The couple of days since we had solved the problem of Parker's name, or rather Parker's surname, had gone by very quickly. We did not work, giving part of our time to our hobbies and socializing, as well as just idly wandered around the Aldecaldo camp, because there were no problems in the camp that required our intervention.
And just when I was thinking of calling Bestia or Regina myself, the latter called me.
"I'm listening to you..."
"I need your help..."
"Details?"
"I recommended to Shelmam one very cool tuner of brenes, who used to work at Double-u-en-es, he is really very cool, and from his last job he was kicked out not at all for his work qualities, just he started to make some machinations there... Anyway, it doesn't matter, the main thing you need to know is that he went to one of Helm's bases to customize the Brain, but Hal must have made a mistake somewhere...
"Let me guess, the girl's sweating through the roof?"
"Yeah... as long as she's in the warehouse and her actions don't attract much attention, but with every passing minute, the chance of her breaking out is getting greater and greater... and if it was just that, Max-it would all be taken care of. But Hal couldn't get away and is hiding from her in the warehouse...
"An address?"
I immediately got a message with more details which I forwarded to Panam and after almost a minute I got a reply from her that it was now almost three hours time to go there.
"I'm out of town and it's a three hour drive..."
"We don't have that much time..."
Regina sighed.
"Well. you could order an avi from Delamain, but it would cost a fortune..."
"I'll pay for it..."
I nodded a couple times.
"Okay, let's do it this way, I'll request a "bill of goods" from Del with the point of origin and arrival and forward it to you and you reimburse."
"I agree..."
"Then it's over... But no, what about the Helms, what do we do?"
"Hmm?"
"Well, I mean, the one with the roof leaking, and the others could have survived..."
"If they survived, help, if you can disarm the leaking one... I know someone who does research on Cyberpsychosis, or rather, pulling sane people out of that state. I can't guarantee they'll help her there, but at least it's not a nullification..."
"Well, you're right about that. Okay, we're out."
"Over and out."
I immediately cut off the connection with Regina and dialed the number of Delamayne, whose services I had never used before.
"Delamey is pleased to welcome you. This is the first time you have contacted us and as a token of appreciation for your trust in us, you are entitled to a ten percent discount on all ground transportation."
"Thank you, I would like to book an emergency transportation on an avi, from the coordinates located in the Badlands, to a point in Knight City."
"I'm sorry, but we don't provide that service."
"As far as I know, you do. This is included in the Excelsior package, as well as a few less expensive packages such as Platinum and Gold."
"Would you like to purchase an Excelsior package for this trip?"
"No, just a gold bag."
"I am grateful for the trust you place in Delamain. I would like to remind you that the combat mode is only available in Platinum and Excelsior level packages. Do you still want to buy the gold package for this trip?"
"Confirmed, gold package."
"I remind you that payment for such packages is made at the time of arrival or arrival of transportation. However, this also requires some prepayment."
"I realize..."
I first gave Delamain the point of pickup and the point of delivery.
"Arrival time avi thirty minutes."
And afterward, I paid for the Gold Package. Of course this could have been done later, when we sit in the avi, but... there is a small nuance, the package starts to work exactly from the moment of its payment, not from the moment of application for it.
"I wish to take advantage of the Gold Package privileges. Transportation should pick us up from the first point in the shortest possible time and deliver us to our destination in the same shortest possible time."
"Recalculating... avi arrival time seven minutes..."
I nodded.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, it's just my job."
The connection was cut off, and I ran to my battle suit, which I put on, as well as equipping the rest of my weapons of pistols, knives, and tonfa with energy blades. Just as quickly the rest of the girls were getting ready, even Panam was no exception. But this time she was not going to be a driver, but a stormtrooper covering with Becca the rangers.
"Okay, ladies."
It was about a minute before Delamaine arrived, the silhouette of the avi that was flying towards us from the direction of Knight City was increasing in size very quickly.
"Helm's in trouble. Judy, contact that lady and ask her what they even wanted with one Hal...and also how many girls were supposed to be in that warehouse where he edited the brains."
"Roger that."
"We have to save Shelm?"
Judy asked the question, and her eyes were already glowing showing that she was trying to contact the head of Helms.
"No, to save Hal. According to Regina, he's a very tough guy, and he got kicked out of his last job for something unrelated to his skills at editing brans. And apparently Regina needs this shot badly, but she doesn't mind if we spend some of our time doing first aid to Helms and disarming the one that leaked..."
"What are we supposed to do with her after that?"
The Avi landed in front of us and we loaded inside, after which I connected to the on-board computer through my personal port.
"Identity confirmed. David Martinez. Destination has been determined. Flight time is fifteen minutes. We wish you a pleasant flight."
"Thank you."
But the image of Del had already disappeared.
"Lucy, back to your question, we'll pass it on to Regina. She has contacts who deal with cybersychosis and a small chance of getting your personality and life back to normal is better than just zeroing in on the unfortunate."
"Yeah..."
"Girls..."
I looked at the renegades.
"...I don't have to tell you, but you stay out of Helm's network. Who knows what that Hal and that fool's leaky roof have gotten up to."
