September 8th, 2262. 22:05 Regent’s Estates, Home of Dwayne Haffner
John slowly hoisted himself down from the brick wall. He was shocked that there weren’t any pressure sensors hidden in the backyard. The lack of infrared and thermal scanners was also criminally negligent. He chuckled to himself that the rich asshole that lived here probably scoffed at shelling out a few extra dollars for the safety it would have provided. That would be a mistake that would bite them in the ass in a big and possibly lethal way.
The invisible man continued his slow and methodical trek to the safe room’s exterior exit. It was behind the jungle gym that they had in the backyard yard. Because it was near a tree and some rocks it was an area that wasn’t mowed often. That did complicate matters related to the motion detectors.
But John persevered and eventually got to the hatch and took a knee next to it. There was a small console that was uncovered by pushing the cover of it up. John placed his right hand over it. Eve, his suit’s VI, began connecting to it.
“Hatch is unlocked. Lights are coming on inside.”
John didn’t say anything but pulled the hatch open slowly. He had it about three-quarters of the way open before he slipped into the opening. He reversed his opening act to close the hatch. The hatch was then manually locked from the inside.
John dropped to the ground and drew his pistol. The stealth field for his suit was deactivated. He couldn’t hear anything, but now wasn’t the time to be careless. At the end of the hallway, there was another security door. Unlike the hatch, it was unlocked.
That was an unnerving find. He could see the wall to his right was clear. A large desk was in the middle of the room. He quickly opened the door and dashed in. The room was quickly cleared. As he did that the lights grew to their full brightness.
“Four guards and the Haffner family are present in the home. No one has been alerted to your presence,” Eve said.
“Well, let’s see you do some magic at that desk. If I’m right, and I usually am, that’s our ticket to the big league,” John said sarcastically.
He walked over to the desk and sat down in the chair. John set his pistol on the desk and spun around in the chair. It was magnificently comfortable, easily the most comfortable chair he’d sat down in. He stood up and pushed the chair over to find out who manufactured it.
“Well, this asshole was good for something. The Drover Company made this chair. The twenty-four karat gold inlays are a bit ostentatious for my liking, but I need one of these in my office back home.”
John refocused and activated the terminal. He looked at it and paused. Then he leaned in and looked at the screen again.
“Eve, is this really already signed in?”
“It is.”
“Copy everything,” John said immediately, “Holy shit these guys are terrible.”
It did cross his mind that this was a setup, and they were trying to entrap John. But the information he was checking seemed to be accurate. Perhaps this group was in such a place that they grew lax as they grew in power.
Or perhaps the two members John had run into were just lazy and incompetent. John leaned back in the chair and kicked his feet up onto the desk. He was scanning things in his HUD as more and more data was copied. The terminal was flashing red, a message appeared on the screen.
“Why are you copying this information? I got an alert from our private server. I told you to not have your VIs make unnecessary copies. You are paying the ransom fees if this happens again. C.D.”
John shook his head, “Why not stop the copy on your end dumbass?”
He pulled up Dwayne’s contact list. Three names were of great interest to John. Eldric Nielsen was a name he had received from Senator Fitzpatrick, albeit begrudgingly. If John was reading this information correctly, he just found the second in command. Unfortunately, the leader of this organization was not identified.
Yet, they weren’t identified yet. Derrick was a two-hour drive away. There were also two other people between Dwayne and Eldric’s homes John could pay a visit to. Though he was more likely to simply kill them via large caliber rifle round at extreme distance. And he just so happened to have the toy to accomplish that in a case on the back of his motorcycle.
“Two guards and Dwayne have been alerted to server access. They are coming here,” Eve said.
“Good, lock the doors behind them. Status of the transfer?”
“Data transfer will be completed in fifteen seconds.”
John picked up his gun and flicked off the safety. He could just make out the sound of a door opening down the other hallway at the far side of the room. Then he could hear their voices.
“Boss, I keep telling you that you should sign out of that terminal as the higher-ups tell us to. What happens…”
The lead guard was looking back at his boss before turning to face the desk where the active terminal was. A pair of deadened thumps hid the telltale sign of a forty-four-caliber handgun bullet. The man was dead on his feet, for the second round struck him square on the forehead.
