Suddenly Freelance
Suddenly Freelance
In a king sized bed made of faux bamboo with sheets of a Tiki vision of the 1950s science fiction originally created by Brad "Tiki Shark" Parker trio of chimeras lay sleeping. Two of the three are female with one being a purple furred fox/wolf/human hybrid with green hair, socks and gloves to match, orange tiger stripes and orange stars on her forehead, over her head, on her upper arms and thighs; the other is a steel gray rabbit torso with black hair having just metal caps where her limbs would normally connect with her body. The one male is a green furred bear/wolf/human hybrid with a purple Mohawk, a purple diamond on his forehead, orange tiger stripes, and purple stars in much the same places as the folf female s well as purple gloves and socks.
The bunny is the first to stir and uses her PIDMA short for Personally Integrated Data Management Accessory to do a quick surf of the web and a new flash quickly appears to the side of her main screen. Keiko Yojimbo quietly curses the fact that her cyberlimbs are off her body and the fact that neither Aurora Oddity nor Kodyax Byzarrowulf are awake yet to put them on for her, even though Kody has morning wood and Keiko is a little hungry she does her best not make a load of semen from her huge lover her breakfast as Aurora stirs next feels up Kodyax and smiles as she impales herself as a pleasurable way to start the day as Keiko gives her the evil eye. Aurora opens up her browser screen as well as she rides Kodyax and gets the same message flash.
Aurora sees Keiko lying there frustrated and gropes her before turning on her viewer which pops up in a separate screen so they can both watch a news report from Eyewitness International, a 24 hour news station on the web which evolved from the now antiquated CNN as the new source of all PIDMA users world wide. The news account chills both girls enough that they hurry the big male awake even as his semen squirts into her womb. Kodyax is annoyed at having his slumber interrupted until he sees what the girls have seen and is jolted right awake with the gravity of what he is seeing.
Hakim Jafar, human mercenary of African descent was found murdered in his bed in Philadelphia, PA, Atlantyz via decapitation. There were indicators that he was having sex with his killer prior to his death. Along with the news article is a note from Musashi Mitsubishi to get their tails down to his office in Chinatown ASAP.
Musashi is the CEO of Silver Dragon Securities a clearing house of mercenary bounty hunters that all three chimeras belong to and Hakim was a co-worker just recently signed on. Kodyax gets Keiko back together as Aurora makes some coffee. While the coffee is being made, Kodyax makes eggs and scrapple for himself and Aurora while Keiko has cold cereal in the form of rice squares with honey and milk as she is primarily a vegetarian.
As all three sit down together to eat and chat about what the death of Hakim could mean they each get a conference call from Musashi. The trio look at each other with some dread as they have some idea as to what he wants to talk about. It takes half a minute for them to come into the non-verbal agreement to answer the call.
"Yes, Musashi," Kodyax says through his PIDMA with the two ladies saying the same thing as they all answer the call at once.
"All three of you are sitting around the same table aren't you?" Musashi asks with an annoyedly amused tone of voice.
"Let's just say we all woke up in Kody's bed," Aurora teases.
"Did you get the video news story I sent you?" Musashi asks to all three of once.
"It was one of the first thing I saw when I logged on," Keiko admits.
"Why do I get the feeling that Hakim was merely one of many," Kodyax intimates to Musashi.
"Three guys and a girl died last night," Musashi admits. "All four of them were in a squad that took down a cell of OGRE not too long ago."
"Again with the damn terrorists," Aurora growls. "They attacked the bio-lab last night where Mikiko was being developed."
"That's another issue," Musashi admits through gritted teeth. "She's missing from her tube. She was due to be released this morning but when I went to pick her up she was gone."
"I hate it when you're right," Aurora growls.
"Yeah, I don't want to say it," Kodyax says with a sigh.
"What happened that is not on the report you turned in?" Musashi asks with dark authority.
"Do you have a read out of what the final set of programming that went into this time around?" Aurora asks.
"What do you mean?" Musashi asks in reply.
