Conor rushed through the city streets, screaming at individuals to make a hole. All headed his warning. Unlike the other day, when he was unarmed and demanding, now he was wearing full battle rattle: helmet, ballistic and nonoflex armor, rifle, and grenades.
There was no soul on this rock who would not give the 300-kilogram Human the right of way. That was a good thing Conor needed to save the ammunition for whatever was happening at Stitches Clinic.
Conor’s heavily augmented musculature and respiratory system surged to the absolute limit. Each breath was slow and synthesized; the systems in his body were designed to make him operate as efficiently as possible.
Running was no exception.
The most optimal method for him to run was programmed into the regulation chip nestled in his cerebrum: one breath in over the course of three steps, one out on the next two. Like an unaugmented Human, Conor did not have to actively think about breathing, but for him, it was a flawless symphony of timed servos, shifting gears, and winding cogs.
Before Conor reached the clinic’s road, the cityscape had morphed from its usual hustle and bustle into bedlam. Aliens of all shapes and sizes surged away from the rising smoke and burning fires in the distance.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Conor shouted, not slowing down from his nearly fifty-kilometer-an-hour pace.
Any who did not heed his warning were shoulder checked, struck with the butt of his rifle, or tossed away—their natural bodies were no match for the cyborg's will and artificial strength.
As Conor got within a few hundred meters, the sounds of gunfire were at last audible through the crowds of screaming pedestrians. It was easy enough for a man as experienced as him to distinguish several different weapon types.
The pistols were easy enough to know; they were dull and thumpy at this distance. The rifles were far more snappy. The hypersonic cracks made them sound like hateful bullwhips. Sprinkled amidst the staccato of those weapons was something that made Conor's heart sink: the deep and bass-filled thumping of grenades going off.
Whoever was besieging the Good Doctors clinic was not messing around if they were using tools like that in the open here. Not that Conor could judge; he had his own grenades to use.
As Conor rounded the final corner, at long last, the crowds cleared, and nothing prevented him from assessing the situation.
Conor slammed against a duracrete pillar, activated his target-tracking vision, and peaked out around the corner. Immediately, his UI lit up and marked several moving Kyrail tucking behind the cover.
They popped up and down at random intervals, lobbing rounds toward the clinic—or what's left of it. Half of the building had collapsed down into the basement, leaving the other half a crumbling mess of bricks, rebar, and glass.
Another group of toads was closing in on the building from the farside, firing their rifles from the hip, not even aiming. There was only one person they could be shooting at. It had to be Brakul.
Before they made it halfway, muzzle flashes erupted from inside the basement, flared in defiance, and dropped two of the five charging Kyrail. Yeah, that was definitely Brakul. That man's thirteen-millimeter hand cannon was louder than any other sidearm Conor knew about.
Sighing, Conor knew exactly why the Voodal family was attacking them. That one Kyrail that he did not confirm the kill on back in the nightclub must have survived, and now they were back here looking for Eivilay.
What could the pricks not get that they lost their snatch-and-grab?
“Brakul, can you hear me?” Conor questioned into their secure channel.
“Fuck yeah, I can!” Brakul replied, shooting back from the busted building at the Voodal. “I’m glad you made it. I’m almost black on ammo, and Stitch got hit in the head by one of them.”
None of that shocked Conor; he already knew Stitch was dead, and Brakul had been fighting with his daily carry for almost twenty minutes. That he had any ammunition left was a miracle.
“Sit tight, brother. I am coming to get you,” Conor promised.
Not wasting any time and understanding that aggression and violence of action were vital to any ambush, Conor left cover and bounded forward, plucking one of the grenades from his bandolier and readying it.
As Conor was about one hundred meters away, he ditched the stripped pin and hurled the grenade at the group of mooks kneeling behind cover.
Before the grenade had even reached the Kyrail, Conor mounted his U-15 laser blaster against the hood of a car and trained in on the closest gangster; the holographic dot danced on the alien's slimy chest.
Conor preferred to use good old-fashioned gunpowder and lead. Those weapons hit harder and allowed him to shoot straight through light cover. But in a situation like this, where he was walking into an unknown ambush, he picked the U-15.
It offered him many benefits despite the drawbacks of lethality and always shooting tracers. From the muzzle to the weapon's maximum range of one kilometer, he did not have to account for drop or lead his target.
The handy grey blaster also offered him a capacity of one hundred rounds between reloads and was far harder to detect audibly than a traditional slug thrower.
