“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”
Albert Einstein.
The Capital City horizon glowed with the guts of a rainbow smeared across the skyline. Velvet midnight black fought a losing battle to the blending reds, greens, blues, and purple neon’s of so much corporate signage and holograms. Nature fought a losing battle against the machinations of man. The glow was intense, bright, and garish, and gave Jonathan Masters a headache.
He turned away from his loft window, blinking his natural blue eyes and straining hard. Jon took a moment to massage his scalp, his fingers probing into his dark brown hair. The glow from his vending machine and dimly lit bathroom gave his tan complexion an amber tint. Being home reminded him of the intensity of city life’s hustle. The city itself was an apex predator that sustained itself in the lives of its less fortunate citizens. Man grew so enmeshed in technology that, after it took over their lives, their bodies and souls weren’t far behind. The comparative darkness of his living room felt like a reprieve from the ads and signs that kept Capital City aglow. He hated it here. And yet? Like so many others? He couldn’t escape it. The city’s gravity itself held you locked within the grasp of the megalopolis.
He eyed the vending machine in what passed for a kitchen for a moment, debating if he was hungry or not. The meat scarcity heralding the processed food boom several decades prior spelled the doom of meal prep at home. Cooking was a fading skill in the few remaining super cities. Outside his window, the ebb and flow of the city’s occupants lent the city the look of an electric bee hive bathed in neon. He decided against eating for now, his appetite fading.
The work day had left him feeling drained, sorting through several administrative meetings and determining where his attention best belonged. He was a few days out from needing a sitrep from his asset operating in the Al Fallujah corporate zone. Sam was punctual, if candid in his reports, something that consistently irritated Director Wilson. A trait that endeared his old battle buddy to him all the more. The lull in activity made him restless and stir crazy in his fluorescent glass, steel, and concrete cage of Cap city.
A black, heavily armored vertical takeoff jet roared by the window of his tower suite. The thick pane of glass shuddered, settling out as the boxy jet thundered on. Bright red chevrons showing its purpose stood out on the sliding troop doors. The best match being a CTac assault craft moving to put down some upstart street gang. The Bulldogs or the Patriots, if he were a guessing man. CTac were the apex predators of man. Most of them had some level of chrome and augments, and kitted out with the latest and greatest the corps had to offer. Only a fool threw his life away when CTac showed up. Lucky for them, the Bulldogs and Patriots were chock full of fools.
Jon threw himself down onto the half circle couch that rimmed the corner of his apartment. The leather creaked in protest, and he settled into a more comfortable position. Several more jets ripped by at high speeds, the walls of the suite rumbling with the dull roar of compact jet engines. Trauma teams by the sound of the engines, wailing sirens, and how many of them streaked past. Loosening the knot on his tie, he turned on the virtual lens feed. TV ads from four different channels assaulted his eyes and ears, warring for dominance in holographic displays projected only to his eyes. Corporate hyper capitalism at its peak.
Jon switched them all to the news and set them to record, then muted them. He can review them later for trends that might show new potential hot zones. The thought of running a shower had just developed roots when he received a call prompt from his implant. It was routed from the office on his encrypted line. He willed his implant to answer.
“Jon. It’s Sam. I’ve got something sensitive. I need exfil. It’s not safe here.”
He shot upright off the couch, his vest half undone. The line died before Jon even had time to reply. “Sam? Sam!” He cursed under his breath, realizing his replies fell on dead air. He tabbed through his contact list about to dial Raven when her avatar popped up with the ringtone. She was calling him.
“Jon. I spotted the call from Sam. You’ll need to go in and get him out yourself. Wilson authorized you alone.”
“How soon can we book a flight out?”
“Depends. Commercial might lag a few hours. There’s a HC-10 I can tab up, though.”
Jon cursed. The Haltech military cargo jet isn’t a bad craft outright. But it belonged to the company he hated because of how Haltech had woven itself so deeply into government operations. What little there was left of it, at least. Determining where one began and the other ended blurred into a haze with every day and law passed. They may as well be the government.
“There’s no other option?”
“Not if you want to be there faster. It’s them or a moral protest.”
He cursed loud enough that Raven heard him, though she said nothing. Normally he’d have no problem taking the longer outfit just to avoid leaning on the corporations. But this was Sam’s life. He refused to risk his friend for the sake of patting his back about moral activism. His lack of patronage wouldn’t change anything anyway and would waste valuable hours. He growled out a sigh. Futility was a bitch.
