We all agreed that a conventional method of tracking would be too slow. The gangs were probably already looking through all the corpo data they could get their hands on. Coupled with their large manpower there was no way we would find anything before them. We needed to do something that the gangs couldn’t. Like getting in contact with someone who wouldn’t work with them and that had already been studying corpo transport movements for the last twenty years, allowing them to spot any changes in their network.

This is why this Sunday, instead of enjoying the morning smog of LA we were speeding northeast across the Mojave Desert. I was in my SUV following Batou’s armored truck. We were going at a steady 100 kilometers per hour. A flag had been hoisted on each vehicle, they flapped frenetically against the cold winter wind. Displayed on them was a black eagle on a blue background.

Revy’s voice sounded on the comms “Why is their symbol a black eagle on a blue background? If they are ‘the Patriots’ wouldn’t they use red, white, and blue?”

Alex’s voice resounded from both next to me and the comms “The military doesn’t want them to appear associated with the government. The Patriots are technically outlaws, but in truth, they are more like a non-recognized guerilla force that had been built by ex-army members to harass the corpos. Not recognizing them makes it so whenever they deal any damage to the corpos the government can just play dumb and deny any involvement.”

Aside from the Patriots, the other big outlaw group in the Mojave Desert was the Raptors, all of which were cyber vamps. Cyber vampires, or as they are commonly known cyber vamps, were augmented lunatics who instead of taking meds had the brilliant idea of using drugs to treat the side effects of their cyber gear. Unfortunately, instead of simply making them an uncoordinated deranged band of psychos it made them unfeeling sociopaths until they got their next hit. They would hide amongst the populace, looking and acting normal. That changed when they managed to get their hands on their heavy drug of choice.

Then they would go psycho.

The suppressed emotions would come back with a vengeance. They would be like that only for a short while, but during that time they were responsible for some of the most brutal and bloody murders ever committed. Needless to say, they were hunted by everyone, everywhere in the world. To the extent that vamp bounty hunting was a genuine profession.

We were all in our tactical gear, helmets on. Alex was scouting ahead with her drone. Honestly, we were being overcautious. This close to Fort Irwin the military patrols would keep the area safe.

The cold wind started picking up the sand, obfuscating our vision.

“God, I hate winter.” Jun blurted on the comms “Summer cannot get here fast enough, I miss lying on the beach and enjoying the view.”

“Enjoying the view of what I wonder?” I teased him.

“You tell me.” He countered.

Alex chuckled “You can always use VR if you’re that desperate Jun.”

“It is not the same thing.” He objected.

“But it literally is, all your senses are linked to the simulation. You can’t tell it apart from reality.”

“That is the problem, I have no desire in becoming one of those addicts that start blending the two together. I do not want to lose sight of what is real.”

Silence took over us after his declaration.

I felt like there was a story there. I have known Jun for six years, but it was at times like these that I remembered that I didn’t really know him.

The sun kept rising to its peak as we pierced through the desert, the wind calmed down and the specks of desert dust gave way to the blue sky, contrasting with the yellow dunes that surrounded us. I couldn’t help but remember how it had been three whole years since we were last here, three years since the… incident where we lost the doc. I glanced at Alex. Yea, being with her here after what happened was weirding me out all right.

We kept driving further north towards an unassuming rock outcropping.

Alex broke the silence “They’re sending us a greeting party, two armored vehicles.”

I wrote a message to my ex-army buddy.

Jack:

It’s us, you in the armored vehicles?

Bobby:

Yes, stop at 100 and meet halfway.

Looks like Bobby wanted to talk before we met Arty.

We stopped one hundred meters from the armored vehicles and got out. Our boots sank slightly into the sand. On the other side, half a dozen individuals with gear similar to ours dismounted, one made their way to the midpoint while the rest fanned out forming a perimeter around us. Guns pointed outside.

The figure approaching us removed her helmet revealing a bob of sandy blonde hair and a wide grin.

We also removed our helmets, I called out to her “Hey Bobby, still trying to become a sniper half as good as me?”

She closed the rest of the distance and punched my left shoulder, hard. “You just stole my line you little punk ass bitch.”

Jun spoke up “Can you please save the dick-measuring contest for later? I would rather not have to hear it every time you met.”

She then turned to him and Batou “I see you’re still going around with questionable company.”

