Resurrection - Chapter 10

"Maker?"

"Hm."

"They've taken the girl. We can easily lock down their location now."

"Very good. See to it that they're constantly in the area, but don't hunt them down yet. I'm curious to see the extent of their powers before we do anything. Maybe set a trap for the Medic. I want to see how much he can heal without the help of a Medigun."

"Yes sir."

The Scoutbot left, leaving Gray to watch the monitors. So this was what the Administrator felt like, except he wasn't just watching them. He was tracking them.

It was interesting, to watch out of the girl's eyes. A cleverly created bot, made upon his demand. She was incredibly realistic too. But like all bots, she malfunctioned. He would have kept her to straighten out all the kinks, but he worried the two mercenaries would be gone before she was perfected. The malfunction didn't allow him to control where she looked, but it made her movements more natural. Occasionally she would glance at the two mercenaries and her robot friends.

Gray had expected Makina and Medibot to have run off somewhere, but the fact that they were with the two Mann Co. mercenaries made it clear they had aided in their escape. Both of them were to be disassembled permanently if they returned. What a shame.

He leaned back in his chair, his eyes sweeping across the monitors, before taking a sip from the glass of water on the table. They were getting what was coming. He just had to pit them against the real world and see how well they would fare.

...

"Brilliant. You just exposed us to the rest of zhe city and maybe zhe whole vorld," Horst hissed. They had fled back to the suburbs where the people wouldn't recognize them.

"What did you expect me to do?" Axel snapped back, narrowing his eyes at the doctor. "Let her die?"

Horst sighed, rubbing his temples. "Vell, you could have done something else more... inconspicuous." Axel refused to say anything after that, though the way his gaze flickered away signalled that he wasn't done with the conversation.

"By any chance do you recognize a red car?" Makina asked, lacking behind a bit. His steps slowed, glancing behind him down the street. "A red RZ Ultima?"

RZ Ultima. That sounded familiar to Axel. Who had talked about it before? He didn't quite recall whether someone on his team had talked about or someone before Mann Co. he knew owned one. He shrugged. "Dunno."

Makina took his word for it, continuing down the alley with Medibot and the two mercenaries. Too bad no one was in the car at that point of time to see them.

Spy and Zack had entered the shop on the curb by the car to ask about the fire. Spy had morphed into a teenage girl of sorts, looking a bit like maybe Zack's younger sister or something. She sported a red hoodie and a pair of cream jeans to match, her hair pulled back in a scruffy ponytail.

"By any chance do you know what's up with the fire on the road earlier?" Oh God, he hated himself for having to speak like that, but for the sake of the disguise...

The shopkeeper shrugged, glancing out of the window. The road where the fire wall had been was barely visible through the slowly-dissipating crowd. "No idea. Some goon probably rigged the road. Nearly burned a girl too."

"Any idea who did it? Did you see?" Zack chipped in, his eyes flicking to the ornate frames behind the counter, before drifting to the rare artefacts on display in glass cases.

"Son, I have no idea. My job is to buy and sell rare things. By any chance might you guys want to buy something?" The man seemed more interested in getting on with his work than entertaining the two teenagers.

"We aren't here for that shit. Did you see the guys who did it?" Spy hissed, getting irritated.

The man shrugged. "He was wearing red. That's all I know. Kinda pale. Had three friends following him after that. I don't know about them, didn't see."

Zack and Spy exchanged looks, before turning to leave. As soon as they were out of the shop and back in the car, Spy undisguised. "He wasn't particularly... helpful," he commented, starting the engine of the car. Zack remained silent. Still no news of Medic. Everything sounded like the RED Pyro was definitely around, but no news or hints at all of where Medic had gone. Maybe he was dead, for all they knew.

"Something bothering you, mon ami?" Spy asked, casting a sideways glance at the Bostonian who seemed out of it. When Zack returned the look, he noticed how genuinely concerned the Spy seemed to be.

He rested his head on his chin, sighing. "It's... it's nothing." He couldn't just get all emotional, not around an enemy, not around a Spy, and sure as hell not around an enemy Spy.

"It's not nothing, if you're looking incredibly depressed," Spy stated. Zack refused to look at him, but something about what he had said seemed to strike him. It's not nothing. Why did that sound so familiar? It's like he had heard it before. His expression went from upset to confused and thoughtful, all the more reason to look away. He was determined to remain silent, until he saw Horst, along with the RED Pyro and two robots in the darkness of an unlit alley.

"Stop the car! Dude!" Zack yelled, forcing Spy to jam-break the car.

"What? What happened?" Spy asked, his eyes dilated with anticipation. Zack rolled down the window, sticking his head out.

"Reverse back to that alley. I swear I saw something." Spy reversed the car, when he saw the hint of red and blue disappear. He turned the car to face the alley head on and slammed on the accelerator, jerking the car forward with the headlights on.