“Book the flight. I’ll gear up at the office and be at the tarmac in an hour.”
He already had his tie back on, tossing the jacket on and making himself as presentable as he cared to on the way out of the door. In the hallway, a janitor gave him a wave as blew out of his door like a hurricane had chased him out.
“Overtime again?”
“Something like that. Watch the place while I’m out, Charlie.”
The cleaner waved, smiling, as he continued to vacuum the grey carpet. He slipped past the yellow and white striped lift gate as steel cage slid open. He then mashed the button to close the door before the cage finished opening. The cage door halted jerkily, then slowly rolled back shut. His desired level being the garage. He backwards planned the operation mentally even though he knew logistically it was pointless. No plan ever survived first contact. He needed to be busy, and this was the most productive way.
Jon tuned out the nonstop tv ads and commercials playing on the display wall while lift descended. He figured he could reach the office in fifteen minutes, given the late hour of the day. Change and gear up, then hit the flight line with enough time to inspect everything before take off. Once he was off, he didn’t plan on returning without Sam. In the garage, the magnified sounds of street life echoed up, ricocheting off all the parked cars and trash on the curb.
Sirens heralded the passage of Capital City Police Department cruisers. Gunshots popped in the distance with gang activity. The strobing thrum of music from various nightlife venues all working desperately to part credits from wallets. The air carried a curious mixture of grilled food, weed, oil, and sometimes piss if he lingered near the sidewalk. He called up the overlay for vehicle access and swiped to unlock the driver’s door. Time to go to work.
The plan went as well as he could have hoped. He pulled up at the flight line about when he expected to. He left his car parked in the government lot and jogged to the waiting craft. It was the standard mil-spec boxy matte black angular aircraft. At just 5 meters long and 3 meters wide excluding the rotating jets at the front and aft, it looked like someone taped on variable exhaust jets at the corners of a ground based troop carrier. As he neared the VTOL jet, he could see the ground crew busying themselves with inspections before noticing him. One of them waved him over and spoke over the dull roar and piercing whine of the jets. He thought ahead to wear his sound filtering ear plugs, nullifying the muted roar of the quad turbines warming up.
“You’re early, but that’s good. We just wrapped up the preflight checks and we’re ready to go struts up. If you’re good, we’re good.”
Jon bit back the scowl that threatened to twist his face. He saw no value in the corporations helping the Agency, but arguing the time efficiency in this situation proved difficult. He forced himself to bite down that disgust, to bottle up his emotions and put them in a box to deal with later. For now, the only important thing was Sam and his message. All other considerations were secondary, including his hate for corporations working in the government sector.
“I’m ready, let’s go.”
The flight’s crew chief escorted him up the ramp, guiding him to the troop seat rack. Dropping himself down, he strapped in, making sure he was secure. Unironically, he whispered a muted prayer of thanks that he wouldn’t be sitting on orange canvas webbing. Military flights left much to be desired where creature comforts were concerned. Since this jet was a corporate design, there were ballistic, shielded windows. Small square portals to the outside world. Securing his restraints, Jon settled in for a long flight.
The craft sat on the tarmac for a scant few minutes before the engines rose in pitch and the jet lifted off the asphalt into the air. It taxied into formation, cleared the tower, and then angled its vector nozzles forward, soaring high into the night sky. The jet climbed, gaining altitude and punched through the multicolored light pollution, leaving Capital City behind. A giant spotlight of color on the ground amidst a large unlit swath of badlands in the middle of the continent.
Jon frowned at the dark zone. There used to be a time when that dark swath of land held a population. Not as dense as the coasts, but people still called the region home. After the collapse of the agriculture industry, those populations fled to the super cities on the coastlines. They began the current phase of “America”. States became an antiquated word with so much unused dead land going unrepresented, and now the current model of City States grew up from the dust and ash of the badlands.
The badlands, though vast and barren, aren’t completely empty, however. Some corporations operate facilities there for the added security of isolation. Corporate espionage became an even greater threat as the corporation grew. Aside from that, it supports the Outriders, a nomadic tribe of peoples who refused to vacate for the city states. They live in smaller groups that constantly traverse the barren wastes. Forever on the move in search of supplies, safety, and a place to call home.
Their camps stood out like tiny pinpricks of light against the brilliant stars that the massive megalopolises represented. If he squinted and looked hard enough, he could spot a camp here or there. Outriders also helped keep the badlands free of too much corporate influence by making life difficult for them as well. They existed there because the corporations didn’t care. There was no financial value in wasting resources to stop their harassment.
