《[Backup Online]》Chapter 19- {[Mary's mind ]}
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Mary was having a weird day.
It had started normal enough. Get up, brush her teeth, and shower. Eat breakfast, have her coffee, go to the hospital to sell all her internal organs, relax for a couple hours while her organs regrew, go home and work on a project. The project had quite literally blown up in her face, but even that wasn't completely out of the norm. Where things had taken a turn, was when she woke up from well… death to two old-style drones hovering in the middle of her living room. The kind that used propellers and everything. Mary had always appreciated the design of older technology, but it had been much harder to do that when the two devices had cameras trained right on her naked form. Goblins don't have as much of a sense of nudity as other races for the most part. It just wasn't in their culture, but cameras were a whole different story. Mary would admit that she might have freaked out a little, but things had gone well from there. So how had she ended up here? Here being running from an assassin sent to kill the artificial intelligence that had hired her.
Mary wasn't worried for her own life. The assassin's main source of attack seemed to be guns and Mary knew from way more experience than she would like to admit that bullets couldn't kill her, at least not permanently. She was worried for Bac though he seemed to be the assassins main target and according to him, the killer had a device that could make the destruction of his drone a very permanent death. At least that was the theory. Mary was also worried about Peggy, there was nothing special about her that would protect her from dying to a shot to the head or heart or any other vital organs, Mary just wasn't sure how most people lived like that, the idea of being so incredibly vulnerable was kind of terrifying to her. Whatever negatives and embarrassment her powers caused, she was happy not to be in danger of ceasing to exist from simple things.
Mary wasn't sure exactly what had happened when did the skeleton and the tiny robot-
{Droninja.} Bac said, correcting her thought. She had forgotten that he could read her mind. She made sure to think very loudly about that was an invasion of privacy, he didn't respond to that.
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‘ehem’
She wasn't sure exactly what had happened when the skeleton and the droninja had gone off to distract ‘Howard’, but it had been enough of an aversion for them to run away as a group.
All they could do now was make their way to where Shelly, Bac’s ‘sister’ was holed up. Now that his connection with his systems was back in full functioning order he had contacted her and found out that they were under the protection of a hero group for some reason the A.I. hadn’t explained.
With all this danger, Mary thought she probably should consider taking back her acceptance of the job offer that put her in the situation, but honestly, she couldn’t make herself do it. This was the most interesting day she had had in a while, and she was loathe to give up any future experience, plus she had already committed herself and she wasn't the type to give up on her commitments even if she hadn't signed any paperwork yet, it was still a verbal contract.
Mary stopped her mental rambling and took a look at where they were in the moment.
they were back in areas where people were walking around again, hopefully, they could slip away in the crowd , but that would be hard to do with something as noticeable as Bacs drone, it was basically a relic of the past.
“Bac, Do you have a newer drone you can use?” She knew was a long shot, if he had one he probably would be using it but she had to ask.
{No, sorry. If it helps you can put me in a bag or something. I don't need to see to give you directions, I have a GPS.}
Mary thought about that for a second. “Maybe we should do that. I'm sorry but you bring a lot of attention to us, it's hard not to notice something so ….outdated.”
{ouch… okay,} The A.I. said landing in her arms and letting her put it away into her purse, the drone was a little bigger than could be really comfortably fitted inside along with her other stuff but what a bit of shimmying she was able to get it done,
“are you okay?”
{I’m good. Follow my directions in will get there without a hitch, hopefully…} Mary could hear the doubt in his voice but decided not to comment on it. She turned to Peggy, The constantly smiling girl bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet.
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“hm? What's up.”
“Just wondering why you're still here…”
the Cyborg looked vaguely offended at that “you don't want me here?”
“No, I just mean do you realize how crazy today has been?”
“Obviously. It’s nuts! Sue almost died! Which means I would have died!!! look at me I'm sweating just thinking about it!”
Mary leveled her best skeptical look “so then why are you still hanging around why haven't you run away screaming yet?” she said once again noting the obvious signs of fear from the girl.
“I don't know maybe I'm in shock. maybe it's just adrenaline. I kinda feel like I'm watching a car crash, you can't just look away, except I'm in the car, and it's kind of exhilarating in a terrifying way!!! what about you?”
“I'm hard to kill, and I'm also intrigued, I'm not in as much danger as you are so the offer Bac gave us is still worth taking for me” Mary knew that this probably wasn't a reasonable way to think of the situation, all it would take was for them to send one meta with acid or fire powers and she would be just as dead as anyone else, that was one of the problems with her powers she knew, the false sense of invincibility, when you could heal from normal injuries and didn't feel pain it was hard to remember that you're supposed to avoid danger, especially when your body rewarded you for getting hurt, even still knowing something being able to act on it were two totally different things.
Peggy nodded emphatically “I understand the feeling, yeah. Sue’s just in it for the money but I'm excited to help out in any way I can. if you can't tell I love meeting new people.”
“I can tell.”
Peggy giggled at that which Mary thought was just a weird response.
{At least you guys can leave, I'm starting to think that I'm somehow the center of this…} Bac said his voice muffled from the bag.
“About that…” Mary looked down at the bag then asked, “Do you really not know what's going on?”
{honestly, I would tell you if I did. unlike some people, If there's danger and I know the reasoning I’d explain it to the people around me. the only theory I have is that it has something to do with my predecessor, That's a whole other can of worms I've stumbled across in my short existence} the AI explained ending his statement with an annoyed Huff.
“So we really are starting from nothing, it's not the best place to be but I think we can figure it out,”
{or we can just ring shelly's nonexistent neck for it}
“or we can do that… either way I think me and Peggy are involved now even if we wanted to step out I doubt whoever this is would leave us alone…”
“oh…” Peggy sighed, and when she got a strange look from Mary explained “I wasn't planning to leave but it was nice having the option.”
Mary could sympathize but now wasn't the time for regret.
“so the plan is to meet up with Ms. Shelly and escape the city”
Peggy started humming a song from an old game about a blue hedgehog and Bac chuckled, but then responded to Mary's question,
{no I have to get to the other two clients on my list.}
“What!? seriously after you almost died multiple times.”
{it's programming I need to at least present them the offer, if they say no I'll leave it at that.}
“How are you supposed to do that? That assassin guy is still out there and We have no way of effectively dealing with him or anyone else whoever sent. How are we supposed to find them it's not like they'll just fall out of the Sky”
Mary felt a huge amount of annoyance a large amount of shame and a good portion of whatever emotion goes with face-palming the best as she heard a loud thump, like the sound of something falling to the ground behind her…
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