Chapter 6: Lucille Makes Her Decision

Angel was curled in a ball on her bed in her cell. She felt the vibrations and dust falling from the ceiling. She slowly raised head up, looking.

"They've must've called on that Big…" she said to herself.

She was tired and in immense pain. She knew she would have to summon Big Venus to stop this at some point. But being as weak as she was, she felt like she wouldn't be able to hold the connection for long. She pulled herself closer.

"This is all my fault. I shouldn't had left the way I did…"

She heard someone unlocking her cell door and slowly turned over.

"It wouldn't had mattered if you left or didn't. They were planning on storming that mansion that night anyway to take you and the Negotiator's former android. But when they saw you walk out, they figured it would be better to grab you, and worry about the former android later."

Lucille was inside the cell and threw some items down on the floor.

"It's not much, but it's better than what you have on. There's some experimental protein bars that help restore energy. It's up to you to eat them, but Gordon was the one who engineered them, and anything he made food wise was safe to consume. Most everyone here is a cyborg like me, so we don't eat them like we used to."

Angel stared at Lucille and then at the items on the ground.

"Why? Why are you doing this?"

"Because I think you and the Negotiator found a better answer than twin docs ever could. The twin docs just merged into a one mechanical body, and now they're piloting Big Gamma. I don't think they listened to Gordon when they worked with him and have lost their way. Not only that, I've been feeling bad about that family I murdered a while ago. If we do things right, hopefully I can make up for it today."

Angel unwrapped the food and crammed it into her mouth, chewing quickly. "You know, if we do survive this, you'll go to prison and/or be executed."

"I've lived long enough. If that's my fate, so be it."

Angel put on the pair of sweatpants underneath her black dress and put on the shoes Lucille had provided her. She started to feel her energy come back and grabbed the remaining protein bars, shoving one in her pocket, and opening another one.

"It would be nice to know the name of the person helping me," she said.

"Lucille, Madam President."

"Call me Angel. I'll call you Lucy for short, is that okay?"

Lucy gave a small smile, feeling her muscles work. She hadn't smiled in a long time.

"Okay, Miss Angel."

She stepped out of the cell, Angel following, pausing for a moment to remove the comm she had kept in her brassiere for the past week and put it on. Lucy raised an eyebrow.

"I'll let you know, that won't work in here. Anything not linked to our comms system gets jammed."

"Okay, so what are we doing?"

Angel finished the second bar, now opening the last one from her pocket, feeling her strength coming back throughout her.

"There may be a way to stop Big Gamma without summoning Big Venus. Mind you, we're operating on limited time. You know how to use one of these?"

Lucy pulled out a semi-automatic pistol and handed it to her. Angel checked the magazine for a bullet count, then slid it back in, pulling back the slide.

"All too well, unfortunately."

"I knocked out the security team watching your camera, but they'll be coming around soon. We need to get to the control room and stop the machine that's transmitting your power's signal to Big Gamma."

Lucy began running down the hall, with Angel following behind.

"How… How are they doing that?"

"Your power that you have came to Earth prior to the event forty years ago and the scientists broke it apart once they observed certain qualities. However, you and Big Venus have the core of the power inside both of you. It's called Dark Matter, but somehow, it turned itself into a solid form when apparently, it's formless. Still not sure how it happened."

"And what does it do?"

"Consider it life itself! The scientists prior to forty years ago were able to clone certain characteristics of it, mainly it's destruction. This is the power that's inside Big Gamma, but they combined it with man's most destructive power at the time. It's radioactive in nature and paired well with Dark Matter. But now, Big Gamma has become corrupted, and now it's very strong. I don't think the docs will control it for long. The thing is a force of malevolence. However, they were able to clone one other characteristic of your power and it's the same characteristic you used on Alex Rosewater and Gordon Rosewater during the last reset."

"From a signal inside here, they can make things disappear from existence?" cried out Angel, alarmed.

"Yes, and use it to amplify power regulators. The crystals on its arms and the transmitter inside of its head are made up a crystallize version of it. Don't ask me how they accomplished that, but it seems they were able to refine it somehow or discovered a process of solidifying it, I'm not sure. The goal was to have you summon Big Venus so they could absorb her power into Big Gamma, but since everything is connected, when you started contacting Big Venus, Big Gamma detected the connection, and started siphoning the power from those meetings. The last two were an immense power boost in Big Gamma and caused it to awaken early. We were using electricity to revive its core memory, and in the process, we were trying to take the land near our stations above ground, so we could expand each station to generate more power. But those meetings… they seemed to do the work for us. But there's a limit, and apparently, you've met that already. So, now when they do summon her, it will be for the finale, to reset the world in their own image."

Angel remembered feeling weak after the encounters with Big Venus and the presence that would constantly try to interrupt them. She finally understood why.

"So… all this time… those meetings, they were literally sucking the life out of me? And that presence I felt, it was Big Gamma, trying to stop it because it was connected to us. It wanted to have the meetings on its own terms, when it was ready for my power and its abilities?"

Lucy nodded. "If Big Venus is not summoned into our realm, it takes an immense amount of energy to go to her realm, and communicate with her. The doctors theorized the limit should've been three meetings, but you had to have went past that."

"I did."

