A Remedy For Bliss

An unconscious sleep always had a Space Odyssey ring to it. Sleeping without dreams, but you could always somehow feel a deep pain in the sleep. How much time passed felt inconsequential, but her new found location held a few revelations. One, she was not dead. Two, she was not tied up. Three, judging my the marks on her wrist, at one point two may not have been true. Also, four, this mattress could be more comfortable. "Like, I was saying. I've got some extra work I need to put together." Bliss sat up and swung her legs off the edge of the mattress.

Sleeping in a pair of boots did not do many favors for her lower legs. "You know you should have taken these off right?" Bliss fit her hand between the lining and her tendon. "You didn't tape me up with the roll in my bag, so I guess I won't mess your place up, but I do need to get back to doing my work. You kinda knocked off my primary location." Her back popped as she leaned over to grab her toes, stretching out her back. "You haven't put together who I am yet, and that's cool, so I'm going to just keep it to myself for now."

Now she just needed her bag. And free reign to leave this place. One she could find, the other she hoped she would not have to take through massive destruction. "Where's my bag? I need to get in contact with someone from my team. If you could grab that for me, it would be pretty cool. K?"

Taking her bag was a good idea in hindsight, never leave someone with options. Asking for her name was just a formality though, he was trying to be polite. "You honestly think I don't know who you are, Bliss? You're more naive than I anticipated. If I was stupid enough to not know what heroes were operating and where they were doing it, then I wouldn't be doing my job very well. The fact you dropped that little scrap of information about your tech company was a bit of a dead giveaway. You really should play your cards closer to you chest." He didn't stand to gain anything from feigning ignorance as to her identity, although the extent of her powers was truly a surprise to him.

"I want to help you, and I want you to help me. I need intel that is beyond classified that implicates me in some stuff I'm not proud of. But I realise what you need means a lot as well." So far, so good, although whether this was an interrogation or not remained unclear, Remedy always wanted information, it was the lifeblood of his business. Obviously he needed to show her he was willing to co-operate, so he gave her the bag. Although he withheld the fact he'd cloned her phone, even though she'd find out soon enough. "You've got heart Bliss, I see a lot of myself in you. Angry, insecure, ready to lash out. I had everything taken from me when I was younger than you are. I don't even have a name anymore. But in you I see potential, someone who could be great but is scared to try. I don't want you to alter your life on my account, but I do want you to help me get my intel. Can you at least do that?"

"I just don't like to introduce myself. It takes away the pleasure when people know who I am." It would take a while for the stress rings around her knees to wear away, but for the most part Bliss felt good. "My headaches gone. That's pretty nice." The surroundings she found herself in did nothing to raise her spirits. Nor did her company. At one point Remedy told Bliss she reminded him of a younger Remedy. Bliss could only think of all the times she threatened Danny by saying she would list those same qualities. "I guess I deserve that."

"If I tried?" Bliss dug through her bag to pull out her phone. "I defended New York City a few years ago. I built a tech company that- well, I already went into that." With her phone found, now she just needed to charge it. "Well, this sucks. You kidnapped me, but you couldn't charge my phone? Inconsiderate." The phone just fell to the bottom of the utility bag. "I've got an idea. It doesn't directly help you. Helping you is nothing. I just need to hack data. Easy. What I'm going to do is a little cooler." Bliss redid her hair into a loose ponytail as her hands began to take on a life on their own. "So here's the plan. Here's the plan. I'm going to build a Trojan server base. Then we're going to steal an entire server room. Once we switch, I have access to their input, and I can encrypt all the files you need."

"Those who feel the need to brag about their accomplishments don't try. If you did try you'd see your achievements as part of the job. You defended New York, you know what I was doing while that was going down? Rescuing child soldiers from the hands of a powered warlord. Then the next day I was stabilising a local government in the Congo. Being a hero doesn't stop once you've done one big thing. It's a full-time job and you're always clocked in." He wasn't trying to insult her, New York was impressive, it was what put her on his radar, he was still finding it hard to believe that their encounter had been pure coincidence, but stranger things had happened.

"As far as your little server room idea goes, it's something that has to be done, and I'm more than capable of taking whatever we need." Working together was going to be interesting, to say the least, maybe they'd actually be able to talk without feeling the need to lecture the other, he was too old for it. "But respect is a two-way street, Bliss. I don't want to offend you, I want to treat you as an equal. If I show you respect then I expect you to do me the same service. I'm sorry for calling you 'kid' back there, it was arrogance on my part. I'm a cranky old man and I don't talk to people all that much. Now, if you're all set...lead the way"

"Oh, I try. I try really hard. Boo hoo, kids in Africa are sad. Let's talk about me." Bliss kept her head down as she looked to see if she kept anything else useful in her bag of tricks. "Yeah, respect is a cool thing. I need to plug this in." Not giving up on her phone, Bliss pulled out her charger, but did not wait for a response before plugging her phone in. "Okay, I need you to get me about twenty server towers. Anything will do probably. But, not to be a snob, but they should definitely have no analog parts or memory under 5 terabytes. If you get anything under an Eight Core Intel it's going in the fucking trash. You know, what I'll buy the servers."

