They killed the owner, obviously, can’t be letting people think they can get away with crossing the gangs. Alex, surprisingly, felt…nothing. She doesn’t know what to do with that. She’s killed so many people, maybe she’s become numb? He was pretty old, and it was sad to see his wrinkled face marred with a bullet, but other than that she doesn’t really care. She’s reminded of the corpo couple, and how they still haven’t gotten got. Eventually, all in due time. They debated whether they had to move of not, on the one hand they could be compromised, on the other, maybe the old man only told that group? Both are just as likely, and Alex doesn’t really want to leave the bunker. Sure, eating beans all day gets old quick, but they're safe and can train. If other gangers don’t know about this place, there’s no reason not to stay, big if though. So they choose to wait across the street, tying up the houses current tenant and just watching the old mans house until something happened.
It didn’t take long.
“Hot damn, five cars for little old us” Sasha whistles
“We did just take out a decently sized group, wouldn’t be surprised if they picked the overwhelming force option” Aki replies.
“MHHM!” says their temporary prisoner.
“What he said,” Aki says.
“Still, that’s a little extreme, isn’t that twenty fucking gangers just for us?” Yorin says.
“Two of those are vans, so twenty four” Rania replies
“Well fuck me then”
Alex looks at the clothing and countenance of the gangers, they’re all Kingdom, and they move with confidence. Dressed in the typical Togas with purple sashes, they exit their cars and approach the bunker. Then a giant exits one of the vans and Alex hitches her breath, there’s a woman next to him, looking whole and hale.
How?
Aki curses under his breath and Sasha immediately closes the curtains.
“We need to get the fuck out of here” she says.
“Was that…” Rania trails off.
“Yes, now let’s go” Alex says.
The captive struggles in vain as they forget him in their haste.
-
They have to be very careful with the patrols along the way, they’d worry about the bystanders pointing them out, as they are clearly gangers. But they hope that the fact this used to be House territory would give them some clemency.
They were wrong.
As Alex hides behind a stationary car and curses out her luck, bullets fly between them and the opposing gangers, a lot of civilian corpses lay on the streets as only Sasha and Aki seem to care about collateral. Alex curses her lack of foresight for not grabbing at least a pistol as she forces her newly bleeding arm to move and grab her katana’s hilt.
They need to finish this quickly or they’ll be surrounded, or worse, Goliath will catch them. Alex takes a deep breathe, calming her still sore muscles and dashes out of cover.
The reaction is immediate, bullets are drawn to her like a magnet, and the only reason she isn’t made into swiss cheese is because she’s got cheats to help her out, but even then some bullets hit non-vital locations. She pushes through the pain in her legs as they are riddled with bullets, forcing them to move just the same as her arm.
Then she is among them.
Three low-tier Kingdom grunts aim their guns at her but their too late. She creates a large gash across the eyes on one of them, blinding her as she moves forward to the next, impaling his intestines before forcing the blade out his side, causing his guts to trail the floor. The last tries to run but is gunned down.
She turns to the blinded ganger and kicks away their gun.
“Get down and don’t move,” she whispers into their ear.
They comply.
Alex forces her bullet ridden legs to run back to her friends.
“That way.” Rania points down the street, she nods.
-
They had to travel the fucking sewers after that, for fear of all the attention their gunfight brought to them. It was rank as fuck and thankfully they didn’t have to stay there for very long as Rania guided them to her apartment complex, now the trick was getting to the third floor without being noticed.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
They used the stairwell, it was pretty effective considering how averse to the mundane 22nd century people are, once they confirmed no one was in the hallway they dashed towards 315 as Rania interfaced with her lock using her eyes. In but a moment they were inside the apartment.
They were not alone.
A woman in a bathrobe is sitting on the couch watching something that really isn’t appropriate for Alex to look at. Eh, she’s seen worse.
“Uhm…you wouldn’t happen to be the original tenants would you?” The woman asks.
“I am” Rania says flatly “Who are you and why shouldn’t I strangle you for watching porn on my couch.”
“I’m Olivia small!” The woman chirps “with SadMine incorporate, pleasure to meet you person who please won’t strangle me” She holds out her hand while the other keeps her bathrobe stable, she puts on a bright smile that Alex is kinda impressed by, considering some of them are covered in blood and everyone is armed, and the threat, can’t forget that.
