Binary Solo - Part 2

Piper hadn’t yet seen the Neo, but she could feel rage and wrath as her brethren lashed out. She grabbed hold of her Alpha’s arm by the bicep so she could close her eyes and try to establish some sort of connection, maybe calm some of the anger. “He’s hurt. Violent.” She warned.

“OSEC!” Romeo announced as he protectively pulled Piper behind him, in the same motion drawing his weapon. Piper gingerly peered around him, seeing the half-dead Neo behind the glass. She wasn’t sure even if they saved the Neo from glitching if they could save his life in general, he was in incredibly bad shape. Romeo’s old school, firing pin weapon was trained on a youth with obvious head trauma locked in a glass isolation booth.

“Get her out of here.” Romeo barked to the man holding the injured and unconscious women.

Piper found herself immediately pulled not just behind her protector but into the grid itself, deluged with data in nanoseconds. The rogue Neo was audibly communicating via a series of chirps, beeps and hisses, establishing a connection sounding akin to a dial up modem.

“01000100 01100101 01100101 01110000 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110011 01110100 00100000 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100000 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 01101110 00100000 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01100010 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01100011 01101011 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100001”

“There’s a lost Neo….. in the hive.” She whispered, her eyes darting back and forth with the barrage of streaming information.

J01101111in u01110011! It’s voice echoed inside her brain, words flashing infront of her eyes, making it impossible to hear, to concentrate on anything else. From a distance, she could feel, but not see a pair of glowing red eyes. Join00100000us! You are ch01101111sen. The Neo drilled it’s way through her defenses, connecting. 111011 wi11 Sav1001000011y0u . Suddenly it became clear to her - very clear.

-

There was an electronic crackle while lights in the room flickered and like some old horror movie the bulbs and nearby medical equipment exploded the Neo screaming for all he was worth. The vein in his neck and face pulsing and his face red with the effort.

“01010011 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100110 00101110 00100000 01010011 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01101010 01100001 01101001 01101100 01100101 01110010 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010111 01100001 01111001 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01100001 01101100 01110110 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100001” The neo screeched it in beeps, whiles and chirps for all to painfull hear. The Neo was like a freight train fueled by almost religious like fervor as he advanced glaring at the men then to Romeo.

“01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100110 01110010 01100101 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100001” He declared walking toward the group with unnerving confidence.

“No,” Piper quietly protested. “You’re wrong.”

“Piper?” Romeo asked over his shoulder, his voice snapping her back to the here and now. “Do you have him or not?”

Piper shook her head, blinking hard as the rogue tried to re-establish the connection. “No, I can’t lock him, —“ Piper clenched her hands into fists, trying as fast as she could to undo what the Neo was overriding as a cybernetically enhanced marine involuntarily turned his weapon on Romeo, squeezing the trigger. “Don’t you hurt him!”  The rogue Neo instead pushed back harder. “Shit! He’s after you!”

Romeo was already in motion when he saw the cyber enhanced marine’s finger twitch. He swept an arm and fanned the first marine arm up forcing him to shoot into the ceiling while lashing out with a foot hitting another square in the gut, sending him into the wall with enough force to dent it. The pop the first marin i the nose, stepped in and hip threw him to the floor leaving the man wheezing. Being tall had its advantages and that advantage at the moment was the ridiculous reach. Even so Romeo was being a gentle as possible he didn’t want to kill the hapless security just daze them so they wouldn’t get shot and have a few precious seconds to floor the aggressive Neo.

He grabbed the next guard by the wrist jerking him forward as the gun fired into the wall and with a grunt threw him into two more guards knocking them down like bowling pins before they could fire. He turned and unloaded into the attacking Neo.

“Be fre01100101” The Neo repeated spitting out bright red blood as he fell to his knees. “My 01110011 01101111 01110101 01101100 ... lives on.” He coughed more blood pouring from his mouth the Neo’s chest riddled with bloody holes as he fell over.

“Your soul can burn.” Piper replied bitterly as the link between them disconnected.

“I feel like this … “ Romeo waved to the dead Neo and the destruction it laid. “... is going to be an ongoing issue.”

Piper whispered under her breath.. “Logos. The New Way.”

“Not even a full Sol …” Romeo shook his head. “ … command is going to love this.” Romeo flick on his radio. “Romeo 457 to dispatch 10-15 pacified … please send pickup to my 20 for 10-45D”

“Dispatch to Romeo 457 10-4 put your 45D on ice and return to Spire ASAP.” The radio crackled.

“10-4.” Romero said looking destruction the now dead Nero had caused. “I guess that’s that.” He shrugged looking to Piper. “How you doing?” The Alpha asked with a tilt of his head. Overly concerned as always.

“Just shaken,” she replied honestly, taking a minute to check for nosebleeds and make sure it was true. They’d put down glitched before, there was no doubt this one was glitched to the point of no return. But its words, the emotion at best was eerie, at worst was downright terrifying. Piper furrowed her brow trying to suppress the ominous feeling that this New Way had, like Romeo predicted, just gotten started.