The light came back on Bliss' phone with the start up ring. "You know who used to make an amazing server, Bliss Tech. The Blisstel Quad Core was revolutionary. Now I have to buy Eight Core's from Intel. What am I doing with my life." Bliss let her fingers do the work as she worked her way across the keyboard. Her order was ready to go, but Bliss lost her funding to pay for a custom computer let alone a server room. "I'm going to call my sister to see if she can help me out. Oh, and-" Bliss put her phone up in front of Remedy. "You're going to need to put your credit card info there."

Remedy didn't carry a credit card, it's hard to be off the grid if all of your purchases can be easily traced to a piece of plastic that's registered with the bank. Remedy didn't necessarily "have" his own money, every cent that he'd ever spent was based on his estimated value based on his exploits. He'd essentially created his own economy that ran on his word, if he wanted something, then his contacts would move money around through numerous military contracts and get him what he needed. Technically he was a billionaire multiple times over, yet he had no home or investments.

"Credit card number? Cute." Taking Bliss' phone, Remedy was quickly able to cash in on 15 different tech company contracts that he'd acquired after some corporate espionage. "I just got you your servers, I can even go to 25 if you like, unless you want something more extravagant, like a nuclear submarine?" He may have said it sarcastically, but he actually had one. "Now, what do you have in mind?"

Bliss pulled her phone back as Remedy went about his own business. Working off her own contacts, Bliss slipped past Mitsuko and went straight to Sara. "If we need to move mountains, I've got just the person. Oh, and twenty five would be great. I'm only using twenty, but I can always use something extra. Where are we picking these things up? I can put those servers anywhere, but I need to know where those intel docs you need are."

The phone vibrated in Sara's bag. She dug it out, lifting her sunglasses to see Bliss' text. Sara put the phone back in her bag before going back to relaxing on the beach. "Some other time, Bliss."

Bliss could get the hook up on the fly, but she would need a great amount of help to find a way into the building hosting the terminal. She sat down on a chair off to the side of the room, relaxing over the back of the rest. Her unconscious state did very little to recover any sleep, and she could feel the onset of a migraine begin to crawl back into her mind.

He was glad she responded well to the offer of 25, seeing as that was what he'd got, he considered it a peace offering. "We're picking them up from an airstrip about 200 miles from here, don't worry, I took the liberty of chartering a jet. You don't look like you'd do too well cooped up in a helicopter, so I thought I'd get transport that was comfortable." Getting the jet was on him, he had to dip into his mercenary money for that one. If an expenditure wasn't somehow military related then he had a hard time trying to justify the purchase. But maybe it'd put him in her good books.

"After we pick them up, a truck will take us to a warehouse just south of Bangkok, a hacker I know tells me that there's a private data point there that may have what we're both looking for." It had also become apparent that the data point at the Impact had been a set up by the US government to draw him out, Bliss was just unlucky to get caught in the crossfire. "The warehouse will be guarded, but we need to use it as a base of operations. Taking out the security won't be difficult, but I need you to eliminate any red flags that might alert people to our presence there. I'm pretty handy with a computer, but clearly you're a lot better than me." He started to notice that she was showing the same reaction to over-exerting herself from last time. "Now, let's get you an aspirin, we've got a plane to catch."

This guy traveled well. Bliss could respect that for 200 miles. "It's always a warehouse." No one set up their secret stations in ice cream shoppes. Not anymore at least. Too many flames users and heat rays for their taste. So, it all boiled down to Bliss getting inside while her escort took out the security detail. Her telekinesis always had a hand in knocking out cameras and disabling a good number of technological devices when coupled with her ability to know where the guts in a computer laid.

She looked fashionable, but not well suited for infiltration. No doubt Remedy already knew that, but Bliss would not want to go anywhere near something Remedy would deem worthy to wear. But, Bliss had just the outfit. She just needed someone to get it to her. "I'm sending the coordinates for the airfield to someone. They're going to drop me off a change of clothes."

Tet messages kept plugging in to Sara's phone. Bliss needed an outfit change more appropriate for an infiltration. That would mean a reprieve from her reprieve. "I guess it isn't too trying of a task. I think I left it loaded in the truck, so I just- How did Bliss get that far away from the Impact?" She could think about that on the drive over. For now, Sara just threw a shirt over her swimsuit and headed for the truck. On my way.

The jet wasn't all that bad, considering Remedy's primary mode of transportation was generally based on practicality and not luxury. He'd specifically requested no alcohol be on board, which was more for Bliss than for him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd drank, but he was pretty sure it was during a fellow soldier's birthday celebration in 1991. God, he was old.