The grenade exploded as soon as it hit the duracrete at the Voodal's feet, sending burning shrapnel through two of them. Thanks to Conor's target tracker, he did not need to wait for the dust and smoke to clear to light them up.
His sight drifted to the Kyrail’s head as he depressed the trigger. The other Kyrail behind the barricade likely had no idea what had just happened; there was an explosion that ripped two of their allies to shreds, and then their other friends' head was vaped by an unknown shooter.
They did understand one thing, though: They were targets. The remaining two Voodal gangers scurried behind cover, Conor's laser shots clipping just behind their heels.
Not wanting to give them even a moment to breathe, Conor hucked another grenade and repositioned. The ground crunched under his heavy boots as he crossed the road and slid into the prone behind a stairwell, posting his weapon atop the second step from the bottom.
Thoom!
The second grenade exploded, kicking up more dust and frag. Several pieces whizzed past Conor and skidded down the road. Unleashing the U-15's near-zero recoil, Conor let the weapon's firepower shine like a supernova. The U-15 pinned the two barricaded Kyrail in place, its blistering automatic fire tearing their cover to shreds.
Small bits of the duracrete were superheated and turned into molten glass each time one of his lasers struck the barricade or wall behind his targets, chipping away at its height by the heartbeat.
Getting shot at by a slug thrower was unnerving; the hiss, pop, and snap of lead overhead was bone-rattling. A laser blaster, on the other hand, was horrifying.
Each time a round passed nearby, the acrid scent of Ozone filled the air. Close shots were worse than that; you could feel the scalding heat envelope you as the energy dissipated off the glowing bolt during its flight.
In many ways, being able to see the projectile was worse than not. When it was a slug, you just got hit. A laser was so fast that you could not dodge it; all you could do was bear witness to death milliseconds before it befell you—Conor had seen it thousands of times over the years; these guys were just going to be a few more to add to the pile.
But these gangsters were either stupid or fearless. One of them bolted and rushed across the road. Conor tracked him with a continuous stream of burning laser fire and clipped him in the thigh, sending the amphibian tumbling to the ground.
Before the Human had a chance to bring the hateful spray down onto the man's head, his friend popped up and started laying accurate fire in his direction, bullets zipping and whizzing past Conor, only missing by millimeters.
Shifting the U-15, Conor dumped the last fifteen charges in the charge pack into the shooter. Each red bolt sizzled as it impacted and vaporized another section of the ganger's chest. When Conor rolled behind cover to swap the empty pack, the sapient slopped to the ground, his body so filled with holes it would make someone with trypophobia faint.
Conor slid a new charge pack into the slot atop the receiver with practiced precision and ensured the front and rear hooks were latched tight. Looking down at the charge indicator, Conor watched as it instantly changed from zero to one hundred.
Another benefit was that the U-15 had essentially no moving parts. That meant fewer parts could break or fail. The drawback was that if the U-15 broke, it could not be fixed in the field. He might as well use it as a club if that happened.
Peaking around cover to see if that other Kyrail was still there, Conor could not spot him, only the orange streak of blood from where he dragged himself behind cover. Standing and moving down the wall, Conor listened carefully as the sounds of fire from inside the building grew more ferocious.
“Brakul sitrep?” Conor asked as he rolled past an alley, keeping the blaster trained in that direction as he crossed the fatal funnel.
“It's not looking good, brother. They are swinging in through the back entrance, and I'm dry on ammo. I had to retreat into the surgery room,” Brakul replied.
“Hold tight, I’m on my way,” Conor replied.
Conor ditched his typically slow and methodical sweeping method of clearing out urban environments, deciding to favor speed over everything else. Conor stepped over Brakul's handy work while barreling to the clinic's collapsed wall. The man's high-caliber pistol had killed over a dozen Kyrail who tried to charge his makeshift foxhole.
Each body was a mangled mess; blood oozed out of innumerable bullet holes and dripped off the rubble. Conor could spot casings from Brakul’s thirteen-millimeter hand cannon down the hole leading into the building, but there was no sign of the man or the weapon.
Conor wanted to go down the hole, but it was too small; if he tried to squeeze in, the whole structure might collapse.
More gunshots poured out of it the hole, echoing from further in the clinic; mixed in with the snapping fire was Brakuls screaming, “Get some you fucking Frogs.”
At least that meant Brakul must have stolen one of their weapons and was stacking bodies still.
Before Conor could turn and move toward the back of the building and enter where he had taken Eivilay the other day, his body jerked as a slug bounced off the metallic portion of his back. His armor and metallic build absorbed any amount that would have wounded him.
