A Future We'd Like To See 1.33 - Research and Design By Twoflower (Copyright 1993) "M--" I said, before he pulled the trigger on a nuke grenade. The blast, and a terrible, nasty white light... not soothing 'come-into-the-light' light, but a light that outshines all the halogen lamps in the universe powered by the eternal fires of Hades-- * "So who's the fodder?" I asked, suiting up with whatever twisted machinery they had picked this time. "Dunno his last name. First name's Y'ipp. Yttian sector transfer, apparently. He's supposed to be a real whiz with computers and crud like that," Mac said, strapping on a plastic backpack arrangement. "Alright, betting pool. Forty creds say four days." "Four? Dream on. I saw him earlier, he actually jumped when someone set off a grenade in the locker room. Two at most." "Bet," I agreed, doing to traditional fist-bonk closure of the deal. Mac and I did this for every newbie that walked in the door. They tended not to last long. I had lasted, sure, because I had previous combat experience. I worked as a substitute english teacher on a particularly repulsive little colony. That sort of experience really hardens you. No cosmetics saleswoman could possibly handle this job, the career my mom originally wanted me to undertake. "What's this thing supposed to be?" Y'ipp asked, with a heavy Yttian accent. He was toying with the repeating plasma charger array they had saddled him down with. "All you gotta know is you point it at the bad guys, and pull the trigger. Then, usually, one or both of you are gone," Mac said, demonstrating the complex actions of pulling a trigger. "Get ready, you pansies," Kneebiter yelled from the cockpit. "We're touching down in five." "Pansies?" I laughed. "I'd like to see YOU go into combat with this demented tangles of science some time." "Hey, I gotta pilot," Kneebiter replied, laughing in his usually annoying high pitched Murflan giggle. "That's hard enough." * We touched down outside the HappiWerld hotel complex five minutes later. One good thing about Kneebiter, he certainly was accurate. As usual, the locals were stunned by the clunky gadgets and weapons we were toting. The only one that stood his ground was our contact, the local chief of police. "You guys are the Space Patrollers we called for?" he asked, with a clear sense of doubt. "Yeah, that's us. Team Spearmint. Mac, team leader and weapons expert." "Y'ipp, Trainee," the newbie piped in with. Well, at least he was on the ball with the introductions. "Brat, mecha expert and token female," I introduced, extending a cyber-assist hand for shaking. Nobody offered to shake back. Good thing too, I hadn't fully read up about this weird arm thing I was testing... I could probably crush a few arms if I try. "Kneebiter, pilot, is still on board," Mac continued. "So what's the problem?" "Umm, why are you guys carrying so much, well, gear?" the chief asked, pointing out the various guns, shield, and mechanized assists we were sporting. "I thought Patrollers travelled light." "We're the experimentals," I said, turning my head in the newly designed combat helmet with nightscope. "Team Spearmint. It's a pun, real cute stuff. If they have an new, potentially dangerous equipment, we get it first to work the kinks out." "If you've got a problem with that, we can always go home and say you refused the Patrol's services," Mac offered, standard reply to anybody foolish enough to doubt us. "NO!" the chief protested. "I mean, no. You'll do. The terrorists are on the fifth floor, and they've got the Governor hostage. They want fifteen thousand gallons of rocky road before they'll talk." "Terrorists are gettin' weirder and weirder all the time," Mac laughed. "Ya ready, Brat?" "All set to go." "Kid?" "It's Y'ipp," he replied. "Yeah, I'm ready. How do I kick this powertorso into run mode?" "No idea. Didn't you read the dozens of instructional booklets they dump on us with the new gear?" "Naw, I figured I'd just wing it." "Brilliant. Well, if you get fried because you could only swagger out of battle, it's your fault. Come on, let's let the locals continue worrying and start planning this out." * One of the many things the Patrol had dumped on me was a sort of Virtual Reality mapper. Walk around the building once and it figures out the rest. "Alright, there's a large foyer..." I narrated, watching the animated demo on my helmet's nightscope. "The elevators are probably charged or tripwired or something, so I'd say the stairs... the well leads right up the back of the building, glass walls so every floor can see. The terrorists are in a room right across from the stairs, fortunately." "Straightforward," Mac commented. "Kinda like the South Bank run, right?" "The what?" Y'ipp asked, squirming in his exoskeletal leg suit. "South Bank. Me and the Brat here and some kid whose name I don't recall have to fetch these docs out of a room kinda like this layout. Well, we blaze through the lobby okay, since they only had two guards and we had these great silent-fire projectiles then, but it turns out the suits we had couldn't handle the stairs. So Brat here has to try and wiggle out of hers, since I'm too big, and help me get out of mine. The guards burst in, notice Brat's not wearing her jumpsuit, 'cuz she had to leave it behind to get out, and I blast 'em while they oggle." "Last time I wear full body armor," I grumbled. That certainly wasn't fun, even if the only witnesses were dead in the end. "How well do those legs move, kid?" "Y'ipp. And they move pretty well... except the left one keeps dragging." "Hmmm. Should we ditch 'em?" Mac wondered, looking up the glass stairwell from the grass outside. "Stairs look pretty steep." "Hey, I think I'll keep all the armor I have," Y'ipp said. "I've seen the newbies they pull out of your team. Half the time they're disfigured to the point of resembling another species. If I have to