Wispy white clouds billowed past the window and the ground faded away as the craft continued climbing to its maximum altitude. The world below him continued its routine, ambivalent of those within and without. All fended for themselves in this world. He took several deep breaths and let his ears pop. An uncomfortable sensation, but all too familiar with constant travel and mobilizations. Now there was nothing else left for him to do but sit and wait.
No amount of fussing would make the craft fly any faster and permit him to reach his destination quicker. As much as he would love to try. Instead, he called up previous reports via his implant, bringing up virtual overlays for him to read. He slowly scanned through them, the reading helping to relax his anxiety and give him a focus for that energy.
A few things stood out. The first was a report regarding Takeshi Toranaga’s arrival in Capital City. Long considered the black sheep of the Toranaga family fortune, Takeshi once started his own PMC and led several small conflicts to earn favor with his father. Ultimately, it took returning home and accepting a place at his father’s side in the company to smooth over his rebellion. The Agency regarded him as nothing worth monitoring and Jon disagreed. The man was smart and cunning. Takeshi’s arrival in the US wasn’t a whimsical visit, he was here for a reason. What exactly that was, however, would remain a mystery, as Jon had bigger issues to deal with.
The other thing, and the larger issue at hand, is Sam’s field reports. He noted Sam observed Al Masri, the outspoken Sand Fox operating within a tight sphere near the Haltech corporate zone in the rural region bordering Baghdad. Odd that Haltech’s pmc’s hadn’t stomped the troublesome nuisance out yet. Why let him continue to operate and harass your local operations when you easily had the strength to step on a bug like him? Jon chalked it down to money and resources. Masri persisted for many of the same reasons he supposed the Outriders did.
He found himself with questions and a profound dislike for a lack of answers. He knew if this was bothering him; Sam would want to dig too. Given the urgent nature of the exfil request and sparse details, Jon could only assume he discovered answers and they put a significant bullseye on his back from Masri’s organization. But Masri’s people rarely sniffed out his assets. Something happened that Jon couldn’t quantify that tipped the balance of the situation. An outside operator, no doubt. But who? And to what ends?
He leaned his head back against the back of the firm leather seat. He had the better part of a day’s flight ahead of him. Nothing left for him to do now but wait. Jon breathed a reluctant sigh as he flicked his hand to swipe the overlays shut. He set the sound tolerance of his ear plugs to zero so the roar of the jet wouldn’t keep him from resting.
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His last thoughts dwelled on Sam, hoping his friend was ok. They swirled around what kind of trouble Sam got himself into. Time was against him, but he hoped he could get there to help. He owed one of his longest friends from his time as a soldier. Sleep eventually claimed him, drifting off amidst his sea of concern while the HC-10 cut a straight path through the night sky at 580 knots.
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The arid heat of the desert air pressed in, smothering Jon’s comfort. The temperature was hot enough to cook an egg on the pavement. Jon beaded his sweating brow with his tan shamag. Sensing his irritation with the climate, his Vue-Lenses synched with his implant and the mil-satnet to let him know the temperature was a scorching 121 degrees Fahrenheit. The sweat on his water bottle reminded him to take another drink.
Unbothered by the elements, the locals bustled too and from. Cars drove haphazardly, honking at each other as they pressed deeper into Baghdad. From the outskirts, foot traffic was lighter, seeing mostly men coming or going to the few fields of arable soil. Diesel vapor and the tang of oil stung lightly at the nose, hinting that while technology lingered here, the tech or the air wasn’t clean. This was a completely different world from back home. In ways, he almost appreciated it.
The time index in his User Interface told him the meeting time for Sam drew near. He glanced around the small market on the outskirt of the Adhamiya Solar Field. Small market stalls and tents covered tables of wares and goods the locals frequented. Vendors and customers haggled back and forth on prices for goods. This corporate energy farm was jointly owned by Haltech and General Electric Solutions. Its proximity to Baghdad made the location ideal for US corporations because it moved materials cheaply. The power generated would then beam back into orbit and redirect to the receiver arrays positioned in the megacities in the US.
He noted the cruel irony of the linked fates as he took another sip from his warming bottle of water. That the US still actively involved itself in Iraqi affairs, only this time the commodity was solar power instead of oil. This, of course, instigated dissident activity resisting their influence in the region. His asset and partner in the area of operations, Sam’s assignment, was to monitor potential hostile movements. To report them to deal with later. Primarily those in Masri’s crew and materiel.
