Elsewhere
Sei was confused. A
moment ago, he had been standing in New Orleans,
confronting Sorceress Miko as she and two of her
'pixie' minions attempted to rob a bank. He had hoped
to corner and capture her and make her lead him to
his mentor, Doctor Nagura, who she held captive.
She managed to
teleport away. Sei followed... and appeared on
Science Island. Miko was nowhere to be seen - in
fact, the corridor in which Sei materialised was
completely deserted - but he saw no indication that
she made a second teleportation 'jump'. She was still
on the island; he was sure of it.
Why would
Sorceress Miko have come here? he wondered. She
is a well-known criminal. She could not possibly be
hoping to seek refuge!
He knew that there
were two options: Miko appeared before he did and
quickly ran away, or the trajectory of his
teleportation attempt did not precisely match hers
and she materialised somewhere else on the island.
He crouched close to
the ground and looked for any disturbance in the dust
and dirt that lined floor and walls of the hallway.
He knew exactly where he was on the island - an old,
underground tunnel used only to move from one part of
the island to another for emergency maintenance,
which was very rarely required.
Sei could see no
footprints or other markings in the grime covering
the floor, but he did not give up hope of finding
Sorceress Miko. Before confronting the villain at the
bank, he had arranged to meet someone on Science
Island in order to recharge the source of his
teleportation powers; with any luck, he hoped, that
person would be able to help him find Miko... and
Doctor Nagura!
"Jinsei!"
Miko muttered loudly
as she walked through the opaque wall, a shower of
red sparks jumping from her body as she pierced the
stone surface. She was more than a little annoyed -
not only had one of her pixies been killed (one of
her few remaining pixies, she realised,
after the drawn-out assault on Blizzard Base Zero),
but she had been humiliated.
Just as bad,
however, was the realisation that she was hiding;
when she had first fled from captivity on
Science Island, she had moved to a specific location
described by Jinsei before they had even started to
enact their master's plan. She did not know exactly
where they were, but she had hoped it was a castle or
keep openly displayed on the side of a majestic
mountain somewhere.
Upon her return from
New Orleans, however, she realised where she and
Jinsei were hiding - they were on Science Island, in
a dungeon-like stone basement built deep
beneath the main complexes. She had had to walk
through a half-illusory panel in a disused corridor
to re-appear in their base, and the fact that they were
hiding - let alone hiding within meters of their
enemies' command centre - infuriated her.
"Jinsei!"
she repeated. "I am back, and I am not happy!"
Jinsei did not
reply. Miko opened her mouth to shout again, until
she became distracted by the red energy accompanying
Jinsei's own arrival in the hidden base. He had been
smiling, but frowned when he saw the look on Miko's
face.
"They killed
one of my pixies!" she said. "Those damn
Robomen!"
Jinsei raised an
eyebrow. "Why didn't they just teleport them
into a volcano or something?"
Miko scowled.
"It doesn't
work like that! The pixies have a limited amount of
power... and they used most of it kidnapping Nagura!
They can't teleport anything large... only the new
pixies that are growing from my latest batch of pixie
dust will be able to do that."
"It was just an
idea..." Jinsei said.
"Well, I have
another one!" Miko exclaimed. "Follow
me!"
Miko led Jinsei to
her ornate scrying mirror and placed her right hand
on its surface. Blue energy gushed from her palm into
the smooth glass surface and slowly, her hand sank
into it.
"I left one of
my pixies behind," she said. "We will make
her grow, like we did with Shellshock - and since she
isn't a stupid reptile, she will kill them!"
Jinsei approached
the mirror and placed his left hand beside Miko's
right. Green and red energy formed around his hand as
he looked through the glass to find the lost pixie.
He saw it, hovering in mid-air above the steps
leading into the bank. He also saw the police, still
aiming their weapons forward... at the two Robomen.
"Where's the
blue one?" he asked.
"Who
cares?" Miko replied. "Just do it!"
Jinsei reached
forward and allowed his hand to pass right through
the mirror. He lightly brushed his fingers against
the pixie, and allowed the red and green energy to
flow from his hand and into its delicate skin. He
pulled his hand away, unnoticed due to the police
attention being fixed on the Robomen, and waited for
a moment as the pixie began to grow.
Within seconds the
six-inch tall pixie was more than fifty feet
tall, and she fell from the air, breaking through one
of the bank's outer walls. The police - and the
Robomen - turned to look at her.
New Orleans
Ikku and Kiko stared
up at the giant pixie. Although they were both
initially grateful for the distraction - the police
automatically pointed their weapons at the larger
target - they soon became concerned; regular pixies
could be a handful. What would a giant one do?
"Why isn't it
as big as Shellshock?" Kiko wondered aloud.
"Maybe because it started out so much
smaller...?"
"Who
cares?" Ikku responded. "Sei can figure
that stuff out later. We have to stop it now!