limp, I'll limp." Hmmm. The newbie certainly has done his research. How he reacts while on the run is another matter... "Come on, time's a wasting. How many terrorists?" "Can't tell. The VR map is guessing three. Governor is in the corner, tied to a chair." "Alright. Brat, you use that headgear to scan the lobby. If it's clean, we'll go in and up the stairs. Do either of you two have any stealth or noise-reduct gear? We're going to sound like a few kitchen stoves rolling down a hill without it." "I think one of these little buttons handles sound," Y'ipp said. "Yeah. Volume." "Good. Let's move out." * "Anything?" "It's clean," I said, checking out the ground floor on all the scopes this thing had. A few of them were fuzzy, but that was a hardware bug; you learn to tell the faults in your own gear apart from the faults in reality after awhile. "Hey, Mac? What's this big red button for?" Y'ipp asked. "Last Resort," Mac said. "Ain't talking about no vacation either. Usually it's some suicide run / danger escape ploy cooked up by the Patrol. Only use it if you've got no other choice, alright?" "Lemme guess, drama states the newbie gets to push the button to save the others?" Y'ipp laughed. "Don't bank on drama," I snapped. "Too many of these ready to rumble recruits assume crap like that. Don't." "Alright, alright, just making a lame joke already," Y'ipp protested. "Come on, let's get inside." Y'ipp pushed the doors apart and walked in, without much of a care. "STOP!" Mac yelled after him. "Not so fast! Just 'cuz the scans clean doesn't mean there isn't something there. Wait for the rest of the team already." "Alright, alright," Y'ipp said, powering down the leg gear to an idle status. "Hurry up." "Turn your volume down," Mac ordered the kid, who promptly tweaked the knob to SILENT. "Alright, now get whatever killing things they've given you ready. We've got one shot, so be precise, and avoid that corner. There're three of them. I'll take the middlemost, Brat will handle the right, and you handle the left. Now, up the stairs." We took the stairs slowly, my mind predicting ahead of time how the trip would go. It's weird, those feelings of deja vu, but I have been in a situation like this before... South Bank. This trip was a bit more uneventful... nothing of real note... up to the door. "Alright. I take it out in one shot with the acid splasher I've got, then you two get ready to make your hits. Use whatever targeting gear you have. Ready?" "Wait," I said, grasping for that odd feeling again. "What?" "Nevermind. On the count of two?" I suggested. "Why two?" Y'ipp asked, powering up his guns. "It's quicker that way. One, two." The green splash flicked out, somewhat like really corrosive urine, and the door melted clean away. The three terrorists inside were pretty stunned making them easy targets. Mine went down with a laser, cut neatly in half. Mac's got a minirocket. Y'ipp's just evaporated after being hit with a small blaster bolt. "Whoa," Y'ipp exclaimed. "Sweeeet. I gotta get me one of these for warding off robbers." "That's all three. Mission accomplished. The governor in there?" "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" yelled a voice from inside. "UNTIE ME!" "Yeah, he's in there," I said, catching the fourth terrorist out of the corner of my eye. "M--" I said, before he pulled the trigger on a nuke grenade. The blast, and a terrible, nasty white light... not soothing 'come-into-the-light' light, but a light that outshines all the halogen lamps in the universe powered by the eternal fires of Hades-- The green splash flicked out, somewhat like really corrosive urine, and the door melted clean away. I blinked, and suddenly remembered what I was doing. The three terrorists inside were pretty stunned making them easy targets. Mine went down with a laser, cut neatly in half. Mac's got a minirocket. Y'ipp's just evaporated after being hit with a small blaster bolt. "Whoa," Y'ipp exclaimed. "Sweeeet. I gotta get me one of these for warding off robbers." "That's all three. Mission accomplished. The governor in there?" "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" yelled a voice from inside. "UNTIE ME!" "Umm... Yeah, he's in there," I said, catching the fourth terrorist out of the corner of my eye. Something was really, really amiss here. "Ag--" I said, before he pulled the trigger on a nuke grenade. The blast, and a terrible, nasty white light... not soothing 'come-into-the-light' light, but a light that outshines all the halogen lamps in the universe powered by the eternal fires of Hades-- "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" yelled a voice from inside. "UNTIE ME!" "He's th..." I started. Then I turned to the area in the corner of my eye, and pasted anything that moved. A previously unnoticed fourth terrorist went down in a little pile of goo, grenade clattering to the floor. "Eh?" Mac said, surprised. Very few things catch him off guard, I'd have to rub it in later. "What? How'd you know..." "Hey, my button doesn't work," Y'ipp said. "I just tapped it and nothing happened." "I think something did," I replied, mind sifting out what I had done. "Mac, we get any funky time-twisting things? IE, a quick toss-back device or some weird sci-fi smeg? Possibly one of the Last Resorts?" "One, I think. Why?" "Remind me to tell the sci's that it worked nicely," I said. The deja vu was gone now, the weird sense of multiple memories overlaid gone. "Ooookay," Mac said, confused. "What, we're going to meet the scientists now?" Y'ipp asked. "Nope," Mac laughed. "Mission accomplished. Now we get to fill out evaluations for all this gear we're testing. That's the real challenge, Y'ipp." "That's kid." "Whatever." Forms. Well, there's something I could have repeating memories of and not worry about it. Things were back to normal. As normal as they get in the Patrol's Spearmint team, at least...