Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Fantaisie Sign ❯ You're Taking Over Me ( Chapter 17 )

DISCLAIMER: Cowboy Bebop and its characters are owned by the anime companies that made them, and not by me.

Author's Note: This fanfic is in the first-person style, with the POV being Edward's for all but a few chapters (and when the POV is different, I won't switch mid-chapter, the whole chapter will be like that). I've never even attempted doing something like this before, so bear with me.

French Note: For the few (non-generic) French language bits in this fic, I'll be using Babelfish. So pardon my French. ^_^

---

How could this have happened? Today was supposed to be the best day of my life, but it had collapsed into a terrible ordeal of terror and bloodshed. As Frémont's voice came over the PA, all I could think about was that we were all going to die... my friends... Sylvan... everyone...

"This is horrible," Asada sobbed, tears streaming down her face. "How could the French syndicate possibly have taken over this huge building? There must be thousands of them... tens of thousands... we'll never make it out alive! We'll never-"

"Calm down," Curtis said, placing his finger to Asada's lips. "I know we can find a way to save everyone, if we just calm down."

"But they're right outside," Asada whispered, her voice trembling. "Right outside this room... as soon as we step out, they'll shoot all three of us!"

"Edward doesn't think so," I said, trying my best to come up with a plan. My three main objectives now were as follows: keeping Sukina from being raped, saving Sylvan and Kirsten, and escaping from the building with my friends and I, safe and sound. Easier said than done... "I'll tell you what. I'll check outside, and if any of the bad men are there, I'll come back here."

"But what if you're seen?" Asada said frantically.

"I won't be," I promised her. "Ed will signal if the coast is clear."

Leaving Asada and Curtis inside the bathroom stall, I quietly crept out and made my way toward the entrance of the restroom. When I went in here the first time, the Syndicate men passed by this area, but I was still extremely afraid... they could be waiting outside, after all. Shivering, I walked up to the entrance and slowly peeked around the corner to take a look outside...

"Oh please, oh please, oh please..."

Nothing. Not a single Syndicate person in sight. At the far left side of my field of vision, I spotted the ice cream restaurant, where Sylvan and Kirsten were still trapped as hostages. No Syndicate members were standing outside, but I could see several men milling inside the restaurant. The rest of the people on the floor must have been evacuated, thankfully...

"Ed," Asada whispered, peeking her head out of the bathroom stall. "See anything?"

"The coast is clear," I whispered back to her. "But be very, very careful..."

Asada and Curtis slowly walked out of the stall and made their way to the entrance of the restroom, until they were standing right beside me. We could all see the restaurant and the Syndicate thugs inside.

"We're not going back there, are we?" Asada asked.

"Not yet," I said. "That little girl Edward told you guys about... we've gotta save her first!"

"Wait, wait, wait, Ed," Curtis said, waving his arms. "We don't even know where she is... this floor is huge, she could be anywhere!"

"Well, think about places a bad man would take a little girl," I said, my mind beginning to brainstorm. "Storage closets, that sort of thing."

"What about bathrooms?" Asada asked. "Ruling out this one, of course."

"Bingo," I whispered. "She might have been rude to Edward, but... we can't let her get hurt! She's just a child..."

"What if someone sees us?" Asada said in a worried tone. "We're unarmed... we'd be dead meat!"

"Asada, I promise you... I won't let you get hurt," Curtis said. He pointed to the cut above Asada's eye, which still hadn't fully healed from the ordeal back at the Fantaisie Sign. "I won't let those Syndicate jerks hurt you again..."

"Thanks," Asada said, kissing Curtis on the cheek. "I trust you... plus, I'm confident that if worse comes to worse, I can take care of myself as well... thanks, guys."

"Then let's go," I said, pointing to the right side of the corridor. It seemed to circle around, so I was sure that a round-about path would take us back to the restaurant, and we wouldn't get lost. "Search every little doorway you find..."

Quietly and carefully, we began to walk down the corridor. I was worried that the thugs inside the restaurant would look back and see us, but evidently they were too preoccupied with guarding the hostages. Kirsten, Sylvan, please be okay...

"First door," Asada said, pointing to a small, white door that read 'Maintenance'. "Be careful..."