“Out…”
The other guard was not long for the world either. Two more rounds were fired. But the way the man was moving into the room meant it wasn’t a clean kill. The first round struck his chest and missed a pair of very important arteries but did lacerate a lung. The other round shredded his liver and spleen. He was bleeding profusely and twitching on the ground.
“Why are you doing this?” Dwayne was frozen in place.
“Hey, this isn’t exactly a work-related question, but I have to know. Why on Earth would the Sunset Initiative want David Newman on the payroll? And why would you want to associate with such a filthy fat fucker?”
“What are you talking about? You just murdered my guards.”
“Yes. But more importantly, why would you associate with David? He’s not even a useful idiot. Do you know that all the money he gets from y’all he just spends on hookers and escorts?” John shivered, “I think I might have thrown up a little there.”
“What are you talking about?”
John aimed above and to the right of Dwayne and pulled the trigger, “David Newman, why do you associate yourself with him? You’re paying him ten grand a month under the table.”
Dwayne was staring at the guard that was bleeding out. The casualness of how his invader killed two people and the blatant disregard for his own safety rattled Dwayne to the core. John noticed that and leveled his gun one more time. This round struck him just next to the base of his neck. The man’s suffering was put to an end.
“Dwayne, I’m asking you a fucking question here. Chop chop.”
“David? He’s a go-fer. An idiot for us to use for tasks we don’t want to do.”
“Well, you’re grossly overpaying him. I shot at him once and he shat himself on a hotel bed. You’ll have to trust me when I say that it was incredibly vile.”
Dwayne had reached his tolerance of violence and idiocy from his intruder. He strode forward, carefully avoiding the blood on the ground. He slammed his hands on his desk.
“Who are you?”
John smiled inside his helmet. He swung his legs off the desk and quickly stood up. Then his arms shot out and grabbed the back of Dwayne’s head and slammed it into the desk. John jumped over the desk and pushed the gun on Dwayne’s now broken and very bloody nose.
“The other non-work-related question is why would you leave that terminal logged in? I have everything you idiots put to writing.”
“Who on Earth are you?” Dwayne protested but after the suppressor was shoved into his face he relented, “I never thought anyone besides myself would come into this room.”
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“Dumb mistake. I was honestly hoping for a better answer, but I suppose you met expectations with your lax standards. Who’s the leader of your little social group?”
Dwayne shook his head nervously, “I won’t tell you…”
John grabbed his left arm and pulled up violently. Then Dwayne screamed out in pain when John shot his elbow. The arm fell awkwardly to the ground when John let go of it.
“Dwayne, I don’t care about you or your life. Your little organization targeted friends of mine. Dear friends. Now he would have loved to go on a rampage of revenge, but because of his fledgling career we were able to talk him out of it.”
“Fucking hell, I told them not to attack that monster’s safehouse,” Dwayne shouted through clenched teeth, “He was not meant to be a target. The fucking JAG officer was.”
“Why her?”
“She successfully prosecuted a bad conduct discharge case against a grandchild of one of our members.”
John nodded, “Well, Lief took care of that hit team. Naval Intelligence got their hands on the lone survivor.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Look, we can make a deal.”
John nodded, “I want your boss.”
“Look, I can’t do that. I’ve never met him before.”
John picked Dwayne up and tossed him in the chair. He took a step back and sat on the desk. Dwayne was clutching his wounded arm and whining about the pain and blood.
“Who has met them? Anita? Eldrick? Tim?”
Dwayne laughed, “Anita is a step below me. She’s the one that orchestrated the hits. Can’t believe she tried to take out the old man.”
“You did the asshole a favor. Now he can bang those aides of his without any feelings of guilt or remorse. Then again, I’m here because of her,” John smiled again, “Though I suppose you should be thanking me for that.”
“Excuse me? You shot me and killed my guards.”
“You think Lief would’ve stopped at that? I know you’ve seen his records. When he gets rolling on a rampage, it’s not a pretty site.”
“I am not thanking anyone that has shot me.”
“Your loss I suppose. How about the other two?”
“Tim joined around the same time as I have but hasn’t received any high-profile jobs. I would be surprised if he had met our leader.”
