Dead Mans Party 2

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It was pretty annoying that Iris always called it whenever something bad was about to happen. That is, to say, she'd never missed anything before, but false positives were numerous.. That was even more annoying, and even though Andrea understood that she //shouldn't// be too hard on the girl considering what she'd been through... it was still really annoying. It was probably bad that she considered what was in all likelihood a trauma response to be 'annoying,' but that was why she kept it to herself.

Whatever. Boring operation anyway. Andrea wanted to keep a closer eye on Anne and Iris, but she needed to at least do what Iris said if she wanted her to be fine with her being there, and it seems like they were at least keeping on-topic enough to find something to be spooked by.

Still. It's not like Iris had a //terrible// track record with these things. Andrea ran her thumb around the rim of her helmet a couple times. She'd be fine. It's not like anyone was going to bring a rocket launcher to a university building or anything, and Iris had Jackie with her anyhow. Andrea only brought Foxx along to give Iris some peace of mind.

"Second door on the left, that's our guy," Iris said in an urgent yet hushed tone over the phone. Andrea nodded, trusting that Iris was watching them with her photos, which was, if unsettling, at least moderately reassuring.

"I'll watch the door," Andrea said to Foxx. He nodded, then pushed open the door to the office their target was in. Good thing he didn't think to lock it.

"Dr. Ramseyer?" Foxx asked after a moment, waiting for the professor to look up at him. Foxx stayed in the doorway, not wanting to spook the target by getting too close. Andrea waited out of sight in the hallway, leaning against the wall. Best not to make the guy feel too intimidated. Plus, staying where Iris could see her probably put the girl's mind at ease. Even if she was, in all likelihood, little more than a warm body.

"...Sorry, I just don't..." The sound of papers being moved around and keyboard keys being smacked echoed out of the room into the empty hallway. "...I don't have much time to talk. I need to get ready... for my lecture..." It seems like the oddity of being approached by a strange man with elbow patches covering the only escape route while in an otherwise empty underground space had not yet dawned on the man. The lecture was far more important.

"Oh, yes, it's about that lecture," Foxx said. "You're presenting the Yellowstone sample, right? Heard about that through the grapevine."

Andrea rolled her eyes. Who the hell says 'grapevine?'

"Goddammit..." Andrea heard Iris' voice mutter something, barely loud enough for her microphone to pick up.

"I'd be happy to talk after my presentation." The professor seemed out of breath as he spoke, like he had been running in place in the room. "I'm sorry to be rude, but I'm running a little late. Now if you'll excuse me-"

Foxx moved to the exact middle of the doorway. "I don't think you understand me. I'd //really// like to see that sample."

In the silence that followed, the sound of a door opening echoed down the hallway. Andrea pushed herself off the wall and stood up straight, her thumb running against her helmet again. Might be time to earn her paycheck.

"You've got two contacts incoming. They don't look like staff," Iris said. "Get ready."

Well, shit. When she was right, she was right. Andrea patted down her holster and sheath underneath her jacket. Not that she'd need them, her fists were more than enough even if she //didn't// want to keep things non-lethal.

So what was she so worried about?

For his part, Foxx got the message. He whipped out a fake badge - at least Andrea hoped it was fake - and took a more authoritative voice. "Sir, I'm going to need to confiscate that sample. You can go up to your lecture, but you cannot leave this room with it. Do you understand? I have the authority of the CIA-"

"Wrong agency, lobsterback," Anne's voice said over the phone.

"-I mean the FBI..." He paused. No further corrections. "...And I'm going to need to take that in as evidence."

"What? There... There's no way the FBI would need this! I want my lawyer!" For his part, the professor seemed more indignant than scared. Stubborn old man. Andrea had to respect it.

There were heavy footsteps coming from the staircase now, and they were getting louder. Foxx leaned forward. "Look. I'll kick your ass for this. Straight-up. This is intimidation. You can say I'm mugging you. But I am seriously okay with fucking you up for a rock. You want to lose a knee for a rock? I'll respect it. I'll still do it."

"My, my! That's a bit harsh, don't you think?" A woman's voice echoed in the hallway. "At least //I// was going to compensate the poor man!"

Andrea narrowed her eyes as the woman who just spoke rounded the corner alongside... well, really just another, taller woman. Andrea wasn't sure what she was expecting there, but from how spooked Iris was, she figured they'd have a bit more. Hell, at least long rifles or something. Between the two of them, the shorter one was dressed in a rather expensive-looking dress, and the taller one looked like she just threw on whatever suit she could find that fit her.

The shorter one looked between Andrea and Foxx with an affable smile. "Let's cut to the chase here; you're clearly Foundation, and we both know we're here for the same thing. I'll be nice. Once." She held her hand out. "Give the sample here, and we can all walk away with all of our major organs intact."

