"Lena, I've got a plan. Leave Maddy supervising the crossing, and if you can, try to find a way up to the rooftop where I am. Bring Osiris, too," he said, after quickly patching through to her communicator, waving the arm of his mecha to show her his position, though it was impossible to miss the giant green-and-sand colored machine anyway.
Maddy was doing a good job down there, so he'd leave her to it. He just needed Lena's opinion on the practical side of making his plan work, and then potentially Osiris' help finding another site if this rooftop wouldn't be accessible for the humans and hybrids.
Quickly, he had an answer to that, though, as Osiris' green hair, followed by the rest of her, appeared over the edge of the roof, to the side of him.
"There's a ladder that is still usable, some kind of fire escape, I guess," she said, stepping across the rooftop, as Lena too began to appear.
"Well, that sorts that out, then," he said, forgetting just how loud the speakers were on his mecha, and making himself flinch. Neither of the android women were fazed.
Still, he used his communicator to tell them the rest of his idea, which they both met with thoughtful, cautiously optimistic smiles. Somehow, by some strange providence, he may have actually found a solution.
Chapter 10
Things were working - really, actually working. The zipline had been so easy to set up that in the end they had made three of them, before they ran out of suitable cables, and having sent a few of the braver hybrids across first, with everybody else watching from around the building, where Curtis had ordered all of his people (including the androids and humans in the school) to assemble, courage grew in the rest of the group. Soon, there was an orderly line of humans and hybrids waiting by each of the three ziplines, to be sent across by Lena, Osiris or Maddy, who was manning the one for the people who couldn't cross by hanging down by their arms, and was using a pile of sheets pillaged from the hospital to make rudimentary hanging bundles they could be sent down in.
Androids continued crossing below on the pole and heading to the parking site. There was no need for any of them to remain in Brightvale now except for those watching the perimeters, who'd be the last to leave, so all of the androids were being sent to the parking site, and cars were returning, arriving on the other side of the ditch, hybrids and humans being piled into them quickly. That whole process was being overseen by Sarge, who had been the one to set up the landing spots for the ziplines, and was now coordinating getting people into vehicles and off on their way to Newtown.
Curtis was pleased with it all, a good proportion of the refugees were now away from Brightvale, and under the protection of androids, and every minute the crowd on the roof was getting smaller and smaller.
When they're all gone, I guess we have to face the last problem. I'll keep Osiris and Lena for that, just in case there's any potential plan where I could use Osiris' drones or Lena's knowledge of the mechas, and I'll keep the androids guarding the perimeter of the city in place, because we'll be at out most vulnerable if any Aerquan show up, but so far, I have absolutely no idea how me and Maddy are going to get across in our mechas...
It was troubling him, and one of the reasons he'd put Maddy in charge of sending across the weakest of the refugees was (along with the fact he thought it'd be reassuring for them to have the big mecha guiding them on their way - especially once Lena had shown them both how to turn down the volume on their speakers, so they could talk to people from inside the mechas without scaring the living shit out of them) that he knew Maddy would be worrying about this too, and he wanted to keep her too busy to really feel the pressure he was feeling.
The ziplines wouldn't hold the weight of the mechas - there had been no way to anchor them firmly enough on either side for that, even though the cables themselves may well have been strong enough. The mechas would also be unable to cross on the pole - both because of their weight, and the way they moved, making that type of 'tightrope walk' footwork impossible. They couldn't fly, or jump that far, and they couldn't risk getting in the water to try to walk it (they weren't designed to swim), because the strong corrosives in the water may well prevent the machines from working, and if any leaked into the cockpit, would be deadly to the humans inside. Abandoning the mechas wasn't really an option, either. This wasn't just because they were so valuable to Curtis and Maddy - it would be a big loss, but they could always build more - but because if they got out of the mechas, they could be insta-killed by even one Aerquan, without the protection the mechas offered their brains. An Aerquan that wasn't even actively attacking could debilitate them or even kill them just by being close by, and that was too much of a risk.
There were very few humans left to cross now, and even fewer hybrids. The job was almost done, these people were almost saved. He wanted to allow himself just this one little moment of satisfaction, watching the last ones zoom off across the ditch to the waiting cars, but he couldn't help but be afraid. If he couldn't solve this last problem, then there'd be no choice but for him and Maddy to cross on the ziplines, out of their mechas, and then the journey back to Newtown would be an incredibly fraught one, and one they would be very lucky to survive.
"Lena, are you sure you didn't make these things able to sprout wings and just forget to tell me?" he asked, as she, Osiris and Maddy in her mecha came to join him in his corner of the roof, now that they were the only ones left.
He'd only been joking, and she knew it, but her face contorted in anguish as if she were about to cry.
"I should have! I don't know why I didn't think of a situation like this... Some kind of, wings, or jet pack..."
"Is that even possible?" he asked, hoping it wasn't, and she'd be comforted a little.
"I don't know! I should have tried to find out, shouldn't I?"
"Nobody could have anticipated this," Maddy's voice said, calmly.
