Watching the arcology growing larger in the distance, I sat back and sighed. “You know what?”
“What?” Reign asked tiredly, passing around a handful of stims that we’d bought from Lion, along with the replacement medikits.
“I fucking hate this place.”
“The cab?” Luna popped the top off the injector and pressed it to the side of her neck, wincing as the needle punched through, releasing a heavy dose of Superbull. “Guaranteed to give you the stamina you require.”
“No, for fuck’s sake, why would I hate the cab?” I asked, confused, peeling down my armor around the neck as I pressed my own injector into place and triggered it. “Ahhhh, fuck that stings…No, I mean that goddamn arcology!”
“That makes a little more sense then,” Reign said as I caught my breath.
The drug hit my system at seeming light speed, banishing tiredness and providing a general surge of confidence, as well as a general feeling that if I needed to flap my arms and fly? I fucking well could.
This was always the risk with stims like these: a general feeling that you were bulletproof. But considering the other choice was the adrenal crash we were all experiencing?
Nope. The surges and dumps of adrenaline came with a massive cost, namely slower reactions, blurred vision, and more. If the option was that, or hopped up on stims? Stims it was.
“Fuck, I hate these…” Luna muttered, shaking her head and blowing her cheeks out. “I wish we didn’t have to take them.”
“Look on the bright side. At least you can have them!” Reign lifted her coffee and wiggled the cup slightly. “I’m on the fucking brown bean of the gods, and that’s it.”
“Shit, your chemical checks…” I winced, and she nodded, glumly.
“Exactly. So, keep me awake, boss. Explain why you hate the arcology.” She forced a smile, sipping on the coffee. “This is even worse, because I fucking hate coffee.”
“Shit.” I grunted, then snorted. “Just feels like we’re always going back and forth to the place, that’s all.” I shrugged. “It wouldn’t be so bad, but knowing that the gangs are all worked up in there? And after doing those jobs for Lucky, who’s clearly spread the fucking word on who we are, and that it was all for him? It means any time we pass through any floor, the local gang bosses are going to think we’re there for them.”
“And then they’ll hit us.” Gessh nodded. “Well, we were going to get a new place anyway.” She shrugged, getting back to work on the drone we’d bought from Lion, playing with its payload.
“Anyway.” I shifted in my seat. “I hate the fucking arcology, so how about at the end of this, if the job goes well, we raid the room, grab my gear, and not come back? I don’t see the gangers letting us leave easily after we’ve killed three gang bosses…I’m betting some asshole will get the great idea of banding together and fucking slaughtering us.”
“Sounds good,” Reign said. “As long as we can get somewhere easily. But let’s be serious here. Even with the drone, and the help you brought in with those guns, you think we’re just walking in and doing this?”
“Right,” I agreed, pulling up the map and the insanely sparse fucking details Lucky had given us earlier. We’d essentially been going by the seat of our pants so far today, running from fire to fire, but it’d worked—more or less—and we were still alive.
This was where it got tricky, though. We’d pulled in a few favors for the exit, knowing that Lucky was likely to have his own plans for us, but that was all we’d been able to do.
Well, besides removing the tracker and the bomb that cheeky fucker Lion had installed—yes, the bastard—in my fucking guts. The bomb was now mounted on the drone, and Gessh was busily sticking a fuckload more of the high ex that she’d apparently grabbed from the last job all around it.
Looking at the map of the lower floor that Stinger had made his home on, we were grimly sure that it was going to be a nightmare to assault.
First and foremost, the section he was holed up in was alongside the archology’s supplemental reactor. The way that the city was run meant that there were massive primary reactors, as well as solar and nuclear plants, fission and more, all that good—possibly about to blow if you looked at it wrong—fun and safe technology.
Because of the inherent risks involved in such a huge city being run by both governmental politicians and corporations that liked to cut every single possible corner on quality control and more, it meant that no reactor was supposed to run close to redline, simply because if one went kaboom, the whole city was fucked.
Because of that, the main, huge fucking reactors that were the primary suppliers of the city were supplemented by smaller, individual reactors, like the arcology ones.
They didn’t produce all the power the arcology needed, but they produced a lot of it. They were also buried underneath the arcology, presumably in an effort to see how high they could fling the poor if they ever exploded.
That this fucker had snuggled in close to the reactor? He knew people would be hunting him. His last target, some corpo asswipe high up the ladder, had been a success, and—so the rumor went—the corpo who hired him put a bounty on his head rather than paying.
