A Dirty TASK Needs Doing Pt. 03

I smirked at Elisabet. "See you later, beautiful."

And I sauntered past her.

And Elisabet watched me go, her mouth agape.

I walked out to the exterior of the building. Night was falling, but I could see Big Time muscling my Chio towards a boat. Hot, not dressed in her fuck-people up garb - was pointing at a collection of goons with assault rifles, who were checking and loading them. The goons were in fancy evening dress, but they had dragged Skii masks on over their faces, giving them a dangerous juxtaposition. Hot gestured them towards the building.

I tensed.

"Kill the investors," Hot said, her voice carrying. "Take the eggheads alive."

The men cocked their rifles in unison.

"Balls," I hissed.

Elisabet picked exactly the wrong moment to come storming out. She was followed by her goons - one limped, the other clutched at his neck. My eyes widened. For one moment, Gorilla 1, Gorilla A and I all operated on the exact same wavelength. As the boat roared away, Big Time and Hot and Chio aboard, the goons lifted their rifles and advanced forward in a straight line. Gorilla 1 and A grabbed Elisabet and heaved her at me. I grabbed her and dragged her behind a thick stone planter that held some high bushes.

The goons opened up.

Gorilla 1 and A both fell, their bodies shredded by bullets.

Elisabet screamed, clapping her hands over her ears.

I grabbed my dress and tore. It ripped under my S-gene strength, revealing the black, skintight outfit underneath. I kicked my shoes free, then rolled the skintight outfit off my calves and around my feet. Once I was done, I pulled my concealed pistol from my back and cocked it.

The goons stormed forward. Five of them went for the door. Five went for the planter. I yanked some smart bombs from my pocket in a huge handfull and hurled them to the left. They clattered out and exploded in a crackling spray of fire. Smoke and bits of planter flew out, causing goons to jerk back with a cry. I grabbed Elisabet's hand and yanked her up, running with her as I fired my pistol. We rushed to the planter across from us, the goons who had been advancing from the right too distracted by the explosions to aim. Bullets sparked off the stone wall we rushed past, shattered some glass...

But my bullets found much softer homes. Two goons sprawled, blood pouring from holes in their chests. Then Elisabet and I were down behind new cover. Elisabet gasped and gasped and gasped, clutching her hands to her chest.

"They're trying to kill us!" she squealed.

Gunfire started to hammer from the building. Screams came with it.

"More than us." I growled, then hissed. "Amanda!"

"On it!"

A drone shot from the heavens as the goons I had engaged regrouped. They swung around to face the small quad copter - but Amanda didn't give them time. The underslung machine gun roared and the goons sprawled on the ground, knocked backwards and down. I sprang up, then grabbed a dropped assault rifle. I holstered my pistol and sprinted into the building. When I came back to the ballroom, I saw that - despite the gunfire - only a few people were down. Bodyguards sprawled, their chests painted with blood, while the goons were systemically grabbing onto professors and the more intelligent looking students. They hauled them towards the back.

Two goons were approaching the investors.

Two goons were dragging professors and students out back.

One goon was shouting orders.

I shot him first, snapping my assault rifle to my shoulder. It bucked and he went down in a spray of blood. As he sprawled, the goons who had been approaching investors swung around. They both fired and I dove behind a table, skidding along the floor as their bullets blew chunks out of the wall. As bullets hit the wall, a panicking investor jerked backwards and crashed into a small table I hadn't noticed.

Turned out there had been planned dancing.

Because some sick eurobeats started to fill the room.

Under the thudding music, I popped up. The goons had taken cover - joined by the two others who had gone out back. They fired at me as I fired back. A bullet skidded along my shoulder and I fell backwards - grabbing a miraculously unshattered bottle of wine as I fell. I hit the ground and flung the bottle against the wall. In the confusion and noise of the moment, the shattering was missed...but a dark red stain spread across the wall. I lay there, hoping that they'd think they got me.

Music thudded.

Glass crunched.

A man peeked over the edge of the table and I shot him in the head.

But then a pair of hands reached from above me and grabbed my gun. They wrenched it free and I kipped to my feet. The two surviving goons both aimed their guns at me. I kicked one's gun out of his hands, then twisted to the side. His friend didn't fire - their trigger discipline was good. Instead, he swung the rifle at my head. I jerked my head back, and he smashed the rifle butt into the wall. I lashed my palm out - striking the magazine lock. The magazine clicked and a second blow with my other hand sent it flying over the downed table. Then I had to twist aside to avoid a sleek, black painted knife from going through my ribs. I spun around to face knife goon.

