Favela Pt. 24

The three of them together managed to tightly mummify the man and then tied everything securely together with rope in several places. It had been done so expertly that the big dead brute looked like he'd been prepped for a royal burial. "I'll take the front, you take the feet and little Desi can prop up the middle." Marcella rattled off, leading her daughter to wonder just how many times the older woman had officiated the clandestine disposal of a human body.

The three women awkwardly yet without extreme difficulty managed to carry the hulking package out the front door and then into the banana orchard. Marcella went and got three shovels and then the trio started digging morbidly in silence until a suitably large hole had been excavated. "Adeus filho da puta." Marcella spat as she rolled the wrapped corpse into the pit. It landed with a loud and satisfying thump. "Você pode nutrir as árvores." She said a quick prayer and picked up a shovel and started refilling the hole.

After a few seconds Olivia and Maithri joined in. They were done in minutes. Marcella put the shovels away and the three of them trudged back inside. Olivia was glad to be alive, glad the mysterious assassin had failed, but the bastard had totally killed the mood. Everyone was somber and subdued, despite the beautiful sunrise and extravagant breakfast consisting of the last of their leftovers from the night before, no one was feeling the least bit frisky.

"We'd better get some sleep, I'm feeling shaky. As soon as I can safely pull a trigger again we'll head into the city." Marcella rasped, going around the villa and bolting all the doors for the first time Olivia could ever remember. The two girls went to Olivia's room and Marcella went back to hers. All three of them were dead tired and emotionally drained.

"Let's get some sleep." Olivia said, risking a quick kiss. Maithri kissed her back, her lips lingering for a moment.

"I can't believe you almost died." She murmured as she pulled away and curled up under the covers.

"Yeah." Olivia responded lamely, as she pictured the white ghostly carcass of Baduro tumbling stiffly into the grave they'd all dug. The dull thump of the body still seemed to echo in her ears. Her eyes fluttered shut and she was asleep in seconds. Maithri couldn't sleep right away, and she'd already gotten several hours anyway. She sat up and read, occasionally glancing over at her girlfriend. She thought about how she could have been looking at a lifeless body if things had gone a little bit differently, the thought filled her with terror.

But she reminded herself of everything they'd already been through, and her own miraculous survival. Maybe there was a force of some kind out there, watching them all, guiding the hands of fate, snatching them away from death at the eleventh hour. She hoped so, even though her religious tendencies had died along with her country in the strokes. Fire consumed all, faith and hope and even hell itself, if she would worship anything now it would be those sacred flames that had brought the world to its knees.

The sun continued to rise, clear and calm and holy. Although she was lost in restless dreaming having drifted off without realizing. both girls were rudely awakened by Marcella bursting into their room. "Wake up! Wake up my little angels!" She crowed loudly. Groaning Olivia pulled herself out of bed, Maithri kept on sleeping until Marcella physically yanked down the blankets and playfully slapped her on the ass. "Get up, get up! Girls, things have changed. Our... Mission has changed!" Marcella rasped excitedly as Maithri finally managed to crawl out of bed.

"I contacted an old friend in the city to see how easy it would be to get where we need to go. That's when I learned that something really big has happened. All those rumors that there was a breach in the wall around the Enclave, remember those? Well, it was finally confirmed yesterday, but then during the night something truly insane occurred." Marcella paused and took a deep breath, her eyes sparkled and she was grinning from ear to ear. "The wall disappeared!!" She let out in a huff, almost squealing.

"What!?" Olivia said, turning and glaring at her mother. She had just stripped off her panties and felt slightly silly standing there buck naked with her mouth hanging open. Marcella just snickered and sat down on the end of the bed. Not only was she fully dressed, she was wearing some of her military gear too.

Olivia raised her eyebrows. "That big impregnable cyberwall that's been there since the strokes? Impossible!" She scoffed, glancing over at Maithri who was also naked, but was in the process of putting on some underwear.

"Don't look at me filha." The girl said in response, I was never in that part of the city, I haven't even seen this wall the two of you are talking about." She shrugged and fastened her large bra around her belly before lifting it up into place. Unlike Olivia she didn't seem to mind being exposed. Perhaps she was still riding the thrill of finally being able to be unabashedly pregnant in front of everyone. Marcella watched them both quietly while they finished getting dressed.

