Private //Drknt_Msg#2144-76:998:26TX@UNKNOWN//

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

"Easy is a relative word. I won't get in your way yet I'll still help in any manner I can."

This was very personal for her.

What these individuals did to H4L, Arekk understood the need to seek for vengeance on her behalf. Not only they took away something valuable for the A.I but also the freedom that came with it, nobody could get away with that had transpired and everything that led to this point was going to explode one way or the other.

"We're going to need a lot of equipment, then. And you're in luck."

The slicer tapped a button hidden under the desk to unveil a hidden wall above his bed where he kept quite a hefty arsenal of weaponry. Grenades, small and big sized blasters, knives, you name it. If they were going to go there with a bang then they deserved to bring the best.

"Pick your poison for when you get your body back." He said while reaching for his signature K-16 Blaster Pistol. "I'm just gonna need this."

Arekk knew that going guns blazing was a bad idea, but in the absence of any good ideas, he continued forward.

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// IN_THE_REAL
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// CALCULATING . . .
locale :// ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

H4LCY0N pressed the tips of her index fingers together as she looked at him, watching the motions which carried him to reveal his hidden arsenal. "Physical damage can be repaired, you know as much. But the destruction of irreplaceable information? I may have been coded to wage war for humans, Arekk, but that does not mean I stoop to such a level. Not when I intend to win." She moved through the projection of the map to his terminal and stooped over, hammering away at the keys for a few, mostly withdrawn seconds. One could almost feel the grind of metaphorical cogs as gears fed the turning of one another with precise machinations. "I have calculated the odds of success across the various plans I have created. I advise we go with the one with the highest chance of success."

She paused, straightening herself upright. "However, I am unsure if you will appreciate the nature of it, or not."

The A.I. slowly pivoted with unnatural smoothness, squaring herself to his position. "It requires you to infiltrate whilst I do what I can in this form: play Overseer and direct you. The risk for physical injury is still considerable and I do not..." What was the word she was looking for? How was that sensation described? Fingers grasped through her memory, searching for it amongst her data. "I am not fond of the idea. Know that much. Such is why I asked if you were sure you wanted to do this. I can access everything I need to from here. Camera feeds, SECURE-TRAK connections, and even access the doors. What they are keeping is on the second sub-level. I can mask your approach in your ship, open the gate, and distract the security long enough for you to slip by and enter the facility. From there you traverse to the elevator and go down. It appears to be a single room laboratory from there. I was not able to get past the security for the servers located in that room specifically, so, whatever measures are in place there, you must be able to handle on your own." She extended him a moment of pause to soak in everything she had just told him and after seconds passed, she continued: "Then there is the physical act of collecting and carrying the replica back out."

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

"I understand your point. And considering how close we are, you are, to recover what you've been after for so long it would totally suck if something happened. There's a huge chance of success if you're overseeing the terminals and whatnot."

The success of the mission depended singlehandedly on their prowess to work as a team, him infiltrating the facility to recover H4L's replica from wherever it was stored there while she directed him in what could only be considered a maze.

"I'm still carrying my gun, just in case."

Reaching for his gun holster and strapping the K-16 blaster pistol in place, Arekk put on his iconic black leather jacket and turned to face H4L momentarily. He was ready for the task but it wouldn't be easy, he knew that one small mistake and it would be the end to everything.

His life, her replica and freedom, all of it.

"Let's just make sure I return in one piece AND with what you want." He finally said before securing the last piece of equipment to his handy utility belt, many of his gadgets ready to be used. "Piece of cake, huh?"

It was now or never.

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// IN_THE_REAL
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// MODERATE
locale :// ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

"Oh and... Arekk, take a blanket or coat with you? A long one. I doubt they extended me the honor of modesty." She trod over to stand before him and stretched out, both hands uncurling to take his right delicately between them. Once more, came the short tingling jolt. "And be careful. Please. Trust in me, as I am trusting in you." She gave his cybernetic fingers a soft squeeze; some offer of comfort, but for whose benefit? Hers? His? It was difficult to say, perhaps. A smile spanned her lips. "I have belief in you- you have helped me reach this far."

