I catiously scan the area around the bar before I approach, but there still seem to be no officials lurking about. A similar scan of the interior of the bar takes place before I enter. I don't know if they just don't care, or if they're just so fat and slow they haven't started looking yet, but it seems reasonable to believe that I can hang out in the bar without getting incarcerated.
There's a new pressure in the air, can you feel it? Can you feel it?
I pause, frowning. That one's new.
What did you say? What do you mean?
Silence.
Well, whatever. If he wants something important, he can call back. In the meantime, I want some vodka.
"Hey, squid."
The squid's smile is nervous and not as...genuine...as normal. But that's to be expected after yesterday. There's a difference between knowing I'm a badass and seeing me break the laws of physics over my knee.
"Hi, Earthman. Wait, wait...here vodka...sorry no ready..."
"I'm not gonna hurt you. Unless maybe if you keep sniveling like that."
He doesn't quite know how to take that. Well, fuck him anyway. The vodka crawls down my throat with a pleasant burning sensation which is not quite entirely artificially generated by my circuitry.
Yeah. That's the stuff. Builds character.
Some fairly quiet time passes before I collect my thoughts and remember some unfinished business.
"So, where was I? Yeah, we were starting to look for Bait, right?"
The squid nods. Not in the mood to talk now, I guess.
"So. Yato led us down the streets of Washington D.C., following this nasty trail of torn asphalt and blackened rubble and limp bodies. As we're moving, I couldn't help being amazed at it all - this just wasn't something they could cover up. This was a huge fucking mess. The buildings and streets seemed empty but they must have been full of witnesses to the whole thing. And if the soldiers had been fighting the whole time like they were at the end - blowing away buildings and each other just to get to us - that's not something you can blame on us no matter what the rest of it all looked like. I marveled that anyone would have given the order to do something so stupid. Surely, I thought, this was going to blow the whole conspiracy thing wide open."
The squid seems confused. Government means something a little bit different in most places out here. I try to explain.
"Look, back then our government was responsible to the people. Or at least it was supposed to be. The army couldn't just go into a city and start blowing shit up. People were going to complain, and the government had to do what they said...well, sort of. Anyway, they'd been trying to keep the whole collaboration with the sectoids as a big secret, and I thought this was a really dumb thing for them to do."
Now he just doesn't look like he believes me.
"Yeah, yeah. We were pretty naive back then. We didn't know how deeply the sectoids were controlling things, and we also didn't realize how easy it is to lie to people when they don't want to hear the truth. We learned that lesson, the hard way..."
I pause here for a second, twisting my mouth. He's just not getting it. Fine, I give up.
"More vodka. Anyway. We ran for about five minutes, occasionally slowing down to go over piles of cars or whatever, and finally we got there. It was kind of a bottleneck between buildings, opening up again after a few hundred feet - good place for an ambush. Yato probably wouldn't have gone anywhere near the place if he hadn't been with Bait - she tends to distract him. The place was torn up pretty bad, and I couldn't see what the buildings used to be for, but all the trashed books laying around suggested some sort of library or bookstore, which sounds like Bait.
"'Through here,' Yato said, and led us around a still-smouldering pile of masonry and blackened Volkswagon(tm) to the other side of the narrow place. He stopped and surveyed the area briefly, but there seemed to be nothing to see. If the government was hiding Bait around here somewhere, they were doing a good job.
"A streak of gold flashed by me and into the area in question. Glitterboy searched the entire place in about as long as it takes me to tell you about it. It was like watching someone with a shiny piece of jewelry reflecting the light around like a spotlight - kind of an indistinct blur that flashed from place to place fast enough to hurt your head turning to follow, then hovered in place for a few instants, checking details...anyway, Glitterboy basically materialized in front of Yato and said, 'No clues, man.' Yato and Glitterboy had a quick staring match - they don't agree on too many things - and then Yato turned back to me as if Sean wasn't there. Which is something Sean appreciates about as much as Yato appreciates humor when Erin is in trouble.
The squid loves this new tension in the team, I can tell. I probably won't get around to telling about how Glitterboy and Yato did eventually end up fighting each other - along with everyone else. Their natures couldn't have been too different and it always showed at times like this, when Evey wasn't around - they both sort of considered themselves the leader. Anyway, not that important to the story at hand.
"Yato looked at me for a second and then says, 'She's not here.' It's probably just as well he couldn't see Glitterboy rolling his eyes over his shoulder. 'But she is not far. I can smell her. She is in that building.' He pointed at the far end of the block, where a solid-looking warehouse structure stood relatively undamaged.
"Huh. I always forgot he could do stuff like that - smell someone from two hundred yards away, through a building...oh, that's like...hell, don't worry about all the distances and stuff. It's a long way to smell someone from and I'm tired of converting everything into your damn silly units. They're all based on the size of some alien emporer's sexual organs or something anyway. I thought Earth standards were dumb. Anyway. The point is, I think that was when I first thought seriously about upgrading other stuff besides just my strength and toughness, like maybe giving myself a better sense of smell. Seemed handy.
"Glitterboy arched an eyebrow suspiciously at this announcement, but he didn't say anything. I just nodded and we all started toward the building in question. 'You should be warned,' Yato said as we moved, 'there are still many sky-demons and land troops with her. These ones will not be as stupid as the ones we fought earlier - they are the ones in charge of this operation. The elites.'
"After jogging back long enough to hear what Yato was saying, Glitterboy responded to this with a comment about how he was sure this group was a bunch of real geniuses. Yato's lips tightened as Glitterboy sped off to investigate again. Yato has a real high opinion of things like status and commanding rank. He likes to use words like 'elite' and we're supposed to be impressed by them. Too bad for him, because nobody else on our team has any respect for authority whatsoever. Not that Glitterboy would have behaved any differently anyway - he didn't really believe in being careful.
"As we got closer, it occurred to me that the power would be out in this building. There weren't a ton of windows and it was going to be pretty hard to see what was going on in there. I wondered whether the GIs and Sectoids had taken any other hostages - there had to be other people around here and probably in that building.
I tipped back my head and swallowed vodka.
"I was right. That building was a big mess and we split up as soon as we got inside and I was lost in no time. Lots of big dark rooms full of desks or machinery and hallways leading to more hallways and me squinting to try and see whether there was some soldier around the next corner, waiting to snipe my head off. Once in a while, there was somebody there. I'm not real stealthy and they usually heard me coming and got a shot or two off before I could close in and wallop them. I got hit with another energy blast in the waist and it hurt bad. I was still going but I was going to need some work when we got home. I patched it up and tried to forget about it but that's never as easy as it sounds.
"While I was scrambling around trying to figure out where everybody was without getting my head opened up, I occasionally heard screams - sounded like other soldiers getting it in a bad way. I figured it was just Yato being pissed or Glitterboy getting bored, but it sounded excessive. Kind of unsettling.
"Eventually I found a decent set of stairs, since the elevators were all non-functional, and managed to get up close to the top of the building. This is when stuff started getting really nasty.