By all means I should be running myself ragged right now, getting everything and everyone together. But it's the one time I should be methodical and prepared. Back to the market.

First, Calaca's Gun shop.

“— Eeeeeyyy. Luc,” he fires up two finger guns at me. His stall still looks dilapidated as usual. Torn to hell tarps hung over the merch. Most of which are 3d printed automatics that are prone to rattling themselves apart after you dump half a mag from them.

“Calaca. The good stuff.”

“Don't know what you're talking about, hermano.”

“Calaca. It's actually important for once. I need to see the shit you've got under the counter.”

“Still don't know what you're tal—”

“The crew. Corpos grabbed them. I need the shit you have under the counter. Not the actual shit you've got up top.”

I figure he gets the picture by now, considering he's moving even before I finish that thought. The scraping of metal on plascrete fills the air as he drags each box out, one by one. Ammo boxes. Storage crates. Stacks and stacks of them. All marked with the Krieger insignia. Can't escape those assholes no where you go, but at least these ones were probably lifted off of a convoy. He starts hefting them up onto the counter itself, making the feeble wooden stall creak loudly.

Definitely the good shit.

“It's on the house. ‘Less you die, [hermano]. Then it'll cost ya.”

As much as I’d like to, I'm not carrying a dozen rifles on my own. I could go for one in each hand, but I'm trying to get a job done. Not trying to look like I belong on a movie poster. One's for me, eleven for the party that I'm about to get started.

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Second. The party. Can't have one of those without booze and whiskey. To the Bassin Lounge.

Everything feels urgent, but at the same time, it doesn't. I know that McNamara is going to sit on his hands with this as long as possible. As long as I don't take too long getting prepped, everyone's going to be fine. Still. I pick up my pace, hurrying through the streets. It's not a long trip, but it's still a trip.

That voice in the back of my head is still telling me to hurry the hell up.

The sun just barely peeking out above the horizon reminds me of what time it is. And for once, it's not actually raining. It's strange how the air tastes around here when it's dry. Hell, I should be getting to sleep right about now, but that can wait until all of my pieces are put in place. The only thing keeping me going right now is the afterburn whatever lingering adrenaline is pumping through me.

Which makes it a hell of a lot easier when I make it to the front doors of The Bassin Lounge. I swing the front door open hard enough to catch everyone's attention— Including Morrigan. No doubt that's going to piss her off and cost me an earful in the future. I can live with that. Being chewed out is easy.

“— Who the fuck wants to shoot up some corpos?”

My outburst is initially met with confusion. The patrons of the crowded bar looked at one another, like I just interrupted their dinner. Silence falls over the smokey den of intrigue.

And then some idiot in the back starts whooping and clapping. I recognize that idiot. Fucking Baldie. I'm almost blinded by the glare coming off of his dome as he stands up, but at least someone's trying to be supportive. Here's hoping that this causes a daisy chain.

I wait. He's still whooping and clapping. Nobody else is joining in.

I'm still waiting.

Still waiti—

A few more people join in. I sigh. I guess it's probably for the best to explain my rationale.

“We've had some corpos trespass on our turf and steal away some of our people. We're going to make a stand. I don't care if you want to hide away here or not, but if we don't push them back, they're going to take everything we have. Inch by fucking inch.”

The crowd quiets down. Either they're waiting for me to continue my speech or—

The rest of the bar starts hooting and hollering. Well. I guess I have my work cut out for me. For once.

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Now. Part three.

My old communicator.

I've been holding onto this thing for way too long. Maybe it's out of some nostalgia for my old life. I should've dumped it the day I woke up on the hospital bed. I couldn't think of anything good to come out of this thing.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Except for now. I might have an army, but I need the artillery.

Artillery by the name of Saba.

Still. I'm a little hesitant to turn it on. Who knows who has been trying to get a hold of me? I'm probably going to see some junk that I'm not going to be happy reading. Though, I don't know who would be sending me messages besides Bobrovnikov and—

I stare, with my jaw slacked for a good several seconds

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This message repeats easily three dozen times over. I have no clue why she was being so persistent in checking in— Shit, I probably should've thought to tell her I was keeping my commlink off. There's a few from Bobrovnikov checking in, but I really do not want to drag him into this. The old guy deserves a real retirement, not getting pulled into some kind of crapflinging contest when he's only a few years out at this point.

