Doom World: Ans, the Green Monarch

Chapter 4: Lethal woman

"Wait," she tells me. I notice confusion on her face.

"Why? What happens?" Her confusion is now mine. She doesn't reply.

She takes me from the hand and leads me to the gates at the end of the corridor. This is a big corridor, two small cars could fit one next to the other without any problem. But it's smaller than the one we come from, it reminds me of a control post. It is a control post.

The gates open. They are under her control after we found a terminal.

As I see her skills, I wonder if I could do the same. Then I see it.

The Hexagon is powerful.

We are received by a city, high buildings with an artificial sky up there, pavemented streets, signals, stores, lights of all the colors.

"I can't believe it!" she says, in delight. I smile. Thanks to her I can remember that humans aren't only the worst but they are the best too. Many miracles came from humans in my world… As many tragedies.

The city reminds me of the center of Tokyo, Japan. The streets are empty though. People are in their houses, sleeping; all of them soldiers and scientists, probably.

"This city could be impossible to hack," I tell her. "It is huge and the main control could be on another level."

"That's not probable." She declares, she's learning, analyzing every single detail, trying to figure out the purpose behind everything she sees.

"Why?" I reply.

"Because every area is independent, I assume they don't communicate with each other too much. The proof is that the area of cybernetics had no idea of our arrival. We took them completely by surprise." She says. She is right again.

"We should move quickly then, the guards we left behind can wake up anytime soon," I remind her.

"We need new clothes first, we need a disguise," she says. Right again.

We get the clothes we need in one of the many shops on the street. It is not difficult to enter, not difficult to leave. She hacks and controls everything that she can. I just make her company.

"In this… bag, you can store your samples of the soil and the trees," she says, giving me a backpack.

"Thanks," I answer as she gets dressed. I like that she remembers that I took samples to study later. We plan to return to the laboratory of biotechnology.

She leaves the dressing room and I conclude that their clothing style is definitely from the eighteenth century. It seems bizarre while combined with their technology.

"Now we have to move to the tower in the center of the city." She says as I admire the structure which holds, literally, the sky. The tower looks amazing.

"What are their buildings made of?" I ask while we walk by the main avenue. I can recognize that their designs are admirable, but the tower defies the logic and the laws that I knew.

"The structures are made of steel and ebonite, the combination of those makes the steel extremely durable." She says. I've never heard about 'ebonite'.

"I see… and how big is this place?" I ask. I'm curious. Did they build a whole city underground?

"It's a square of around 4 miles long from left to right and 3 miles wide and they have water reservoirs and areas destined to their hobbies at the left and right. It is an efficient system if you ask me, quite impressive," she remarks.

"Those are… around 20 square kilometers… which are around 1000 inhabitants per square kilometer… but we can't be that generous… I'll assume that we have around 100 thousand people living in these twelve levels of the fortress," I make the calculations based on data from Earth.

"From where did that information come from?" she says, suspicious, analyzing me again.

"I just… from my memories," I answer, there is no point in hiding anything.

"Okay, don't tell me, but keep in mind that you aren't wrong," she says. "But, you are wrong."

I lift my eyebrows. She giggles.

"You see, in the terminal of the store I found information about the fortress. And your estimations of the population are incredibly close to the 105 645 inhabitants who live in the fortress. The reason why there are no more is that this area has just one level, like the area of biology which is the smallest because they use nearly all their territory for their experiments which later they give to the agriculture area which is the largest, along with the military area." She explains.

"So farmers rule, huh?" I let out.

"Not at all. The council of scientists takes care of the government of the fortress. Nowadays Dr. Allister presides the council." She says admiring another store, a*****e of shoes. I guess it is true. Women love shoes.

"How about Dr. Leon?" I ask.

"He's a rebel, he's against the government, but he has the support of the military area which if you ask me has a lot of brute power," she is now criticizing them. "The council had to educate them better, to keep them under control."

"I agree," I certainly agree with her. Bad things happen when the government forgets the people they should take care of.

We keep walking.

"Leon has used the military to get control of the fortress," she continues. "The council is probably caged, or dead."

For one instant I doubt, trying to remember all the people I murdered, their names, and yes. She is right. They are dead. I killed them when I was under Leon's control.

"What are this council's obligations and responsibilities?" I ask as I admire my reflection in the glass of a window thinking of the things I was forced to do. I meet a stranger, that's not the me that I remember. The electronic half of my head is exposed, my face looks pale and sick. I look bad. I look scary, like a zombie.

"Well, they control all the aspects of life in the fortress, also, they determine which direction and goal will the fortress accomplish," she explains.

"I guess the council said no to Leon and Leon couldn't accept that as an answer," I add. Leon made me erase his competitors. They seemed better than him, a lot better. The memory hits me…

"Let them think they got you, let them underestimate you," Leon says in my head as the soldiers approach me. "Okay, it seems all of them are there. Kill them."

I move, I stand up, taking one of their weapons from their hands and I shoot. It takes less than a minute, it happens quickly. The seven fall simultaneously. The seven guards are gone in an instant.

This could be a trap, the idea crosses my mind. This is a trap for sure.

"Danna, this is a trap. Leon has control of the fortress, he's waiting for us in the tower, and he's waiting with all the power he possesses," I warn her, I'm sure about that fact.

"What? No, that's not probable," she rejects.

"He made me kill the council in the area of education," I confess... I regret it.