She released her hold at last and swayed back to the terminal, already initiating work on manipulating the layout of her numerous HUDs and the data such a delicate task required. "Go ahead and test your comms."

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

"A blanket?" Arekk just nodded as it was a possibility. "Oh, sure. Don't worry about that."

The jolt felt comfortable this time, as if their connection had adjusted to each other over the past few hours. He returned the smile to her, reassuringly.

"I know you'll keep me safe. Fully trusting. I'll be careful."

Pressing on the earpiece in his right ear, Arekk tested the comms as H4L had instructed him with clear success. The slicer's voice transmitted clearly and without any hiccups, the mission was a go.

"Time to go." Arekk concluded with while reaching for the keys to his NX-249 Airspeeder that were resting by the kitchen table, his gun stirring nervously under the leather jacket already. "It'll be alright."

And with that, the slicer poofed from the apartment and into his airspeeder to finally travel to the already discussed location. The next step was for her to open the gate so he could sneak through and then more directions would follow.

Piece of cake. Hopefully.

"Almost there."

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110010 ​

personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL​

rabbit_risk_assessment :// MODERATE ​

locale :// ETHOS_CITY​

tag_youre_it :// Arekk ​

>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->​

By the time Arekk had left the apartment, H4LCY0N was already working overtime, yet, she was nowhere to be found in the apartment. Projectors folded back into their consoles on the wall, taking a much-needed break after being overclocked for so long. Instead, the A.I. had delved back into what she felt most comfortable; the raw data. Returned, had she, to her virtual command center, suspended in an alcove of augmented space bleeding code in every direction.​

Holoscreens displayed data around her in every direction, though she needn't turn to process or grasp it, no. It flowed through her to be displayed, to begin with. It was all part of her. Already, H4L was focused on the camera feeds she had backdoored her way into, watching them closely in tandem to the red blips flickering across her processors on the map she had completed render of in realtime. She had to keep eyes on everything if this operation were to be a success.​

"Almost there."

His voice resounded around her in the coded space, as clear as it had been through his previous test.​

C:\user\guest_H4LCY0N:\> run MaskON.exe;​

running_program;​

MASKinput('746x:87f:zvy6:87yx:987');​

route :// rabbit_678:998:983:091:67z​

m a s k i n g . . .​

program_executed}​

Foreign code plugged into the camera feeds, masking the approach of the airspeeder on their frames, revealing nothing to the naked or artificial eye which dared watch. "You're a ghost." She hummed resonate response, watching closely for any distortion or warp of the feeds with the arrival of his ship. "Land on the deck down the street and approach it from the South on foot. Patrols just passed through there. Mind the gate to the East, there is a vanguard ready."​

The rather bland building stood alone on the fringes of the sprawling city, lurking in the shadows of neon skyscrapers, it looked nearly identical to any other start-up office space. Modest exterior... if one disregarded the neon barrier surrounding it completely. Rain hissed in steaming fizzle against the wall, revealing intensive heat. Plasma, perhaps? Guards were stationed at the towering forward split of the barrier, acting as gatekeepers to authorized vehicles and sentinels to dissuade would-be intruders. Statuesque, despite the rain and cold, one could easily have wondered if these guards were sentients at all.​

It was strangely quiet around the facility, with only the distant hum of sky traffic and the faint chime of holographic advertisements echoing through the fog of the perpetual neon haze.​

"Once you are there, I will disrupt the barrier for exactly one standard second. Step through it and proceed up the receiving dock to the flank. Wait for the green light on the access control panel by the door and you may enter."

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

Arekk was a ghost and took that to his advantage, following H4L's every instruction from A to Z without hesitation.

He was former military and the training he had received would kick in instinctively as the infiltration mission began.

"One second, got it."

The barrier would immediately open up for the split second the A.I advised him with the slicer going over the other side at once.

