CHAPTER FOUR—“SURPRISE!”

Breathing heavily, Kyle moved among the shrubs and old bricks. Most of the stuff was hip height. Good for hiding behind.

Before him was the shell of an old skyscraper. It was nothing more than a husk now. The thing was probably a hundred years old.

Taking his finger off his pistol guard, Kyle pushed his wristlet activator and the holo-display came up. He was very close to the position where those missiles came up at.

It was right over the hill. According to the terrain telemetry, there was a large crater there—probably from a past explosion of some kind.

Definitely an old battlefield.

He had to be careful. The shooter could be anywhere. If he was smart, he would have moved after launching those missiles.

Kyle rolled over the block in front of him using his hip for leverage. With his pistol firmly in his hands, he glanced about as he sprinted across the cracked road, barely visible through the dirt and scree.

He came to the hill and crouched low, glancing about to make sure he wasn’t being watched from afar. There were no signs of movement. No sounds and no nature. Just the subtle breeze. It was kind of eerie.

He climbed the hill, almost losing balance on his way up as he stuck his hand out for better mobility.

When he got to the top, he peeked over the edge and saw the shooter.

Kyle was unsure of what he was wearing. He looked pretty bulky, but had the area been infused with radiation, the Corvo’s sensors would have pinged them on that front.

Another thing. The Corvo’s sensors hadn’t picked up this guy’s gear. Which meant he was using a jamming device. If Kyle tried to scan him now using his wristlet, chanced were the scan would be jammed, and the shooter would find out he was there.

Since there were no chemical or radiological signatures in the area, the shooter’s armor wasn’t likely to be an environmental suit.

Great,

There was nothing else for him to do but take the guy out. He got up and moved over the edge and started trudging down the crater.

The shooter didn’t move, didn’t react.

Kyle held his pistol in front of him, keeping his sights on the shooter. He had some boxes next to him, and what looked like a mobile scanner.

It must have been for detecting sky born vehicles to enhance his missile trajectories. Beside him leaning up against the crates was the launcher.

Kyle moved forward, trying to keep the sounds of his footfalls to a bare minimum so he wouldn’t get detected.

If that bulk on the shooter’s body was armor, Kyle could use his combat Bowie. It was a modern blade, with magnetic energy destabilization, which interfered with the energy and laser projectiles of weapons, often making them miss their target—namely the knife wielder.

But these things didn’t come cheap and cost about—at least at the time Kyle had purchased his own—two million dollars.

Realizing all that bulk was in fact heavy armor, Kyle silently holstered his pistol. The man didn’t know he was here, didn’t hear him as he bent over something in his hands. Probably a holo-display as he actively scanned the skies for targets.

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Nice and distracted.

Unsheathing his Bowie from where it hung on his chest, he moved forward, slowly, silently—his feet sinking into the course black sand with every step.

Kyle snuck up directly behind him.

He moved to reach around the shooter’s neck and drag the knife across his neck, but suddenly he moved, backhanding Kyle in the face. He flew into the sand as everything around him whirled.

The shooter raised his arm and Kyle’s eyes widened.

Oh shit!

He rolled as fast as he could as high-pitched thunder exploded from the shooter’s wrist cannon, sending up sand in thick plumes.

Kyle jumped to his feet and then—to keep from being blown in half—jumped again and landed on the hot sand.

He covered his head as enough sand to rival the visibility of a dust storm landed on top of them both.

As soon as the scree stopped pouring over him, Kyle leaped like a dog and loped across the sand until he was back on his feet, allowing him to run a circle around the shooter.

Thankfully the armored behemoth was slow, but Kyle dropped his knife! He put two shots into the shooters’ head, his helmet barely jerking back from the projectiles that ricocheted into the sand.

As the shooter raised his arm, Kyle sprinted, trying to stay behind him as he whirled about. His knife wasn’t far off, lying in the sand. But with how black it all was, his knife would be hard to spot.

When he reached the area where his knife had fallen, he glanced about quickly, then up at the shooter who was whirling to get Kyle back in his sights.

Growling in frustration, he kicked at the sand, but found nothing, then sprinted to keep in the shooters blind spot.

Suddenly his enemy stopped moving as he reached for something on his chest. He lobbed it over his back and crouched down.

As the explosive sunk in the sand next to Kyle’s feet, he turned and ran, jumping at the last second before a crack filled the air, sending a shockwave though the ground.

Piles of hot sand landed atop Kyle.

Shaking away his disorientation, his head felt fuzzy, his ears ringing like an alarm had gone off in his head.

He rolled to his back and found the shooter standing there. Kyle’s eyes widened as he raised his wrist cannon.

The man inside the armored suit laughed, his voice carried out to Kyle speaker mounted grill where his mouth should be. “Surprise, you little shit!”

Something behind them cracked and a bifurcating stream of energy zigzagged through the air, hitting the shooter in the back.

He was instantly enveloped in high voltage electricity.

Kyle scurried back as the shooter convulsed, the sound of the man inside that suit screaming just before his electronics popped and exploded.

The electricity vanished, and with it the shooter went still and fell face forward, his corpse smoking.

“Yeah—surprise, motherfucker!” Kyle said as he—feeling like the joke was actually still on him—felt about for his pistol as he glanced up at the new shooter and saw a figure atop the ridge on the other side of the crater.

“Dammit!” he complained, unable to find his gun anywhere.

He was at the mercy of whoever this third party was.

Raising his wrist, he activated his wristlet scanner, which homed in on the new shooter as he started trudging down toward Kyle.

It homed in on his face and expanded the image so Kyle could see.

It was…

What the fuck?

It was a woman!

She was wearing dark shades, her hair pulled back tightly and held into a tail at the back of her neck and she wore a bright shade of lip gloss.

Kyle couldn’t hear her speak from there, but her lips moved and his wristlet interpreted the speech patterns. “Nice rescue operation.”

“Yeah—well fuck you too!” he screamed.

Then he got up and glanced about for his gun as the woman crossed the more even terrain at the bottom of the crater where Kyle and his smoking pal were.

He found his pistol and reached for it.

“Careful,” the woman said. “I might be inclined to put a hole through you.”

“You won’t do that,” Kyle said.

“And why’s that?”

“Because, May—I’ve come to rescue you.”

He reached and took up the pistol, then turned to her. Well, that’s surprising. She actually looked an awful lot like her illustrated cover image.

“I guess I can’t complain,” she said, “Since I didn’t ask for you boys.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“So are you rescuing me, or am I rescuing you?”

“Hey!” Kyle said—just like he’d come up with a really exciting idea—“Let’s find out!”

May regarded him for a moment. “Hmph,” she noised and quirked a grin.

What is she looking at?

“What?”

So this was the infamous Max in person.

He’s skinnier than I thought…

“Nothing,” she said. “Where’s your friend, Staxx?”