Aftermath Part I

Yunca Village

South Passage

02:31

"Alright. Hold up." Hunter put a hand up at Houmin. "YOU'RE saying we got a synth mixed in with the civilians, and YOU want to sneak up to it?"

Houmin nods at him.

"I thought they're called cyborgs? Why we're calling them cyborgs? When they're calling it a synth." Skylar said from behind, jabbing away at Houmin's fault.

Hunter's lip curled up. Too many surprises have already happened, and he is sure things will keep on coming. He didn't like it one bit. "Right now, you're telling me that the Ghost Team has spread themselves out. Pointing their guns at it, in this clear space without so much of a cover?"

Once he hinted at that, the rest of Team Delta scanned around the area without any results. It was clear dirt and sand in Arizona. All of them figured out that the two have given them B.S info and that the Ghost Team is position up at the cliffs. However, Hunter trusted that info without any grain of salt as his gut feeling tells him they weren't lying.

"And you want to bag that thing? Right?" Hunter asked. His eyes didn't blink as he stared back at Houmin's eyes. "Do you have proof that's its a synth?"

"During the start of the firefight, with the captives running around us, our radio felt an interference." Said Houmin, pointing at his radio. "It wouldn't be much of a problem if it's just one of our radio doing it, and we can blame it on the terrain with cliff all around. It became a problem when both of our radios started acting up once that synth walked close to us."

Houmin and Skylar looked at each other. As if in perfect sync, Houmin gestured with his head. Skylar took off her goggles and adjusted the settings to the EMF Vision. She then hands the goggles to Hunter.

Luckily, Hunter recognizes the gadget as a sort of Night Vision Goggles, "What am I looking at?"

"Put it on," Skylar said. "No need for you to strap it on. You can hold the lenses to your eyes. Be aware, It's a jarring blue and white color at first."

"Good. Now point it at the crowd." Skylar slowly said.

Hunter got disoriented in the beginning but handled himself quickly.

"Sure, and-- Found it," Hunter said,

With a surprised face, Skylar was starting to explain the basics when Hunter already said he found it. "You recognized the fuzzy image?!"

In the middle of the seated crowd, a single female has sat there without moving. But in the view of EMF vision. Her body radiates out white lines.

"That's the only thing out of place." Hunter looked on. Even at a 2x magnification, he can easily make out the pulsating image of the electronics of a synth.

He gave the goggles back to Skylar. He was impressed. Except, it wasn't enough to convince him.

"Don't be reckless. It's too high of a risk," Hunter warned, "What makes you think it wouldn't go wild once it knew we're on to it?"

"It won't, Sir." Houmin's tone changed.

At the same time, Hunter's radio trickled in. "This isn't a vote." Hearing Joe's voice on the other end. Hunter's hair stood up as the unknown is still out there.

Remembering that the General's command about being subordinate to them was still a standing order. "What do you want?" Hunter sternly asked. "One thing we're sure of, The blames on you if things had gone to shit. Clear?"

"Agreed," Houmin holstered his guns and pulled out his blade. "I want you Rangers to bunch the people up, move them around. The larger the group, the better."

The rest of Delta whispered among themselves. While Hunter stared at him like a hawk, Dallas spoke up.

"Why we even gonna do that?"

Houmin smiled, likely expecting them to question it. "To confuse its proximity sensor. With that kind of quality and body, there's no way that synth is simple. No! I'm not drooling at that figure of hers. Stop hitting me, you crazy redhead!"

Zara ignores the quarrel between the two. She's the first one to call up the rescued civilians calmly. "Everybody! Listen to me." Once she did that, the rest of Delta and Voiders made a move. "We got a truck coming in from Ranger Citadel. We'll be moving back to the village to meet with them. They have food and water for everyone, so we'll be asking everyone to group up properly." by using this excuse, Zara was able to get everyone to cooperate.

As their professionalism kicked in, Dallas and Denver took the task of leading the civilians and the captured gang members. Hunter took the chance to inform Adams and Jackson. Skylar relaxes as she leans on a rock, watching Houmin do all the work.

