Ninja Girl
Chapter Twenty Five

Nick drew into a fighting stance. “I don’t know what your game is, lady, but I’m letting her out of that room even if I have to go through you to do it.”

The woman’s full, bright pink lips curved into an even wider smile than before. “That’s cute that you think you can beat me,” she said a bit mockingly. “If you really want to fight, I can give you one, but that’s not why I came here.”

Nick shifted, and slowly, uncertainly, lowered his arms. “It’s not?”

“No. I’m here to help you.”

Nick took a step closer to her. “Why?”

The woman shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I don’t really have a lot of time to explain at the moment, but suffice it to say that Project Eurydice is short-sighted and dangerous. Kokatsu was a loose cannon when he was alive. I don’t know why or how Ryerson expects to be able to control him in his current condition. And if he gets out, that woman in there,” she pointed to the two-way mirror, “might be the only one who can stop him.”

Nick glanced at the window and then back at the woman. “Well, that’s not true. I watched Holly and some Russian guy bring him down at the lab where we found him.”

“Valentin,” she explained. “And while that is technically true, what you saw was an unfinished product. That was Kokatsu wild, untamed. He was fighting based purely on reaction and instinct, and he still caused all of that damage and destruction. Right now, they’re working on restoring his memories, his mind, his rationale. Imagine what he’ll be capable of when he knows what he’s doing.”

“The corticoid…” Nick said absently, staring off into space. The woman’s eyes widened in surprise. When Nick noticed, his expression grew sheepish. “Uh, I overheard a conversation at the warehouse lab between some scientists. They were talking about a corticoid and a parietal or something like that. They were talking brain things, weren’t they?”

The woman nodded her head, smiling again. “I’m impressed. I didn’t have you pegged as a bright one.”

“I have my moments.”

“So are we good?”

Nick shrugged. “I guess.”

“Good.” She reached into her coat and pulled out a gun. Nick’s eyes went wide and he tensed up, ready to react, but then she spun it around so that she was holding it by the barrel and held it out to him. “Here,” she said, “take it.”

Nick hesitated, his eyes narrowing at her. He took a few steps closer to her but made no effort to grab the weapon.

The woman waved the gun in the air, motioning with it to somewhere behind Nick. “I don’t know if you noticed, but there is a camera trained on that door. When this is all over, I will be wanting to keep my job. They can’t see me willingly helping you. It needs to look coerced.”

Nick glanced over his shoulder and discovered that, in fact, there was a camera up on the corner of the room. Nick stepped closer to the woman and took the gun from her. As he did, he noticed the name tag pinned to her chest. It read “Luna Villalobos: Head Technician, Special Projects.”

“Luna, huh?” he said.

“That’s right. You’re here to save another woman. Stop staring at my chest.”

Nick jerked his head up, eyes wide in shock. He realized he had been staring at her chest, but only because he had been staring at her name tag and that’s where it happened to be located. “That’s not… I mean… I wasn’t…”

He stopped there and cleared his throat, deciding it best not to bother trying to go on. He lifted up the gun and felt its weight. “This isn’t loaded, is it?”

Luna crossed her arms again. “I may be willing to help, but I’m not crazy. I’m not going to give a complete stranger a loaded gun and ask him to point it at me, am I?”

Nick shrugged and nodded. “Fair enough.” He pointed it at her. “Let her out of there.”

Luna raised her hands as if surrendering, but her face still held only amusement. In a mocking tone she added, “Yes, sir! Just don’t hurt me!”

Nick waved with the gun towards the locked door, and Luna’s expression quickly dropped into one of terror as she moved into range of the camera. With exaggerated, frantic movements she keyed in the code on the keypad and the door hissed and slid open.

They stepped inside and Luna hurriedly went to work on Anya’s restraints. Anya blinked, raising her head to gaze at the new occupants in her room. Her gaze fell over Nick and her eyes went wide.

“Nick?”

“Hey Anya.” Nick smiled at her, his gun still trained on Luna. “Never thought it would be me rescuing you, did ya?”

“I…” she started, but her voice fell off into nothingness. There was an expression on her face that Nick could not place.

Luna had loosened both of the leg restraints and was working on one of the arm restraints. Suddenly, Anya lifted her legs up to her chest, and then kicked both out straight into Luna’s torso. The dark-skinned woman stumbled back and spun away, straight out of the room.

“Wha-!?” Nick exclaimed, too shocked to react.

Anya finished freeing herself from the remaining restraints. It only took her a matter of seconds. Then she was up, out of the chair, out of the room even, after Luna.

Luna was back up on her feet, and she attempted to defend herself, but Anya was a hurricane of fury. She feinted two quick jabs and then delivered a blow that sent Luna twirling over a table. Anya sprang deftly over the table and continued her barrage. Within moments she had the other woman pinned against a wall, one hand around her throat, squeezing.

