Chapter Text
Entrapta was trawling through various government websites when she found something interesting. AMS.gov, the award management system site.
“Fascinating,” she said to herself.
Scrolling through the pages available to her (and just a few that shouldn’t be), Entrapta discovered a few contract bids made available by the Etherian government that fit some of her interests. Opening up a new text document, Entrapta began to type up a proposal.
There was a knock on her apartment door one day, not long after she had gotten back from a grocery trip.
“Coming!” she shouted towards the door. Did they really have to come when she was putting away her groceries? She really hated having her routines interrupted.
Entrapta opened up the door and found a woman with long purple hair in a dark blue uniform.
“Hello, are you Ms. Entrapta Dryl of -” the woman paused to regard a sheet of paper in her hand- “Dryl Industries?”
“Yes, that would be me. Is this about the contract offer solicitation I submitted last month?”
The woman frowned slightly, perhaps at Entrapta's choice of clothing.
“Oh, is what I’m wearing a problem? I can go change real quick if this needs to be a formal discussion,” Entrapta said.
“No, it's not your overalls that are the problem, it’s the length of the solicitation. You submitted one barely a page long!”
“Oh, was that too long? Sorry, I’ve never submitted a solicitation before and I couldn’t find any standard operating procedures for submitting solicitations, so I just went with what seemed reasonable. Is there anything I need to cut, -” Entrapta squinted at the woman’s name tag - “Major Spinnerella?”
Major Spinnerella pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ms. Dryl, normally these solicitations are months long research endeavors for major companies. How long did it take you to write this up?”
“Ohh about fifteen minutes? Maybe twenty?” Entrapta said.
Major Spinnerella just looked at Entrapta as if she was unable to determine what exactly to make of her.
“So, are you here to pick it up?” Entrapta said.
“You mean to tell me you’ve finished it already Ms. Dryl? All other bids estimated development times of over a year. What exactly is going on here?”
“Come on in, Major, I’ll give you a demonstration.”
Major Spinnerella stepped inside after rapidly typing something into her phone.
“My software will protect Crystal Castle computers and devices from malware and most any malicious attack! I’ve tested it myself.”
“And how, exactly, did you test this?”
“Oh I just made it clear to accounts that were obviously Eternian government hackers that this computer held valuable Etherian secrets, and watched them try in vain to breach my security. Of course this couldn’t account for every variable, so I had to generate some attacks, such as using a removable drive to deliver malware, myself. Even with my own inside knowledge of how the software works, I was unable to breach it. It was quite the fun challenge!”
Major Spinnerella's phone dinged with a notification, and she checked it before replying. “Well, my folks at the National Cybersecurity Agency say you’re legit. They couldn’t even crack your security when you pulled that stunt.”
“Oh, the NCA, yeah I remember them. I had a run-in with them, three, maybe four years ago? They’re pretty great,” Entrapta said.
“Well, they’re willing to vouch for your work. We’ll send a car in about two weeks’ time to take you to the Crystal Castle to oversee the deployment of your new system following a thorough background check.”
“Oh they won’t find anything incriminating, I know how to really hide the traces of my activities, should I ever do anything worth hiding. Of course, I’ve never done anything illegal, that would be, well, illegal.”
Major Spinnerella’s face indicated that she probably found her claims dubious at best.
Entrapta was watching her security system when the humvee pulled up to her apartment block. Two soldiers stepped out, a third remaining in the driver’s seat. The soldiers all wore urban camo uniforms rather than what Entrapta assumed was the dress uniform that Major Spinnerella had been wearing two weeks ago.
The first was a woman with curly green hair pulled back into a tight ponytail under her helmet. Walking slightly behind her was a man with short purple hair. He held his helmet against his side as he walked, allowing Entrapta to see his slightly pointed ears. Entrapta went to open her apartment door as the soldiers approached.
“Ma’am, I’m Sergeant Baker, and this is Corporal Soda Pop, we’re to be your escort for the day,” said the woman with green hair.
"Oh wonderful! Well, let’s get going then. I’ve been ready to go for a few days now,” said Entrapta.
Entrapta stepped outside her apartment and locked the door, blinking at the brightness of the sun. It was quite inconvenient, really. She stepped out past the soldiers and walked towards the humvee.
“Don’t you need to get it?” asked Sergeant Baker.
“What, Darla? No I’ve been carrying her around with me,” Entrapta fishes out a lanyard with a USB drive on it from underneath her overalls.
“Well, let’s get moving then. I know Busgirl doesn’t want us to be idle here given recent events,” said Sergeant Baker.
“Busgirl? That’s an unusual name, even by Etherian standards,” said Entrapta.
“It’s a nickname. Corporal Busgirl drove our MRAP in Salineas. She’s a good driver, the best I’ve been with. We’ve just had some bad times with ambushes in urban neighborhoods,” Sergeant Baker said as she slid into the shotgun seat of the humvee.
Entrapta clambered into the back seat behind Corporal Busgirl. Behind her, Corporal Soda Pop slammed the door, and Corporal Busgirl pulled out immediately.
Entrapta idly stared out the window of the humvee as they drove through the city towards the Crystal Castle. Traffic and blue skies passed as the minutes did too. Entrapta noted an abnormal count of windowless white vans in the traffic. Etheria’s Department of Moving Vehicles data indicated an average of about 2-5% of the moving vehicle population were windowless vans. By Entrapta’s count, they made closer to 20% of today’s traffic in Elberon.