He’d killed that corpo, only to find that the fucker had prepaid the bounty, and it couldn’t be canceled. He’d been in hiding ever since, as every hunter in the city was after that payday.
According to Lucky, he’d brought a fuckload of turrets and automated defenses, and was hiding up against the reactor, secure in the knowledge that if anyone tried to get past his various toys with an EMP? They’d seal their own doom.
The arcology reactor would go into meltdown without the delicate systems that protected and regulated it, and no matter how fast you ran, you’d be a dead man.
If you got away before the explosion took out a serious chunk of the city? You’d have a bounty put on your head as the claimant, and obvious destroyer of the arcology. No chance that’d be a small one, so the EMPs were out.
That meant the drones, turrets, and more that he used to protect his home needed to be taken down “old school.”
I’d considered getting Bowdoin in on this, see whether there was a way to turn the turrets against their boss for the third time, and I’d been assured, when I talked to Reign about it, that we’d be wasting our time, and needlessly delaying Bowdoin’s job on Tyrannus at the same time.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
We’d talked before now, in the cab earlier, in the chop shop and in free minutes here and there since we got the info, but it came down to this.
There was no sneaky, cunning, and manipulative way of getting around this. It was a straight-up fight. The cunning shit would come afterward.
The only entrance to the underground was through the security offices at ground level, followed by passes that required access verification codes for each door. Lucky had somehow arranged that, but I didn’t like that we were essentially going to be letting him know exactly where we were at each checkpoint.
Once on his level? Well.
Lucky’s information only went so far, and most of it came from a wounded janitor with a very distinctive injury. He’d been given a chance to live by the assassin, provided he kept his mouth shut, and he’d taken it.
Then he’d promptly gone to his local gang boss and had tried to sell the information.
Lucky had apparently not wanted anyone else to get the info, so he’d broken the old man’s neck as soon as he had it.
“This fucking city,” Luna growled, looking over those details and shaking her head. “So Stinger gave the janitor a chance, having accidentally shot him already for daring to do his job. Then the janitor promises to not tell anyone, and goes straight to his local gang boss, and tries to sell it…”
“And the gang boss hires us to do the job because, and I quote, he wants the ‘merc dead, and his head and his gun’ for sentimental reasons apparently.” I paused, looking around at the snorts of disgust and disbelief.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “After he’s dead, there’s no chance we won’t get hit, so we’ve traded most of those guns to the guild, and Julius is bringing in the cavalry to help us escape. We get hit by that asshole? All we have to do is make it outside. Lucky’ll be in for a hell of a surprise.”
“That’s a relief.” Luna laughed. “Imagine his fucking face when he comes for us, and finds out about the others outside?”
“We’ll need to get to them, though,” Gessh pointed out. “So come on, boss. Give me good news.”
“Here.” I sent them all an image of the reactor, and its layout. “Secondary emergency steam vents.” I smiled. “They’re supposed to be maintained by the staff, and this dick killed them, or moved them on or whatever. I’m betting he’s not sealed them up, as that’d make his new home horrifically hot, which means he’s going to be letting them vent regularly.”
I spun the image around, showing the vent climbing upward and to the first floor, then opening out to spew the hot gasses into the air.
“It’s a steam vent, non-harmful, but…”
“Steam is boiling hot,” Luna broke in. “Seriously, boss, that’s not ‘non-harmful.’”
“I mean it’s not fucking radioactive or whatever,” I corrected. “We shut down the vent leading to it—it’s something that they have to do for maintenance anyway—we fight our way in, kill Stinger, then escape up the vents. Jump down to the ground floor from that point, walk off with the rest of the guild around us.”
“What makes you think Stinger won’t just do that themself?” Reign asked after considering it. “And failing that, what stops Lucky from following us, or hell, killing us when we go to meet Oshbob tomorrow?”
“Stinger apparently went in with a fuckload of gear,” I pointed out, showing the shipping manifests that Lucky had gathered for “reactor parts”. There was a fuckload of them, and he’d needed special transport containers for them.
“He’d have the option of abandoning all the shit he brought with him and running, or he fights his way out. He gave the janitor a chance to run, and he’s apparently still down there. That says to me he’s protecting something.”
“Like what?”
“Fuck knows,” I said. “It could be loot, it could be a family, it could be his favorite sex doll and his best guns. I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out.”
“You’re sure Lucky isn’t sending us in as sacrificial lambs?” Gessh asked, and I shook my head.
