Bobby and I were in a VR room. Shooting at VR holo targets with our sniper rifles. I was using the Cyclone this time. She had a rifle called Tempest. It was a larger caliber than the Cyclone but shot bullets at three Mach, despite that it had the same penetration as my Cyclone and would do more damage.
We were laying on a rocky surface one meter from each other. Our targets were spread out in an arctic environment. It was snowing, the air felt cold, and our breaths formed small mist clouds. We kept firing at the targets for ten minutes, the silence broke every time one of us squeezed the trigger. Our scores were even.
Bobby piped up. “You know what I’m going to ask you.”
It wasn’t a question.
Seeing that I remained silent she sighed. “Come on, spit it out. What happened three years ago that had you stop operating in the desert area?”
“I told you already.”
“If you mean the vague message where you say that the doc died and that you won’t be working together with us for some time, Ima smack you.”
I took aim at-
She hit me on my right shoulder only to hiss in pain when she hit the metal underneath.
I aimed at a target 800 meters away, I held my breath and after a few seconds released it while squeezing the trigger. Dead center. “It was meant to be a job where we did something good for once.”
“mh hm,” She said while aiming at another target 800 meters away. She shot. Dead center.
“Our task was to rescue a group of civilians from a small group of cyber vamps. We managed to clear their camp easily enough and get the civilians on board our two cars. Except, that we missed one of the vamps, and he called for help.”
It was one thing to fight against cyber vamps when taking them by surprise, it was another to face them in a fair fight. Between the augments, the cold-blooded temperament, and the ability to go berserk while ignoring pain they were a nightmare to face unprepared.
“How many?” Bobby asked as she took a shot against a target 1000 meters away. A hit.
“Just two cars, one chasing us. The other one coming from the front.”
Not an impossible fight, but not one where everyone would survive.
That is what I tell myself.
The problem was, that we wouldn’t have been able to avoid a fight unless we did something.
“That’s when Jun had an idea.”
Bobby scoffed. “I can imagine what that bastard suggested.”
I aimed at a target 1000 meters away. “He said to drop the civilians and make a run for it.” I took the shot. Another hit.
The vamps are cold-hearted, calculating monsters, they were not chasing us out of a sense of revenge for the ones we killed in their camp. They just wanted their prey back. If they could take them without a fight, they would.
Bobby shook her head. “I guess the good doc didn’t like the idea.”
“He did not, so we did what we always do when someone strongly disagrees with a plan. We took a vote.”
I sighed, a mist of hot air clouding my sight. “Jun and Batou voted for, Alex and the doc voted against. I was the deciding vote.”
“I voted for.”
Bobby grimaced and spoke. “And the doc did not take it lying down.”
“He did not. He got out of the car with the civilians and kept trying to convince us to stay, saying that it was a fight we could take. It looked like he was getting through to Alex and she started trying to convince us too. We had little time. I panicked. I was afraid she would get herself killed. So I knocked her out when she had her back to me.”
Bobby put a hand on my shoulder. “You did what you had -“
“No. You don’t get it. She knew the doc would be against that, so she pretended to be on his side. He wouldn’t have listened to us, but to someone who also seemed to care? After putting on a token resistance she would have convinced him that there was no other way. She and Jun were always the smart ones. I should have trusted her. I chose not to.”
I paused for a second before continuing. “The doc and the civilians stayed behind. The guy wasn’t even mad. The last thing he said was that he’ll figure something out and that we’ll be all laughing about this over drinks.”
“All of them died.”
We stayed in silence for a while. I was relieved she didn’t ask me why we didn’t forcibly drag the doc with us. I didn’t want to answer that question.
She eventually broke the silence. “And that is when the two of you broke up.”
I nodded. “She was furious. She blamed me for doc’s death. I deserved the anger, she blinded my eyes for one week.”