All the lights on the traffic lights turned a sickly green. From the vans nearby, armed individuals clad exclusively in black suits with green ties poured out. They raised rifles and began forcibly removing people from their cars.
“Hold on tight Dryl, we’ll get you through this.” Corporal Busgirl pulled out of normal traffic and gunned it past the black clad assailants.
As they passed them by, bullets pinged off the humvee’s armor. One unlucky round buried itself in the rear windshield.
“This is Sergeant Baker escorting a VIP. A large quantity of assailants of unknown faction drew rifles in an intersection and seem to have some level of control over city infrastructure. Does anybody read?” Sergeant Baker shouted into the radio.
The radio crackled static in response.
Entrapta leaned forward, peeled off the radio cover, and began to rearrange it’s internals.
“Dryl, what the absolute fuck are you doing?” shouted Sergeant Baker.
“Trying to boost the signal and also break through any jamming that’s been established. This should improve performance by say, 70%?” said Entrapta.
Skeptical, Sergeant Baker tried the radio again. This time, a garbled response came through.
“Large … city lost … do not enable the Horde to … your VIP. Escape … her at all costs.”
The radio sparked, and spat smoke after transmitting that message.
“Well, I think we’re all in for a wonderful time,” said Entrapta
The soldiers had pulled them into an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district. Gunfire rang out in the distance, but as the day progressed into night, none of it seemed to grow any closer. It seemed the Horde, as they called themselves, had managed to occupy the entire region. The local government had fallen quickly to the Horde. The Crystal Castle was fending them off for now, but it was only a matter of time before they fell too.
One of the soldiers was always watching her, one was always watching the outside, and one was always in the car. Entrapta guessed that the car shifts were a method of gaining limited respite while also staying in a form of readiness at all times.
Entrapta had been digging through some of the boxes in the warehouse to occupy herself and not really think about what exactly recent events, especially the continued gunshots, meant. After ten boxes, Entrapta finally found something interesting. A box of ball bearings. There were likely more than a thousand in just that box.
Entrapta turned to the soldier currently watching her, Sergeant Baker. “Sergeant, if you would take us to a hardware store, I believe I may be able to help us get out of Horde territory sooner. That is the goal, right?”
“What can you give me, Dryl? A trip out to a hardware store would be pretty fuckin’ risky.”
“Well, I could probably make a remote control turret, depending on what we find here and there, possibly improvised body armor for myself, and plating for the windows of the humvee,” said Entrapta.
“Okay, well you can forget about body armor for you. That shit weighs a ton, and you’re not used to moving in it. It’s better that we have you able to do things than wearing shitty semi-functional improvised armor.” Sergeant Baker crossed her arms. “But I suppose those other ideas could be useful. Yeah we’ll go. Get in the MRAP, I’ll grab Soda Pop.”
They left the warehouse in the early hours of the morning. It was overcast out, so they didn’t have to worry about the moon. Busgirl left the lights to the humvee off as they drove. It was risky, but hopefully helped them avoid any unwanted attention.
Entrapta wasn’t too certain about that logic, since cars were pretty darn loud, but if it helped the soldiers feel a little more safe, she supposed it wasn’t any harm.
They pulled into the Ace’s parking lot, and the soldiers disembarked, sweeping all around the humvee before signaling to Entrapta that she could exit the vehicle. Entrapta stepped out, and as gingerly as she could, closed the passenger door behind her.
The soldiers formed a partial diamond around her, rifles up, monitoring their surroundings at all times as they moved towards the Ace’s Hardware.
Once inside, Entrapta spoke up. “We’ll need to split up into pairs so we can get out of here sooner rather than later. Soda Pop and Busgirl, I need you to get heat treated steel that’s at least half an inch thick, we’ll need hmm, maybe 100 square feet? That’s likely more than I need but it's not like we have to buy this. Baker, if you’ll come with me, we need to see if we can find enough drills for this.”
Somewhat to Entrapta’s surprise, the soldiers followed along with her orders. She and Baker hurried to the power tools section of the store. If they could find enough drills, she could use the motors to actuate a turret she could rig to controls inside the humvee. As Entrapta bent down to inspect a heavy duty model of a drill, she heard a whirling noise behind her.
“Don’t move. Etherian Special Forces. Put your hands above your head,” said a familiar voice.
“Oh hello Major Spinnerella, what are you doing here?” asked Entrapta.
Major Spinnerella coughed, “It’s good to see you Dryl. My wife and I were here shopping for lumber for our cabin when the Horde launched their assault. We got separated a few hours ago, and this whole damn store is so big, that I’ve been unable to find her in the dark.”
“Well, do you want a ride out? We can probably fit two more people in the humvee. Oh, do you need a weapon? I can probably make you something,” Entrapta said.
“Yes to the ride, but don’t worry about a weapon, my wife and I are always armed, don’t worry about us,” Major Spinnerella laughed. “Now let’s go find your soldiers and get what you came here for. And also find my wife, but hopefully that would happen during the second item.”
“I think this is enough drills, yeah. Hey Baker, let’s go find the team!” Entrapta shouted.
They stayed in the Ace’s Hardware overnight, Entrapta and Netossa working through the night to make a functional turret they could mount to the top of the humvee. The soldiers and Major Spinnerella took shifts watching guard throughout the night and the day, as the others rested.
“Well, the turret works, we welded the metal sheets to the back windows, and it’s almost dusk. I think it’s about time to grab the others and get going, don’t you?” said Entrapta
“I agree. I’ll grab my wife and the others, and we can be on the road. We’ve got quite some distance to go before we’re out of this yet.” Netossa stood up.