Memory Gap (Alpha and Sigr)

Nick sucked on his teeth for a moment as he thought over the best approach. A firefight would draw too much attention from goons around town and would risk someone getting caught in the crossfire. He considered circling around and comming up from the other side but he didn't know if the two uniforms had buddies and it opened him up to being spotted.

"There's an old gas station about two miles south of town. Draw those guys off. I'll grab the van and I'll meet you at that station in..." He checked his watch and thoguht for a second "let's call it two hours."

He looked back at Inanna and Milton gave a quiet mew of encouragement, "Go work your magic partner."

Inanna made sure that she didn't have any weapons on her and gave them all to Nick. It was odd and made her feel a bit naked, considering that she had just armed herself, but guns weren't going to solve their problem there, if only they would only serve to cause more trouble. "Just..." Inanna mumbled. "Just don't go without me, please" she asked. It was hard to admit, but without Nick her knowledge of the world was nonexistent and she would be completely lost. It wouldn't matter how hard she could punch if she was aimless, a pang of doubt making her feel that without a purpose, she was no better than the weapons she just handed away.

"Two hours" she said, before parting ways with Nick, petting Milton before heading out.

Disheveling the jacket a bit, opening a couple buttons too many of her khaki shirt and ruffling her black hair, Inanna gave the image of having been roughed up, but not as bad as to mark her olive skin or damage her athletic frame. "Ah- thanks God..." she gasped, her voice pure distress, warning the goons of her presence so they didn't get startled by someone closing on them unaware. "He's not chasing me, is he?" she asked, glancing back briefly and letting the guards fill the details of the story with their imagination. "You must help me, please" she begged, "he won't let me go, I know he's waiting for me..." her eyes were wet, her lips trembling. "Why I always fall for blonde bad guys..." Inanna sighed, leaning on one of the guards.

As professional as they looked, and as covered as they were, their body language spoke by itself. How they shifted from a dutiful if boring watch to an exciting story of their own, how now were involved in something they knew barely anything about and yet sounded enticing. Maybe the short, athletic type was to their liking, maybe not, but she was a pretty and slightly disrobed woman in distress, and how they turned their heads to each other then back at her was telling on their state of mind. Could that blonde guy the one that they were looking for? Catching him sure would make them look better than just keeping watch of the vehicle. And even if it wasn't, that woman with the poor judgment sure would be thankful for having her saved from that brute.

"Show us where he's waiting for you" one of them said. The other hesitated, but it seemed to follow along his partner.

"Here, I barely made it..." she sobbed, guiding them through unknown streets away from the vehicle. Innana didn't know that place, so she was winging it.

"Was he with a pale redhead?" the doubtful guard asked, surely suspecting that if that blonde man was Nick he should have herself and her old look by his side.

"I-I don't know, he's cheating on me..." she muttered, giving the guards more rope. It was clear that one was more interested in her, while the other was looking for Nick. "I did find a red hair in his shirt... and then... he grabbed me..." Inanna sobbed, leaving the sentence unfinished. By then Nick must have taken the van already to the road, and finding a private enough alley, Inanna guided the guards there. "Here, I think he's here..." she whispered, pointing to the alley, letting the goons go in before following them.

...

Hour and a half later, Inanna finally arrived to the old gas station, her baggy jacket zipped up and slightly limping. "Nick?" she asked, looking around. "Nick!" she shouted, sounding worried and sitting on the cracked asphalt, rubbing her right knee. She looked disturbed, but mostly fine.

Nick kept himself pressed as flat as he could against the wall, watching and listening as Inanna worked her magic on the two uniforms. A hand rested on the butt of his gun, ready to draw if need be.

"Why do I always fall for blonde bad guys..."

Smart, very smart, she was baiting a hook using well.....using him. And wile usually the idea of being used as bait she was leading them off away from him, so it was the idea of him that was bait and not so much actual him. He waited till she lead them out of the alley and counted off a minute in his head then darted out around the corner.

He hauled open the side door, tossing in the duffle bag and following close behind and squeezed his way into the driver's seat. The engine rumbeled to life and the gear shift screeched as he threw it into reverse and backed out of the alley.


