Industrial Espionage (Andurhil)

Monroe chuckled at her statement as he slid his hands between the bar and removed the key card from the hand of the guard. "Well, if you want to be technical, no. I'm a trained assassin, so killing stupid people is easy," the former assassin said as he spun the card between his fingers. "Anyway, thanks for the distraction, but I didn't need your help. You just helped make my life easier," the bounty hunter said as he slid his arms between the bars and slid the card.

The door clicked open and the dark clad man exited the cell with ease. The mercenary looked at the woman and considered what he should do for a few moments. The fighter reached into the cell and pulled out the needle and examined it. Moving the tip of his finger over the tip of the needle, he felt the still sharp tip. "Perfect, this'll do fine," he said as he looked at the guard, who carried no more than a knife and some pepper spray. "Well, one less stooge in the world. Anyway, time for me to get going," Monroe said as he pocketed the key card into his pocket and spun the needle between his fingers, about to leave.

She turned quickly and looked at him, her jaw dropping slightly as she realised the man had the keycard and was about to leave her locked up with a dead body. That would leave her with next to zero chances of getting out of here alive, and the prospect of being tortured to death was not a reassuring one. A slight sense of fear began to build up inside her, and she realised that she'd have to swallow her pride and get him to release her.

"Hey, wait," she called after him, a clear hint of annoyance in her voice. "You can't just leave me here with a dead body. You'd basically be giving me a death sentence."

Monroe laughed. A little at first, and then more and more until he started coughing. He rolled the pin into the palm of his hand, since it made an ideal projectile here. After all, these guards were both poorly armed and incompetent. Kinda like this woman, actually. She had managed to sneak in and make it all this way, and yet she wasn't following the basic rules of either an assassin nor a government agent.

"For your country, you will die. That's what they told me. For your country, you will die, because that is the greatest justice a person can bring. Selflessly sacrificing yourself for a bunch of **** eating pricks in Washington who don't give two ****s about you. And yet your job is to die for them like a dog. All you ever knew, and all you'll ever probably know, is this sense of loyalty to people that would sooner spit on you than actually help you. After all, if your government cared for you so much, then why couldn't they take the time out to save you?"

Monroe thought back for a moment, recalling the day he had decided to leave. That was the only thing he could really think of. "The truth is, to be a servant of any business or government is to be nothing more than a number. No matter how high a number you are, you're never high enough. You're expendable as I am. They'll replace you as soon as your usefulness has run out. And yet you'll still serve them blindly, won't you?"

The bounty hunter's voice had become almost docile as he thought about it. The pain and suffering the government had caused the average person in the name of "justice." These people wouldn't know what justice is if it came up and shot them in the ass. Justice belonged to righteous people like Zorlo, not to Monroe, and not to these ****ers.

"Take your government rhetoric and get bent. I've got no interest in helping them. If they won't save you, why should I?" he asked her, giving her a calm, yet wrathful look. A look that spoke only the reality of the situation.

She lowered her gaze as he spoke. The man clearly had no idea what he was talking about and what having a sense of duty meant. He cared for no-one else beside himself and had no moral inhibitions whatsoever in getting what he wanted. But she knew that she needed him right now. Looking up at him, she replied.

"You know you'll never make it out of here alive on your own." She looked at him pleadingly, even though she hated herself for having to act all weak and vulnerable just to get his attention. "I could... help you..."

Monroe laughed at such a lame attempt at being weak and feeble to try to pressure him into agreeing to help her. He needed no help. Even without any good weapons, he'd find something and use it to destroy these foes. Still, a little bit of help couldn't hurt, right? Nah!

The bounty hunter crossed his arms and looked down the halls. It was very quiet and empty. He knew another guard would be down their soon, and when that guard came, killing him was literally as easy as flicking his wrist. Still, a real weapon would be a lot more fun to use than that needle he had or the knife the woman had. A sword. A really good sword would do the trick.

Still, getting that far would be tricky. Monroe looked at the card key in his hand and thought for a few moments. "You're so full of ****. I'm an assassin. As you've seen, I can kill people with anything simple I can find. Give me a good reason. A really good reason. And maybe then I'll think about letting you out. After all, I'm not about to waste my time freeing people who won't help me. Utility is the law of the land."