"I don't like this." Iris sounded nervous. Well, frankly, she //sounded// like she was going to call off the operation. Andrea rolled her eyes - she'd sure as shit get an earful for that.

"C'mon. They don't even have guns."

"//That's why I don't like it,//" Iris hissed.

Andrea bit her lip. Truth be told, she really, //really// didn't care for the way the tall one was looking at her - or maybe the way she felt when //she// looked at her - but she'd trained to go toe-to-toe with White Suits. She just hadn't had real action in a while, that was all. She could hardly call herself a Senior Agent if she balked at //this.// She sighed, and put her helmet on.

"...That's a no, then?" The woman in the dress lowered her hand and cocked her head, amused. Andrea figured the prospect of wiping the smug look off of her face should be a good motivator here. "Alright, then. I suppose this won't be as easy as Adrian was hoping." Her smile turned into a grin that was nothing but teeth. "Gamma, I suppose that's your cue."

Gamma, as seemed to be her code name, started walking towards Andrea from the far end of the hall, confident and almost mechanical. Not reaching for any concealed firearms, tracing any runes, revealing some horrible bone spike in the place of her hand, nothing. Just coming at her like a bouncer at a bar. If the name was any indication, they might have been Anderson Robotics androids, but those were nothing - even Foxx could take one.

"Hey." Foxx spoke carefully, not taking his eyes off of Gamma. "Give the fucking rock. Then lock the door. And hide under a desk." He slowly pushed aside his jacket and reached for his gun.

Gamma was almost upon Andrea now, not breaking her stride. //Fine by me,// Andrea thought, lowering her center of gravity to throw out a punch. On the off-chance Gamma was still a human, she didn't want to punch a hole clean through her - the blood would ruin her suit - so she was ready to pull it.

Gamma looked down at Andrea, and appeared to be getting ready to wind up a punch - too late. Andrea exploded forward, sending her fist right into the gut of the taller woman with enough force to rupture a couple organs. Hardly fatal, but if she knew what the Foundation was, she knew what she was getting into. Andrea felt her fist impact Gamma's torso...

And then she felt all that kinetic energy go right back into her arm. Gamma hadn't moved.

//Hm,// Andrea thought as Gamma wound up a punch as though nothing had happened. //That wasn't supposed to happen.//

The next thing she thought, though, was //ow//, as Gamma's own punch landed right into her chest, hard enough that her suit immediately locked up. And even then, she felt her ribs bend in ways they weren't supposed to (which was really just 'at all') as Gamma's blow followed through into an uppercut, launching Andrea into the ceiling. And as if the punch from the front wasn't enough, she slammed into the ceiling hard enough hard enough to hurt her //back,// too. Then her front again when she fell back to the floor.

//Something behind her eyes went **click**.//

Andrea could hear yelling, something in Iris' voice coming in through her helmet, and a door slamming shut, but she tuned it all out. Sure, some of it was probably important, but right now, there was really only one thing she needed to focus on, and that was the woman right in front of her. She'd sit through Iris' admonishments later - right now, she had a job to do.

"Hm," Gamma said. "Sturdy."

Andrea pushed herself off the ground and reached for her gun, but Gamma had the significantly more advantageous position of having already been standing up and caught her neck with an open hand. It seemed like if a straight impact wasn't going to do it, simple choking might.

"Wow, they do have some nice things over there. Adrian wasn't lying," the dress-wearing woman said, still smiling. "You're the first one to eat one of those and keep on 'trucking', as it were. Not that it'll matter."

No, this wasn't choking. This was crushing. Even with her suit's armor locking up, Andrea could feel the pressure around her throat. She was able to gasp twice before the armor gave enough to close her windpipe entirely, and she could feel blood pooling in her head.

She reached for her combat knife before she even knew what she was doing. She didn't even bother to beat on her assailant's arms - with both of her hands around Andrea's neck, her head was wide open. Andrea knew she was faster.

The moment she felt her fingers close around the knife concealed under her jacket, her right arm launched towards Gamma's head like the hammer of a mousetrap. The knife landed perfectly in Gamma's eye. And despite all of Andrea's strength behind the knife, it only sunk in a couple inches. A thick greyish-red liquid began to drip down it, but Gamma's hands continued to squeeze. Her expression never even changed.

//Come on. Come on!// There was no way Andrea Adams was going to get choked out by some frigid bitch in the basement of some shitty cut-rate college! She tried to yell in defiance, but no sound came out. Her hand hammered the hilt of the knife over and over again, but it barely budged. Even so. Even so, her brain can't have been that much deeper...

Andrea heard a bang to her right, and a chunk of skin tore off near Gamma's left eye. Another bang, and some of the discolored flesh near the knife was ripped away. Three more bangs, and three chunks of machinery near the knife were chipped away from Gamma's head. At this, her expression finally shifted, and Andrea felt the pressure around her neck relax. The relief was short-lived, though, as Gamma lifted her up by the neck and threw her, overhand, at Foxx.