Sam never requested unscheduled meetings unless he found something big or urgent. For Sam to be tardy to his own meet like this was even further out of character, putting Jon on his guard. He was never late. Instinctively, he patted the sidearm strapped to his thigh underneath the loose flowing white robe he was wearing to recheck its presence. The people outside today didn’t draw his attention. A mother and child shuffled along at the street’s edge. A group of men sat conversing amongst themselves quietly across the street. He made an executive decision to ping Sam’s implant for a sitrep. He swiped up the interface in his heads up, his retina’s glowing blue as he viewed the interface.
Navigating the menus, he sent a ping command, one of the few softs he had installed. Softs were the street shorthand for software or application. Usually gear heads had more than just an implant only guy like himself. The next few passing seconds stretched on for years as he waited. A small inset map popped up, and a dot marked Sam’s location, with a billowing ring rippling outward like a wave.
“Where the hell are you doing there?” he muttered to himself.
His stomach tightened into knots. Sam’s position marked him inside a shop a block or two down the street, and his position was stationary. He was holding tight or down. He dropped a few creddy’s towards the small shop vendor to pay for the water, then rose from the table he waited at.
“Sir! You left too many credits. Your change?” The vendor protested as Jon made his way from the shop.
“Keep it.”
He marched to the black SUV and slid into the driver’s seat. The engine purring on as the electric engine activated instantly with the AC kicking on. He flinched against the hot blowing air, cursing silently until the gust of arid desert heat cooled off. Sweet, precious relief slid across his skin as the cool air kissed at the sheen of sweat that had built along his skin.
Marking Sam’s position, he flicked the location to the truck. The navigation AI pulling the truck into motion. Driving down the street slowly as civilians milled across the road without a care. Taking advantage of the privacy of the truck cab to draw the weapon, he pulled the slide back enough to check the chamber. The rear of the round greeted him, then he checked the safety. Good.
Sliding the weapon back into the black carbide holster, and draped the robe back over the ensemble, concealing the weapon. The SUV rolled up and parked in front of the shop door, obscuring the storefront from view of the street. The shop was a quaint market with a modest patio area and sign. If not for Sam being holed up inside, Jon figured the tiny market would give him homely vibes.
Taking a moment to scan the area outside. No signs of weapons, fire or struggle. No blood on or near the doors. That was a good sign. Sam should be ok physically. Mental duress maybe? Had they figured out who Sam was and what he was up to?
Exiting the vehicle, he listened to the sounds of the street. This block was quieter here than it had been a block down the road. Less bustle or hustle from the locals for this part of the market and time of day. There were also fewer locals tracing paths up and down the street on foot or bike. The corner of his mouth twitched down as he rounded the SUV to enter the shop. They were avoiding this area like a magnetic pole pushing away iron filings.
He pressed on the metal door and a small bell jingled as he stepped inside. The shop keeper gave him a stiff nod, and he waved, offering a polite smile. Advancing two aisles, he found Sam kneeling, going through the motions of inspecting the merchandise, but his v-lenses were blue, his UI active. Jon idly peered at a higher shelf, his hands clasped behind his back casually.
“You didn’t make your meet location or time. What’s wrong?”
Sam just grunted in acknowledgment, then swiped whatever he was looking at to Jon. A download bar progressed quickly at the bottom of his vision.
“I’ve had tails since this morning. They’re not local.”
Jon accepted the transfer and frowned as the feed came in. Sam had hacked the shop’s cameras and repositioned the lens to aim the camera at his shadows. A team of four men in clothing made to look like local outfits. All of them appeared to be wearing body armor and packing weapons under their loose fitting clothing.
Great, so they geared the enemy for tight quarters and close range engagements. He cursed under his breath again. He didn’t prepare for an ambush and lacked enough ammo for a prolonged engagement. If he could get to the truck, getting the rifle would pose no issue.
“Why am I here, Sam? Why are they here?”
Sam fished a data chip from his white and black plaid robe, extending the small black chip out to him. It was just a standard rewritable microchip. “This. I can’t say much until we find someplace more secure.” He gestured to the ceiling and walls.
NetRunners had an uncanny knack for turning everything into an extension of themselves. Cameras and speakers were just eyes and ears to the right Runner. Privacy in the new age was a dead concept. Jon shook his head. “Hang on to that for now. You’re on driver detail. You know the way back to the safe house?”