We flew on in silence, but we flew fast enough.
"Attention, there are no landing places for avi... at the destination."
"Thanks Del, you can drop me off without going down, just open the door and I'll drop down, good thing it's only ten meters high..."
I shrugged.
"Twelve meters and thirty-seven centimeters.
"It doesn't matter anymore, but the girls, if it's not too much trouble for you, drop them on the roof of this warehouse, getting as low as you can."
"Copy that."
The door of the avi opened, and I easily jumped out of it and pushed off the wall of the building I was falling past, turning my flight from purely vertical to diagonal. And by rolling when I touched the ground, I completely canceled the inertia and immediately headed towards the warehouse, while activating the sandi.
I jumped and flew into the open window on the second floor, in my hands tonfa blades which I was ready to turn on at any moment, but there was only one Shelma in a very bad condition. I didn't talk to her, I just injected her with an injector, which should stabilize her condition any minute now, and then I walked around the office inserting the chips and only then went out into the main room of the warehouse.
The girl below was really out of it...
What she was yelling I couldn't understand, still even though she had some weak sandi, she was too slow compared to me, so I just sprinted across the top tier of the warehouse and jumped on the girl, while hitting her a couple of hard with my disabled tonfa. It didn't help, it didn't incapacitate her, I could see that, but what to do?
I didn't really want to beat her to the point of extreme severity. She might pass out from the pain, but it wasn't her fault...
Sighing I almost completely disabled Sandi, still even so I was stronger than her. So even with a speed a little slower than the girl's I'd be able to stand up to her.
"Do you understand me?"
"Aah! I'll kill you!"
"You mean you don't understand? That's too bad. I guess I'll have to reset it."
I shook my head.
"Noooooooo!!!"
Her voice seemed to split and take on electronic notes.
"Kill-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you-you!!!
"Quietly, we've made our way into Helm's network, though operating through third-party resources that act as buffers between us and display information for us as if on a monitor... is a bit awkward. But, uh. Anyway, this Hal guy, from what we've seen, deliberately messed up the Brain.
I frowned.
"Intentionally?"
"Exactly. The girl who sweated Millie she, turned him down, according to her, even before this guy worked for Double-United. And this guy really didn't like it...
"This is all Hal's fault?"
I looked carefully at the frenzied girl, who froze for a few seconds at my words.
"Yeah! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"
"I'm sorry."
Continuing to hold her tightly I stroked her head.
"...I wish I could help you, but I can't let that happen. I'm under orders to keep him safe."
"I'll kill you!"
I lost interest in the girl.
"Any suggestions?"
"Contact the fixer and discuss what and how..."
Well, that's understandable, but what about the girl? She was no danger to me, sandy and mantis blades, that's all she had, the first one she couldn't use properly because I was holding her, and the second one for the same reason. It's all about knowing how to hold it so the blades can't extend out of her hands...
The girl continued to freak out lying on the floor I had her pinned to, and I decided to dial Regina.
"I'm listening to you..."
"It's Tihonja. There's some data coming in. not very good."
"What's the data?"
"A girl who's a roofie denied your handyman sex... according to her own words, and according to the videotape my girls were able to pull, it's not the first time it's happened. Also according to the circumstantial evidence, the girl's roof leak is Hal's fault. And it's not an accident."
Regina frowned.
"Circumstantial evidence?"
"Yes, the girls are gathering more information right now, so I'm in a bit of a quandary. On the one hand, I have an order and its failure will affect my reputation, but on the other hand, I can well imagine how you yourself will react if I fulfill it and then these details come out..."
"Yeah. I'll help you solve this dilemma. Hal has to survive, but you can't just let him go. If he's guilty, I'll punish him myself. the car will be here in an hour. The car for the girl and the survivors will be here at the same time."
"Roger that."
The connection broke, and I shook the girl a little, which made her stop howling her, "I'll kill-you-you-you-you-you-you-you!".
"Listen to me. I reported to Fixer, she guaranteed she'd punish Hal if there was proof of guilt."
"I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I! I'll kill you myself!
I gave her another shake.
"Hold still, you can't fight me anyway."
"Kill-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u!
"Yeah, yeah..."
I looked at her sadly.
"You better remember all your girlfriends who tried to stop you, some of them are still alive..."
I was glimpsing the warehouse when I fell on that psycho and my optics allowed me to say things like that with confidence. Badly wounded, but most of them are alive... yet as long as the girl's got a roof over a particular mind. And she wasn't at all intent on killing everyone and everything, though I suppose that's temporary. It's rare for any cyberpsychic to have the ability to control themselves during the active phase of a seizure. And during the inactive phase, they just become like vegetables...
While passive phases are extremely rare, typically cyberpsychs are in the active phase and that is where they are eliminated...
The existence of a passive phase at all is only known because several Max-so calls were not attended...
"Are you alive?"
"Yeah..."
"I... kill?"
"No, you didn't kill them, though if you don't get them help they may die soon."
"Help me."
That word came especially hard to her, and tears ran down her eyes.
"Kill! Hal! Kill-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u!
I shook my head and contacted the girls and allowed them to enter the warehouse to give first aid to all the girls who could still be helped...