That in itself was pretty damn humiliating, but if the voice yelling in her ear was anything to go by, nobody was too focused on that at the moment. "Adams! Adams, are you okay? Hey! Talk to me!"

"Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine," Andrea groaned as she stood up. "Suit's fine. Nothing permanent. Good shooting by the way."

"Thanks," Foxx replied, a bit too eagerly given the circumstances.

The woman in the dress frowned. "You don't have the artifact anymore, do you? I take it your friend took care of it? One-oh-five?" She touched her earpiece. "Zeta, go find a blonde with some pictures out in the conference hall, probably in a corner. She's got what we're after."

"Fuck! Another one?" Iris swore. "Okay uh... we need to deal with that first. Can you two handle Gamma?"

Oh, sure. Andrea could handle it. She could stall, even if that really just meant she was the one getting handled. "...Uh huh. Sure thing, boss."

"I'm serious here! Just - fuck. Okay. We're moving, but we'll stay close. Give us time to think of something." Iris cut the transmission, probably scrambling to get away from whatever the hell 'Zeta' was. Not that Adams could blame her. Gamma and the woman were talking amongst themselves, which was concerning insofar as they were clearly planning something, but at least it gave Andrea a chance to catch her breath.

"...Alright, Foxx," Andrea groaned, picking herself up off the ground, still short of breath. "Just you and me, huh?"

No response. Andrea looked back at Foxx, still on the ground and still conscious, with a guilty look on his face.

"Don't say it."

"Adams, I gotta go." God damn it. "I don't have the firepower right now, but I stashed something that can crack her. I just gotta go back to where I stashed it."

"Why did you bring that to a fucking..." Andrea stopped herself with a huff. As grossly unnecessary as that should be, it was now, unfortunately, grossly necessary to have brought some kind of anti-armor weapon to a geology conference. And Andrea was having some serious doubts about still looking cool and in control while taking down the opposition. "...Ffffffine. Just fucking //hurry.//"

"Will do!" Foxx skittered away, moving away from the battle well before he was even up on two legs, presumably making a mad dash to find another staircase that wasn't blocked by the goddamn T-800.

Andrea lowered into a combat stance again as Gamma ripped the now-bent knife out of her head and dropped it to the ground. Andrea could do this. She could at least //stall.//

----

For the first time, the chatter in the main hall seemed to die down. Despite the fact it seemed a little bit easier to think, it was, unfortunately, simply the result of everyone hearing what sure //sounded// like several gunshots echoing around the hall from somewhere not too close, but certainly not too far.

At the very least, it seemed to give Iris an opportunity to think without the constant din. "Anne, pull the fire alarm," she muttered without looking away from the increasingly discontent crowd.

Anne broke off without a word, seemingly expecting that - though Jackie supposed that she was probably used to public operations. "I take it we'll be heading out with them, sir?" Jackie asked. She didn't much care for their chances - making a tactical withdrawal now seemed like the obvious course of action.

Iris considered that for barely a moment, then shook her head. "No. They know who we are, so if we go out with the crowd we're just endangering them." Her expression hardened. "And Adams and Foxx are still down there."

To her surprise, Jackie found that she was more... annoyed than anything. She knew it was callous, but what exactly were they supposed to do against that Gamma thing? "Sir, we have what we came for. Foxx is running, and I've got faith that Adams can at least give that thing the slip." Well, some faith, at least.

The fire alarm started ringing, and with it, a small stampede of academics began speedwalking for the door. Luckily, it seemed like they were still more confused than scared, so they didn't start trampling over anyone. "Iris. Last chance to cut our losses," Jackie said. She could tell that Anne wouldn't be too happy about the suggestion when she came back, but so be it. She had to be the rational one here.

To her surprise, Iris seemed to actually consider it for a moment - that is, until she felt her phone vibrate and brought it up to her ear. "Talk to me," she said instantly.

Jackie pursed her lips as Anne made her way back over. "Hey, time to get moving while we're not the only ones doing so here." It was a good point. If they were left standing there once everyone else had left, there was no shot of them slipping away from whatever was looking for them.

"Yeah... You - wait, you //what?// You brought //what?//" For a second, it seemed like all of Iris' troubles were so far away compared to whatever she just heard Foxx had done. "Alright, alright, just..." Iris pinched the bridge of her nose and worked admirably to keep her breathing under control. "Are you sure it can take two of them at once...? God, who even made that - nevermind, just keep your comms open. I'll let Adams know where to be."

And now she had a plan. Jackie winced, acutely aware of just how much Adams was capable of and just how little it meant against Gamma. So much for this job.

"We're staying. Anne, you had a route planned out?" Iris immediately got down to brass tacks and got ready to move.

