Kara Katanagi and Osshi Yamadera had been sitting, cuddled together in the washroom of her office for the last thirty minutes, barely saying a single word to each other in fear that the terrorists which had taken over the building may overhear them.
Kara had been cradling the tiny phaser Tank had given her and had spent most of her time staring at the air vent he had disappeared through earlier.
When they heard noises coming from down the shaft, they both jumped nervously and Katanagi promptly dropped the weapon on the floor.
“What … what’s happening?” Osshi whispered.
Kara managed to pick up the phaser again but for the next few seconds she was unable to move as she was paralyzed by fear.
The noise was getting louder, somebody was coming through the vent.
Katanagi pulled herself up and gestured for her colleague to hide next to the hatch which he did reluctantly. Motivated by not wanting to be killed without even putting up a fight, she quickly positioned herself on the opposite side and held out her phaser to point at the exit of the shaft. But her hand was shaking so much, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hit whoever would emerge from the hatch.
She thought that it sounded like more than one person making their way through the tight duct and she held her breath when the cover popped open.
A big, dark-skinned and hairless head emerged first.
“Oh thank god, thank god,” she whispered, dropped her weapon and quickly began to help Tank out of the vent. “I thought you left us behind. Damn it, I thought you left us here to die,” she repeated and then began to hit the huge CCiD operative.
“Ok, take it easy, lady,” he said but couldn’t help himself from smirking as she futility tried to punch him with her relatively tiny fists. “I told you I’d come back and I did.”
She stopped trying to hit him. “Don’t do that again.”
“You got yourself a new friend there, Boss?”
Embarrassed Tank quickly yet gently pushed Kara away as Gavin climbed out from the vent.
“I brought some help with me,” he said. “That’s Agent Thorgood and the LT,” he said once Mech had also emerged.
“This is Kara Katanagi and Jack.”
“Osshi,” the other man corrected in a tiny voice.
Katanagi looked over the two other agents. “Is that it? Three people? Against a dozen terrorists? You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, having accomplished to turn from anger to gratefulness and back to frustration in less than a minute.
“Don’t worry, Kara,” said Tank, trying to sound warm and reassuring with limited success. “These guys are professionals and we’ve got a plan. Besides we have a whole team on standby, ready to jump in. Now, it’s important that you and Jack remain calm and do exactly as we tell you. We’ll all get you out of her safe and sound but we need you to cooperate no matter how crazy it’ll sound. Can you do that?”
She needed a few more seconds to compose herself, take a couple of calming breaths and then nodded to him. “OK.”
“Good,” he said and then looked at Mech. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, should be about the right size,” she said.
Katanagi didn’t understand. “Right size for what?”
And then she watched wide-eyed when the female agent began to first kick off her boots, then begin to pull off her vest and bodysuit without so much as a warning.
“What’s she doing?”
Tank turned to face the perplexed woman. “She’ll need to borrow your dress.”
“What?”
“Listen, we don’t have too much time here. You said you’ll cooperate. Please we just need your dress.”
Glancing past the massive Tank, Katanagi could see that the woman was already down to her underwear. “I … alright. But I’m not getting undressed in front of strangers.”
“Didn’t have a problem with that before.”
She shot him a venomous look.
He gave her a smirk. “OK, go into the stall and just hand me the dress once you’re done.”
She nodded and began to walk off.
“Gentlemen, enjoying the show?” he asked when he noticed that both Oshii and Gavin hadn’t been quite able to completely ignore Mech stripping down right in front of them, seemingly with not a single shred of shame.
The two men quickly averted their eyes and Gavin mumbled something about being a happily married man.
“What about you, big fella,” said Mech with a playful smirk. “Last time I checked you were a man, too.”
He shrugged. “Nothing there I haven’t seen before.”
She walked right passed him an up to the stall in which Katanagi had disappeared to. Within moments she had the elegant Mandarin dress draped over the door for Mech.
Tank in the meantime caught Oshii unable to help sneaking another peek at his attractive and half-naked team-leader. “If you knew what that flawless body was made off, you wouldn’t be staring so hard, Jack,” he said, causing the now red-faced man to quickly turn away again.
The LT managed to put on the dress which, even though not a perfect fit “ she was a little taller than Katanagi “ worked well enough on her. “The shoes as well,” she said.
Turned out the high-heels were a bit of a problem. Mech made them fit somehow but after trying just one step, the usually athletic and sure-footed woman nearly fell flat on her face.
Tank couldn’t help but utter a short burst of subdued laughter. “Never thought I’d see you loose your balance.”
“How the hell do people walk in these?” she asked and tried again slowly, for all purposes, looking like a child at her first attempt to walk in her mother’s high heels. However within a few more steps she had regained her balance and surprisingly managed to move without much of an effort at all. “Ah, like this. How do I look?” she said, striking a pose.
