Raven Wolf - Book 04 - Chapter 13

Story by Kurapika on SoFurry

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#59 of Raven Wolf - Novel

Raven Wolf - The Wounded - Chapter Thirteen


Chapter Thirteen

Dolly and Fitz reach the area that Dolly had pinpointed Chase to be in, Fitz looking around him curiously not spotting anyone there. "Are you sure he's here? Maybe he moved somewhere else on us while we were on our way here."

Dolly looks down to the small robot she was carrying. "Can you bring up the overview of the area again?"

Fitz frowns as he turns to Dolly. "You know, you could just say map, way faster to say."

"Be quiet!"

The holographic image of the map once again is projected before Dolly, she pointing to the figure they had been trying to approach. "He hasn't moved and should still be here."

Chases voice calls out to them. "So that's how you managed to track me down is it?"

Fitz jumps at the sound of Chase's voice taking several large steps back from the direction it had come from, the mink walking out into the open where they were.

Dolly is relieved to see him, she having been concerned after having left him the way that he was. "Oh thank goodness you're all right." She walks up to him looking him over, he not looking to be suffering from his wound, Dolly lifting her hand to where the bullet wound had once been to find it healed over. "Fitz was right... you do heal fast..."

Chase grins as he places his hand against Dolly's face, rubbing her fur with his hand. "We Super Soldiers were designed to live through the most desperate of situations, you'd be surprised of what we can walk away from."

Dolly grabs onto Chase's hand pulling it away from her, the action that he had taken making her feel uncomfortable. "What are you doing?"

Chase answers it rather obvious. "Touching the side of your face, it's typically a sign of affection from one person to the other."

Dolly stares at him, Chase acting very strange right now. "Are you feeling alright...? You seem different."

Chase steps back from her as he takes a moment to look over the map that was being displayed, he then walking away from Dolly, as he uses the information he had seen to taking charge of the situation. "We should move quickly, according to this map Two is on his way here, he must have caught your trail." He points out an area on the map. "There's a weak spot in their defences not far from here, wait there for me but don't try to break through until I finish dealing with Two and get there."

Fitz cringes at number Chase was referring to. "Two? Aw geeze not him..."

Dolly crosses her arms as she tries to recall the numbers that were tattooed within the Super Soldier's ears. "Two...?" She shakes her head unable to pinpoint who that number belong to. "I don't know anyone by their numbers, what's his name."

Fitz looks back to Dolly, having been spying on the group long enough to know which was which. "You know 'Two' better as Alistair Quincy."

Dolly becomes nervous after hearing this. "Oh... yes he's probably the last person we want to be spotted by..."

Chase turns away from them. "Go on ahead, I'll be with you as soon as I finish dealing with him."

Fitz starts heading in the direction that Chase had told them to go in, Dolly following after and beginning to question him while moving alongside him. "Do you think Chase is acting... odd...?"

Fitz nods his head, he well aware of what was normal for Chase after having to keep an eye on him and the others for so long for signs of Shiya. "Yeah, he's not tired... at all, not even a little bit drowsy, the way he speaks and acts is different too, very condescending and harsh. He's acting a lot more like he used back when we were in the True Blood's labs."

Dolly lifts her hand to the cheek, it not just her that thought that something was off then.

*******

Several soldiers that are set up outside of the quarantined area are right now working at computers, struggle with the system to try and regain the control of their programs from the hacker that was known for invading there security. The hacker keeping them from receiving the important information of the area they were trying to get.

One of the communications officers lets out a frustrated yell. "This is impossible!!! None of us can deal with this hacker!!" He looks around him demanding answers. "Where's Vaan Berights? He was the only one keeping this under any kind of control!"

Despite their best efforts the soldier in question could not be found. "No one seems to be able to contact him, trust me just about everyone has tried."

Another intelligence officer shakes his head. "As long as this hacker is tampering with the system we don't have any data to give the soldiers, they're just going to have to deal with the enemy the old fashion way."

"Where could Berights possibly have gone? Of all times to up and disappear!"

