Animus Boxed Set 1 (Books 1-4): Initiate, Co-Op, Death Match, Advance

by Joshua Anderle

  She grunted a low sound of annoyance. There was no time to wait and see if he would leave on his own. She had to move fast. She opened a command panel on her holo-board for Kaitō, pressing the command for him to take control of the previously hacked droid. The droid looked at her with a quick nod of acknowledgment.

  Stealthily, she opened a panel to input manual commands, typing her instructions quickly while she remained silent. Realizing she had actually been holding her breath, Chiyo exhaled, finished and sent the commands, then watched as the droid moved to the grunt, grabbing a bolter off a tool shelf on the way.

  She peered out from behind the station again as Kaitō walked up to the guard who was crouched down, looking at a power-core. He sensed the movement and looked up at the droid, then stood and seemed to say something before noticing the open containers. Obviously concerned now, he pointed to the problem, exposing his neck while reaching out. Kaitō pressed the bolter against the non-armored area and pulled the trigger. The guard staggered back, holding his neck with one hand while trying to grab the rifle on his back with the other. Chiyo winced as large swaths of blood flew about as the guard struggled before he collapsed on the floor.

  Kaitō hid the body in the corner. Chiyo closed her eyes and took in a couple of deep breaths before continuing her work. After a couple of minutes, Kaitō returned, holding the merc’s rifle. “For you, madame, so that you have some additional defense over and above your pistol.”

  She gave Kaitō a small smile as she took the weapon. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t be able to use it all that well. I don’t have much training with rifles and haven’t put any points into general firearms skill.”

  “Just keep it with you. I worry.”

  Chiyo nodded and stood the rifle against the wall. “Thank you, Kaitō,” she said in a whisper. “However, you should also consider yourself when you talk about being worried.” She stood, placing the rifle on her back using the magnetic strips, and walked over to the containers. Kaitō followed, still in the handy-droid. “It won’t be long before they detect that someone has meddled with their systems.” She pressed a button on her lapel, changing her armor to the colors and emblem of the Red Sun mercs. “So, it’s time we created a little distraction.” She stood in front of the containers of assassin and raider droids and turned to Kaitō. “You have a preference?”

  The droid looked over the other bots for a moment. The raider droids, colored a grimy brown, were stronger and better armored with their right arm able to transform into a powerful blaster and a machine gun in the gauntlet of their left. The assassin droids, colored a dark pitch, had blades hidden in compartments under both arms and around the ankles and single shotguns on the top of their arms, which were faster and more agile. “I’m partial to the assassin droids, myself, madame.”

  Chiyo nodded. “Good choice.” She pressed a button on her console. The droids all activated, amber lights glowing in the eyes of the raiders while a white ring formed around the heads of the assassin droids, indicating that their 360- degree sight was active, before the light disappeared as they activated their stealth mode. The droids began marching out of the containers, walking past Chiyo as she observed them with interest. “Take your pick, Kaitō.”

  “What do you want, Malek?” Lalo snapped, her remaining eye staring him down as her ten bodyguards paced the room.

  “I want to know when I’m going to get paid,” he responded, six of his men flanking him as he walked into the Red Sun leader’s room. “My group and me have done three missions without pay.”

  “I would hardly call them missions.” She huffed, staring him down. “Glorified escorting, perhaps, and I’ve seen the reports. You’ve been skimming from the war chest for each of those missions.”

  “Unless you want an incident in the news, I have to find creative ways to keep nearly forty blood-thirsty mercs occupied while you have us do tasks meant for grunts.” He slammed his hands on her table.

  “You’ll get paid when you stop your bullshit,” she retorted, brushing her red locks out her face and revealing a silver patch over her left eye. “If you’re that strapped for cash, I could get you work doing a more specific type of escorting,” she suggested with a sly smirk.

  Malek’s hands tightened around the edge of the desk. “I swear on my life, one day I will—” He didn’t finish his threat as loud blasts and frantic screams rang from outside. “What the hell?”

  Lalo stood, grabbing her helmet and machine gun. “Everybody out!” The mercs obeyed, running immediately into utter chaos. Raider and assassin droids tore rapidly through the Red Sun mercs, blowing some away and skewering others while destroying buildings and trashing their equipment.

  “Those are the droids you brought here, Malek,” Lalo accused, aiming her machine gun at him “Was this your plan?”

  He turned to her, his own gun raised. “This ain’t me. I had nothi—hurgh!” he cried as an assassin droid yanked his head back to pierce his neck with a blade. The droid let go, and Malek’s body dropped to the floor. The others began to fire on it quickly, but it danced and weaved around the bullets, shooting two mercs in the hip and slicing another’s neck with a blade on its ankle as it disappeared into the fray.

  “Dammit!” Lalo growled the expletive. She was silent for a moment as the other guards around her continued to fire and advance. Her mind racing, she grabbed one of her officers by his shoulder. “We’re getting out of here. Prepare the shuttle,” she stated coldly before releasing him. “I’m going to open the pen.”

  Chiyo made her way quickly inside the main building in the center of the stronghold, trying to find the leader’s computer. The building was empty, but she knew she would be visible on the cams. Hopefully, her change in armor would fool them long enough to not raise suspicion—if there was even anyone manning the security systems at all.