Once inside, Arekk lurked beneath the shadows as his eyes scanned for any movement, approaching the access control panel and waiting for the green light that gave him the go ahead.

Death walked the streets of the city tonight. Out in the night, rain fell like confetti over the Devil's parade. The storm was anything but over. Freezing wind teared at his face like sandpaper and razors.

"I'm here." He communicated in a hushed tone as he looked around in frenzy. "Ready to go in."

Something wicked their way was coming.

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110010
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// MODERATE
locale :// ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

H4LCY0N was a hurricane of ones and zeroes as she worked, able to chew through the slicing tirelessly without the effects of stress or pressure. She would not make mistakes. She could not make mistakes. Processors divided the workload, splitting her focus between all seven screens at once, watching closely. Music rose in the virtual space, pulsing through her coded tissue and honing the razor's edge of her precision.

And with another stream of code, the red light of the door flicked over, switching to green.

"Hold for two seconds. Passing patrol." She issued the warning, tracing the red blips along the path they had discovered together.

The two replicant guardsmen trekked down the narrow passage and cut the corner, turning to route by the elevator doors.

"Once you're inside, turn left and move that way. Hug the right-hand side of the wall." The A.I. issued another slew of commands into her console. "I'm holding the swiveling cameras stationary, but I cannot do so for too long, else security may suspect something."

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

Arekk played it Bogart once inside the facility, like had done so a thousand times. Hugging the wall was his only choice to avoid detection and H4L's guidance is what the mission depended on. He waited until the patrol passed and disappeared to move undetected to the next place.

"They're gone."

The lights of the hallway he encountered himself into flickered for some reason, he thought it was the A.I's dealing or it was just a simple malfunction. It reeked of sterile, like a madman medic's play den of sorts. It wasn't a secret that Ethos City's rich people loved to steal people's cyberware by using criminals as their middlemen for such operation.

Work with the poor and play with the rich. Try to live in two worlds, eventually you're going to get your life ripped apart.

What kind of place was this? The slicer didn't like it one bit.

"How close am I?" The patrols suddenly seemed to increase as two more goons passed by Arekk, armed to the teeth. His blaster pistol was ready to fire, finger off the trigger for now. "I don't like this one bit."

If you think nothing can get to you, you're lying to yourself. At best, you're temporarily dead.

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// 01110111 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110010
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// CALCULATING . . .
locale :// ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

"Steady, Rabbit, you are okay. I have you." H4L cooed despite the probability registers shifting before her, and swiped a hand through the air to mesh the coded map over the camera feed so she could better render the space before her for analysis. "I'm sending the map to you."

C:\user\guest_H4LCY0N:\> dataTRANSFER;
user_rabbit;
data_location ;// '857:fxg:z767:998:587:2'
input :// '256 335 152 233 154 257 327 105 060 310 372 106 230 213 060 204
223 330 375 340 326 312 264 017 263 377 014 204 171 004 113 166
232 335 227 225 321 253 234 213 370 204 064 351 345 300 022 322
162 321 145 241 067 264 217 361 273 046 055 252 305 266 223 265
116 006 361 034 376 205 142 235 332 236 162 145 352 177 127 231
271 205 334 355 073 226 250 126 120 165'

transfer_data Y/N? :// Y
transferring_data . . .

In the lens of Arekk's right eye, the map decrypted to display on his HUD for his easy access and viewing. He would not, however, be provided the extra information that H4L was working with, as such a transfer would have taken far too long for comfort. He would see himself represented by a golden blip.

transfer_complete}

"Around the corner where those two synthetic guards just went. The elevator doors are there. The access code you will need to reach sub-level two is 6-8-3-6-X-Y-N-5-4-8-1-3-2." The A.I. was quick to provide, "Move now. You aren't far."

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

"I know." He followed up with. "But... this feels different. This place. It feels wrong."

But who was he to talk, a brooding underdog avenger alone against an empire of evil, out to right a grave injustice. Just when you thought you had reached the deepest depths of horror, it suddenly got worse.

