NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 19
Chapter 19
I want so badly to just ignore the stupid alarm that’s interrupting my snuggles, but unfortunately both my girlfriends have upstanding morals and start getting out of the bed without me. Even Willow begins pawing at my face to prevent me from just going to sleep without them.
“FIIIIINE,” I grumble loudly. “I’ll fucking help. Fucking hell.” Summer and Felicia just giggle at my antics as if it’s all an act. I really don’t want to help, but if they’re going to put themselves in danger, I really probably should.
My life is only just starting to become bearable, and while Willow and my gender situation are making it possible (even if it feels a bit fake at times), Summer and Felicia are a huge part of that. So yeah, I’m going to go against every self preservation instinct I have and march into an unknown situation and try and fuck some shit up.
At least we’ll get to knock some lumberjack heads.
Our little party hurries down the halls, looking for someone to offer our help to. I’m tempted to point out that unless this outpost is digital, Summer won’t be able to provide much assistance, but opt not to as I’d rather not risk upsetting her unless I have no other choice.
Pretty soon we find ourselves back in the auditorium where Lonnie is at the podium with Roger at her side. It makes sense that the army vet would be the one coordinating combat. She nods in our direction as she waits for more people to arrive.
“Is that everyone?” she asks as she surveys the gathered crowd. “Good enough. At some point in the last twenty four hours, LOG agents located our digital outpost in the Roto Highlands.” She pauses to gauge the group’s reaction, and continues when the murmuring quiets down again. “As some of you may know, Outpost Delta is a key location for our covert trade with our AI sympathizers. We’re not sure how or exactly when they located it, but we do know from our sources inside LOG that they are planning to attack it within the hour.” She holds up a hand as the quiet worries of the crowd grow louder. “Let me finish, I’m almost done.” She nods once the volume has subsided. “We need as many people as we can to get there first and clear the place of anything incriminating. Please speak to Erica to volunteer. You’ll be sent there immediately.”
As she steps down from the stage, the crowd begins to break, all making their way over to another woman that carries herself with a similar posture to Lonnie. Probably another ex-soldier. Meanwhile, Lonnie beelines towards the four of us.
“Thanks for coming, I was hoping you would.” Summer’s aunt seems to sigh with relief at our presence. Though, let’s be real. She’s sighing in relief at my presence, which is only here because Summer, Felicia and Willow won’t let me sit this out.
“Happy to help,” Summer speaks up. Probably for the best that I let her do the talking as she’s definitely better with people. “Do you want us to sign up with Erica?” she asks.
Lonnie shakes her head. “I have a different task in mind for the group of you. We do not have enough time to get everything out before LOG arrives. However, we know how they’ll approach. I want you to meet them on the way and keep them busy.” She holds her finger up to interrupt my imminent question. “We need you to delay, not stop. We want them to find the outpost empty. You’ve already been seen messing with LOG, but you haven’t been officially connected to the resistance yet.”
“Won’t they make the connection after this?” I ask the obvious question. Lonnie just smirks in response. Ok I’ll bite. “What’s got you grinning like a cat with a mouse?”
“They’ll only make the assumption if you don’t seem to have other motives. So while you are causing a scene with their group, Felicia and Summer are going to hit one of their weapon caches in the nearby foothills.”
“Absolutely not!” I shout at her. “They stick with me!” I’m not about to let this wannabe general send my girls off to fight without me there to protect them.
“Felicia has been seen working with you in the aftermath of your first dustup with that LOG squad outside the school board building. If she makes sure that she’s caught on camera, LOG will assume that you attacked an exposed battalion to distract from her stealing their weapons.”
Lonnie seems so sure of her plan, but I’m still not going to agree to this. Why would I agree to this? It’s too dangerous! It’s -
“I’ll do it,” Felicia says succinctly, absolutely ruining my plans.
Fucking ex logger.
“The fuck you will!” I snap at her. She just meets my eyes with a matching intensity.
“You’re not my commanding officer, you’re not my mother, you’re my girlfriend,” she points out, sending ripples of euphoria up my spine as she calls me her girlfriend. “Lonnie is right. This is a tactically sound plan. It helps obfuscate your involvement with the resistance. Unless you want to announce that you joined them. Do you?”
Fuck. She’s got me there. I really don’t want to announce that.
“Okay, fine. But why Summer?” I know Felicia can handle herself, but if Summer gets hit by a Knight’s lance, well, I’ll fucking… I don’t know what I’ll fucking do. It won’t be pretty though.
“Felicia will need someone to watch her back. Summer’s a capable healer, and her quester skillset will be invaluable with that orb I gave you all.” Fuck you Lonnie and your reasonable explanation.
“I want you all to know, I hate this plan.” I glare at Lonnie. “I hate you for suggesting it.” I turn to Felicia and sigh. “But I know you’d all hate yourselves if you didn’t do everything you could.” Felicia and Summer nod their confirmation.
Fuck my life.