*******

Mort is standing within an abandoned building, the area he was in a mess and having been recently disturbed, a struggle having taken place here not too long ago. He kneels down picking up a military issued hand held computer, this a device that had been assigned to Berights specifically, there no other solider on the force that had it.

Mort looks around him, the phone he used to contact the others in his group also here as well, Vaan carrying no other device on him that could be used as means of tracking him down. Several questions were right now running through Mort's head, what happened here... and what was Vaan doing here in the first place, and most importantly, where was he now?

*******

Vaan slowly begins to open his eyes, his whole body sore while his head was in a daze. "What happened...?" He tries to make out his surroundings, finding himself sitting upon a chair in the middle of a dark a very small room, his hands bound behind his back. He groans to himself this situation clearly not good.

Vaan tries to recall how he had ended up here, he quietly murmuring what he could remember as if hearing himself say it would help him recall the events leading up to this point. "I was following a signal... it lead me to an empty factory... I found the signals source and..." He winces his head pounding. "And..."

Vaan becomes frustrated, having trouble remembering what came after that. "Come on Vaan, you're a Super Solider you should be able to figure this out. I went there and... found where the signal was coming from and... there was someone else there..."

His thoughts are interrupted when he hears something, the muffled sound of a conversation that was going on in a room that must have been adjoined to this one. Vaan unable to make out what there were saying, but able to recognize the tone and manners of speech that one of voices had, this helping him recall things a little bit clearer.

Vaan stares at the fox that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Who are you?"

_ _

The fox answers him. "Who I am is not important. You see, you are the reason that I'm here, you are the reason I've been constantly tiring myself out by following the military day after day, you are the reason that things concerning me and my companions are starting to get compromised, and my friend, you, are about to fix all of that trouble by disappearing."

Vaan frowns upon remembering, the voice was the same no doubt about it. "That fox..."

He struggles against his restraints knowing that he needed to get out of here, an aggravated look filling his face when he finds he is unable to do anything. "This is pathetic... I know I'm not a combat model but you'd think I'd still be able to get out of a situation like this."

He falls silent, realizing that the voices in the other room has stopped, the sound of footsteps as someone approached the room he was in now sounding, Vaan bracing himself for what might happen once they got here.

A bright light fills the small room he is in when the door opens, a cloaked figure standing in the doorway and staring down at him, Vaan's body tensing as he clenches his teeth together, the figure before him now speaking. "Oh you poor thing!"

A confused look fills Vaan's face as a woman in a tattered and damaged black cloak approaches him to look him over. "Oh my goodness just look at that gash on your head! Does it hurt? Oh who am I kidding of course it hurts!"

A second figure walks through the doorway his features not hidden like the first, this being the fox that Vaan had been expecting, he also wearing a cloak that was badly damaged and warn, it looking as if the two of them had come from a very involved and desperate fight. "Don't fawn over my prisoner!"

The woman holds Vaan by the cheeks. "Don't you tell me what I can and cannot do!"

"He's a prisoner!"

"So!? Honey just look at him! He's hurt and confused and he looks so scared and lost..."

Aither shakes his head while letting out a sigh. "He's a Super Solider, I guarantee that he's fine. Probably even aching less then you and me at the moment, Dmitri was absolutely relentless with us."

The woman speaks in a surprised tone as she stares back at the fox. "He's a Super Solider?" She looks back to Vaan. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely positive love..."

"That means you really did manage to get him then! Oh this is great, you doubted you would ever be able to do that for the longest time! I'm so proud of you honey! Good job!"

Aither nods his head while motioning for her to leave. "Yes, now would you give me a moment with him?"

The cloaked woman continues talking despite Aither's request. "Shanira is going to be so pleased to hear this."

Vaan frowns recognizing that name, he having connected her as someone that was helping keep Shiya hidden and controlled the spies that were leaking information from the military, the few that knew about her involvement too afraid to accuse her of these actions.

Aither looks to the side that much obvious. "No doubt she will..."

"She must want to talk to him right away."

Aither nods his head. "As a matter of fact she does, but you're kind of holding that up here."

"You are in such a cranky mood today."