"Then, you're much stronger than I or they could ever imagine. But, if you can win this without summoning her, I would suggest doing it. Unless you can find a way to circumvent an untimely demise."

They stopped at an intersection. Lucy looking to the left and right, turning left.

"So now what do we do?"

"We stop that transmitter, get you out of here, and somewhere where you can you contact the Negotiator safely."

Angel shook her head. "No, I need to get to Chief Dastun!"

"The MP has gone rogue."

"Not him, he fights for Paradigm City. If I can get to him, I'll be safe, and chances are, that's where the Negotiator will be anyway."

"We'll worry about that part later. We still got to get through… TAKE COVER!"

Lucy saw a group of armed men run in front of them from the hall on their right and began firing their rifles at them. Angel took cover behind a column on one side, while Lucy took cover on the opposing wall, behind a column as well. She returned fire causing them to pause for a moment.

"I guess word's out about my resignation!" yelled Lucy.

Angel looked all around her, looking for a distraction. She noticed pipes along the ceiling. The guards returned fire once more.

"What do these pipes have?" she yelled as Lucy returned fire, wounding one of the guards.

"It's steam!"

Angel studied the pipes, peaking from behind her cover to see where they lead, and the guards were standing directly underneath them. Angel fired three bullets at the pipes, hearing two ricochet and one finding it's mark causing steam to escape directly on top of the guard. Lucy ran out from her cover, charging at them.

"Don't kill them!" Angel shouted.

"That makes things difficult, but fine!"

Lucy charged into the first guard, punching him hard in the solar plexus, sending him back, sliding across the floor. One of the guards hidden in the steam cloud came charging at her with the butt of his gun. Lucy tightened her fingers together and slashed the gun in half, before kicking straight up underneath the guard's chin. The last guard, in panic, had tried to shoot her, but his gun jammed, so he threw it at her, hitting her back. This angered Lucy and she kicked the guard hard in the solar plexus, he too flying, before sliding across the floor. All three guards were knocked out. Angel came out from her cover.

"You said you were a cyborg?"

"A cyborg who keeps up on her maintenance. These lazy bastards do the minimum to get by…"

She picked up a rifle and few magazines from the knocked-out guards. Angel did the same.

"You alright?"

"I'll be fine. The Negotiator got me with worse. I couldn't see straight for the next few days after that hit with the rebar."

"Roger's usually a gentleman."

"Well, at the time I was trying to kill him, so it was fair play…"

They went left, down the hall, running.

"You okay?" asked Lucy.

"So far so good. They ought to market those bars."

"They can't. Gordon took the recipe with him to the grave. I've stashed some I keep for emergencies. It's better than coffee, that's for sure. But don't overdo it. Once the feeling wears off, you'll feel twice as worse than before."

They stopped at another intersection, Lucy looking all around her first before motioning to Angel to continue straight.

"Forgive me, but I have a lot of questions," began Angel, "You said you lived long enough. You don't look old, no offense meant."

"I'm pushing forty years old in this body. At the time they converted me, I had just became an adult. For some reason, I don't age. I'm not all sure what they did to me. It's the same with the twin doctors. They look like in their 20s-30s, but they're pushing in their 60s-70s."

"So why do they want to merge man and machine?"

"In their eyes, they feel it's the best of both worlds. I thought so too at first, but… you're right. Losing humanity to gain something, strength, longevity… in the docs' eyes, they viewed it as the perfect balance. Now I realize, I think that's why we're in this mess to begin with. Because we can't appreciate what we have in front of us."

"So why are they coming after Dorothy?"

"Dorothy was the key to the megadeuses, the key to unleashing their power. But now she's a negotiator, and like Roger, can work well with the megadeus if she needs to. Because of them, there's a greater chance that humanity can understand megadeuses as well as learn from our mistakes. Her human incarnation she was modeled after worked with her father creating them prior to forty years ago according to documents we have. However… when you changed Dorothy back into human, you did something to her. I don't think she's the same Dorothy they think she was modeled after."

"But she's been having memories from the first reset about her father and Big Gamma."

"That's impossible."

"What do you mean?"

"No one can be brought back from the dead. The only thing I can think of is that Dr. Wayneright might've programmed her with those memories, and sealed them when she was android. He and Gordon were close friends long ago, and Gordon was an expert with his memory project, which he did on his own without much help from the New World Order. Dr. Wayneright only used the technology to help him with recreating his dead daughter. With her becoming human, that seal was probably broken, and the memories became a part of her. Once Dr. Wayneright got what he needed from us, he bailed at the first chance. I don't blame him."

"So, this current version of Dorothy…"

"She's based off the android, and you made her human. Which, how did you do that?"

"I just asked Big Venus. But if her power is life itself, I guess it was within her power to grant such a request."

They stopped running approaching another intersection. Angel looked around.

"How big is this place?"

"Big enough. You will get lost if you're not careful."

"A long time ago, I supposedly gave up my humanity to have this power. Would you know anything about it?"

"The twin docs probably know, but I doubt they would tell you the truth. Gordon also knew, but he took it with him as well. Come on, this way."

Angel sighed. She let the topic go. She probably would never know the full truth she decided to house this power in the first place, besides what Big Venus had told her. They continued running down the hall, desperately trying to reach the control center.