Living Metal: Metallic Soul

Chapter 4: Between a rock and a hard place

Across the red hazy desert of Mars, Anna ran after Bone Crusher. His foot prints led towards a cavern that connected to a series of smaller caves. This was another reminder of Earth’s dominance as most of the cave created by the blast scars from the bombardment from the war with Earth.

Anna quickly followed Bone Crusher into these caves systems. With stealth-like grace, she caught up with him soon. Oblivious to her actions, Bone Crusher continued his way through the caverns thinking that he had escaped.

At the right was an exit that led out to a valley. Once out, Bone Crusher needed to make sure that he had indeed escaped. He stopped to turn around in the hopes that she was not following him. Crusher did not see anything and sighed in relief.

But Anna was close by, standing on top of the ledge near his position. She jumped when he turned back around and continued on his way to false freedom. She was only a few feet away from him when he bellowed out with laughter, “Ha, ha, ha, I did it! I got away from her. There’s no…”

He paused as he saw the faint shadow that stood in front of him. Someone was up on top of the rocks, watching him. As he swallowed, his eyes widened with fear and he whipped around to see if it was Anna. Again, to his relief, it was only his imagination giving him a scare. Standing before him was a rock face that resembled a human figure.

With a burst of hearty arrogant laughter, Bone Crusher turned his attention back on escaping from his captor. His amusement came to a screeching halt as his eyes gazed upon Anna standing before him with her arms crossed, leaning against a boulder a few steps before him.

With eyes wide in disbelief, he doubled back into the rocky caves. His cyber enhancements gave him great agility through the jagged boulders. Giving nothing to chance, he then used his massive cyborg legs to jump over a small ravine.

Bone Crusher landed into a network of grottos and continued to run, zigzagging back and forth through the caves, hoping to confuse his pursuer, convinced that she could not follow.

To his fearful reality, Anna was there waiting for him as he exited the last cave. With teeth gritted in anger, he backed up a few paces. He quickly looked back and forth, trying to find another way to flee. Just as he was about to run, Anna yelled with a smile on her face, “Hey!”

She started to walk towards him, saying, “That’s right, big guy. Are you ready to give up?”

Bone Crusher refused to give in and screamed out of frustration. “What the hell are you woman? There is no way that you should have caught up with me.”

“May be you are not as great as you think you are. But, whatever…,” said Anna as she continued to walk towards him.

“Whatever! I’ll show you whatever.” He screamed as he turned around to face Anna. With a crazed look on his face, he began to charge straight into her direction, screaming, “I got you! I GOT YOU! HAAA!”

With ease, she moved if she was dancing out of the way of his aggression. Instead of a simple move to the left or the right, she wanted to add more of an insult than just a counter. She winked at Bone Crusher to anger him even more than he was.

In rage, like a bull seeing red, he came back around and charged right at her. This time, it didn’t seem like she was moving out of the way. With a crazy laugh, he screamed out loud thinking that he was going to strike her.

To his dismay, his expression turned from craziness to extreme stress. Anna, in one fluid motion, smacked him in the face with both of her hands. She then jumped up, and leapfrogged over his back. He couldn’t stop his momentum as he passed under her. For added insult, Anna then mule kicked him in the back of his shoulders.

A look of shock ran across his face as the impact caused him to stumble forward into a ditch. Anna landed away from the ditch, and turned to watch this calamity unfold. Since his hands were still tied together, Bone Crusher tumbled all the way down screaming colorful metaphors about her. He landed face-first on the ground. She knew that this fall would only hurt his ego, rather than his cybernetic body, and started to laugh at him.

“Hey bub, I bet that hurt! So much for the Great Bone…”

Anna stopped laughing as she felt a gush of wind blowing forcibly down onto her body, “What the… hell?”

She looked up at a big oval ship in the Martian sky. Four wings and a mammoth size Vulcan cannon were pointing in their direction. The ship swiftly came down from the high altitude and hovered above them.

Anna could barely make out the insignia on the side of the ship as the searchlights glared brightly at them.

Something isn’t right. There shouldn’t be anyone else out there in the Badlands. Earth’s Security Force…no, wait a sec. What the hell are they doing out here?

The ESF ship opened the rest of its main gun ports on the front two wings and turned on the secondary searchlights. A voice from the ship announced, “Freeze! You are all violating Earth’s restricted zone! You will be shot if you do not comply!”