"Yeah... having to fight Dmitri while my partner screamed out warnings before every single attack might have something to with that..."

"Come on dear, I'm really sorry about that... I explained to you didn't I?"

Aither walks into the room as his companion makes her way out. "Yes, yes, it's a habit of yours and you can't help it. Just let me finish up with him and I'll take you back to your place."

He turns to Vaan once she is gone, getting right to business. "The boss wants a few words with you."

Vaan looks over to Aither. "The untouchable Shanira right? I should have known that she would be behind this."

Aither nods his head. "You've caused her a lot of trouble and concern, surely you were smart enough to known that it was only a matter of time before she did something about it, and Shanira is very much the type to get rid of problems before they have the chance to grow too large."

Vaan laughs at the comment. "If that was true she would have gotten rid of me a lot sooner, she's only acting now because she's angry that we managed to get Shiya."

Aither frowns as he walks up to the chair that Vaan is tied to throwing it onto its side with Vaan in it, it clear that Shanira was not the only one upset by this development. "It's a mistake for anyone to target one of us."

Vaan winces as he looks up from the ground toward Aither. "One of you...?"

"You and the people you work for are not the first to come seeking the power we hold, their fate not leading to a very pretty end..."

"So does that mean I'm going to meet the same fate?"

Aither kneels down next to him placing a laptop he had been holding on the ground next to his head and opening it, the screen turning on. "Not exactly... you see you're a lot smarter than the usual crowd that comes after us, so depending on how wisely to play out this conversation you might be able to avoid that fate."

Vaan stares up at him. "So that's why I'm still alive, you think you can get me to help you?"

A voice from the computer in front of him speaks up, the voice belonging to a woman who carried a heavy African accent. "To my understanding we did you a favor, a few more days with the military and you would have been dead anyway."

Vaan looks over to the screen near him, there being no picture of the person that he was speaking to, he though still recognizing who it belonged to. "Shanira..."

"You are smart. It would be a shame for that to go to waste, the military has no idea of what they're losing by destroying you." Vaan falls silent as he looks to the side, the voice coming through the computer continuing to speak to him. "I have a proposition for you, someone like me could put a lot of use into someone like you, as a person that likes to use information to keep on top of the situation and ahead of my enemies your skills would be invaluable, you don't suppose you would consider lending me your skills now would you?"

Vaan frowns at the request insulted that he was being asked it. "I'm not a traitor!"

Aither shrugs his shoulders that it for him then. "Well you didn't play your end of this conversation right at all, how unfortunate."

He kneels down next to Vaan grabbing onto his neck, the voice from the computer stopping him. "Aither." Aither looks back to the screen with a frown as Shanira continues. "Let's not jump to killing him just yet shall we? Leave him to think my proposition over, perhaps he will change his mind."

Aither does not seem happy with this idea. "I'm an assassin, not a babysitter."

"And this cat has skills that I would like to acquire, so amuse me Aither. I'm sure he'll eventually come to his senses."

Aither lets go of Vaan's neck as he gets back to his feet, he reluctantly obeying her request. He closing the computer before getting back up and taking it with him, shutting the door behind him and leaving Vaan surrounded by darkness once again.

*******

Alistair comes to a stop, he having been following the trail he believed to belong to Dolly and the people he had been looking for when an uncomfortable chill had run down his spine, the coyote looking around him as he scans his surroundings. It not often that he of all people got an uneasy or nervous feeling.

He didn't have to give it much thought, he knew he was being targeted by another Super Solider, who it might be though he was not sure, none of the ones that he worked with capable of making his fur stand on end like this before.

He reacts quickly, turning around and grabbing onto the hand of someone just as they had taken his own combat knife from him and swung it at him, a frown filling Alistair's face as he stares at Chase's figure. "You're really the one that's stupid enough to try and take on the Domestic Military and your fellow Super Soldiers?"

Chase gives him a grin as he grabs onto Alistair's arm, retaliating as he removes the coyote's grip from him and then twists his opponents arm behind his back. "And miss my opportunity to work alongside my dear Miss. Conner? I wouldn't dream of letting something like that pass me by, besides I never wanted to work for the Military to begin with! Chase was the one that agreed to it like the gullible little idiot he is!"