There was always something rotten in the air.

Meanwhile the rain turned into snow and it was falling like ashes from post-apocalyptic skies, but that was outside. Things would soon get hot in the facility.

Arekk moved like a shadow as he used the HUD data in his eye to reach his destination, elevator doors opening and inviting him within.

Beep, beep. The keys made a little jingle as he input the access code that would take him to the lower levels of the facility. Like descending into the gates of Hell, gun in hand ready to blast anyone who dared to cross him.

"Ready." The elevator doors opened once more to lead him out into the lower levels of the facility. It felt like a cage, someone's playground. "Any readings?"

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101101 01100101
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// CONSIDERABLE
locale :// ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

"I-zzzt-get-zzzt-" The voice in his ear crackled violently with interference with the opening of the elevator doors. "Are-zzzt-me?"

It was no wonder she could not have located this place on her own.

Truly, what lay hidden beneath the floor was precisely what they both had anticipated. Though the room was dimly lit, a beacon of light gleamed against the far wall, radiating a similar shade of cyan the A.I. typically customized her code with. A towering, duraglass pod of some sort, lined with polished durasteel and anchored to the floor and wall both by heavy, folded metal of the same make. Faintly in the space, the crackle of scramblers and signal reflectors could be heard emanating from the ceiling tile above, mingling with the soft whirr of the source terminals lined in consoles against the left wall. Code rushed across the displays of most, though those closest to the tank reflected the status of what it was held prisoner within. The reek of bacta, coolant, and sterile was nigh overwhelming in the unnervingly perfect space.

There were no employees present in the chamber at this ungodly hour, thankfully, only service droids working in the fringes on various, experimental cybernetic implants and limbs. Three of them in total, yet none seemed to realize Arekk had arrived just yet; perhaps that frequency disrupter was a double-edged sword.

In her virtual space, H4LCY0N spat a slew of curses, just as she had learned from her creator, watching and waiting for anything at all from the slicer she was meant to protect. "Come on Arekk..." She muttered to herself, glaring at the risk assessment numbers ascending just off to her left.

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

"H4L?" Arekk grunted at the loud whizzing in his ear. "Can you hear me?"

No response.

That meant that he was on his own for the time being until extraction time arrived and because of that Arekk had to tread carefully, the underground facility was possibly booby-trapped to avoid any unwanted 'visitors' in this wing.

A parade of ones and zeroes were visible on one of the terminals, maybe this is where Arekk could pull his next trick. It seemed that the replica was contained behind heavy glass so it was practically impossible to penetrate with explosives or a nuke, even.

There were big maintenance droids around him that could prove useful as he read that the body weighted more than he could carry with cyberware.

"Now, now. To deactivate the shield covering this pod." He said while plugging a cable that connected straight from his wrist, uploading one of his 'demon' programs. The ace under the sleeve. "And there we go."

The cyan-ish 'invisible' wall that was protecting what was within slowly faded away along with the durasteel pod opening its door to see what was within. There she was; H4L's most precious possession. And she wasn't wrong about modesty, she was there looking exactly as she told him she'd be so he covered her body with a blanket to protect her dignity.

All of the sudden an alarm began to rang, the elevator doors opening rapidly to lead a team of armed-to-the-teeth goons positioning themselves tactically to neutralize the threat; Arekk.

"Feth."