  She finally found the leader’s room, placed her tether into a slot in the computer, and began to break in. Calm now, she focused, looking for maps of other Red Sun locations, itineraries, shipping information, or anything of use.

  “Have you found what you need yet, madame?” Kaitō asked over their comm link.

  “Just about…I’m downloading as many files as possible. How are things going out there?”

  “I suppose I would say splendid, considering what we're trying to accomplish. We have lost eight raiders and nine assassin droids, but we should have enough left to make our escape.”

  “Well done. I’ll be out in a—” Chiyo stopped abruptly, and a chill flowed through her as she heard a scream, loud and frantic, and buzzing like a man was being electrocuted from within. “Oh, no,” she stammered, her eyes widening. “Neurosiks.”

  “Miss Chiyo, there are—”

  “I know, Kaitō. We need to go,” she responded frantically, pulling her tether out before all the files could be transferred. She rushed from the room and out the building, stopping in shock as she viewed the scene before her.

  Ghoulish beings in tattered rags and broken or decayed armor ran wild, tearing into anything that got in their path. Mercs were shoved to the ground, their skin burning as the demented fiends touched or clawed at them. The droids would fire or stab the attackers, but most would get back up or simply continue to run. They ignored the pain and ripped the droids apart or overloaded them so they blew apart.

  Chiyo heard the sound of thrusters and turned to see a shuttle taking off. She ran in that direction, figuring it was her best chance to find another shuttle and escape rather than try to go through the gate.

  She made her way to the airfield where more mercs fought off the Neurosiks, but they were simply too much for them, and most fell to the onslaught.

  “Madame, where are you?” Kaitō asked worriedly.

  “I’m at the airfield, looking for a shuttle to escape in,” she responded, a little out of breath as she cut around the side of the massacre and into the hanger.

  “I will join you as soon as I am able—” A scream of insanity and stat
ic sounded, and Kaitō went quiet.

  “Kaitō? Kaitō? Are you all right?” Chiyo cried, making her way to the back of a hanger and hoping for a door.

  “I am here, Miss Chiyo.” Kaitō popped into the display. “I’m sorry for worrying you. I was attacked by one of those monsters and had to separate from the droid before I was corrupted.”

  “It’s all right, Kaitō. I’m just glad you're safe.” Chiyo drew a slow breath and willed her racing pulse to calm. She saw a crew shuttle at the far corner of the building and ran for it. “I’ll need your help to get this shuttle running.”

  “Understood. I’ll get the door.”

  The panel on the back of the shuttle slid open. Chiyo ran in, and it closed behind her. She ran to the front and hit the switch to power it up, the screen asking for clearance to activate flight controls. “Hack the system and get us airborne, Kaitō.”

  The fox avatar nodded and disappeared from the display. Chiyo began to activate everything else needed for takeoff when she heard a loud thud behind her. She turned to see the door to the shuttle ripped apart, and her breath hitched as she pulled the rifle Kaitō took from the guard. “How long until we can leave?”

  “One minute and thirty-four seconds, madame. I don’t think—”

  “Keep going,” she demanded, raising the rifle. “I’ll see if I can hold them off. If we launch fast enough, the impetus should shake them off.”

  The door was finally torn open. Chiyo fired the rifle as fast as she could. She might not have the proper training, but she could at least shoot straight, especially this close to the insurgents.

  The barrage of firepower had little effect, however.

  The ghouls were almost on her, the laser fire from the rifle tearing into them but with little impact. They continued to shamble toward her, almost as if they were toying with their prey before the feast.

  “Chiyo, you must abort. They will get to you before we can launch,” Kaitō stated.

  The rifle had overheated, and she dropped it as the heat burned her hands. Desperately, she reached for her pistol as she backed away across the few feet she had behind her.

  “I am activating de-sync. We must go!” Kaitō yelled.

  One of the Neurosiks hissed, a high-pitched noise of shrieks and electric droning. It leaped at her, knocking her to the ground as it raised a claw into the air. Flesh seared onto metal prongs.

  The last thing Chiyo saw before the world fell away was glowing human eyes staring into hers, and a mouth in mid-roar as light poured out of it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chiyo fell out of the Animus pod, gasping for air. She took a moment to collect herself before she stood up.

  “I didn’t tell you to abort the mission, Kaitō.”

  The fox avatar appeared in the center of her display as if trying to look at her face-to-face. “I am aware of that, Miss Chiyo. However, I am programmed with the function of using my abilities and commands to keep my host safe. The predicament we had found ourselves in was…unwinnable.”

  “By your calculations, perhaps,” she retorted, moving to the table beside the hub to collect her things. “But I could have held them off for the last few seconds we needed before we were able to take off. I could have succeeded.”

  “Perhaps, but only in the plan, not in the mission,” the EI explained. “You would have sustained grievous wounds in the attack. Even if we had been able to cast out the Neurosiks, if this had been a mission in reality, you would have bled out from the wounds they would have inflicted upon you. You would have died before we even broke orbit.”

  “That would have been—” Chiyo stopped herself. She was too caustic. “I’m sorry, Kaitō, you are right.”