Alistair hooks his foot around Chase's leg, tripping him and causing him to lose his hold, Alistair grabbing onto him and throwing him over him slamming him to the road beneath them. "You're saying you're not Chase? Though very unlikely you must be another soldier from Ten Thirty Three then." He kneels down grabbing onto Chase's right ear and looking at the tattoo on the inside of it, it reading 1033-18, that being Chase's number, this indeed him and not another soldier from the batch as Alistair had thought. "Or not..."

Chase grips his hand on the knife that he had taken off of Alistair, swinging his arm forward at him and causing him to jump back to keep from being cut, Chase getting back to his feet after driving his opponent back from him. "Turn around and walk away if you want to continue living, you know I have no trouble killing fellow Super Soldiers."

Alistair doesn't look willing to comply, he still trying to figure this situation out. He certainly looked like Chase, and carried the same identification marking as him, but he acted very differently and didn't even speak the same, it was like he was a whole other person. "You know that I won't do that."

Chase points the weapon he is holding at Alistair. "Then I will kill you."

Alistair lets out a snarl as he rushes toward his opponent to attack, Chase readying himself and meeting his advance, he defending himself and blocking each of Alistair's attacks, reacting when he finds an opening to attack back, making a fist and punching Alistair in the face, Alistair hardly wincing, using that attack as an opening of his own, lifting his knee and hitting Chase hard in the gut, Chase grabbing onto Alistair and hurling him to the side, causing them both to smash into the side of a building, Chase then raising his arm and elbowing Alistair hard in the stomach, the two stumbling back from one another as they try to catch their breath.

Alistair as expected is the most frustrated from this situation. "You're dead Lockheart!"

Chase catches his breath first regaining his composer, grabbing onto a broken pipe and pulling it from the rubble. "Stop calling me by his name!" He lets out a yell as he rushes toward Alistair swinging the pipe he had been holding and hitting him in the side, the force from the blow sending Alistair smashing through the already weakened side of a building, the bricks that had once been crafted into a wall covering him as a thick cloud of dust fills the air.

Alistair lets out frustrated yell as he pushes the bricks that had fallen on top of him off, his anger peaking at this point. "As soon as I get my hands on you you're going to lose your head!!"

Alistair isn't given the chance to get back to his feet, Chase walking on top of him while holding the pipe he had attacked him with in one hand, and the knife he had taken from him in his other, the mink placing his foot against Alistair's chest to keep him pinned down while keeping the blade pointed at him. "You know that you can't hurt Two, my combat skills are far superior to yours. Even Twenty Six could best you and he's nothing when compared to me."

A smile fill's Chase's face, it clear to him who the victor of this quarrel was log before it had started. "You're only hope in winning is for me to get drowsy and fall asleep, and I don't see that happening any time soon."

Alistair stares up at him, that not possible, Chase unable to help but fall asleep at the most inopportune times. "That's impossible! It's your imperfection, your defect! None of us have been able to find a way around it there's no way you could have."

Chase stares down at Alistair. "You and everyone else have it all wrong. I still have my defect, it just never occurred to anyone that the inability to stay awake was not it, that it was only an inconvenient side effect to the real defect that I cared."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Chase begins to laugh, the laughter chilling and completely unfamiliar from him. "Don't you get it? Chase is the defect, his whole existence is what makes me imperfect."

Alistair stares up at him, he catching onto the meaning that Chase was trying to portray. "You have two personalities."

Chase kneels down preparing to swing the weapon he held to finish off his opponent. "Call me Eighteen."

Alistair catches onto the attack just as his opponent swings the blade at him, Alistair holding him in place while grabbing onto one of the bricks that had landed on him, swinging it at Eighteen's head and hitting him, Eighteen letting out a scream of pain as he gets to his feet, holding the side of his head while backing away from Alistair.

