Chapter 14
Feb 19, 2100
Capital City
Jon sat on the couch of his apartment with a beer resting on his knee. As it warmed up the bottle, sweat made a wet ring on the knee of his jeans. He put up a poster of the badlands and a stencil rubbing of the Desperados patch they etched into his shoulder. He pressed a nail into the wall and hung the key for the car they gave him, too. He parked it in the garage next to his black sedan.
The clock in his hud chimed with the alert he programmed in. Raven should show up at any moment. Two crisp knocks at the door sounded, and his hand unconsciously drifted to the pistol set under a stack of magazines and books. He jacked into the apartment’s security cam outside the door wirelessly.
Raven stood in her black leather jacket, beads of water coating it. Rain water. She wore her hair pulled back into a ponytail. A white t-shirt and black leather pants and boots rounded out her ensemble. She used her key to open the door and then closed the door tightly behind her, toggling the lock again.
“So, you made it,” she said dryly.
“Good to see you too, Raven.”
“So your strike on that mech factory created quite a stir. At first, the Agency thought it was a strike from a foreign power until they couldn’t find any military assets.”
“Wilson twisting himself inside out looking for who did it?”
Raven allowed a hint of a satisfied smirk, “Yea.”
Jon nodded, pleased. “Good. Made some friends in the badlands, too.”
“Oh?”
He nodded, gesturing to the etched patch on his shoulder. Raven examined it approvingly. “We know so little of the Outriders. I’m impressed they branded you one of their own,” she said.
“Guess I took care of a problem they were struggling with for a while.”
She nodded, the amusement draining away from her, “That was pretty reckless shit you pulled. I’m glad you made it out of that, Okay?”
She pointed to his arms. “You’re looking pretty scuffed up, though. Here.” Her eyes glowed blue a moment as she sent him the contact info on a chopdoc. “She’s the one I contracted to work for you in Germany. She’s a good person. You can trust her.”
He saved the contact to his list. He opened his mouth, debating if he should tell her about the tv and the lights in the badlands. Before he could say anything, though, a text alert blasted into the momentary silence.
“MICROSOFT AND HP ARE ENGAGED IN LIVE FIRE ON 3rd AVENUE AND 19th. CIVILIANS ARE ADVISED TO SEEK SHELTER AND CLEAR THE STREETS WHILE THE TWO COMPANIES BATTLE,” the notice read.
“A lot of people are going to be caught in the middle,” Jon said, rising. He turned to march to his gear room, but Raven stopped him.
“You can’t. If you go out there trading shots with the corpo wonks out there, your face’ll be all over the damn news.”
“I can’t just leave them alone!”
Raven cursed as she gave up whatever protest she was about to make silent and gestured for him to follow her into the gear room she’d set up for him. She kneeled down and waved her hand past a locked polished gunmetal grey cabinet. The lock beeped and a muffled click signaled the lock disengaging. She opened it up and pulled out several trays.
A featureless black mask and fittings sat on foam shelving. “Here.”
“What is all this?” he asked.
“The mask has a malware soft coded in it to throw off ID softs. It’ll blur and pixelate the image without needing you to doctor it post mortem. Digital anonymity. The plates add ballistic protection so your squishy bits don’t turn into holey bits.”
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Raven stepped aside and patted the cabinet. “For protecting the people.” She smirked at him. “A knight in shining armor. Well, digitally shining anyway.”
Jon sighed disgustedly, strapping on the mask. “Please stop.”
Taking advantage of the chaos in the streets as an excellent opportunity to test the enhanced strength units in his legs, he advanced on 3rd Avenue via rooftop. Large industrial AC units, solar panels and solar antenna arrays blurred by him as he raced from building to building, charging the booster units in his legs for extra distance and height in his jumps. He crossed an enormous expanse, landing on his feet, tumbling into a roll to save momentum, and popped back up in a dead sprint.
Quick jumping a rail, he dropped to street level and scanned around. Several civilian cars sat in an intersection caught in the middle of a shootout between two tac squads for different companies. He crept into position behind an HP black hat VTOL craft. The air around the exhaust was still warm. It’d touched down recently.
Two squads of men and a few combats mechs traded fire with a mostly artificial Microsoft squad. A woman and her son ducked low in their car, several bullet holes already riddled the vehicle. He needed to get them out soon. He needed something to cover his back.
Turning to the HP VTOL craft, he gripped the troop door and gave it a testing tug. He could do this. Bracing his feet, grunted loudly, torquing the troop door. Metal cried out in shrieking gasps as the slides on the rack popped and the door tore free of the craft.
Gripping the door like a massive shield, he walked into the intersection, using the shield block fire on the car and allow the family a chance to escape. He watched as the woman and child fled, leaving him at the intersection. An explosion against the shield almost threw him into the car but caught himself, bracing the massive metal door.
He snuck a glance around the makeshift shield. He could see Microsoft’s VTOL craft and its phalanx of combat mechs. Type 10s. They stood just a hair taller than the average human at 6’2” and came with armor plating with a ballistic rating of III-A.
Both tacteams were carrying rifles, and realistically the mechs wouldn’t take a lot of fire. Just perform better than the average wounded human. A bus nearby with a wounded driver muffled the cries of its occupants, and Jon cursed. He hoped he wouldn’t be a target while he tried to get these people clear.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he charged into the bus using his enhanced strength. His limbs protested and alerts popped up, prompting him to cease his activity. But he wouldn’t give up. Not if he could stop these people from being victims today. He bit down and dug hard. The wheels creaked as the bus rolled into motion. Eventually, he picked up enough movement as the bus rolled clear of the fighting.
Occasional rounds from the tacteams pinged off the large VTOL crew door he tore free as his shield. His hand fell to the holster on his thigh. The grip felt warm and inviting, even though he knew he shouldn’t use it. He was here to save lives, not make a mess.
Cursing silently, he hurled the torn free crew door into the opposite Microsoft VTOL craft. The air hissed as the square shaped slab cut through the air, crashing into one engine. A gout of fire coughed out, followed by some sparks. Jon stood there glaring at them, challenging them to come after him. Response fire from the HP units forced their attention back, and they forgot him quickly.
He waved the CCPD in to come help. “They injured these people. See to it.”
The beat cop was a rookie by the look of him. Fresh uniform, eyes that sparkled with naivete and innocence. He patted the officer on the shoulder like he would a private. Then he took off.
Jumping for a nearby roof, he tried to pull himself up, but something in his arm malfunctioned. Red alert notifications exploded into view. His grip slipped on his handhold and he fell, crashing into an alleyway, bouncing off a dumpster with a dull metallic crash before spilling to the ground unceremoniously in a heap.
He lay still for a moment as the shock wore off and he mentally caught up to what happened. He tried to flex his hand and fingers and arm. It moved sluggishly, like it had sand gumming it up or something. He called the chopdoc, Rebecca.
“Hello?” her face popped up in the holo-id.
“Hey Doc,” he said with a grimace.
“Jon? I almost didn’t answer. Did you know your holo-ID shows up as Knight?”
“Yea. Listen doc, this isn’t a social call. I need help.”
“What do you need?”
He sent her the alert notifications and caught her up to speed. She frowned, playing at her chin thoughtfully for a moment before she finally nodded. “Ok, we’ll have to bring you in and do a tune up. Sounds like something in there is damaged and we’ll want to a dive in and see what.”
“Where should I meet you?”
“Well, that’s just it. Our corporate office is being protested pretty heavy, so I could use some muscle to help me get in ok. Be my bodyguard? We’ll consider you even for any repair fees.”
“Deal.”
“Alright, pick me up at my place tomorrow morning. I’ll send you the deets. See you then.”