"What?" she seems not to have any idea. I guess she doesn't know everything after all.

"We need to enter that tower anyway, so let me make a plan so we could defeat that bastard who created us," I'm determined to make him pay, to make him suffer. I'll think later about the consequences of my actions.

I enter the tower for the main gate only that it isn't me. It is Danna. We are dressed similarly, with men's clothing. The tower gets sealed as soon as she enters. Walls of steel suddenly covered windows and doors. Then I hear the shots and the men shouting, screaming in agony as she defeats them, and then silence returns. A minute later an explosion happens in the front door. The door remains still. As expected. We are separated.

I am strong, I am fast, I am powerful. I climb the solid cement of the building, hitting it with my hands. I make a stair, I do it quickly.

The building has fifty levels, I'm up after twenty minutes. I'm in the place I was looking for where the tower is vulnerable. I break the crystal of the window and I'm inside. I'm in the office of someone. I look below from that height and I feel goosebumps. Falling from there would kill me for sure.

I had stayed behind Danna so that I could locate this place. I look for a terminal, I find one on the desk. Some things are similar to Earth. I connect the device to the computer. It has the shape of a drive but it is a container of nanobots, nanobots from Danna.

"Useless," says the device with the voice of Danna.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I can't have access to the security system from there," she declares.

"The security system should be in the first level, where you are right now," I tell her. "Behind the receptionist place."

I hear more screams, more people suffering.

"I found it," she says later.

"Do you have access now?" I ask. I'm walking through a corridor to the lift and they are waiting for me.

They appear from the doors at my left and right and they start shooting. But as the doors opened I started to run. I took one of their grenades and I activate it. All in an instant. The explosion leaves no survivors. At that distance, the expansive wave killed them all.

I wait for Danna in front of the lift and she arrives in no time.

"Do you have control?" I ask.

"I do, but the alarm is on as you said. And from here on we will have to use the stairs," she says.

"Why?" I reply.

"The lift to the next ten levels is not activated. We have to use the stairs." She affirms.

"Understood." I'm ready to go until the end.

"They are waiting for us. Men, but these aren't regular men. They are supermen." She looks concerned.

"We will see," I tell her.

We walk to the stairs and more guards are waiting there. We take them down with guns this time. We have a plan after all.

I open the door. I go ahead. The bullets bounce on the suit I wear under my disguise, I barely feel them.

"As expected." The man in front of the door says. He's got an assault weapon which seems able to throw grenades. He got us in his sight. "What now?"

As he asks, the light grenade falls from my hand and it explodes, blinding him. He shoots. I and Danna dodge the projectile, only because we predicted its trajectory. It gets lost behind us, through the door. We hear the explosion as we hit the man with both our fists and our combined strength sends him flying many feet in the air. His weapon falls, but mine does too, and I run to keep fighting for I know he is dangerous. He will kill us if he has the chance.

He falls on his feet like a cat and receives me with a smile on his face.

"Impressive," he says and the next thing I know is that I am on the floor and his boot is about to crush my skull. I dodge and I stand up as the image of what happened crosses my mind. He took me to the floor with martial arts. "But not that impressive after all, he says."

The man has white hair and caucasian skin. He's in his thirties, perhaps. He's bigger than me, his muscles look impressive, and he comes with experience tattooed on the scars of his face. He's a trained soldier, he's here for he wants, unlike me.

"Ans, let me handle this," Danna says behind me. She's holding the weapons, even mine. But there is something that I've just noticed after my first attack.

"No. Let me take care of him," I respond.

"Ans," she insists. The man giggles.

I read the badge on his chest. A name, his name: 'Connor'. I attack. Connor dodges my hit like the first time, but this time it is a trick. He notices. He smiles as he attacks, he thinks that he gets me but I dodge his counter and the next thing he knows is that my boot is about to crush his skull. But I stop.

His smile fades like a mirage, replaced by rage and fear.

The next is that I dodge his movements, his attacks, the most of them and I memorize them; his stance, I find the patterns. It is like chess. And suddenly it's my turn to move. He's breathless.

"Not impressive at all," I tease him. His face turns red for the anger and he attacks. He's strong, as strong as I am. His hits hurt. But by this moment none of them hit on the target. I just dodge, I learn, I observe and become precise. I'm learning in minutes what should cost me decades. It is like dancing.

In one of our spins, I meet Danna, she's analyzing us, pointing at us with the g*n. I like the look on her face, her expression. She understands what I am doing.

Connor's punch approaches my face but it doesn't land, I dodge it as I land my heel on his nape. He falls, unconscious, and after that, the rest of his team appears with more guns and they start shooting, not caring about Connor.

I take Connors's body and I use it as a shield.

They just shoot. They don't care about him. They will destroy his remains just to kill me. I don't care about him either, but I'm determined not to die here.

Danna jumps into the action.

From left to right, jumping, spinning, like a butterfly, fast, beautiful. A ballerina, death made a woman. When her dance ends the team lays on the floor, all of them are dead. And I am crazy because I'm thinking that she is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Her gaze meets me.

"You are careless!" she reprimands and I'm about to defend myself saying something bold, but the wounds on my left side, my legs, and my arm are hurting. I remain silent before this lethal woman.

She doesn't dedicate even a look to the bodies of the people she killed and then she takes me to the defenseless cybernetic laboratory at the next level. She is lethal.