"Wait," I said, putting my hand on the doorknob. "There could be anything inside here... if the bad man's in there, he might start shooting."

"You're right," Asada said, her voice trembling. "Ed..."

"It'll be alright," Curtis said reassuringly. "Open it up, Ed."

I twisted the knob and opened the door. Inside, there were brooms, a few toolboxes, and a couple of mops. No people.

"Not here," I said, getting more and more worried for Sukina's safety. "Maybe we should split up..."

"I don't want to leave Asada," Curtis said, Asada's hand tightly gripping his own. "And I don't think it's a good idea for you to leave either."

"But... but that man, he might be getting ready to rape Sukina!" I protested. "The longer it takes to find her, the more danger she's in!"

"Ed's right," Asada said before Curtis got a chance to speak again. She released her grip on Curtis' hand. "I really don't want to do this... but... we've got no choice. We have to find that girl!"

"Asada, I... are you sure you're going to be alright?" Curtis asked, looking into her eyes.

"Edward is sure," I said, trying to dissuade both of their fears. "Asada is really tough... we've fought Syndicate bad guys before."

"That's right," Asada said, cracking a slight smile. "Curtis, this is a risk we've got to take... I believe that we were missed by the thugs for a reason. We're probably three of the last free people left in here, and we need to do as much as we can to help those who are still trapped... we have to protect them. It's our duty."

"Wow," I said, a bit stunned by Asada's sudden determination. "That was good, Asada."

"I'm trying to calm myself down, okay?" Asada said, her frantic tone returning.

"Well, I'm sold," Curtis said. "But once we save that girl... where do we meet?"

"Women's restroom, same as before," I said. "Try to get anything you can from that thug when you find him. His guns and any weapons he has..."

"We're going to storm the restaurant too?" Asada asked.

"We'll try... but we have to save Sukina first," I said. "Ed knows we can do this... we have to... "

"Then let's get going," Curtis said. As soon as he'd finished speaking, we all began searching the various rooms in the corridor, being careful to avoid being detected by any Syndicate thugs who might be roaming around. Even though we'd agreed to split up, we stuck pretty close to one another, and I only lost sight of Curtis and Asada twice during the search. After making it almost all the way around the corridor (finding absolutely no one at all, including Syndicate thugs. The evacuation had gone rather smoothly), I began to lose hope. I slumped up against a door and sighed.

"What's the use?" I said quietly, a tear starting to form in my eye. "We're... not going to find Sukina..."

And then, I heard it. A girl's scream coming from one of the nearby office rooms, the room right next to the room that I'd just checked. But how did Ed miss it? Of course, it wasn't a closet or a bathroom, so I hadn't checked it... it was an office! I looked around for Asada or Curtis, but I couldn't see either of them. Slowly sidling over to the office's door, I put my hand on the doorknob and prepared myself for the worst. We'd searched the floor rather quickly, but it had still been probably fifteen minutes since the man carried Sukina away... who knows what could've happened in that time? My muscles began to tense... sweat poured down my brow... Ed isn't ready for this, Ed isn't ready for this... snap out of it, Edward!

I threw open the door, and there was Sukina. The Syndicate thug who had carried her off was lying on the floor on top of her, pinning both of her arms over her head with one of his own. He'd already stripped her down to her undergarments, but I was pretty sure that he hadn't raped Sukina yet, which caused me to sigh with relief. The man himself had his pants down around his knees (not his underwear, though, just his neatly-pressed pants)... I'd literally caught him with his pants down. As he turned to look at me, I struck, leaping at him and kicking him hard in the face, sending him sprawling across the room.

"Leave Sukina alone, you jerk!" I shouted, rage overcoming me. As the stunned Syndicate thug began to reach for his weapon, I dove toward him and punched him in the arm, causing the pistol he was carrying to skid along the floor, toward Sukina. I rolled off of the man and stomped on his groin before he could get to his feet, causing him to howl in pain and pass out on the ground, his mouth wide open.

"Ed, what happened?" Asada whispered, rushing into the room along with Curtis. "Are you..."

"Holy crap!" Curtis shouted, seeing the Syndicate thug passed out on the floor. As I began to dust myself off, Sukina wearily rose to her feet, tears streaming down her face.

"Oh... oh... my god..." she gasped, looking up at me. "How did... why did..."

