All is Fair

Lee had scouted ahead and came back to tell us the route to the surface was clear. He apologised again to Twenty and then left us. We had his number to call if we needed any help later on, but for now he was going to head back as quickly as he could. It would not take long for the missing Sentinels to be noticed so we needed to get moving.

At the downed Sentinels, Twenty paused and had a thoughtful expression. I asked her what was up.

“The Sentinels don’t have hardened processors like the Guard, so they are more vulnerable to EMP bursts. That is why these two got fried being so close to Lee when he set the burst off. I wonder if their memory cores will still be intact though?”

She knelt beside one of them and tried to open the rear access panel on the head. It did not respond to her Guard implants. She gave me a worried glance.

“They have locked the Guard out from the Sentinels, so I can’t pull their memory cores. We had better hope they got trashed along with their processors in the burst”

“Does that matter, Twenty?” I asked her.

“If the cores can be salvaged, they may be able to retrieve images of you and Lee attacking them. There are not too many cute blonde Aeromancers in the Zone, so you may be identified”

“Ah, I see what you mean” I finally realised. She thought a lot more about consequences than I did. “Can you shoot them in the head? Will that destroy the cores?”

“Not with just my pistol. Even the AP rounds won’t pierce the Ceramite plating”

“Then we just have to leave them and hope for the best” I told her. “We have to go!” She reluctantly released the Sentinel and together we left the control room. We were in a small maintenance facility alongside an expressway tunnel. Vehicles could be heard buzzing past on the other side of a protective barrier.

Lee had told us which stairwell to use from there and we ascended two flights to arrive at an emergency exit door. We carefully pushed it open and found ourselves in a small urban park, close to a surface level set of roads. Tall residential towers loomed about us, brightly lit in the night.

“I know this place” I told Twenty. Using her internal maps we positioned ourselves and from there plotted a route to the orphanage. It would take about twenty minutes on foot, avoiding the more populous areas.

We made sure we both looked as inconspicuous as possible. By that I mean we really stood out compared to most Pan City residents, but if we avoided well lit areas we might just squeeze by!

I let Twenty take the lead, since she had her maps and knew how to read them. I am a pretty hopeless navigator at the best of times, relying more on dead reckoning and luck. To be fair, even when I had lived in the City, most of my time was spent at the orphanage. The Sisters were not keen to take us on many field trips, especially when I was involved.

The City was remarkably quiet as we slipped stealthily along its backroads and alleys. A few drones buzzed overhead but they were focussed on the main thoroughfares. Few people were about and those we saw acted just as furtively as we did.

There were a few private vehicles on the surface roads, but we mainly saw service and delivery vehicles. We hid behind a dumpster in an alley when a Police Auxiliary cruiser rolled along the street, two human officers in the front and two Sentinels gripping the carrier bars at the rear designed for that purpose. It allowed them to drop off the back and go into action immediately if needed.

I hoped we would not run into any patrols while we were in the open. Taking out Sentinels did not concern me, but having to injure or even kill innocent Police officers would be unforgiveable.

The last run across open ground to the outer walls of the orphanage was the most intense. It was a hundred meters of well lit road and parking lot before we got to the shelter of the buildings. I was first and gasping for air by the time I got into the shadows, my chest heaving with the exertion. I covered Twenty with my drawn pistol until she reached me, then I collapsed with my back to the cold rendered concrete wall.

“We made it” I gasped to Twenty.

“Actually, we are not inside yet” she corrected me. She can be very pedantic at times I thought.

It was agreed we would put our weapons back in the carry bag before we approached the main outer doors. I did not want to frighten the Sisters or any children who might see us. As for our vests, we had a short discussion that Twenty won because she is bigger and meaner than me. We left the vests on. Safety comes first in her mind.

Finally we went to the main doors. These were set under a covered porch for the main administration block for the orphanage. Two big imposing doors, with a camera and screen set to one side above the doorbell. I pressed it once and the screen lit up, showing a young Sister I did not recognise.

“Yes, who is it?” she enquired politely, looking me over on her screen from inside someplace.