He swept his blade at my throat. I leaped backwards, grabbed onto the barrel of the gun that the other goon still held. I yanked that barrel away from my head and the gun went off, the last round in the chamber shattering the knife and causing knife goon to jerk away in shock. I yanked the gun free from the surprised goon and swung it like a bat.

It smashed into knife goon's head.

He went down.

Formerly gun goon kicked at my kidneys and caught me. He pitched me into a fancy fresco - my face mashing against the naked pubes of a painted goddess on the wall. Normally, pleasant. Right now, not quite what I wanted. I pushed backwards and he caught my legs on his. I sprawled on the ground. Formerly gun goon drew a knife and, thus, attained the vaunted position of knife goon two. He grinned, lifting his knife.

And then his face went slack.

And he sprawled to the ground.

Standing behind him, holding her own gun like a bat, was Elisabet, her eyes wide and furious.

"I liked Boris and Nikita," she snarled. "They were getting married next week, you son of a bitch!"

I groaned and stood up, shaking my head. My finger went to Marcy. "Marcy, sitrep?"

"They got five of the students and two professors before you showed up. They..." Marcy paused. "They couldn't have timed it better. While Amanda was rigging her drone, the goons strapped the students to balloon rigs. They shot up to a low altitude and a stealth jet scooped them up like candy."

"What!?" I shouted.

"Risky, and I don't think they wanted to risk Dr. Nneka the same way. She's still traveling via ocean routes - but if she gets to their LZ..."

"On it," I said, then turned to Elisabet, who was still kicking the downed goon, snarling viciously. "Oi! Lizzy!"

She swung to face me, her eyes red with tears. "What!?"

"Do you have a motorboat?"

Elisabet Bancroft Juliane snarled. "Does the Pope shit in the woods?"

Together, we sprinted from the room - leaving stunned party goers behind.

***

I slapped my smartphone into a small slot that was designed to hold it - like the dash of a car, the dash of Lizzy's speedboat was designed to have an iPod plugged into it. I had the tracking app on and had put Marcy onto speaker phone. I was reloading the assault rifle I had stolen from one of the goons and Lizzy was starting the engine up, her face grim and determined. As the engine roared to life, Marcy spoke up.

"All right, the police and med staff have returned - the injured are being tended too," she said. "Oh! Miss Juliane, your bodyguards are alive. But they are in critical condition."

Lizzy blinked. "Oh." She paused, then snarled. "Those fucking assholes still splattered blood all over my suit. This is Benudia original!"

"You do know critical wounding is also a valid cassus vendetta, right?" I asked as the propeller roared to life and the boat almost flew away from the University dock and into the open chop between the island containing the University and the rest of Venice. Other boats swarmed the water ways - the lights of the city glittering and bright, gleaming off the midnight black water, turning it into the worlds largest, most ripply mirror. As we roared forward, I looked from Venice to Lizzy. She was standing as she drove, her hands white knuckle on the wheel. My eyes dipped to her ass and I sighed, letting my cock get hard as a rock.

"S-Stop that!" she said.

"Stop what?" I asked, faux-innocent.

"Oggling me. Dyke." Lizzy flushed.

"For a girl whose nickname is one letter away from a slang term for lesbian, you really need to get that steel rod removed from your rectum. Unless you're way kinkier than I thought and are totally into that," I said, grinning.

Lizzy bristled.

I slapped her butt. "We need to go faster."

Lizzy squeaked - then twisted on the wheel. The boat banked so hard that the rifle almost skipped out of my hand. We shot towards a very narrow canal that looked like it had been built centuries ago and for ships navigated entirely by wooden pole. My eyes widened - and then winced as we scraped through the stone and wood. Then we roared out into another main waterway. A huge boat loomed ahead of us. Lizzy twisted on the wheel. The boat skipped once, twice, then shot forward again - clearing the larger ship by a good, five, six inches?

Then we were back on course.

Ahead of us, I could see the white boat that was carrying Chio. I stood up, cocking my rifle, then lifted my hand.

"Ammo!"

"What?" Lizzy asked.

A drone swooped out of the air and dropped a magazine full of rubber bullets into my hand. I snapped it into the rifle.

"Who are you?" Lizzy hissed.

