four of them rocketing back down the hallway at top speed. They don't notice the camera that's revived behind them, coldly and quietly tracking their frantic exit.

"We've still got it," Lien thinks. There's no way the EST's going to stop them now. Past the T-junction, another one, past the posters, the security door, and then the crates lining the walls. Two more turns and home free! Just a little more. She ignores the burning in her legs that signifies nothing, the boiling heat at the back of her throat. Onward.

And then it goes sour, as the four of them come to a screeching halt in the middle of the corridor. A blastproof bulkhead wafts out of the wall behind them, sealing off the retreat as surely as an impenetrable pile of rocks. Ahead, Lien sees ten, maybe twelve guards, and him of the black bangs, green uniform, and ridiculous hat. She swears inside her head.

"In a hurry?"

This voice is in control. Confident, and a little cocky, perhaps. There is the sound of ten blasters opening up in unison, and for Lien now is the moment where she realizes that she's overreached for the last time, that she is very definitely in trouble.

She isn't quick enough to save herself. Kragok sees it happen in slow motion, as he ducks behind the nearest crate on instinct. The fatal white bolt lances to the air, catching her square in the chest, and for a moment she is suspended in space on a thin beam of light. He sees the arc of blood that spatters on the floor in wide gouts.

For a moment, he realizes that it must have been like that for her, maybe ten years ago, cowering behind a corner as the blast wave thundered through the base, watching his body fly into the air like a discarded rag doll, running up to him and crying quietly for him to stay awake.

Now it's her turn and she topples, crashing into the floor with a moan, head twisted towards him. It's been a long time since he's felt like this.

Suddenly he's up, sweeping her into his arms, running madly into the startled guards. The other two, they're right beside him like blessed metal angels, bulldozing a path towards the exit. At this point he doesn't even notice the bolt that takes a chunk out of his back, nor the bolt that singes the top of his head - he can only see the outline of the door at the end of the corridor, some girl he doesn't quite recognize beckoning for them. Behind him, a crash, thud and tumble as Xenin turns and flings a crate at their pursuers. Then he's out in the blessed warm night air with the girl's icy fingers on his arm, guiding him to the escape zone, where there is a hover waiting.

Safety. Salvation.

The craft rises up into the air on its screaming turbines, and he can do nothing but stare numbly into the face of the dying body in his arms. The past five minutes have just been burnt indelibly into his mind. The bolt, the blood, the sound of her body hitting the ground. And the not quite pleading, not quite tragic look she has on her face now. As the wind ruffles his dreads, rushes in his ears, the only thing he hears is Lien's raw and ragged breathing.

His right hand curls into a fist.