Alistair grabs onto the knife that Eighteen had dropped after being hit, holding the weapon tightly as he stabs the blade into Eighteen's right leg, Eighteen screaming in pain and moving back out of Alistair's range of attack, the mink reaching down and pulling the blade from his leg while talking between ground teeth. "You're not as helpless as I remembering you being."

Alistair lets out a threatening growl as he begins to push himself to his feet. "We'll soon see who the helpless one of us is!" He is about to lung himself forward but stumbles instead, his right leg refusing to support him. Alistair letting out a frustrated howl as he glances back at his leg to find it had been broken when the rubble had hit him, his eyes widening in horror when he realizes just what a disadvantage he was right now in, he looking back to Eighteen expecting him to take this moment to attack only to find that he was gone.

"Eighteen?" Alistair looks around him, there absolutely no sign of him anywhere, the chilling shuddered he had received when he had first been in the vicinity and targeting him no longer bothering him, his opponent having left.

Alistair lets out a groan as he pulls his leg from the rubble, running his hands down his leg and finding the point where it had been fractured, the coyote grinding his teeth together as he forces the broken bone back in place, he then taken a deep breath and leaning back against the pile of debris he had pulled himself from as he waits for his leg to heal. "I swear if I scare again I will be completely livid!"

He takes his phone from his pocket dialing Mort's number for the third time that night, the jackal answering after a few rings, Alistair getting right to the point. "We have a very big problem."

*******

Dolly looks back spotting Eighteen as he catches up to them, Dolly beginning to question him, he looking pretty beat up having a huge gash on the side of his head as well as an open and bleeding wound on his leg. "You fought Alistair..."

Eighteen nods his head as he walks past Dolly scanning the situation ahead of them and assessing the situation while answering Dolly at the same time. "He didn't go down without a fight."

"It must have been difficult for you to fight a friend."

The mink shakes his head no. "Not particularly."

Fitz speaks up, he too questioning him. "Did you kill him?"

Dolly looks over to Fitz offended that he would ask such a question. "He wouldn't kill a comrade!"

Eighteen looks back to Dolly. "Two and I are not comrades, I betrayed the military, that makes us enemies." He looks over to Fitz. "And to answer your question, no, I didn't kill him, just wounded him enough to keep him stuck in one place for a while to buy us some time, which means we have to move quickly and get out of here before his body regenerates and he comes after us."

He moves out from the hiding spot he and the others were using, rushing forward and attacking the guards that right now guarded their path, he taking them out quickly with hardly a problem at all, he then motioning for Dolly and Fitz to follow him.

Fitz grabs hold of Shiya lifting him up and following after him, Dolly too following the path that Eighteen had cleared, she stopping upon reaching the soldiers, kneeling down and looking them over, checking their vitals to see if they were still alive.

Fitz looks back when he realizes that she had stopped. "They're dead, leave them be."

Dolly looks from the fallen solider and back to Fitz. "They're not dead."

Fitz seems surprised at this remark. "Why not? Clearly he had no trouble with the last bunch he ran into." He frowns looking back to Eighteen as he begins talking to himself. "Of course... when he had to fight them he didn't have to do it in front of Dolly... he's holding back because she's around."

Eighteen looks back to the both of them, this not the time to be taking their time. "Get a move on or you're going to get caught."

Dolly gets back to her feet, she catching up to Fitz as the two of them continue to follow Eighteen to safety.

*******

A look of disbelief fills Mort's face as he listening to the explanation that Alistair is giving him over the phone. "Two personalities?"

"Eighteen referred to Chase as his defect, saying that the fatigue problem was unique to that personality, the fatigue was such a noticeable problem that the True Bloods never thought of or even cared to look into what might have triggered it, the batch was just labeled as defective and disposed of."

Mort questions what he had just heard. "Eighteen?"

"That's what he said to call him, by the number he was called at the True Blood's labs."

"So when this other personality is in control, Eighteen, he's essentially a perfect soldier."

"No, he still has his defect. Which is his second personality Chase, even though sleep is not hindering him in battle it's clear that something else is. Eighteen was going all out and was fully capable of killing me, but as soon as he got the chance he disappeared."

Mort understands what it was that Alistair was trying to explain. "He couldn't kill you because Chase didn't want to kill you."