While Anna was focusing on the ship, Bone Crusher thought he saw an opportunity to escape. While he tried to pass by her, Anna was quick to respond to his actions.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

With a smile on his face he thought that he could flee and tried to run. Before Anna could get to him, the Earth’s ship moved toward him. It promptly blocked his escape route and said again with authority, “Last warning. Do not proceed.”

Caught off guard by the swiftness of the ship’s movements, Bone Crusher accidentally stumbled forward. With a fright on his face and beads of sweat pouring off his forehead he looked up only to be met with a bullet to the head. As he fell, his blood trickled down in front of Anna’s feet. She looked upon the crimson river that flowed around her in disbelief.

She felt something warm on the right side of her face. She slowly took her hand and rubbed it off. Once she looked at what was on her hand, reality settled in as her finger tips were covered in blood. Still in disbelief Anna, peered back up to the ship.

She was about to go for her badge in the back pocket of her pants when the ship began to land. It transformed to fit a ground assault. The wings separated and reconfigured into legs, spreading like a spider and the Vulcan cannon extended as the secondary gun ports attached themselves onto the searchlights.

“Put your hands up, now! This is your only warning.”

She flicked him off and showed her badge. With authority, she yelled, “That’s what I say about your authority! I am the goddamn cop here! You are interfering with my invest…”

The voice interrupted her. “I don’t care who you are, lady! If you come any closer, you will be fired upon just like your so-called prisoner!”

The standoff between her and the ESF’s Mech continued. Anna’s patience was running thin. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck with an Earthier with an itchy finger.

Okay, no problem here, she thought. I can take on this asshole. As long as there aren’t any more of these…

Just before she could finish her thought, Anna noticed little red dots appearing all over her body. Out from the starry night, more of the ESF mechs came down and hovered around them. Armed with heavy arsenal, the ESF troopers began to surround her, cutting off all escape routes.

She then finished her thought, guys… okay, and I guess it is still not a problem. As long as they don’t find my other prisoner, I can finish talking my way out of this quickly.

Due to the firepower that these troopers were handling, Anna’s suspicions grew that these were not just ordinary security units. What she had stepped into was above her pay scale. Since she left New Dicon city’s limit, her jurisdiction had ended. There was not much she could do right now.

What was strange to her was that they didn’t try to kill her at the moment of Bone Crusher’s attempt to flee. Hopefully, it was due to her telling them that she was a cop or they did not want to deal with the paperwork. In any case, if they don’t find the other prisoner, then her mission wouldn’t be a complete failure.

Suddenly, she heard a distant gunshot. One of the other troopers in the background spoke loud enough for her to hear. “We got another one. He tried to escape.”

Frowning, she screamed as she held up her badge for the second time, “Alright, boys, do you know what this is? I am an officer of the New Dicon police. Again, I am saying that you are all interfering in police business. So you can do this the easy way or…”

The main Mech who stopped her fired a warning shot before her feet. The red sand of Mars fell on top of her head as she continued to say, “…the hard way.”

By now, all of the Earth’s security troopers were pointing laser-tip rifles at her. Their targeting lasers were covering every part of her vital organs. Smirking, Anna looked up to the troopers and said to herself, “So, y’all want to do this the hard way.”

Just out of their sight, Anna’s back muscles started to tense up with the anticipation of the coming fight. She could feel her body transitioning from flesh to metal. Her long, flowing red hair covered most of the parts that were transforming. It was a matter of time before they figured out what she was. As she tensed her forearms and then triceps, her metallic form was about to be revealed.

Her back was metaphorically against a wall and she almost gave in to her anger when her ear-bud began to buzz. Anna’s communication device was finally working. This made her stop before she could act. She checked it to see if it was Sergeant Simms.

“Anna, this is Lieutenant Mitchell. Please stop! Do not take them on!”

“Stacy, get the Sarge on,” said Anna as quietly as possible.

“Okay, but just…” Stacy was interrupted by Anna saying, “Don’t worry, I can handle this.”

“Anna this is…” Sergeant Simms was also interrupted by Anna. “Sarge, what the hell is the ESF doing here?”

“Shhhhh!”

Damn it, not again, thought Anna.

Her long ears twitched a bit as she could hear some of them talking about her. The troopers had recognized her from the underground fights that she regularly visited. There had been rumors of a female cop taking on multiple fighters and winning without a scratch.