John tapped his feet. Dwayne noticed and gave his attacker a confused look. Dwayne was about to ask another question when the gun was brought to bear once again, and a round struck his shoulder. His left arm was now effectively useless.
Dwayne’s arm shot up from the wounded elbow and was compressing the latest bullet wound. John looked on and sighed deeply. He pressed the magazine release button to check how many rounds were left in it. A nod was made as he locked the magazine back in place.
“I’m asking questions and you’re not answering them. That’s kind of rude.”
“You fucking shot me, you psychopath.”
“Far from it, but I am angry because you haven’t answered my questions. Has Eldrick met your leader?”
Dwayne’s breathing began to get short. A small, but visible, a bead of sweat was forming on his forehead. He was incredibly nervous about this question. His eyes wouldn’t stay still and wouldn’t look anywhere near his attacker.
John picked Dwayne by the neck and held him over a foot off the ground. He was gasping for air. His right arm was being used to hold up some of his weight and lessen the pain around his neck. Dwayne was gasping for breath.
In a raspy breath, “Yes. He has.”
John dropped the man and stood over him, “How often does he meet him?”
“At least weekly. I’m not sure where they meet though. He’s very busy.”
John took a step back, “Thank you. Goodbye Dwayne.”
John emptied the magazine into the wounded man. The fourth round of five that he fired in rapid succession was likely the kill shot, piercing his heart. John disabled the outside security systems for twenty minutes and engaged his stealth field.
Not being a complete bastard, John scheduled for the secret room's doors to open and alert the guards on duty at that time that the master of the house and the previous shift of guards were dead. The wife and children didn’t need to be the ones to find their loved one in a pool of blood. Dwayne was anything but innocent, but he wasn’t so evil that he and the other guards ought to rot away in a hidden room forevermore.
September 9th, 2262. 04:27 Home of Eldrick Paulson
John’s drive to York was an interesting one. He had come across Tim Duncan on the road alone on the lonely highway to York. Tim rolled his Bentley when John shout out the back tire. He was even more surprised when the driver’s side window of his vehicle shattered into hundreds of shards of glass and saw a gun pointing at him.
Anita’s end came as a result of a sniper shot. Her home was in Hanover, a twenty or so mile detour to his true target. Her backyard could be seen from a two-lane highway. She, along with a guard of hers, was outside having a cigarette. John found it curious that she didn’t have any kinetic shielding in place, but nevertheless, he wasn’t one to pass up such an opportunistic attack.
John had made it back onto I-83 before the bodies of both her and the guard were discovered. Another ten minutes later John was driving off the exit and into York. His next target lived in an incredibly exclusive, affluent, and ultra-private neighborhood.
Getting the gate open was a simple matter. Breaking into the home would also be easy, well relatively easy. John was exploring the options, and a blatant and out-in-the-open attack is what he wanted to do. But the problem with that is that he might ultimately miss getting a shot at the head of this organization. Another silent attack was necessary.
He drove his motorcycle into an alley across from a private neighborhood and took his coat off. Once he did so the stealth field was engaged, and he ran across the street and climbed up and over the wall separating the haves from the have-nots. It was an almost certainty that he set off sensors of some sort at that home, he paid no attention and ran to the street and then down the road to Eldrick’s mansion.
“There are no vulnerabilities that can be accessed remotely,” Eve said.
Just as John got to the mansion, he noticed the garage door was open. A Mercedes was pulling out of it, thankfully it was just one of the home’s hired help running an errand. He dove down into a slide and slid into the garage unnoticed.
“Do you have any intel on this home?” John asked.
“Please connect me to the terminal on your left.”
John walked over and placed his hand on the garage’s small terminal. Eve interfaced with the home’s systems. Some she was able to crack, but most were still secure from her binaric sight. General data, such as the employee’s schedules and a general layout of the home, were successfully downloaded.
“A secret room. Big shocker. He’s almost assured to be aware of Anita’s end,” John mused to himself.
“I believe I have located its entrance. Displaying route on your HUD now.”
John opened the garage door quietly and slipped through the home. None of the guards noticed that a sneaky bastard was in their midst. A tense five minutes later he was in one of many opulent hallways. A mini terminal was hidden behind a painting.