"Yup, that door leads to the rest of the building," Anne explained while pointing at a heavy metal door less than twenty feet away. "It's decently large, but the hallways are long and continuous - not a lot of cover in there."

"The fire suppression system should shut all the doors automatically. That's enough cover," Iris said, already moving. Anne kept pace with her, but Jackie was taken off guard by the swift action and had to scramble over.

A quick glance back at the crowd as they filed into the hallway told Jackie that the crowd was still moving, and it didn't look like anyone was looking at them. Hell, even if they were, they should have their own issues to worry about.

Turns out Iris was right, the fire alarm did shut all the doors in the hallway. All of them were metal, so that meant solid cover at regular intervals. After passing through a few doors, Iris finally stopped and pulled out a few pictures.

"Alright, here's the situation. Foxx says he stashed a heavy weapon close to the building that's supposed to be able to crack open a White Suit. Brought it over from his last job, he says." Iris pulled out an assault rifle from the photograph and passed it to Jackie. It felt cold and awkward in her hands, but she had still trained to competency with it. As she got used to the weight of it in her hands she saw some clearly visible security cameras in the hallway, but she supposed that would be someone else's problem after the fact. "If we gave that Zeta thing the slip with the alarm, good, we go back up Adams. If not, we run right past her. Foxx should have the weapon ready, so he said he'll deal with both of them before one has a chance to retreat."

"Uh-huh. Uh, you got anything that hits harder than a standard rifle round?" Anne asked.

In response, Iris produced a shotgun and armor-piercing slugs. For someone so indignant about Foxx sneaking a weapon on the operation, she certainly packed a lot of heat with those photos. "If Foxx isn't on time, we're fucked. If Adams can't hold out, we're fucked. If Zeta catches us, we're fucked. Got it?"

Anne and Jackie nodded, and Iris pulled out her phone again rather than say anything else, hit speed dial and put it up to her ear. "Adams? You still there?" She yelled into her phone over the fire alarm. The plan was obviously slapdash, and it seemed unlikely to Jaqueline that Adams would even be coherent enough to formulate a plan.

Jackie heard a door open and shut.

"Alright, what's the room you're in?" Iris walked over to a map of the building on the wall as Jackie moved back to the door they just came in from - through the wire-reenforced window, she saw more doors down the hallway open and shut. Whoever was opening them was getting closer.

"//Shit.//" Anne noticed too and started loading her shotgun at an impressive clip. Once she was done, she crouched down against the steel door.

"Look - Look, I'm trying to help, you, you - just read any room number you see! Anything, quick!" Iris glanced back at Anne and Jackie, then sandwiched her phone between her head and shoulder and started readying her own rifle. "What's wrong?"

"Might be..." Jackie trailed off when she saw what was bobbing towards her through the door's window. A tall, oboe-like pole wrapped in cloth. Damn it. Of course she had to be nice to the kid. "It's a kid I was talking to before. Probably just got lost, I'll deal with it."

Iris gave a quick half-nod and turned back to the map. "Okay, Foxx told you, so be at room 036 in two minutes... Because if he //isn't// there I'll fucking kill him myself."

Jackie cracked the door open, but Anne seemed unconvinced. She didn't move.

Sure enough, Morgan pushed open the last set of doors about twenty feet across from Jackie and stopped dead in their tracks when their eyes met hers. A small "Ah" escaped their mouth.

"Morgan?" Jackie asked. She just had to act calm, act like she didn't have a gun or anything, act like there wasn't an alarm blaring. Act like she wasn't so mad at this clueless idiot she was biting the inside of her mouth almost hard enough to draw blood. "You should get out of here. Where's Séverine?"

"She... Mm... Hmm..." Morgan seemed to trail off as though thinking of an excuse.

Jackie frowned. Anne was giving her a 'hurry it up' look. "Look, you really need to get out of here. It's not safe, okay?"

"Then why are you still here?" Morgan retorted. Arguing like that, they really did come across as a younger sibling.

"Uh, well..." Jackie looked back at Iris and at Anne. "We're looking for a friend of ours."

Morgan's gaze followed Jackie's back to look at Iris. They blinked and stood up straight. "Oh. I see."

Jackie suddenly got a bad feeling when Morgan reached to grab their oboe. "Uh, what do you-"

There was the sound of something flying through the air and a puff of heat and smoke, and the cloth wrapping Morgan's 'oboe' was gone, incinerated apparently by nothing. In Morgan's hands was a monolithic gold spear that had to be taller than they were. In an instant, they were down in a pose that looked like they were preparing to thrust - and then, faster than Jackie could process, they did, a good twenty feet away from Jackie.

Stranger still, Jackie felt a searing heat in front of her chest, then inside of it, then behind it, and fell forwards. One of her hands came up to where she felt the heat and found nothing where there should have been skin.

