Cherreads

Chapter 9 - Ground-Zero

[11.00 PM - 8.00 AM]

The sun rose from the ocean's dark floor, a lively ray of light shining through the curtain. Clare woke up at the last night's party inside a hotel, her body was sore from the amount of alcohol she drank last night.

"ooooaaagh....." beside her bed are James and Kiries, who are sleeping, snuggling together.

Clare rubbed her face trying to remember, but the only thing she saw last night was him carrying her to their room. The hotel anniversary party really wore her out, for a young person like her. Taking a step out of bed, she tripped over the clothes she took off. 

"Oh, that's my..." Embarrassed, she quickly gets changed not letting them see if they woke up.

30 minutes later after James and Kiries finally woke up from their slumber. 

"Bad news, I'm almost out of cash, my digital bank doesn't have enough." Clare said. "Dude, can you create cash for me?"

"Making fake cash is illegal you know, even if I can replicate it 100% it is still illegal"

"Wha-"

"Just kidding, I just want to see how you'll react if I say that' James chuckled "Here you go" dark liquid floating out from his hand, turning into regular-size card cash used to purchase.

Clare's eyes lit up upon seeing how much it was. "10 grand?! Hell yeah, I never get this much before" Snatched from James, she laughed mischievously "Thank you"

Kiries put on her hat, James wrapped on his jacket, and they were ready to move on. The street is still filled with people moving around the city. The three take the public train taking them straight to where the centre of the sector.

The whole ride was boring, beside from the group talking about Clare's daily life before this event.

The gang heads down to the giant building, which represents the city. It is like a tower with a moving structure around it.

"You sure sure sure we will find anything in there?" James asked

"This is like finding a needle in a haystack... we will get your parts back soon..."

"So how do we get in? This place won't allow 15y kids like you and me around here without any supervisors"

Kiries gets her claws out "Wanna break our way in?..."

Clare stopped her "How about something not destructive, James can you get us up the top?"

"aight" he materialized the harness around Clare and Kiries, then proceeded to fly upward with them.

Over 100 floors reaching the tallest tower on record. The cleaning workers outside the building were shocked to see 3 kids going up the skyscraper. 

"Hehe look at them" 

"This is quite catching attention Y'know? I'll put on invisible camo"

They all go stealth mode when James covers them with nano-machines.

Meanwhile, on the ground, a lady wearing black clothes, carrying a big suitcase, V in her human disguise on her plan to find the targets, starts with the devices she plants around, a device shaped like a small metal rod, that will help her find the unusual signals, frequency emitting from His core. Back with the three, when they reached the tallest floor, James created a Hole using the heat vision.

"Time to search the whole place for a clue I guess" Clare said.

"Or we can do this..." Kiries opens the sliding door that leads to the main office for high tables, where most of the sector leaders come and do secret discussions that people cannot hear about 

"Too many files and... chips... I wonder what are they planning in here?"

"These chips only talk about future projects, roads, and working systems for most" he throws them in his mouth and chews them like cookies. 

They searched and searched, for a good half an hour, before the security came. turns out Clare's clumsy feet accidentally hit the sensor, and it triggered a silent alarm. 

Guard 1#: "Anyone in there!?"

Guard 2# busted the door open, hand-holding a stun baton. 

Looking around the room, seeing no one everything still looks intact. "Maybe a false bug that made the system go off?"

"This room only had 1 exit, so I guess"

The guards closed the door again, not knowing James and the rest were on the ceiling, his claws both holding Kiries and Clare, and he clinging on like a spider.

"Guys, can we find another way?" 

"Let's blow this place up..."

"No kiries!" Clare stopped her "How about we hacked into their building"

James landed down and caught them both, he busted through the door, jumped the two guards walking to the elevator, he chopped their necks, making them unconscious. Taking their electric card, James accessed the security main frame. Turning off any sensor in the way.

The three soon reached the main security in the middle of the building, the door blasted open with a small explosion, Kiries dived in head first like a tiger punching its prey, she slammed the cores and guards' heads on the ground and knocked them out in one swift motion.

"Great one. James, do that magic thingy"

"It's not magic, it's just moving matter you know" A dagger grew out of his fist, James stabbed the computer, and nanomachines from the dagger infiltrated the whole building with no delay. With that, he could access the most secure part of the place, even the one where they didn't allow their men inside.

