ic Gridlock!

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Soldiers legs went from him, and in a moment he was hoisted into the air. Replica tried to throw him at the last remaining upright (loosely speaking) soldier but he twisted in her grasp, and instead sailed over head, landing, with a horrible crunch, on the roof of a small car. 

 

Glass shattered. The driver, a rather oblivious man who stil had the presence of mind to stay in his car during the fight could be heard, in a rather uptight way, mumbling "I hope you got insurance buddy, you are gonna pay for that!"

 

The soldier with the RPG gave a bold fearless look. "I die for Red Dawn!" he proclaimed, and unslung the RPG from his back, flicking off the safety!

 

 

[Cubismo]

A direct hit with that RPG could well of kill them both at close range!

 

Whatever this Red Dawn group was to call them extremists would have been an understatement if it was able garner this much fanatical loyalty from its members.

 

Replica would have investigate this group after she put this mad man down. 

 

The RPG was a bulky, awkward weapon to be sure and Replica had to maneuver her body it just the right around the Russian if she wanted to take it from him without setting it off and blowing the pair of them off.

 

Still, Replica lunged at the soldier with one hand attempting to force the RPG's grenade head upwards while the other slammed into his shoulder. 

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Soldier was pretty drunk from concussion, and the RPG Launcher slipped neatly away from his grasp. And fortunately did not accidentally go off. 

 

This was heavy artillery!

 

The Solider was too beat to speak in English, instead mumbling in Russian defiantly. 

 

"<You will never defeat us!>" he said, despite all evidence to the contrary. 

 

"<I must inform mission control!>" declared the communication soldier. Was it cowardice? Not likely. These were tough guys. More likely something had seeped into his sagging brain - the fact he wasn't go to win this fight, but he could at least salvage some information on the matter. With a grunt of effort, he limped towards the dangling rope that was attache dto the hovering helicopter. 

[Cubismo]

After hearing her opponent's mumbled cry in defiance, which was being uttered through a very bloody mouth, Replica couldn't help but deliver a short pithy reply of her own.

 

"<The facts say otherwise, comrade.>"

 

With that Replica discard the soldier's RPG to free up both her hands and deliver a one-two punch of slamming one fist into his stomach and the other right under his chin. 

 

Not wanting to linger for another second on him while his compatriot tried to make his escape, Replica races towards the comm officer, weaving between gridlocked cars or outright jumping over them until she made it to him. 

Edited October 7, 2018 by Cubismo

[Supercape]

GM

 

The poor solider once again took the artificial fists to his biological body. His armour was the only thing keeping him on his feet, and even then, it was a close run thing. He sank to one knee, keeping conscious only because of brutal discipline, fervent will. He mumbled something in Russian but he was gasping for breath and half consious, and even womeone who understood Russian perfectly (like Replica) could not understand him. 

 

Something about beetroot and steam engines, from the sound of it. Which was not some obscure reference to his mission or superiors, but a testament to lungs out of air, and brain out of synapses. 

 

"<You will regret today!>" called out the communications officer, holding onto the helicopter cord with both hands, his grip strong despite all the punishment has taken. 

 

"<Fall back! Fall back! Abort!>" he called up to the helicopter, which started ascending, carrying him with him, thirty feet of cable between them. 

[Cubismo]

Despite rushing to catch him Replica saw the Comm officer 30 feet in the air from where he was just a few moments ago. Her scans told her that regardless of her inhuman strength she wouldn't be to jump high enough into the air to catch the soldier on the ladder and that odds of her shooting him down with an impoverished object were negligible. 

 

He was getting away and there was nothing Replica could do about it. Replica unconscious curled her fingers into a fist and for a few fractions of a second was lost to an emotion that she recently knew she had.

 

The moment quickly passed though and Replica turned away from the fleeing helicopter. While most of the soldiers had been defeated, and the Darwin-X was safe in the van, the situation still wasn't over yet. The gridlock was still consuming the city as far as she knew and the mystery of what the Red Dawn was pending. 

 

Those two two issues had to be amended quickly, but first Replica had to determine whatever the lasting remaining soldier on the street was still conscious. 

