The two stayed up on the roof all night long, maintaining their watch. They had a brief moment of excitement when a single car left the battalion building and sped towards them. A minute later, it screeched to a stop in front of the old grocery store.
Trace was quick to eliminate them using the scout rifle.
A few hours later, they received a message letting them know the other teams were en route. They stayed on the roof long enough to watch them arrive and then headed down. The three raider cars were still sitting where they had been parked by their now-dead owners the day before in front of the store.
Each of them had lift kits similar to what his truck had originally had, along with extremely modified back ends. The backs of each car had been chopped out and welded so they could be used like mini-trucks. In Trace’s opinion, they looked absolutely ridiculous, but to each their own.
They hurried to where they had parked their own vehicles and began the drive back to Denver. Exploring the ruins would have to wait for another time. A time when their vehicles weren’t already loaded down with loot.
Besides, if he was being honest with himself, despite having had all night to cool off, Trace was still a little annoyed with Monroe. Knowing that the corporation Vinna-Kwoi -if that was indeed the corp behind the attack- now had a firm target on his warehouse was infuriating. If he had known that before he left, then he could have done something.
As it was, out there in the wastelands, all he could do was send a message to Ko and hope nothing happened while he was away.
As they reached the city, Monroe showed him how to go through the security at the wall in the proper manner. If he had known about this the last time around, then the records on the truck wouldn’t have been run the last time around. It really just consisted of showing them his edger ID along with the record of his current mission that had him outside the wall.
That was it.
Just like that, they were back inside the city and heading toward the warehouse.
All the gang activity that they had seen as they were leaving appeared to have died down some. The number of corpo cars shadowing the useless pig punchers was still the same though.
At the warehouse, they drove both vehicles onto the lift and sent it down to the basement. For the moment, they would store all the cans of food down there, along with the other supplies. The ammo would be stored on the main floor.
Monroe grabbed a box of supplies, and some food before they headed back up. Once there, they stored the bulk of the ammo and then shoved the rest into Black Betty to be sold off.
Locking everything up behind them, Trace hopped into the passenger seat of Monroe’s van. He had his courier bag with him, but the scout rifle and assault rifle had been removed from its straps. The scout rifle had been placed back on its hanger in the truck, while the assault rifle was sitting on the floor of Black Betty alongside Trace’s shotgun.
They were on their way to the gun store to purchase a couple of suppressors and talk to the gunsmith there about working on the K-10. Monroe was also going to sell all his ammo while they were there.
Trace was also looking for something for his revolver, either a holster or some sort of ammo clip that could be attached to the belt. Anything really that would make it even a little more useful to him.
Pulling up to the store, they were startled by a notification. Someone had just gone cyberpsycho nearby, like inside the store, close by.
Grabbing their weapons, they jumped out of Black Betty and ran to the front door of the shop. Peering in through the bar-covered windows, they were quickly able to see what was going on.
There were several common scenarios when it came to cyberpsychos. The one that Trace and Ko and encountered before was generally the most common. The second most common was the individual simply wanting to kill everyone around them. Going down the list and coming in at number eight was a combination of numbers one and two, wherein the person wanted to kill everyone, but they wanted to do it with weapons that had been fitted to their bodies.
The psycho in question was currently standing inside the store over the bloody, unconscious body of the gun store owner. She had a shotgun strapped to her arm and was in the process of running wires to a wireless control circuit that was synced to a wireless module in her neck. The shotgun itself was a tech-assisted feed and fire model that had more electronic pieces inside it than was normal.
There was a whole subset of guns that had technology integrated into their very makeup and design. They worked well and typically had the same functionality as most other guns, sometimes even extra options. However, they couldn’t use mods. There were a few limited upgrades that could be done by a gunsmith, but mostly you got what you bought.
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Which in this woman’s case was a shotgun that had the capability of being linked to a wireless control circuit.
“Are we sure she’s gone cyberpsycho?” Trace whispered to Monroe. “She seems so much more cognizant and normal than the last one I encountered. That fellow had obviously lost his mind. Compared to him, this lady just seems like a normal, violent person.”
Monroe shrugged. “She got registered as one in the system, so she must have done something to set off the watch protocols in her NetConnect. Mentally, every cyberpsycho is different though. I’ve seen ones who acted completely normal, even as they tore people limb from limb, and others who the only thing wrong with them was how much they had dissociated from reality. They would sit in one place imagining entirely new lives in strange lands. They weren’t a harm to anyone, even themselves.”
Trace reached out and tried the door, only to find it locked. Not that he had really expected much else.