"Sukina," I said, picking her slightly ripped clothes up from the desk and walking over to her. "These are yours, Ed presumes?"

"Thank you... thank you so much!" Sukina sobbed, collapsing into my chest and wrapping her arms around my waist. "I... can never repay-"

"Don't worry about it," I said, hugging her tightly. "I'm just glad you're safe, Sukina. Did he... he didn't-"

"He would have if it weren't for you," Sukina said, regaining her composure slightly. She slowly put her clothes back on, and as she did I could see the bruises on her face and the thin trickle of blood coming from the right side of her lip. She'd probably been smacked around a few times... I began to get angry again, and for a second, I thought about picking up the gun on the ground and... no... was Edward really thinking this?

"I'm glad that's over," Asada said, leaning down and picking up the gun that had been lying on the ground. "Now we can save Sylvan and Kirsten, right?"

"Edward..." Sukina said, sniffling and looking up at me. "Why did you save me, Ed? After I treated you so badly... why did you risk your life to come save me?"

"Sukina, I couldn't have just left you here to get hurt," I said, gently wiping away her tears with my hand. "You're not a mean person, Sukina... I know you're not... but if that bad person had had his way with you here, you might never get the chance to show the world the wonderful person I know you are!"

"You don't... really think that, do you, Ed?" Sukina said, her cynical tone starting to return. "I mean... you can't possibly... I was so mean to you, and-"

"Sukina, everyone deserves a second chance," I said seriously. "All I want is a second chance for our friendship, okay?"

"You... really want to be friends?" Sukina said longingly, her eyes lighting up. "Even after I-"

"Just forget it, Sukina... forget our game of Dance Party, even forget I saved you... let's just start over, okay? My name is Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivuruski the 4th! What's your name?"

Sukina began to giggle. As I looked over at Curtis and Asada, I could see Curtis whispering something to her, but I couldn't tell quite what it was.

"Thanks, Ed..." Sukina said, hugging me again. Just then, the thug whom I'd just knocked out began to groan. I gasped, but Sukina quickly ran over and kicked the man in the head as hard as she could, knocking him out again. "That's for hurting me..."

Sukina spat on the unconscious thug and walked over to me. I smiled.

"She's a nice girl, Edward knows it... she's just a bit jaded is all. But... I can't let her be in this place any longer. I've got to get her out of this tower somehow... it's too dangerous!"

I took Sukina's hand, then led her over to Asada and Curtis. Ed is just gonna have to save Sylvan alone...

"What's up, Ed?" Asada said as I placed Sukina next to them.

"Sukina, you're going to have to go with them, alright?" I said. "This is Asada, and that's Curtis. You three are going to get out of here together. They're good people, Sukina, I promise."

"Ed, are you crazy?" Curtis said. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to save Sylvan and Kirsten, that's what I'm doing," I said, starting to walk out of the room. "You guys get out of here, Ed is sure you can find a way. They're letting most of the people out of the tower, just find a crowd that's evacuating and follow them. You have to get Sukina out of here."

"Ed, no!" Asada yelled. "You can't, not alone!"

"I have to, Asada. I promise, nothing will happen to me... I'll get Sylvan and Kirsten out, and-"

"Not by yourself!" Asada pleaded, tears streaming down her face. "Ed, no!"

"This is just something Ed has to do," Curtis said, clutching Asada's hand again. "Asada, Edward trusted us to be safe... now we have to trust Ed."

"But... she can't take on all of those Syndicate thugs by herself!" Asada shouted. "No one can!"

"She saved me," Sukina said softly. "I haven't known Ed for very long, but... she saved my life, and, even more amazingly, almost beat me at Dance Party! If anyone can do the impossible, it's Edward... that is your name, right?"

I nodded.

"If you see any of the bad Syndicate men, use the gun.... and don't worry, I'll be safe," I said, hugging Asada. "Bye bye gotta go now!"

I ran out of the room and walked around the corridor. Looking behind me, I could see Curtis, Asada, and Sukina heading for the nearest elevator. Thank goodness... Edward doesn't know if she can save you all by herself, Sylvan... but she's certainly going to try!