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// 01010000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101100 01101101
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// HIGH
replica_risk_assessment :// MODERATE
locale :// ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

Without any communication or access to track his status, H4LCY0N was blind to what was happening... for the most part. There were caveats to everything and exploiting the vulnerabilities such things exposed is what she did best. The code for alarm rose across her screen, blaring in her face. That certainly was not ideal, however, she figured she could still route the situation, even if she could not feed him information. The alarm was set off on the sub-level she had sent him to, and while their communications were down, her access was rooted within the network still. The A.I shut the alarm off mere seconds after it sounded, perhaps allowing those on the upper floors the satisfaction that it had been deactivated by the response team already. ​

Rapid code slammed the elevator doors shut behind the tactical response team and H4L swiftly disabled the elevator entirely, cutting them off from reinforcement they would not be able to call for. But even still, the clock was ticking. With the facility being primarily focused on cybernetics and tech, there were very specific protocols in place for fire alarms. And it was these, that the A.I. set off. All across the building, red lights flashed in blaring strobe, proceeding the release of powder and foam from the vents nestled in the ceiling. A hiss echoed through the chamber Arekk was caught in, and at once, a surge of fire-smothering dust poured from the ceiling, clouding the air and scrambling the laser sights and sensors of his would-be assailants; a smokescreen.​

She paused for a moment, calculating her next move. He had only been down there a handful of minutes, and she doubted he had disconnected her replicant form from the systems it was routed through; as such, killing the power to the entire place posed a severe risk to herself. If her replica was short-circuited, there was a chance data could corrupt or fragment, or worse yet still, be lost. The command to do as much hovered across her visor with the input cursor flickering its uncertainty. If she killed the power, it was likely they had backups- a gamble, to say the least, and one not worth the risk to Arekk should it fail. ​

Quickly the code erased from her sight and was replaced by another.​

A dial tone echoed in the space around her.​

"Ethos City Police Department, what's the nature of your emergency?" ​

She was calling... the police? The corrupted police? Of Ethos City? What was the play there?​

The A.I did her best to replicate panic and fear, changing her voice on the fly to sound less digitized: "This is Emma Ross at ARCORPS, our synthetic guard are malfunctioning and attacking us! We need help immediately!" It was a good thing they had gotten those employee IDs after all. Ross was an engineer who frequently worked late, judging by the log. Blame was easily passed off onto the poor woman.​

"Facility 4?" The operator asked, rapidly typing on a console of their own.​

"Yes! Hurry!" ​

She disconnected the call and sat back, wringing her hands together roughly.​

"Come on Arekk..."​

Crooked cops dwelled comfortably in the pockets of shady corporations, leading to rapid response times. That was the A.I's logic, at least.

Just so, in a matter of minutes, the wailing sirens of the police force accompanied their storming of the front gates of the facility, rolling over the synthetic guards posted and moving decisively to the front doors of the place. It would take time for the breach team to gain access, but that time provided a valuable distraction for the remaining security, who had been put on alert the second the gatekeepers had been slain.

Now all Arekk had to do was grab what he had come here for and sneak out.

Easy, right?

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

"Just one more thing. Almost there."

Arekk was able to see H4L's work being done even though they couldn't communicate, the elevator doors closed temporarily to avoid reinforcements swarming into the underground facility but he still had to deal with those that did manage to go through, each one of them already in place to stop the inminent threat that was the slicer himself.

With the tap of a few buttons, Arekk took full control of the maintenance droids sorrounding the pod to instruct them to grab the replica body, as he couldn't do it on his own due to the sheer weight of it, and transport it securely to a large window behind them. His NX-249 Airspeeder was in standby right outside with the passenger side door open to put the body in there.

The smokescreen would buy him time to make his escape though it would prove to be more difficult for him than the replica, Arekk knew that both of them wouldn't make in time so he had to come up with a plan B for his escape.

"H4L, if you can hear me make sure my airspeeder gets to you. It has two mounted turrets you can use in case they follow you. They will not shoot on sight considering the value of what you're after. I'll see you where you are."

A brief silence followed.

"I will be f-."

Someone had fired a single shot from the blaster through the screen of smoke, impacting Arekk somewhere in the upper regions of his body.

Fatally or not? Unknown.

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// 01010000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101100 01101101
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// CRITICAL
replica_risk_assessment :// CONSIDERABLE
locale :// ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

Monitoring the situation from afar only did so much to sate the alien sensation stirring in H4LCY0N's processors. She watched the police team working the front door, attempting to breach what she knew was heavily reinforced, and as a result, the security contractors employed by ARCORPS responded, posting up in preparation of defense against them- unknowing they were truly on the same side, and both the victims of a ploy.