"His obsession with Dolly Conner confirms it, he mentioned having no problem betraying the military to be able to work with her. Any feelings they have towards people are shared between them, only Eighteen is much less subtle about then then Chase is."

Mort seems concerned. "If that is true then Conner could be in trouble."

"She's already in trouble, she betrayed the military by hiding our target and then outright betraying and attacking us, even causing one of our most powerful soldiers to betray us along with her, I honestly don't see how things could get worse for her."

"You're an overly violent Super Soldier, so think about this, say for a moment that you liked something other than your own reflection? Say you were completely obsessed with someone, how far would you go make that obsession your own? And what means would you take to get your way if this mentioned obsession resisted?"

Alistair lets out a laugh as he thinks about it. "Well then, it sounds like Conner better not reject Eighteen."

*******

Fitz looks the group over as they quickly make their way through the city, being careful not to be seen. "Hey how much further do you think we have to go? Shiya's been hanging on for a long time but it's starting to look like he's going to let go."

The small robot that Dolly is holding moves, startling Dolly and causing her to drop it, the wheeled little robot moving forward and pointing a building out just ahead of them. "That's your destination right there. I'll be waiting for you on the second floor."

The group continues moving forward, Eighteen in the lead as he scopes out each room adjoined to the hallway they were making their way through before passing by them, making sure the route was safe to take.

Dolly looks her surroundings over while making her way through the building. "So we're really going to meet the hacker that's been causing the Domestic Military so many problems face to face..."

Fitz shakes his head not looking forward to it. "I don't like True Bloods. They're just as scary as Super Soldiers are, perhaps last obviously so but I still have nightmares about them."

"She's just a little girl, honestly you need to get a better hold on yourself concerning the things that scare you."

"My fears are completely legitimate, trust me."

Dolly looks the old walls of the building over. "Do you think she lives here?"

Fitz shakes his head no. "I doubt it, she's a True Blood, she's cautious of her surroundings and the people around her. She would stay someplace much more secure than this, one locked up and not in the open where she can keep an eye on all her access points. She's just here so that she can meet up with us."

Dolly looks down to Shiya. "What do you think she wants with him?"

Fitz doesn't look too sure, Eighteen looking back to the two with a grin. "Who knows what she wants, but if it turns out to be trouble you've always got me to deal with the situation."

Dolly frowns at the comment. "From what the reports say she's just a child. You're not going to hurt her Chase."

The group begins to make their way up a flight of stairs, walking through the hall on this floor before coming to a stop in front of a room the small robot they had followed was waiting in front of. Fitz staring down at the wheels it moved on. "How did that thing make it up the stairs?"

The strange contraption motions toward the door. "Put the chieftain down on the sofa once you come in, I'll tend to him right away."

Eighteen opens the door entering the room before the others, he looking toward the young girl that was standing sitting in front of portable computer that had been set up at a table there, her body bare of fur save for her catlike ears and tail, which looks just as normal as any domestics. He staring at her while announcing her name, recognizing her from the photos that Vaan had to work with. "Lumia Masters."

Dolly stares at Lumia, having never before seen anything like her. "This is what a True Blood looks like...?"

The young girl jumps off the chair she is on as she approaches them, answering Dolly's question for her. "Well... kind of... and True Blood is kind of a misconception, I mean that's the title that they go by now, but their species is just human, nothing more unique than that, as for me, I'm only half human from my father's side, so I look a tad bit different from the others." She runs over to the sofa waiting for Fitz to put Shiya down on it. "Come on we don't want him to die now do we?"

Fitz walks over to the sofa placing Shiya down on it. "Just how exactly do you expect to fix him?"

Lumia begins to look Shiya over, she reaching into a bag that has been set down beside the sofa and rummaging through it, pulling out an unused medical needle. "With Nano machines my dad developed, they're microscopic machines that patch up physical wounds very quickly, they're really expensive and time consuming to make so the True Blood military are the only ones that use them, and they only use them for really big emergencies. When I left the fortress I brought a dose of them for myself my dad had set up for me for an emergency, but I've never really gotten hurt or run into any trouble that made me need them."