It was pretty refreshing to have some decent food though, he had to admit. Remedy essentially lived on military rations, believing that it was his duty to direct every resource he had towards his mission of ending evil once and for all, or die trying. Now he was enjoying what must have been his first steak in 20 years, complete with succulent string beans and creamy mashed potatoes. He washed it all down with a protein shake, before devoting the rest of the trip to push-ups and abdominal crunches. His gene therapy had left him with a remarkable constitution, essentially meaning his muscles maintained themselves. But it felt good to work out, it got his juices flowing, made him feel alive.

"ETA 20 minutes Bliss, get ready." he said through the military earpiece he'd provided her with. He had no idea where she'd got to, he thought it was best just to leave her to her own devices. Although he hoped she was taking a nap in the bed, he needed her to be fully rested for what they were going to do. Checking his weapons and equipment, he hoped Bliss was up to the task at hand, the last thing he needed was another dead hero on his conscience.

Sara left a package at the airstrip. I'll be at the beach. Call me if you need back up. Bliss called for someone to load the crate into the plane and to not ask any questions. Getting it off could be troublesome, but Bliss actually planned on wearing it off to cut down on the problems.

Everyone of the cabinets Bliss checked for alcohol ended up being as empty her current bank account. "You gotta weird way of traveling. And by weird, I mean wrong." Bliss sat down across from Remedy and put her boots up on the empty seat next to him. After she changed, their was a distinct possibility she would burn these boots. "If I ate that, I'd probably have to take a pit stop during the heist and that would for sure- what are you doing?" Watching a man do push ups on the floor of a flying plane did catch Bliss as a bit odd. It had a good purpose, but Bliss just lifted a piece of bread to her mouth. "I want donuts next time. And gin and rum. Lemon juice too. I need sours as well. Are you writing this down? I feel like you should be writing this down, but I don't hear any writing." The rest of the trip went smoothly as Bliss was not thrown out of it.

Once the plane came to a suitable enough stopped position, Bliss made her way down to the cargo hold. Grabbing a crowbar, Bliss pulled the lid off the crating, dropping it next to whatever caches of goodies rested within the hold. A black, body suit rested atop a very nice suit of power armor. One of the only assets she managed to hold onto. "Nicely done. Now for a change of wardrobe."

Bliss threw her fashionable clothing to the side along with the boots she planned on burning. With the tightly composed body suit giving her a more combat ready look, Bliss moved it up a notch by stepping into the power armor. While not a full body suit fixed metal plates guarded Bliss' chest and a very reinforced visor both protected Bliss' face and gave her a valuable data point to work with. The armor did also allowed Bliss to channel her telekinesis into more controlled bursts of strength and speed- as long as she could keep her concentration from- "Okay, I look pretty good. Now, time to get to the getting."

Riding with Bliss wasn't exactly what Remedy would deem as "pleasant", but he had to play the hand he was dealt. Naturally, the lack of alcohol and sugary snacks had upset her, but he didn't care at this point. He needed her to be stone cold sober and not packed with sugar, hence why he opted for protein and vitamins.

Still, she'd picked suitable enough clothing for the mission, so suitable, in fact, that it made Remedy reconsider what he was wearing. His trusty WOLF uniform was state of the art, but this was state of the art in the 90s, the modifications he had made could only do so much. "Power armour, huh? Guessing that's to help with your telekinesis. Maybe a little too robust for me, but I could sure use something to amplify my force fields." He held off on asking her where she'd gotten it from, he'd have to follow it up with some of his tech guys, although they seemed to be idiots compared to Bliss. She might have been the most remarkable engineer for her age that he'd ever seen.

The drive to the warehouse was quiet enough, well, at least for Remedy. He never said a word during the trip and had no idea if Bliss did. He'd learned how to block out unwanted sounds when he realised that bullet fire could trigger him. He'd adapted meditation techniques that allowed him to ignore anything he wanted to, which in this case was Bliss. He didn't want to do it but the plane journey was enough conversation for him today. Maybe he'd be a little more receptive after he'd killed some special agents that wanted him dead.

"We're here." They weren't exactly parked outside, it was a matter of stealthily approaching the exterior of the building, which was a lot easier than he'd anticipated given their dual infiltration suits. "Now listen to me, and listen good. I need as many of these guys dead before they know we're here, preferably all of them, but go loud if you need to. According to the blueprints, the best way for me to access the building is through a skylight on the north side of the roof. From there, I'll descend onto a walkway that should give me a full spread of the interior. I'll mark the enemies and feed you the intel so you know what we're up against. Do not make a move until I'm on that walkway, understood?"

He moved quickly, knowing Bliss likely didn't want to stay still for long. Avoiding the security cameras at the perimeter, he encountered a surprisingly light amount of resistance. Two tangos approached from the north and were quickly disposed of with suppressed pistol fire. Why was this so easy? He could have simply jumped onto the roof given the amount of leg power he could generate, but that would be too loud, plus it went against every part of training he'd ever received. His grapple gun would suffice. "Okay, I'm in, prepare to..." Oh God, now it was clear why security was so lax, the guards weren't there to stop anyone from entering, they were there to prevent people from leaving. "Bliss, we have a situation here, I count around 20 armed hostiles...and they're all children."