FSE

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Chapter Seven

"-Lumia it's late you should really go to bed-"

Lumia lets out a tired sigh as she looks down to the small robot that is circling around her. "I'm too busy to sleep right now Dad!!"

"-I'll wake you up if any trouble heads your way I promise-"

"Stop bugging me!"

"-I know your intentions with your friends are good but you haven't been getting enough sleep-"

"I swear if you say one more thing I'm going to remove your vocal box!"

Dolly's voice interrupts the conversation, the wolf stands within the doorway of the room holding a plate of food. "Maybe you should listen to him, you have been keeping yourself awake almost as long as Chase has been keeping himself awake."

Lumia looks back to Dolly, what she is doing is important. "But I have to get this done! If I can't find Sixty-Six by the time Eighteen needs to exchange information on him for Shiya's crystal he's going to be in big trouble."

She turns back to the monitors. "I've looked and looked but I still can't find any traces of him. Sixty Six hasn't been near a computer since he disappeared, which only makes my search more difficult."

Dolly walks over to Lumia handing her a plate of food. "Chase can take care of himself, I'm sure he's planned ahead should the situation where you could find Vaan happens, most likely he had this figured out before even asking you to do this."

Lumia turns away from the computer taking the plate of food from Dolly. "Right... him being a Super Solider and everything..."

Dolly watches Lumia slowly begin to eat her food, the young girl is not particularly fond of the meals that she gets from the cafeteria, of course no one really was.

Dolly looks down to the robot that is circling Lumia's chair. "That robot is pretty neat."

Lumia glances down at the robot. "Sure, if you like being harassed when you try to do anything."

"-I would be terribly upset if something were to happen to you-"

"No you wouldn't! You're just a program!"

Dolly keeps her eyes on the small machine. "Did you make him yourself?"

Lumia shakes her head no. "No. Well... kind of, I made the body Dad uses and my father tweaked the programming a lot so that he would be more than just a parental droid, but I didn't make the original program. If I did I would have made it far less annoying!"

Dolly seems confused. "Parental droid?"

Lumia begins to explain. "True Bloods are confined to a very confined community, so if you want to have kids you have to go through a big legal process, they screen the applications and deny the requests of any couples that have a history of illness or a criminal record. Legally a family can usually only have one kid, in very rare cases sometimes they're allowed to have two, this results in very small families with very few relatives."

She looks down to the small robot. "Parental droids are assigned to children under eighteen if both of their parents are dead. They're programmed to sound and sometimes act like their late parents, they're basically used to keep an eye on, raise and take care of the kids when no other family is available." She lowers her head. "They basically mean that you're an orphan... no one likes getting them..."

Dolly looks down to the robot. "So lots of young True Bloods have little robots just like him?"

Lumia shakes her head no. "Oh no, that would cause all kinds of trouble if they were. They practically just observers and care givers, they don't do the computer type stuff that Dad here does. Dad's really special, there's only two like him in the entire world."

"There's two like him?"

Lumia nods her head yes. "My dad hacked and customized two parental droids before he went missing, one for me and the other for my little brother."

Dolly is a little surprised to hear this. "You have a brother?"

Lumia shrugs her shoulders. "Yeah I guess... I've never met him though... so I don't know what he's like or anything like that, or even what he looks like, though I bet he looks like my dad did when he was a kid, not the robot Dad, my actual Dad of course." She smiles at Dolly. "I bet he's smart though, dad programmed those robots to teach us everything that he knew about computers and design, heck his 'dad' is probably even more advanced than mine is cause he's got more advanced materials at his disposal to craft a body with than I do."

Dolly is a little confused. "Why didn't you take him with you when you ran away."

Lumia looks to the side. "I don't know him or anything about him... I only remember Dad mentioning him a lot... when he came to visit me at the facility I stayed at, and besides even if I did know him I couldn't take him with me, he's a True Blood, he doesn't have the immunity that I do to the outside world, he would only last a few months."

