The Pros

The Pros



Prologue



The doors open as a computer voice chimes into Lyrica's commsys, a device tailored into her mind allowing only her and others with commsyses and the correct frequency to hear. “You should be in now,” intones the electronic voice, and Lyrica nods to Elosiyv. Elosiyv is the only one among the five who has an AR:SM, or Arm-Reconstruct: Shifting Module. Elosiyv pours the blood bag into the reconstruction receptor, and changes, starting to look exactly like Soreyn Corp's XO. Then Lyrica nods to Amber who walks up to Elosiyv and pulls his collar down slightly, sinking her teeth into the meeting of neck and shoulder. Choking after sucking some blood out, she falls to all fours, and starts to cough up blood. The others begin to rush to her, but Lyrica puts up a fist. They all stood still, tensing, and she explained.



“She is purging her blood, to receive Elosiyv's. She will soon look exactly like he did, pre-shift.”The others nod grimly, and only Elosiyv looks down at Amber's changing body. He was the only one with concern. Must I be the cause of this, dear Lyrica? He thinks. He was shocked when he received a reply on his commsys. In the world today, we all must make sacrifices to achieve what is the best- and somehow, I doubt even the best will be good... Elosiyv nodded to Lyrica and them sighed, noting to himself that he must control his emotions or risk exposing himself through his commsys. Amber, after a long bout of hacking up blood, stands, looking exactly like Elosiyv normally would. Nodding to Lyrica, she says, “Ready.”



Lyrica smiles faintly, but nods. “Good. Ervyn!” She barks out the last word, and Ervyn nods grimly, putting an inhibitor into Amber's right arm- the arm with the reconstruct. Taking out a small welding device, he smiles to Amber, who nods bravely and bites upon a corktop she got from her pocket. The flames came out, and only the corktop stops the screaming. As the welding finishes, Lyrica motions to Syn, who takes his place next to Elosiyv, ignoring the fact the Amber is almost passing out. Ervyn backs off, giving Syn some breathing room. Syn was wearing a Soreyn Corp uniform, and security helmet with their logo. The badge on the uniform emblazons “Geddon”, Soreyn  Corp's lead security officer. Taking up a position behind Elo and Syn herself, Lyrica motions to Amber to position herself next to her. Nodding to Ervyn, she does not even wait to see as he hops on a personal coptor to get to the dropship.



Lyrica speaks one, unrehearsed, order. “Syn, make me look beaten.” Amber does everything she can to not scream as Syn approaches Lyrica, and Elo says, “One moment, Syn” Approaching Lyrica himself, he smiles faintly, saying, “Thank you... My love.” Kissing her for what he knows to be the last- even though it was also the first- time, he nods, and re-assumes his position, regretting the kiss as he sees one tear fall down Lyrica's face. As Syn does the dirty deed, Amber goes up to Elosiyv and hugs him from behind, as he begins to cry. Lyrica makes not one sound. After two minutes, Lyrica is barely able to get up, and Amber goes to her to help support her. Lyrica smiles weakly to her, but nods and says, “We go.” Elosiyv leads them, with Lyrica and Amber in the middle, and Syn as the rearguard, pretending to watch over Lyrica and Amber. Handgun in his left hand and a hand-and-a-half sword in his right hand, Syn's demeanor along with the weapons make him look like the ultimate killing machine.



Elosiyv swipes a card from his pocket into the double door's identifier, and they retract into the walls. Going in, he walks among the Pros, seemingly confidently. However, he felt extremely scared. Not for himself, but for his son, 11235813, and for Lyrica, his leader, who had agreed to this mission to save him. Elosiyv wanted to abort the mission now- he did not want to trade what he knew he had, Lyrica, for someone he was unsure about their relationship to him. 11235813 might hate him- 11235813 might not even be able to be saved. And Lyrica knew that this was a suicide mission for all of CHELSEA. Elosiyv also knew, however, that he could not rest until he had some type of answer about his son, and that aborting now would mean sure death for CHELSEA, as opposed to probable death. And so, he went on, appearing to be fine, but truly feeling haunted.