Go!
Robo Vehicles!"
"Hey! Wait for
me!" Kiko shouted. "Go! Robo
Vehicles!"
The
metal components that formed the armoured gloves,
boots and chestplates of their robosuits separated
and hovered in the air around them. The pieces of
armour fused together and discharged a blue glow
moments before more than tripling in size. The metal
bent, twisted and changed colour until the large
yellow Lightning Jet and red Flame Tank occupied the
street alongside the police cars and transports.
Kiko
and Ikku climbed aboard their respective vehicles and
turned them around to confront the giant pixie. In
the confined space, Kiko found that she could not
take off - a difficulty not experienced by the pixie.
It flapped its wings, creating wind strong enough to
knock several police officers off their feet, and
took to the air.
["What
do we do?"] Kiko asked. ["I can't follow
it!"]
["Just
shoot it!"] Ikku offered.
Kiko
carefully aimed the Lightning Jet's weapons at the
moving pixie and fired. Long streams of yellow fire
poured from the barrel of two lasers near the jet's
nose and surrounded the pixie, but the fire - which
had frozen Shellshock in his tracks and reduced him
to his normal size only hours earlier - had no effect
on Kiko's foe.
["It
isn't working!"] Kiko told Ikku. ["I think
it's become immune after - "]
["That
doesn't matter,"] Ikku said. ["If we can't
freeze it we can't freeze it - but we have to get it
out of the city, where it can't hurt anyone!"]
He
moved the Flame Tank forward, following the pixie as
best he could from the ground. There was no way the
Flame Tank could keep up with the pixie's speed - the
giant creature had the advantage of flight - but, to
Ikku's surprise, the pixie kept turning back and
prepared to attack; but with each turn, Ikku fired a
blast of red energy at it. The shots were easily
avoided, but they did keep the pixie moving
further and further from the city and the innocent
people within.
["Miss
Sato,"] Ikku said. ["If you can't freeze it
and it's too fast for me to hit... what do we
do?"]
["I
- "] It sounded as though Kiko had an idea. A good
idea, but she cut her sentence short. ["I
don't know. I can't see any commands for the
Lightning Jet that don't involve slowing, stopping or
turning back time... and none of those seem to work
on this one!"]
["Then
I guess we'll just have to corner it,"] Ikku
replied. ["When we have some room to move, take
to the air and try to trap it somewhere - then we'll
see what the Flame Tank can do!"]
Science
Island
Dr.
Brachis jumped back, startled, as she entered her
office. She thought it would be completely empty -
exactly as she had left it. The lights were off, and
even her laptop computer had been powered down. The
last thing she expected was to find a young man in a
blue bodysuit sitting at her desk, calmly waiting for
her.
"Sei!"
she said, and she quickly closed the door behind her.
"You're early - and this is not where we were to
meet!"
Sei
looked down at the surface of the desk. "I am
sorry, but it was difficult enough to make it here.
Three of your guards will need to rest
tomorrow."
Dr.
Brachis frowned. "Has something happened?"
Sei
nodded. "After ending my communication with you,
Sorceress Miko appeared in New Orleans. We - that is,
Sato Kiko, Nagura Ian and myself - attempted to
capture her. She teleported away, I followed her, and
appeared in one of the island's underground
maintenance tunnels."
"Are
you suggesting - "
Dr.
Brachis was interrupted by a knock at the door, and
she remembered why she had come to her
office just after one o'clock in the morning. She had
arranged a meeting - one that she wanted to be kept a
secret. She bit her lower lip, an action that Sei did
not fail to notice.
"I
cannot teleport out of this room."
"I
know," Dr. Brachis said quickly, "but
maybe... stay where you are. I think it's time you
met my other guest."
Dr.
Brachis opened the door and motioned for Senshi,
still in his guard's uniform despite having been
off-duty for several hours, to enter. He stopped when
he saw Sei sitting at the doctor's desk, and he
looked slowly from the other man to Dr. Brachis and
back again.
"Don't
worry, Senshi," Dr. Brachis said. "This is
Sei - and believe it or not, the two of you have
already met."
Senshi
did not seem fazed by the comment, but Sei suspected
that it took a lot of effort to present such a
nonchalant attitude.
"Sei,
this is Senshi, my deputy here on Alpha 7," Dr.
Brachis explained. "Senshi, this is Sei - our
contact on Blizzard Base Zero and one of the three
base operatives that were unaccounted for. I
have..." She tried to think of a way to say what
was coming next without making Senshi feel like she
had betrayed him. "I have been in contact with
Sei ever since the attack."
"I
recognised the name from Jenkins' report,"
Senshi said calmly, "and I knew you were in
contact with someone from Blizzard Base
Zero, someone who requested permission to use the
'Robo Defender'."