He was crouched on the ground with his left hand pushing the painting out slightly as Eve was working her magic. When a portion of the wall to John’s right sunk into itself, he immediately drew his pistol. He slipped into the room but was surprised by the lack of guards.
There weren’t any guards in the hallway, which was oddly reminiscent of Dwayne’s home. John crept down the hallway. He stopped at the end and peaked around the corner. A lone man was working at his desk.
“Ballsy,” John smiled, “Stupid, but I gotta respect that.”
John holstered his pistol and walked forward. He dropped the stealth field as he sat down in the chair across from Eldrick. A man he had never met but could hardly be bothered to greet his unwelcome guest, much less be surprised at seeing a stealth field deactivate in front of him.
“Lieutenant Lief. A pleasure to meet you finally. You’ve killed three of my underlings tonight.”
“Lieutenant Lief sends his regards. The Navy didn’t feel it pertinent that he be allowed to use his talents. They weren’t happy about his stunt in the Senator’s office,” John was of course lying through his modulated voice, “He’s used our services a few times. Expensive as they may be.”
“Strange, I figured he’d be the one to come here. Disappointing too. I had an offer for him,” Eldrick stopped what he was doing and then looked directly at the intruder, “Well, I have more than enough to destroy his career now that you’ve given him up.”
“Have I? You may want to check that recording of yours before declaring yourself the victor.”
Eldrick pulled up the replay, but all he saw was static. In fact, for the last fifteen minutes, there’s been nothing but static recorded. John chuckled at the transition of emotions from confidence to pure panic in Eldrick’s face.
“Of course, with his knowledge of NI’s gear, he would’ve given you one of those devices.”
John nodded as he pulled out a small silver device in his hand, “Yeah, it’s right here. Handy little bugger.”
The device flew out of his hand and into Eldrick’s hand, “We’ll I’ll be putting an end…”
“Impressive parlor trick,” John grinned in his helmet, “Seeing as how are you likely going to kill me are you going to tell me who your boss is?”
Eldrick laughed, “Only an idiot would do that.”
He channeled a wave of kinetic energy, but when he released it at John it dissipated. Eldrick’s eyes nearly bulged out of his socket. He kicked his chair back and stood.
John leaned forward and tossed his chair at him. He leaped over the desk and slammed Eldrick into the wall behind his desk. The physical fight didn’t last long. John hoisted him up by the neck and pinned him against the wall.
“Let’s try this again,” John unsheathed a bowie knife, “I’m not above flaying you. You can give me the information I’m searching for, or you are going to turn into a massive blood stain as I carve you apart.”
“WHAT ARE YOU?” Eldrick shouted, “I can feel nothing from you.”
John squeezed his hand tighter around the man’s neck, “Oh, you can feel that. And this.”
John ran the tip of the blade across the man’s cheek. Just light enough to leave a scratch and be felt, but not deep enough to draw blood. He then let Eldrick go. Just as his feet touched the ground again John swung his knee around and caught Eldrick in his. John grabbed his left hand and twisted it, he then shifted and pulled on the pinky, in his other hand the bowie knife came down and sliced the finger off.
Eldrick screamed out in pain but was rebuffed when he tried to clutch his hand. John made him scream out in even more pain as he cauterized the wound with his wrist-mounted plasma burner. That wasn’t its official use, but John smirked as it was a handy tool in this scenario.
Then a massive wave of anti-psychic energy washed over Eldrick. In an instant, his abilities were gone. He couldn’t hear anyone’s thoughts, nor could he act upon objects through his mind. In replace of it all was a splitting headache the likes of which he had never had before.
“You seem to be under the belief that you are still in control here. You are most certainly not. Now you can give me the information I’m asking for, or I’m going to cut you into little pieces. Bit by bit.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“My client is tired of fucks like you and your organization trying to control the lives of everyone. It’s time to let people create their own destinies rather than be forced into the roles you deem them to be allowed to have,” John leaned down and put the knife in Eldrick’s face, “Now then, where’s your boss?”
Unfortunately for Eldrick, his saferoom’s construction prevented anyone from hearing his screams as John and he had their conversation. Eldrick would eventually give up the pertinent details, but it came at a great cost to his body. The once affluent kingmaker would never know the true identity of his attacker, but would quickly come to rue greenlighting the operation that set things into motion.