She injects the needle next to Shiya's wound, she looking back to Dolly and Fitz. "I'm really uncertain about how much they'll be able to fix him up, each little Nano machine has only a limited amount of power before they die off, and the batch I have was meant for me so it's a child's dose, but then again he is pretty small so they should be able to fix a fair amount before reaching the end of their lifespan."

Shiya lets out a low mumble. "I heard that..."

The strange young girl stares at Shiya with a frown. "I wasn't meaning to insult you, I was just stating a fact." She shakes her head turning back to the others. "I honestly thought he was unconscious the way you were carrying him around like that..."

Fitz shakes his head no. "Just very weak."

"Well we'll see how well this works, I can't guarantee anything but it's worth a shot right?"

Dolly walks up to the Lumia beginning to question her. "What do you want him for?"

Lumia looks up to Dolly. "Oh it's big, and you'll hear all about it if he gets better, and hopefully he does get better cause I have no idea what would happen to the world if one of its sources died, gotta result in some kind of really huge world disaster right?"

Lumia looks from Dolly and toward Eighteen, a confused look filling her face. "Hey... how come you haven't fallen asleep or anything yet?"

Dolly and Fitz both look to one another, they having both been cautious of asking Chase such a question, Lumia just blurting it out like it was nothing.

Eighteen stares down at Lumia answering rather simply. "I find myself not being tired enough to fall asleep."

Lumia places her hand on her chin as she thinks this over. "Well that can't be right... Dad's files said that your batch couldn't help but sleep all the time, so you should most defiantly have fallen asleep by now. Maybe I got your information confused with another of the Super Soldiers then... that would be really unlike me... perhaps I'm losing my touch..."

A voice speaks up from the computer that Lumia had been working at when they had entered the room. "-It looks as if the military has lost track of the suspects responsible to what happened to the city-"

Lumia nods her head while looking the group over. "Hear that? You guys are in the clear, for now anyway."

Dolly quickly speaks up there a big misunderstanding. "Wait you don't possibly think that what happened to the city was our doing, that wasn't any of us! None of us is capable of destroying the city in such a way not even Shiya!"

Lumia looks back to her feeling bad to have insulted her with the incorrect accusation. "Sorry... I'm just going by the information I'm getting from the military, I really don't know what happened outside of their reports. I'm just a computer hacker after all."

The voice on the computer continues. "-Speaking of military intelligence, there's absolutely no sign of the intelligence model super solider anywhere on the system-"

Lumia frowns that not sounding right. "That's strange... he's practically always on trying to locate and get into our system."

"-Commander Mort has just recently posted a report stating that he had gone missing under what he believes may be hostile circumstances-"

Dolly seems concerned to hear this. "Vaan has gone missing?"

Lumia thinks this information over. "I wonder if this is the work of those other hackers?"

Eighteen speaks up now questioning her about this. "Other hackers? What other hackers?"

Lumia looks over to him as she begins to explain. "Very recently I noticed that there is another group has started infiltrating the military mainframe, they're not nearly as quick or good as me but they've still managed to work their way in and out all the same. It's a group of at least two people working together, working from somewhere inside the city. Other than acknowledging their existence I haven't bothered to pay much attention to them, I didn't think they were important or capable of causing any trouble, but I think I may have been wrong."

She runs back over to her computer beginning to question it. "Hey dad, bring up a record of their activity and find out what they were doing and what files they might have accessed."

Dolly walks up next to Lumia looking at the computer screen. "Dad?"

Lumia nods hear head. "Yeah... uh... it's not really my father it's just an AI program... nor is dad that what the program is called... it's just the synthesised voice it has is the same tone as my Dad's... so I kind of started calling it dad out of habit... and I guess it just kind of stuck."

Several windows begin to open on Lumia's computer. "-Here are the files they were looking into Lumia, from the looks of it they only accesses files related to the intelligence model Super Solider-"

Lumia looks the files over. "Looks like they were pretty interested in him, and from Mort's latest report it sounds like they just may have gotten their hands on him."