Is he a few years out? Crap. I don't even know anymore. Might as well punch out a response to Saba before I get too deep in thought.

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I doubt that she's going to get back to me any time soon—

Ding. A response. Nearly instantly.

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Shit. I guess I could've saved myself a few minutes by opening with that. She doesn't even know who got grabbed, and she's willing to help. Maybe not so much when she hears what my dumbass plan is.

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Weapons. Army. Artillery. Now all we need is a plan.

Which, much like thought earlier, is going to be a problem. Our only real option is to do what McNamara is thinking we're going to do and storm the castle. We don't have any cool tricks or gadgets to bypass anything he's got set out for us. We're just going to be a bunch of rabble crashing up against a wall, with hopes that the wall breaks under our tide.

Though, that's really the simple part. Run a distraction on our side of the walls. Security has to sally out to deal with it, and then we sneak in under the cover of the cage we're rattling. The hard part is once we get to the precinct. There's only so many of us that are getting past that security checkpoint undetected.

We could always ram the checkpoint, but if that wrecks the truck, we're shit out of luck and running from security on foot. Not the best of odds. Even the normal cruisers would run us down like stray dogs, especially with how sparse the coverage is on the border. The perfect solution would be to draw as many of them out into the slab and away from the precinct as possible. Our people can slink away with minimal casualties. Even if it's Slaggers, they're not going to go full on lethal in retort unless we start it.

Wait. That's actually great. Only so many vehicles can go in and out of that checkpoint at a time. If we can get through and jam it up while security is on the wrong side, we're only dealing with what McNamara has set out for us in the precinct. Which is the real unknown factor here.

I know how many cops are between us and the precinct. The routes down to the minute. How many are going to be in cruisers, how many are going to be in interceptors. It's going to take some time for them to get here. Both a blessing and a curse. I don't know how many men and women McNamara has in his back pocket waiting for us. Could be a half dozen, a dozen, or even more than that. Especially if he has corporate stooges on his payroll. The corporate stooges are the real problem. I don't know the level of the training, or even the quality of their gear.

I glance up to that shattered skylight again. Traffic congestion via a riot. Not my best plan, but it could be worse. Now the precinct.

I pull up my commlink, filtering through old messages. There's gotta be something around here— The old floor plan. They were actually planning on doing renovations at some point, but it never got done. Someone higher up must've swiped the money for a bathroom renovation or something. Regardless. The old floor plan. I know the place like the back of my hand, but it'll give me a better idea of where he's going to set up kill rooms. And, more importantly? The electrical. If we can cut that at any point, we have a little bit of a leg up. Looks like the breaker box is in the back of the Chief's room. There's a few junction boxes here and there, with the most important looking one in the basement. A little too out of the way for my liking. I'll stick to the Chief's office once we clear out that side. Still.

Our department was a little too cheap to dole out for night vision. And a multitude of many other things. How could we actually hope for gear that would be useful to us if we couldn't get a coffee-maker machine that wasn't old enough to drive, drink and gamble? You didn't get jack, even if you were someone important. Which, again. Has me worried that he might have someone around with a modicum of equipment or training.

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After a little bit of a powwow at the garage— I know the team wouldn't approve having this many people over for anything that wasn't a party, but it's a special circumstance. At the very least, most of the talk was running over the bare basics for everyone else to follow. Nothing in depth. The more moving pieces you add to a machine like this, the more likely it is to break.

Keep it simple, stupid. Really wish there was a big cheer at the end or something, but I think everyone's quietly pumped to mess up some guys that've been messing with us. At this point, some people might just be doing this as an excuse to send a message back to the metroplex, considering I haven't seen eighty percent of these people around before. Maybe they thought they were coming to a house party? Everyone's a little too armed for that, though. Could've sworn I've seen a dude with a grenade launcher walking around…

— Still. The only person who really needs to know the details is Saba. She's going to be the only one coming with me. I can trust her, and I'm not going to risk some random Slagger getting themselves killed, or worse. She's outside having a smoke, and I'm gonna have to talk to her after I'm done loading up the guns.