Hopefully she'd get the hint and leave him alone. If not, she'd wind up being another body in his body count. That, or, maybe she'd actually listen to what he's saying and take his advice, instead of being a stooge.

Cursing mentally, she kept her gaze fixated on him but carefully concealed her annoyance. She could tell that he wasn't going to let her off easy, but she was by no means ready to denounce what she believed in, even if it was just her lying to him.

"Listen..." she said softly, trying to break through his defences. "You yourself said you're so much better trained than I am. But don't forget that my abilities are limited by the fact that I'm just a woman." She paused for a moment to survey her enclosure for effect, then looked back at him, really hating herself for what she had just said.

"A woman who happens to be in quite a predicament at the moment, and who would be... willing to offer quite a bit in exchange for your help. Even an assassin such as yourself wouldn't leave a poor, defenceless woman here to die, right...?"

That last comment made her want to stab herself with the large knife next to her.

She really was a sad, pathetic mess of a person, wasn't she? After all, here she was, trying to whore herself, or claiming to be able to for payment, to him for something she couldn't understand. This woman was way out of her league if she thought this weak girl act would so easily break his heart and make him cry, "Oh yes, anything for you!" The day he uttered those words would be the day he essentially committed self destruction. In this, his home world, only death was certain.

Monroe crossed his arms in thought as he looked at her. Maybe she would have a chance of possibly being useful, but in his heart, he truly doubted her abilities. After all, she was using the frail girl act to get everywhere so far, so what good could possibly be in combat. That, he decided, might actually be something worth finding out, but that was something for another time.

"If I were a true assassin, I'd kill you on the spot for having seen me or hearing my profession. Still, I was once and assassin, and their creed is similar to my own, except I've got a sense of honor. No matter how much you try to play on the frail, weak, seductive woman act, I'm not gonna simply melt and say, "Let me help you and become your boyfriend!" or some dumb **** like that. I'm not dragging dead weight with me. Do you have any skills of use, aside from being a scared, feeble girl?"

Tanya couldn't keep her irritation under control anymore and gave a growl of anger at the man. Her teeth gritted in annoyance at his idiotic arrogance and blatant ridicule. This man seemed to believe she was completely useless, and that angered her to no end. She flipped the knife in her hand and gripped it from the blade. With a quick flick of her arm, the knife shot out between the bars of the cell and embedded itself in the wall right between his legs.

"Listen you ******* idiot, it was your damn fault we got into this mess in the first place, so let me the **** out!"

Monroe laughed and clapped his hands at her. "What a nice little lynx you are? Bearing your fangs and claws in the presence of a true hunter, though, only gets you the tip of an edge through your neck," the bounty hunter muttered as he kicked the wall. The stone wall shattered as his foot struck it, and the knife fell from where it had been stuck onto the ground.

The dark clad man stomped on the weapon in such a way that it spun through the air and found itself landing in his hand. "Hey, lady, I'm not a big fan of people telling me what to do or how to do it," he said, waving the knife at her threateningly, "and I'm definitely no fan of crazy *****es throwing blades at me. I don't have time to waste here talking to you, so you've got two choice: shut up and listen so we can get out of this alive, or I'll just leave you here. Either way works fine by me."

She muttered curses under her breath as she glared at him, but deep down she knew he was right. He had the upper hand right now, and she could either play along or be left behind. She had no intention whatsoever to die in here, and much less to be trapped in a cage like an animal. She didn't like it one bit, but she had no choice to let him take the lead in this dangerous dance. She'd pay him back for the humiliation at some point.

"...Fine, whatever. Just get me out of this."

Monroe shrugged and opened the door for the woman. He didn't think to return the knife to her, since that was too dangerous of a thing to do. She was the kind of person, he guessed, that would rather stab him in the back to escape than to help him escape as well. Also, the dark clad man knew that with the commander in this building, escape wouldn't be too easy. Still, there had to be a way.

"I'm sure you already know this, but the first thing we should do is recover our weapons. Without those... we're pretty much defenseless. Kinda," he muttered. He could easily kill a man with his bear hands, but that was so much work. For now, he'd prefer the knife he had. "Now then, any questions?" he asked her as they neared the stairs. "Because once we go up these... we're in danger at all times."

She looked at him cautiously as she walked out of the cell, her expression still holding a lot of suspicion. For what was probably the first time, she looked him over to make sure she knew what she was dealing with. If she wasn't so incredibly pissed at him right now, she might have found him to be handsome.