But when I got around to the ice cream restaurant again, I was confronted with an incredible sight. The entire restaurant was completely devoid of people, save for a few corpses lying on the ground... all of them Syndicate thugs. Chairs lay strewn about with pieces of duct tape hanging off the sides. I absolutely couldn't believe it... my fear and trepidation were replaced with an incredible feeling of relief. The hostages in the restaurant must have escaped! But... but how?

"Hello, hello?" I said softly. "Is there anybody in here?"

I walked around the empty restaurant for a few moments. There was no sign of life, anywhere... the arcade machines were still playing, but there was no one around... then, I heard a sound from behind me.

"Footsteps!" I thought, spinning around. "Someone's still in here..."

But before I could began looking around the restaurant again, a hand clasped over my mouth. With a muffled shout, I threw my elbow back toward whoever had grabbed me, catching them right in the stomach. I heard a sharp intake of breath, and as I spun around to see who had grabbed me, I gasped.

"Kirsten!" I said, and I began to feel embarrassed as my red-haired friend stumbled about, clutching her stomach. "You know, you really shouldn't grab someone like that..."

"It's... alright," Kirsten gasped as she looked up at me and started to get her wind back. "Sorry about that... you're really jittery, you know that?"

With a smile and a giggle, Kirsten hugged me, and I giggled and hugged her back. Then, I began to speak.

"What happened here?" I asked curiously, looking around the room. "Did you guys.... you escaped, didn't you? Where's Sylvan?"

"Of course we escaped... oh man, Ed, your boyfriend is a badass!" Kirsten said. "Of course, I had a hand in the escape too... along with the thirteen other people. It was pretty much a group effort... no casualties, isn't that amazing? Well, there were some Syndicate casualties... the ones that aren't dead are taped up in one of the bathrooms."

"But... where is Sylvan?" I asked, glad that everyone had escaped but still worried about my friend.

"He's looking for Frémont... and he says he's going to settle the score with him, once and for all. I tried to get him to wait here with me for you, but he insisted... oh yeah, and he managed to get the exact location of the bomb from one of the guys here!"

"What?" I said, shocked at the good news. "But... where is it?"

"It's at the center of the tower, which is on the 75th level," Kirsten said, and I beckoned her to continue. "Guess what? It's run by a computer program. That means that-"

I could hack it! I could hack the bomb and deactivate it! I knew that there were probably thousands of police and military personnel outside... there had to be, right? I mean, this was a huge terrorist attack that we were dealing with here... they wouldn't be able to fight the Syndicate thugs, though, because of the bomb! So if I could deactivate the bomb...

"If you could hack the thing and deactivate it, the SWAT teams could come in and save everybody!" Kirsten said jubilantly.

But... wait... one problem.

"Ed doesn't have her Tomato," I said sadly. "That's where all of Ed's special super-duper hacking programs are... but it's back at my dorm room!"

"Oh.... oh, crap," Kirsten replied. "That's no good-"

"Wait!" I shouted, an idea creeping into my head. "Edward can write a hacking program!"

"On the fly? All quick-like?" Kirsten said. "How fast can you program a computer?"

"Well, duh," I said. "I'm Radical Edward! Follow meeeeee!"

Remembering that there was a laptop computer in the office where I'd stopped the thug's attack on Sukina earlier, I ran toward the office, with the still-winded Kirsten struggling to keep up. Finally, I reached the office and ran inside. I casually walked over to the laptop computer, when suddenly, the thug from earlier stood up and smiled at me, a vicious look on his face.

"It's you!" the thug shouted, wiping a stream of blood from his nose. "Say goodnight, girlie."

"Ed, duck!" Kirsten shouted from behind me. As I hit the deck, I could hear a loud burst of gunfire from Kirsten's general direction. Looking toward her, I saw her holding an M-16 in her right hand, her finger on the trigger. Oh, Kirsten...

"Kirsten, where'd you get that?" I said, standing up. Suddenly, I remembered. All of the Syndicate thugs in the restaurant had them... Kirsten must have picked one up from one of the dead thugs.

"Back at the restaurant," Kirsten said, still holding the gun. "I... didn't want to kill him, Ed, you know that-"

"You had to, Kirsten," I said consolingly. I looked at the dead thug's corpse on the ground, then leaned down and picked up the laptop from the desk next to him. "Thanks... I owe you one."