“Stunning,” said Gavin when he caught her in the tight, red dress with the matching red shoes.
Tank clapped him on his back. “Don’t let the wife hear you say that,” he said and then to the LT. “I think you’re going to knock them out.”
“Literally, let’s hope.”
*
*
She was on all fours, crawling awkwardly in the restrictive dress, trying to get from the top of the staircase back towards the hallway which contained her office.
She had to remain low in order to avoid the chance of being spotted by the terrorists who were holding their hostages on the lower floor. And while she tried to listen carefully for any voices or movement coming from below, the silence was palpable. She thought she could hear the soft moans and cries of the hostages. Some had to be injured while most were simply scared. Scared enough apparently to keep their voices down to a minimum.
The hostage takers didn’t seem to speak at all.
She had almost made it around the corner and into the hallway. With her neck still craned back to look over her shoulder when she suddenly sensed a presence. She turned her head forward again and she came within inches of a gun barrel pointed right at her.
She squeaked in surprise.
“Who are you?”
She looked up at the man pointing the rifle at him. He was dressed in a smart party tuxedo and was maybe 5’10’’, not very tall and seemingly not particularly muscular.
When she didn’t respond, he moved the riffle emitter closer to her forehead. “What is your name?”
“Kara … Kara Katanagi,” the dark-haired woman stuttered.
“What are you doing up here?”
“I was trying to get … to get “ “
He didn’t let her finish when it became obvious that she had been attempting to escape. He reached for her arm and pulled her onto her feet as she yelped helplessly.
“You will return with me. If you resist, you will be killed,” he said curtly.
The woman didn’t fight him as she was being led back towards the staircase and then down to the large reception hall.
Mech quickly took in the scene. The hostages had been positioned on the floor and with their backs to the bar counter and few others near the idyllic waterfall. She counted forty-six in total. Five were bleeding from minor scrapes they had probably received by either not following instructions quickly enough or while diving for cover. One male hostage had been shot in the leg, presumably while resisting the terrorists. It did not appear to be a life threatening wound and it had been decently cleaned and bandaged by a fellow partygoer with some basic first aid skills.
She counted fourteen terrorists, all wearing similar dinner jackets and all armed with latest generation Romulan-style disruptor rifles. Extremely efficient and extremely deadly weaponry and not something easy to come by.
They all looked like typical nikkeijin, not too tall or overly muscular and with obvious East Asian facial features. Of course Mech already knew that all that was most likely an illusion. These were not real, flesh and blood humans. Not even in the loosest sense.
As she was led towards the bar counter, she quickly noted the enemies’ positions. Four were watching the hostages. Two by the waterfall and two by the bar. Three stood by the floor to ceiling windows, giving them the best vantage point not only overlooking the floor but also keeping an eye out on what was happening outside. Two stood by the doors leading to the staircase and another three covered the four elevators.
From what Slade had said, she had to assume at least another four or five terrorists in the lobby on the ground floor plus perhaps another two or three in the staircase. Best guess and not counting the three already neutralized on the roof, there were about twenty-two remaining terrorists in the building, all armed and all full-body androids.
The one she was most interested in at the moment was the one with the small purple orchid attached to his jacket’s lapel. He had been the one who had delivered their demands earlier. He stood among the other two by the windows, facing the floor he kept a watchful eye over everything.
He was without doubt the leader. A notion which was further confirmed when she saw the man who had found her make eye contact with him. They were communicating. The man with the purple orchid gave her a brief glance and then quickly lost interest again.
“Who … who are you?” one of the hostages asked Mech after she had been placed on the floor among the other partygoers.
This, Mech quickly realized, was the trickiest part of her infiltration. Nobody in this crowd knew who she was and she had to assume that most of these people were co-workers and therefore knew each other quite well. If the terrorists realized that she was a stranger too soon, her plan would fall apart.
“Kara,” she said and then, before the man could ask another question, very slowly shook her head, for just a moment the look on her face turning deadly serious before it was once again replaced by the scared expression she had been maintaining.
The man apparently caught the sudden change and while he couldn’t quite dispel the confused look on his own face, he managed to say nothing else.
Mech knew that time was not on her side. Less than five minutes had passed since they had landed on the roof and perhaps ten since Tank had disposed of the terrorists on the roof. By know they had to be suspicious about the fact that they had not been able to raise their comrades.
Her biggest concern of course was the potential bomb somewhere hidden within the building. If she was right and the bomb was more than just a precaution and instead an integral part of their plan, they could detonate it at any point and at the first sign of trouble. For now she hoped they had a strict timetable to work towards. After all, the longer this crisis went on, the longer the press agencies were broadcasting live feeds of the occupied Fed Plaza building across the Federation and the more terror would spread among those billions of citizens glued to the ongoing coverage.
It meant she had to make her move and she had to make it soon.