"Okay, I got the whole map in my hand, including, the city structure, heh, this wasn't so hard" 

"Let's dip!"

The three broke out of the building, jumped off the top floor, and dived down at a thousand feet, with absolute solver, James materialized a whole mini jet, and pulled in the girls falling and screaming, except Kiries who stayed silent all the fall.

The jet flew straight to the airfield, before exploding, James ejected them all out and landed safely. Letting the jet disintegrate into particles.

"Woohoo, Again!" Clare jumped up and down from joy.

"Maybe later okay?"

The Airfield which is now a museum for timer planes, only open for a limited time during the weekend. But the secret lay outside, James took the two behind the museum, an unauthorized area. A huge workshop with super advanced technology and assembly lines building and making Mind chip for Core, and of course weaponry, all created using robots with no observation.

"Woah... look at the number of guns they producing, and why must be many?'

"I believed they making this much for some kind of battle or trying to get me."

James picked up an unfinished straight Katana, fascinated by this design. 

"Should we blow this place up?" Kiries asked. "We can't let these things on those people's hands"

"Maybe, after we get this thing"

James borrowed Clare's tablet, and he used it to detect one of his core parts. It was trapped inside a container, used as a battery. "There you are" Absolute solver marked on his hand, red glow pulled straight out from the generator, causing everything on the conveyer belt to freeze. The light went off, and the only light Clare see is the red glowing from His and Kiries's eyes.

[V.O.I.D system restored, advanced modes updated]

"Huh... I don't know if this was"

"What's wrong...?'

"I think I found the most useless part, it only gave me a few more modes for combats and a better sensor"

"Two out of four, you remembered anything yet?"

"Nope, unfortunately"

Kiries let out a sigh, disappointed. "Let's bounce outta here..."

James made a dispenser and stuck it on the ceiling. The dispenser opened up like a flower, spinning and shooting sticky EMP bombs, they left the building and got outside the airfield, letting the stickers-shaped bomb fry the weapons inside.

"That was easier than the previous"

"yeah I can understand why they don't keep this one so hidden, it was kinda useless in hard services"

"so where's the rest?"

"This sector doesn't have those two, we gotta find a way"

"Internet and high-security networks don't work either?"

"The organization seems invisible even with my nanites around the network"

while they were chatting the hunter finally catches up. "Found ya" 

the suitcase breaks open with the gun assembled using nanomachine, V1-X standing from afar, watching the three casually getting into the trees her scope zoomed straight at Clare's head, aiming at her with the most devastating bullet loaded into the chamber.

"One... Two... Three..."

Just about to be fired, V received a call from her boss, the communication device installed inside her head, popped up holo-image in her eyes. "V here, what's up boss?"

"Did you terminate the girl yet?"

"About to, Gimme a sec"

"Forget that, let her live, we had a new plan. We needed her for this one"

"Ugh... but I wanted to shoot a kid, you're no fun. so what now do I let them go cuz they got the second piece"

"You can kill the other girl, 404 must be detained"

"Okay boss"

V took aim once again, her scope now fixed on James's head, one bullet enough to blow his metal alloy head into a puddle. Pulled the trigger, enhanced by her ability, a shockwave blasted everything around her, and the bullet instantly hit him.

His head was blown into pieces in the astonishment of Kiries and Clare, immediately after, Kiries pushed Clare to the ground, she got immediately shot through her right eye, and the bullet blew up the specks of dirt behind. Kiries fell, with James's body, but He quickly stood a leg down, his right arm turned into a railgun, pointed at the trajectory of the bullet. But it got shattered, and his right chest exploded from the shot. He finally fell to the ground. 

"Clare stay down!" regenerated his head "Get Kiries somewhere safe!"

rely on the remaining arm, James used his absolute solver and levitated them two, throwing them away from the battle around 10 meters. With Kiries unconscious in her arms Clare forcefully dragged her out of there.

James quickly got up, using an absolute solver to create a kinetic forcefield around himself, but the bullet was too fast. It bypassed the forcefield instantly but slowed down quite a lot.

