Attack from the vents

It would be the Vents idea Jenny decided. If she did it quick enough, should be able to incapacitate the criminals before they got a chance to do anything. With a soft mechanical 'whirrl', the robot's legs extended, letting her step onto the roof of the station easily. With a quick check with her sensors Jenny knew or at least was pretty sure the criminals weren't aware of her just yet. Still better do this carefully and with a flick of her internal configurations, her feet grew hover treads which let her get over to the main AC vent.

"Right so...., think it's time for them to chill a bit." Jenny muttered to herself as she brought up an arm and started re-configuring it for her attack.

"Hurry up Disk we gotta get going.”

“I’m working on it, almost cracked. You were right though, those guys were using this place as a stepping stone, I recognize some of this code.” The techy geek spoke up as he typed away at the machine and his own device.

“Well hurry up. Faster we get out of here the better.” The lead gunman said as he kept the cashier covered, turning his attention from his partner back to the kid. “You sure yo don’t wanna tell us anything?” He asked motioning with his weapon.

“I dunno anything man! Just take the machine and go it that’s what you want like I said before.” The acne ridden kid pleaded. The gunman kept his eye on the teen a repeated that to Disk, who grumbled in reply.

“Can’t, maybe if I had more time or better tech. But I told you before Phase, these guys are good.” The techy said.

“Yeah, Yeah, pull the system out and the data deletes itself. Told us before. Some sort of electrical kill switch.” Phase sighed as he pressed the barrel of the gun against the kid’s temple, “Guess you’re stuck with us. Just keep calm and we'll get out of your life in bit. Got it?”

“You sure them Specs really used this spot?” The big muscled ganged asked as he walked up, lazily eating from a chip bag. The big guy was dragging his make shift weapon along behind him, the concrete making an low pitch noise as it gouged into the tile floor.

“I told you Brick I have good info. And Disk found the connection so we should be good.” Phase said as he reached over and grabbed some jerky for sale on the counter, “In and out in no time." the leader had a grin as he bit into the snack.

“Did you really have to do this in the middle of the day though?” One of the customers asked. Phase cocked his head to the side to look at who spoke while Brick stood guard. It was a pretty young woman, nice face good legs. Poor timing though. Oh well, they can't all be perfect. Phase finished chewing before he got up and walked forward towards the woman.

“This place was supposed to be closed today. Don't blame me, blame the kid's boss who just HAD to open the station for a day. Just give us like 10 more minutes and we’ll be out.” Phase said aloud, making sure everyone heard him. He made sure to hover his barrel just over people's heads to make the threat.

“Then what, make sure we don’t talk to the police?” Another hostage asked as he put an arm in front of the woman who spoke up. Phase turned to get a better look at the speaker. Looked like just another normal guy on the street. Hell he’d probably wear the same bulky coat, shirt and jeans if Phase wasn’t on the the clock. He'd have to to check the web for that coat. He pointed his barrel at the man and then moved it away.

“Do I look like I have the money to shoot each of you? These are pretty expensive you know?” Phase asked, motioning with his free hand towards the laser weapon before sticking a thumb at his larger partner, “Brick could snap you in two if you really want but I'm trying trying to be polite. Brick just don’t have manners.” His friend grumbled as Phase walked back towards the counter with a laugh, “Cool your jets hero, and nothing happens. Heck we’ll……hmmm?”

Phase stopped mid sentence and looked up. There was a vent right above him, and it was emitting a noise. Something was starting to rattle from inside it. He cursed not getting the upgrade that came with different vision filters but money was tight. He was about to get Brick to go up to the roof when the rattling grew to a roar and something came spewing out from the vent. Right on top of where Phase was standing. “I fucking hate milk ru…” was all he got out.

——

“That should do it.” Jenny said with a smile as she started to retract her self from the AC unit.

Jenny had powered up her arms into her freeze ray and water cannon configurations, and then applied both on low power to the main unit. The idea had been to send a wave of heavy snow through the vents and dump a mass of the stuff on top of the criminals heads. Once her arms were back to their human form, Jenny jumped off the roof with a smirk, she wanted to see if she was right. “If my math was right, should be a handful of slush thugs.” The robot hero said to herself as she made a dusting motion with her hands and looked inside.

Sure enough. The criminals were caked in a layer of snow and frost. Not frozen solid but waaaay too buried to be a problem now. Their eyes glanced around in their icy cages and spotted her, the two grunts panicking and the gunman just rolling his eyes in annoyance. The customers and cashier were just far enough from the vertical vents that they were spared. Maybe a little cold though given they were shivering.