"He's not a True Blood like you are? Do you have different parents?"

Lumia shakes her head no. "We have the same mom and dad, it's just the genetically controlled breeding process doesn't always work. More often than not you end up with a True Blood or a Wild instead of a combination of the two like me. There are apparently very specific genes and treatments that the process will respond to, and even then it doesn't work all the time."

"Do you ever worry about your brother?"

Lumia shakes her head no. "He's got Dad looking after him, what do I have to worry about?"

Dolly looks to the side. "Teddy is capable of taking care of himself, and yet I worry about him all the time."

*******

It is late at night, and though this is not always obvious because of the large metal ceiling that hangs over the True Bloods home, there is a noticeable decrease in the amount of activity among the True Bloods, many of them asleep by now.

Several guards routinely keep watch from their designated areas at the True Blood's labs, security is a lot tighter that it normally would be because of the attacks the Resistance would make upon this and other government owned buildings.

One of the guards lets out a call when he sees something, contacting the other guards near the area. "There's a fire at the East wall!"

Several guards quickly scramble to see what the commotion is about, their efforts quickening from the sound of an explosion.

A man with binoculars, and black clothes and mask watches the scene, speaking to a small group crouched to the ground behind him. "Alright diversion is set, wait for the decoy team."

Ember fidgets nervously on spot, she too dressed as the others. "Oh come on, we're not gonna get caught even if we go in before the decoy team goes in."

The man looks back to Ember with a frown. "Hold your horses Ember, this is a huge operation, we're doing things exactly as instructed or we're not doing it at all."

"Well the decoy team is taking forever!"

Another member of the group speaks up. "The operation has hardly started!!"

Ember grumbles to herself as she impatiently waits for her group to be able to make their move. It has been two days since the operation was first announced, and every second waiting since then had felt like an hour. Her group leader is right, this is a huge operation, and their success would result in a big step forward to achieving their goals, Ember is tired of waiting and just wants to get it done already.

Several minutes pass, Ember becomes more restless as she waits. "The decoy team is an unnecessary precaution! We can get in without being spotted!"

"Just calm down will you!"

The team leader raises his hand to give them the signal that they are ready to go. "Alright the decoy team is in place, let's go."

All but two members of the team ready their firearms, Ember and a young boy about the age of ten are the only others in the group the without weapons, the group leader turns to the two of them and speaks in a firm voice. "Alright you two, stay behind us alright! It's bad enough I have to drag you two kids in here to begin with, the last thing I want is either of you hurt."

The young boy looks over toward Ember. "Ember is the only one you have to worry about, she's the crazy one remember."

Ember lets out a growl as she looks back towards the child. "Watch it nerd!"

The boy is offended by the comment. "You're just jealous of me cause you'll never match me in brain power! Not in a million years!"

A strange small robot that resembles a metal cat positions itself between the two of them, it's glass like eyes flicker as a voice plays from its speakers. "-Please concentrate on the mission you two, this is not the time nor place for fighting-"

The boy looks down to the robotic cat, a little ashamed that he has gotten it angry. "Sorry Dad..."

The group leader looks the two over. "Alright then, if you two kids are done arguing we'll get started."

Ember nods her head, she certainly wants to start this. "Sorry. My mind is on the mission now, no worries!"

The boy picks up the robot cat, carrying it in his arms as the group begins moving forward, the boy does his best to keep up with the much larger and more athletic members of the group.

They arrive at a large solid metal fence, the boy puts the cat on the ground and lifts his arm where a small portable computer is fitted to his arm, a holographic keyboard appears for him to use while another holographic screen pops up, this one is a monitor that displays the visuals the small cat like robot is picking up from the camera's with its eyes.

The boy looks down to the cat. "Alright Dad, let's show them what we can do."

The cat crouches to the ground leaping high and climbing onto the metal wall that is acting as their obstacle, the robot jumps down to the other side and quickly slinks across the ground unseen until it reaches a guard post, there are still two guards posted at it, they both look out in the direction that the commotion is in.