"OGRE attacked the factory lab Mikiko was developing and now people in our employ are dying because they participated in an operation that took out one of their cells," Kodyax prompts to Musashi: "And now she's missing to boot. You don't find that a little too coincidental?"
"I don't like what you're inferring," Musashi responds. "Find Mikiko and try to get to the bottom of how OGRE got the names of those agents that have been killed so we can staunch the bleeding."
"And if Mikiko is doing the killings?" Aurora asks to intentionally goad Musashi.
"Kill the assassin," Musashi growls and then terminates the connection.
"You intentionally pissed him off didn't you?" Keiko asks of her companions.
"Yes and no," Kodyax states. "I'm still not very happy with him for one, Mikiko is a synth and we just last night found out she was a synth. I have nothing against synthetics but Musashi is trying to pass her off as his flesh and blood kin. How long this has been going on I don't know but it's starting to come back and bite him in the ass and we're caught in the middle."
"Plus the fact that we still don't know what got up OGRE's collective kiester to start to act now." Aurora states.
"Could they still be sore about our trip to Neo-Atlantis?" Keiko asks facetiously. "And they just now have decided what they want to do?"
"If OGRE has decided to clean house," Kodyax speculates. "Silver Dragon as a company is a target."
"Which means all of us are in danger," Keiko grouses.
A Japanese woman with blue hair stalks the streets of Chinatown shadowing a Japanese man who is completely bald. She looks like a ninja, while he is dressed like a samurai businessman. He is busy manipulating virtual screens and is completely unaware of the woman behind him as she takes out a katana and quickens her pace.
In the virtual world Kody, Keiko and Rory look like world war one doughboys in a trench straight out of a period movie. Above them is a Martian walker with the OGRE logo mindlessly meandering the battlefield. It fires its cannon at a few random targets around it but none of the shots are even close to the chimeras.
They find a door in the simulated trench that Aurora can't get through but Kodyax blasts through with his shotgun. Once past the door the scene changes to a Nazi concentration camp with zombies shuffling about aimlessly. Aurora recognizes the undead as a kind of security program and impresses upon her companions the need to avoid them at all costs.
Sneaking into the main building past the dim witted undead is a relatively simple and straightforward matter. Once they get into one of the gas chamber buildings the scene changes once again to an impossibly vast library. Each book is a bit of data on file and there are only spiders skittering about keeping watch.
Keiko produces a big mallet and goes on a squishing spree as she knows the spiders will report their presence to the administrators of the site which could be bad for them as Aurora is looking for any information about the organization's current plans. Kodyax is helping as best he can but seems to have this weird knack of finding porn stashes of various users of OGRE. Some of the porn is actually of such an amusing sort that he wants to download some of it but wants Aurora to check it for viruses but will ask her do that once they have what they came for.
Aurora is actually greatly disturbed by what she finds as OGRE has plans on killing everyone that gets in its way and destroying all chimeras like them rather than even attempt to convert them. The fact that Silver Dragon is being targeted is a no-brainer but the reasons why incense Aurora. Above and beyond the fact that as an organization they have been instrumental in thwarting the organization time and again the fact that Musashi employs chimeras to begin with, let alone treating them with respect is considered an anathema to the organization as a whole.
By sheer luck she picks up a ledger of recent activities and finds plans from the top to reprogram Mikiko as she is developing to be their assassin before she is killed as an abomination. Aurora tries to contact Musashi to warn him about this but can't reach him as she just gets his virtual secretary, a version of Mikiko, that takes her message and promises to get back with her as soon as he is able. She is about to turn to Kodyax when animated suits of armor wielding lances start to rush into the room.
The suits of armor are the avatars of real world programmers coming to take care of them and while they could defend themselves, Aurora has already gotten the information they came for so she logs off, followed closely by the other two. Keiko decides to log back into the Silver Dragon homepage and check her email before doing some general surfing when she notices a vampire like figure looking like Max Shrek in the silent film Nosferatu snooping around the sight. It posts a link to a new item on the main wall that acts as a message board before it turns into a bat and flies out of the domain.
