As the sound of those hunting her got louder, so too did the calls of the creatures pursuing her. Yelling out challenges, Mai continued to run as quickly as she could, taking into account the treacherous footing of the sewer. No matter how deep the flow, it was always treacherous and she had no intention of falling victim to a particularly slippery section.
Knowing that the two groups of hunters would at some point become aware of each other, Mai had taken the time to browse her menus to find ways of ensuring that they only became aware of each other when it was too late for the Cullers to withdraw.
As she ran she blink-clicked her menu and started to craft what she would need to ensure a smooth getaway.
The first items, and she crafted five for a total cost of five per cent BIO-MASS, were Decoy Grenades. As soon as they were formed, she started to throw them. Even before the first one landed, it started living up to its description.
Decoy Grenades are perfect for Cullers wishing to mask their movement and to draw their opponent's attention away to another area. Small enough to throw at a good fifty paces, Decoy Grenades flash, bang, pop, and even shout as they bounce their way along the ground in random directions. At the end of their life, roughly 30 seconds, they explode with a deafening shriek and blinding burst of white light.
The last decoy grenade was still sailing through the air as she launched the second stage of her plan. Blind Grenades.
Blind Grenades are designed to render a Culler's opponents completely incapable of spotting them. Emitting smoke and clouds of nano-bots, Blind Grenades throw up an impenetrable cloud. Not even the most powerful spotting laser can penetrate, making them perfect to use if you need to escape your attackers. One word of caution. Whilst they can't see you, you can't see them.
Part three of her plan was to merely escape. She had zero intention of fighting either the mogwai or the Cullers and was hoping that the decoy grenades and blind grenades would affect the mogwai just as badly as they would affect the Cullers.
The noise was astonishing. Some of the grenades were going off like firearms, one imitating an SMG whilst another barked like a powerful sniper rifle. Others were squealing and she was certain she’d heard one crying out for help in the voice of a small child.
And then the blind grenades burst – literally – into life. One second the tunnel ahead of her was clear, visibility only reduced by the absence of light. The next second the entire width of the tunnel was filled with a swirling, glittering, cloud, utterly impenetrable.
Barely audible over the cacophony of the decoy grenades, bullets zipped past, Mai only aware that she was being shot at when tracer raced past her. Unable to see who was shooting at her, and from where, she created a shield, raising it before her, praying that its SOAK would hold out against whatever her obviously panicked enemies would send her way.
A single blink click, and she had a guideline showing the direction she needed to take to both the side tunnel and the ladder. Gambling on the inability of Mogwai to climb – since they never seemed to leave the sewers – she decided to climb the ladder rather than face being trapped in another tunnel.
Decoy grenades still doing their thing, she was unable to hear the Culler’s reaction to the Blind Grenades as she plunged into the cloud. It was as if she had her eyes tightly closed and was pressing the heels of her palms into her sockets.
It was both dark, yet filled with flashes of light, and as she raised her hand until it was less than a finger’s thickness away, she still couldn’t see it. Worried that the mogwai were closer than she thought now that she was both blind and deaf to their presence, she dug deep, overrode her natural caution, and sprinted with all her might towards the ladder.
If it had been for the distance counter warning her, she would have run straight into the ladder, or the wall beside it. As it was, she struggled to stop, sliding in the muck beneath her feet, crying out as her arms met the metal bars head-on.
DAMAGE! 1%
It certainly felt a lot more than one per cent, but she accepted it, pushing the pain to the back of her mind as she grasped the rungs and started to climb.
Part three of her plan was simple. Escape. As soon as she estimated she was four paces up, she grasped hold tightly with one hand, then crafted a couple of mines, choosing BOUNCING BETTYS once again as they were now a firm favourite and she was comfortable with their operation.
Ignoring the BIO-MASS prompt as she was planning on topping up once she was clear of her present position, Mai dropped the mines to the base of the ladder. There was a massive burst of white noise as the first of the decoy grenades came to the end of its brief life.
Shit! Mai snatched at the rungs of the ladder, heart pounding, feet scrambling for purchase, skinning her shins, as the shock of the sudden noise threatened to send her plummeting back down into the tunnel.
