Chapter 291: Men in Tights Day

Chapter 291: Men in Tights Day

Milo stayed near Belinda's rooms in Section H, watching over Eric and Marisa until security and a medical team arrived. Eric's body armor caused some talk as the doctor on the EMT team realized how many bullets Eric had taken and how little damage had made it through. The set of armor Milo had made for him was greatly inferior to his own, simply the equivalent of an extremely good suit of personal body armor. Marisa saw the Claw Master logo on the chest and gave Eric a hard look when he wouldn't talk about it. He simply shrugged and said, "Maybe later, it came with an NDA." Wally had promised to look over the schematics and give Milo his analysis on making and marketing the armor. It was expensive to produce, but the Chairmen of Corporations or Heads of State didn't care what they spent if it meant living through an assassination.

He was currently resting in a small crawl space above Belinda's rooms. He'd pushed himself hard in that fight and still hadn't recovered from the earlier battle. After the fight, he'd retreated to her room, grabbed some snacks, and found a place to rest. Someone had conveniently left a half-dozen Snickers bars on a table. Belinda had introduced the gang to them, and Milo was a big fan of them.

He'd already been heading towards Belinda's area to investigate the recent break-in of the records vault further when he saw on his security cameras that Belinda's rooms had occupants, and one of them was Eric Kresthammer. He'd seen the sudden attack by Roger and prayed that Eric had worn the armored suit he'd sent him. When he survived the close-range gunshots, Milo knew he had. Marisa arrived to join the fight, and Milo realized that Roger wasn't totally human. Which frankly had scared the shit out of him. He'd just been in one fight where he'd almost died and wasn't anxious to be in another. But watching Eric die wasn't an option.

The fight had been scary. He'd known very little about what he was up against but had been certain Roger was some sort of augmented human, or cyborg when he got back up after taking that many bullets to his unprotected back. To design his own suit, Milo had studied all other forms of powered armor that he could find information on. This included technology for sub-dermal armor and artificial musculature. He'd become fascinated with the technology and fallen down a rabbit hole for two days, researching every type of augmented humans and the technology to create them. Besides looking for ideas on how to design his own suit, he was looking for clues on his own origins but gained no clues. The research had paid off today. While he didn't know exactly what Roger could do, he knew the possible range of capabilities. Which frankly had scared the shit out of him. He'd gone into the fight with his mind racing, determined not to let the larger man get ahold of him and wary about what weaponry he might have snuck past habitat security.

He was very glad he'd been careful. The small explosive grenades could have killed Eric and could have hurt him badly, depending on how close they exploded. Worse, if he was stunned, Roger could have simply picked him up and crushed the life from him in a few seconds or held on to one leg and swung him back and forth, smashing him against a wall. Roger had been quicker than a normal human but not nearly as fast as Milo. He'd immediately begun working on the weak spots at the joints, slowly carving away at Roger until he toppled. And as he'd expected, he went for the grenades he had left. If this had been a video game, he'd have scored a bonus for killing the boss with his own weapon. Here, it was a win followed by the need for a hasty retreat. He had no idea what you said to people after a fight like that and no desire to introduce himself.

Now that the fight was over, he was slightly bewildered by the unfolding events. In the game, he expected to get into fights all the time. But when had the habitat begun to spawn random encounters? After an hour-long nap, he continued to his main objective of coming to Manpower, the data storage unit. Someone had already tampered with it and opened it up. He'd assumed that would happen sooner or later when Belinda's ex-doctors tried to barter the data for some money or their release from prison. He had only begun working through it, but there was a treasure trove of scientific data in those files. He wondered how disappointed the thieves were to get into the hidden laboratory, crack open the data vault, and find it empty. He was anxious to look at his hidden cameras.

At that moment, less than a mile away, Bork dived for cover behind a couch as three Nerf arrows flew by. Zander poised heroically on top of a table. "I have Sir Borksalot on the run. Come, Prince Alnonger! We must hound the varlet until he yields and admits that your claim to the throne is just!"

Two arrows hit Zander in the back, accompanied by two beeps and a buzzing noise that signaled his demise. Algernon strode into the room. "Sorry, old chap, but a bag of jellybeans convinced me that I like the sound of King Borksalot better than King Alnonger. It would have just made me a target, anyway."

Bork rolled out from under the couch and paid the mercenary his fee. "Time to find the rest of the rogues! I'm sure they are hiding in the frozen foods! Let us be off; my butt itches to sit on my throne."

"Thank you kind sir. I must say, you seem to enjoy 'Men in Tights' day."

Bork led the way to the back room with the freezers full of pizza and snacks. "I do. Something about hunting down a worthy quarry always thrills me."

Two figures rose from hiding behind the ice cream dispenser, firing arrows, and both Bork and Algernon went down as a hail of projectiles bounced off of them from two nerf quad-crossbows. Nina turned to Onyx. "Hunting is always better than being hunted. Share the win?"

He nodded. "Half of a throne is good enough for me."