"What was that?" shouted a voice from the doorway. Asada...

"Asada, Edward told you to take Sukina somewhere safe!" I yelled at her.

"It's okay, Curtis still has her," Asada said. "We met up with a group who was leaving on the first floor... it's chaos down there... there are helicopters and stuff everywhere outside... they won't come in because-"

"Of the bomb," Kirsten said. "Edward's gonna go stop it!"

"Wait, wait, how did you get back here?" I asked. "The Syndicate men wouldn't have let you come back up in an elevator..."

"So I took the stairs," Asada said. "There's nobody covering them... I couldn't believe it either."

"We should probably take the stairs up to the 75th floor then," Kirsten suggested.

"I'll show you," Asada said. "Follow me."

---

It didn't take long to get to the stairs from the office. As we began climbing the long flights of stairs leading up the tower, we made especially sure to look for any Syndicate thugs that may be patrolling the stairs.

"They're probably crawling everywhere on the 75th floor, you guys," Asada said. "Ed, are you sure you can do this?"

"Edward has to do this, you know that," I said. "If I don't diffuse the bomb, a lot of people could still die. There are probably hostages on every floor, just like Sylvan and Kirsten were."

"True..." Kirsten said as we passed the 50th floor. "If we... if we don't make it out alive-"

"We will make it out alive, you guys!" I said, trying to calm Asada and Kirsten down, but mostly trying to calm myself down. "All we have to do is be careful and stay focused..."

"There's probably a hundred guys on that floor... " Asada said nervously. "They have to protect the bomb or their whole plan goes bust."

"Guys, let's try to think pleasant thoughts, okay?" I said. The more that Asada and Kirsten worried, the more terrified I became... and I was terrified already! This was probably ten times more dangerous than any bounty hunting mission I'd been on... I just hoped I could diffuse the bomb and then get out of the building... but... what about Sylvan?

"Well, this is it," Kirsten said, pointing to a sign that read '75th Floor' and a door next to it.

"Who should go first?" Asada asked.

"I will," I said, walking up to the door and slowly turning the knob.

"I can't watch..." Asada said, tightly closing her eyes.

"Guys..." I said, trying the knob several times. "It's locked!"

"They must have locked it so a surprise SWAT team couldn't come up the stairs and try to get in," Kirsten said. "Wait, a SWAT team would bust the door down. That's what we've got to do!"

"Wait," Asada said. "They're probably waiting at this door... if they know people will come in, they've probably got it guarded really, really well."

"We can't break down the door, anyway," I said. "It opens out this way... we can't bust it in. We've just got to pick the lock."

"I can't believe it's not an electronic lock," Kirsten said. "Then you could just hack it."

"That's okay," I said, reaching into my hair and pulling out a tiny hairpin. "Dad says to always keep one of these to pick locks. You know, padlocks, handcuffs, that sort of thing."

"That actually works?" Asada said skeptically.

"Of course it does," I told her, putting the hairpin into the doorknob's tiny keyhole and jimmying it around. "You just... have to find... the right... there!"

I put my hand on the doorknob and began to turn it. Sure enough, it was unlocked.

"Guys... if there's some sort of booby trap or something on this door that kills us all," Kirsten whispered, "I just want to say-"

"It's open," Asada said as I slowly creaked open the door. "No booby trap."

"No trap, no guns, no Syndicate people, no nothing," I said, walking out into the open corridor. "It's empty..."

Asada, Kirsten, and I looked around the wide, circular hallway. It greatly resembled the hall on the 16th floor, and sure enough, there wasn't a single person milling about. Had the Syndicate thug lied to Sylvan? My heart began to sink.

"I don't think this is the floor, you guys," I said dejectedly. "We messed up."

"No, it's got to be," Kirsten said. "The 75th floor is at the center of the structure, which is the only place you can put a bomb that will blow the whole thing up. Any higher and it will leave the bottoms of the legs alone. Any lower and you'd have to put it in one of the legs, and the tower can stand on three legs. It can stand on one leg. You'd have to put the bomb at the center, and this is the center floor, where the legs meet the rest of the building. This has got to be it!"

"So... where's the bomb, then?" Asada asked.

"Let's start looking," I said quietly.

