Small squawking alarms echoed through the building, then shouts and gunfire. Holly ran back in, a pair of small rifles in her grasp.
“Mrs. Rhodes! The compound is under attack! I’ve received word that several of our satellite holdings have also been assaulted.”
A beam of light shot through the building. Heavy weaponry.
Rhodes grabbed a rifle. “How did they get that into the city? How did they slip past the Church?”
Holly drew back the charging handle on her rifle, a high-pitched whine like the charging of a capacitor emitted from the weapon. “I don’t know, but we need to get you somewhere safe.”
Gunfire erupted from a nearby room, an explosion was followed by pained screams. Delta pulled out his pistols, he looked nervous. “Master?”
Olivia grunted as she stood up. “Dammit. The Clans have begun moving. Let’s get out of here before we get caught up in this mess.”
“You won’t help us?” Rhodes gave her a sly grin.
“This is your fight, not ours, Charlie.”
Rhodes nodded. “Fine. Lets get out these three out of here.”
Karla stood awkwardly. She wanted something to defend herself with, but she wasn’t sure anyone would give her a firearm. As she was lost in thought, a sword cut through the door beside her, and the guard who had been on the other side of it. As the man dropped alongside pieces of wood, the group inside began peppering the figure standing just outside with a spray of gunfire. Bullets ricocheted off of something large, a shield. The soldier stepped through the opening, heatblade at his side. What he didn’t expect was the arm that reached over and wrenched the shield out of the way. A spray of pistol fire from Delta peppering his body with high-velocity rounds.
He fell to the floor, dead before he landed.
“Dammit! Come on!” Rhodes began rushing to the door, only to slow at the sight of Karla picking up the discarded shield and sword. She tested the heft of both.
Karla looked up. “What?”
Rhodes looked over to Olivia. Olivia gave her a shrug. “She’d be useful,” said Olivia.
Karla twirled the short sword, getting used to the balance and feel of it.
Rhodes sighed. “Fine. Miss Karla, was it? Would you mind taking the front with that shield? Holly, direct her.”
The servant did as she was asked, not knowing why her master was so standoffish to this new person. If she knew she was standing behind the infamous Witch, she would perhaps share the same hesitation.
“Miss Karla was it?” Holly asked. “I’ll direct you to place your shield to protect the VIPs as we move, okay? Just keep your shield up and don’t move out of position.”
Karla chuckled but nodded anyways. She needed Olivia alive and well. She didn’t feel much about this Rhodes woman, but Olivia needed to live. Delta too, she decided after a thought. “Let’s go,” she said.
The halls were quiet as they stepped outside. Sporadic gunfire erupted from the perimeter of the compound several times, but nothing heavy was seen again. It seemed like they used the heavy cannon to break into the front gate, taking out several small buildings as they did so. They were lucky the beam hadn’t hit anything structural or their building would have met a similar fate.
As they passed through the back of a long hall, rifle fire erupted at the other end, tearing through several tables and bookshelves. Vases, artifacts, and decorations shattered and fell. Karla could feel the impact of several rounds on her shield.
The woman Holly returned fire as the other three rushed out of the room. “Let’s go!” she shouted.
More soldiers entered the hall, showering the room with rifle fire. She began to follow when one brave soldier rushed forward, a grenade in his hand. Karla pushed into his path, but he had already thrown his payload. The grenade spun over her head, right towards the four behind her. The shield lifted and angled as she stepped forward with the sword.
She felt the grenade bounce off the shield, then the slight resistance when cutting through the man. As the man collapsed, she turned her attention to the gunfire that now focused on her when she remembered something important.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Oh, Karla thought as she looked down. The grenade.
Fragmentation grenades are not very good at damaging prosthetics, especially armored ones. At just a dozen meters, a good quality metal limb would face minor damage and emerge relatively unscathed. Karla’s legs were not a dozen meters away, they were not good quality, and they weren’t armored, either.
Crooked shards of metal ripped through the hall, tearing into the shield and Karla’s legs alike. She felt something she hadn’t felt in a very long time outside of her small aches in her chest and brain.
Pain. Signals of hot, stabbing pain could be felt over her ankles and feet. She dropped to her knees.
“Karla!” Delta shouted, but was shoved away by Holly as they turned around the corner into another passage. Just in time. Soldiers rushed to the end of the hall, guns raised.
“One here.” One grunted. Karla looked them over. Blank helmets, chest armor and plates over their vitals. They looked almost like any other street thug if all of their gear wasn’t so pristine and new.
“Not a target. Just eliminate it.” Another spoke up.
Karla raised her head, she wanted to say something, but a spray of rifle rounds silenced her.