“Um, my name is Millie, Millie Hargreaves” I stammered, before the young woman was pushed aside and an older, wizened face glared at me from the screen.

“We have been expecting you Millicent” said Sister Agatha and I heard the doors get remotely unbolted. “You had better come inside”. The screen went dark.

“That was one of my old guardians from when I lived here” I explained to Twenty.

“Was she happy to see you again?” asked Twenty innocently. I could not recall if I had ever spoke much to Twenty about Sister Agatha. She still claimed I was possessed even after I had been verified as an Awakened.

“Sure” I lied and pushed the big doors open. Time to face the music for running off four years ago I suppose.

=====

The Pan City Little Angels Orphanage was not the biggest facility in the city, but it could be called one of the more exclusive. It took in children who had been orphaned or abandoned regardless of their social standing, provided they had ties to the major religions that funded the place.

All that was asked was that the children cultivated their faith and aimed to better themselves spiritually and mentally. I was never sure how I ended up there or why they ever let me stay. Probably something to do with my deceased parents I always assumed.

Anyway, it was a big place. It had two big multistorey dorms, one for boys and the other for girls. There was a separate set of dorms for the Sisters, plus a huge multi-denominational chapel, refrectory, library and of course school rooms. I don’t know the exact numbers but I reckon there had been close to three hundred of us little buggers in the place, ranging from infants to nearly adults.

Overseeing us were thirty to forty Sisters, plus another equal number of cooking and cleaning staff. It was a lot of people and I had no real close friends out of all of them. Sister Venerae had been the only one I got close to, but I suppose that closeness had in its own way kept me apart from the other kids. I was not good at making friends, I was well aware of that.

The other Sisters who ran the place I always felt were divided into two groups. The first who openly despised me and wished I would leave; and the second group who managed to hide their feelings. Sister Agatha was definitely in the first group.

I led Twenty into the foyer, a warm and welcoming place where potential parents could be first introduced to the children needing a home. This was not a place I ever got brought into, except as a passage way to the office of the Orphanage Supervisor on the upper floor. That was a place I visited frequently, usually to deny angrily whatever charges I had been accused of that week.

Sister Agatha was descending those stairs, her disapproving eyes taking in my armour, dishevelled state and large companion with equal disdain. I muttered a short prayer to as many of the gods as I could remember to please not let her be the current Supervisor.

The Sister stopped at the last step, still towering over me like she always used to. I felt Twenty come and stand close beside me, silently offering her support. And maybe covering fire if I needed it.

“It has been a long time, Millicent” began Sister Agatha. “I am not at all surprised to hear you have been caught up in all sorts of unsavoury deeds in Spitfield. Your parents would be so disappointed in you”

“That will do, Sister Agatha” said a matronly voice of authority from the top of the stairs. It was Sister Adoracion and she gazed down at me with something I could not immediately recognise. Was it affection? “You were asked to simply bring her and her companion to the office, not criticise her life”

Sister Agatha visibly paled and then clasped her hands before her.

“My apologies, Millicent” she said with false sincerity. She stood to one side and gestured up the stairs. “Please allow me to escort you to the Supervisors office” With that she walked back up the stairs, not waiting to see if I was following or not. Snooty cow I seethed to myself.

I clomped noisily up the stairs in my boots, Twenty following quietly like she always did. Sister Adoracion had gone ahead of us, perhaps to warn the Supervisor that the infamous Millie Stop That! was back in town? I wondered if the Supervisor was still old Sister Clementine. If it was she had to be even older than I remembered, and I remembered her as ancient. I hoped the shock of my reappearance did not finally do her in, as she had always claimed my antics would.

Sister Agatha knocked politely on the open door and gestured us inside. I walked into the familiar room, the smell of old wood, books and incense filling my nostrils. There was the same big desk, dark blue carpet, wood shelves lined with hundreds of books that I remembered. Except settling herself behind the desk was Sister Adoracion.

“What happened to Clementine?” I asked, too stunned to use her honorific.

“Dragons finally ate her” said Sister Adoracion with a straight face and I burst out laughing. It was the same stupid response she gave to most of my childish questions before she would tell me the right answer.

