S-2878 • L1 Alonluna • D17 Fluxli
"Alonluna sustains light already ripened.Fluxli releases the thread in a gentle curve.Gaia draws the tide in high silver.The story gains breath and moves on."
I have to say, my nature is more action than analysis, but a mission like that demanded a certain degree of caution.
We surveyed the area around the prison.
A one-kilometer security zone circled the place.
We were on a balcony, a thousand meters away.
Maia and Kiara were talking among themselves.
While the android searched for a position to set up, the white-haired girl came over to me.
She stayed quiet.
"I heard it was your birthday in these last selunas, chica."
I rested my arms on the railing.
"Abeli of Silenluna?"
She glanced at me.
"Wherever it may be from, everyone wears the same expression on that date.
Still, it's a blessed day."
I smiled.
"Feliz cumpleaños.
You really are a muchacha with layers."
Maia remained impassive.
Then she sighed.
"Gracias."
She smiled from the corner of her mouth and walked away.
Once the reconnaissance was done, we formed a plan.
On the selunia of the deadline
I don't know what kind of skill those two have.
All I know is they were unbeatable at infiltration.
Kiara discovered one of the Fuchū security center sites, where we would sneak in to disable part of the nanosystem.
Kiara would open a window on the first floor, Maia would enter the prison, and then I would join her.
The android would cover us as a sniper.
The nanosystem would be restored in thirty minutes.
That night, maintenance was scheduled.
The energy hub of the command room would delay emergency responses.
That would give us two hours to work our magic.
Everything was going well.
When the time came
The room was inside a commercial building.
Packed with civilians. Shops. Robots. Androids.
If anything drifted from the plan, if we had to improvise, we could be detected.
We blended into the crowd.
Kiara made the first move:
she slipped through a restricted-access door near an abandoned staircase.
Five minutes passed.
KNOCK KNOCK
Two knocks.
Our code.
Bodies lay on the floor.
Kiara had an android trapped in a chokehold.
Her eyes glowed violet.
The machine writhed in her arms.
A wire extended from her wrist, plugged into the android's core.
ZIIII ZIII ZIII
A shrill buzzing.
A man knelt in front of her.
"Do your magic."
I stepped toward him.
His eyes were wide.
"Come on, cabrón.
You understand me?"
He nodded.
I could smell the fear pouring off him.
Feeding me.
I split into a grin.
"Muy bien.
Time to go to hell."
The man's eyes widened.
Pupils blown.
His face froze in a silent scream.
I watched lucidity evaporate.
Watched sanity fade like smoke.
He was already far from there.
Fear consumed him completely.
He fell backward.
Groaning in terror.
Ah, that sound…
It thrilled me so much!
A delirium took hold of me.
I grabbed him by the back of the neck.
My eyes burned with fervor.
"They'd rather die than reveal their secrets?
I'll show you something much worse than death."
Let me tell you about my ability, chica.
Do you know why I'm a cyborg?
Because in Alonluna of 2850, after living nine cycles, some bastard kidnapped me, stole my heart, and with singular cruelty left in its place a heart with only one seluna of life left in it.
I left my homeland, Medellín in Colombia, and went to São Paulo.
One guy knew another guy.
Who knew a woman.
Who knew someone else.
In the end, they told me I'd find the solution in Nobody's Land.
I wanted to live, chica.
I would pay the price.
The mercenaries took me to Netheria.
That's where I met the Father.
He said I would live, that he'd give me a new heart.
A new nanotechnology was being tested.
Every test subject died.
I had a five percent chance of living.
You know what I thought?
I'm going to die anyway.
Might as well die fighting.
They implanted a nanocore in me — Thanacore.
More than giving me my life back, it gave me this ability.
I transmit a few nanites into someone's cardiovascular system.
Those little nanorobots travel through the veins to the brain, releasing massive doses of adrenaline and noradrenaline.
That makes the person relive their greatest fear.
It's so unbearable they want to kill themselves.
At the peak of it, I stop the transmission and they submit to me completely for a few minutes.
Minutes enough to make the guard disable the security.
He disabled the nanosystem and dropped to the floor in a fetal position.
Babbling, eyes glazed.
Kiara hacked the android.
"I programmed it to disable the nanosystem when it reboots.