The three of us began to walk down the hallway, noting all of the shops and restaurants on the floor. The center of the tower was a big tourist area, just like the observation deck at the very top. As we searched, I began to think back to the time that Sylvan had taken me up to the observation deck on our date. After we kissed, I'd gone to the computer terminal and had researched the tower.

---

"A vital feature of our building is the central control area on the 75th floor. This is where most of the regulation consoles in the building are located. Temperature and air quality are controlled here, along with lights, power, and many other features. This room is off limits to the public."

---

"Ed knows where the bomb is!" I said. "The central control area!"

"That's too obvious," Kirsten said. "They'd never put it there... it's probably in a closet or a bathroom or something."

"No.... no, Ed might be onto something," Asada said. "People would think that it was so obvious... they'd never look there! So it's not obvious at all!"

"It must be there!" I said. "C'mon, let's-"

"I hear something!" shouted a voice from around the corner. The voice had a heavy French accent, and was immediately accompanied by loud footsteps.

"Oh, crap," Kirsten whispered. "Syndicate thugs!"

"Do we run, or fight?" Asada asked.

"We run," I said, pointing toward a restroom. "If we fight, it'll cause a commotion and they might detonate the bomb!"

"Darn, I wanted to fight," Kirsten sighed. "But you've got a point, Ed... let's hurry!"

The three of us ducked into the women's restroom just as two Syndicate men approached. As Kirsten, Asada and I crouched inside a restroom stall, the men stood in the entrance and began to speak.

"You sure you heard something?" said one of them.

"Of course I did," the other one said. "I think there are people in here."

"There is no way in hell that I'm going into a women's restroom," said the first man. "It is perverted and rude."

"Well, at least one of them has a sense of decency," I thought.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, there's no one in here!" the second man shouted.

"But you said you thought there were people in here!" said the first man.

"Well, I don't think they're in here to take a piss," replied the second man. "If you are not going, I am!"

"Fine, but I'm waiting out here," said the first man. "Don't blame me if you get slapped."

"I'm the one with the gun, remember?" said the second man. "Jesus..."

As the man entered the restroom, my mind quickly raced to find some way to take him out.

"What are we going to do?" Asada whispered as softly as she could.

"I'm gonna shoot him," Kirsten whispered. "Wish me luck."

"Are you crazy?" I shouted, standing up. Oops...

"Ah-ha!" the thug shouted. He drew his gun, but before he could fire, Kirsten blasted him with the M-16, dropping him dead in a second. Then, the other thug rushed in, and Kirsten got him, too.

"Kirsten, are you out of your freaking mind?" I yelled. "Now every single Syndicate guy in the building is gonna be on us in two seconds!"

"Do you hear anyone coming?" replied Kirsten. "No. You know why? The central command room is reinforced with layers of hyperlexan, Ed. They can't hear a thing from in there."

"What about the other guards on patrol?" Asada asked. "And wait... how'd you know that?"

"I've checked out the terminal at the observation deck too, duh," Kirsten said. "Now come on. If there were other Syndicate guys on this floor besides the ones guarding the bomb, they'd be in here by now."

"Okay, Kirsten, but...."

I sighed. At least we'd gotten past these two thugs... I guess I had Kirsten to thank for that. She really seemed relaxed under pressure...even moreso than I was. She'd make a great bounty hunter...

---

"Well, here it is," Kirsten said, pointing to a large set of wooden double-doors. "The door leading to the central command room... and hopefully the bomb."

"It's an electronic lock," Asada said calmly. "Ed... do your stuff."

"You guys really think Edward can do this?" I said, a bit surprised that they had so much confidence in me. I knew I could do it, but I didn't know that they knew I could.

"Of course we do," Kirsten said, handing me a pair of cables. "You almost forgot these... luckily, I picked them up at the office. They're USB cables, right?"

I nodded, and hooked up the cables to the back of the laptop I was carrying. Then, I hooked up the cables to the small slot underneath the electronic lock.

"Alright, first, I need a hacking program," I said, typing on the laptop at a blazing speed. "It should take Edward two minutes to right one... yes, two minutoes"

"Alright, Ed!" Asada half-cheered. "You can do it!"