Jun didn’t take the bait, Batou nodded and said “It’s good to meet you again after all this time Bobby.”

She winked at him before turning to Alex.

At which point she straightened up and saluted “Ma’am, it’s good to see you are doing well, please don’t blind me this time.”

Alex lowered her head in shame “You’re going to remind me of that for the rest of my life, won’t you? I know I went too far, but it’s also kinda your fault for trying to push me on a stage when I’m not good with being in the spotlight.”

Bobby then looked at Revy “Rookie, let me give you a piece of advice: Hell knows no fury like an Alex scorned. Let me tell you of that time-”

“Bobby,” I interrupted her before she could talk our ears off, she did that when reminiscing. “It’s good to see you, but why did you want to meet away from base camp?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Can’t it be that I just miss you after having not seen you for the last three years?” Her voice got a little heated by the end. She then sighed softly “But yea, there was something I wanted to tell you.”

Her face turned serious “The boss is preparing a big Op. He’s recalling all of our units for this, and we are going to need all the help we can get. The boss will probably ask you anyways, but I wanted to ask you myself, as a friend, to please help us out. With your team on our side, many of us won’t have to die.”

This Op must be the real deal, for Bobby to be this serious.

“I can’t speak for everyone.” I started “And we are on a clock, but if it's this important to you I don’t mind watching your back when things go down.”

She looked at me and grinned a little “Don’t mind watching my back when things go down? Thanks, Jack."

I rolled my eyes.

Jun piped up “If that is all, can we get moving already?”

Bobby smiled at Jun and showed him a middle finger, she then turned and started walking back.

We followed the armored vehicles to a large outcrop of rocks. One of the rocky surfaces was actually a metal surface, that If you didn’t know it was there it might as well be impossible to find.

The door opened, leading us to a vast garage where we parked, Alex recalled her drone and left it by the cars. Bobby told us to follow her, and we marched further inside the metal corridors of the hidden base. Occasionally meeting people dressed in casual clothes who stopped to salute Bobby before continuing along.

“Heh, they salute you like you were an officer.” I pointed out to her.

“I told them not to do that, but they don’t listen. I’d make a shit officer.”

We kept walking until we reached a metal door that Bobby unceremoniously opened and led us through.

The room we entered was quite spacious and empty, on the far wall there were two dozen monitors. In front of them, there were three wide desks. Sat at the central one there was a middle-aged man, with messy graying hair and a full beard. He was typing away on a laptop. One of his eyes was glowing blue which meant he was doing some techie stuff, or watching cat videos for all I knew.

The man turned and when he saw us, he hurriedly stood up and walked towards us. “Bobby why didn’t you tell me that they were here, I would’ve gone to greet them.”

Bobby shrugged “Telling you now boss.”

The man walked to me and offered me a hand, which I clasped. “Good to see you again Jack. Despite your current affiliations, you’re always welcome to join here. Your uncle has probably single-handedly helped us more than anyone else in the military.”

“Good to see you Arty, thanks but I’ll pass, and yea if you feed intel of cyber vamps locations to my uncle he will hunt them down like no other, regardless of his unit’s tears of how tired they are.”

Bobby laughed from the side “Yea he does that all right.”

Arty then offered his hand to Alex “It’s good to see you, Alex, finally someone that can truly appreciate my job.”

“Good to see you Arty, and you think too highly of me. I can’t understand half of what you do.”

“That’s more than anyone in this base.” He then turned to Revy. “I don’t think we’ve met before.” He offered her his hand “My name is Arthur, but I insist that you call me Arty. I’m the fool leading these other fools to take down a massive capitalist organization that threatens America’s freedom, ironic right?”

“I’m Revy, and I’d agree if I knew what you were referring to.”

Arty was taken aback “What are they teaching kids at school nowadays?”

“I’m currently studying astrophysics.”

Arty smiled “The hot subject of the moment, I guess you don’t need to know history for that. However, I hope you will consider sparing some time to learn some history in the future. Those who don’t are destined to repeat it.”

I rescued her “All right Churchill, I think we both want something from each other.”

Arty glanced at Bobby before focusing on me “I do? Well, it’s not like I was trying to hide it, and I suppose if Bobby asked you first that increases the likelihood of you helping us. I’m more curious about what I can do for you.”

“I would like you to share any big irregularities in the corpo transports of the last years.”

“You are going to have to be more specific than that. I need to know what I’m looking for.”

