A Resolution With One Loose Thread

His body fell. Headless, limp, it still boomed as it struck the stone ground. The bronze plates clattered and shivered; the steam which shrouded it gradually began to fade as the last embers of life left the smoking husk.

But Kara had no time for that. Rifle tossed aside, she was already moving towards where Richard lay. His face was pale, and as she reached him, he looked into her eyes.

“Kara, you got him. He’s dead. You killed him! What did you do? That thing? Those words?”

“Override command,” she grunted. “I put it in all my creations. I figured it probably wouldn’t work fully here. But it’d distract him. Isabel probably tried to pull it out, but she never quite matched me in that area.”

“You remembered it?”

“I remember everything now,” she bent down, kissing him on the mouth. Her copper hair played across his face, and the taste of his lips against her own was achingly sweet. Her heart hammered, and adrenaline surged through her body. The last walls of her programmed ignorance had come crashing down during her mad light from the warehouse. As if the last thing she’d had to do to earn back her sense of self was facing her rival and winning.

“Isabel?” Richard panted when the kiss finally broke.

“Contained,” Kara said. “Not dead, but not causing any trouble for a while. We can deal with her later, but for now, I need to get you out of this damn armour. Why isn’t there a release switch? Did it get crushed?”

“Knowing Bennie, he probably just didn’t give it one,” Richard groaned. “You were amazing, by the way.”

“You sound surprised, Mister Gearheart,” Kara grinned. “Did you think that your **** would be anything less? All right, hang on, I think I’ve found the manual release…”

She hit the hidden button and instantly, Richard’s armour shuddered. The chest plate retracted into three sections and he was able to wriggle free. He rolled his shoulders, grimacing down at the armour.

“Was good while it worked,” he muttered. “But you won’t get me in anything like that again. Not while the damn thing is so easy to break!”

He turned, enveloping Kara in a hug, pulling her close so that she could just feel the beating of his heart, the warmth of his slowly. Slowly, exaltation began to trickle through them both.

They were alive!

“I thought I’d lost you,” Richard held her so close, his arms tight about her waist. “After Pump took you, I didn’t know if I would see you again. All I could think of was what Isabel would do to you. I was so mad. So ****. More than I’ve ever been in my whole life…”

She hugged him back just as tightly, there were tears in her eyes now. She didn’t know what to say. The words died in her throat. All she could do was hug him, hold him, be near him.

And then a rattling cough broke the silence.

“When you two are done being romantic, I’m trying not to die here.”

“Shit!” Richard broke the embrace, looking towards where his fallen friend lay. “Bennie!”

Instantly, they were both at his side. Richard’s face paled as they stripped away his shirt. Pump had gouged a massive wound in his chest. The flesh was raw and red.

“I can tell from your face,” Bennie hissed. “Doesn’t look good, does it?”

“Not exactly,” Richard winced. “How the hell are you even still awake?”

“I’m not easy to knock down,” Bennie groaned, gesturing to his mechanical arm, and the slivers of metal that indicated components buried under his skin. “And I don’t die fast. Get me on my feet, Gearheart.”

“Think you have the strength to stand?”

“Damn right, I do!”

Together, Kara and Richard hoisted Bennie to his feet. Agony played across his face, but he was good to his word and with their help, he was able to stumble from the workshop.

The three of them left, battered, wounded but alive. Help was summoned and soon after, medics arrived to take Bennie to the hospital. Richard waited through the night, convinced that he would be delivered news of his friend’s ****.

Somehow, come the morning, Richard and Kara were ushered into a plush hospital room. Bennie lay there. His face was ashen. The scent of blood hung in the air.

But he was alive.

Over the next few days, Bennie began to recover. He was true to his word, and Richard laughed at the sheer stubbornness that he showed. But it was a good laugh, a great laugh. He’d lost far too many friends already.

With Pump and Isabel no longer a threat, and Bennie’s orders to back off from Kara to the rest of the world, it seemed that the pair no longer needed to remain in San Gasa. There was a whole wide world out there and for the first time in a very long time, Richard felt honestly excited to see it.

They would go out into it, Kara promised. They would explore it, see it together. Enjoy their time with one another before they were drawn into some other grand adventure.

Even then, both of them knew on some level that would happen. Neither were the kind to sit idly by for long. But while the peace lasted, Richard was determined to make the most of it.

Yet, there was one loose thread that needed to be dealt with.

Isabel.

Kara had contained her by locking her in the ****-machine, the very same way that Isabel had planned to do to her. But that was a temporary imprisonment. Neither Richard nor Kara were eager to simply allow her back out onto the street. Kara still did not want to see her die, and Richard knew that if she got the chance, she’d build back up and come at them again.

That was when Kara offered a particular suggestion.