"Here, you're going to need this too." She said, tossing an elegant belt and side holster to her daughter as she'd just finished adjusting her bandoleer. Olivia recognized it immediately.

"Isn't this for the disintegrator?" She asked uncertainly. Her mother just nodded, then bounced herself up off the bed.

"Yeah, we're not going unarmed into what has apparently turned into a kind of warzone." She smirked and stepped over to her daughter who was struggling to get the holster on straight. Deftly Marcella tightened all the requisite straps and adjusted it so perfectly that Olivia could barely even feel it on her leg. Then the girl squeaked as her mother thrust the pistol roughly into the holster from behind, temporarily knocking her off balance. Marcella couldn't help herself from gently groping her daughter's butt as she reflexively reached out to stop her from staggering sideways.

Their eyes met and Marcella grinned innocently, her hand was still placed lightly on Olivia's behind. "Careful now filha, you should probably practice pulling it out and putting it back in again, a few times, until you're confident you can do it smoothly." Marcella finished, sliding her hand sensually over her daughter's ass as she stood back up. Olivia shivered as she dropped her hand so that it rested reassuringly on the disintegrator's pistol grip, her crotch pulsed and she could still feel the warmth of her mom's hand where it had squeezed her bottom.

She cleared her throat loudly and drew the pistol. "Thanks for the um... Tip." She murmured shyly, her cheeks flushing slightly as she slipped the disintegrator back into its holster.

"Oh, and I've got something for you too." Marcella chimed, shattering the heavy sexual tension that had descended upon them in an instant. The older woman took something out of her duffel bag and handed it over to Maithri. "Careful, it's super sharp." She warned as the girl's nimble olive hands grasped the crossbar of the double hilt and withdrew the blade from its sheath. "That's a katar from the last empire, but you probably already knew that." Marcella said smugly as the girl stared intently at the unusual weapon.

"Spoils of war confiscated by my unit." Marcella said somewhat sadly. "I truly am sorry for what happened to your country little Desi." She said quietly. "It wasn't right, but at least I can return this relic to someone who knows what it is." She trailed off. Maithri paused in her examination of the gleaming blade and looked up onto Marcella's eyes.

"This is no common blade... This workmanship is from an art lost in the strokes. The cutting edge is graphene laced diamond, reinforced so that it's almost impossible to break or chip. These weapons were only given to the top ranking members of the royal family who had distinguished themselves in battle. I know this because my brother had one." She twirled the long knife gracefully with one hand, shifting its point effortlessly in several different directions. "I've been trained to use this type of sword as part of my formal education." She said coolly. "But only those in the royal family know about this secret."

Suddenly thrusting out her arm she gave her wrist a little flick as she squeezed the crossbars in a very specific way. With a loud sharp snapping sound the blade split in two, and at the same second, flying out faster than the eye could see: A second blade, about half as long as the first, more of a dart than a knife. It stopped abruptly in mid air, ringing like a bell as it fell towards the floor, restrained by a slender golden chain. Maithri clenched the grip and with a singing hiss the dart was reeled rapidly back into the original blade, which snapped closed with another flick of Maithri's wrist.

"No fucking way!" Olivia breathed, Marcella too was struck speechless.

"U-Unbelievable." She finally stuttered out. Maithri calmly slid the blade back into its sheath and carefully belted it around her waist, the long golden knife lay lengthwise against her bulging belly as though it had always been there. Marcella and Olivia made eye contact and grinned sheepishly.

"I don't know filha... Maybe she is too much for you to handle?" Marcella snickered, giving Maithri a playful wink.

"Oh, I'll manage somehow." Her daughter smirked, reaching out and looping their arms together, she pulled Maithri close and whispered in her ear. "That was sooo cool!" They both giggled for a second before Marcella became serious again, taking the rest of her chosen gear out of her duffel and outfitting her harness. It was extremely awkward due to her advanced pregnancy, but she made it work, arranging things until they became as comfortable as her girth would allow.