"How
did you know that?" Dr. Brachis asked.
"Actually, no, I don't want to know. That
doesn't matter now. What does matter is that you have
both been caught up in a plan that neither of you
knows much about - and it's time I filled you in.
Senshi, Sei - can you both keep a secret?"
Sei
and Senshi looked at each other, then back at Dr.
Brachis, who took a deep breath.
"Senshi,
as you know, when we caught Sorceress Miko in New
Orleans she offered information about a traitor to
the EDD at Blizzard Base Zero," she explained.
"This information was confirmed by Sei, but he
was unable to tell us who the traitor was. As a
result, the EDD ordered a full assault by the Black
Battalion, to shut down the base, and secure Dr.
Nagura Scott - who, at the time, they considered the
most likely suspect.
"We
have since learned through Sei that the traitor was,
in fact, Dr. John Smith. What we also did not know at
the time was that Miko had infected the Black
Battalion with pixie dust, so that when they arrived
at the base she could activate the pixies and kidnap
Dr. Nagura for her own reasons.
"While
investigating that incident and finding Dr. Nagura
has been one of our major priorities, I had another
need for you, Senshi. You have clearly resented me
for keeping you out-of-the-loop regarding Nagura's
kidnapping, but I have been trying to attach you to a
more serious mission."
"Director
Satoshi," Senshi said simply.
"Yes,"
Dr. Brachis nodded. "For months, I have
suspected Director Satoshi of being less dedicated to
EDD ideals than he may have seemed. Specifically, I
have had concerns regarding Operation: Guardian -
what little I have been able to learn about the
operation seems to put it in direct opposition to
Nagura's Project: Roboman. I could not get myself on
the operation staff - "
"So
that's why a highly-educated scientist is head of
security," Senshi mused.
"Exactly.
I had hoped that I could gain easier access to
Satoshi and his operations from this post, but that
was not the case. I decided instead to nominate you,
as our most highly-capable security officer, to be a
candidate for the Operation: Guardian, so that you
could observe Satoshi and report back - a trusted
pair of eyes and ears in the one place on the island
I could not go.
"Director
Satoshi saw through this, and selected Damien
Sinclair as his candidate. Now, Sei has reported that
Miko may be hiding on the island - and I think there
may be a connection between her, the assault on
Blizzard Base Zero, Dr. Nagura's kidnapping and
Operation: Guardian."
"That
would make sense," Sei said. "Considering
our involvement, I do not think you would have
ordered Captain Sinclair to come to New Orleans armed
with weapons designed to counter the robosuits, Dr.
Brachis."
"Robosuits?"
Senshi asked.
Dr.
Brachis nodded. "Sei and his two companions are
the product of Project: Roboman. They were
responsible for defeating the giant monster in New
Orleans yesterday."
Senshi
frowned. He was not happy that Dr. Brachis had kept
such important information from him, but he finally
understood why she had refused to allow him to
participate in the Blizzard Base Zero investigation.
"What
do we do now?" he asked.
Dr.
Brachis turned to Sei. She reached into her pocket
and withdrew one long, flat, smooth piece of what
looked like glass, only with a pale blue colouration.
She handed it to Sei, who slipped it inside a slit
cut into his tight-fitting suit.
"Sei,
I could only recover one raido shard,"
Dr. Brachis told him. "You will need to make it
last. The Incident Investigation Team should be
bringing some back from Blizzard Base Zero, and I
will make sure those get to you. I need you to return
to New Orleans - I need to make sure there is someone
out of Satoshi's reach."
Sei
nodded, and Dr. Brachis turned to face Senshi.
"Senshi,"
she said. "If I am right about Director Satoshi,
then I can't order a full-scale search of the island
for Dr. Nagura. I need you to go hunting; if
he's here - "
"Intruders
detected," Dr. Brachis, Senshi and Sei all
clearly heard the loud voice come across the island's
public address system. "All security and Black
Battalion personnel report to security complex
immediately."
"They
know Sei's here," Dr. Brachis suggested.
"Sei - !"
Sei
nodded and closed his eyes. As he concentrated, pale
blue energy sparkled around his hands for a moment
before spreading to cover the rest of his body, and
he began to fade away.
No,
Senshi thought. There's something about this
situation. It doesn't feel right! He looked from
Sei's quickly-disappearing form to Dr. Brachis and
back again. I can't believe I'm doing this!
Senshi
ran forward, jumped over Dr. Brachis desk and landed
in the center of the falling blue mist in just enough
time to wrap his hand around Senshi's wrist. The blue
energy spread to his body as well, and a
moment later, there was not a trace of either man
left in the office.
"Senshi!"
Dr. Brachis snapped - but she had no time to remain
angry as, with a loud thump, the door to her office
was smashed into pieces and black-uniformed members
of her security team stormed the small room.
NEXT: Science
Island is revolting!