I smirked at her. "Woods. Kimberly Woods."

Hot stepped up in her ship. She snapped her finger and, at her beck and call, four jetskis roared from arterial waterways. They shot past confused gondola riders, each of them crying out. One swamped. But the men were dressed in Lady Chaos' color, with face masks. Their backs each had curved tubes strapped to them. They roared up to flank us, moving in a V formation. I looked left, then right. They were drawing closer and closer, their drivers moving with effortless skill. Lizzy looked increasingly nervous - her hands shaking.

The white boat with Chio aboard remained at a distance.

Hot saluted me, cheerfully.

Then the first goon leaped onto the hood of the speedboat. He lifted a gloved hand, standing as evenly as a mountain goat. The back of the tube opened and, with a hiss of air, launched a curved blade upwards. He caught the hilt, swept it around, and would have cut Lizzy's head from her pretty shoulders if I hadn't yanked her back and into my arms.

"They have an anime sword!" she screamed.

"It's a katana, Jesus!" I said, shoving her away from me. Then I leaped onto the hood, clearing the windshield by jerking my legs up. I skidded on the water slicked hood, then kicked the man in the chest. He jerked backwards and went flying off, smashing into a gondola with a crunch. I caught his sword, grinning. "Nice!"

"Kimmyyyyyyyyy!" Lizzy screamed.

I looked up. Another one of the jetskis had moved up to match us. The man - whose outfit, I realized, wasn't just a normal Lady Chaos jumpsuit, but rather, was a lot more like a ninja outfit given Lady Chaos' color - was holding a kusari-gama in one hand, twirling it around his head. Take a stick, then put a sickle blade on it. That was a kama . Now stick two kama on the end of a chain. That was a kusari-gama.

He swung it at me. The blade swept towards my head. I lifted my katana, and caught the blade against the sword. But the movement of the chain meant the kama almost slitted my chin open and my sword got nice and firmly held. The jetski ninja twisted on the handlebars of his jetski, trying to yank me off my feet. I hissed, and felt so very thankful for my suit's gripping feet as they dug into the hood of the speedboat. I locked my knees, then glanced up.

"Head for the bridge!" I shouted.

Lizzy jerked on the wheel. The ninja looked forward - and realized that he could either hold onto his kusari-gama and get splattered into the central pillar of the bridge, or he could let me go. He yanked on the chain with his arm and his jetski. I locked my knees and strained back, feeling the katana bow slightly under the pressure.

The ninja miscalculated.

His jetski smashed into the central pillar of the bridge. The chain trailed after the speedboat as we roared away. I looked forward to check on the distance of Hot's boat as a huge explosion flared behind me. I could feel the heat on the back of my head, even as I yanked the kusari-gama off my katana.

"Look out, Kimmy!" Lizzy shouted. "Shoe-rye-ken!"

I looked - and saw that she was frantically tapping at the smartphone, and I caught a glimpse of wikipedia on the phone. But then I saw that another jetski ninja had drawn up. This one was a woman - and she stood on the jetski, her knee braced on the acceleration handle, her two hands full of shuriken. The female ninja hurled a spread at me. I knocked two aside with a spray of sparks, but one skimmed along my shoulder, another along the inside of my thigh. Two more thudded into the deck. I hissed at the pain flaring along the cuts, looking down. My armor was somewhat stab proof, but it was mostly built against bullets, which were actually quite different from slashing attacks. I hissed, then looked up as the woman flicked her other hand.

And then I was sent sprawling onto my back - my feet knocked clear as Lizzy jerked on the wheel hard. The female ninja's eyes widened as Lizzy smashed her into the side of the canal. The jetski crumpled and metal screeched as Lizzy screamed at the top of her lungs, then jerked back on the wheel. She laughed. "I got one!"

"Lizzy, duck!" I shouted.

Lizzy squeaked and ducked as the ninja - who had grabbed onto the back of the boat and flipped in at the last second - hurled another spread of shuriken. They thudded into the dashboard with a thockathockathockathocka sound.

I put my palm on the windshield, vaulted over, then flew forward, my feet pressed together in a flying missile kick towards the female ninja. But she had yanked her katana free. She slashed at me, but only managed to get the flat of her blade against my thighs, knocking me off target. I hit the middle of a seat, bounced off the cush, then used the momentum to come to my feet. The katana I still held in my right hand swept up, met the other woman's katana, and the two blades met, and then sang.