Houmin carefully weaved himself in the crowd, choosing the patch with the most groupings. When he saw the synth was looking in his direction, he strikes up a conversation with a civilian. Faulting the synth into thinking nothing is wrong. However, Houmin knew it's a matter of time before his cover is up.

With a few paces left between him and the synth, he caught a peek of the synth's exceptional skin. His face darkened because of it. The majority of the rescued people he walked before is showing some bruises, dried blood, rope burns, etc. To the synth, there wasn't any of it, and he wasn't sure if the gangs knew of her existence or she just popped out during the escape.

Everything changed when Houmin noticed the synth jerked her head for a second. His heart slowed down as he decided that he got found out. He dashed in through the wave of people.

The synth did notice him, but it was too late. A logic gate within it cannot comprehend whether the closing meatbag was a Ranger or a villager. Infiltration protocols embedded in its system prevented it from acting out for self-preservation due to violating one primary programming: Do not compromise your role.

Without any word, Houmin struck out first with his knife and digging it into the synth's back neck. Metal clanging onto metal, and with that sounding out, everyone around scattered and screaming what's going on.

The Ghosts, with their camouflage on, took on various spots around an 85m radius of the synth. They haven't blinked for the last minutes as they watch on at the synth. It's their first time encountering something like this, and they wanted to make sure they got it just right.

Houmin, hearing the clanging sound, smiled as everything went accordingly. He softly gave out a sigh, thankful that he was right.

It's a real synth! He exclaimed to himself. With quick movements, he used his blade as a lever to try and pry open the outer skin. Even it's a synth. The innate ability of his, Robotic Perk was able to quickly guess out the internal working of the machine. He popped out a bundle of wired and some sort of spinal fluid tube lining. He didn't touch the tube and instead yanked hard on the wires. Houmin's muscle memory was telling him that the means to shut this robot down was literally inside its head. Whatever he did, it forcefully opened the synth's back head as Houmin saw a teal-colored hue coming from what should be its brain.

The synth flails its hand back, trying to hit Houmin. It screamed a mix of female and stereo voice as it experiences panic. Seeing this happened, Houmin unexpectedly found something nice, a functioning transponder located at the dorsal side of the brain. Blinking a red and green color. He snatched it out forcefully. Disabling the synth's ability to broadcast her location to and anything she has been doing.

"No! NOoooOO!"

Next, He looked down at the brain stem where a tube with rainbow blinking colors connected the brain and the spine. Without care, and just twisted it. A spark sounded out, and the synth just fell down on the ground. Screaming about what happened. The head part can be seen moving, but the neck below is no longer responsive.

Skylar, on the other hand, was worried. Not because of Houmin, but because of the chaos that comes after it. With the panicking villagers, the captive gang members had found a chance to... rile things up?

"I'll fucking kill you, you HEAR me! I'll kill you!" Fritzgerald screamed out, grinding his teeth as he crawls towards Houmin. "She was here--saving us from this stupid world!"

Houmin and Skylar looked at each other... This out of place antics, from Fritzgerald, was totally unexpected... and within that second of each other's gaze, they understood. Now, they understood the real player of this mess... was a robot.

2 from Jaberon's Waste Water gang and 1 from Fitzgerald's goon freed themselves up and ran up to any villager next to them. Halfway through it, they got the feeling something is wrong as they saw their colleagues stood there while mouthing out the words, "God Damn, idiots." and half a second later, all 3 of them fell down.

On the other way, Deslin walked up to the crawling Fritzgerald. He didn't say anything and knocked the crawling figure out by kicking his boots into Fitzgerald's head.

While Deslin is dragging the unconscious body back to their circle, Porker was standing there looking at the 4 figures that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Who are they?" Porker asked Deslin.

Deslin didn't even look back at him, "Haven't had a clue about them. If I did, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Now, shut your trap and be a good fucking loser, pig face. I wanna see what happens next."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Three military trucks rolled in from the eastern passage. One containing plastic drums filled with water, the other is containing boxes of rationed meat and vegetables, and the last one has a team of rangers on it.

