The robot jolted as the second shot hit, its body collapsing into a sparking heap. Half climbing half tumbling down the stairwell, Garrett ripped the radio from his belt and started yelling into it.
“Max. Max where you at over?” he shouted as he came crashing down into the brush. As he leapt to his feet a shot rang out with the wall behind him erupting outwards in a shower of shrapnel. Garrett immediately dove behind a parked car, making sure to position himself behind the engine block as another shot smashed into the bonnet.
Ducking down Garrett quickly scanned from underneath the car, his heart slowed slightly as he noted that Laura and her pet robot had taken the wise decision to take cover behind a car on the opposite side of the street. Drawing his pistol Garrett went to take a quick peak. The building opposite him was an old brick construct, about 4 stories tall, perhaps some sort of office or factory many years ago, now it was just another old building the whitewash patchy, the exposed red brick coated in a thin layer of graffiti, scanning the dark windows Garrett let his breathing slow. After the shooting the foot traffic had completely vanished, even the birds had fled leaving Garrett with only the sound of rustling leaves and his own breathing. There was a flicker, a shadow amongst shadows. Garrett ducked as another shot rang out, biting another chunk out of his cover.
“Laura, second story, third window from the left.” He hissed. He then repeated himself into the radio, his report being answered by a quick double click over the radio followed by an answer.
“Understood, reinforcements are two minutes out, for the love of God don’t do anything stupid.” Garrett frowned.
“We’re taking fire, I’m taking the initiative.”
The reply came. “Take care.”
With that out of the way Garrett refocussed on the main issue at hand, there was a series of electronic cracks and the windowsill burst apart as the robot opened fire on the marked window, its brilliant shots giving the shooter ample warning against poking their head out again. Taking the opportunity, Garrett bolted forward, moving across the street as quickly as he could. As he bolted across the street he continued to watch the windows, breath almost hitching in his throat as he imagined taking a bullet from a random direction, mercifully no such thing transpired and Garrett quickly pressed himself against the wall of the building, pistol up and pointed towards the window. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the howl of police sirens. Focussing on the shooter, he began to inch along the wall, reaching a doorway he gingerly turned the rusting handle. Wincing as the door squeaked he gently pushed it open, allowing the sunlight from outside to filter into the musty space, advancing up the stairs he slowly scanned the building. As his head peaked over the edge of the stairwell there was an ear-splitting crack that reverberated inside his skull. Leaping up he squeezed off a quick series of shots in the direction of where he hoped the shooter was, bolting forward he dove behind a pillar as another shot rang out. Garrett grunted as chunks of concrete struck his side. Spinning around he fired of a couple more shots, the bullets, scoring chunks out of the old table, the man had been crouching behind. The shooter ducked and bolted for cover behind another pillar. As Garrett tracked the man he fired another burst, and the slider locked back.
“Fuck” Garrett hissed as he ducked back behind cover, quickly ducking back into cover Garrett began patting down his pockets.
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“Fuck!” he growled, realising that he’d forgotten to grab a spare magazine. From somewhere behind him he could hear the steady footsteps of someone who had already figured that they had already won. There was a series of clinks as the man stepped across some shattered glass. Garrett tightened his hands around his pistol and tensed, preparing to lock hands with the gunman. Another crunch, only a few feet away. There was a low humming, causing Garrett’s to twitch slightly, the sound began to escalate into a whine loud whine, Garrett’s head jerked up as a barrage of blue fire ripped through the wall, turning the man into dust. From the new hole in the wall, Garrett caught a brief glimpse of something before it streaked up and away. Gingerly stepping from his cover, Garrett scanned the ground bellow him, no trace of Laura was present, apart from the smoldering robot on the fire escape and large hole where a storm drain cover should have been
Meanwhile.
Laura crawled out of the storm drain, boots splashing in the thin layer of foul water that steadily trickled out of the mouth of the aperture, dropping onto the rocks she scanned the river, they had exited the system right underneath the main highway, the noise of the traffic masking her movements from the occasional pedestrian that jogged back and forth across the shared space only a few meters above Laura’s head, now with her home shot up Laura figured she should have probably been distressed, scared, something. Instead, she felt strangely calm. sitting back on rocks Laura watched as her last surviving robot hauled itself out of the hole, its frame coated in the muck of the tunnel as well as dust from the battle. Resting her head back against the rock, Laura allowed herself to let out a low sigh as she felt her body relax slightly. The robot dragged itself to its feet and stood to attention, eyes glowing a dull blue. Laura raised her metallic hand and clenched it, watching the sunlight reflect off the metal.
“Fuuuckk” she intoned. “That was to fuarking close.” The robot did not reply. “Oh yeah you’re one of those normal ones aren’t you. Could have used Seven’s commentary.”
Laura pushed herself up to her feet and scanned the street above, as far as she could see there was a bit of a gap in foot traffic.
“Remain here, stay in cover.”
The robot turned and began clambering back into the pipe with that, Laura turned and began to walk down the street making sure to keep her arm covered as she disappeared into the city centre.
A couple of hours later, Laura finally made her way to her objective, a largely empty construction site. As she sat down she slowly scanned the surrounding terrain, fortunately she didn’t see any movement, that gave her some peace of mind as she mentally reached out and connected to what she was looking for, a small drone, lying on top of a crane a few hundred meters away, it lifted off and sped away with a message, after several minutes a low hum began to emanate from the west, Laura stood up and watched as a dark shape rose above the horizon and swept low over her head. The machine was a dropship akin to the ones she had dealt with that morning, albeit with the original armour still attached and the turbines replaced with the new ion thruster. But what interested Laura the most was the cargo of the ship, hanging from its magnetic claws was a pod, about the size of a small shipping container though with somewhat rounded sides. As it landed the front ramp unfolded and from the internal bay leapt Seven, quickly scanning the area around the landing zone with its weapon. Striding forward, Laura patted the robot on the shoulder and hopped up into the ribbed interior. Laura sat back, wincing slightly as she tried to get comfortable in one of the chairs that had quite literally been molded out of the wall, Seven also took a seat, though with significantly less fidgeting. With a rising roar the shuttle craft took flight and began to speed out and away from the city.
The drone watched as the dropship vanished in a North Westward direction, its eye cluster rapidly gathering as much information as it could, dimensions, thrust characteristics as well as any other information it could gather. As the craft disappeared from sight the drone lifted off and began to move back towards the city centre, on the way passing several assault craft that were hurtling after the dropship.