| Health: 100% |

| Body Equilibrium: 20% |

| DPS: 15 |

| Defense: 31 |

| Agility: 24 |

| Perception: 27 |

| Intellect: 19 |

| - - - - - - - |

| Arm Holster |

| Spinal Decompression |

Windows shattered as combat drones fired through and entered the building. The exits were breached by the waiting teams, spidering their way through the building. Preature, Tinker, CURL, and Darius were blocked into the room now.

“We can’t take the main exits, they’re full of P-Sec, and the turrets would fire on us.” CURL shouted as Preature approached.

“Then what are our options?” Preature asked, arming himself with a second handgun.

“Windows, or second floor.” She responded.

Tinker looked across the large room, past the shelving units and saw a group of Infiltrators rounding the corners towards them. “They’re coming!” Shots fired, just missing Tinker’s head, as he pivoted and dropped down.

Darius prepped the gun in his arm. A trio of drones came through the window that Preature had just shot out.

“More! Coming through the window!” Preature called, shooting one drone down and sending another into a spiral. The third fired armor piercing rounds, tearing through Preature’s jacket and barely missing his arm. “To the escalator!”

The team retreated to the broken escalator. Tinker looked at CURL. “Could you reclaim our security through the old ethernet hookup?”

“I can try.” She ran up to the second floor.

Drones patrolled the wide open space of the department store, firing as soon as they recognized her. She dodged shots, running between shelving racks and making her way to the offices.

Preature lobbed EMP grenades, taking out a swath of drones before following CURL. Tinker was still unarmed, and headed to the armory with Darius. CURL crawled under a desk, grabbing the ethernet cable and plugging it into her hardware. Her eyes began to glow as she navigated the network.

“I see the hacker! But they’re locked in tight. They’ve blocked me out of most of the systems.” CURL’s glowing eyes shifted back and forth.

“We’ll try to buy you some time, but if this fails, we have to run.” Preature frowned and headed off to the armory with Tinker and Darius. Darius had thrown on some body armor and grabbed a second handgun. Tinker zipped up an armored jumpsuit and took one of Leary’s submachine guns. Preature loaded up on EMP and frag grenades.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“You ready for this?” Preature looked at Tinker and Darius.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Tinker responded.

Darius nodded through the thumping in his chest. “The escalator will be a choke point. We can use that to our advantage.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Preature rumbled.

They walked together out to the shop floor, where they each took cover with a full view of the escalator. Nothing came up. Nothing moved. Then suddenly, they heard a sound, like a full tin can rolling across the floor.

“Down!” Darius yelled, seeing a flashbang grenade come to a rest against a shelving unit.

A blinding, deafening moment later, Darius opened his eyes to the sight of Preature firing at the escalator. The shots sounded like muffled thuds in his ringing ears. Despite the sense of dread filling him, Darius rose and fired both of his guns at the encroaching intruders on the steps, killing one and hitting another in the chestplate. Darius stopped to reload his pistol, and Tinker took the opportunity to fire the SMG into the growing crowd of Infiltrators. It wasn’t enough.

The shelves around the trio burst into shreds as gunfire reduced them to scrap. Darius, Tinker, and Preature fell back to other shelving units, sharing glances of uncertainty, then firing again at their attackers. Preature looked at the mass of people climbing over bodies on the broken escalator. He grabbed a pair of frag grenades and tossed them to the stairs where they exploded, destroying the escalators and sending Infiltrators down to the first floor.

“There goes one of our escape routes!” Darius shouted.

“It wasn’t a very good one anyway!” Preature retorted.

In the offices, CURL focused her full attention on trying to regain control of the building security. An intense heat began growing within her. She started to sweat. “What’s going on?” She wondered. “No!” She realized that she was being fed viruses through her connection, and her cybernetics were overheating. She knew that she would burn out if she stayed connected, but if she was to let go now she’d lose everything. She tore the cable from her hardware and ran to meet with the others.

“I can’t get security back!” She yelled. “We’ve got to go!”

Preature waved for Tinker and Darius to go ahead, just as another volley of gunfire destroyed their cover.

“Where did that come from?” Tinker looked up to see that nobody was coming up from the destroyed escalator, but the Infiltrators from the roof had arrived instead. He ran for the offices, but was torn down by the explosive blast of gunfire.

Bleeding on the floor, Tinker looked down at his stomach. The blood was black. From years of training, he knew what this meant. He only had moments left to live. He gazed at a shocked Darius. “Darius… don’t… use… the AI…” He pleaded.

Darius watched Tinker’s eyes roll into the back of his head. Then a heavy hand grabbed Darius’s back and pushed him forward.

“It’s too late for Tinker. We have to go!” Preature shouted, covering Darius’s escape with his own body. Ear shattering gunfire split the air as bullets hammered into Preature’s armored trench coat. Three shots finally tore through the armor, penetrating through Preature’s neck, chest, and arm. He fell to his knees, then slammed forward onto his face. Blood pooling around his neck and head.

“CURL!” Darius shouted as she met him in the hallway. “Tinker and Preature are dead!”

“The window!” CURL yelled, catching a bullet in her shoulder.

Darius turned to see a drone and shot it down before it could release a volley of gunfire.

He ran to the large window in a room down the hall. The glass had already been broken by combat drones. He looked down, it led to an alley next to the building. “Grab onto my back!” He called to CURL.

She grabbed onto him painfully; slick blood now running from her shoulder. Then he jumped out the window.

SOLA-Med sirens cut through the air as their IFVs descended towards the roof.

“Are you okay?” Darius asked CURL.

“No, but we have to get going.” She answered, letting go of his back.

His legs and spine had handled the full impact, even with her holding on. The wound in her shoulder had begun to tear with the weight of their landing.

Without a second thought, Darius and CURL ran from the scene.