“No way, that is her.”

“Man, I saw her fight the other day. She was the one who took down the Butcher of Dicon with one shot. If we don’t hit her first, we’re as good as dead.”

“Shit, I don’t think I want to do this. She is a cop after all.”

“Doesn’t matter, we have our orders.”

Anna could hear the fear in their voices and tensions were now wearing thin.

“Anna, do you read me?” said Simms as the communication device in her ear reconnected. “Stand down!”

“But Sarge, they killed the perpetrators that I just arrested,” said Anna.

“I know,” said Simms, “Since we lost contact with you the first time, our people have been trying to reach you. We’ve been monitoring your situation by piggybacking onto an Earth Security Force’s satellite. Again, do not proceed or take any action.

“Hate to say, but they have jurisdiction here. If you do attack them, this could give them enough reason to shut us down. For now, cooperate with them.”

Knowing that she could take them on with no problem, Anna decided not to take any action that could harm her fellow cops. “Okay, boss, I won’t.”

“Sorry that we couldn’t give you any backup,” said Simms.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” said Anna as she closed her eyes to calm down. Her body reverted from metal to flesh. Reluctantly, she raised her hands and surrendered. The security forces were apprehensive. They knew who she was and they were not too sure if this was a trick.

Without an incident, Anna allowed them to handcuff her. She smiled at them as they placed her into the holding truck. As soon as they shut the door, she quickly unlocked her hands and threw the cuffs out the barred window. It tagged one of the ESF troopers on the back of his helmet. Angry at her actions, he started to turn back around. His fellow troopers held him back doing something stupid. He wasn’t going to win this one and the others knew that.

Her momentary enjoyment fleeted away as Anna sat down with her arms crossed. All she could do now was to wait for the long ride to the Earth’s government holding cells. This was not a good day for her.

Out of the opposite window of the holding truck, Anna noticed someone at a distance looking down at the scene. She got up and leaned over to see if she could make out who was running this operation. As she focused her eyes on them, she could see two men standing on top of a hill. Like her body, her eyes were augmented to see further than human capability.

One of the men was watching her using binoculars. He had a goatee with slick black hair and was dressed in a long silver-gray trench coat. On the right side of his coat was an emblem of the Earth’s Security Force. His name was Lance Storm, the newly promoted Earth’s chief of security for Mars.

Standing right beside the car dressed in a deep blue suit was a smaller man with a parted haircut, Dr. John Lorick. Both of them were over an operation to explore a once-secret abandoned laboratory used during the war between Earth and Mars.

Lance asked, “Who is this woman?”

“I think she is from the New Dicon police,” John replied.

“But she didn’t know that this place was a secured zone and off limits to everyone?”

“Maybe she was the cause of that explosion.”

“Hmmm… maybe.”

Thinking that Anna was cute, Lance slightly blushed, and then realized that she could see him from that distance. When he took another look and became a bit embarrassed as he saw Anna flicking him off with the middle finger. He didn’t know how to respond to that and just waved back in response.

With a blank stare on her face, Anna sat back down. Lance laughed and said to himself, “She is going to be a handful.”

At that time, John opened the door and got inside. He looked at his watch. It was around six pm Earth’s time.

John smiled, as he knew the real reason for the explosion. His men from CTC were ordered to use the distraction to take any info and technology that belonged to them during the war.

Seconds later the car phone rang. It was from the retrieval team inside an abandoned lab. He picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Sir, we are here and on our way to the bottom of the lab.”

John looked up to see if Lance was listening in. He wasn’t. He then softly said, “Good, once you get the main package, destroy all other evidence that cannot be retrieved.”

“Will do, but what about the scientists in the upper levels?”

“Well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”

“Ahh, sir?”

“We cannot have any witnesses. Do you copy?”

“I copy that, sir.”

As John hung up the phone, Lance surprised him by opening the vehicle door and said,

“I guess we can head back now.”

“Yeah, but before we head back, I would like your men to recheck the perimeter one more time. I am not convinced that she is working by herself.”

“That is fine. It will give me a chance to run a background check on our cop friend.”

John smiled with a cocky expression looked at his watch. Other than the Red Skulls improvising by trying to kill this cop with the bomb that he gave them, this was going almost exactly as planned. No one in the Earth’s Government was the wiser that this was his doing.