"Yes, well, you have the only weapon right now. What am I going to use to defend myself? My boobs?"

Her gaze surveyed the area for a moment, looking for anything that could be used as a weapon. That's when she noticed the dead guard in the cell and the tonfa strapped to his belt. It was definitely better than nothing. She walked back to the guard and crouched to unsheathe it, giving it a twirl in her hand as she rose to her feet.

"Alright, let's do this."

Monroe shrugged as he looked at the tonfa. "I had planned to deal with anything that got in our way the good, old fashioned way, but if you must help, don't get caught up in my attacks, or you might wind up like anything else," he muttered as he pushed the door open and entered into what looked like a normal business building. "Anyway," he muttered, "that would have been your best defense. You could kill a small child with those things," he muttered as he looked around.

Cubicles, cubicles and more cubicles. The place was empty. This was the basement levels, so clearly there was something down here. But whatever it was had taken to tactical hiding. Well, that or it was trying to hide.

Several soldiers filed out of the cubicles, pointing their weapons at the bounty hunter and the woman. "Stand back and don't get in my way," he whispered to her as he seemed to vanish for a second. IN the next second, he had already snuck behind the group. What followed could only be described by the blood that drew across the wall, since in seconds, the few soldiers that had appeared had been cut to ribbons.

Blood dripped from both Monroe and his dagger as he looked at the stabbed, slashed and shredded bodies as he walked on and wiped the blood off on his jackets. "Okay, lets keep going. We don't have time to stand around. We need to find our stuff."

Tanya had given him a dirty look at his earlier comment, but hadn't otherwise retorted in any way. When the soldiers had surrounded them she stood perfectly still, confident that they could take them together. Now she just stood there, staring at the bloody mess around her in slight surprise. Then she looked up at him, her eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"...******* show-off," she muttered and brushed past him, moving ahead between the rows of cubicles and keeping a lookout for more guards. "I'm not a little southern belle that needs a strong man to protect her, you know. So stop acting like the ******* alpha-male around here."

She reached a door that read "Armoury" in bright bold red letters. The sliding door was locked and the unlocking mechanism contained a fingerprint scanner. Apparently they didn't want anyone to enter this room without supervision from the higher-ups, and definitely not the normal soldiers.

"Great, just great."

Monroe chuckled. "I don't give a ****, lady. I'm not here to help you. The only reason I freed you is so that you wouldn't get raped by one of the guards. After all, you don't look like you could handle that kind of trauma, lady," the dark clad man said as he slid the knife into a sheathe at his side and looked at the scanner. "I wonder..." he said as he placed his finger on the scanner.

A small screen seemed to search for the person who owned this fingerprint and searched on for a few moments. Finally, the full fingerprint and name appeared. "Identifying... subject Monroe Vossler: High level clearance. Order: Commander."

"I thought so," he muttered as the door opened and the dark clad man took a step in. He still had his vest, but he wanted his jacket and stuff back. Odds are, however, they had stolen some of the important things, but that didn't matter. The bounty hunter found himself skimming through the stuff until he found his photon sword, revolver, EMSG and his jacket. After a quick observation, the man placed his jacket on and muttered something.

"Stole my bullets, the battery in my EMSG and all of the photon cartridges in my sword. Great... that leaves me... this dagger I picked up," he muttered as he looked at Tanya. "Lady, did you get your stuff yet? We need to get going. I need to destroy this place... they have the power to start recreating the technology I use. Everyone and everything here must be destroyed so this kind of firepower can't ever see the light of day," Monroe stated as he kicked a wall. No one else would ever use his weapons. He'd make sure of it.

She looked at him wide-eyed as the door opened with a swish, not believing that he'd been able to open it just like that. There was definitely something that this guy wasn't telling her, why would he have access to such a high-security area? She had his name now, but that didn't really mean anything to her. And was the "commander" title supposed to mean?

"What the hell...?" Tanya muttered as she followed after him. She didn't want to tur him against him right now, she needed all the help she could get. Everything seemed to be working out for the moment so she'd save her questions for later.

She shoved the tonfa into her belt and walked into the room, quickly finding her twin pistols. Sliding out the magazines of her weapons, she saw that the bullets had been taken out and angrily slammed the magazines back in.