An hour an a half later Nick had pulled the van into the garage of the old gas station to keep it hidden, he sat, the side door opened loading 5.7mm rounds into the SMG mags by hand when he heard her outside, "In here!"

Hearing Nick's voice lifted her spirit, at least enough for Inanna to get up and continue her limping in the direction of the voice, inside the garage. "It's done, but..." Inanna sounded tired, something that was quite weird and also somewhat scared, a complete oddity in her usual behavior, specially after he had seen her in action after taking a bullet to her shoulder. Scurrying on the back of the van, Inanna sat there, pulling up on the right trouser leg to reveal a badly mangled knee. "Oh fuck..." she cursed while taking a look at it, leaving it be and lying down as long as she was.

"One of them caught me with all his weight and for a moment I thought he snapped it" Inanna said, sounding scared. "It will repair itself but I need rest, walking here has been a pain" she informed Nick, avoiding to look at him. Closing her eyes it was clear that something disturbed her, but she wasn't talking about it.

Miton appeared from inside a pile of blankets when he heard Inanna's voice and brushed up against her, purring contently before mewing for attention.

Nick took a swing from the water canteen sittitn on the floor beside him before stuffing the loaded magazines back into the bag, "No worries. You got a few hours before we reach Mechanicsburg so you can grab some sleep if you need to. Do you sleep? Or... eat for that matter?" It seemed like oversight to be asking her only now of she needed to eat but it wasn't a question Nick was used to asking people.
The side door squeeled as he pulled it shut before squeezing himself into the driver's seat and firing the engine and backing out of the garage and into the road.

Inanna rested inside the vehicle, caressing Milton as he approached following her voice. At least the cat worried about her well being more than Nick did, as he didn't seem to care about the hardships she had been subjected to nor the state of her leg. Well, if she had to be honest all Milton wanted was attention and someone to scratch him a bit, and since Inanna herself already told Nick that the mangled knee would repair itself there was no reason to worry about it, was it? Inanna sighed, it was a tough world indeed, and Nick seemed to be used to be by himself, the rest of his acquaintances just passing thoughts. Even then, she couldn't help but be moody. Nick had been fuming about a threat to Milton and yet when she got injured by those goons he just worried about the technicalities of her inner workings.

"You found me sleeping, didn't you?" Inanna answered his question with another one, her tone clearly cutting. "I don't need to eat, just let me rest" promptly added, clearly showing that she was nowhere near happy with the situation. Closing her eyes, her senses slowly grew numb, and Inanna soon found herself in a dreamless sleep on the road to Mechanisburg.

Mechanicsburg was a vastly different beast than Traders Town. Wile one had been a cluster of low buildings and uniform streets Mechanicsburg was chaotic, buildings cobeled together from junk standing at bizzare angles forming a jagged, uneven skyline. Cars and bikes filled the streets, cobeled together from all kinds of salvaged parts, even the people looked cobeled together, a swirling mass of different races some sporting salvaged cybernetics that didn't seem to fit their bodies properly.

As he piloted the van through the winding streets Nick kept one hand on the wheel, the other on his lap where his gun rested, "Ok, do me a favor Milton, don't go wondering off and running into trouble with Ravegers again. I don't wanna have to try and peice you back together."

He glanced back to the heap of blankets where Innna slept "Wakey Wakey sleeping beauty."

Inanna's eyes opened suddenly on command, behind was abandoned the darkness, the half remembered startling visions she couldn't quite puzzle. Seeing Nick wake her rekindled how distant he had been with her injury, making Inanna frown once more. "I'm awake now, did you already get into trouble?" she sneered, way more disgruntled that she meant to. Her attention shifted to her leg, and even if the knee seemed to be back in order, she flexed it a couple of times for good measure. "I'm fine, thank you for asking" she added, unrolling the trouser leg back and stepping out of the vehicle.