She noticed the slicer's airspeeder activate and glide over to the window she had not anticipated, only to maximize her view of the rear camera feed to watch. What was he doing? A blanketed bundle was deposited into the ship by a pair of droids, but that wasn't her primary concern. Through the haze she had created with the fire alarms, she spotted him- Arekk, standing there with his gun in hand, no doubt trying to figure out what he could do to get out of this mess.

An idea sparked in the back of H4L's mind and she opened her command console, rapidly searching across the network she had access to in search of a very particular designation. And when she had found it, she took control. The airspeeder poised by the window slowly rotated itself and the lights flashed twice in rapid succession. The turrets she recognized in the specifications of the vehicle deployed with mechanical whirrs, charging up. The lights flashed again before Arekk. H4L tuned into the forward sensors of the airspeeder, earning herself a new perspective of the situation and just how dire it had become. Quickly, she calculated the trajectory and pathing of the response team trapped in the chaotic room with the slicer.

"DUCK!" Her voice crackled through the console of the speeder, hopefully, loud enough for him to hear it.

Three more seconds passed.

And then, at once, the turrets mounted on the ship fired, showering the room in a flash of lasers and crackling energy. The incendiary hellfire rained down, annihilating the unprepared tactical team, as well as the consoles on the far wall, the experimental equipment being developed, the replica pod, and even the elevator doors. The maintenance droids were not spared the A.I's fury, either. When that much had been accomplished and she registered no more signs of life, H4L held her fire and leveled the ship back around, the door still open for him to jump in.

Her voice echoed from the console once more: "Get in, the police are here."

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

"Oh, feth!!"

Arekk's right shoulder was bleeding considerably due to the nature of his injuries, the goons' weaponry were one of a kind as their blasters were equipped with shrapnel that pierced through their targets flesh. As much as they opened fire on him, the slicer fired just as much back in an attempt to deter their advance.

H4L's quiick thinking might as well have saved his life as the airspeeder glided next to the window with its other door open for him to quickly barge in and make a quick escape. The covering fire from the turrets would give him just enough time to get away to safety, both himself and the replica itself.

"Get us out of here!" The slicer shouted at the airspeeder's built-in autopilot system as it engaged on its next destination; Arekk's penthouse. "I can't believe we did it."

That was the last thing Arekk could say before his eyes began to slowly close and began losing consciousness. The nature of his injury was of a considerable danger and if not treated right away it could mean death.

Tick, tock.

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// 01010000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101100 01101101
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// CRITICAL
replica_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
locale :// RABBITS_DEN_ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

By the time the airspeeder had pulled in, H4LCY0N was already the projected form of herself once more. She knew he was critical the second he had loaded into the ship and the entire way, she had been talking to him to try and get a response to no avail. Of course, she was only a hologram and only one of his arms was cybernetic in a way she could interact with him. Luckily, this just so happened to be the same shoulder that was ripped open and gushing blood.

H4L threw this arm over her shoulders, despite knowing it would only hurt him further, and half-dragged him into the penthouse to lay on the floor. She was moving quickly now, processors ablaze with the status of his condition and the graveness of his injury. Yet, at the same time, she knew exactly what she needed to do to fix it. Surely, he had the required tools around the place for her to work with. "Hang on Arekk, just hold on." The hologram hummed as she rummaged about the living space, searching for some kind of trauma kit or even repair kit for his arm.

There.

H4L dragged the small steel case out from under the wardrobe and flicked it open, going straight for a soldering iron. And of course, from there she rushed into the bathroom to grab a pile of towels. All of these things were placed by him with the knees she settled on, and even quicker still, she stripped him of his jacket and shirt, leaving him with torso exposed on the floor. "This will hurt you. I am sorry." The A.I. said with some remorse echoing through her tone, "But if I do not do this, you may not make it to the morning." And with that warning offered alone, her fingers plunged into his muscle tissue, chasing after the shrapnel she had already located. Piece after piece was fished out and placed on a rapidly reddening towel.