Whipping around without thinking, Conor raised the U-15 and started dumping rounds in the attacker's general direction while backing up to take cover behind a wall. A dozen Voodal gangers were ahead of him, crouching behind cars and windows and blasting at him from a shop across the street.
Carefully directing the muzzle toward indicated targets, most sought cover from the spiteful red bolts; the two that did not were cut down as Conor’s lasers traced across their heads, vaporizing both.
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As Conor backed up, he carefully tested each step, uncaring of the slugs bouncing off the duracrete or the two rounds that his ballistic plates and Nanoflex shirt caught. Impacts from low-caliber handguns like that would not even make him flinch.
Once crouching behind cover, Conor glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was flanking him from behind the building. Seeing no one, Conor peaked over cover and turned his attention to those who had just shot him. He had to smoke these pricks before going down after Brakul; if he did not, he would just have to fight them later.
Surprisingly, instead of getting blasted instantly, a voice rang out over the dull thumping of gunfire still going on inside the Clinic.
“Conor, I know that’s you. Come on out, and let’s make a deal,” The nasally voice of a man Conor had never wanted to hear again sounded out as the old fat Kyrail came into view from behind a car.
Voodal looked just like the last time Conor had seen him. Grey, oily skin oozed out of a tight orange mylar suit. To complete the man's ensemble, he carried an old cane made of pure white bone.
Voodoo carried no weapons, but that was typical. The old bastard was not a fighter, but his word held weight around most of the city. He controlled large swaths of the industrial and shopping districts. With that much influence, a mere mutterance of displeasure could sign death warrants.
“Well, if it isn’t the lead toad himself,” Conor yelled with a cruel chuckle at Voodal.
Voodal was the head of the family and gang of his namesake. Conor and Voodal had some history, mainly from when Voodal hired him for various hit jobs. That and Conor had dusted a few of the Voodal lieutenants when employed by a rival gang; their relationship was tenuous at best.
“It is; why don't you come on out, and let's cut a deal? There is no reason you have to die here tonight,” Voodal’s lips smacked while he leaned on his cane.
“You know your guys smoked Stitch with whatever you used to destroy his Clinic,” Conor replied, looking for any stray movement of the gangers behind the man. Thankfully, none of them were; all ten targets were right where Conor had last seen them.
“It was a shame, but I have too good of an offer for that princess. A few bodies are worth it all,” Voodal cackled.
“Ah, I figured she was worth something when you guys tried to bag her. Sorry about the competition,” Conor smirked.
“Bah, think nothing of it, my lad; it’s only business,” Voodal waved a slimy hand. “So, do you care to step out so we can make a deal? I’m certain I can compensate you equal to whoever hired you to harbor her.”
Conor considered the idea of handing Eivilay over to Voodal and weighed the options. On the one hand, as long as Voodal did not dust Conor off before stepping out, this could be a payday, and he could get Brakul out of a tight spot.
On the other hand, Eivilay—what would happen to her? Knowing Voodal, she would be taken to one of the Waste Depots and tossed into a vat of acrid wastewater with a brand-new pair of Duracreet shoes.
The idea of that made Conor shudder.
Eivilay was a brat, who was up her ass, but even Conor could not deny she was interesting to be around. Her meeting a fate Conor had condemned many another random Sapient to was not right—She deserved better than that.
“Why would I turn her over to you? I know where she is, and you don’t. I could just vape you, the ten zlits behind you, then extract her and Brakul,” Conor argued.
“Because I can have half the city descend on you, lad. You and I both know you won’t last the night if I order a hit on you,” Voodal explained, gesturing his cane wide at the city.
“Oh, you wanna make a bet about that?” Conor replied. “ Brakul and I could dust half your army on our way out of town.”
There was a long silence across the rubble-filled street. Voodal was no fool and knew Conor well enough. That was not any argument. It was the Human bragging that he would do that and that Voodal could not stop him.
“You know, son—I wish you would have learned better than your mut of a teacher. YOu had such promise,” Voodal sighed, starting to walk away.
“Well, I learned from the best,” Conor replied, tensing his muscles and waiting for the hat to drop.
“Kill him,” Voodal ordered flatly, not even sparing Conor a glance.
The next ten seconds were a divine display of Conor's abilities and the folly of Voodal's pompous confidence.
Conor leaned out of cover, transitioning his weapon from right to left, going from one of Voodals' foot soldiers to another. The first two each ate a short burst of laser fire to the chests, dumping them to the ground in heaps of smoking clothes.