Inanna got her first look of Mechanisburg, and what she saw made her uneasy. In one hand she could sympathize with those people that were making their best to keep themselves going on, even if they had to work with makeshift cybernetics to do so. On the other hand, even if she knew it was stupid and miserable of her, she couldn't help but feel a bit of envy. At least them were still mostly human, at least them knew who they were and struggled to keep themselves being. Mechanisburg filled her with awe and horror, with wonder and fear.

How much of your body could be replaced and you could call yourself human? Was it the shape? Was it the mind? And if the mind wasn't stored into a brain made of flesh? Even if Inanna's body could be made see through, her skull was an sturdy and opaque shape, and even her didn't know what was inside. Wanting to focus outwards instead of inwards, she turned to Nick and asked.

"What now?" voiced with a shrug. "Laying low? You had acquaintances here no?" asked, her tone still stern, unhappy with him.

Nick hopped down from the van, passing Inanna a gunbelt he had holstered her sidearm in and dropped his own pistol back into the creaky leather holster on his hip, "I mean I know a few people around town. Not sure how much they like me right now but I know people."

Milton stuck his head out the open door and mewed, "Yeah yeah I know I know what Kessler said last time. You just....stay with van." He kicked the door closed with the heel of his boot and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, scowling, "Your kneel straighten itself out?"

Inanna took her holstered gun from Nick and listened how he knew people around, although their affections for him may be a question to be answered. "Yeah, I can understand that..." she muttered, grumpy. After fastening her gun belt and giving Milton a couple of scratches before moving on, Inanna noticed that Nick didn't seem to be completely inattentive to her mood, as he asked about her knee. Perhaps he was distracted with his acquaintances there?

"It did, glad you finally worried about my well being" Inanna snorted. Looking around to the people of Mechanisburg was illuminating, but also a constant reminder of her nature. "I'm not a machine, you know? Maybe my body is but..." Inanna sighed. "Doesn't matter, lets move" she finished, shaking her head.

The streets of Mechanicsburg where different than those of Traders Town. Instead of the clean grid-like layout the streets twisted and turned with no ryme or reason, streets widening and narrowing all in the span of a single block. Nick didn't walk the same sureness he had in Trader's Town, periodically he would come to a stop, consulting a map on his datapad. Everytime he stopped he would glance back over his shoulder, his other hand rested on his holstered pistol, expecting someone to jump him at any minute, "I hate this city......" He muttered, Turing up a street so narrow he had to turn sideways to squeeze between the building.

"You can hate all you want when we got into wherever we are going" Inanna argued, a bit tired of having to deal with Nick's trouble without having an explanation about how those troubles began in the first place. At the same time it was hard to stop caring about him, as he had saved her from an eternity of being stuck in that coffin, or being found by someone worse, but Inanna was tired of not feeling the same kind of care from him. "I've got your back, keep going..." she tried to ease Nick, following him across that labyrinth that would supposedly help them hide.

"HEY SHARPE!"

Someone shouted from up the widened end of the street as they emerged from the narrow gap. Nick looked towards the shout and then rather swiftly shoved Inanna to one side of the street before diving in the opposite direction as a gun shot echoed through the urban canyon of buildings. He scrambed for cover behind a low wall of corrugated steel and worked his gun from the holster before peering around his makeshift cover.

There where a half dozen of them at the other end, heavily armed, one even had a machine gun haphazardly grafted to one arm.

"Ah shit...." He muttered before addressing the attackers, "Buller, still uh.... doing Kessler's dirty work?"

"Kessler wants you dead Flynt!"

"Oh come on!" He shouted back, "if this is about that thing with exoframe I didn't know about the counter measures. Its not my damned fault the damned thing exploded."

Another chorus of bullets wizzed through the air and slammed into the steel, causing him to flinch, "Would you stop fuckin shooting at me and let me talk!"

Their reply was more bullets.

Inanna's senses screamed with alarm, but she was confused as Nick shoved her so her sensors had trouble pointing out a route. Once the gun shot echoed, she scooted into cover, but was away from Nick by a few feet. Whatever Nick's capability to negotiate with those goons was, it seemed to carry less weight that what he had done, or didn't do, as she didn't really know what the hell happened between that Kessler person and him. The thugs, even if Nick seemed to know their leader, answered his words with bullets, so they weren't getting anywhere.

