Work Text:
It had been over a week since Xi had returned to the hotel and Beaux was starting to get antsy. A day was fine. A couple of days meant he'd gotten himself into trouble. This many days meant it was trouble he couldn't get himself out of. Beaux shifted uncomfortably on the low chaise lounge, letting out a low hum as they considered the many situations their friend had likely gotten himself into, mapping them out in their mind. Beaux's antennae twitched as they thought, flicking with a quiet plastic clicking noise.
With a laboured grunt of decision they rose to their feet, servos whirring and hydraulics hissing loudly to life after the period of stillness. "POE?"
Their call barely had time to echo through the cavernous entrance hall before the hotels purveyor materialised beside them with yellow rubber gloves pulled up over the elbows of his Victorian outfit. "What can I do for you today my dear?" Ah. Clearly interrupted his spring cleaning. "Do you have Xi's last known position?" The AI feigned insult, clutching imaginary pearls "Beaux you know it's illegal for an AI such as myself to track their customers! I would never breach their privacy in such a wa-" the robots stern body language cut him off mid innocence routine "... Last I checked he was at Magnolia Viper on the other side of town. That was a day ago however so either master Xi has been partying there for some time or has taken an alternative exit from the building that wasn't on the schematics." Beaux dipped their head in thanks and gave the construct a gentle pat on the back. "I'll be back now in a minute, please let Kovacs know if I take more than 24 hours. I have a bad feeling about this, let's hope he's just sleeping it off somewhere". Beaux ducked under the mantle, giving Poe an awkward wave as they left.
It took a couple hours to find the club. Nestled in the depths of Licktown where even seasoned clubbers would think twice before taking any of the drugs on offer. Holosignage flickered, blinked and thrusted weakly in the daylight where there was no hiding the grime on every surface. It was honestly quite impressive how much trash had been piled up around the basement entrance as every gently listing tower of bin bags reached shoulder height even on the giant robots body. Next to the door slouched a bouncer looking distinctly bored. 4pm was clearly not the busiest time for clubs as the ropes guides they'd set up for a queue were devoid of people. Beaux gave a cursory glance around before approaching him.
"Hi, just looking for my friend, can I come in?" The bouncer looked them up and down "Wearing that freak suit? No. We're only letting in girls at the moment" Beaux mentally rolled their eyes "It's not exactly busy enough for you to be discerning about your customers" the bouncer sneered "I can be as discerning as I like, the boss doesn't want to be disturbed, he's with someone special." Well that's a bad sign. "Please let me in. I need to find my friend." They repeated, voice box fizzling tiredly. Beaux never looked for a fight but especially not in broad daylight before even getting in the door. The bouncer straightened up, peeling himself away from the wall to square off against the cyborg. "Or what, tinman?" He seemed proud of himself for that one, a yellowed smile spreading across his face. Their shoulders raised and lowered in a mock sigh, if they had eyes they would have rolled.
"I'm not looking for troubl-" mid sentence their threat detection tripped, picking up on the Sunjet tucked awkwardly into the man's waistband, highlighting it with a bright red square on their visors overlay. In a millisecond their combat program mapped out the bouncers stats, tracking his movements as his hand jerked for the weapon. They felt what littles left of the nervous system inside their robotic body get doused in the ice cold burning sensation of their ancient neurochem booting up. The bouncer was quick but years of combat experience and chems were faster as Beaux balled up a fist and bopped the guard squarely on the head. End the fight as fast as possible, that way you won't set off the war programming. They grabbed the man's shoulders as he slumped down, gently propping him against a sufficiently soft looking trash pile before giving the door he'd been guarding a swift kick that sent it shooting down the stairs behind it with a loud clattering bang. Well. If they didn't know I was coming they do now.
They entered the dim stairwell and trotted gingerly down, stepping over the dehinged door carefully. Unlike Xi, Beaux didn't find combat fun or thrilling. Silver bay... the glass tides... viral strikes... they had their fill of it long ago. Their neurochems were ramping up inside their head and Beaux could feel it washing over them, dredging up old memories to fuel the cold burn of battle. Like clenching a muscle before jumping off a cliff. A brutal sense of anticipation before the inevitable violence. It was old chem tech as well, full of the kind of crunchy tech jank that comes from using a first draft. All they could get out in deepspace with the protectorates restrictions: deeply illegal and completely outdated even then. So bad for the user that it was considered a war crime just to wear and yet Beaux had been stuck in it for years. But being stuck in the war mech body had its benefits as much as it had its drawbacks. Their internal gyroscope tilted and Beaux felt their hand rest against the cool concrete wall to steady themself. All the memories were making them nauseous.