Rania sighs and shakes the woman's hand, “Rania Youwalkim, now why are you in my home?”
Olivia perks up “I bought it!”
Rania stares daggers at the woman, “you’re my new landlord?”
“And hopefully roommate!”
Rania groans.
“How do you just buy an apartment? How loaded are you?” Elian asks amazed.
“Oh it was nothing really, just ten thousand creds.”
“So you…bought the apartment because it was cheap?” Alex asks
The corpo nods enthusiastically “Yup! War has a way with depreciating assets to ridiculous extremes, but this was just too good to pass up on.”
Alex rubs her temple with her left hand, “ok, sure, makes perfect sense. Now why are you here”
Olivia shrugs, “thought I’d get a change of scenery, make friends with the neighbors, work from home. You know how cutthroat it is in the Megatowers. All about climbing the ladder with no one being satisfied with where they’re at. I could count my friends on one hand and all of them would sell me out in a heartbeat by if it led to a promotion.”
Sasha looks at the woman like she’s crazy “you came down, in the middle of a war zone, hoping to make friends?”
“Yup! Best decision of my life honestly. Ms.Patterson makes the best apple pie, absolutely delish, and there’s this guy I’ve been seeing, he’s quite the hunk! A little religious, but that’s fine. It feels like I’m living in one of those romcom shows, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
“Who the fuck is Ms.Patterson” Rania grumbles.
Olivia has a look of reproach directed at the woman “why, she’s the sweetest geriatric you’ll ever meet! She’s just across from us at 314. How could you have spent so long here and not met her?”
Rania shrugged, “I lived here for four months before the borders changed, and I don’t exactly give a shit about civilians.”
Olivia looks positively scandalized. “No no no, that cannot stand. I must introduce you, just let me get dressed-”
Rania cuts her off with a pistol pressed to her chin, “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re behind enemy lines in a war, we don’t exactly want to be advertising our position, hmmm?”
The woman nods slowly, smile frozen on her face and eyes tracking Rania’s.
“Good, I hope we understand each other, I'd hate to kill you. Done plenty of that already and it’s just no fun, and besides, I think you could be useful.” Rania smiles.
“I can?” Olivia says slowly.
Rania nods “You corpo types like your money right? Well how would you like to make back what you paid for this apartment and then some.”
Now Olivia’s smile resembles a shark. “Let’s talk details.”
-
“Sooo, are you gonna bandage those wounds? That’s a lot of blood tracking the floor” Olivia points out. Alex stares down and notices that she has, in fact, made a mess with all the bleeding. She turns to Rania who points to one of the cabinets, it has bandages.
-
The apartment is surprisingly swanky for what she’s assumed of Rania’s finances, two bathrooms with built in showers, three bedrooms, and a living room/kitchen combo that could rival the common area in Lost Hope.
Fuck she misses Lost Hope.
Best not to dwell on that.
“So why do you want her taking pictures?” Alex asks Rania. Alongside ordering food and housing them, Rania also had a few extra tasks. Buying bombs and ammo she can understand (she’ll finally have a full magazine for her Reison), but taking pictures of a couple locations she doesn’t get.
Rania turns to her, munching on her sandwich. “I’ve been keeping myself updated on the war, those are the areas on the border that I think are weakest, but I need confirmation. She’s got cybernetic eyes, you can tell by the manual pupil control, didn’t even dilate a bit when I pressed a gun to her chin. She can take pictures rather than one of us risking ourselves, and If she’s not obvious about it she’ll probably be safe.”
Alex blinks, “you’ve been planning how to get us back to home turf?”
“Me and Aki, yeah, he’s surprisingly competent about finding areas that are likely undermanned and difficult to defend. A quarter of the locations were his suggestions, and he helped with quite a few others. Good kid, really shouldn’t be on the frontlines.”
Alex chuckles, “yeah, he’s pretty smart sometimes, but his gunmanship’s fucking horrendous”
“You know I can hear you right?” Aki complains.
Rania waves him off, “should go to the range more if you want people to compliment your marksmanship. As it stands, that shotgun's the only reason you can hit anything.”
“Y’all are bitches” he says.
Alex raises a brow “Y’all, really?”
“What? It’s catchy”
“How many old world movies have you downloaded on your phone?”
He doesn’t dignify that with a response.