Arc 1: A Witch’s Request Chapter 3: Weird Meat (Part 2)

2:47 am, June 19, 2483. W Meats.

The harsh metallic odour of blood was what greeted Tori as she came to. Her eyes opened to an ice-cold room, with bodies hung up all around, slowly dripping blood and juices onto the floor.

For a few, terrifying moments, Tori almost mistook the hanging meat for humans, but the sight of trotters and snouts soon soothed her fear.

Great, so it’s just a bunch of dead pigs…

Tori looked down to see ropes cutting into her, holding her down in a chair, which appeared to be tied to… another chair.

“Hey, Blue-Hair, you awake?”

Tori turned around to see the missing woman, Ou tied to the chair opposite. She moved to talk, to say anything, but instead found a strip of thick electrical tape had been placed over her mouth.

“Okay good, you’re alert,” Ou said, voice small and nervous, “Uhm, push at the tape with your tongue, it should come off after a few minutes…. yeah, minutes I think.”

Tori couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. This Ou here seemed a far cry from the woman fearlessly running along the platform, slaying a man twice her size with nothing but a single knife throw. If it wasn’t for the blood still splattered across her clothes, Tori would have started debating whether they were the same person. But still, she slowly followed the woman’s instructions, and slowly felt a small gap forming.

“Uhm, well, I don’t know you, and I highly doubt you know me either, but we should probably work together if we want to get out of here alive. I know these guys, and they won’t treat prisoners like us with much… kindness. I, for one, don’t particularly want to join the pigs here.”

So that’s not just a rumour? Tori wanted to say, but she couldn’t, for obvious reasons, so she just kept trying to loosen the mouth tape.

“I know my way around here, and we can probably get out safely, but these binds are definitely a hassle…So, we should probably try and get out of these ropes… and that’s where I’m kind of stuck… we could use the hooks, but they’re too high up, and there aren’t any knives here either…” Ou’s voice faded into an uneasy silence.

Said uneasy silence hung over the two for a while longer before the shing of an unsheathed sword and the sound of ropes falling to the ground broke through.

“What just…” Ou turned around to find Tori standing, right hand now a sword. Tori ripped off the tape with a sting.

“Luckily for us,” Tori said, as her hand reverted to a more fleshy appearance, “I don’t think these guys realise that I’m a cyborg. Now that we’ve gotten out the ropes…”

“… continue with your exit strategy.”

Declan quickly teleported across a hallway. This wasn’t good. The more time he spent here, the more he realised that this facility was on high alert, for some reason or other. And if they saw Tori hanging about, there would be no doubt they would have captured her.

“Curses, I don’t want to pay for such extensive repairs…” he muttered. Not that he didn’t care for the personal safety of the cyborg, but he cared about money more.

However, as he passed by one of the rooms, Declan noted a conversation coming from within and a light peeking out from under the door. Something interesting was happening there. He came to a stop and inched as close to the door as he could. It was the voices of two men, both appearing to be workers of W Meats. Maybe he could find something out about both Ou and Tori this way.

The voices got louder, as if the argument between the two workers were reaching a peak.

“C’mon, are you fucking stupid? How could you have let that girl escape?”

“Excuse you, I did not LET that bitch escape, I was forced to. It’s not every day that you have a butcher’s knife to your junk, and orders to open the door or say goodbye to your manhood forever.”

Declan slowly blinked, wondering what sort of turn this conversation had taken, and whether her really wanted to subject his poor ears to any more of it. The other worker in the room seemed to share the same sentiment:

“…what.”

“Come on, don’t say you wouldn’t have done the same. And besides, if she hadn’t escaped, we wouldn’t have found that blue-haired one.”

Declan’s eyes widened. That certainly sounded like Tori. Was she okay? What had happened?

“Oh yeah, I saw them taking her in. She’s a pretty one. Think she’s bait or something?”

“Bait? Nah, don’t overthink it, the boss said there’s no one who would ever think about trying to fight with us right now. We’re in too much of a… how do you say it? Advantageous position, that’s right. But we’re definitely going to have to question her about what she was doing here, after she wakes up, that is.”

Declan let out a quick sigh of relief. Looked like Tori was okay, and she hadn’t been harmed, at least right now. But there was no telling what might happen to her afterwards. He needed to find her now. But before he stepped away completely, he heard the first person say something again.

“Hold on, are we sure that blue-haired girl is normal?… Doesn’t she look a bit like that new android model on the market?”

“Nah, can’t be, she looks human to m-“

Just then, a small explosion rocked the facility, and all of the alarms started blaring. Almost immediately, Declan knew who it was. A theory that was confirmed by the sound of familiar machine gun fire ricocheting off the walls. Well, shame on them for underestimating his subordinate.

Declan grinned, teleporting out of the way just as the two workers inside came out to see what was going on.

Looked like Tori was just fine. Now he didn’t need to go find her anymore, she just needed to find him.

“Uh, well,” the woman continued, looking relieved now, but not by much, “we need to get out quickly, there’s cameras everywhere here. They’re going to notice soon that we’ve escaped, but for the actual way out, I’m afraid we’ll have to go out through the… vent system.”

Ou pointed up to an open panel in the ceiling of the room, and Tori frowned. She was not a large person by any means, however, maybe it was her line of work and the fact that her biological components appeared to have come from a Western woman: she was still a great deal more built than most women, and some men for that matter, of New Kowloon. And judging by the size of the panel, it looked to be even a tight squeeze for Ou. So, it was safe to say, Tori was not going to be get up there anytime soon.

“Is there no other way?” Tori pushed, looking towards the metal door leading out of the meat locker.

“…No, if you’re planning on breaking out through that door, it’s re-enforced steel with a biometric lock. I don’t think you’ll have a chance, even with all your, uhm, extra enhancements, since there’s an explosive attached to it. When it is disturbed, it will explode.”

“An explosive?”

Now that was an interesting factor.

“Yes, it won’t destroy everything here, but it will cause a big enough disturbance to possibly injure the person who triggered it and then alert everyone to it! It’s too risky!”

But Ou’s warning fell on death ears, as Tori was already making her way to the door. She was nowhere as good at forming a plan as Declan, especially one that was covert and safe, but she still could make one. Sure, it might be unsafe, but it could be their best bet out of here. And Tori would rather take her chances with a bunch of guards than with a claustrophobic vent system.

With a whirr, her machine gun arm began to deploy, and she fired a shot at the camera nearest the door as it spin around to track her movement.

“Tell me,” she said, “which side is the lock on?”

The explosion was not enough to break the door entirely, but it was enough to warp it, and the surrounding walls, creating a jagged, but usable gap to walk out of.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Tori said, stepping out from behind a few pig carcasses that she had been using as a literal meat shield.

Ou just looked at her, horrified, as alarms all across the compound activated and began to blare.

“I think that was very bad,” she finally said, voice barely above a whisper, and she began to shake, “what are we going to do? They’re going to come soon…”

Every moment that passed, Ou seemed further and further away from the woman Tori had seen making that fearless escape. She sighed, and grabbed the smaller woman from where she stood frozen, and half-guided, half-pushed her out into the hallway.

“When they come,” Tori said, looking around. The coast was clear, at least for now…

“we’ll just fight them. It can’t be that difficult. I’ve seen ya. You know how to fight. And who cares about the danger? No progress without a little risk.”

“J-just who are you?” Ou said, looking at Tori, expression now a blend of admiration and apprehension.

“That’s not really important. Just know that witch friend of yours sent me to find you…” Tori said, shooting out another camera that moved to watch them.

“…And honestly, I’m just doing my job.”