Going through the complex, he leads the group to the nearest elevator. Telling it to go to the nine-hundredth ninety-ninth floor, he waits for it to get there. That was enough idle time for a sweat to break out, but it was less than half a minute. The doors opening as the Elevator arrives, Elosiyv leads them out and to the office. It was on the second to last floor, because 11235813 was, aside from the XO (who was on the one-thousandth floor with the CEO), the second-in-command of Soreyn Corp. That was incredible, because 11235813 was not human. He was a Pros, as they were universally called- a prosthetic human mind-linked to special enhancements. The downside of these “enhancements” is that a Pros can no longer think for itself- only for its predefined community. The special thing about 11235813 was just that- his predefined community. He was not a Pros in that his thought processes did not include other Pros in them- they were not his predefined community. His predefined community was America and, by extension, Soreyn Corp, America's top corporate contributor.



As Elosiyv enters the office, 11235813 looks at him curiously. “XO Klein. You reported in as on vacation this morning.” Elosivy smiles to 11235813, a strained while genuine smile, if such a thing were possible, and says, “Ah, yes, well I had second thoughts and I have something I need to do. May I borrow your console, 11235813?” The Pros nodded, and as Elosiyv comes in, revealing Lyrica and Amber, 11235813 stands rapidly, gasping. Then, seeing Syn, he calms down- a bit. “XO Klein, I hope you are here to report these... Scum... As found.” Elosiyv nods to 11235813 and says, sitting down at his console, “Indeed I am, good Fib.” That was the code phrase, and as 11235813 stood in confusion, looking to who he thought was his XO, Syn came up to him, taking off his helmet.



“Well, 'Fib',” Syn said as he placed his gun at the crook of his back and the sword across his neck, “You're coming with us.” Lyrica nodded to Amber, who then unholstered her piece and aimed it at 11235813. Elosiyv was in the middle of some work on the console- he was un-linking as many Pros as he could, and then destroying their personal mindlinks from the computer's database. Lyrica walks to him, and grips his chair as soon as she gets there, her other hand on her stomach. “Elo.” She said simply. “Stop.” Elo looked to her, confused. She looks to Syn meaningfully for one moment, but then back to Elo. “Syn wounded me. He did not mean to, but his handgun broke one of my ribs, and it has punctured my stomach.” Calm as always, Lyrica raised her left arm, showing her personal monitor to Elo and Syn. Syn had been unable to speak, as had Elo, but the monitor showed that Lyrica was right. “Go, Elo, I will continue the de-link.” Yelling 'no' in frustration, sorrow and an all-around unsurety of where his world was going, Elo stood and composed himself. “I'll carry you!”



Lyrica smiled bitterly. “And get yourself killed on the way out, my love. Goodbye, Elo.” She nodded to  Amber, who went to 11235813 and relieved Syn of him. Syn, tears rolling down his cheeks, says to Elo, “Come, mate, she's right...” Elo screamed at him. “How can you even say that? We'll get her out of here!” Sighing, Syn tripped Elo's legs out from under him, and held him down. Taking a filled needle from his pocket, he pushes it into Elo's right arm, and injects the fluid. “Follow Amber.” Syn said, simply, and Elo got up and walked to the door. As Amber takes 11235813 and Elo out, he turns back to Lyrica, and unholsters his piece with his left hand and draws his sword with his right. He shoots the blade of the sword with his piece after setting it to stun, and yells in pain, falling to his knees. After a second or two, he stands up, and sheathes his blade, showing his right hand to Lyrica. It is blackened, yet still functional. Lyrica nods her understanding to Syn, who calls to Heather over his commsys. “Heather- we need a diversion. Now.” He then runs back to the elevator, getting in just before it closes and goes down to the six-hundredth floor. Luckily, they were all out before Heather's diversion came into effect. It was an explosion in the power bay, and all the elevators fell to the ground as an effect.



Syn takes over with 11235813 and tells Amber to get to the dropship, and that he'll get out himself. Amber, worried about Elo, nods and runs towards the center of the building, where there is a circular construct in which dropships come and go up and down the building's mainframe. Syn nods to his two mates as the go, and appraises his situation, 11235813 in hand. He grins as he sees an abandoned personal coptor. Taking it, he places his sword in the small slit between the two elevator doors, working them open. As they come free, he drops the personal coptor into the shaft after pressing a button on it, and jumps. As the personal coptor activates, he grips its tail with one hand, swinging him as the coptor goes upwards, and 11235813's arm with his other hand. . As it reaches the top floor, it tears through the top of the building with its coptor blades. Just as Syn jumps off the coptor and onto the building's roof, the coptor begins to stall. Syn signals to the dropship with his commsys, relaying his location. In a matter of seconds, it comes up  the circular structure within the building's mainframe and flies towards him. Hopping aboard with 11235813, he closes the drop-door.