Getting a peek at their enemies, Inanna saw that they were half a dozen of them and haphazardly armed, and even if she could withstand a bit of small gun fire, that machinegun would tear her to shreds. Not to mention the pain, nobody liked that and even if she was able to turn it off, she didn't want to as it made her feel more of a machine.

"Nick, do you have some kind of plan? Offer them money or something?" Inanna asked from cover to cover. "Tell them that you have come to make amends or anything" she added. "I mean, we can probably take them down, but I suspect that such a thing would earn us no friends here, and we don't have anywhere else to go" she protested.

Bullets wizzed past them, filling the air with slugs of hot leaded that Nick didnt care to be on the receiving end of. "I hyeah, great fuckin idea Inanna, offer the guys wanting to kill me money, WHICH I DONT FUCKIN HAVE. so they'll stop shooting at us. Maybe I can wave a white flag and they'll just come down here and put one in my head with no resistance!"

He blind fired around cover, causing the thugs to scatter before returning fire. Empty brass tumbled from Nick's fun to the ground and he fed fresh rounds into the cylinder, "But by all means if you think you can work this out peacefully be my guest!"

"You can be an asshole sometimes, you know that?" Inanna barked back when her attempts to shed some light into their source of their trouble were met with sarcasm. Of course, a shootout may not be the best moment to talk about that, but she still resented Nick's detached and abrasive attitude. Inanna got hold of her gun and started to return fire, taking out one of the regular goons with a shot to the guts, ducking under cover before machine gun fire sawed her head off.

Inanna's senses alerted her, the scattered thugs were flanking them, and they had two of them taking position to fire and Inanna had just time to shoot one of them down. Choosing to kill the one about to shoot at Nick, she disregarded the one behind her, hoping for the best.

Even in the heat of a firefight Nick found time to be Nick, the last round slid home and he gave the chamber and spin and swung it closed with a flock of his wrist. Seeing one of the goons comming up from behind he quickly sighted and put two rounds into him.

"I am fully aware that I am an asshole and firmly believe it is the source of my charm thank you very much!"

The gunfire came to an abrupt stop, empty mags clattered to the ground and fresh ones loaded.

"Do you two need a minute?!" Buller shouted from behind a trash can, " 'cause I'm feeling kinda bad killing you wile you two are having some kind of lovers spat."

"Being handsome doesn't allow you to be that much of a pain in the ass!" Inanna screamed back, unaware of what she had just admitted in the heat of battle, her senses completely focused on what was going on around her instead of what she was barking at him. Perhaps it was the relief that Nick taking out the goon behind her had brought the one causing her slip of the tongue, but Buller's mockery soon made her scream at him. "In your case you can't talk with the cattle, I understand your envy!" she yelled, trying to get a peek at him.

He may be stupid and abrasive, but Buller knew how to cover his ass for sure. Using her advanced senses, Inanna noticed something though. Perhaps it would be enough, perhaps not, but she had to try. Since Buller had a wide stance when firing, a small part of one of his boots showed to the side of the cover. It wouldn't be nowhere near lethal, but enough to hurt and maybe force a mistake. Inanna took the shot, a scream making her know that she had indeed hit the target, as Buller now had now four toes on that foot after pinky got shot out.

"That little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home!" Inanna wanted to mock Buller, and the first thing that crossed her mind was to use an old nursery rhyme. As soon as she was behind cover, Inanna was assaulted by the vision of that teary kid from her dreams, and she could hear a female voice she couldn't quite identify singing that song. Frozen under cover, Inanna's eyes were lost in the distance and she wasn't moving anymore.

"Hah hah, suck to be you Buller!" Nick shouted as the man's toe was promptly blown off, leaving the man in need of a new pair of boots. He glanced over at Innana and the grin slipped away from his face when he saw she had locked "hey, wake up.!" He shouted then glanced towards the end of the alley as he heard the distinct whine of a machine gun spooling up and he peered around cover to see the thug with the arm cannon brace himself and prepair to fire.

