Guardian Angel Haruki
Cao the Exiled
FourtyTwo
ColdAtlas
Tim the Yeti
Izurich
threetoads
Hari
ThatLostDude
Fish of OblivionSuzy Chen
.... The thing is, Princess, I believe that you need to think bigger than executing your vendetta against them. They embody the Prime Mover of the current world affairs, they are the pillars of the world's order. You might see the people whom you want to put into your personal justice as being reachable within this city, but remember that this city is technically the capital of the world itself. Nova Corps build our homes, Yamagata furnish them, and there's almost no electronics without Zenith planting the backdoor firmware inside each one of them. Bematech feed us and even have patents for those who were born through artificial insemination or those with any genetic modifications. The CHOOH2 that powers our electricity, factories, and vehicles has been monopolized by the RusOil or Nova's subsidiary. Moreover, if you think toppling them is a good idea, remember that your guns might have Milicor's name on it. Hell, even one would buy them using Zenith's crypto, maybe through the credits provided by Yamagata or even Nova.
Those corporates I mentioned, they have some particular entities who own their portion of stocks, enough to give them voice for any directive decisions. About these entities, the net-runners I hired managed to track them into a single group of cabals, the Conglomerate. Whoever leads this syndicate is the true sovereign of Nova City, or even the world, at least one among the powerful. They have been keeping these companies exist and feud against each other in rivalry to preserve the masquerade that one would never notice their existence or agenda. The public would never know or even recognize this Conglomerate.
Who do you think guided these big companies, which not long ago almost went into collapse because of the hubris their leaders made? Who do you think the money circulated, the capitals that were granted to them which these companies used to raise from their financial graveyard? Who had such vision of uniting all these companies and drove the steer-wheel of the behemoth? Why do you think I figured this all?
Well, Princess, your father once led this Conglomerate, and those people who usurped him even now still think that you were supposed to inherit all his possessions. You might want to get away from the game of conundrum he had been playing and live a peaceful life with your own pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, it appears that your destiny won't agree with that, and please remember that your father did not play that game because he wanted to. He got involved because it was necessary, it was either him moving the pieces or the circumstance would move the pieces against him, and that is what you need to set in mind to face all these....
Suzy stopped the recording that she had a habit of playing it before she took her rest for the day. Sitting on her feet and leaning on a wall, that young woman stared beyond the window inside a secluded apartment, a vantage point that viewed toward the night skyline of Nova City. The skyscrapers were bright with neon illuminations on their facade, rivaling the glimmering lights from vehicles and street markings below. Donned only with her simple underwear, the cold flow from the air conditioner fan grazed Suzy's exposed skin, bruised and wounded, putting the weight on the terror that filled her heart. She tried to calm down herself from the shock with the repeated long and deep breathing, the window glass got periodically blurred with the haze coming from her exhales, sometimes with a series of cough.
Suzy then looked at the holographic projection she had been keeping turned on. She had spent her day focusing herself on the project she believed to be burdened upon her. Gecko had provided her the necessary intel for the possible key people of the Conglomerate, a looming threat was meant to come. Among the nodes showing the photographs and the names that were connected to each other, one particular figure was put into focus. An entry had been typed under the record identifying a contract assassin with the name Praying Mantis: "knows Suzy's residence".
The assault had happened a couple of hours ago.
Suzy had just finished showering when the assassin invaded her apartment. Exposed without any forms of protection, the young woman had to fight him empty-handed. She managed to disarm the assassin’s silenced gun, though some bullets were able to graze her skin as she dodged them and one of them penetrated her shoulder. With such injury, Suzy still managed to fight the assassin in hand to hand combat. She intercepted his punches and landed several knee and elbow strikes against his torso. Suzy directed her counterattacks that the assassin was pushed toward the window. Ultimately, the young woman jumped and pinned the assassin’s neck between her thighs. With the momentum she still had from her jump, Suzy spun and threw her assailant toward the window. The glass broke and the Praying Mantis fell from the height.
That was when Suzy noticed that the assassin was not alone. Suzy had only time to take her night robe before she noticed a squad of armed men rappelled down the building and entered the broken window. She immediately ran toward the door and escaped her apartment, followed the ricocheting bullets coming out of the submachineguns fired toward her. She was lucky that her compact Agent device and motorcycle key was inside the pocket of her robe. Suzy immediately ran toward the basement and reached her cruiser motorcycle. The engine roared and the young woman rode away from the building, barefooted, without helmet, wearing only a thin sheet of her night robe.
“Gecko, Gecko! I’m being attacked! Gecko-”
Suzy’s call was interrupted as she noticed from the rear-view mirrors the helicopter that followed her. The pair of sensitive eyes behind the glasses-shaped Agent device noticed the machine gun that was pointed toward her direction. Suzy throttled up just as the barrage of bullets burst out of the gun and hit the road surface behind her. Indeed, immediately taking the highway was a bad choice. With each barrage of shooting, Suzy swayed her cruiser beautifully to evade the streams of bullets. However, the vacant space of the highway would soon end. Suzy noticed the traffic jam in the distance, beyond the curving platform.
Suzy immediately made a full throttle and forced the engine piston to work more, then quickly changed the gear. Her cruiser made a quick wheelie as she directed it toward the highway rim, Suzy jumped away with her motorcycle out of the highway to the road below. The bump was hard, but the suspension of Suzy’s cruiser was enough to dampen the shock. She managed to slip between the building and make herself invisible for the chasing helicopter. The deep sound of her cruiser’s engine was stealthy enough among the tall building that dispersed the wave. Suzy began to notice the cold wind that blasted her skin, covered only in the thin fabric of her night robe. The pain of her wound felt more intense, it was hard for her to focus on her destination.
“Gecko… please respond…”
“I noticed, Princess, I’m tracking you, what the hell happened? Who attacked you?”
“I… uuuunggh!”
Suzy eventually succumbed to her pain. The only thing she could think was to press the brake and decelerate her cruiser as much as possible. In that quiet street, close to where Gecko was, Suzy’s cruiser went astray toward the sidewalk and tumbled. The rider got thrown several feet away, bumped, and rolled on the hard surface, unconscious.
The hours passed.
Gecko found Suzy lying on the sidewalk, wounded, almost naked, and fell unconscious. He immediately brought her away to a hidden place. The apartment where Suzy hid herself was enough for two people to live, though it was not as decent as the one she had previously. The wounds she got had been taken care beneath the bandage and synthetic stem-cell regenerator. Though sometimes the pain returned, as of right at this moment when Suzy let her groan escaped her throat and allowed her back to bump onto the soft surface of the bed on where she was sitting.
“Suzy…” Gecko came inside the bedroom cube and tended his guess. “It’s over now, you’re safe here, your cruiser too, if you wonder…” he tried to calm Suzy, but she did not respond beyond keeping her breathing noticeable. “Your cybergear… that really helped you, considering how you were able to fend off the attack” Gecko then put his hand on Suzy’s abdomen, right above her navel. “Though these gears might need to be checked, but that can wait.” Those words from Gecko were responded with a simple nod from Suzy. The tech-man then tried to calm Suzy further with a little massage on her forehead.
“Thank you, Gecko…” said Suzy weakly, almost inaudible.