She laid the side of her head on the snow and while giving me a flat look spoke. “You fucked up, but knowing you, you’ve already built a whole cage of guilt around yourself. I am not going to tell you to just forget it, but you can’t torture yourself over this, it won’t solve anything.” After a pause, she brightened up a bit. “Well, at least things seem to be pretty normal between the two of you now.”
“Things are better now. We all kept working together after the incident, she was cold and distant for two years. When Revy joined, Alex stopped being hostile towards me to not scare her off. Eventually, in the last year, things went back to how they were before, somewhat.”
We quieted.
Bobby rolled to her back, her rifle cradled in her arms. She looked at the fake blue sky and said. “Fuck. I didn’t expect this story to get this heavy. Please tell me that the one around this -“ she touched my metal arm. “Is not another tragedy.”
I reassured her. “Not a tragedy. Have you heard how that US senator, who turned out to be a cyber vamp, was found dead with all his vamp friends in one of his establishments in the geostationary American spaceport?”
She turned to me, eyes sparkling. “No. Fucking. Way.”
I smirked. “There was a massive bounty on the black market for him.”
Sometimes a cyber vamp would sneak their way into a position of power. They’d change their appearance, make their legal bounties disappear and pretend to be normal. That being said, I don’t think the government didn’t know that one of their senators was a cyber vamp. The problem was that Senator James had a lot of economic capital invested in helping the fight against the Corpos. The government was willing to make a pact with the devil if it meant resisting the corpos.
She pointed at her eyes. “I want to see, you recorded that right?”
“Of course, need to have proof to claim the bounty.”
I sent her the recording, she closed her eyes while she played it. I went back to shooting targets in the meantime.
I went for one at 2000 meters. I missed it.
She didn’t need to know.
Location: Earth’s atmosphere, en route towards the American spaceport.
Date: Year 2127 Month 06 Day 11
We had stolen an old 21st-century military shuttle. The intel of its existence just happened to escape my uncle’s lips. The hangar that stored it was in an isolated location and was guarded by one private, who had been soundly asleep. I felt a little bad for him, when his sergeant would find out, he’ll get one hell of a grilling.
We had been very skeptical when Revy claimed she could fly one. She claimed that she had already studied all necessary subjects to be a pilot, and was learning astrophysics as extra background info. We had her show off her skills on several simulations before accepting that she knew what she was doing. I have no idea how or when a nineteen-year-old could learn all the knowledge, and go through all the simulations needed to be a pilot. I barely finished high school when I was eighteen.
We were all wearing the dark blue, airtight, armored space suits of the space force. We had false IDs provided by Alex and had already previously scouted the location of our objective. All that was left to do was carry out the plan.
The cockpit had several screens showing the feeds of the external cameras. As we kept rising through the atmosphere the Earth’s curvature gave way to a spherical shape.
On another screen we could see the American spaceport, it looked like a speck of metal from our location. We knew, however, that it was every bit as big as the Mars starport. 32 kilometers long and 6 in diameter. While certainly impressive, when one remembered that to build the one over Mars they had to deal with interplanetary logistics, it didn’t quite stand up to that achievement. It also didn’t need protection from radiation because it was covered by Earth’s magnetic field. The other two spaceports in the world were the one over Paragon International’s territory, somewhere above the Mediterranean Sea, and the one over the Eastern Federation, above what used to be China.
Revy spoke up. “We are being hailed by the port.”
Jun replied. “Do your whole docking thing, I guess.”
Revy accepted the incoming transmission.
“This is Eagle 1, Whiskey 193 what is your business? over.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“This is Whiskey 193, Eagle 1 we are requesting docking, sending you our directives, over.”
“Standby Whiskey 193.” A short silence followed. “Move to dock 37, over.”
“Wilco, over.”
“Roger, out.”
Revy flew us close, the sheer size of the station becoming apparent as we approached, quickly dwarfing the rest of the horizon. She flew us slowly along the length of the behemoth to an armored metal surface marked with a glowing 37 on it. The metal doors slid open and we crossed the threshold at a measured speed, we were still at 0g so we delicately touched ground on the landing spot in the middle of the hangar.