“Really?” I asked. “I thought maybe when I ran away she finally had the big stroke she always said I was going to give her”

Adoracion laughed in return and gestured to the two seats in front of her desk. While we sat she wiped her eyes and gave me a studied examination.

“Still too skinny I see” she commented and then called out to the hovering Agatha to bring coffees and some cake. Once the Sister closed the door and went to prepare the beverages, Sister Adoracion addressed us both.

“First off, Sister Clementine always had a good laugh with me about your adventures here at the Orphanage. She never approved what you got up to, but she admired your spirit. She was sad when you left us, and retired to a less strenuous role the following year. I talk to her most weeks and she still asks after you”

“When we heard you had become a Bounty Hunter in Spitfield, I can’t say either of us were surprised. With your personality you were never going to work in an office or any regular job”

Her eyes softened for a moment and she looked at me like maybe a parent looks at their children.

“You were always wilful and headstrong, determined to follow your own path. That is not a path any of the Sisters here wanted for you, but you chose it and made it your own. For that we are all proud of you”

“Even Sister Agatha?” I wondered.

“Nearly all of the Sisters here are proud of you” she amended without batting an eyelid.

She turned her gaze upon Twenty, who had been sitting quietly at my side, listening intently to the conversation.

“Now you have to be Twenty, Millie’s partner I believe” she said to her. “Thank you for looking after Millie and keeping her safe. I know Sister Venerae has spoken about you with great affection”

“What!” I interjected. “Venerae has told you about Twenty? She knows what I have been doing lately?” I found myself standing with my fists planted on the desk, voice rising rapidly with each question.

“Please Millie, stay calm” said Adoracion soothingly. “Sister Venerae believed it was too dangerous for her to remain here, but she has always watched over you when she could”

“Why was it dangerous?” I demanded. I felt like my twelve year old self again, not understanding why someone could leave me behind.

“Sister Venerae is part of a religious Order, a very specialised one, that takes on extremely dangerous jobs for the Church. She has had to kill for the Order and risk her life many times. If she stayed here with you, the enemies she faced would target you as well. Venerae loved you too much to place you in that kind of danger. So she took herself out of your life. Please believe me when I tell you how much it hurt her to do that. She has never forgiven herself”

“It’s true Millie” Twenty spoke up haltingly. “She told me how much she loves you”

I looked from Adoracion to Twenty in disbelief. Tears were welling up in my eyes.

“You spoke to Venerae?” I whispered. She nodded guiltily and would not look me in the face. “When?”

“Two nights ago, on the roof of our apartment building” she replied.

“Then why am I here looking for her!” I shouted at them, “Everyone else in the fucking Zone seems to chat to her all the time!”

“Millie!” Adoracion’s stern rebuke cut through my rant and I collapsed back into the chair. “Everyone has reasons for the secrets they keep. They may be wrong and you don’t agree with them, but sometimes they keep them so you won’t be hurt”

Sister Adoracion’s face softened once more. She leaned forwards and placed her hands on the desk, palms open. For the first time I realised she had the same type of circling tattoos on her palms as Sister Venerae had. Adoracion looked down at her hands and closed them up into loose fists.

“I came to the orphanage at the same time as Venerae began here. She had come to watch over you Millie, to keep you safe” she said gently.

“Are you in the Order of Michael too” I asked her.

“No, I am not a warrior. I serve in the Ordo Sanctuarius. I was sent here to protect the children and the Sisters who lived in the orphanage. The Church knew that having Sister Venerae here could bring danger to the innocents and to you. My job was to keep you all safe, even when Venerae was absent”

“So why are you still here now?” I wondered. Venerae had been gone nearly six years and I left years ago as well.

“Because I found that I loved caring for the children here as much as being their protector” Adoracion answered. “None of us ever truly leave our Orders, but the Church accepts that I will not leave my children unguarded”

There was a polite knock at the door then Sister Agatha entered. She was carrying a pot of coffee on a tray and some sliced chocolate cake, filled in the centre with cream and jam. It was laid on the table and with a nod of thanks from Adoracion, Sister Agatha left us.