They all stood around for a moment, looking each other up and down. "I think we're ready." Marcella murmured. "We'll take one of the new corridors straight through the jungle." She said, already turning towards the door. Maithri and Olivia followed somewhat demurely behind her, chatting quietly as Marcella charted the best rout to reach the Enclave as quickly as possible. Yet another new surprise awaited them as they reached the first spur of the android corridor closest to the villa.

Sleek, shimmery, translucent cars, each as large as a bus glided silently along a slender monorail that seemed to have grown out of the center of the concourse. They moved slowly, basically a fast walk, there were wide gaps between them. Some of the 'cars' were open, flat and empty, some had walls and seats, windows and tables, others seemed to be in various stages of construction or... Formation? The three women approached cautiously, staring in awe at the mystifying procession. Marcella almost shouted when Olivia reached out to gingerly touch one of the moving platforms, but it was already too late.

Her daughter felt it sliding friction-free underneath her hand, smooth and cool as glass. Marcella bit her tongue as Maithri reached out too. Then finally, begrudgingly she stepped forward and put out her own hand. Experimentally she pushed, but the car didn't budge or slow in the slightest. It seemed to defy physics, but that was nothing new, ever since the AI had started changing things, nothing would surprise her anymore. "They're heading straight towards the city." Olivia said softly.

The three of them looked, and in the distance they could just discern the faint glinting of structures on the horizon, nestled in the well-defined notch created by the flattening of the jungle where the path cut through it. "That they are." Marcella said, her voice dripping with suspicion.

"We could probably just hop on one of these... Things, ride it all the way there?" Olivia said out loud, enjoying the sensation of the cool sleek surface sliding underneath her palm.

Marcella shrugged. "I'd rather walk, but I'll let the two of you decide." She finally replied noncommittally. Olivia grinned and grabbed Maithri by the hand. Taking a gentle leap she hopped onto one of the flat cars that only had a scattering of comfortable looking seats and upside down L shaped tables. Maithri immediately hopped up behind her to avoid being pulled off balance. They both turned and beckoned Marcella who started to quickly walk alongside the car they'd chosen, trying to glower but also failing to suppress a smile.

"Hurry up now, you'll be left behind!" Olivia laughed, cupping her free hand to her mouth to project her voice.

"Why so slow velha Senhora, did you tie your bootlaces together this morning?" Maithri chortled. Marcella scowled and stopped in her tracks, she put on a big grin and started to wave rather theatrically.

"Bon Voyage ladies! See you later!" Olivia and Maithri actually started walking backwards, down the length of the car, trying to get back to where Marcella was standing, looking a bit panicked. But the older woman just cackled, waited until the car was just about to sail past, and deftly hopped up onto the end with a delicate grunt. She clutched her belly gently and gave it a few reassuring rubs. "Ooo, she's kicking." The two girls finally reached her and the three of them collided in an awkward huff. "Alright, alright." Marcella chuckled. "Mamães here."

Gently she pushed the two girls away and the three of them started heading back towards the front of the car in single file. The landscape drifted by dreamily. The ride was perfectly smooth, not a single bump, jitter, or variation in speed. If it had a single drawback at all, it turned out to be rather boring. Fairly quickly they had explored every square centimeter of their mysterious craft and had resigned themselves to a small cluster of seats on the right side. There was one short bench and a single seat with a single arm on the opposite side of a table barely large enough for them to rest their elbows.

"At this speed we should be there in about twenty minutes." Marcella sulked, tapping her time patch to cycle through chronometric modes. "I was going to go over tactics while we walked... But I suppose there's still plenty of time. We'll be in a heavily urban environment for most of the mission, so there are certain rules to follow to maximize our safety. The Enclave though... I know nothing about it, no one does really, so we'll go over dynamic tactics too. Now listen up ladies!" She said gruffly, slapping both her hands down on the table and grinning wolfishly.