“The materials required to build the new starships.”

“Ah, I also theorized that they were building them ahead of time. Unfortunately, while there are some suspicious movements going to Los Angeles, they seem to be a red herring. Far too blatant and obvious. How they are hiding the logistics of their operation is beyond me. The corpos might be scum, but they are very competent scum.” He then smiled a little “The assistance I need from you might help you with your search.”

“You’re awfully good at selling us that we want to help you” I pointed out.

He raised his arms to the side “Comes with the job.” He lowered his arms and spoke with a more serious tone “In case you do not wish to take this job I need all of you to not share what I’m about to say. Is that clear?”

Arty had been ignoring the existence of Jun and Batou and while he did not say it, his words were meant for them. He did not ignore them out of hatred alone, though there probably was a strong dislike considering the leader of the Patriots was a patriot and he had no love for the gangs. He also ignored them to maintain plausible deniability of ever working with members of Sentai.

Jun and Batou had been on a call with me the whole time so that they could subvocalize their input if necessary. Jun did so now “Tell the paranoid man that we understand.”

“We all understand Arty, considering how we are likely to say yes you probably won’t have to worry about that at all.”

Arty nodded “Had to be said nonetheless.” He clasped his hands behind his back and started speaking. “After twenty years of dealing with the corpos, I can finally say that they fucked up, big time. We found a black site that belongs to them. It’s north of here inside a mountain in Death Valley, close to the Raptor’s territory, a group of cyber vamps for those who might not know. Now before you get excited, I doubt they are building any spaceships in it, the level of transportation required would have not escaped our notice so close to our base.”

Alex crossed her arms and asked, “How on earth did you find it if it had been so close for so long without you noticing?”

Arty beamed “That is the best part! They flew two helicopters to it. You see, after observing the site we discovered that they were using some of those really advanced transports from Europe that Paragon developed, those that are pretty much invisible unless you know where to look. Which is how they managed to keep hidden so well for so long. I’m willing to bet my left hand that some corpo exec that thinks too highly of himself could not accept the idea of not flying to a location, therefore single-handedly ruining all the efforts they had invested in keeping the site hidden.”

Arty’s left hand was metallic like my right.

He calmed down a little and continued “We are going to launch an attack on the black site. The journey itself will be challenging, while we were planning to have the army clear us a path through the Raptor’s territory the events in Los Angeles of the last week… got in the way.”

He very nearly looked towards Jun and Batou but eventually settled his stare on me. “Therefore, the road will be dangerous, the army units that returned yesterday had already been deployed to make our path easier, but it will not be a clear path.”

Revy raised her hand “Why not just wait for them to clear one?”

Arty raised a finger “Time is of the essence. I doubt that the corpos will not notice the mistake of their executive, once they do, they will clear the site before you and I can blink. That being said, we don’t have to take over the entire complex. We just have to confirm anything illegal going within. Then a company of cyber spec ops who just happen to be next to the site and who I just happen to have on speed dial will do the rest.”

We all stirred when he mentioned the cyber spec ops, those were the elite of the elite. I couldn’t help but ask “Why not have the cyber spec ops move in right now?”

He sighed “Until we one hundred percent confirm that there is something nefarious going on inside, the hands of those men and women are tied.”

He quietened, apparently finished. Waiting for our answer.

Alex and Revy joined the group call that the rest of us were already on.

When they did Jun subvocalized “I do have a few bad ideas of what we could be doing instead, but I feel like helping them is our best chance at getting a new lead. Unless someone has a better idea, I think we should take the job.”

Nobody contested him so as the current elected speaker of the group I said “We will be helping you, however, this is still a job so we expect to be paid appropriately.”

Arty chuckled “Of course, I’m not some kind of pauper.”

His eyes glowed yellow as he transferred 250 thousand credits to me. That was way more than what we were usually paid.

Arty winked at us “Buy yourselves something nice after all of this is over. We depart at sundown, with the cover of night. Feel free to enjoy your stay here until then.” Not waiting for a reply, he went back to the desk he was working on when we found him and went back to doing whatever he had been doing.

As I transferred Batou’s portion to him I heard him whisper “I’m saved.”

Just when we were about to decide how to spend the rest of our time Bobby grabbed me by the arm and dragged me towards the exit.

“Not so fast sunshine. You and I have a match to complete to determine who’s the best sniper.”