"//Fuck!// Iris, we gotta go!" Anne yelled as Iris ducked behind the cover of the door Anne was behind. Anne swung out from behind the door and fired three shots into the hallway before Morgan - or was that Zeta? - probably ducked back behind the door. "Tagged 'em!" So she was good for something.

Jackie felt something pulling on her shoulders and rolling her over, until Iris' face came into view. She seemed worried. That was stupid - she knew what Jackie's whole deal was. She should be worried for herself.

"//Shit,// uh. Ah." Iris pulled her arms back. Good that was good, she shouldn't be touching Jackie when she's hurt. Still, it looked like her arms were shaking, like she pulled them away without thinking.

"Iris!" Jackie could make out a hand on Iris' shoulder even though her vision was getting dark. "She's wasted, man! We gotta go!" There was a pause, and no response. Anne took a deep breath. "Look, she'll come back, Adams won't. We gotta go."

Another pause. "Yeah... Yeah, okay." Iris stood up, but didn't move for a moment as Anne pushed open the door behind them to get going. "...Sorry, Jackie. I'll make it up to you." With that, she ran off.

Only took a second for Zeta to open up their door and dash down the hallway. Hey, maybe Jackie could still grab onto them when she left. That'd be nice. She pulled herself to face them, even though her arms were cold and her vision was blurry, and to her surprise, they stopped dead in their tracks.

"Jackie is a good nickname for Jacqueline. I'm just not used to nicknames, so I missed that at first," Zeta said, addressing Jackie clearly. Ah. So they knew. Damn. "I know you can't touch me. You could even hurt Gamma if I don't get rid of you." They raised their spear over their head, and Jackie felt the heat coming off of it again. Damn it. She was going to have to go back to one of those dead worlds. Chances were she'd be back doing that again after Zeta caught up to Iris and Anne and this job of hers went bust.

"...Thank you for telling me about those stones. I'm sorry this has to hurt."

Then Jackie felt the heat across her whole body, and the machine of her body dragged her down again.

----

Sturdy. Sturdy, and fast. That's what she was. Every time Gamma should have broken a bone, the bones simply bent. And though that should be enough to turn the tide, within seconds, the bones had bent back into shape. Her armor, too, locked and hardened whenever she landed a strong blow, dissipating the impact, letting her spring back onto her feet. The suit, perhaps, was being worn down, but not fast enough.

Adams, as the other one had called her, was faster than Gamma was, or at least reacted faster than Gamma did, and she was smart enough to know to press the advantage of Gamma's damaged left eye. Had Adams' neck stayed the way it was, then it would be a decent tradeoff, but now Gamma was constantly being circled, and her left side pummeled. The repeated impacts had managed to crack her ribs and strain her arm joints, and unlike Adams she couldn't heal that.

Again, Adams dove to the left, too fast for Gamma to track properly. The ill-defined shape swam in her vision, and it looked like she was winding up for another blow up underneath the ribs. Gamma struck with her left arm to where her head should be - she had to crack her helmet - but Adams only wrapped one of her arms around Gamma's forearm and used the other to strike her elbow. It didn't break, but it strained even more. This was untenable.

When Gamma spun around, Adams pulled back. She could only dodge to the side faster than Gamma could react when she was close, but it seemed she either felt retreating was the right move after getting a hit in, or she was planning something. She ducked through a door as Gamma moved forwards - almost certainly planning something. If she just wanted to kill Gamma, she should commit to staying close and relying on her speed. And this woman didn't seem stupid, she should know that.

She'd been kiting Gamma for a while now, and while Gamma had assumed that was just because she couldn't find an opening, she reconsidered when she pursued Adams into the next room and saw a blonde and a black-haired woman duck into the next room as soon as she crossed the doorway. Was Adams planning something?

Gamma took a half-step forward and jabbed low with her right hand, an attack restrained enough to not leave her open to a counterattack while still carrying enough kinetic energy to pass clean through a person. Adams, distracted by attempting to contact someone, was too slow to dodge, her last-second block sending her reeling and clutching her right elbow.

"Foxx, any-" Adams rolled out of the way of Gamma's elbow attempting to follow up- "Anytime, now!"

So, they were going to attempt something. It would be unlikely that it would pose any serious harm to Gamma based on Adrian's assessment of the situation, but Gamma endeavored to avoid any unforeseen possibilities. She wanted to end this quick. There was just one thing she'd need to test.

Adams hadn't been aggressive, instead choosing to kite Gamma along, but now that it seemed like they were at their destination, that should change. So, Gamma pulled back a little bit, put her arms up into a defensive posture, but a little slowly - and as expected, Adams jumped at the chance to strike. A blow to the left shoulder and elbow, and with it more strain, but Gamma knew that.

Adams' right arm was slower than usual. She hadn't yet healed from the previous blow. Gamma knew that too.

