Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
One shot over the shoulder, lean right and second clips through the air setting my eardrums singing even through the plugs. Third goes wild, didn’t even have to try to dodge. The guard’s got no poise, his hands clenched around the trigger too tight. Can’t keep a steady aim. Perversely makes it harder to anticipate where the shot will go.
Bang!
I move my foot just in time.
Doesn’t make it that much harder.
The guy’s grabbing the mic strapped to his chest, screaming into it for backup. If the shots hadn’t done it, that definitely sells it for my cover. Marsha’s going to be pissed but I was never big on keeping quiet anyway.
Let’s see, that’s a 10mm, one of those bargain-bin relics. No scope, no smart pad for hooking into cyber, plastic mag, four shots so far. Two more?
I keep walking down the hall towards him, one hand on my holster, half a cig still between the fingers of my other hand. “You done?” I call.
“S-s-stay back! Everyone knows you’re here now, you freak!” He waves his gun in my direction. Trigger finger slips sending shot five into the wall.
Over the comm Marsha’s voice comes in clear and irritated. “Jesus Christ O, I step away for two seconds – what’s happening now?”
“Just some bad luck, nothing I can’t handle.” I subvocalize, trying to be subtle but I’m close enough now that the gunman sees my lips moving and pulls an update to his little friends.
Shit.
“Damnit, O, you promised me we’d do this silent. The data’s no good to us if Hoss knows we have it.”
I suppress a frown. “I have a very particular skillset.”
I don’t share that I only got caught because I needed a smoke break.
There’s a groan of frustration in my ear. “Uuuugh, fine whatever. Look, just kill them and get out of there intact. At least that’ll be less goons against us later.”
“Mm.”
The guard is pressed back against the wall, gun just outside of reach. One shot left. He keeps babbling but I stopped listening ages ago. There’s a twitch in his shoulder and I drop down, kick his feet out from under him as the bullet goes high. He bangs his head against the metal wall. The thunk is my cue to grab his hand, twist it hard until the fingers automatically lets go of the gun. Take it in my other hand and release the empty clip. Release his hand, grab the spare out of his belt, slam it home before he can finish sliding to the ground.
“Oh god, oh god, please don’t kill me, pleasedon’tkillme.” He babbles, terror on his face as he stares up at me. So much for the tough criminal gang tattoos down his face.
I shrug. “Okay.”
“O!” Marsha’s voice comes on the comm in harsh reprimand.
“What? He asked.” I can hear the march of boots coming down the hallway in the direction I just came. The cafeteria? Two, three, four pairs of boots.
At the same moment I turn I hear the release of knife from behind, accompanied with a war cry. I twist away, turning the stab into a shallow slash along my outer thigh, and shoot the man’s hand. He screams, dropping the knife to the ground and clutching the hand to his chest, screaming obscenities.
I can feel a dull line of fire across my thigh but I don’t have the time to inspect the wound because here come his friends just around the corner. My good humor is gone. Those were my last good pair of jeans. His friends rush in, no stopping to check the corner, no attempt to clear the field. One, two, three, four shots, and all down. One or two still writhe on the ground, clutching entry wounds. Shouldn’t be lethal if they have enough medpaste. I toss my own stick to the floor at his feet. He asked to live after all.
It feels like it’s in poor taste to finish that cig now so with a tang of regret for the waste, I let it drop to the ground and snub it out.
Alright, time to listen to Marsha and get out of here. I only pause long enough to pull a full clip off one body and a spare from another. Better to use their own where I can. Bullets don’t grow on trees. Then it’s back through the maze of corridors. Marsha sticks close in my earpiece, directing me to an outer window she found on the old public schematic we used to plan this operation in the first place. First window is a blank wall now, second try and two bodies on the ground later and we have our exit.
I try not to think about how many people I just shot to death, grab the closest desk chair, and toss it through the window in a shower of broken glass. One second to check the coast outside is clear and I vault after, into the empty street. There’s the faintest wail of police sirens in the distance and the absurd possibility that the police might actually come all the way down here on today of all days is enough to make me pause. “Marsha, you on the police scanner?”
“No… why would I?”
“Check it, please.”
Silence, followed by the faint tinny shuffle of Marsha moving around the bolt hole we call a safe house, followed with the even fainter clack of the scanner playing. I check up and down the street, look back through the window. Pat down the cut on my leg, line of blood in the denim. Nothing a medpaste won’t patch except I already gave mine to the crying guy inside. That’s yet another drain on our thinning wallet. Sloppy.
“Shit, O,” there’s a tone of dread amazement in Marsha’s voice. “They’re actually coming.”
I hold my breath.
“Twenty-third and Washington. Two cars responding. Get off the street, O. Now.”
I’m already moving before she tells me. Slip through the alley across the street, cross again here and run past what must have been an old leather factory judging by the fact that it still smells like piss. This part of the city is practically deserted. Its only purpose is a buffer zone for when anything nasty manages to climb over the walls. Plenty of wreckage of such is everywhere. Hard pressed to find a single building that doesn’t look like a bomb or a monster dropped on it. Still, I feel like I’m making good time getting back to civilized ground. And yet, the whole run it sounds like the damn sirens are getting louder and louder.
“Marsha, are they tracking me?”
“But how would they– shit, check the sky.”
At her command I look up. It takes a few precious seconds but there I spot it. “Camera drone.” Should have guessed.
“Can you shoot it?”
I stop and plant my feet, take aim. The thing wobbles in the breeze this way and that. A speck in the cloudless blue. I try anyway. The rapport echoes off the ruins and the drone veers wide, out of harms way. “No.” I answer.
“Get under cover, don’t let it–“
“I know.” I duck into the nearest open doorway, moss and more growing between cracks in linoleum tile, the heels of my boots clacking as I pace down the hallway. What did this use to be? A school? I take a leap over a sudden gap in the floor, keep moving. I don’t go straight across, taking the next left and banking on a side-exit. The gamble’s rewarded and I lean one arm against the wall before exiting to take my breath. Don’t hear any more sirens. “Think I lost them.”
“Thank God, now get back here so I can scream at you properly. I can’t believe I ever thought you were cool.”
I feel a quirk on my lips. “Yes Ma’am.”
I step through the door and find a row of men in blue and gold police uniforms positioned behind two cars, guns trained on the door. “Ah.”
The man in the middle cocks his gun. Tuft of purple hair poking out from under his cap. “Put your hands in the air and drop the weapon!”
I hesitate. “Well, which is it? Hands up, or gun dropped?”
“It’s both! Now do it or we shoot!”
Now that my eyes have had a chance to adjust to the glare of the headlamps I can see the tattoos poking out from his sleeves. Jackal skull? That’s not a very police-look either.
“Count of three!” He yells. “One… two…”
I drop down and to the left, roll and spring into an attack. Bang. Bang. Bang. There go the right wing. Three shots left. Now I’m on the same side of the car as the left wing and that lot gets clipped too. I eject the empty clip and slot in the spare.
I rise up, gun trained on the talkative one. “You were saying?”