"I probably should have noticed the dam on the river, and figured out that they could flood the ditch... I thought the ditch itself was the only defense they'd bothered with..." Osiris said, apparently also seeing some of this as her own failing.
"Look, nobody should be blaming themselves here - we've already achieved so much, and it was you who made it possible. Without the suits, Maddy and I would have had to stay in Newtown and try to command all of this from there, which would have been a lot harder, and we'd have never been able to convince the humans to trust us that way. And without the recon from the drones, we wouldn't have been able to do any of this. We've saved everyone, and we will think of a way out of here. Now, I know it's been a hell of a day, but we just have this one last problem to solve, and we can be on our way back to the hotel, so let's just... Try."
It bothered him that they felt like any of this was their fault. He was the commander, after all. But he wasn't even really ready to blame himself, either. Maybe, if they could get out of this, then there'd be nothing to blame anyone for - after all, what success didn't come with a few unexpected hitches? Still, he had no ideas at all.
And yet, it seemed providence was on Curtis' side once again today, as Maddy, unwittingly, gave him a solution. Unfortunately, it was to be one that came with a very complicated price.
"If only that Countess woman you spoke to had been willing to join forces with us. We could have easily found a way to get across if we had helicopters or whatever."
Chapter 11
"You can't be serious, Curtis, you know what she's going to want," Maddy said, her eyes wide in disbelief on the monitor screen inside his mecha. He had wanted to have this conversation with her privately, before telling Lena and Osiris his plan, and so had called her through the mecha comms system. The system he was going to use to effect his plan, just as soon as he'd assured Maddy that it was going to be OK.
"Well, I think I might be able to negotiate something, you know, where I won't have to stay too long. Just until all of her daughters are pregnant, or whatever... and I'll push to not have to go straight there - so I have a chance to set things up a bit at Newto
wn, with the refugees and everything. But, you could oversee stuff for a couple of months, and I'll do what I can to get away as fast as I can without breaking whatever deal I have to make with her..."
"But, you can't - Sky will be having your baby not too long from now... and, well, I can't take care of Newtown on my own. Once she's got you there, she'll probably try all kinds of stuff to make you stay. If you agree to stay until all of her daughters are pregnant, she'll find some way to exploit that, so one of them never does fall pregnant and you won't be able to leave. She'll be trying to trap you at every corner."
"I know, I know, but what other option is there? We don't know anybody else, and she is close enough to evacuate us, and she has planes and helicopters, and people who know how to fly them. I don't see any other solution! I'll have to negotiate carefully, OK? Like, I'll make it part of the deal that I bring some of my androids with me, including a medic who will confirm any fertility and pregnancy type stuff, and that if there are any girls included in the agreement who can't get pregnant or are taking drugs to stop it or whatever, then we'll be able to tell and will be able to leave. I don't have time here to think of every possible loophole or detail they might try to exploit, but I'll make sure I'm not going there without time to prepare, and without any of my androids..."
"Well, can't you offer her something else instead? We have a whole batch of human men now that she could have instead of you!"
"No, it's got to be me. She already told me her opinion on the type of people we'd likely be rescuing from this place, and, well, she wasn't wrong. These weird fancy people, they can accept me, but they would never see those guys as worthy additions to their precious bloodlines..."
"I'm... I don't have any other ideas, and you've got to do what you've got to do, I guess, and I will, I promise, try to keep things running the way you want them if you have to go away, but still... I just can't really accept this is our only choice..."
He didn't want to accept it either, not really. In fact, he was already trying to come up with ways he might be able to double-cross Countess Gwendolene as soon as they'd been rescued. But none of the ideas he had were foolproof, and he had to face that if he made this call, he may well be stuck in her crazy mansion for a while. It wasn't all doom and gloom, of course - Gwen seemed like she'd be entertaining in her own way, and as well as fucking her and her sex-starved daughters, he could use the opportunity to learn as much as he could about aviation, which would definitely be useful. It wasn't good timing, when he'd just managed to free all of these people and would originally have been spending all of his time trying to take care of them and turn Newtown into something resembling a community, dealing with all the inevitable issues that would come with that, but why did it need to be him, really? Maddy was probably better at considering what the needs of a new society might be, and she could command the androids in his absence to get things done. Sky probably thought she needed him, for the baby, but... well, he was doing all of this so he could be around at all, and if it meant she'd have to rely on Mercy and the others instead of him at first, it was just the price they'd all have to pay for that.
He was about to tell Maddy some or all of this, when his communicator beeped.
"Just a second, Maddy, one of the perimeter guards is calling me," he said, with a sinking feeling. They were only supposed to contact him if --
"Aerquan sighted to the north-east - I can see seven of them, they're flying. Big ones in robes, like the ones at Sanctuary," the soldier, a male security android named Victor told him, in a clipped voice, as if trying to give him the information as fast as possible, so he could get to the important business of shooting the blue bastards.