The link is to a news feed for the Global News Matrix which is reporting that Musashi was murdered by an as yet unknown assailant via decapitation. A moment later all three of them get notice to a virtual reading of Musashi's will in cyberspace. Suspicions of malicious code involved in this aside, the three chimeras log in to see what is going on.
In cyberspace there is a meeting of avatars the likes of which are rarely seen as the three chimeras join other members of the company as well as associates Musashi had in a virtual board room. Most of the avatars present are well known to the trio as they work with them as part of their network and those that are not co-workers are well known by those who work for Silver Dragon as clients and friends of the CEO. Noticeably absent from the gathering is Mikiko herself which concerns Kodyax and Aurora.
Avatars of their co-workers blink out one by one as if they are being assassinated in the real world as the reading proceeds. Any and all indentured servant contracts the chimeras might have had with Musashi are made into citizen papers of Atlantyz with the full rights of any human. Many of the avatars in the room representing humans are not happy with this action as it means they can't claim any of Musashi's chimera assets for their own as virtual slaves which is one reason he did that as Kodyax well knows.
A blue haired anime ninja cat girl walks in just as the lawyer program is about to announce who is taking over Silver Dragon after Musashi's demise. She smirks to everyone and everyone in the employ of Silver Dragon nods to her as this is Mikiko's avatar. Mikiko gets cozy with Kodyax as the program stops and recognizes her presence.
Musashi by all appearances had been grooming Mikiko to be his successor as she still thinks she is his flesh and blood daughter and few know the truth. Certainly his associates labor under the lie that Musashi had been perpetuating. This only adds to the shock when the reveal comes as to who would be in charge of the organization in Musashi's absence.
In fact everyone is surprised when the lawyer program becomes Musashi himself and becomes interactive. He explains that he got in with some technical people who transfer his mental engrams to computer code allowing him to exist as a virtual entity. Musashi is still in charge but his chimeras are still considered free citizens with Silver Dragon being mostly dissolved save his surviving operatives are to be kept on retainer as freelancers.
Aurora, Keiko and Kodyax all look at each other and decide right then and there that they will be working as a unit for contracts. Musashi's code clone accepts this arrangement without argument and records it in his database for future reference. He also hires them on the spot to find his killer and bring him or her to justice as Mikiko just keeps smirking.
Mikiko is given the offices and apartments they shared in Chinatown as a matter of course. She is to maintain the storefront for now until such time it is no longer necessary or desirable that such an arrangement be kept. The three chimeras charged with avenging Musashi's slaying look askance of her as they fully suspect that the one who killed him was her.
The majority of Musashi's assets are kept in house for the most part with a few trinkets given to a few associates as per arrangements made before his apparent demise. Kodyax decides to keep the Silver Dragon patches on his clothes and the logo on his SUV out of respect to Musashi if nothing else. Aurora and Keiko do likewise although Mikiko begins talking a few people about licensing the logo as something to make fashionable.
After the reading and the surprises are over everyone gets what can be considered severance pay before things get sorted out and many folks get re-hired to do certain jobs. Contracts are re-negotiated by the AI who spends the week adjusting itself to its new life and status as a computer program with the intelligence of a deceased individual. Speculation that Musashi's soul was transferred to the program begins almost immediately and it becomes a question that remains unanswered forever more.
Aurora spends her time doing her best to electronically trace where Mikiko has been and what she has been up to with little luck. Kodyax interviews technicians at the plant as to what happened with Keiko tagging along as a potential aid in the "carrot and stick" approach to information gathering. Several seductions later they find out that the inspector that was called in to check Mikiko out took her home with him.
Minuteman Militia Incorporated is initially less than helpful with requests on data collected from the inspector's apartment following his intimate demise but the idea that the killer of the inspector and many ronin might be one and the same is enough for them to open up and allow the trio access to what they have in exchange for similar access to their notes on what is going on. On the surface there is little to connect the series of killings except in the minds of the chimeras but the fact of the matter remains that Mikiko had the training to carry out all the killings exactly how they were executed. The account that OGRE may have something to do with all this also falls on deaf ears as the security corporation has little to no experience with the organization and largely considers them to be bogeymen used to frighten others.