“Is that my favourite cake?” I had to ask. How could she have remembered after all these years?

“Of course it is, Millie” Adoracion replied. “You left quite a legacy behind at this place. None of the staff or the other children will ever forget you. In fact you are quite a legend to the younger children, with the older ones spinning bigger and better tales of your exploits”

“Am I their hero?”

“More of a warning I like to think” she said with a smile. That figured. I never was the hero type.

Everything Adoracion had told me made me realise I was being unfair to the people who cared about me. It hurt a lot to admit it, but I knew Twenty and Venerae loved me, despite all my flaws.

I got up from my chair and stood behind Twenty. She had not moved or said a word since my outburst and hung her head in resignation. She thought I was going to abandon her in my anger, cast aside her love because she had betrayed my trust.

Truth be told, that was exactly what I had been going to do. To storm angrily out of this office, damning them all to hell.

I laid my hands on her broad shoulders as I stood behind her. She flinched a little, waiting for me to explode in righteous indignation and tell her we were done. That was me from before, so cocky and confident I was always in the right. Yet sometimes I grow a little. I was not a better person yet, but she was helping me to become one.

“Do you remember how I asked you to never leave me, Twenty?” I said to her. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around her, laying my head on her shoulder. “So now I am making my promise to you. I will never leave your side”

“Thank you Millie” she said and started to cry. I wrapped her up even tighter in my arms and kissed her neck. She was sweaty and salty and we both needed a good shower, but at that moment I loved her with all of my heart. Whatever she had to keep secret from me, I forgave her.

I could have hugged her all night, and I think Twenty would have liked that, but we had come all this way for a reason. I released my grip on her, stood up and dropped myself back in my chair. I looked to Sister Adoracion once more.

“If Venerae has been watching over me and talking to Twenty, she knows I want to see her. She probably knows that we have information we need to pass onto her as well. How are we going to get her to stop hiding and come forward?”

“I don’t think she is hiding” said Twenty, recovering her composure. “I believe she wants us here in Pan City. What was happening in the Spit put a lot of people in danger. Now both cities are in lockdown, there will be fewer innocent lives at risk”

“So she will come to us here at the orphanage?” I wondered. “Won’t that put the kids as risk?”

“No, she won’t come here” Adoracion said. “Your best bet will be to go to the main church at the Abbey. There is a shrine to the Archangel Michael inside, the patron of her Order. She will find you there”

“OK, we have a plan” I said enthusiastically. “We are going to find Venerae and then get the hell out of this place!”

“Drink your coffee and have some cake first” suggested Adoracion. “You are way too thin.”

=====

It was about nine in the evening before we came out the main doors of the orphanage. Sister Adoracion was with us, planning to order us an auto-cab and prepay the fare. That way we could get there safely and quickly without setting off any alerts.

The sky was still overcast and a light misty rain was falling, hazing the lights from the orphanage and the street lamps. Twenty and I had our ponchos on over our armour, with our weapons secured in the carry bag I was currently holding. Only her second pistol at her back and the baton in a pants pocket were ready for use.

I realised all of this because both Adoracion and Twenty were looking across the parking lot to its edges, where the lights did not quite reach. Two vans were there, side doors open and men stepping out. It had taken me longer to spot them and so I was not ready to defend us with my Gunsinger.

Flashes of fire came from the men and then Adoracion called out “Impervious!” with her hands thrust forwards. Two circles of blue light sprang into existence in front of us and they sparked as bullets slammed into them.

What kind of Awakened power was this I thought? I had never seen a light barrier before now.

Twenty had her pistol out and it roared three times in rapid succession. Two of the men stumbled and fell to the rain slicked tarmac. The others paused and fired again. Sister Adoracion’s blue shield faded so I let my Gunsinger surge outwards, propelled by my sudden rage and shout.

The solidified air was visible as a huge wall, battering the rain and bullets aside. The attackers stopped about thirty meters away, a half dozen still standing. They were dressed in black armour and visored helmets, carrying short machine pistols.