“Alright, but if we’re going to do this, we need to do it right. Meet me in Lanadel and give me ten minutes to set something up.” Everyone nods and we all find our ways into Lanadel. I decided to try something a little reckless to improve our odds, but I have no intention of letting them in on that plan just yet.
Once reconvened in the Roto Highlands, courtesy of some handy teleportation nodes, I have my girls gather around me while I begin writing some ambitious code. I have no idea if it’ll work, how well it’ll work, but I have to take precautions.
When I’m done, I give them both a solemn nod. “I don’t want to explain what I did in case you decide to get risky and put it to the test. I’d rather you never need to use the wards I placed. So fight safe, stick together, and come back.”
“You do care,” Felicia teases as she quickly dodges my attempt to shove her. I’m not sure why I was willing to give her a shot at first, but the more I learn of her, the more glad I am that I did. She’s got the military discipline and the soft underside I’ve already considered, but she’s been letting a bit of her humor out and it’s such a delight to see.
“Don’t worry, Rose. We’ll be fine,” Summer assures me. “Now, we need to get going. Aunt Lonnie says the squad has entered the highlands so it’s now or never.”
She’s right, I do need to get going.
As the two most important meat people to me make their way into uncertain danger, I stand up from my physical chair and start making my way to certain danger. I don’t leave Lanadel though, oh no, I’m testing something that I wasn’t sure until now that I could do.
I move in both layers of reality simultaneously. My flesh and blood body makes its way out of the base and hails a ride service. Meanwhile, my proxy body teleports the short distance towards the rocky path the jacks are making their way along.
The strain on my mind would be utterly unbearable if it weren’t for Willow helping me along. The two of us sort of split up the mental load of piloting two bodies evenly. It’s not as simple as she pilots one and I pilot the other. That wouldn’t work since she’s not used to a humanoid form. Instead, what we do is have her act as a processing boost to my own consciousness. It’s like temporarily we’re both Rose and both Willow and in both bodies at the same time. It’s honestly a rush for us.
We find the approaching squad just as our meat body is dropped off about a block from a LOG precinct a plausibly deniable distance from the resistance headquarters. That’s the name of the game after all, avoiding being seen with our new ‘friends’. We even wipe all records from the rideshare of our ever being in it.
Moving as one, our proxy body announces our presence to the squad in the most witchy way possible. We cackle. It starts low and giggly before rising in intensity and taking on a trilling rhythm that devolves into full on maniacal laughter. “Oh what have we here?” we call out, still hidden in shadows. “A lost group of little girls and boys, alone in the woods.”
As the jacks, a mix of mages, grunts and knights, pull out their weapons, we use our meat body to walk right up to the front gate of the LOG precinct building and tear it off the hinges like it's made of paper. We’re able to do that, because we did, in fact, transform the door into paper.
Alarms blare in our meat body ears while we take stock of the digital forces before us. We find them wanting and decide against our initial plan to toss Lonnie’s goal out the window and just crush them. Oh no, we want to play with them a bit. For all the hardship these fuckers have inflicted on both of us.
The forest comes alive at the same time that meatspace loggers flood into the foyer of the precinct to confront us. We even recognize a few as the rats we encountered rescuing Felicia. We smile evilly and look directly at one of our rodent victims. “So,” I coo. “How’d you like your fwuffy whittle nose?” He blanches and starts to back up.
“You…you’re that monster!” he practically screams in fear. Oh, we can get used to that reaction. It’s delightfully mirrored by his comrades in the highlands the trees begin to march towards the squad of so-called elite combatants. Spell programs fly and lances sing as they pierce through the air. Each strike doing little to nothing. Their lives are in our hands.
“Stop her!” shouts both a digital and meatspace jack in a moment of delightful synchronicity. The physical agents snap out of the haze of fear and all rush us at once. We smirk and glance up at the exposed pipes above us. A flick of our wrist and the metal tubes all break off from the ceiling and wrap most of the guards up in near crushing grips.
We mirror our physical actions by using the tree branches to tangle up the digital agents as well. A few dodge our attempt to grapple them all both in and out of Lanadel, and immediately rush us. We just giggle while dancing around their feeble attempts to hit us with lances and spell and stun batons and -
BANG!
Searing. Burning. Pain.
The pair of us nearly fall apart at the seams as a bullet pierces our torso. We’re certain it didn’t touch the spine, but our legs feel weak nonetheless. This opens us up to being hit by a few of the mages’ spells. Luckily we still manage to avoid the lances, but we’re on the back foot now.
It’s a struggle to maintain this merged state and we still need to escape and survive for any of this to have been worthwhile. It’ll be hard but I’m sure we can -
Electricity courses through my veins, as one of the meatspace jacks rams a stun baton into my abdomen. I bend over in pain as I realize I’m no longer in Lanadel. I hope I kept them busy long enough.
Willow paws at me, seeming to flicker in and out of existence as my cyberware is fried. The last thing I see is her jumping inside me again before everything goes black.
Sonovabiiii-
End Chapter 19