The lead vehicle stopped not far from the littered bodies in the streets, the passenger door opened up first, and a female redhead ranger stepped down from the truck. Before her, another team of rangers is waiting for them.

"Captain Angela," one of the rangers said.

"Stop with that shit, Peppard." Angela showed him a smirk. "We're the same rank."

"Well, I always had my respect for the Legend," Peppard replied.

"You're calling me old now? That's big balls coming from you, Team Able."

Angela and Peppard laughed it off.

"How is it?" Angela asks. Scanning the streets with her eyes, and she can't help but wonder how the heck did they came out of this without any casualties. "We're sorry about not being clear on what's going on earlier."

Peppard shook his head. "I think it helped. Happened to make our own story of this place anyway. But I have to ask, did 10 people really did this? Against 72 enemy forces?"

"They're, hmm. New guys..." Angela hesitated on what to call them.

"Fucking New Guys?!" Benedict said out in surprise, "Pfft, we got comic book heroes now? If you have seen the dead assess in the west part, maybe you'll understand what's going on! That no work from a new guy, that's a handiwork of a badass!"

"Woo, now." Ace spoke up from behind. Again, diffusing up the tense situation. "Calma, Calma, not our intention to give dirt to anyone, we're stumped as you, that's why we came here personally."

"A badass?" Angela asked Peppard,

Peppard chuckled at that question, "Benedict is stuck on calling them that. See, we got a pile of dead bodies out in the west part of the village. At least 10 of them were there. The usual not-the-normal trigger hands you won't get near in our part of Arizona types. All single shots that took them out."

Angela put a hand on her chin. She knew Peppard long enough to know that he always had something on his mind. "Lay it all out, Peppard. It ain't just me itching to know what's going on."

Peppard gave a short nod and spoke, "A month ago, we got news from a bar, just south of the prison. A group down south where the border between this country and Mexico was rearing up for something. The group called themselves "Border Heroes." Cute name. Well, None of us guessed they'll be moving north and seemingly out to get us."

"Before then, we did a bit of snooping around, nothing much just-drinks and gossips from local pubs. From what we can piece together, They're descendants from the U.S Border Patrol. Lucky ones when the bombs fell."

"You didn't bother telling us about this?" Angela's brow curled up,

"Cause Vargas will try to send some of us south, trying to wipe them out. They're old-world alright, becoming local warlords from there to New Mexico. Frankly, The shit I've heard they did for their so-called "Make Merica super again," I'd be glad to volunteer my team to that shithole. Then things got sideways when we got word that something big is happening at Vegas."

"Then we heard Baker Team got sent up east about ex-DBM members trying to cough up a range war. Figured something is up. So what we're saying is that the 60 something people that died in this place was well prepared to make us bleed... and just what, within half an hour, most of them are now drowning in their own blood. Truly badass. Knowing 60-70 asshats out there trying to kill me will still put a smile on my face when I know I died fighting. Compare it to 4-6 people killing all of us, no sound, no warning, nothing. Without even having a clue what the heck is going on is one hell of a nightmare. And that's what happened to this sorry band of misfits. At least 30 of them died without realizing it."

Ace offered up a cigarette, "Ease up, Team Able."

"What's your impression of their work?" Angela asked.

Peppard blew smoke and paused for a second, "Dangerous. Bastards made quick work of everyone... It feels like this was a playground for them."

"Hmm..." Angela already knew what they are by reading their dossier back at Ranger Citadel. All of them watched on as the Ghosts "clean" their way of the west side of the village. The word "Tier one - Special Forces." stuck out to her the most. "Coordinate with Team Whiskey for cleaning up the place. Team Delta and our newcomers are coming in from the south along with the civilians and surrenderees. I need you, boys, on your best behavior. Remember, First Impression last, and Tureaud, I need you to shut up once we meet them, got it?"

♪ Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks ♪