I entered the laptop's programming mainframe and began working up a simple hacking program. Nothing too fancy, but enough to penetrate moderately simple computer systems, like the kind that were usually used to program bombs. When I was traveling on the Bebop with Spike-person and Faye-Faye, we'd only come across a few, and it only took a simple program like the one I was writing now to take them down. After finishing the program, I ran it and quickly hacked the lock, switching it to the 'open' position.

"Done done donity done done!" I said, closing the laptop and unhooking the cables. Boy, those were the days...

The lock clicked, and Kirsten and Asada slowly and carefully opened the double doors. Inside was a small, narrow hallway, with dim overhead lighting. As we stepped into the hallway, I began to tremble.

"Ed has a bad feeling about-"

Just then, we heard a loud burst of gunfire. As we all fell to the ground, Kirsten clutched her leg and gritted her teeth.

"Dammit, I've been hit," Kirsten growled. I looked down the hallway and saw a large group of Syndicate thugs, all of them pointing black pistols at us. Kirsten lifted her M-16 and pressed the trigger. "Eat this, bastards!"

As Kirsten fired into the crowd of thugs, most of them were hit and fell back into the room. A couple were left. I rolled toward them and swept my legs underneath theirs, sending them crashing to the ground. As one of them pointed his gun at me, I grabbed his arm and bit down hard into his flesh, causing him to scream and dropped the gun. I slid the gun to Asada, along with the laptop computer and the cables. As the other man got up and attacked me, Asada pointed the gun at the man and fired, hitting him in the leg and knocking him down next to me. As I got up and ran past the fallen Syndicate thugs into the control room, I could hear muffled yelling all around me. I looked around and saw four chairs, to which three men and one woman, apparently the workers in the room at the time, had been tied to, their lips sealed with duct tape. As some of the men whom Kirsten had shot began to get up, I kicked them until they passed out, and soon, all ten of the thugs who had been in the room had been incapacitated. When that was finished, I collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily. That was a lot of work...

"Ed," Asada said, walking up to me. "You'll need this..."

Asada handed me the laptop computer and the cables. I turned to Asada and pointed at the four bound workers.

"Untie them," I said. "They've got to know where the bomb is!"

"I'm surprised they weren't killed already," Kirsten said, limping into the room and clutching her injured leg. "You guys are lucky, you know that?"

As Asada pulled the tape off of the woman's mouth, the woman began to speak with a frantic tone in her voice.

"The bomb's hooked up to the main console, at the back of the room," the woman said. "But if you touch it, it'll go off! It's pressure sensitive!"

"Great, just frigging great," Kirsten said as she began to work on another worker's knots. "How's Ed supposed to hook up the computer to hack the stupid thing if she can't even touch it?"

"Wait... Ed.... hack?" said another of the workers as the tape was pulled from his lips. "One of you is Radical Edward?"

"How does this person know Edward?" I thought as I turned away from the control console. "Yes... I am Radical Edward!"

"I can't believe it," the man said, getting up from the chair. By now, Asada and Kirsten had finished freeing the four workers, and had begun to tie up the thugs who were still alive, after Kirsten used some of the tape to patch the bullet wound in her leg. "The Radical Edward... and I thought that was just a myth."

"Well, believe it, buddy, the legend is here, and she's gonna save all of our asses!" Kirsten said happily. "Ed, do your stuff!"

"Wait, don't!" Asada said as I crouched down under the large, black box that I assumed was the bomb, USB cables in hand. "You'll kill us all!"

"No, Ed has the hacker's touch!" I said, very, very delicately plugging in the cable. Sure enough, there was no explosion. "Now to get to work!"

I knelt down in front of the laptop computer and entered the hacking program. Then, I began to type.

"Ed, are you sure you know what you're doing?" Asada asked. But that was the last thing I heard. My mind tuned out, my eyes completely focused on the computer screen. Before I knew it, I'd entered a place that I hadn't fully been in for quite some time... definitely not since entering Paris. At times, I'd completely stepped out.