We walked a little uncertainly, we didn’t have much experience in walking with magnetic boots in 0g. Still, we made our way down the ramp of the shuttle. Waiting for us were two individuals with the same armored spacesuits we had, one of them had the insignia of a sergeant, just like Jun did. We couldn’t see her face through the helmet, but we could imagine her confused look as she stared at the old space shuttle. She then turned to Jun and sent a comm request to us.
Before she could speak Jun spoke first “Officers are being cheapskates again.”
The sergeant shook her head “Fucking brass, having no respect for us grunts.” She then nudged her head towards a metal door that led further into the spaceport “Well then, carry on.”
We gave her a nod and did just that, it was no coincidence that we docked in the hangar with a sergeant that asked us no questions.
Once we crossed the door's threshold we entered the vacuum area in between the pressurized interior and the external armor of the base. Since we were still in 0g a simple platform with thrusters and a railing for safety was what transported us to the other side. Where an airlock door waited for us.
We waited in the airlock as the air pressure equalized with the inside of the spaceport. Once it did, the light over our heads blinked green. The door slid open with a hiss, and we stepped inside the spaceport, the artificial gravity asserting itself on us.
Ten million people lived here.
People in casual clothes were walking through the tall and wide avenues. If you didn’t look at the ceiling you couldn’t tell the difference with downtown LA. Buildings rose tall on both sides, and artificial plants and trees were tastefully placed to add some green to all the gray. A large fountain was in the center of the street, In the middle of it, a hologram of the solar system showed the current position of the planets. Lifts were carrying people to both higher and lower sections of the structure.
They certainly spared no effort in making this place fancy.
The spaceport was divided into a section controlled by the US gov and one by the corpos. Our target was in the entertainment district of the government’s section. We walked through various districts and took a couple of lifts to get there.
Unlike the bright lights of the previous sections, the ones of the entertainment district were more muted and the neon colors were comforting in their familiarity. As we marched through the district people made way for us, a couple of armored patrols nodded at us and we nodded back. The establishments we passed varied from gyms, sports clubs, bowling centers, restaurants, bars, clubs, cabarets, strip clubs, and more.
We arrived at a hotel, we took the keys to one room. The receptionist raised one eyebrow at that, there were five of us after all, but did not comment. We then made our way to the roof of the building. Before reaching it, we left the keys to the room inside the room. No need to give extra reasons to be remembered.
Once on the roof we walked to the edge, and with the help of the suit’s thrusters jumped to the neighboring roof, we repeated the maneuver four more times.
Landing one final time on top of a luxury hotel, we started unpacking the bags that we had been carrying until now. As much as I loved my Cyclone, sometimes you needed the right tool for the right job. Since we were about to engage in close quarters with a bunch of cyber vamps that tool was the Thor rail shotgun. Small arms rail weapons were quite terrible in most circumstances, the capacitors wouldn’t last long before needing to be recharged. However, if you didn’t plan to enter a protracted firefight they were amazing.
The Thor could only shoot five times, but every shot would hit like a freight train. Regardless of penetration, the kinetic energy alone would make mincemeat of any organic tissues behind any armor or cyberware.
Oh, and EMP grenades, of course, lots and lots of emp grenades. We were wearing them on our belts, we had six each. Way more than we needed. Cyberware might be quite resistant to emp, but it would make the person that got hit by them disoriented and unbalanced, doubly so if they had lots of cyberware.
When we were clasping the belts with the EMP grenades Batou said. “Just don’t get them anywhere near me, those things make me nauseous.”
Revy jokingly waved one near him. He rolled his eyes.
We all assembled by the door that led to the top floor. Jun spoke on the comms “Alright team, our target should be to the right of the corridor past the second door to the left. Ideally, we break in, eliminate him and go back to roof hopping. If the plan fails we will clear every room on the floor and repeat until the ground floor if need be. Alex had installed a backdoor when we previously scouted, we can all access the camera feeds and open any door. If you think you hear hostiles on the other side of the door do not hesitate to use the EMP grenades, better one more stunned innocent than one of us dead. Are we clear?”