So, Gamma exaggerated her recoil from the hit, leaving her already damaged left side exposed. Given even a second to consider, one could easily tell Gamma was baiting a trap, but Adams didn't have a second. She moved far faster than Gamma, as though her limbs acted on their own without the input of her brain. It had certainly saved her before, but Gamma would only let that take her so far.

As expected, Adams pressed the attack, this time with her knife, driving it into Gamma's exposed body. Gamma felt herself suck in air involuntarily - Adams had gotten her in between the ribs, the alignment of the blade slipping past her muscles and into one of her lungs. She'd gotten farther than Gamma had expected. Though not, of course, farther than Gamma had planned for. She could spare a lung.

Adams was too slow to pull her arm back once Gamma lurched back towards her. A shocked noise came out from behind her helmet as Gamma grabbed her upper arm, and she twisted away from her. Her joints were still injured, it wasn't enough - Gamma's right hand closed around Adams' wrist.

Adams grunted and strained. "Foxx, you-" She tried to say something, but Gamma smashed her into the concrete floor with enough force to wind her even through the suit. Whatever it was they were planning, it wouldn't matter. Gamma would make sure of it.

One foot on the ground for balance, one foot under the armpit for leverage - Adams wheezed and cursed at that - and Gamma slid her left hand up to just past the elbow, her right hand staying on the wrist. If Adams was too fast to beat down, Gamma only had to grab her, and take her apart. Simple. She exhaled. The muscles tightened in preparation to truly work for the first time since she had been made. The plates covering her spine came up to vent the heat she'd built up inside of her body, then locked back into position to carry the load.

Gamma pulled her arms back. Her foot dug into Adams' ribs, and she felt Adams tense her arm up reflexively. It took a second, but she seemed to realize what was going on. "Foxx!" She called out, though Gamma wasn't sure if he could hear her. "Foxx!! Iris!!"

Something in the arm snapped. Small, something that didn't hold much weight, but another snap followed. Then another. Then another. It was getting easier to pull back on with each passing second, and the relatively slow speed stopped the armor from automatically locking. Adams pushed off the ground with her left arm, but her body didn't move underneath Gamma's heel. The pushing turned to reckless beating and waving. Adams' calls turned into grunts, moans and cries. Gamma took stock of her sure sign of progress.

A pop - from the shoulder. The bone was dislocated, and the snaps became so close together that they became a tearing sound. Even through her armored suit, the way her right arm distended around the shoulder was plain to see. The fabric, if it could be called that, of the armor was putting up some resistance as it stretched as far as it could go. Gamma stomped her foot down into Adams again, adjusted her grip, and ripped her arms back as hard as she could.

Despite all the noise Adams had been making, it was surprisingly quiet when the arm finally came free. The bone and flesh were already mostly disconnected, and the tearing of the armor was almost silent. Gamma was thrown off-balance by the sudden lack of an anchor, and planted her foot back to balance herself, dropping the arm in an instant and assuming a combat stance again - but Adams hardly moved. Her other arm simply flopped against the ground, and she herself made no moves to stand back up. Gamma blinked. She was only human, after all. It was, by all accounts, her own fault for expecting more from her. And yet. Gamma could not shake a strange feeling in her chest, looking at Adams, gurgling and gagging. She assumed it must have been disappointment, but even then, she didn't know why she had expected more from the woman. Perhaps because this was the first time Gamma had truly had to work for something. That, she supposed, was an altogether not unpleasant feeling.

All that aside. She still had to finish the job. While Gamma preferred to keep these things simple with catastrophic organ damage, she could be flexible and crush the neck, as she had planned earlier. Still, just in case whatever Foxx and the others had planned didn't involve Adams, Gamma figured she should get things done quickly. She walked back over to where Adams was mumbling and rolled her onto her back.

As Gamma straddled the groaning woman, her remaining arm only put up token resistance, as though she wasn't quite aware of what was happening to her. Adams' hand was stained in her greyish-red blood that matted against Gamma's arm, already covered in her blood of... the same color. Hm. Odd. Wasn't human blood red? That blood was the same color as hers, the slow drip from her left eye socket told her. The only ones she knew of with the same color blood as that were her siblings...

Right, her siblings. Zeta was close, and Delta and Epsilon were waiting for her to pacify the Foundation. Killing Adams would make things safer for them, so there was no point in hesitating. Gamma's hands wrapped around her neck, thumbs over her windpipe just to be safe, and started to squeeze. Her left arm weakly hit Gamma a couple times more before it went limp. Something cracked, then another. Now that she had a better grip than before, this would go quickly.

There was a loud thud to her left as someone kicked open a door. Gamma looked up at the intruder - it was Foxx, already aiming some kind of frankly absurd-looking recoilless rifle. He grimaced when he saw Adams, but he didn't hesitate for a second. "Sorry about this, Andrea," he said through gritted teeth as he pulled the trigger. Well of course he would be the one to interrupt her again.