The metal cat moves under the computer, until he is under a port, a hatch at the end of the robot cat's tail slides open to reveal a series of various connecters that would fit in all kinds of different ports, the one corresponding to the port on this computer folds out and connects to the computer, the guards monitors that displayed the camera's past the gate flicker for a moment, the last five minutes that have been recorded now starting to loop instead of providing the guards with new footage, the robotic cat disconnects once it's job is done and quietly slinks out of the guard's post, making it's way along the fence until it reaches a back gate, it surveys the area for its comrades to see.

The boy looks over the image he is receiving from the robot. "It looks like the guards that should be there are over at the other gate right now."

The man that leads them nods his head. "Let's go." The group quickly makes their way toward the gate, not worrying about the cameras that are now watching the area, the boy and his robot have taken care of that, the man looks at the lock that is on the gate. "Alright Ember it's your turn."

Ember nods her head. "Yeah no problem." She takes out her tools looking back to the young boy in the group before starting. "And I'll do it without the help of a stupid little robot."

"He's not stupid!"

One of the men that is in the group sighs as he looks toward their group leader. "This is why I hate taking kids on missions."

Ember is offended. "I'm not a kid!"

The group leader looks both Ember at the boy over. "Ember is the only locksmith the Resistance has while Adrian is the best hacker you're going to be able to find in this city, the Resistance was lucky to be able to convince him to come."

Adrian keeps his eyes on the screen being displayed before him. "Luck had nothing to do with it, it's all about the pay check your leader promised me."

The door opens as Ember finishes dealing with the lock. "You guys talk like computer hackers are gods or something."

Adrian looks over to her. "Not all of them, just the good ones like me. I'm pretty OP just so you know."

"Yeah right! You would be nothing without that stupid pet robot of yours!"

"Stop calling him stupid!"

The group leader reminds them of the task at hand. "Let's move, our window of opportunity is very small and you're wasting time."

Ember lets out a groan before her and the others in the group move forward into the facility, Ember headed towards the next door to unlock, the small robotic cat bounds up to Adrian's side and keeps next to him.

Ember soon opens the door and they begin making their way inside, the man that leads the group then directs them through the halls. They silently follow the directions that Fenrir had given to them to get to their target, Adrian and his cat like robot handle security before they make their way down the halls while Ember unlocks any door that is in their way.

*******

Teddy wakes up from sleeping when he hears a muffled explosion go off in the distance. He yawns as he pushes himself up, looking over to Zack's cage to find him awake as well. "Sounds like the resistance is at it again."

Zack nods his head as he sits on the floor of his cell, his arms crossed. "Sounds like." Zack looks over to Fenrir who is right now going through a computer that shows security footage of the decoy group that are currently making their way through the facility. "Your guards seems oddly alert at this hour."

"They probably woke him up for precaution measures as soon as the building got attacked."

An announcement plays over the computers speakers. "It looks like they're headed towards the weapon prototype storage room, I need every man to arm themselves in one of the weapon storages and then head prototype vault now!"

Fenrir presses a button on the computer to respond to the message. "Does that include me?"

"What part of every man did you not understand!? If these rebels get their hands on some actual real weapons it could spell disaster for anyone contained in this fortress!"

"Order received." He turns away from the computer quickly leaving the room.

Zack watches him leave before turning towards Teddy to comment. "His dad is going to murder him if you manage to escape while he's not at his post."

Teddy shakes his head no. "Fenrir is the Commander General's kid, he's not gonna get in trouble if I somehow manage to escape, his dad will probably put the blame on someone else, like Fenrir's commanding officer. Parents usually overlook or bail out their kids when they make a mistake, that's usually how it goes with family."

There is the sound of a sliding door opening, Teddy and Zack both staring down the hall at the doorway as a small metal robot bounds towards them, the cat like robot stops in front of Teddy's cell and stares at him through the glass.