“Not at all. He gains nothing by killing us at this point beyond personal satisfaction, which yeah, he’s a ganger, so that’s possible enough. If he waits, though? He could not only claim the bounty if he could kill us, but Oshbob wants to meet us as well. I’m thinking him killing us before that meeting is going to go down badly with the Orc, and from what I can tell? He’s some kind of a crime lord, not the kinda guy you fuck with.”
“He could still be following us with a wave of his own people, kill Stinger himself once we’re all dead and claim our gear too?” Reign suggested.
“Possible,” I agreed. “But frankly, if that’s his plan? We’ll have died in the assault, and we won’t care anymore.”
“Wow.” Gessh groaned. “I’m so filled with confidence right now.”
“Feel free to back out.” I smiled. “I mean, it’s only a quarter of a million credits, so rather than a four-way split, a three-, or two-way even would be nice…” I suggested, rubbing my chin.
“Fuck you very much,” Gessh growled. “I’ve got plans for that money, and they involve men and women with, what did you call them the other day, Reign? ‘Questionable morals, and a lot of skill.’”
“Mercs?” I suggested.
“Fuck, no. I want a team of hookers.” Gessh grinned. “A full day and night of living it up like a corpo, a gang of hotties all dedicated to just doing me over and over again!”
“Ah, priorities!” Luna laughed. “I’ll go half with you!” she told Gessh, who shrugged.
“Damn, now I need a camera and sensory inputs,” I muttered. “Reign, don’t suppose I can convince you to get in there with them while I film it and make a fortune?”
“Pay my debts off, and hell yes.” She snorted. “As it is? I’m closed for business.”
“That’s insane.” Gessh shook her head. “That even sex breaks you for weeks? And not in the fun way? It’s just wrong.”
“Well, if you ever want to help me torture the owner of the ‘health and wellness clinic’ to death? I think I could make some room on the roster.” Reign snorted. “Believe me, I’m thinking that the job will take awhile—a year, maybe? Two?”
“It’d be well earned.” I grunted as the cab descended. The storm around us was still blowing heavy, the rain hammering like it’d grown disgusted with the city and planned to wash it all away.
The doors opened, along with a warning about the ground level being sent to each of us.
Warning: This area is considered unsafe by the regular users of Johnny Air-Cab. Please, honored client, be wary…
I cursed as a sudden gust of wind brought the pouring rain into the cab. I pulled my helmet on as I stepped out, blinking as the neck plates sealed together.
The blackness of the helmet’s interior flickered for a second, before the cameras linked to my mods. I stared around, the metal of my helmet appearing as perfectly clear glass to me.
“Kabutt!” Reign called from the trunk.
I twisted, catching the rifle as she threw it to me, nodding my thanks, and strode around to join her, checking it and attaching the sling to my rig, while peering into the storage hold.
We worked quickly as the main doors closed and locked. The cab waited patiently, a marked difference from most of the cabs we used. But when the cab cost this much? A little patience was expected.
We loaded up our gear, checking one another over, making sure we were ready, before heading for the entrance. We were carrying much the same loadout as the last mission, except that I’d pulled in a few favors with Julius—part of the deal for handing over so many decent goddamn guns to him—and I’d got some mission-specific ammo for my new Centronics rifle.
Five additional magazines clung to the magnetic loading points on my harness, and I was awash with minor fears that a single badly aimed, or incredibly lucky, shot would kill us all.
I had gas-tipped rounds—hallucinogenic, not knock-out as I’d requested, but it was a case of what he had, really—high explosive, corrosive acid-tipped, regular armor-piercing, and of course, that old favorite, thermobaric.
The thermobaric magazine was firmly on my ass, separated from the others, just in case, as a weapon of last resort.
Each bullet as it hit would crumple, releasing the liquid chlorine trifluoride mix, which would then revert to its gaseous form, along with a small piece of flint or powdered phosphorus, depending whether it was loaded in the even or odd configuration.
The combination of the expanding gasses, the flint shattering on impact and ricocheting off things, and the powdered phosphorus basically resulted in an assault rifle capable delivery system that was both terrifying and glorious.
It was both a fantastically lethal option, and one that required balls of steel. Not just for the risk of someone shooting the magazine and sending me to hell via the express “my pants are literally on fire” route, but also because I’d be firing them at or around a live fusion reactor.
Between our insane quantities of ammo, our masses of guns, the medikits, and the replacement armor we’d been forced to order from the guild stores, we looked exactly like what we were.
Trouble, looking for a roost.