Gamma was fast, but she was //not// faster than a rocket. And as luck would have it, Foxx was a very good shot too. She had no idea what he was shooting her with, but she felt shrapnel - which included pieces of her already fractured ribs - slice clean through her left lung and one of her hearts, continuing on to get stuck in her right lung. The explosive impact, clearly designed to focus its energy in one direction, reduced a good chunk of her torso to tatters and blew her down on the ground.

As the smoke cloud from the explosion covered Gamma, she took stock of the damage; it was severe, but her redundant systems would allow her to continue functioning. The real issue was that those redundancies were now exposed due to the gaping hole in her chest. However, even in that state, she was still in a better position to take another hit than Zeta or anyone else. She pushed herself up and stepped out of the smoke, right towards the man who shot her.

His eyes bulged out of his head when he saw her walking towards him, organs exposed and coagulating blood dripping down in globs. He hit something on the weapon and it cycled a new round automatically - troublesome - but by then, Gamma was already upon him.

This one, at least, wasn't nearly as sturdy as his friend. Gamma's hand went through him just like everyone else. He wheezed, the air escaping his lungs, and the rocket launcher fell out of his hands without much noise. His blood, if you could call it that, was green and thin, but Gamma was beginning to think that maybe these Foundation people were just like that. She was two for two.

Another door slammed open, and Gamma spun around - it was just Zeta. Hunched over with their spear, they broke off their pursuit and stood up when they saw Gamma. "Gamma, what - are you..."

"I'll live." Gamma shook Foxx off of her arm, tossing him against the ground with a wet thud. "105 just went into the next room over, but they may be armed. Be careful."

Zeta stepped closer to Gamma, looking at the man breathing weakly in a heap on the ground. "With what?"

"That recoilless-" Gamma stopped. Foxx's gun wasn't on the ground. It hadn't made a noise when it fell out of his hands either, now that she was thinking about it, but there's no way his weapon could have scuttled itself so cleanly. It was almost like something grabbed it out of thin air...

105. Gamma had been shown her files, she just hadn't thought that - no, she was in the room before her, and if Alpha-9 had been planning something, then-

Foxx managed to force out a laugh when Gamma saw a heat signature appear from thin air. As before, she wasn't faster than a rocket, but she could process it well enough to see it sail across the room and into Zeta, easily tearing through their torso and blowing half of their right arm clean across the room as much of the rest of it scattered across the wall. And when Zeta gagged and called her name, flailing dumbly on the ground, their non-redundant organs hanging out, Gamma was introduced to a new emotion again.

----

Pictures are funny things. Lots of people who like their appearance well enough don't like getting their picture taken, Iris had learned as a kid, and showing someone a picture of something like the night sky didn't quite hold a candle to seeing it with your own eyes. Even Iris' photographs were different. It was easy to distance herself from what was happening on the other end. No matter how bad things looked, it was still something she could hold in one hand and fold up.

Now she was on the other side of the photo, though, and even lacking an arm, Adams was heavy. So, so heavy, and so limp, Iris could hardly get both her hands around the woman. She kept sliding away from her with her suit all wet from the blood. Iris watched the body slip out of her hands with a strange detachment. There was a horrible feeling in her chest as she watched the body fall like soap slipping out her hands in the shower.

Adams grunted, or maybe just had some air pushed out of her lungs, and Iris snapped back to attention. Gamma had gathered up Zeta's body and ran away, but she'd be back. Adams' body needed to be moved down three hallways and up an elevator. Iris still needed to get her arm. There were things to do.

"Shit - Foxx, work with me here!" The desperation in Anne's voice, new to Iris' ears, was almost more sickening than the state Foxx was in. Foxx stumbled as Anne slung one arm over her shoulder. At the very least, whatever passed for blood in his body had managed to form a clot, fragile and shaking, clearly far larger than any blood clot should be, but still functional.

"I'm try- //hack!//" Foxx coughed up something wet before forcing it back down. He tried, briefly, to shift his weight to his own two feet. "I'll be fine, just go - go help Andrea, dammit."

"Fuck that," Anne said harshly, "you're in worse shape."

"I know." Foxx leaned away from Anne and wobbled slightly. "Andrea's probably in shock, or just passed out from the pain, but she'll live." He staggered over to the corner where Iris tossed the weapon he was so proud of. "You two just help her out, I'm pretty much already-"

"No! //Fuck// that!" Anne stepped towards him and held a tense finger up. "I've cut my losses too many damn times with the Insurgency! I'm fucking sick of it! I don't even know you - I never even-" Anne cut herself off and looked away from Foxx. After a deep breath, she moved back over to him and pulled his arm over her shoulder to carry some of his weight, barely short of being forceful enough to hurt him.

Iris crouched down to Adams. She was breathing, but barely. Her face probably looked peaceful under her mask, to boot, like she was taking a well-deserved nap. Iris grabbed her hand to hoist Adams onto her shoulders.