Teddy stares at the strange device. "What the heck is that thing?"

Zack gets to his feet as he walks over to the front of his cell to look the thing over. "I don't know..."

Teddy looks back to Zack. "Fenrir's replacement guard?"

Zack glances over toward Teddy. "You'd think it would be bigger if it was."

"-Wild located, wolf decent, male, fur grey with white underbelly, yellow eyes with scar over his right, marking of a bird on his chest. Subject fits the target's description perfectly-"

Teddy lets out a grumble. "Domestic... I'm a registered Domestic with Wild linage!"

Zack seems confused. "You still say that even after you ran away to join a pack of Wilds?"

Teddy frowns at Zack. "That doesn't change the fact that I'm still registered as a Domestic on my birth certificate."

Zack looks back to the machine. "Wait, what did that thing mean by target?"

Several figures dressed in black enter the room, several of them look towards the monitors that now display the path their decoy team is taking, Ember works on the lock to Teddy's cell.

Adrian stares at the monitors, an uncertain expression is on his face when he sees their small group and the number of soldiers that are headed towards them. "Hey are your guy's friends going to be okay, that's a lot of guys headed towards them?"

One of the men in the group looks toward the boy. "They knew the risks before volunteering to be on the decoy team. They're well aware that they may not make it out of this alive."

The boy is angered by this information. "What!? So you basically just sent them to die?"

"We don't have the luxury of advanced weapon power, we do what we have to reach our objectives, regardless of how unfortunate they may be."

Ember opens the lock on Teddy's cage and opens the glass door, her comrades motion for Teddy to step out. "Let's get going, we don't have a lot of time."

Teddy doesn't have to think this decision over for long, he is more than happy to leave this cage, one of the men in black take a very large set of plier cutters, clamping it onto the collar around Teddy's neck, he looks to Teddy and issuing him a warning. "This is going to hurt a hell of a lot, just bare with the pain."

As soon as the tool puts pressure on the collar a red light blinks and a warning buzz is played, the collar sparks as volts of electricity begin to spark from the collar as it is cut through, it continues to do so until the collar is completely cut off.

Teddy stares at the collar as it hits the ground, the men all looking to one another in surprise because Teddy had not even flinched once from the electric shock.

Ember grabs the set of pliers, taking them from her comrade. "Lightning Source remember? Gawd did you really think that Fenrir was just making that up?"

The group leader begins moving them along. "We got what we came for now let's go."

Teddy doesn't move from his spot, he points back to Zack who is still in his cell. "What about Zack, you're not going to break him out too?"

"He was never part of the plan, now let's go before they catch you and put you back in there."

Ember begins working on the lock to Zack's cage, her group leader is not happy with her when he sees this. "What are you doing? Blue specifically said that he didn't want the Super Soldier, that he would be too much of a compromise to take with us."

Ember doesn't look back to him. "Yeah well Blue can suck it!"

The group leader begins to move the others out. "The rest of us aren't sticking around to get caught along with you."

One of the men grabs onto Teddy's arm pulling him along with him, the group quickly takes him as they make their way out of the facility. Adrian looks from the group towards the skunk in the cell. "That's one of the old Super Soldier projects? What would the military be doing keeping an outdated experiment like him around."

Zack frowns at the kids. "Watch what you say kid! I'm still a living and breathing being alright!"

One of the members of the group calls out to Adrian. "Kid are you coming?"

Adrian nods his head. "Hold on I'm on my way."

Ember calls out to him stopping him before leaving. "I'll pay you extra if you stay behind and help me."

Adrian stops as he looks back to Ember. "How much extra?"

"Enough to make it worth your time."

One of the men calls out to Adrian. "If money is more important than your life then go ahead and wait for her." He turns away as he and the rest of the group continue on their way.