The stairwell opened up into a large club space, lit in a way that would suggest not showing up with a blacklight... or any bright light at all for that matter. A kaleidoscope of coloured lights danced across the floor and some low techno trash played over the speakers, loud enough to obscure a conversation but definitely not the clubs usual floor shaking beats. The neurochems gave a high pitch whine as they tried to listen for trouble amongst the noise. There were a few people dotted around the place from the night before but at this time of day most of them were slumped across tables at the end of a reaper trip or bumbling loosely across the dance floor, starting to consider home time. No one even reacted to the door that had skidded down the stairs and across the room.
The robot slowly scanned the area, vision darting from person to exit to item, mentally sorting things into categories. Civilian, escape root, hired guard, possible weapon. No Xi. "HEY, WHO LET THIS GUY IN?" with the neurochem ratcheted up so high the shout made Beaux flinch, clawed hands reaching up to cover their audio inputs. A crowd of hired muscle started to appear from various doors and booths "I let myself in. Where's Xi?" This new guy seemed more serious than the cheap bouncer outside, suited up neatly and openly flashing his gun as a warning to anyone stupid enough to mess with him. "Blonde girl with the tits? Boss is enjoying himself as we speak. So get lost."
Beaux had never been that smart.
Each motion plotted itself out in their mind, exactly how much force, precisely what angles. Beaux forced their muscles to relax for a second. Then began. Crouch, spring. Their palm slammed into the man's chest, hard enough for something to crack. The momentum threw him backwards into the low strippers stage. Movement to their left. They felt their tail clasp the nearest chair and without turning flung it into the face of the approaching guard. Gun skittered across the floor. Disable don't kill. Movement right, close. Bat. Beaux's body tilted sideways with all the fluidity that metal and carbon fibre could allow and the bar whooshed down past their chest as if moving through porridge. One of Beaux's hands whipped up to grab his wrist as the other went to the man's back and they pushed down, twisting his arm sharply until the shoulder popped. Through the chems the scream sounded almost... no. They had to shake their head like an etchasketch to clear the thought out. Control yourself.
In the second they had taken to reel their thoughts back in some asshole had had the sense to pull out their gun. Three shots whipped past in quick succession and from the unusual thwuck noise the weapon had made they were certainly not using sunjets down here. Beaux skipped heavily sideways behind a pillar covered in holo ads, hoping the bright flare of tongues and mouths projected by the tower would disguise the fact that they were wider than it. A scatter of blind shots proved them right a second later. Beaux focussed on their sensors, picking up three? No. Four... no three people moving towards their cover. With how much damage they'd sustained over the years it was a bit hard to tell between the red blurs of motion they could detect in the back of their head without physically looking.
Another scatter of shots proved they were getting closer. One impacted, punching a solid tennis ball sized hole into their side with a hefty thump that pushed Beaux to take a knee, a clatter of important looking shrapnel spraying across the floor. "Ow." said Beaux, 20 warnings flashing on their visor. They quickly looked down and after seeing no hydraulic fluid leaks they rose slowly to their feet, steadying themself against the wall, the weight of their body suddenly made evident. They felt the strings of neurochem pull fully taunt with the mental twang of someone pulling the pin of a grenade. It was too hot in the club. Everyone was shouting. Suddenly the clubs main lights all turned on at once in a blinding flash that felt like the sun at close range. The glitz of loose glitter on the club floor looked like sand. The edges of the room fizzled with static. Beaux felt sick.
They felt the war programming click smoothly into place like it was filling a hole in their mind. The nausea went away. Beaux went away. It was sunny on Sveisa. It was always sunny on Sveisa. The sun beat down on them land like it had a personal vendetta. The desert was eerily quiet except for the small group of men yelling at them from the other side of the quartz pillar. Taking cover behind the pillar was not going to cut it, they could feel themself sinking in the sand, this unit wasn't built for these conditions and their sensors could pick up four enemies approaching from behind it, yelling to each other. It let out an inhuman garbled mechanical scream as it dodged out from behind the pillar faster than the eye could track, clawed arm extended. Good. This feels right. Throat made contact with claws and was torn out with a splash of red that painted the sand, hitting the body with enough force to send it tumbling across the desert like a skipped stone. One. Time stretched out around them as they spun in one fluid motion to the next target, ducking low to avoid as much gunfire as possible. The haze of iridescent sand kicked up from the shots hung shimmering in the air for a single beautiful moment.