 

Miraculously he was, if barely, but Replica doubted that he had much fight left in him. She had even greater doubts that he would be able to answer any of her questions about Red Dawn. Instead she closed on him quickly pulled out handcuffs from her utility belt. 

 

 

[Supercape]

GM

 

The soldier on the ground stumbled to the left, and stumbled to the right, but essentially he was out of options. Disarmed, battered, and alone, and facing Replica who was much stronger, he was soon pushed to the side and cuffed. 

 

The helicopter did not stay. Its mission was failed, regretably, and it started peeling off into the sky...

 

In the distance, Replica could hear North and agent Simmons running (and somewhat out of breath) calling her. Being a bit out of breath, of course, meant that it was a rather gasped call!

 

"What happened, are you alright?" summised North fron fifty feet away, yelling as loud as his burning lungs could let him. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Supercape

[Cubismo]

After handcuffing the still delirious and mumbling soldier Replica took a moment to look at his RPG, which was still laying where she had put it. 

 

Even if she decided to break her ethical protocols and use it to destroy the fleeing helicopter the chances of her actually hitting it were still depressingly slim her predictive models showed. Furthermore even she did there was a high probability that the downed craft would fall on top of pedestrians or gridlocked drivers. That was utterly unacceptable by Replica's standards and so she left the RPG where it was.

 

When Replica heard North a few yards away from her position hailing her, she decided it was best to stay near the Darwin-X instead of rushing to meet him. It was always possible that other members of Red Dawn should show after all it would have been decidely embarrassing on Replica's part if she defeated the Russians only to lose the Darwin-X while she was distracted talking to Dr. North.  

 

"I am damaged but still standing, Dr. North," she responded. "The transport carrying the Darwin-X was attacked by an organization called Red Dawn. Besides them having Russians soldiers under their employ I know little else about them. Currently anyway."

 

Seeing as the fight was over and she could finally focus finding out what this Red Dawn group was, Replica did just that using her technopathic abilities, combing through the Internet for any information on the group. 

 

 

[Supercape]

GM

 

In the blink of a cybernetic eye, Replica was searching the internet. 

 

Red Dawn. 

 

It was of course a term used all over the place, and a particularly common one in various conspiracy websites. A Martian Invasion. A Communist Plot. A killer virus. Even a theory that the world was being saved by humans from the far future, when Sol had turned into a red giant star. 

 

It was a mess of references and counter references, and it would take weeks to sort anything coherent out, even at artificial brain speeds. Perhaps nothing ever could be sorted out. 

 

But there was one thing Replica noticed when cross referencing terms. 

 

There was absolutely no reference, anywhere, of mother board and red dawn. 

 

Which suggested someone had written the two terms out of the internet...or more precisely, had ensured that the two terms never came up together. 

[Cubismo]

Despite her data search ultimately coming out short the fact that mutual references to mother board and red dawn were non-existent on the entirety of the Internet was most certainly a red flag.

 

It made sense that the mysterious hacker that gave the Irate Pirate the hacking app and the these Red Dawn terrorists were working together to steal the Darwin-X. It all being a coincidence would defy probability after all. 

 

But even with that information in hand it still left Replica with little to work with. At least until the three soldiers she knocked out were conscious enough to be questioned by WEST anyway. 

 

Until then she'd just have to hope that the approaching Dr. North had at least been able to learn something from the Irate Pirate and his hacking app. 

[Supercape]

GM

 

And so...

 

As it turned out, the Irate Pirate was painfully ignorant of information. He was a medium level hacker without the wit to understand he had been played. Mother board, who ever she (or possibly he) was, had played him well - manipulating him with fantasies of hitting the big time via her help. Sure, he was being as helpful as he can. 

 

But as it turned out, that wasn't  very helpful. 

 

North passed on the three soldiers to the FBI for questioning. For now, it was a win. An imperfect win, for one had got away, and presumably had plenty to say about Replica. But, the AI system was back to normal, the traffic started to flow again, and a large shipment of Darwin-X had been saved from theft. 

 

"I have an idea" said North to Replica. "Somebody I think we can ask for help..."

 

~ Fin ~

 

 

Edited October 12, 2018 by Supercape