Conor then transitioned to the four inside the shop across the way. They started to fire back, their muzzle flashes making targeting them easier. While Conor did intend for them to die quickly, the group was so tightly clumped together his bolts ended up ripping the arms off two, leaving them screaming in agony, while the other pair got vaped by five bolts, turning their chests into barbeque.
The remaining four were the tricky ones. They leveled rifles at Conor and made him scramble to lean out of the other side of the cover. The cracking rounds overhead was not the issue for him. No, it was once his sights landed on them for the second time, his tracking software picked up a grenade one of them had hucked at him.
Nestling against the ruble, Conor allowed his auto-targeting software to aid him. The Human swung the laser blaster toward the incoming frag while streaking rounds across the buildings in a wide arch toward it.
As the grenade reached its zenith, several bolts slammed into it, superheating its steel surface and turning it into a molten ball of slag. It landed at Conor’s feat and sizzled as the explosive compound inside burned, releasing scalding smoke and sputtering molten metal.
Diving away from the potential UXO(unexploded ordinance), Conor rolled into the prone and fired eight shots, dropping each of the remaining four Kyrail with two scalding bolts to the chest.
Taking the fight Forward, Conor knew he had not shot the lead toad himself. Slowly moving higher on the rubble, Conor scanned the area with his target tracker, thermals, and normal vision but could not see any sign of Voodal.
That slimy zlit ran off, which was unsurprising considering the man's age and position in Heavalun. You did not live that long without running from unnecessary fights. If Conor did not have to aid Brakul, he would have tracked that bastard down and skinned him alive. But his friend was higher on his priority list. Voodal would be back—after all, he wanted Eivilay.
Returning his attention to the Clinic, Conor rushed around the back and watched as smoke poured out of the doorframe. The entire reinforced door had been blown in; whatever tech the Voodal gang was using must have cost a fortune.
Conor had watched that door take a whole kilogram of plastique without so much as taking a dent. Whatever tool or bomb they had used was something Conor could hardly fathom.
Switching from his tracker vision to thermals so he could see clearly in the smoke, Conor entered the clinic and tracked Brakul's path of destruction.
The living room was in complete disarray. Bodies of the Kyrail trailed to the stairs down, their warm blood glowing brightly under his thermal sight. The only thing hotter than that in the room was the small fire starting in the attached kitchen.
Conor did not have long before that spread; speed was of the essence here.
Raising the U-15 and entering a tactical glide, Conor moved toward the stairs leading down, clearing every corner and dead-checking each body with a shot to the grape.
Descending the stairs was easy enough; there were just more Kyrail bodies slumped against every other step. If Conor's count was accurate, Brakul dusted at least twenty frogs on the first floor and stairs alone.
Conor would have to buy Brakul a drink once they were out of here—Urla knew the man deserved it after this massacre.
As Conor swept the hallway, light flittered in through the hole Brakul had used as a fighting position earlier. Knowing nothing was there, Conor passed that by and headed straight for the surgery room.
Pieing the corner to the room, Conor saw more Kyrail lying dead on the ground, weapons still clutched in their bony fingers. They were all facing one corner; following that direction, Conor breathed a sigh of relief as his eyes landed on the warm outline he knew so well, hunched behind a barricade.
“Fuck Brakul; you cleaned house in here, man,” Conor laughed, stepping into the room, knowing none of the Kyrail were left and wanting Brakul to realize it was him and not to dust him.
A deafening silence was all that greeted him.
“Brakul?” Conor said as he pushed closer, crushing the bodies of the Kyrail under his weight.
Once Conor was closer to Brakul, he could more easily make out the situation; what he saw caused Conor to choke.
Brakuls had gone entirely limp; in one hand, he clutched his thirteen-millimeter pistol and the other one of the Kyrail Y2-B rifles. His left leg was gone, and a massive pool of blood spread out from the stump, soaking into his trousers.
That was not the only source of blood from Brakul; dozens of gunshot wounds peppered his chest, arms, and leg. It looked like Brakul ate dozens of rounds of buckshot.
“Brakul, can you hear me?” Conor yelled, kneeling and shaking his friend's shoulder, hoping his first conclusion was wrong.
There was no way Brakul could be dead. The man had basically raised Conor and taught him everything he knew about being a mercenary. As far as Conor saw it, the Jurintik man was invincible and the quintessential example of what you do to survive in Heavalun.
If anyone would live forever in this shithole, it was Brakul.
The moment Conor touched Brakuls shoulder, his friend's body slumped over, blood pouring out of his mouth.