----------------------------------------
Karla’s head HURT. She pushed her thoughts outside, and found she couldn’t see a damn thing, not clearly anyways. The two cameras that had functioned as her eyes had taken their fair share of the rifle rounds and sent nothing but distorted static to her brain.
She felt movement, and the sound of skidding. She was moving. Something had her foot, and was dragging her down a cold alleyway. She kicked at it, eliciting a shout of pain.
“Fuck! This one’s alive!” a wheezing man shouted.
“Not for long!” Another grunted. There was a sound of scrambling as something, someone crawled over her.
She felt it more than saw it, as a heatblade stabbed down into her face. The blade pierced through an eye socket before it began to heat the casing over her brain, slowly burning through. She grabbed at the hands that held it, but the man was modified with large mechanical limbs, her arms were not able to fight back.
“Just relax, it’ll be over soon.” The man pressed the dagger down harder.
She bent her leg up and kicked. The jagged metal of her foot and ankle drew a much more pronounced reaction. He yelped and weakened his grip as the metal dug into the man’s soft and unmodified midsection. Karla pushed up with her hips and twisted, pulling herself above the cursing man. She reached down and found his chest, and ribs. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it. Unmodified, entirely human. She pushed her fingers into his side, eliciting a scream.
“Wh-aaaAAAAaaaat Hap-hap-happpeneed?” Her voice synthesizer was fucked. She talked anyways. “What happened iiiiiiiiiiaiaaaaaaas-inside the Digital Snow Clan headquarters-ers-ers?”
When the man didn’t answer, she grabbed a rib and squeezed, it cracked and crumbled in her grasp. “AAaahhh! They were all gone when we got there! I don’t know! There’s a fire, but the Security services haven’t shown up yet for some reason!”
Karla yanked the dagger out of his grasp and stumbled off of him. “Get lost!” She shouted. She could hear them scrambling away, one whimpering as he moved. Her left eye was definitely beyond saving now. She tapped the right, and the static cleared up a small amount, enough to show she was in a dark alley, and at the end of it, was the hot glow of fire. She stumbled forward before grabbing onto the wall for stability. Her feet were in tatters, a red fluid leaked out with every step. Balancing herself, she took the few steps across the road into the now-deserted compound. There was no gunfire now, no shouts, only the crackling of all of that wood burning like a pyre.
She moved forward. Her one eye did little to help her in this environment, and the messages she hadn’t seen in a while popped up in her mind.
[Warning. Oxygen levels insufficient.]
My helpful brain has come back to tell me it’s hard to breath here. Fantastic. Karla shook her head and continued forward. She was growing used to the balancing act of walking on what was left of her feet when she stepped on something slick and lost her footing. She fell sideways, dropping her face onto the concrete floor, hard. The little bit of vision she had vanished, leaving her in a pitch black void. She rolled onto her back, taking in large lung-fulls of hot, smoke-filled air.
[Warning. Oxygen levels insufficient.]
She wanted to laugh, or tell it to shut up. But she could hardly think right now. Her organic brain probably acted the same as always, and limiting oxygen was a good way to slow her thoughts. She tried to push herself up, finding the object she had slipped on. Her fingers wrapped over a slide, a barrel still hot from firing, a charging handle and a grip. A pistol. A submachine pistol with high velocity rounds. She pulled it closer to her face and could sense it more clearly.
“Detla.” She huffed. She shouted. “Delta! Olivia!” There was no answer. She felt strange. She didn’t need those people, but they were the first ‘friends’ she’d had since waking up as a monster. She still needed the upgraded limbs she was promised, and any other upgrades Olivia could think up, but more than that, they were her only anchor in this crazy new world.
Sirens faded in from somewhere above. The Church. She stashed the pistol in a coat pocket and dragged herself to her feet, only to promptly fell. The lack of oxygen was really getting to her now. She instead crawled on her hands and feet in the direction she came, at least she hoped so. Only the cool rain told her she had finally escaped. But that wasn’t enough, she needed to get away from the scene. The last thing she wanted was a run-in with Church security forces. Already voices could be heard nearby. Boots and orders echoed over the maze as more and more arrived.
She crawled across the street into the glass windows of a storefront. She felt her way along the street till there was a void, an alley. She crawled in. The air cooled as she made her way down the dark passage. She made it a hundred meters away from the street when the thrumming of an aircar lowered overhead. She pushed herself to the side of the alley, hoping to not be spotted.
“You in the alley, halt.” A voice called down, amplified and echoing.
She pushed herself further into the corner as she made herself as small as possible, hoping the aircar wasn’t talking to her. She made herself smaller and pushed a bit further, then found nothing at all beneath her. She dropped. The sound of sirens, shouting and flames faded as she weightlessly fell. A cool dark silence enveloped her.