"You wish to match blades with me, gaijin?" the ninja hissed.

"What clan are you? Shadow? Dragon?" I snarled, twisting my blade as I pushed her back, growling. After that little muckup with SPIDER, I had crammed through the list of every S-gene and intelligence organization that TASK knew about. That included the ninja clans of Japan. The ninja chuckled behind her face mask, then pushed me back. She swept at me. I ducked low, then came back with a stab to her chest. She knocked it aside.

"Which clan has sworn their service to Lady Chaos!?" I snarled.

Blades met again and again as Lizzy hit the accelerator harder and harder. I gritted my teeth, then stepped up onto the chair, trying to get an advantage from my height. That turned out to be a mistake, as the cushions were soft enough that I almost lost my footing before I used a trip as an excuse to kick off the ground, flip over the woman, and land on the ground beside the ninja. Our blades locked again. She panted.

"A ninja clan cannot be bought," she growled back at me.

"And yet, you're wearing her colors." I leaned in. I felt her arms shake.

"You have no idea what you're facing, do you?" the ninja whispered back. "If you knew the true shape of things to come...I know you would be wearing her colors, agent of TASK."

I smirked. "We'll see."

I smashed my head into the ninja's.

She sprawled on the comfy seat with a groan.

I panted, then looked up to see how close were to the other boat.

Hot and Big Time were both talking to one another, and I could see just how agitated they were. We were getting closer and closer. I stepped up, grabbing the assault rifle. Then Hot started - and reached out. But it was too late. Chio was standing near the back of their boat, looking at us. She shouted something, but it was lost in the wind. But...fortunately.

I could read lips.

"Stop!" I shouted at Lizzy.

Lizzy slammed on the boat version of the brakes. Water sprayed behind us as Chio leaped off the back of the boat that had been carrying her as if she was an olympic diver. She plunged into the water smooth as silk, shooting down. Hot screamed her frustration - but before she could order Big Time around, Big Time gestured around himself. Police cars and police boats were getting closer. Hot glared at me as I saluted her, a huge grin on my face.

She saluted me.

With one finger.

Chio gasped, throwing her head back - her hair back. An afro, when wet, remained fairly poofy, but the water still dragged it down in big clumps. But it wasn't straight, that was for sure. I grinned, holding my hand out to Chio. She took it and gasped as I dragged her onto the boat.

"Get us out of here, Lizzy!" I shouted.

Lizzy didn't need to be told twice.

***

Lizzy's rooms in the University were huge and posh and protected by even more bodyguards than I had guessed would be possible at a college dorm. But as we walked inside, it felt kind of comforting to have this much muscle between Chio and the outside world. Chio herself hadn't dried much in the boat ride, and was now shivering as I walked her into a private room. Lizzy had gone off to start screaming at people over the phone. I was pretty sure that was how girls like her relaxed.

"W-W-W-Who are you, Woods?" Chio asked, shivering as I set her down by a bed. I looked down at my own sleek spy suit.

I grinned. "I'm from the United Nations," I said. Which was technically true.

Chio nodded, slowly. "It's about my bioregenerative research, isn't it?"

"Kinda," I admitted. "We need to know how a certain chemical functions and it has all our high forehead types stumped."

"What chemical?" she asked.

I rattled off the formula from memory. Cause, um, in case you haven't noticed...S-gene? As Chio blinked at me with those warm, warm eyes of hers...I heard Amanda mutter in my earbead: "Show off."

"TASK support staff are going to be there in an hour, under the guise of Venice police," Marcy said. "Just keep her safe till then."

I nodded, slowly, as Chio looked like a revelation was breaking across her face. Her mouth opened, then closed...and then she cupped my cheeks with her hands. Her voice was soft. "It works," she breathed. Her breath smelled of spice. My cock hardened against my suit as my hands went to her dark wrists, squeezing them. I rubbed my thumbs against her pulse points, my voice as soft as hers.

"What works?"

"Okay," she said. "What if there was a chemical that, when added to another chemical, caused it to rebind to the human body after it finished a complete cycle?"

I frowned. "Like...annoying relatives who won't leave?"

"Yes, but, without annoyance," she said, smiling. "Like...a lover. Or a marriage. Imagine if you add this to normal painkillers. Rather than the painkillers being flushed from your system, they would rebind with your brain in the same way they had before - resetting the chemical cycle."