The small robot that is with Adrian walks over and looks up at him. "-You should have gone with them, you could get killed staying behind with someone as reckless as Ember-"

"She said she's give me more money!" Adrian looks over to Zack. "And besides, that's a Super Soldier!! You know as well as I do how important those were to Dad, maybe getting it out of here is a good idea."

The door to Zack's cell opens, Ember picks up the large heavy pliers and clamps them onto the collar around Zack's neck. "Finally someone that agrees with me, too bad it had to be a little nerd like you."

"Do you want my help or not!?"

Ember grinds her teeth as she uses all the strength she could muster to use the tool to cut through the collar. The red light on it blinking as a warning buzz is played, Zack though is not silent as silent as Teddy had been at the collar is cut through, he lets out a scream of pain as the collar sparks and sends volts of electricity through his body, it does not stop until Ember finally cuts the collar completely off.

Zack falls to the ground holding his neck in pain, Ember drops the tool on the ground as she helps him up to his feet. "Come on let's go, before the soldiers figure out what's going on."

The small robots cat speaks up to get their attention. "-There's a patrol headed our way, we have to leave now if we want to keep from being caught-"

Ember tries to get Zack to move along. "Come on let's get going!"

Zack forces himself to his feet, trying to regain his composure as he begins moving forward. Adrian and the cat like robot run on ahead to make sure that the halls are clear for them.

Zack glances over to Ember. "Just where do you think you're going to hide me?"

"I'll figure that out once I get you out of here."

Adrian looks over to Ember. "Your little resistance group isn't going to take him in, especially after they gave you orders not to rescue him, you know that right?"

"I said I'll figure it out once we get out!!"

Adrian takes his eyes of the display for a moment as he glances back at her. "So do you think your friends on the other team are going to make it out alive?"

"I'm sure they have a plan of escape."

Adrian comes to a stop when he sees something on his screen. "This path is a no go, there are guards in the corridors ahead."

Ember looks around her as she tries to get a grasp on her surroundings. "I think I know where we are, you'll need to take out the security cameras on the way there."

Adrian looks up to her. "Technically I don't 'take them out' I just edit their image feed."

"Well whatever it is you do, do it!"

"Fine then, just lead the way."

Ember turns around points down another hallway, the robotic cat bounds down it ahead of them to make sure the paths are clear before he makes their way through it.

Adrian looks back to Zack, though he still needs to be supported to keep standing he is still able to move. "He's doing pretty well for someone that got electrocuted as badly as him."

Zack stares over at him. "You're pretty young to be involved in all of this aren't you?"

"I'm older than you were when you started training to be a soldier."

The small group continues on their way through the halls, Zack speaks up the longer they take. "The diversions have probably ended by now. It won't be long until they find out me and Conner are missing and come looking for us."

Ember comes to a stop in front of the old testing wing that had once been home to the Super Soldiers, it's now used as a storage facility, Ember opens the locks to them and brings them both inside.

Adrian is looking over the layout of the facility. "I don't understand, there's nowhere to go from here, this place is a dead end."

Ember nods her head. "Yeah that's what the blue prints say anyway, but really there are well hidden secret tunnels you can find around here that are not recorded on those, not many people know about it though, and the few that do are not friends of the military."

Adrian seems confused. "Then why were they built?"

Ember looks the two that are with her over. "This wing was built specifically with the intent to house the Super Soldiers. From what I hear the architect, who was also one of the scientists working on the project predicted that the whole venture would fail. So he made a tunnel that he hopped the Super Soldiers, his creations, could find and use to escape. I guess he tried encoding the escape route into their DNA, so that they could find it, but it didn't work, the Super Soldiers were all destroyed before that information matured."

Adrian looks back to Zack. "Matured... you mean it didn't kick in because they were too young? So he knows the way out now?"

Ember nods his head yes. "He probably does, but just doesn't realize it. I mean the last time he had a chance to escape he headed directly to this area."

Zack speaks up, that explains a lot. "Fifty Six dash Z. He must have found it when he was looking for a way to escape... that's how he got out..."