Sam nodded. Jon tossed him the keys. Thanks to his tails, Sam lacked his typical sidearm. His presence here had always been a non combat roll, so he never carried much beyond a hidden side arm. Given Sam’s unkempt and disheveled appearance, Jon figured the sidearm elsewhere. That meant it fell to Jon to carry a gunfight solo.
Sam was capable, but he wanted the man’s reputation here built on trust and rapport with the people so that when shit like this happened; they looked out for him instead of turned on him. That meant Sam had to keep his nose clean, so to speak. Jon was an unknown here, and discharging weapons in public wouldn’t blow Sam’s cover.
Jon just hoped that would be enough to fight free of this. He glanced out of the wire caged window, under the neon “OPEN” sign at the truck. That was a lot of open space for them to cross if rounds flew. If? More like when. Sam’s presence in this situation amplified Murphey’s Law by a factor of ten.
“We move on my mark. If you’ve got any last tricks, now’s the time to play them. Once we step off, we’ll be under fire the whole way back.”
Sam nodded, waving his hands in the air as he navigated a few more UI menus. His eyes stopped glowing and gave Jon a thumbs up. “Their truck had pretty weak ICE. Ran a Breaker to force the engine to purge the capacitor and disengage the core. That should buy us a bit of time.”
ICE was shorthand for Intrusion Countermeasures (Electronic), and Sam had brute forced the firewall on their pursuit ride. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. He drew the compact pistol from its hard polymer holster. His heart rate increased as the adrenaline in his system escalated with the fight-or-flight response. Pre combat jitters were the worst. Sometimes he preferred being ambushed, so he didn’t have to adjust to the hormone increase beforehand.
“I’ll open the passenger door then lay down cover fire. Go through the truck. Running into fire for the driver’s side will expose you too much. Ready?” Jon said.
“Ready.”
“Go.”
Both men made for the shop door, the small bell jingling happily as Jon tugged the door open, his right arm flush against his back, pistol drawn. He thumbed the safety off and spotted commotion a block down as four men surged up from a cafe table, fabric flowing wilding around them as they hustled to ready their weapons. Coffee spilled wildly as porcelain cups shattered against the concrete.
“Contact!” Jon shouted, pistol up in both hands, aiming down the irons. He snapped off a shot, catching his first target in the shoulder. The man spun, spraying blood from his shoulder, weapon firing erratically as he fell.
The other three opened fire, and the air around Jon came to life with a swarm of lead. Mud-brick wall splintered and erupted with impacts. Several rounds slammed into the smooth black surface of the truck, pock marking and marring its pristine reinforced skin. Jon dropped into cover behind the truck and reached up to open the passenger door, waving for Sam to get in.
Sam dove into the truck, and Jon worked around the door, then returned fire twice before shutting the door. The windshield scuffed several times from multiple hits, and he whispered a silent prayer for the ballistic proof glass to hold out. Sam threw the truck into motion, the tires squealing as the vehicle whirled around before lurching forward and racing off. Jon risked a glance behind them, leaning out, and snapped off the last of the small mag, then dropped the empty free of the grip. The discarded round carrier clattered to still on the road as the truck tore through the street.
Settling back in the seat, he fished a spare from the holster’s pocket and shoved it home. He didn’t think he hit anyone else, but that should buy them a little more time, at least. He pulled the slide back, chambering a fresh round, watching the attackers scramble in frustration as they shrank in the mirror. Sam navigated the streets with a strained look.
While Sam drove, Jon leaned over the back of his seat and opened a hard storage case in the backseat, removing his rifle from the black foam cushioning. He loaded the weapon, bracing himself as Sam cornered the vehicle hard. The tires screeched as the truck lost traction at its high speed. Sam struggled to maintain control through a tight turn.
“Hey Jon,” Sam said. “How strong is the glass?”
Jon shrugged, shouldering the weapon and aiming down the scope. “Can probably take an SCM-10 if they didn’t try charging the shots.”
“Oh. Well then.”
The truck jerked hard several times. Jon almost cursed Sam out until he watched the ionized contrails of charged mag rifle rounds ripping apart the air coming from the truck’s front. Several rounds bored into walls, leaving smoking holes. More than a few punched clean through the truck’s skin and glass, forcing Jon down.