"Great. Take them out if you can, and let the other guards know, but they shouldn't leave their posts in case any more come from another direction. The rest of the army is out of Brightvale now, so I need you guys to hold off any attacks while I arrange an evacuation out of here for me and Maddy, and then I'll give you all the order to move out to our crossing location and leave across the crappy bridge we've got set up here. Until then, just do your best to stop them getting into the city."
"Got it."
Victor ended the call immediately to follow his orders, and Curtis looked back at Maddy, who had watched his side of the exchange, where she was still connected to him through the mechas.
"Well, I guess that means the time for thinking is over..." she said, wryly.
"Yep. Look, you tell Lena and Osiris what's going on and get prepared to fight if any Aerquan make it past the guards. We can probably hold this position on top of this roof for a while, and if I can get Gwen to cooperate, then a while should be all we need. I'm going to call her now."
Madeleine didn't say any more. He knew she had to have realized that if they were under attack, and this plan was all they had, there was no point debating it any further. She looked sad, though, before the monitor went blank, and he saw her mecha moving over to talk to Osiris and Lena as he'd asked.
Chapter 12
He'd somehow known, that first time he'd spoken to Countess Gwendolene Warren, when she'd chosen to strip naked, tipsy on her fancy wine, and proposition him, that it wouldn't be the last time he'd be talking to her. Though, he hadn't been expecting to be using the contact details she'd given him quite so soon, or in quite such circumstances.
He took a deep breath, trying to push down the feelings of apprehension, trying to ensure he could keep a cool head throughout what would no doubt be an odd negotiation. Gwen hadn't seemed like she'd be too difficult to deal with, but nonetheless, if she didn't come through for him now, he had no plan at all, and if she could tell how desperate he was, then he was bound to come out of this deal badly.
It was Featherby that answered his call - he could tell right away from the voice. Well, at least it was someone he knew, although the android butler grated on him.
"I need to speak to Gwen... Uh, I mean, I have things of an urgent nature to discuss with the Countess," he said, rolling his eyes to himself but knowing that it'd be easier to get this moving along quickly if he just played along with the ostentations of the Warren family.
"Whom shall I tell her is asking?" Featherby replied.
"Curtis, from Newtown - come on, how many people ever call her? I really don't have time to mess around, Featherby, and I have an offer for her I think she will be very keen to hear, so can you please, just --"
"Curtis! I must say, I'm delighted to hear from you again so soon!" Gwen's voice rang out. Clearly she'd been hovering nearby and had taken the communicator from her servant, "though, if you were hoping for a repeat performance, well, I need a little time to get myself comfortable and in front of the camera..."
"Oh, uh, well, no, that's not what I was calling for today, actually. I'll cut straight to it. I assaulted Brightvale. It's over, here - we wiped out the Aerquan, we've freed all of the humans and hybrids who were being held here. Your pact with the Aerquan is over - I know you will have been making preparations for that eventuality, since you knew we were going to do this."
"Indeed. Well, I suppose all good things come to an end. And while we'll have to be a bit more vigilant here at the estate now, at least we'll be able to fly again. It may even be worth the possibility of having to defend ourselves to be able to take our aircraft out - to be honest, when I told the rest of my family, they were more interested in that than in the Aerquan... two of my daughters were out working on their favorite planes this morning, and me, well, I can't say the idea of flying for real, instead of in a silly little simulator isn't quite thrilling."
"Good, I'm glad you're seeing the upside of it all, because, well, I need to ask you for something. I know you won't do it for nothing, before we begin, so please hear me out under the assumption that I will be willing to do, er, quite a lot in return. But it's basically this - the Aerquan flooded a large ditch around the city as we were attacking them, and the water is contaminated with a corrosive that means it's impossible to swim across, even
for androids or the mechas myself and another human member of my party use to protect ourselves from the Aerquan mind attacks. I've been able to find ways to get the refugees we rescued, and my army of androids, back across, and back on their way to Newtown, but the two of us in the mecha suits, well, we're trapped inside Brightvale. We don't have any way to get the mechas across the water. But I'm pretty sure that with a helicopter..."
He left the line dangling there, waiting tensely to see if she got what he was asking for without him having to come out and say it, watching Maddy, Lena and Osiris standing on the edge of the building, looking across the sky for Aerquan who were not yet, thankfully, appearing.
"Well, well, that does sound like quite the predicament. Although, I am impressed that you managed to get so far in your little plan for taking on the Aerquan before you needed to ask for my help! So, you need a helicopter that can lift one of your machines to come and ferry you across their nasty trap. I certainly have such a thing, and I definitely know of a pilot who is very, very interested in going up in it..."
He could tell from what she was saying that she meant herself. Perhaps her desire to fly, to really get to use all the toys that had been bequeathed to her, but which the old agreement her ancestors had made with the Aerquan had meant were never allowed to leave the ground, would be enough. Perhaps she wouldn't even want anything in return.
"Yes. I mean, you said you all keep the aircraft well maintained, out of family tradition, so I was hoping you'd be up for the challenge. We'd be forever grateful."
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