Ember looks back to Zack a little confused. "Who's that?"

Adrian goes through the notes on his computer. "From what dad's notes are telling me he was one of the subjects they harvested DNA samples from in the later batches."

"Wait? You're little robot knows about this place?"

Adrian frowns. "When he was alive my dad was one of the scientists working on the Super Soldier project, and there's nothing in here about some secret tunnel for them to escape through."

"Then he probably wasn't the guy that made the tunnels."

Zack comes to a stop, staring at a wall they are near, Ember grins as she begins walking towards it. "See, he can see it now."

She kneels down placing her hand on one of the steal panels in the wall and pulling hard against it, the square slowly moves to the side to reveals a tunnel behind it.

Adrian looks back to Ember. "Why didn't you tell your resistance friends about this entrance?"

Ember frowns at the question. "I'm not going to tell this secret to everyone I know! The only reason you get to know about it is because it's an emergency because our team ditched us!"

Adrian laughs at the reminder. "So how angry are the rest of your teammates going to be when they find out you got the Super Solider out when they told you not to."

Ember doesn't think it will be that much of a problem. "They were only against it because they were sure that he was going to be a liability because he can't lie to the high ranking members of the True Blood military. If he never goes to the resistance and I keep him somewhere else then they have nothing to worry about, cause even if they do find him and bring him back they're not gonna get any information out of him anyway." She looks to the side. "Well... any information aside from you and me."

"Just what did you drag me into?"

"You'll be fine, all you have to do is help me keep the Super Soldier from being found and everything will be good."

The boy lets out a grunt of anger while the small robotic cat goes into the recently opened entrance, it makes its way down it ahead of them as it usually does to make sure the path is safe. "You're not paying me enough for this."

Zack pushes away from Ember as he walks on his own towards the entrance, he kneels down and looks inside, it a small, dark and long tunnel with very little moving room, they are going to have to crawl if they want to get through it. "A way out... the whole time we were here there was always a way out..."

Ember pushes past him as she crawls into the tunnel. "Don't feel bad about it, it took a long time for anyone to find out about it."

Adrian follows Ember in, Zack follows after him grabbing onto the panel and slides it closed behind him.

*******

Commander General Zephyr is woken in the middle of the night by the sound of his phone ringing, his wife lets out a groan as she tries to stay asleep on her side of the bed, Zephyr eventually wakes up to reaching towards the phone on his mantel, picking it up and answering it. "This had better be good."

"There's been an attack at the at the experiment facility, the resistance attacked and went after the prototype weapons, we managed to drive them off but it turned out that was not their real objective. At some point a second group infiltrated the facility and took the Lightning Source and the Super Soldier that were being held captive there."

Zephyr sits up in his bed as he lets out and angered bellow. "What!?"

"As well Commander General, your son Fenrir was wounded in the attack when he and the other soldiers there attempted to protect the prototype weapons."

Zephyr's angered voice changes, this something that worries him greatly. "Fenrir was wounded? How badly is he hurt?"

"It's not life threatening, just a bullet wound to the leg that didn't hit any major arteries. The physician just says that he needs some bed rest that's all. We sent him back to the Half-Blood facility to recuperate."

"Why did you send him there? Why not send him home?"

"He may be your son general but he's still a genetically controlled experiment, he needs to be monitored at all times if he gets sick or wounded."

Zephyr lets out a tried sigh. "How did they get in?"

"We don't know sir, our security system was tampered with, there's no video or sound feed of how they got in or out."

"A computer hacker?"

"Must have been, we're having our tech look into it now to see if any data may have been left behind, so far they haven't been able to recover any kind of electronic stamp, pattern or finger print the hacker may have left behind."

"Keep looking, they must have left something behind. Is there anything else you need to report?"

"No Commander General sir."

Zephyr hangs up the phone ending the conversation at that, he gets out of bed and prepares to head to the facility, it's going to be a long day.