It'll shut down the security cameras.
Then shoot itself in the chest."
The invasion
We headed to the prison.
We had one hour before the energy system was restored.
Kiara and I split up.
The area with the disabled nanosystem was dimly lit.
Guards were moving through it.
I waited while Kiara took care of some of them.
I jumped through the window.
Maia had left a trail of bodies.
Without a drop of blood.
How did she do that?
Who knows.
I followed the trail.
Took the elevator down to the twelfth underground level.
The doors opened.
A line of bodies stretched all the way down the corridor.
Maia and a young Japanese man stood facing each other.
His voice echoed through the floor.
He radiated contempt.
"I'm only leaving here with the Ninkyō dantai.
It's a disgrace to be rescued by some damned gaijin."
Kotaro.
He tightened his lips and spat at her feet.
I didn't know what those words meant, but I sure as hell didn't like how they sounded.
I was about to grab him by the hair when Maia stopped me with a hand gesture.
"No.
He refuses to be saved by us.
We're leaving."
She narrowed her eyes and started walking toward the elevator.
I burned holes into the cabrón with my stare and followed.
"That's right, gaijin, know your place."
He smiled sarcastically.
Only Maia's reprimanding look stopped me from smashing the mierda's face in.
We were near the elevator.
A scream of agony echoed across the whole floor.
Kotaro collapsed to the ground.
Writhing in pain.
I glanced sideways at the girl.
Maia's expression had not changed.
My guts told me she'd done something to him.
"W-what did you—"
He tried to get up.
"Maybe he changed his mind.
Want to help him?"
Maia looked dark.
I walked over to the boy with a satisfied smile.
"Come on, bastard."
I hauled him up by the hair and threw him over my shoulder.
The young man was almost paralyzed.
Kotaro groaned in pain.
"You'll see, damn it!
I'll tell my oyabun!"
He threatened through clenched teeth.
On the first floor, the boy hit my back.
"Let me go. LET ME GO!"
He hit me again.
"I can move now."
I dropped him to the floor with immense satisfaction.
The guy stared at me like he'd eaten shit and regretted it.
A magnet for disaster.
"Kasu, you'll see," he kept repeating.
Cursing us in Japanese.
Kotaro's face was red. Sweaty.
A bomb about to explode.
I restrained myself from crushing the mierda's head.
Yeah, chica.
I should have done it.
That neuronless idiot threw himself against the wall and slammed the alarm button.
Hell began.
Maia grabbed him by the hair and threw him down.
Pressed her knee into his neck and lowered her face close to his.
"They asked us to bring you back alive, but said nothing about intact."
She snapped one of his fingers.
Kotaro howled.
"You'd better behave, ketsumedo yarou."
She broke another finger.
Then let him go.
"Shi'ne! Shi'ne!" Kotaro screamed.
Tears in his eyes.
I doubled over laughing.
What a delicious scene!
I readied Rompe-culos.
Waited.
My sweetheart was dying to feast again.
PEEOW! PEEOW! PEEOW!
The alarm blared.
We heard the guards' footsteps.
Kotaro stood up.
Staring at his hand.
Desperate and furious.
Maia came to my side.
Pistol in hand.
"Protect him.
Kiara's on the way."
We ran toward the outer area.
More guards appeared.
I roared with fury.
Euphoria overtook me.
Rompe-culos thundered.
The first guard exploded like a balloon of flesh.
The second had his chest torn open.
Screams.
Blood rain.
I slipped in something hot.
Brains.
My body lit up with adrenaline.
I killed another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
Bodies came apart in pieces.
A red inferno opened before me.
A spectacle of blood and fire.
Pure carnage.
Organs and robotic parts fell over us.
I bathed in the blood of those bastards.
"Move it, montón de mierda!
Cowardly bastard!"
That little shit Kotaro understood my order.
He picked up a gun from the floor.
With his broken fingers, he shot like absolute trash.
But he still managed to kill a few pigs.
Maia moved along the flank.
Agile. Silent.
What followed was a sea of blood.
Screams.
Frenzy everywhere.
Kiara grabbed Kotaro.
Maia and I were neutralized before we could reach her.
The nanoenergy came back online.
The nanosensors immobilized us.
We were forced to kneel.
They captured us.