“Oh, lemme help with that.” Jenny announced as she entered the room, reconfiguring her body into a hot soup maker and grabbed a couple bags of instant soup one of the turned over shelfs before flipping it back upright with a single finger. As she started to heat up the food, she looked up at the cashier and asked, “Wait do I owe you anything? New in town, not sure how much a couple bags are.”

The stunned cashier took a minute to process the fact that some… fully cyborg woman had a built in soup maker before answering. “Uh… on the house?” He offered, before moving closer to the phone. “Err can I can the cops? Miss?”

“Sure but you might want to tell them to bring a few hair dryers or something for the criminals.” Jenny said, pouring out the soup into Styrofoam cups for the customers before she paused to realize what she was saying. “Oh wait am I gonna have to get questioned by them? Hmmm, oh don’t let my muttering stop you.” Jenny said with a wave.

The cashier nodded and just started to punch the number in. He did not get paid enough for this.

By the time Mya had gotten to where the tracker said Jenny was, there was a large crowd and police cordon. The mechanic half expected to see Jenny dragged away into the large police truck, but was puzzled when instead three large… ice statues were rolled into it. Weird but not an issue right now.

Finding Jenny took priority, but that would be hard given the crowd and the police around. She had to hop a few times for a better view as there were so many people around. It took standing on a bench to give her enough vision to finally spot Jenny. With a cry and a wave Mya tried to get her attention and did so. Only to also get two officers to come over and fuss at her.

“That’s my friend in there, I know her! Let me talk to her!” Mya told them in hurry. One seemed to talk into… an ear piece while his partner roughly handled her away from the scene. Mya huffed and was about to lay into him, when his partner spoke up.

“She’s clear. Cap says she’s the handler. Let her through.” The clean cut cop said. His partner grumbled and helped his partner make room for Mya. She wanted to stick her tongue out at the guffy cop but thought better of it. No reason to get on the bad side of the locals. Instead she just gave a nod and went on her way.

“Wait,” she thought as she headed towards Jenny, “What did that cop call me? Handler?” Mya brushes it off for now but made sure to note it.

“That her?” The cop with a heavy mustache asked Jenny with a tilt of his head towards the approaching woman.

“Yeah that’s.. Mya.” Jenny muttered as she was coming to the realization of having to have a talk with Mya. In the excitement, she had forgotten about having to deal with that. She put a hand to her arm, looking like a kid in trouble.

“I cleared her to pass like you asked, and if you tell me NOW it’s a problem.” The officer said, starting to move his hand up to his ear.

“No it’s…, complicated. She’s part of that complication but she’s also trying to help me with it…,” Jenny tried to explain without explaining.

“Lass I’m to old and underpaid for this.” The older mustached cop said, pulling his cap back down on his head, “But I suggest you deal with that in your own time. And actually talk, don’t shout.”

“Eh, what do you mean?”

The land held up his hand to show a ring. “Trust me, I know the difference between talking with and talking at.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, we’re not like that at…” Jenny started, holding up her arms in an X pattern before getting interrupted by Mya coming close.

“Geeze you leave for a few minutes and you already met the cops here. What did you do? Are you okay? You’re not in trouble or hurt are you?” Mya hurriedly asked, circling the robot to see if she damaged.

“I’m fine Mya! Come on, I didn’t even fight them I just indirectly captured them.” Jenny told the mechanic, “They’ll live.., maybe with a fear of slushies though.”

“Look I’m worried okay. Someone has to be.” Mya replied with a fold of her arms after she was done giving Jenny a look over, “…, Is she in trouble?” She asked turning to face the older cop.

“Myaaaaaa…” Jenny half whined, half grumbled

“I don’t think so. If she’s up to date on her augment files that is. We’ll send you paperwork about it, but she should be fine. Maybe. Pretty sure.” The old cop said looking Jenny up and down.

“So… what’s the problem then?” Jenny asked, moving her head to the side and a hand on her hips.

“Ain’t seen a rig like yours miss. Custom looks like. So long as you got the files and documentation to back it, should be fine, but you might… technically be classified as a weapon. Just saying, might need some more filings from you.” The cop explained.

“But for now we’re good?” Mya asked.

“Honestly, you heading out might make my job easier.” The cop thumbed at the growing crowd, and the increasing number of recording devices, “You’ve been getting attention since this started, and I could use the break in onlookers.”

“Riiiiight, Sorry.” Jenny said, put off by how much the local population had shown up, “If you could just get your men to clear a path for my bike…”

Soon enough the two were on their way. Hopefully to somewhere quiet and away from people. But not home, Jenny didn’t want to head back just yet. So Mya was taking them to a small semi abandoned park for now. And all the while, local traffic cameras paid more attention to the two bikes that rolled past than any other vehicle on the road.

Regardless, two needed to have a talk.