“The windows will be bulletproof,” Monroe told him softly. “We might be able to shoot out the lock, but attempting the backdoor first would be a better choice.”
“Do you know where it is?”
The large man nodded. “Somewhat. I’ve come to this store a few times in the past.”
They rushed down the block, and into an alleyway that split two of the buildings. From behind, all the stores looked the same, and they were forced to estimate where they were. Thankfully, it was easier than they first thought, as the gun store had some very telling items in the area right behind it.
Trace unholstered his CD-10, while Monroe took out a knife. If possible, they wanted to take the woman alive. From what they had seen, she hadn’t done anything too terrible, so it might be possible to rehabilitate her. Of course, it all depended on what she had done to initially trip the watch protocol.
Sneaking in through the back of the shop, they could hear the woman muttering to herself. She was talking about angels and demons, and how she had been recruited to rid the city of the filthy demons.
‘Okay, maybe she is crazy,’ Trace sent to Monroe, as they continued to creep closer.
The store gunsmith had been tied up and then knocked unconscious in the back room. They left him lying there for the moment.
It took a few tense minutes, of them extra-carefully placing each foot to reach the door that separated the back of the store from the front.
Trace ran a quick S&R scan to ensure she was still in the same position and began sending a countdown message to Monroe. On his go, the big man flung the door open, nearly ripping it off its hinges. Ignoring the impressive display of strength, Trace, already in position a little farther back, corrected his aim and squeezed the trigger. The corrections were needed so she wouldn’t die from his bullets.
The first shot hit the bicep of her fleshware arm, jerking her about. The second shot hit her in the same place on the opposite arm, amidst a shower of sparks. She had undergone a full cyberware arm replacement. That meant part of her shoulder and a couple of bones to properly support everything would have been done as well.
The shot damaged the arm, but wasn’t enough to fully keep it from functioning.
Monroe ran into the room and used his own cyberware arm to push off the counter as he jumped over it. One of his large, booted feet cracked against her jaw, sending her spinning through the air to crumple against the floor.
Her muscles contracted in a spasm and the shotgun fired, obliterating a portion of the counter, and barely missing the unconscious and bloody shop owner.
From beginning to end, the entire encounter had only lasted a few seconds. Thankfully, they had caught her unawares, or it could have easily ended differently.
Trace joined Monroe in the front of the store, holstering his gun when he saw she was down for the count. Not wanting to take the risk, he reached over and slipped the wireless module out of her NetConnect. Now, they wouldn’t have to worry about the shotgun going off on accident again.
“I’m going to get some rope from your van and notify Stick-Point that we have apprehended a cyberpsycho so they can cancel the alert.”
Monroe waved a hand distractedly at him. He was already checking on the owner.
Unlocking the door, Trace stepped out onto the sidewalk, already busy putting the message for Stick-Point together.
It was why he didn’t see the incoming vehicle until it was too late. Behind the wheel was a panicked edger who thought he was being smart by using his car to bust down the bulletproof door. Brakes squealed as the driver hit them too late to do any good.
The noise finally attracted Trace’s attention, and in a moment of desperation, he moved. He could feel his ‘Overcharge 1’ perk kicking in, giving him that full-body burst of adrenaline. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late in this case. The amount of burst it gave him just wasn’t enough to overcome how late he had become aware of the situation.
Still, he was able to get partially out of the way.
As a result, when the car hit him, only part of the right side of his body was crushed, instead of all of him.
The bones in his body had been undergoing a strengthening process for the last couple of weeks. It was even getting close to finishing, and only needed another week and a half, as long as he had plenty of supplements and nutrition. In this instance, that small gap made a large difference.
The bones along his right side fractured, but mostly held strong. Whereas his leg broke in multiple places, he was lucky it didn’t shatter when it was crushed.
The majority of the damage went to his arm, which he had held out in front of him in a vain attempt to stop the car. His hand had taken the impact first and then transferred the hit to the rest of his arm in a devastating fashion.
The wrist of his right hand had been pulverized, the impact turning it into a chalky, useless mush. The actual bones of his arm had held up better, but it was all the worse for him in this case. The muscles around the shoulder joint hadn’t been sufficiently reinforced, not that it would have helped in this case.
His arm was torn free at the joint, the bones piercing through the skin as they were then driven into the wall behind him.
In the scant few seconds it took Monroe to burst out of the building, Trace had already lost consciousness. The driver of the car backed up in a rush, which then let Trace fall to the ground, tearing the last pieces of skin that connected his right arm to him as he did so.