It put all their rotational force into a roundhouse kick that tore the second combatant in half, a rain of gore spraying from their middle as top and bottom half separated around the cold metal of their leg with a satisfying crack. Blood quickly soaked into the linen garments as the shredded body landed in pieces. Two. The other milwr exchanged a look that said "fuck this" and started backing off as if they'd just realised they were in an enclosure with a wild animal, scared to break eye contact with it. The cyborg paused for a moment going unnaturally still in a way that only something not truly alive could. There was no person left behind the visor. One of the two decided to make a break for the open desert, turning his back on it and tripping over his own feet and scrabbling in the sand desperately to get away whilst the other seemed almost transfixed. Its head snapped to face the one running, bloodlust and neurochems urging them to make chase. It couldn't help themself but obey.
The robot sprang forwards as if pulled by an invisible force. Lighter and faster than they should be with a fist sized hole punched through its flank. Unseen hydraulics hissed and flexed. It barely felt like effort with how wired they were, each step gently gliding across the surface of the desert. It sprinted after the man, not because he couldn't be allowed to alert the rest of the Sveisan forces or even because the rest of its strike team were dead. It sprinted because the soldier had turned his back on it and every fibre of the cyborgs body had locked onto him like a hunting dog seeing a hare. Hence one of the Sveisan nicknames for this unit "The Dogs of War". The mech sleeves were so thoroughly doused in mental propaganda, programmed loyalty to leadership and chemical bloodlust that they were just as likely to take out an enemy battalion as they were to have a paranoid freak out on their own team. The powerful loyalty they'd been imbued with overrun by something as small as seeing the blood of a grazed knee, something that had happened often enough to make the mechs pariahs in their own teams wether they had a lid on their neurochem or not. That tied with the likelihood of fragging their users lead to them being swiftly discontinued.
Its hand reached out and clamped down on its enemies neck, skidding to a halt and lifting the man off his feet. He struggled against its grip, kicking at its chest, hands scrabbling at its grip. "Please, no" he managed to spit out in amalgam. The robot watched him as he writhed pathetically, sweat dripping down his face and into his linen clothes. The sun beat down. It was always sunny on Sveisa. They didn't tend to speak amalgam here. Some sort of trick. Its grip tightened. "Please just let me go, I just work for him" the thought of crushing his neck and the stack within bombarded the machines thoughts. "I don't have anything to do with the Xin lady" its grip tightened, bruising welling up around its fingers. "Please, she's just in that room over there, she's fine I swear!" Its grip tightened, causing the man to gargle weakly.
"BEAUX." Suddenly the desert sun went dark. They blinked and the walls of the dingy basement club came rushing back in. They remembered they had a name. All of a sudden Beaux could feel the sickening rush of neurochem overdrive giving them a pounding migraine. Their head turned to the voice slowly, their bleary sensors readjusting. Xi stood with his hand on the lightswitch, the fourth hired gun cowering just behind him. Beaux's head tilted in confusion. Where...
Xi's eyes were locked onto them. "DROP HIM" he commanded with all the force his voice could muster. He'd seen this before. Beaux turned back to the man dangling limply from their hand as if only just realising they were there and after a second released him. His body crumpled to the floor like a wet paper towel. With the club now dark and quiet it was like they were waking up from a dream, still dazed and sluggish. They shook their head, trying to clear the haze of the war programming. Still unsure whether they were fully themself, Xi shifted himself between Beaux's line of sight and the torn bodies littering the floor, pulling his floor length, thigh slit skirt to hide them. The robots antennae twitched like they were dislodging sand.
"I've already dealt with their leader Beaux. Stand down." Xi's eyes stayed focussed on them, waiting for some sign. Beaux's whole body seemed to unclench and their posture softened. "Sorry Xi" they paused as their words trudged their way up through the soup of post neurochem fog "...think I might have lost it there" they mumbled, trying to keep a lid on the cycling images of what they'd just done. Words too difficult to find and form, they took an unsteady step towards Xi finally feeling the weight of the shot to their side. Their hand raised to touch it, perhaps figure out how bad it was but Beaux was stopped by another wave of nausea. "Are you ok Xi?" A couple of warnings flashed up in their vision "was real worried-" finally satisfied that there was no longer any danger from the towering robot Xi let out a deep sigh, quickly switching to bluster to relieve the sickly tension "you're a fucking idiot. Of COURSE I'm fine! I was just taking my sweet time messing this guy up and may have taken sliiightly too much reaper on the way." He grabbed Beaux's antennae to yank them down to his height muttering what Beaux could only assume were curses "you're lucky you didn't RD any of these losers. You know how much work you'd have made for Ortega? Not to mention the amount of fixing this will require." He poked the gaping hole with one sparkly manicured nail as if he hadn't just RD'd their boss himself. "Come on moron, there's a bathroom in the back, let's get you washed off before any of that cakes on. Poe will complain if you track blood through his lobby again and I doubt the police will appreciate it either" Xi pulled the dazed robot away from the carnage. He'd turn his back on anyone but them.