Axel noticed the alley become significantly brighter. "What..." The four of them turned around simultaneously, just in time to see the red car speeding towards them. Instinctively, Axel shot another line of fire at the car, the RZ Ultima shooting through the flames before slowing to a stop. Horst, Makina and Medibot all looked ready to kill someone, fear and adrenaline lighting their eyes.

Zack and Spy scrambled out of the car, the two of them facing the four lost mercenaries.

"Aw Jesus, Spy, you could have done something other than speed towards us. I thought you were trying to kill us or something," Axel hissed, running a hand through his hair. "Wait. Why are you guys even here?"

"We're trying to save ya, dumbass," Zack hissed.

"Wow, but seriously, did you have to rush a car at us?" The four of them got back into the car, having to squeeze due to the car only being meant to hold two people Makina offered to stay in the boot of the car, though it wasn't large enough to hold the robot.

Spy decided he didn't want to keep talking about why he had rushed a car at them. "What's with the girl?"

She was seated on Axel's lap, since he didn't really mind. "What, her? We kinda saved her from another car. She's a street girl,"

A street girl. Spy huffed. As much as he didn't like the idea of having an extra person to bring around, seeing as first thing they were heading straight to Turbine, he couldn't leave a young girl such as herself on the busy streets.

"We drop her off at the nearest child care centre. No arguments," Spy hissed, reversing the car out of the alley. He turned the car and took off down the road, the streets clearing up as the morning peak period passed. "Please, explain why you even have the girl."

"Don't be so uptight, Spy. It's just a homeless girl," Makina snapped. To save space, he had taken out his torn arm and placed it on the floor of the car by Axel's feet.

Spy refused to say anything in return, pulling over as they passed a childcare centre. "Leave her outside," Spy said, shifting the car into neutral as he waited for the mercenaries in the back to put the girl outside. Axel opened the car door, taking the girl with him outside.

"Sorry girl," Axel said, placing the girl outside the door and knocking on it. He turned and got back into the car, but the girl ran back up to him, tugging on his shirt. "You can't follow."

She did a sort of pout, making the puppy-eye look. Axel sighed. "Girl, you can't follow me. Go back to that door," he said, pointing back to the door of the childcare center. Damn, why didn't whoever was inside just open the door already?

"But why?" The girl whined, tugging on his shirt. Axel shook her off.

"Because we're going somewhere where you can't go. You won't understand. Go back, girl," he hissed, beginning to lose his patience. This was exactly why it was difficult for him to go anywhere but Mann Co's territories. Kids were irritating and he was very anti-social.

Spy glanced back at the door. "You okay, mon ami?" He asked, wondering why it was taking so long to just put the girl there.

"Damn thing won't let go of my shirt," Axel snapped, grabbing her hand and shaking her off, perhaps a little too rough. When the girl stumbled back, Axel noticed something odd about her. Her eyes started to light up and not in a sort of firey or excited way.

They literally lit up.

"Fuck." Before Axel knew it the girl was sparking and shaking, and instatly he flung himself aside, deciding he didn't want to be backed up against a car when shit went down.

The explosion pushed him a bit further than he would have liked to go, and he rolled onto the pavement. Inside the car everyone flinched at the girl exploded into lots of metal and silicon. "Jesus," Zack hissed, sticking his head out of the car window once the danger was over. "What kind of creep does that?"

Axel blanked out for a moment, stunned from the explosion. His vision went black for a second before he sat up, dazed, and stumbled to his feet, examining the mess. Horst reappeared from the car, staring at the pile of scrap metal in confusion.

"Vhat have I just seen? You mean all zhis time ve have not been bring a girl around, but a robot? And zhis doesn't look like any robot Gray just makes. I mean, it's zhe same metal and such but not zhe same structure as any bot I've come across. And believe me, I've seen some pretty veird bots," Horst commented, picking up a piece of the metal. He rolled it over, his finger brushing against what was a small print of the brand.

Gray Industries.

"So vhat, one of his bots got loose? I don't see him making any robot zhat vould take zhe shape of a little girl and if it vas a Spybot it vould have undisguised by now."

Axel frowned, rolling over the pieces and brushing is hand through the bits, coming to rest on a tiny camera. He scooped it up, standing up to meet Horst's heigh. He rolled it over in his palm.

"Maybe this- it's a camera. She was sent to spy on us without us knowing? I mean, she seemed kinda real," Axel admitted. A few days without a flamethrower and this shit happens. Great going, Axe.

Horst took the camera from Axel's palm and slipped into the car. "Get in. Ve'll think more about it on zhe vay back to base."

Once they were all settled in the car, Spy revved up the engine and took off into the afternoon.

...

"What do you mean, she blew up? I thought I specifically said to make her pretty much impossible to destroy unless by bullet or fire," Gray hissed, irritated that temporarily he had no way of tracking the mercenaries.

"Well, she was malfunct-"

Gray lunged and snatched up the Mecha-Engineer before it could continue. He snarled, his cold blue eyes staring at it. "Get something else to track them. I want to see them on my screens again before midnight." He released the robot and sat back in his chair, turning back to the screens.

"We can't let them get back to Helen."