Story based on an idea courtesy of my dear friend @heron-knight - corporation captures someone for nefarious purposes because who would come looking for her? The only person she has is a former pilot and yeah, it’s combat instincts are still intact but everyone knows those things can’t be made functional again. Right?
The voice on the other end of the speaker was shaking ever so slightly. “Sublevels 1 and 2 have gone dark. We’ve barricaded the stairwell entrance to 3 and disabled the elevator.”
“Do we know what exactly we’re dealing with yet?”
“Estimating at least a dozen hostiles. Definitely special forces, with how quickly they overwhelmed us.”
“Impossible to say, Sir. We didn’t see any of them.”
“Keep trying to reach command for reinforcements.”
“Sir, I believe our lines may have been cut -“
“And only contact me once you’ve dealt with this. I’m in the middle of an interrogation.” With that, he terminated the call.
She could see how he took a moment to compose himself behind the two-way mirror. She couldn’t say whether he knew that her augmentations let her see and hear everything that was going on next door to the small and windowless room in which they had kept her for the past 12 hours, but she decided not to show her hand.
Then again, she couldn’t help but have a bit of fun. After all, she knew she’d be out of here soon anyway.
“You seem a bit stressed”, she said, brows furrowed in faux concern when he entered the room again.
He failed to hide his grimacing for a second, much to her amusement. “That attitude isn’t going to get you anywhere. But you’ll drop the façade soon enough. We’re far from finished with you.”
“Well, I keep wondering when you’re going to start,” she said, making an attempt to casually lean back in her uncomfortable plastic chair as much as her restraints would allow.
“Are you so eager to try out our advanced interrogation methods? I was hoping this wouldn’t have to get ugly, but it’s up to you.” He settled into the chair opposite to her, which looked only slightly less uncomfortable than hers.
“No, no”, she sighed, ”you’ve broken me down. I’ll talk.”
“What ties do you have to Hyades Corp?”
“Have you bribed them to keep an eye on you?”
“Do I look like I have that kinda money?”
“It seems quite likely, given that they’ve apparently sent some of their goons who are currently in vain attempting to breach the building.”
“So that’s why you’re so nervous!” She grinned. “I can ease some of your worries, though.” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice a bit. “Hyades isn’t who you have to worry about.”
His expression soured. “No other mercenary group in their right mind would dare to attack us directly, no matter that you couldn’t afford anyone who would anyway. We know that you have no friends or allies who could come looking for you.” He seemed to think of something and smirked. “Well…we know that you own a pet, but it seemed needlessly cruel to use it as leverage to get information out of you, when we could just interrogate you the old fashioned way. Don’t get me wrong, however - we absolutely will if you continue to be so uncooperative.”
Her expression had hardened. She didn’t respond.
“I’m sure you’re worried about it. Can it even feed itself, all alone? Well, I hear some of these decommissioned things make for decent guard dogs, at least. Is that why you got yourself one? Or did you have more…perverse desires with it?”
She leaned forward, as closely as possible, and her next two words were dripping with venom. “Fuck. Off.”
“Oh, did I hit a sore spot? In the interest of keeping you both close together, maybe I should organize a pickup from -“
He was interrupted by the sound of crackling coming from his radio phone. Exasperated, he picked it up and snarled: “I told you that I was -“
“Level 3 has been breached!” The same voice from earlier over the speaker sounded out of breath, and panicked. “It’s not safe - we need to evacuate, now - it wasn’t -“ There was a loud crash, and then - nothing, except for sounds of static.
“Come in!”, he demanded. “Status report!” No response came. And in her plastic chair, suddenly more comfortable than ever, Helena leaned back and relaxed.
He dropped his radio and looked at her with equal parts shock and contempt. “You”, he growled, “what have you -“
Sounds of gunfire from what sounded just outside the room. He spun around and drew his gun just as something slammed against the door, hard. There was what sounded like someone dragging something heavy and wet across the floor and tossing it aside. Everything was dead silent for one very long second. Then the door slammed open before Helena had the chance to shout a warning. Even through her augmented optics, she only saw a blur. She heard two shots from her interrogators gun and heard both bullets hit the far wall as they missed their target, which kicked the feet out from under him and slammed his head into the metal desk. He hit the floor with an ugly but satisfying *thunk*.
Helena breathed a sigh of relief as she looked at the one standing in front of her, with the same adoration with which she looked at her every single morning after waking up. Everyone else would have been horrified at the sight, and everyone else could go to hell. She was wearing her old pilot bodysuit which was covered in blood, though none of it was her own. Her muzzle and much of her hair were caked in blood too; Helena already imagined a nice warm bath for the two of them when they got home. She dropped her restraints from which she had freed herself a minute prior onto the floor and stood, her aching legs only protesting a little. Without hesitation Helena wrapped her up in a hug, head against her chest, and kissed her forehead which tasted like blood and sweat, and like her. She had noticed that her eyes were still glassy and she would need at least a few moments to exit combat mode. Helena had gotten quite good at helping her with that; it wasn’t too dissimilar from sub drop.
Her hands instinctively found the spots on her back that she most liked to draw circles on with her fingers. After a few minutes, her breathing slowed down and she began to tremble slightly in Helena’s arms. “Hey, Junebug”, she whispered, kissing her forehead again. “Thanks for picking me up.” Without breaking her embrace, June pulled away a little to look up at her. Her eyes were bloodshot and slightly misty. “Are you okay?”, she whispered.
“Yes”, Helena smiled, “yeah, I’m okay. Because you’re here.”
“Yes, yes you did.” Helena pulled her closer again, her tears soaking into her hair and mixing with the blood. “You did so well. You did amazing.” She wasn’t going to give in to or mention her own distress at seeing June like this again, back in her old suit, back in combat mode, after months and months of peaceful serenity. They both knew that much of her programming, though buried deep, could never be undone. In part Helena hated herself for letting herself get captured and having put June through this, but she also knew that this wasn’t going to help either of them right now.
Right. Bath, dinner, then sleep. That’s what they both needed.
Helena squeezed her tightly for a moment before unwrapping them both from their embrace. “Are you ready to go home?”, she asked. June nodded.
Shortly afterwards, as they stepped out over the shattered glass doors into the cool air, Helena said: “Hey, how about burgers for dinner?” June gave a smile that reached her eyes, and Helena felt like she had suddenly been given enough power to burn all of the corporations, all of their past captors and torturers, the whole system, burn everything to the ground just to protect that smile.
“You mean breakfast. It’s early morning. But yeah, that sounds nice.”
In the distance, the rising sun set fire to the sky.
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