His stomach lurched as the SUV lost control for a moment. Sam slammed the brakes of the truck, and Jon did his best to avoid eating the dashboard. As expected, this didn’t work out well. Turns out if you plan to avoid eat something, mashing your face against it isn’t a viable strategy. Who knew?
Pain exploded around his eyes. Black spots threatening to overtake his consciousness, but he blinked them away numbly. Jon heard Sam’s voice, distant and muted. Cotton, pain and confusion, filled his head to the brim. His UI warned of a potential TBI and tried to find the nearest medical professional, but he fumbled at the interface, swiping the urgent prompts aside.
His body wobbled involuntarily, nausea getting the best of him, and he threw up out of the window. The window was down. When had he rolled it down? He spotted glass fragments everywhere, and his mind clumsily pieced together that the truck was half embedded in a wall. As a result, his window had shattered. Not too unlike his ribs, actually. He threw up out of the window weakly. “Oh,” he said. An unsteady moan slipping from his lips right after the realization.
He looked over at Sam, a hand on his side, and blood everywhere. Confusion settled in for Jon again. His brows furrowed, and Sam tried his best to smile through the pain. His words were clearer when he spoke again.
“Take the data. They’ll be coming for it.”
Sam offered the drive, now covered in tacky half dry blood. Jon fumbled at the drive, stuffing the chip into his socket. He blinked drunkenly when the drive uploaded to his implant. The contents locked, but his mind was too fuzzy to focus on that for now.
“We need to get you out,” he said. Straining to maintain a focus on the situation was tenuous.
Sam shook his head, pushing on Jon’s shoulder. Jon tried to protest as his ass slid off the seat. He put his feet fall away from the truck, under himself before he tumbled out of the door in a heap.
“They’ll be coming for me. You need to go before they show up. Protect the data.” Jon fought through the cloudiness in his mind. Confusion dominating his thoughts. He was here for Sam, not data. He had to get Sam out, right?
“Go, Jon. Find the safe house.” Sam’s eyes glowed blue, and he flicked the map to Jon. The safehouse’s GPS tag activated, giving Jon a route to follow. “Follow the waypoints back. Someone has to know.”
“Know what?” Jon asked.
“What they’re planning. About what’s coming.”
Jon wiped blood from his face, wincing as it got in his eye, coloring everything in a muted maroon. He risked a glance down the alley they’d driven into. He handed the rifle to Sam. He still had the pistol. The taste of bile kissed his tongue, and unsure if that was because he just thrown up? Or because he was being forced to leave his injured friend to die and trying not to throw up again all over himself. He fought to stay just this side of lucid and with it. Dozens of engagements and tough spots, and he was dangerously close to buying the farm as a nameless nobody in a botched asset extraction.
Sam pointed the rifle at him. “Don’t make me waste rounds encouraging you to go. I’d rather make them pay for the improvised chrome.”
In the back of his mind, he knew Sam was making an aug joke about the gunshot wound. The quip didn’t register through his mental fog, though. He just nodded dumbly, then started stumbling away over the rubble of the wall in the alley. Rounding the corner back onto a major street, he followed the map’s prompt as the satnet directed him via gps. His face was slick and warm with his own blood from several deep gashes, courtesy of the dash.
He could hear the big rifle open fire as he neared the secure access for the familiar, safe house door. He tried to punch in the code multiple times, the door stubbornly refused to allow him inside. He cursed at the lock panel, and brute forced it with his Agency access code wirelessly.
The damned door’s keypad blinked green with a beep. A buzzing click signaled the door’s lock cycled, and he opened the heavily reinforced metal door up with a grunt. The safe house’s AutoDoc system scanner mounted in the doorway scanned him and reported the injuries to Raven. A dispatched response team would show up soon to extract him.
He stumbled, falling onto the bed. Slapping the control screen, he tried to enable the treatment function. It buzzed angrily at him, unable to decipher what he wanted, and cursed at it several times. He hovered over the control, squinting hard to make visual sense of the fuzzy display as it warped and warbled.
Extending an index finger that wavered several times, he stabbed down on the “treat” command, missing a few times and drawing annoyed buzzing. Finally he pressed the right button, and the machine chirped acknowledgement. As he lay back on the bed, he noticed a ragged, bloody hole in his shoulder. The pain only now registering. When was he shot?
The AutoDoc extended a pair of arms that forced him to relax his arms, then metal cuffs rose out to home him down. An injector gun deployed, administering anesthetic. His eyelids grew heavier, pressing down until unconsciousness claimed him so the portable surgery bed could administer first aid.