  “You did program me to have superior intellect and deduction,” Kaitō reminded her. “It would be a waste to not use those qualities to their full effect.”

  “I certainly agree.” She sighed, placing the strap of her bag over her shoulder. A jolt of pain surged from her arm to her ribs, and she took a moment to roll her shoulder, wincing involuntarily.

  “Are you all right?” Kaitō inquired.

  “I’ll be better after a hot shower. I’m merely a bit sore at the moment.”

  “Unsurprising, considering you ran two missions in one day, one of which was meant for a team.”

  “You made your point before. I’m sorry for not heeding your advice if that’s what you’re looking for,” she grumbled, making her way to the Animus hall exit.

  “That would mean I would be looking for personal satisfaction in you being in the wrong. That is certainly not the case, madame, I assure you.”

  “That would be a curiosity, for sure.”

  The avatar vanished, reappearing quickly in the corner of the display as only a head. “I do have a request if you are willing to oblige, Miss Chiyo.”

  “What do you require?” she asked, her mind wandering slightly in thought.

  “I would like to know the answer to the question I asked before we began the second mission. Why did you find it so pertinent to undergo the mission on your own? I commend how far you were able to go, but the odds of success were astronomically low. Even if you had succeeded, you were not able to get all the information you needed to pass before you had to abort the download.”

  Chiyo stepped out of the Animus center. A few other students walked past her, excitedly discussing the mission they had just completed as they strolled further and out of sight. She watched them go, taking a moment to find the right words to answer her EI’s question. “I simply needed to see what I was capable of in such a situation in preparation for the Co-op test in a few weeks.”

  “I believed that to be the case. Running through a number of possibilities, however, that is in conflict with the information I have on you. This throws the chance of the answer being the correct one askew.”

  “How so?” she asked.

  “If this was a simple test run of personal abilities, then the first mission scenario should have been more than sufficient. If this was to test your abilities under more immediate duress, then there were other solo missions you could have chosen.” Kaitō sounded speculative. “If you wanted to see how well you would do in a team scenario…that would require a team.”

  Chiyo walked over to a nearby bench overlooking the lake around the island. She placed her pack down and looked up into the pink and purple hued sky, watching as the final rays of light gave way to night. “That’s all certainly true. From a deductive point of view, you would be correct.”

  “Then is there a function or objective that I am missing or not privy to?”

  “A couple, actually,” she admitted, lacing her fingers in her lap. “But they aren’t the kind I can program into you, and they cannot be made into statistics even if I were able to.”

  “I see…” Kaitō looked away for a moment. “If that is the case, do you wish me to leave it alone for now?”

  “When I can find a better or easier way to say it, Kaitō, I’ll let you know,” she promised. “For now, I’ll simply have to rely on my current plan to succeed.”

  “Speaking of which, I would recommend you ask him at the next available opportunity so that you can practice together with him in preparation and so there is less chance for him to find a different partner before you can get him on your side.”

  Chiyo let out a quick laugh. “I don’t think I have to worry about someone else getting to him before I do. He is an excellent soldier and he certainly has a few admirers, thanks to his win at the Division test, but his reputation precedes him.”

  “What does that reputation entail?”

  “That he’s good at killing things but not so much in cooperation. At least, that’s how others perceive him.”

  “You know different?”

  Chiyo pulled the tablet from her bag, activated it, and opened a folder. “I hacked into his Animus replay records. I’ve seen him work in the field. With random students, he doesn’t come across as much of a team player. In most cas
es, he’s gotten into firefights before the rest of the team had finished preparing a strategy.”

  “That doesn’t seem like the proper function of an ace,” Kaitō noted.

  Chiyo nodded. “Which is why he’s had to do extra workshops for his class.”

  “If you still wish to work with him, does that mean you believe he will work differently with you?”

  Chiyo opened a different video. “When he does a mission with the soldiers he usually runs with, he is much more cooperative. He is more willing to listen to plans, at least those that are recommended by the Tsuna ace or the marksman, and he’s willing to put himself in danger to protect them if need be.”

  “I see… I have two new questions, madame.”

  “What do you wish to know?” She raised a puzzled eyebrow when she found a file that was locked, a new recording that had only been saved that day.

  “First off, how do you believe he will work with you? Like he works with other students he’s not familiar with, or how he works with his usual group?”

  Chiyo continued to try to open the locked file and tensed as her commands proved futile. “I believe he will be cooperative, but I wanted to run at least one test with him to be sure that we are compatible in the field. Plus, I’m sure he would be willing to help considering that he will need a partner for the test as well.”

  “Which brings me to my second question,” Kaitō continued. “Since he does have a group of other soldiers that he works with, why do you believe that he will not partner with one of them? Perhaps he has already.”

  Chiyo shut her tablet off, making a mental note to crack the unresponsive file later. “Most of those other soldiers have already partnered with each other.”

  “You know this for a fact?”

  “I’ve been keeping track of many students at this academy in preparation and as a way to keep my skills up,” she confessed, leaning back against the bench and gazing into the darkening sky. “And to be honest, I’m almost certain that he has not prepared himself for the test.”