We all gave varying confirmations.
He nodded “We are going to complete this mission and we will get those two million credits. Batou take point, Revy cover our rear. We break in 5, 4…”
We all got in position and tensed, ready to irrupt in a bloody cyber vamp den.
“3, 2, 1…”
“Gogogo!”
Batou shouldered through the door, we followed while covering our blind spots. I increased the volume input of my ears, I could hear our footsteps and controlled breathing with crystal clarity. We got to the door without incident, Batou raised a hand and subvocalized in our comms. “I can hear heavy breathing from the other side, preparing to use EMP.”
He leaned against the wall by the door, grabbed an EMP from his belt, and activated it. Immediately after he opened the door with his neural interface and threw the EMP inside the room.
After the pulse, we broke inside the room. Inside, two cyborgs, a man, and a woman that were in a state of semi undress turned their disoriented faces toward us. Blood was dripping from their mouths. On the bed between them lay a woman, her limbs torn off.
Pretty safe to assume they were vamps. Me and Batou shot them in the head. The Thor’s emitted a cracking sound as the electricity soared and propelled the pellets at extreme speeds. Their heads were blown off, the wall behind them painted red with gore.
Unfortunately, the senator was nowhere to be seen.
“We go with plan B then,” Jun stated.
We exited the room and fanned out clearing all the rooms on the floor, throwing the occasional EMP when suspecting hostiles to be present. Two more borgs that reacted violently were offed, while we were not certain if they were vamps, we weren’t going to take any chances.
We reassembled and went down one floor. After clearing all the rooms with no incidents I heard Alex’s voice on the comms. “They are assembling in the bar area on the second floor, the target is there. He’s in the upper lounging area.”
I shifted the vision of my left eye to the camera of the bar. There was a large clear area, the marble floor gleamed from the white light emitted by the fake candles of a massive chandelier. A dozen wooden tables were overturned, with as many people armed with handguns taking cover behind them. A few of them were clearly borgs. By the entrance two decorative columns of marble stood tall. Behind the bar, at the end of the room, two armored individuals with assault rifles were barricaded. To the left of the bar, a small set of stairs led to an upper lounging area. On it, two armored guards by the railing were pointing their rifles at the entrance of the bar. Behind them, a man was sitting at a table, half of his face was chromed golden, he had long blonde hair and was wearing a suit and tie. He was drinking from a teacup without a worry in the world.
The armored guards were a problem. Not that the Thor’s cared about the armor, the issue was that the EMPs wouldn’t do jack to them.
“Alex I don’t suppose you can blind those in armor?” I asked with little hope.
“No can do.” She confirmed my guess.
We couldn’t just ignore the rest and focus on the guards because if a borg got close to one of us and that person’s name wasn’t Batou or Revy they wouldn’t get out unscathed, armor or no armor.
“Here’s the plan,” Jun said in the comms. “We all throw one EMP before entering to force those behind the tables to stay behind cover, Batou will take point and provide covering fire against the two guards on the upper floor. Revy will sprint behind one of the columns by the entrance and do the same against the two other guards behind the bar. The rest of us will advance and take out those taking cover behind the tables. Batou and Revy once you run out of ammo switch to melee, and make sure to take your time between shots.” He paused for a second “If anyone wants to pull back this is your last chance.”
No one replied to him.
“Let’s go kill some vamp scum then.” Batou encouraged.
We all got in position, just out of sight of anyone inside the bar area. Jun subvocalized a countdown. “On my mark throw EMPs.”
“3,”
I took an EMP from my belt.
“2,”
I prepared to launch it.
“1,”
I activated it.
“Mark!”
I threw the EMP as strong as I could through the door. As soon as the pulses resounded Batou and Revy rushed through the door, firing in the general direction of their targets forcing them to take cover. I lowered the input volume of my ears before I followed Jun inside, Alex just behind me.