The Organization for Global Revolution and Extortion or OGRE for short is largely a criminal consortium with a sideline in the terrorist for hire business, much like the contract American President George Bush signed with Al-Qaeda which ultimately brought about the 9/11 disaster. In fact members of the North American Theological Confederacy which wants to unite all of the continent under their banner is having talks with OGRE in a Chinese Buffet in the newly renovated Roosevelt Mall near the apartment complex Kodyax lives in, with Aurora and Keiko sharing his bed as a matter of course. Aurora gets wind of it and informs the Musashi artificial intelligence who orders them to bust it up as part of their on-going contract with Atlantyz for special intelligence services as well as a bit of revenge for the earlier slayings.
Kodyax drives his SUV into the parking lot in the underground of what is now a tower of commercial enterprise instead of the strip mall it was just years earlier. On the sub-level that he does park his vehicle there is trouble as consortium of Colombians, Russians and Yakuza/Triad types are talking in broken English as they just hang around. Kody knows full well that OGRE recruits from as many criminal empires as it can for its soldiers and these guys all look like the kind of Neanderthals that would be interested I what the organization has to offer.
In fact they all eye Kodyax like a piece of meat that does not agree with them as the lupursyn chimera grabs his newest toy, a combination assault rifle, shotgun and grenade launcher, and goes to greet the welcoming committee. Predictably everyone of the humans draws a machine pistol in response to what the chimera is carrying. Also predictable is the outcome as all twelve humans are either dead or running for their lives when Kodyax reaches the elevators up to main commerce floor.
Kodyax opens up with the assault rifle portion of his heavy weapon the mows down four of the twelve out right before they can get a bead on him. The other eight are unphased as they open fire as one which forces the chimera to dive for cover. But Kodyax counterattacks with the grenade launcher as he plants one under an expensive looking Japanese car one of the Yakuza guys was polishing just seconds before.
Flying shrapnel takes out another three of gathered which gives the smarter members of this batch of OGRE agents that standing and fighting this guy may not be conducive to their continued existence. The remaining five come at him in two teams with three Colombians in the one team and two Russians in the other. Kodyax is a surgeon with a shotgun and manages to take out all the Colombians without even scratching the paint of any of the surrounding cars which gives the Russians the idea that running might be in their best interest.
Both Russians get winged by Kodyax and this convinces them that opposing the wolf-bear is a bad idea and they run away; yelling curses in their native tongue at Kody as they make their flight. Kodyax just chuckles to himself as he walks to the elevator and gets in. In the current climate the adage that "An armed society is a polite society" prevails as practically everyone has a sidearm of some sort visible. Kodyax's chain sword is the only thing he keeps visible as his trench coat has pockets for his firearms.
None of the staff of the Pacific King buffet blink an eye as Kodyax comes in to be seated as he is a semi-regular here. They seat him near where the agents of OGRE and NATC are meeting and discussing business out in the open. Kodyax has some General Tso's chicken with steamed dumplings and vegetable lo mein as part of the cover that he is just here to eat a meal as all twenty humans from the two groups look askance of him; as if his very presence is an affront to them.
One of the NATC representatives activates a switchblade and approaches Kodyax in a friendly manner that Kody knows full well is just a ruse. When the human gets close enough to stab the chimera, it's the human that has the surprise as Kodyax swings his sword and bisects the human bull. The fact that they are made becomes stupidly obvious to one of the members of OGRE when she sees the Silver Dragon logo on his trench coat and she pulls out a Luger.
"That's enough out of you, Kodyax," The OGRE officer growls. "I am a crack shot with this gun,"
"You are very good with the Luger, Duchess," Kodyax says, "But you are also unarmored and I'm not alone."
"Drop the gun, bitch!" Keiko orders as she points her automatics at Duchess. "Or I drop you!"
"Where'd the gun bunny come form?" A NATC agent yells.
"She was there all along," Duchess replies ruefully, "We though she was a waitress until the panda bitch took our drink orders."