//Hey, I'm the boss, right? That means it's my job to take care of you. So what if I get hurt?//

Iris pulled her hand back slowly and stared at Adams. A lot of Omega-7 members - no, her friends, goddamn it, they were her friends, had limbs taken off before they died. At least some of them could have made it if Able hadn't been so thorough. And now Gamma would be back any second now.

"Hey, Iris." Anne should have snapped, but her voice was even. Not calm, just even. "I really need your help right now."

Iris screwed her eyes shut, counted to three, and stood up. The buck hadn't stopped with her last time, and look where that got everyone. "Foxx, even if you need Anne to help you balance, can you at least carry your own weight?"

Foxx looked at the ground. "...Yeah. Yeah, I can."

"Anne? Can you carry Adams, then?"

"What? Yeah, but are you trying to saddle me with all the work?"

Foxx made a small grunt. "Anne."

It took a second, but color drained from Anne's face almost as quickly as her expression dropped and her eyes widened. She almost lost grip of Foxx. "Wha - Hey, you, you can't just - you're fine, we can get out of here, we just need to-"

"Gamma only left to be safe, if she was really committed to killing us, we'd be dead."

"So you just want to be dead //first?// Fuck that, we'll leave together." Anne held out the hand that wasn't supporting Foxx to Iris. Iris regarded it, but didn't take it.

"I... think I know someone on their team. I was talking to him earlier." Iris crouched back down to pick up Adams as Anne started to grind her teeth together. "If I can pull the artifact back out of my photo, I should at least be able to, you know, talk to them. Then... hell, maybe I just give them the damn rock and I can meet you guys later."

Anne didn't say anything, just pursed her lips. Iris felt a tugging behind her eyes, and for once, didn't try to stop it. "You're lying," Anne said, blinking quickly as Iris placed Adams on her shoulders.

"No. Just scared." Iris tried not to think about what she had said as she picked up Adams' severed arm and handed it back to Anne. "Get going. You know where the car is, and Foxx can point you towards a safehouse."

Foxx nodded, and Anne shook her head as she turned to start trudging down the hallway. "You're a bad liar, Iris."

Iris shut the doors behind them as they got farther. Couldn't have Anne looking back at her the whole time. That left her with a moment to look around the room, take in the sights. The blood pooled on the floor. The harsh shadows of strictly functional lighting. It reminded her a lot of back then. She backed up against a wall and slid down it to sit on the ground. //At least there's only the one body this time,// Iris thought. She looked up at the ceiling and forced a smile. It really wasn't that funny.

Iris gently squeezed her camera and gave herself ten seconds to think about Leora and Stacey hearing the news before she shook her head. //No, no. No bodies this time.// She pulled out the photo she put their target in and retrieved it. Honestly, she was surprised the people at the site where she had stashed it hadn't taken it away yet, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She examined it - just a shard of smooth white rock, like obsidian. It wasn't even particularly shiny or anything. All that for something as simple as a funny little rock.

Iris laughed a couple times, which turned to chuckles, which turned to gagging before she stopped herself. It was always for some pointless shit.

A door opened, and Iris slowly pulled herself to her feet. No sudden moves, that was probably the first rule of negotiating with someone who'd sooner kill you than shake your hand. Iris heard... what she wanted to say were high heels on concrete? She clenched her camera in one hand and the photo of the stone in the other.

A woman in a dress rounded the corner, bearing an assault rifle and an unamused expression. Without a word, she leveled the rifle at Iris.

"W-Wait a second!" Iris held out both of her hands, and the woman - Delta, Iris remembered - only made a worse expression. "I just want to talk."

"I don't," Delta said, quick and curt.

Iris gritted her teeth. "Someone said he wanted to-"

"I don't care what Adrian said."

Iris felt a hot knife in her heart and a cold wash over her face. She thought it was him... but she needed to stay focused. She pulled the stone out of the photo to show it off. "W-Well, I have what you were all looking for. If we could just talk-"

"//I// was told a Bloom fragment was supposed to be black. That's just a rock for all I care."

Iris exhaled and found it hard to take another breath. The chill in her face covered her entire body. "...Isn't this what you came for in the first place?"

"I don't care," Delta replied matter-of-factly. "I care about Zeta." She leveled the gun towards Iris' chest and pulled the trigger.

The rifle caliber easily went right through the ballistic fibers in Iris' shirt and the heart in her chest with the same ease, and Iris was quickly introduced to a new kind of cold she'd never experienced before. She staggered slightly, trying to stay standing for an extra second or two as her legs lost feeling, before the floor came to meet her. Her vision left next, and as Iris stared at the grey wall next to her as it disappeared, all she could think was that it seemed like an awfully normal thing to be the last thing she'd ever see. Then again, she'd spent all that time telling people she was normal, so she supposed it suited her just fine.

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