Without thinking or accepting what was blatant and in front of him, Conor grabbed Brakul and laid his friend on the ground, jumping into medical treatment; that was a fruitless effort.
“It’s okay; I’m going to help you,” Conor said, pulling out a tourniquet and putting it on Brakuls's thigh.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I can save you.” Conor said, ripping hemostatic bandages out of his IFAK(individual first aid kit) and stuffing each one of the holes in Brakul’s body.
Conor continued to stuff each wound, reassuring the corpse that everything would be alright. They would take Eivilay back home, get paid, and then go on a grand vacation somewhere in the universe.
At this point, they had talked about leaving Heavalun for years; taking a princess home would be the perfect reason.
After Conor had plugged each of the holes, he went to the next step in resuscitation: chest compressions. Pressing his palms against the Jurintik’s sternum, Coner took a deep breath and looked at the vapid, empty expression on Brakuls muzzle. “This is going to hurt.”
Without waiting for a response that would never come, Conor began.
On the first compression, blood spurted from Brakuls mouth as wheezing escaped the holes in his lungs. On the second, the snapping of Brakuls ribs ripped through the night. Conor winced hearing it, but knowing that was normal, he kept talking to his friend and performing compressions.
Breath after breath, compression after compression, Conor became more desperate. “Please wake up,” Conor begged, pressing so hard Brakuls ribs collapsed entirely, letting Conor's hands slip straight into his chest cavity.
The warmth of Brakuls innards pushed into Conor's natural arm, a grim reminder of how recently Brakul died. Conor pulled his hands out of his mentor's chest, parts of his lungs trailing behind his metal hand.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Conor frantically said, trying to push Brakuls organs back in and hold his body together.
But it was useless. No matter how much gore Conor forced back into Brakul, he could understand that he could not save him, and it was too late.
His friend, mentor, and father were gone, taken to Urlas's side, never to be seen again. The Human fell to his knees and looked down at Brakul, then at the Kyrail bodies, and lastly, out the remnants of the window leading outside.
A wave of emptiness filled him as he rested a hand on Brakul's hand and his thirteen-millimeter pistol. It was an odd feeling, one Conor could not adequately describe. The closest he could recall was the hollow feeling you can get in your chest after a bad bender. But that did not encapsulate the picture.
“Please—don’t go—I—I need you,” Conor sniffled, his hands shaking as he clutched Brakuls.
With still no response, Conor sat in silence as the fire crawled through the ceiling and began raining down. Flickers of embers flicked at the bodies and Conor. Each glowing seed tried to plant a new sprout of the inferno growing upstairs.
At the same time, Police sirens echoed through the night and gradually grew louder.
“Mother fuckers,” Conor muttered. “You weren’t supposed to die like this.”
Death in Heavalun was as common as eating. You could not walk a block without finding evidence of someone dying. But Brakul was supposed to go differently than this. Dying in some never-ending standoff was for other mercenaries. It was for people who were not as brilliant as Brakul.
Brakul was supposed to retire somewhere calm, away from here. He had dreams, goals, and ambitions other than fighting. Of the two of them, Conor was supposed to meet Urla after a bloodbath. Conor is the monster who is only good at killing.
“You Mother fucker!” Conor screamed at the corpse. Why did you leave me here?”
Conor glared at Brakul as if he could still answer. “Answer me!” he bellowed, punching the duracrete floor hard enough to crack it.
“Everyone spread out and look for survivors!” a shout rang out from outside, stealing Conor's attention.
The police had arrived.
With no hope of rescuing Brakul or Stitch, Conor scooped up Brakul's pistol and stuffed it in his plate carrier. The Human paused and let his near autopilot take over, relying on all the training Brakul had given him over the years; with a steady breath that forced all his emotions into the darkest recess of his soul, Conor started to move.
When Conor genuinely knuckled down, left his humanity and morals at the door, and relied only on logic, violence, and instincts, he could overturn the city in a day.
He walked over to the fridge and grabbed all the stimulants Stitch had made. It was not a lot, but it would hold him together for a few weeks.
As Conor stuffed those into one of his pouches, the flashing lights of the Police cars strobed orange and white through the window. Conor had to get away from here.
The police would arrest him at best and try to kill him at worst.
Either way, the end was the same: Eivialy would be alone. Since he could not save Brakul, he would save her.
The Human took one last look at Brakul’s corpse and burned the image into his mind. “I will finish our last contract,” Conor assured before rushing back into the hallways, bounding through the flames and readying for a new gunfight with the cops.