"We're leaving!" The head NATC announces and they turn to leave.
"Absolutely," Kodyax agrees and slaughters the remaining nine as they try to escape with no small amount of glee, "But you'll have to do so in body bags."
"What's going on here?" A Minuteman Militia patrolman asks as he rises from his booth and then gets a good look at the victims. "NATC agents! And who are the wise guys?"
"Just some business people, officer," Duchess says calmly.
"Yeah, right," Kodyax retorts. "Officer, if you search them you will find that the ten individuals are part of the Organization for Global Revolution and Extortion."
"We're leaving!" Duchess yells and grabs a giant panda chimera waiter as a hostage and her confederates do likewise, grabbing random people and holding a gun to their heads.
"Well played, Kody, we simply must do this dance again some time."
Keiko: We're not going to let them just walk are we?
Kodyax: We have to.
Kodyax: Too many hostages.
Keiko: We can take them!
Kodyax: No collateral!
Keiko: But Kody!!
Kodyax: No buts! I don't like this anymore than you do.
Keiko: Part of the contract?
Kodyax: Yeah, this is one situation where they get away.
Keiko: Damn! And I really want to plug that Duchess bitch now.
Kodyax: If you were a sniper...
Keiko: Don't start!
Kodyax: After they leave we finish eating and go home.
Keiko: Why?
Kodyax: I can't reach Rory.
Keiko just nods to Kodyax with her eyes wide open as the agents of OGRE depart. They finish their meal and pay the cashier with Kody in a foul mood. The staff are actually grateful that the situation ended with as little bloodshed as possible and gives Kodyax a discount because of it.
The apartment is a mess and Aurora is gone when Kodyax and Keiko come in to witness the devastation. A note from Mikiko is left on a table challenging Kodyax to come rescue Aurora if he dares. It instructs him to come alone to the remains of Saint Bernard's school in the North East and the paper has the OGRE logo as its watermark.
In order to comply with the demands of the note, Kodyax takes Keiko into the bedroom and removers all four of her cybernetic limbs, leaving her a naked torso on the bed. As compensation for leaving her this way, Kodyax also gives the bunny a good fucking, sliding his dick in and out of her pussy as she writes helplessly on the bed. Keiko wants Kodyax to kill Mikiko for all the trouble she's put them through and while Kody makes no promises he does tell her that he has no intention of letting her live.
Kodyax parks his SUV on Jackson street and enters the courtyard between the two buildings of the school with a Catholic church between them. The note said she is waiting in the gymnasium which is in the older of the two buildings as OGRE agents rush out of the newer building to try and ambush Kodyax. He was expecting a trap so he came fully armed.
A grenade gets launched which collapses the doorway they were using to get at him and kills more than a few soldiers in the process as well. Kodyax then uses the shotgun portion of his weapon to mow down the agents in short succession. Duchess is watching from an upper classroom in the old building and shakes her head at how easily Kodyax is able to defend herself.
Duchess takes out a sniper rifle and takes aim at Kodyax as a matter of course. Mikiko is going to be executed anyway so her wishes mean nothing the terrorist leader. Taking out a major thorn in her side is much more important to the Duchess.
But the joke is on the human as Kodyax is well aware of the fact that she could be here and his situation is perfect for an assassination as there is no cover between his position and his destination. However, she is expecting a slow moving target and as a way to protect himself he activates a psychic power that greatly increases his speed. He runs in a zigzag pattern to the doors of the old school building and makes it to the doors in record tine.
At the doors he angles a grenade into the classroom where she is situated and the Duchess has to high tail it out of there to avoid flying debris. In the stairwell the two meet again with the Duchess trying to conceal herself while setting up a kill shot on her target. Kodyax just launches another grenade and doesn't look to see what the result is as he walks down to the gym.
Scaffolding is built up in the gym from one end to the other but very few people can be seen. On the stage at the far end of this combination gymnasium and auditorium is a huddled figure Kodyax assumes is an unconscious or dead Aurora, but nothing of Mikiko can be seen. However, once he walks up the ramp into the scaffold web maze he hears her quite plainly.