“There’s… no… time…” Luna croaked.

“Anya!” Nick shouted, running up to her. “Let her go!”

“Never!” Snapped Anya. Her face was a mask of pure rage, her chin set. “You weren’t here when I was captured. You didn’t see the truth. It’s her, Nick. She’s the one responsible! It was her all along! She’s the reason I’m here! She’s the one in charge of the experiment!”

The words hit Nick like a blow. He looked up at Luna, who’s face was beginning to go purple from lack of air. “Is this true?” he asked.

“I… you…” Luna couldn’t breathe well enough to form a real answer.

If this was true, it made things even more confusing. If Luna was the one in charge of the experiments on Anya, then wouldn’t she be exactly the one who wanted Anya to still be trapped? Wasn’t Anya tied down to that chair exactly where she would want her to be?

All of these questions would have to wait, he realized. There were more important things occurring at the moment.

“Anya, you’re killing her,” Nick said.

“Good,” came Anya’s terse reply.

Nick tugged at Anya’s arm, trying to pry it off of the other woman. “Anya! Come on!”

“She’s the reason I was in that room!”

“That may be so, but she’s also the reason you’re not in it now. She was helping me of her own free will. Look, this gun? It’s empty.” He held it up in the air and squeezed the trigger several times. It clicked quietly, as though it were nothing more than a toy.

“See?” He continued. “She gave me the gun. She was just keeping up appearances for the camera. She’s the only reason you’re not still tied down to that chair right now. We at least owe her her life.”

Anya’s frown deepened. Her arm quivered a little, and then she pulled it away. Luna dropped to the floor, gasping, wheezing, and coughing.

“How did you know to look for me?” Anya asked Nick.

“It was the device. The one I thought was my flash drive. It turned out not to be. You see, when I was a kid, my dad had this little device that looked like a flash drive. He used it to connect to the internet. Well, I was looking at the one in my laptop and realized it wasn’t my flash drive. Then I noticed the dates for the files you used to replace this building were from yesterday. There was only really one way for that to be possible. The device had to actually be some kind of network transceiver, and the whole time they were just feeding us information.”

Anya nodded, “Which meant this had to be a trap.”

“Exactly. Oh, and look.” Nick held up the rope and grapple. “Check out what I found!”

Anya’s eyes widened in surprise. “Is that…?”

“I think so. I mean, who else has a grappling hook?”

“You… you have to… go…” Luna wheezed from down at their feet.

Nick and Anya both turned to look at her. “What?” Nick asked.

“The door… there was an alarm on the door. It went off when I opened it. Holly will be on her way here right now with soldiers. You have to… get… out. Now!”

“Shit!” cursed Nick.

“Come on,” called Anya, and she immediately took off through the door. Nick followed as quickly as he could behind her. Out in the hallway he found her staring at an emergency evacuation map. “Here,” she said, pounding her finger on the map. “A stairwell. We’ll take it to the roof.”

“Great,” Nick said, with faux-enthusiasm. “More stairs.”

If Anya heard him, she gave no sign. Turning, she headed off in the direction she had indicated, Nick running along behind.

They made it to the stairway, but after only a couple of flights Anya suddenly stopped. Nick pounded up the last few steps, huffing and puffing, and came to a stop on the landing behind her. “What… is… it?” He asked between gulps of air.

Anya pushed him back hard enough that he was forced to grab tight to the railing in order to keep from falling down the stairs. “Stay back!” she shouted.

The door to the stairwell suddenly burst open to reveal an armed mercenary coming through. At least, it did for a second, but as soon as it was open wide enough, Anya simply kicked it back shut again. The door hit the unaware man and caused him to stumble. Anya was on him in that split second, taking advantage of him being off-balanced. With but a few quick, well placed attacks the man was unconscious and down on the floor. Then Anya was through the door, attacking several more in such a blinding frenzy that they could not hope to keep up.

Anya disappeared off to the right. Nick stepped up to the door and saw another mercenary approaching from the left. He was focused on Anya, and did not notice Nick standing in the doorway. Nick barreled into the room, knocking the man down. Down on the ground, Nick straddled the man and began punching him in the face over and over again.

His attacks proved to be particularly ineffectual, seeing as no matter how much he kept punching the other man he simply kept fighting back.

“Hey!” A voice shouted.

Nick paused mid-punch and looked up just in time to catch the butt of a rifle straight to the face. Nick collapsed to the ground, dazed, and attempted to scramble away. A boot to the solar plexus knocked the wind out of him and put an end to that plan.

He felt a hand grab him and haul him up into a seated position. He was slammed against a wall, still too dizzy and out of it to fully understand what was happening. As his vision finally cleared, he realized that he was staring down the business end of a rifle.

“Well,” said Nick. “Shit.”