What would have taken an organic surgeon hours to do was done in a matter of minutes by her ruthlessly precise touch. "Arekk? Come on..." Her visored gaze twisted back towards the iron she had plugged in. Weight was pressed down onto the towel clutched in her hands and held against his wounds, slowing down his bleeding. "Just a few more minutes. You are going to be alright..."

In her command console, she already had the number for the emergency responders inputted, in the event he crashed or she failed. It was better to be prepared in these situations. However, he seemed to be holding steady enough, despite his growing weakness, and the A.I refrained for now. The sizzle of the laser-powered iron caught her senses and she reached to retrieve it, poising over him like some sort of demented tattooist. "This... even more so. I'm sorry, again."

The laser was put to his flesh, cauterizing and sealing the gaping wound closed in thin, inhumanly perfect lines which would scar, no doubt. The smell of burnt skin wafted freely from him, mingling with the smell from the blood-soaked towels, and it wasn't a pleasant combination in the slightest, even for the A.I. However grim her work was, it was done, and she sat back, powering down the soldering iron and placing it with the towels to be cleaned later. She would leave his new burns exposed, for now, knowing bandages would only compromise the damaged skin.

The aftercare could come later, but for now, she just wanted to make sure he was still with her. Both of her hands curled around his right, squeezing it gently. "Rabbit?" She asked meekly, leaning down over him from her position on her knees.

 

[Arekk]

01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110

<+>----------+**+----------<+>​

The pain was unbearable. He laid motionless on the floor with a gushing bloody wound, consciousness fading in and out with the passage of time. Minutes felt like hours. The medical work made by the A.I was significantly important to keep Arekk's vitals within a non-threatening range, calling the paramedics wouldn't be enough to save him.

He could feel the tormenting agony of his wounds as she began to cauterize, after all Arekk was only human. For a moment, his world started to vanish around him and everything began to turn black.

Was this his last opportunity? All those things he'd done finally caught up with him?

"Maybe I just severed an artery and was bleeding out like any number of fools who got shot playing with guns." He asked himself over and over, as if he had full control. "I was still alive, and still not all that happy about it. Why did the easy way out never come? Maybe I didn't deserve it."

He began to dream at one point but it wasn't just any dream; it was a nightmare. A bunch of shadows rushed him, bruised mug-shot faces hungry for revenge. Maybe this was how things had to be. All the answers were mysteries, hiding in the dark.

Then... A light. H4L's hand squeezing his own, her expression of extreme panic for him. Nobody had looked at him like that in years. Was this all a dream? Was it redemption? Or was it pathetic desperation and not much else?

No.

"H-H4L?"

He was alive.

H4LCY0N​

 

[H4LCY0N]

status :// IN_THE_REAL
personal_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
rabbit_risk_assessment :// STABLE
replica_risk_assessment :// NOMINAL
locale :// RABBITS_DEN_ETHOS_CITY
tag_youre_it :// Arekk
>>-d-r-e-a-m-c-h-a-s-e-r--->

A low hum of relief left her with his weak question. She nodded, giving his hand a tighter squeeze. "Yes, yes I am here. As are you. You made it back to your apartment." The A.I. chimed, turning her hidden gaze down towards his burns. Some regret rolled from her tongue, "I patched you up. And... I will find you something for the pain. But for right now-" A slight tilt of her head brought her coded gaze back to his, "Are you alright? How do you feel? You took a shock-slug through the shoulder. Luckily, it did not strike your neck. And had it been on the other side, well, it could've damaged your heart."

Of course, she ran through the logistics of it, seeking some sort of comfort for herself in the familiarity of such things. She felt scrambled and scattered, really not anything like she had experienced in quite some time. It was a complex situation, she understood that well enough, but why did she feel so... fried, almost? Overloaded, perhaps.