:"Well, I see you got my note, Kody," Mikiko calls over his PIDMA.
"What are you after, Mik?" Kody asks. "And what's with the sudden collusion between you and OGRE?"
"Among other thins, Kody," Mikiko coos. "I want you, as my husband with no distractions. As for OGRE, that's none of your business but my father is to blame."
"Some sort of petty revenge, Mik?" prompts as he makes his way to the other end of the gym. "Shouldn't that be beyond you? Or are you still belaboring on the idea that you're really a human being?"
"What are you talking about?" Mikiko demands to know. "I am human, I always have been. Musashi, that bastard..."
"You were never real to begin with Mikiko." Kodyax states as he gets neared to Aurora as a human shaped shadow looms over her. "You are a synthetic being, a vat girl, Musashi probably donated some of his DNA to create you but you were born from a tube, not a womb."
"Lies!" Mikiko screams as she pushes a naked and thoroughly tied up Aurora off the stage to hang by her neck from a noose hung from one of the basketball nets. "Who put you up to this!?! My father!?! One of those bastards I already killed this week!?!"
"So you did kill Hakim and the others?" Kodyax as he gets out his chain sword and hurries to save Aurora as The Birthday Massacre's "Midnight" plays in his head.
"They deserved it for what they did to me!" Mikiko screams as she takes out her katana.
"Whatever memories you think you have are plants, Mik!" Kodyax shouts back as he makes a leap of faith to grab the rope and sever it with his weapon. "OGRE agents were working on you before you were released. I saw them, so did Aurora and Keiko."
"I have to take care of her don't I?" Mikiko growls. "I should be the one you fuck, not them!"
"You really are delusional, you know that?" Kodyax retorts as he cuts the rope and they both drop to the floor, him and Aurora as he makes sure the other can breathe.
"I will have your for myself!" Mikiko shrieks and leaps off the stage with her katana drawn but the blade gets buried in Kody's back. "No!"
"Fucking crazy synthetic bitch!" Kodyax roars as he shoves Mikiko off of him. "You don't get it do you? You were never real! If anything you were some fucking wet dream Musashi had and indulged in when he could afford it!"
"Liar!" Mikiko screams as she gets up and takes out an Uzi.
"Don't make me do this!" Kodyax yells in warning.
"Her or me, Kody!" Mikiko yells. "If I can't have you, nobody will!"
Mikiko starts shooting randomly as Kodyax advances on her. None of her shots hit his head although a round does make a hole in his left ear. Those that his body doesn't penetrate his trench coat but a couple do lodge in his legs.
Kodyax splatters Mikiko's innards all over the scaffolding as his chain sword eviscerates her with extreme prejudice. The Duchess has just managed to crawl into the auditorium with gaping holes in her abdomen from the grenade blast earlier. She was going to try and kill everyone in the auditorium on general principal but when she heard Mikiko scream as Kodyax killed her, the lady terrorist leader decides that she'd rather live and try to kill the chimeras some other time than take the chance that the angry male would make her a slasher film victim like he did the synthetic and crawls her way out of the room and towards freedom and safety.
Aurora comes to as Mikiko is being brutally murdered and a sinister smile creeps onto her face as she realizes the synthetic bitch is getting her comeuppance from the very being she wanted as her leading man. The chimera femme is still weak and helpless from the way the other just wiped the floor with her in the apartment she shares with Kodyax and has to take some pleasure in the knowledge that she has been avenged. When Kodyax comes back to her, she nuzzles his crotch to indicate she wants to reward him intimately for his loyalty to her.
When it comes to sex, Kodyax is in the habit of giving in to whatever the ladies in his life want. He opens his fly and lets Aurora give him a blow job as he angles her own crotch to his muzzle. Both hybrids moan as the 69 position drives them both to climax.
Kodyax makes sure he is extra hard via his implants before he impales her on his member and takes her backstage to find something cut her bonds with that doesn't involve the risk of her getting diced into mincemeat as his chain sword might do. Aurora giggles at his reasoning and wouldn't protest even if she were in a position to do so.