Despite lowering the input and being in armor the cacophony of sounds assaulted my ears, rapid gunshots were in concert with the thrumming and cracking sounds of the Thors. Curses, and shouting were ever-present.
While they were still disoriented the three of us rushed towards the middle area with the tables, each of us executing two hostiles.
Batou shouted in the comms. “Take cover! Armor piercing rounds!”
I dived behind one of the tables as everything started exploding around me. The floor blowing apart wherever the bullets would land, I felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder and upper arm. The pain was quickly suppressed by the painkillers and medical nanites automatically injected by the armor. Liquid adrenaline kept me focused.
I vaguely heard “Two hard targets down” in Revy’s voice, I swapped my view to hers for a split-second scout. She had flanked from the right while they were focused on us and took out the guards behind the bar.
I grabbed my Thor with my left hand, not feeling my right anymore. When my surroundings stopped being a meatgrinder I quickly rose, shotgun aimed ahead. Just in time to shoot at an approaching borg who had an insane look in his eyes, I aimed at his center but my awkward handling resulted in blowing his legs away instead. He kept crawling at me with his arms, uncaring of his loss. I retreated from him, not wanting to waste my last shot on him. I took a moment to study the situation.
One of the guards on the upper floor was laying on the railing half his body on one side and half on the other, despite the armor being intact he was clearly dead. Revy was behind the bar, three shooters behind a table were keeping her pinned down. Alex was sneaking behind them, lining them up for a multi-hit shot. Jun was missing his left arm, he was looking for his shotgun while going from cover to cover. Batou was on the ground by the stairs, his left side was a mess. He was aiming with his Thor up the stairs toward the upper floor. Either bluffing and forcing the remaining guard to stay hidden or waiting to pop him.
The last guard was the biggest threat, so I decided to keep overwatch over the railing while dodging the crawling cyber vamp that was following me.
Alex got in position, and shot once, killing two hostiles immediately, the remaining one turned around, but before he could do anything she shot again. When the shots rang out the last guard popped in view from the upper floor and took aim at Alex. Batou and I both shot him, that section of the railing disintegrated and the armored guard was sent flying back from the impact.
After the gunfire died down Jun emerged with his Thor held in his right hand. He stepped on the back of the crawling cyber vamp and shot him in the back of his head.
Jun went to help Batou up. He gave his still-loaded Thor to Batou who dropped his spent one. Then he supported Batou’s left side and they slowly made their way up the stairs. Alex was limping, one stray armor-piercing bullet had found her right leg. I approached her and raised my right arm to help her. Except I couldn’t raise my right arm. My eyes went to my limb for the first time since I was shot. My arm was attached to my shoulder by a thin strip of flesh, uselessly dangling by my side. Revy, looking winded but ok, supported Alex’s right side and held my left hand while guiding us up the stairs. I followed her in a fugue.
We stopped in a semi-circle on the other side of the round table where Senator James was still sitting at. His tea was on the table in front of him. He was looking at the guard who had flown backward, the armor was unbroken, making it look like the guard was simply sitting against the wall.
He spoke then, his voice was soft. “Shame, they all had dreams they shared with me that will never come true.” He turned to us. “You all look like shit, why don’t you take a seat?”
None of us moved.
He continued undaunted “I suppose hostility is understandable. Cyber vampires are feared, persecuted, and hunted for good reasons. The truth, however, is that we are not any more evil than you.”
“Except for the part where you go psycho and commit brutal murders every now and then.” Countered Alex.
The ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. He glanced at the carnage below. “Precisely, we are not so different after all.”
Jun extended his only arm towards Batou who handed him the Thor. He got closer to Senator James and raised the gun to his face.
James took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Jun spoke then. “Can you even feel fear?”
“No, but I can feel regrets.”
“You deserve them.”
“I know.”
The crack of Thor’s thunder echoed through the building.