Taking a steadying breath, Mai climbed up as the other decoy grenades ended their lives with screams of white noise and, in the case of one which was just outside of the blind cloud, a white light which left stars dancing before her eyes.
Now that the decoy grenades were silent she could hear screams and the sounds of battle as mogwai and Culler fought tooth and nail versus nanite weapons.
A smile stretching across her face, she counted the number of kill notifications. Five was a good start, although the kill markers would surely bring more of those hunting her in Excretiaville.
Thinking of her former home removed the smile from her face in a blink. She was going to miss those she’d come to know, and the thought that she was never going to return was genuinely upsetting.
Less emotion, Mai, she scolded herself as she resumed climbing the ladder. And then she felt it, a vibration through her feet and hands. And what she heard next sent chills through her veins.
“Climb dammit! The bitch is somewhere up there!”
How in Buddha’s left eye did they avoid the damn mines? The only explanation was that one of their number had a worryingly good level of DISARM, or SPOT HIDDEN. Heart in her mouth, Mai started climbing, the sounds of her pursuers seemingly snapping at her heels.
*
Lungs straining, Mai pulled herself over the lip of the hatch at the top of the ladder. Despite it being only five levels tall, she failed to see that each level was the equivalent of the height of a sewer tunnel and therefore up to triple the height of what she would normally think of as a level.
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Stupid bloody mistake, she thought as her lungs strained for breath. I learned that in the first week of being indentured.
It just went to show what exhaustion, fear and adrenaline could do to a person’s thought process. However, if she had made the mistake despite supposedly knowing better, the Cullers on the ladder would also be doing the same.
If she’d gone for the ladder because she thought it would reduce the amount of time it took to get away, there was a decent chance that the Cullers had chased after her thinking the same thing.
Instead of being completely vertical, the ladder had spiralled around a central column with the result that if the timing was correct, she had been hidden from pursuers for the entire climb.
Breath returning to a somewhat normal pace, Mai shook the ache out of her hands and arms before opening up her WEAPONS menu. The last section of the ladder had been fifteen paces of straight climb and had taken her at least ten seconds to climb.
Picking a small calibre, hyper-velocity sniper rifle, she paid its base cost of seven per-cent. Called ‘Long Stick’, it had a couple of upgrades which piqued her attention. The first was a different scope.
Multi-spectrum Magnified Scope.
Whilst the naked human eye can only see in one spectrum, the professional sniper needs every advantage over his targets that they can get. With a multi-spectrum magnified scope the sniper can not only zoom in up to 10 times their normal vision limits, they can also see over several different spectrums including low-light, infra-red, ultraviolet, X-ray, and even gamma-ray.
At five per cent BIO-MASS it wasn’t cheap, and actually cost more than the base BIO-MASS for a submachine gun. However, the fact that it would allow her to see thermal signatures meant that she would have a far better chance of spotting her targets before they spotted her. Especially if they were trapped on a ladder and she was shooting down through the hatch using the gap to shield herself.
The second option was an extended magazine.
Extended magazines are perfect for those who like a large capacity magazine so that they can throw down a serious amount of bullets before having to reload. Naturally this affects the weight and balance of the weapon the magazine is attached to, which can therefore affect horizontal and vertical sway, but many users of extended magazines say that the extra rounds are worth the trade-off.
She had to agree, a full magazine was ten-rounds, five more than the usual, which meant she could afford to miss more before reloading. Another three per cent BIO-MASS was spent on that.
And then she was on to the third option. Ammunition. And the one that immediately caught her attention was Small Calibre Hyper-Velocity.
Small calibre hyper-velocity sniper rounds are ideal for taking out lightly armoured, flesh-based opponents. Caseless, they have a velocity of 5000 paces per second, meaning that their flight path is completely flat, negating the need for a sniper engaging a target at any distance of less than 5000 paces to compensate for the curvature of the planet.