For the next twenty minutes she drilled the basics into their heads, satisfied that at the very least they wouldn't be getting in her way. She'd trained hundreds of recruits when she was a solider, honed them into ruthless killing machines, and these girls weren't exactly green. It's unlikely they were strolling into the jaws of death, but she was confident that Olivia could handle most of the situations they might encounter and Maithri was certainly full of surprises. Marcella felt strangely confident as the first vestiges of the city began to rise up around them, albeit overtly less vertical than she remembered.

2022-12-17 through the breach

It had been half an hour since they'd disembarked from the ghostly train, the cars continuing onward towards their unknown destination. Olivia trailed her fingers over the holster on her right hip, the cool dense plastic of the disintegrator restored a quotient of her steadily declining calm. She was ready at any moment to pull it free and blast whatever unlucky obstacle presented itself. The overall mood within the smoldering metropolis was highly mixed. The small wandering parties they stumbled across were typically unarmed, scared, predominantly tense, but also strangely excited.

Olivia could understand, the wall surrounding the Enclave, the notorious "Cyberwall" hadn't just been breached, it had been systematically disassembled during the night. The latest in the line of monolithic structures to be strategically disassembled and brought low by the AI and it's army of mechanical stick-men. A new vivid light flooded the nearly empty streets, illuminating dark dilapidated corners that had previously known only the perpetual twilight of the skyline's shade. There was chaos too, loud distant booms, and sometimes screams. Smoke and the occasional fire, the burning wreckage of an unknown entity. There were corpses too, but not many. Most were killed cleanly, execution style. No doubt the Favalos were using the pandemonium to tie up some loose ends.

State Soldiers were seen here and there, jungle fatigues in sharp contrast to the sleek whites and silvers of the surrounding architecture, but they didn't seem very keen on maintaining order, it was clear that they'd given up at some point and were now merely pretending to patrol, probably to avoid any future prospect of court-martial. Since Calico had reportedly pulled out, these were probably in the process of withdrawal, or deserters anyway. Rarely the women would catch a glimpse of an elite Enclave operator, they always seemed spooked despite being covered from head to toe in adaptive body armor and packing a small arsenal.

The gleaming metal androids also roamed the battered hexagonal grid, they strode boldly and unconcernedly down the middle of the street, their headless shoulders giving no indication as to their mission or even their immediate destination. "Maybe they're sight-seeing." Maithri had quipped, raising a snicker from Marcella and a snort from Olivia.

Marcella had slung a short light collapsible carbine across her back before they'd left the favela, and it was in her hands now, although she carried it in a casual and relaxed way, stock braced against the side of her not-so-subtle baby bump, with its crimson-violet lens pointed halfway to the ground. Her eyes never stopped roving as they moved, and yet she made no attempt to take the lead. She seemed perfectly content to let Olivia guide their group. She actually seemed to be enjoying herself.

"This is my kind of chaos." She hissed, almost humming to herself as she slung her rifle back and pulled out her hand drawn map. The girls closed in on either side and helped her pinpoint their location. "We're about a hundred meters from the outpost where they have the cracking equipment we need. One of my old buddies owes me a favor so she'll let us in and we can decode the chit. There will still be a lot of soldiers around probably, so we need to go in the back door, we'll take this longer round-about route." She traced the red line that zigzagged around the surrounding structures, terminating in a small alcove.

She put the map away and swung her rifle back into position. All three of them skirted the wall they had paused against, cutting down a narrow alley, a dog growled from a low grate setting them all on edge, but they slipped passed without incident. Silently Marcella pointed out the security cameras as they got closer, it was slow going but they moved cautiously in short sprints, staying in their blind spots. After twenty minutes of skulking about they reached the small inset security entrance. Marcella tapped on the heavy metal door with the melee attachment of her carbine. "Open up Leite." She said, almost laughing.

A bolt scraped and the door swung inward. The three of them shuffled inside and a state solider pushed it shut behind them. She was squat with big tits, barely contained underneath her uniform, which was pretty much bursting at the seams. The buttons looked like they might fly off at any second, Olivia thought. Her hair was straight and dark blue black, pulled into a tight bun with a pair of mat-black metal chopsticks stabbed through diagonally. Her eyes were small but beautiful and shrewd. "This is my daughter and her girlfriend." Marcella said, throwing her rifle back over her shoulder.