[combat mode activated] "Come on!" he flew toward V hiding behind the tree lines. dodging bullets coming at him at light speed, summoned his claws, they slashed right at V with decaying slashes,

she shoots the ground the blast helps her avoid his fatal attack, then, a device grows out from her right arm, a launcher shooting dark coin made from the most complex material on earth, shooting up toward the sky.

James doesn't know what she is doing, he only focusing on the sniper who attacked his crew. Just before he could react, V fired a bullet, hitting the coin, it ricocheted from a single piece to bounced up to 7 times, striking right on his neck, and the bullet pierced off his head. And a thump fell to the ground.

"I got you!" V kicked his body when the forcefield got distorted, quickdraw a high caliber pistol, sending 6 shots right at his body with distorted phase matter. the bullets made James's body slow down the regeneration. her left arm switched out a shotgun cannon from her arm, she punched his core, and the pellets blasted open a hole through his bones.

 James's arm turned to a blade and slashed her, he missed, but his head managed to return to his hand and to the open wound on his neck, His mask fired a melting-kinetic beam.

V retaliated by levitating a coin in front of her, the perfect alignment made the beam split into 10,

"Smile loves" yeeting a few flash grenades, his system lost on her, V dashed right at him from above, her gun raising at his face once more.

the white finally fades away just to get met with a gun barrel from his enemy, James materializes the machine gun, loaded with high explosive bolts. he quickly moved her barrel away, and the blast tore away a few of his flesh, she yanked it off, and they aimed at each other for a brief moment. the guns fired at each other, and V's rifle shattered the machine gun and its bullet when exiting the barrel, James however, saw this through, he tilted his head a side before the finger squeezed the firing mechanism. 

He kicked her, with a heated dagger from his leg, the guard attack stabbed into V's stomach, and her interiors received critical damage, V let out a painful grunt, unlike any other core, she could feel pain. shotgun blasted, and his leg split in two, V then fired two more rounds from her pistol, then swiftly loaded her sniper, "High EX!" and the bullet exploded in contact with James. sending the two blasted from each other on two sides.

they quickly looked at each other, V patched herself using a repair kit, James forcibly deleted the suppression out of his system, and his claws materialized next to him. they charged at each other, V tossing coins up into the air, and James firing his tracking missiles from his back. 

"AAHH!"

"AAAAH"

the bullets and missiles suddenly go out of their trajectory, missing their target completely, they feel the ground shook, and notice they are running in the air.

V tuned up her communication "Boss! what's going on?!"

James spun around. targeted locked at Clare and Kiries "Clare!" he flew to them. grabbed them, looking at the sector being torn from below.

"Boss!" 

"V, this is HQ, we detected an anomaly that occurred sooner than expected, the time was not in 2 months, and they breached in. The boss ordered to bring them back by any means necessary"

"Wha-"

"Do it now, we sending a pickup ship to your location"

V loaded in another round, "Well play time over" she fired, propelled herself using the force of the blast to get to James, slammed to his back, V cuffed herself and his neck.

"I don't have a choice so, you are all coming with me" She fired the flare in the sky.

"What are you doing?!" James asked he tried to shake her off 

"Hey stop it handsome, the sector lost its gravity, it going to tear itself apart and kill Thoundsand. want your little girls safe? you are going to come with me, all of you" 

she held James Kiries, and Clare together, and fired a hook above into the sky, from afar, a high-speed ship spotted the flare, it sped up, catching the titanium ropes, tied around James.

"Buckle up Ladies" the ship blasted away, dragging the four out of the forest side before the ground exploded. above the sky, debris and fragments of the city floating around as the entire sector crumbled from zero gravity. the towers, the buildings all broken into pieces and the people with the androids suffer from the worst. some died from the explosion, some burned to death, and some lost their part in the debris, blood, and carnage in front of their eyes.

the ship dragged them in, V opened the cargo door and threw them in. "back to base!" she yelled at the automatic pilot.

the ship blasted through the wreckage, avoiding the objects all around the sky. James and Clare watched the whole massacre, seeing the blue void light shooting and shredding from the ground.

"What's going on!" James created a blade and pushed it near V's neck.

she calmly counted the remaining coins, "You really wanted to know? about why you were made"

"Huh?"

"Listen closely, and trust your enemy for once, we are on a bigger mission, and you are our biggest gun"

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