They fired again as a group and Adoracion once more summoned her blue shields of light, sheltering all three of us from the storm of incoming rounds. As the bullets fell to the ground in front of us, I saw they were Suppression rounds, not Armour Piercing or even standard lead. Were they trying to subdue us?

Twenty was firing again and two more men fell to her accurate fire. She was using Armour Piercing and was firing into their centre of mass, so her shots were taking a lethal toll. As the numbers were reduced to four standing, as a group they turned and ran back towards their vans.

“What the hell?” I wondered aloud. Then out of nowhere I felt something grab me and throw me into the Sister. Caught by surprise we fell stunned in a tumble of legs and arms to the wet ground.

I was dazed a little and struggled to my feet, just in time to see Twenty hurled back by the same invisible force against the walls of the orphanage. Her head slammed against the unyielding surface and she slid down to the ground.

“Nice to see you again Miss Hargreaves” said an oily male voice behind me. It had a foreign accent, American maybe. I spun and called up my Gunsinger but the man swung his left hand in a wide arc and I saw stars as my head was snapped backwards. He was a good ten meters from me so how did he hit me so hard?

My vision was blurry but I lifted my head, trying to focus on him as he walked confidently forwards. His face was in shadow but I saw his right hand was a metallic prosthetic. The left hand clutched at the air and I felt a terrible vice like grip on my throat. I could barely breathe and no sound escaped my lips.

“Get away from her” shouted Adoracion. I could not see her but she must have regained her feet. “She is under my protection so let her go or face my wrath!” Adoracion sounded really pissed I thought, my vision starting to fade out. Why do people keep strangling me?

The grip was released and I fell choking to my knees. “Somnolus” shouted Adoracion and my attacker staggered back as a white ball of light struck him. I suppose the Sister expected him to fall down from her attack, but he just stood upright and thrust his left hand at her. With a savage twist of his arm, he hurled her across the parking lot.

I knew who this asshole was now. Carter, a damned Telekinetic I had fought before. His face came into the light and I saw the madness that shone from his eyes. He was really unhappy with me for taking his right hand last time. And throwing him through a window into the sea.

“You can’t scream out can you?” he gloated. “And your little clone friend is all broken up right now. What are you gonna do?”

I had palmed the air horn from a pocket. It was not a weapon by any definition so I had been confident I could carry it without a problem if I was searched. I hit the trigger and it blasted into the night air like a, well, like an air horn. Carter jumped back in surprise, his eyes wide in sudden terror.

The noise was utterly deafening, and my Gunsinger grabbed it all with glee. It focussed all those decibels, all that roaring sound, and hurled it into Carter like a giant spear. It ripped a hole as wide as a football through his stomach, spraying his intestines and blood in an arc behind him.

He fell backwards, his eyes rolling up and a single strangled cry escaping his lips. His body twitched a couple of times then lay still.

I got to my feet, dropping the now empty air horn can. Twenty was groaning and coming to her senses as I went over to her. She was alive at least, so I scanned the parking lot for Sister Adoracion. I saw her crumpled form lying still, the dark habit she wore making it hard to see any movement.

Staggering I moved across the parking lot and knelt beside her. Her face was a mask of blood from where she had hit the tarmac. I lifted one of her eyelids and the pupil contracted against the overhead lights. I breathed out with relief. Adoracion was alive.

Something stung my exposed neck, sending a jolt of pain through me. With a yelp of surprise I reached up and pulled a thin needle like dart from my flesh. A tranquiliser dart? I was already starting to get drowsy, collapsing onto Adoracion’s unconscious form.

My head fell onto her chest, her habit damp from the drifting rain. I saw a woman walk towards me, all dressed in white. She had a long barrelled pistol of some kind in one gloved hand, held at her side. I must be the weapon she had shot me with. A tall man was following beside her, dark and forbidding.

As my eyelids drooped, the woman knelt down beside me. Her dark eyes bored into me, lit from within by a green glow, searching my face for something.

“Hi Millie” she said. “It has been a long time since I last saw you”

Her gloved hand reached out and traced a line down my cheek.

“You really are just like her” she said, and then the man came forwards and touched a hand to us both and the world went dark.