"****, same here," she replied to his comments about the bullets being stolen. "Luckily, since I don't own a revolver like you, I have one bullet in the chamber of each of my guns. It's not much, but it's better than nothing." She looked at him for a moment in thought. She really did need him to increase her chances of survival, so she might as well help him.

"Here, you can have one," she said, offering him one of her pistols. She slid the other one into its holster. "Just don't expect me to stay for the fireworks. As soon as I get a chance, I'm bailing. Better alive with an aborted mission rather than dead."

Monroe waved off the gun as he heard her talking. "I wouldn't expect you to stay anyway. Once we get to either the ground floor or the roof, where they've got a helicopter, you can get out of here," he told her, rummaging through the arms, looking for anything of interest. Then, something useful.

"A katana," he noted as he unsheathed the sword and looked at the blade. He examined the weapon closely and smiled as he gave it a few slashes. The blade was razor sharp, and the weapon itself was well kept. "I'm guessing this is yours," he stated, looking at the woman as he sheathed the sword. "After all," he said, holding the sheathed weapon out, "not many of the men here use any brand of close range weapons."

The dark clad man spun the weapon as he slammed the bottom of the sheathe against the ground and smiled at her as he walked on, still holding the weapon. "I think I'm gonna borrow this, since I need something useful, and a single bullet's only good for one thing: shooting yourself. I'd keep one for just that purpose."

"Anyway," he muttered as he looked at the door, "might as well let you ask any questions you've got now. After all, better now than later. I'm sure you've got all kinds of them, so get them out and we can move on with life."

Tanya frowned slightly at his response and then slipped the other weapon into its holster as well. Nobody could say that she hadn't tried to help him. "Hm..." she muttered softly as she watched him appraise her katana. She had completely forgotten about that, and focused instead on finding her beloved pistols. "Yeah, sure, you can use that. It'll probably be much better used by you anyways."

She found her knife and slipped it into the sheath at her calf, then turned to face him. Deciding not to comment on his suicide suggestion seeing as it was something she wouldn't want to resort to, she thought it'd be good to take his advice and ask her questions now.

"And I do have a question for you, Monroe Vossler. How exactly did you have such high-level access to this building? What sort of connection do you have to this place?" She looked straight into his eyes, thoroughly unyielding.

Monroe laughed. He'd figured out what this place was a long time ago. "To be exact, I don't have that clearance by my own skills. The man that is the field leader here, a man that's only known as the Commander, and I are the two prototypes of what I am. You see... technically, I died about forty-six years ago, but these people, under direct orders from the FBI, had my body rebuilt into an assassin. As such, my jobs were simple."

"I was ordered to keep political peace in the U.S. Killing political officials that threatened schism. That kind of stuff. However, I had developed... an ego, I guess. I became self-aware of what I was. When that happened, I left to become a person that didn't have anything to do with this country or its government. So, from then on, I've been a traveling mercenary and bounty hunter."

Monroe took a breath as he rested the sheathed sword along his shoulders and hooked his arms around it. "My real problem is I've finally found where people like me are being produced... and these cock-suckers aren't even doing it right. They've turned the enhanced assassins into puppets. They're disposable soldiers, no different from the people that the government created years ago."

"PMCs and the Enhanced Humanoid Project... the soldiers they're using now aren't the true goal... they have one thing left to finish... They seek to make them even stronger... by removing their humanity all together. They will make them monsters, only wieldable by the hand of the government."

Monroe walked towards the door and opened it. "And as to how I have clearance... Commander and I have a conflict to solve, and he wouldn't solve it with just fists. We'll cut each other to pieces as this place burns. I'm heading to the roof... I'm sure that they're getting together all of the stuff that's mine and are preparing to show it to Washington. I have to stop them. THose weapons aren't from this world, and they won't be used in this world to oppress the people of this land. I'll kill them all like the dogs they are."

Her gaze wavered as she looked at him, his words heavy on her heart and her beliefs. It couldn't be true, none of that could. The country she held so dear to herself, the bastion of freedom and democracy, would never sanction the things he said they'd done.

"...No, I don't believe you. There's no way that would ever be sanctioned by the government." Her gaze hardened. You're lying!" She pushed his shoulder back as she followed him into the room, turning him towards her. "Admit it!"

Before he could reply the door closed behind them and two auto-turrets descended from the ceiling.