---

You see, when my mother went missing, I retreated to my room. For days at a time I would lie on my bed and look up at the ceiling, lost in thought. I would daydream about my mother, day and night... and I would set off a place in my mind where I could go and be with her... in mind and spirit, if not in body. I drifted off there whenever I could, but as my memories of her faded, the space began to get cloudier and cloudier... I would begin to make things up as I went along, thoughts of my mother becoming more fantasy than reality. The day Daddy dropped me off at the convent, I couldn't take it anymore... I didn't throw a tantrum, or scream, or cry... I went to my room... well, the room I shared with about five other young students... I laid on my bed, staring up at the ceiling... but this time, I didn't think of mother... I didn't think of father... the space was empty now. I didn't know why... had the sadness, grief, and shock inundated the tiny room within my mind, flooding everything else out? Now... when I entered that room... it felt like a completely different place... it felt like... absolute ecstasy, harmony, contentment, happiness... it was, simply... the Radical Edward zone. I don't know why I chose to live here, but for years I stayed... I could still hear people, see people, feel people, react to them, but... being in the Radical Edward zone, that room in my mind, I couldn't help but feel happy... I saw things I'd never seen before... reading became incredible, so books became another retreat for me... I could read something and instantly know it, analyze a situation and instantly know of its intricacies... a godsend if you're a hacker, like I chose to be. Hacking was a joy, a way to mess with people, have fun... of course, I would always try to help people with my hacking. Never did I think it could save a huge number of lives...

And so, I had to enter the Radical Edward zone again. Fully, this time, for the first time in months. Now, more than ever, I would have to be...

---

"Ed needs to concentrate! Whoosh, zoom... I see... I see fire, walls of fire everywhere, better not hit one..."

"What's she talking about?" said Asada-person!

"Firewall," said Kirsten-person! "Shouldn't be much trouble for her..."

"Gotta find the on-off control, deactivate this sucker, whoooooooooo..... no, not here, not there, not anywhere... wait, there! Yes, yes, Edward sees all! Ed is on the ball! Whooo.... screeeeeeech! And... zoop! Once again, the day... is saved!"

---

"Bomb deactivated," came a robotic-sounding voice, an indicator that I had been successful in deactivating it. Thank God...

"Victory for Edward!" I said, standing up and giving a thumbs-up sign.

"You... really did it?" Asada said. "Oh, Edward!"

Before I could react, Asada dove upon me and embraced me in a crushing bear hug. I smiled and hugged her back. Then, I embraced Kirsten. The four control room workers applauded.

"That-a-girl!" said one of the male workers. "I don't know who you are, but whoever you are, I owe you my life!"

"We all owe Edward and her friends here our lives," said the female worker. "Thank you, very much..."

Now that the bomb had been deactivated, I had just one more thing to do.

"Asada, Kirsten... take the workers and get out of here," I said, handing the laptop to Asada. "The bomb can't be activated again without this, so it's safe to leave it. I reset the tamperproof settings and everything, so no matter what anyone does, the bomb cannot be activating without this computer. In fact, you should probably destroy it."

"Wait, Ed... where are you going?" Kirsten asked.

"I have to find Sylvan," I said, taking a pistol from Asada. "I can't... I can't let him face Cecelle Frémont alone."

"Edward, I know how you feel about him, but..."

"Don't try to follow me, please...." I said, interrupting Asada. "I have to tell Sylvan-"

"That you love him?" Kirsten said.

"No... I mean, I care about him... I can't let him throw his life away! Faye-Faye told me that Spike died just like this, for a stupid vendetta! I won't let Sylvan die the same way! I can't!"

"But.... how are we supposed to get out of here?" Asada shouted.

"The stairs," Kirsten said. "Ed's going to make it... she's gonna find Sylvan and they're both going to get out together! Right now, you and I have to tell the police and all those military guys out there that the bomb's been deactivated and that they can come into the building."

"Alright," Asada said. "Edward.... please be safe...."

I marched out of the room, determined not to let Sylvan meet his death against Frémont. The trouble was... I didn't even know where to look...

Sylvan, Edward won't let you die like Spike-person did... I won't let you face Frémont alone!

---

Whew, longest chapter yet! *wipes sweat off his brow and shakes his typing fingers like crazy to relieve the cramping* Only four chapters remain! The next one will be from Fremont's POV. Chapter 19 will be from Sylvan's, and the last two will be Ed's! How did Sylvan escape, anyway? Will Sylvan really fight Fremont? Can Edward help him att all? All of these questions will be answered in the last four chapters! So please review! ^_^