"Oh shit....." He breathed as he dove from cover towards Inanna letting off the remaining rounds from the chamber at random as he tackled her to the ground to avoid the 20mm hail of bullets.

The force of the tackle woke Inanna up from her reverie, keeping herself down under Nick's weight as bullets whistled above them, chipping away at the cover sending debris and dust all around. Trying to get the smallest respite, Inanna tried to fire from her awkward position, even if it was just to make that thug stop for a bit, but as the gun clicked empty she noticed she was out of loaded ammo.

Maybe it was her internal logic systems at work seeking for a desperate solution, maybe it was just human instinct or frustration, but the only answer she found to their situation was to use all the strength she could muster in that awkward spot and throw her gun to the machine gun goon. The sturdy weapon hit him in the forehead, making him stumble and his spray go wild around, offering them a brief window of opportunity to do something.

"Nick, now!" Inanna urged to him, close as he was to take the shot, ready to cover him if needed.

Bullet.
One bullet. All he needed was one bullet to deal with the machine gun arm. Nick fumbeled a round from his belt, just the one, he only needed one for the time being. He didn't know how long he had until the thug recovered from the gun butt to the face.

The cylinder snapped shut and gun thundered.

The show was low, catching the target in the hip and he grinned with menice before turning the gun towards the pair.

And was ripped apart by an explosion.

"Huh....and here I thought I was out of the hi-ex rounds." Nick mused as he shielded his head from a rain for fire and cybernetic parts.

"We are going to need a shower" Inanna observed, still partially under Nick's tackle but getting a bit of the exploding goon goo on her as well. "Thank you, I don't know what-" she said, looking straight into his slate grey eyes, but her thanks were interrupted by the sound of a stray shot hitting close but not too much.

"Buller! Surrender and live you fucking idiot!" Inanna barked angry after taking a peek and seeing that it was him who fired, even if he was still on the ground suffering the loss of a toe. Only after talking she noticed how much Nick was rubbing on for her to talk like that. "You know him better, I think we have had enough blood today" she hushed to Nick, still intertwined with her on the ground to get the best use of the cover.

Nick had been in back alley shootouts before. Infact he had probably been gotten into one in the exact alley they where shooting it out in at that exact moment Trouble followed him like that, by no fault of his own. People just seemed to like trying to kill him for no real reason that he had ever been able to figure out. But despite the strange circumstances he had often found himself in, including conducting a shootout wile naked once, he had never once gotten into one wile on top of a woman.

It wasn't that he minded the idea of being on top of Inanna, or under, or behind her for that matter, this....just really wasn't the time to be worrying about that. Maybe some other time, just....not right now.

He pulled his leg in quick as a series of rounds peppered the ground, kicking up broken bits of concrete but nothing that came close to actually connecting.

"God damnit Buller, you're gonna go into shock or pass out from blood loss, how much do you think you can actually do!?"

As if in response more shots rang out and Nick rolled his eyes more annoyed than actually concerned about anything happening at this point in time.

Every shot made Inanna clutch tighter to Nick, wanting to avoid any injuries. Even if she had recovered from what happened before, she was still shocked and uneasy. She didn't know what happened to her, or why did that trigger such an answer, and pretending to delve into the darkness of her memories was of no use. Inanna started to pat over Nick, not exactly groping him although for a brief moment if could be misunderstood. Finding and taking a knife from his clothes, Inanna tried to focus, even if it wasn't an specially easy moment to do so.

"I swear... if he doesn't stop firing, I'm going to jam this knife into one of his eyes" she said determined, hoping that Nick found a way to get rid of Buller so she didn't have to move around in their cover to do as she had promised.

"Hey hey hey. This REALLY isn't the time and place for that." He protested, clearly misunderstanding the purpose of Innana's wondering hands right up until she tugged the combat knife loose from his boot.

"Uh....Buller. You may wanna stop shooting. Otherwise you're gonna make her mad. And last guy who made her mad didn't fare to well."

There was a pause and for a moment Nick thought the thug had made the smart choice. Turned out he was just reloading and another barrage of shots rang out.