With a small mass-reactive charge, the bullets explode upon penetrating their target either causing an additional ten per cent SOAK damage if striking armour, or BLEED at a minimum of 5% per second, SUPPRESSED, INTIMIDATION, PANIC, CRIPPLED (depending on hit location), and STAGGERED (if target is wearing armour). Small but fearsome, these bullets do not come cheap.
Don’t come cheap was an understatement. Although each round was about half the size of her little finger, they each cost an eye-watering one per cent BIO-MASS, meaning that it would cost ten per cent BIO-MASS to fill the magazine.
This has got to be the most expensive set-up I’ve ever used!
Twenty-five per cent BIO-MASS would normally have prevented her from choosing such a weapon, but she needed to make sure that she had completely neutralised the threat posed by the Cullers on the ladder before she had to deal with any other groups of Cullers coming after her.
Standing back from the lip of the hatch, she took aim, flipping the scope to infra-red and calming her breathing as she heard her pursuers draw closer.
Even so, the acoustics of the tunnel meant that she heard them long before she felt she should have seen them. The waiting was terrible, playing on her nerves as she waited for the first blob of colour to appear so that she could put a bullet in it.
Let them come, get at least two on the ladder before you shoot, she reminded herself. And when she did shoot, her target would fall hundreds of paces to the ground below. Judging by the damage each round could do, she wouldn’t even have to kill them with her shot.
Just the shock of being hit by such a bullet could cause them to fall, and she was pretty certain that if they were hit on armour and the bullet caused KNOCKED-BACK or STAGGERED, they’d be sent flying off the ladder.
She could hear them better now, calling to each other, encouraging those flagging to keep climbing. Purely by accident, the height they’d had to climb meant that their reactions would be slower than normal as they tried to get their tired limbs to react.
A blob appeared as the first of the Cullers rounded the last twist before the final ascent. It completely filled her scope, and she silently cursed as she dialled it back down to a setting of one point seven five, which was far more manageable.
They looked down at the Cullers below them, calling out, letting them know that they were nearly at the top. Then they paused, looking up to the hatch. Mai stepped back slightly, reducing her profile even further, hardly daring to breathe lest she give herself away.
“Looks clear!” And with that they resumed climbing. A couple of seconds after another blob appeared. This one was bulkier, but she couldn’t work out if it was because they were muscular or overweight.
Unlike the first climber their head was darker, as were patches on their arms and, when they leaned back to look up at the hatch, on their chest.
They’re wearing armour, she thought as the Cullers continued to climb. And now she had a target. Although the first climber was now starting to block line of sight to the second, she still had enough time to step slightly to the left, take aim and fire.
She’d barely registered the sound of the shot before the bullet struck, the after glare of the muzzle blast not even gone.
HIT! 10% DAMAGE
SOAK @80%
The target shrieked, feet slipping shock much as she had at the start of the climb. A hand came loose, flailing about as their feet scrambled. They twisted until their back was against the ladder.
HIT! 2% DAMAGE
SOAK @75%
STAGGERED
With a wail, the Culler lost their grip, plummeting out of sight as they hit the first twist before limply somersaulting down towards the ground.
A bullet sparked off the hatch as the first climber fired.
Stupid, she thought. Having formed a weapon, the Culler was now forced to make a stand. There wasn’t even the slightest possibility that they would be able to climb, let alone climb and shoot.
She returned the shot.
HIT! 10% DAMAGE
BLEED @6% PER SECOND
PANIC!
She’d never seen what PANIC would do to a person on a ladder. Without warning the Culler leaped from the ladder in what looked like a dive for the twist below. It didn’t work. With a wet-sounding clunk, they hit face-first before falling away.
‘Shit!’ she cursed out loud. ‘What the fuck!’
She’d known that people could be irrational when they were terrified, but to see someone throw themselves down a ladder in the slim-chance they could catch hold of rungs rendered near-invisible by the darkness was something else.
KILL!
CULLER 000893 ELIMINATED!
KILL!
CULLER 004998 ELIMINATED!
Waiting for a count of thirty, Mai kept her sight trained on the ladder. Convinced that no-one was following her, she absorbed the rifle and headed off.