Twenty's Mission Log
Chapter 7

It was a short ride to the rented office. I parked the scooter in the street nearby, just out of sight of the front doors. We both dismounted and checked our gear. I was still worried that Millie did not have a vest on but she assured me it would be fine. Her control of her Gunsinger for defence had improved a lot I had to admit.

I double checked my pistol magazine. It had a full load of Suppression rounds, 15 shots in total. I was tempted to switch out to the Armour Piercing rounds but I could not risk any stray shots penetrating the walls. You never knew who might be on the other side.

Millie ran her own check on the small pistol she carried. It carried standard rounds, readily stopped by a vest but unlikely to penetrate walls or other obstructions. I was really impressed to see how competently she handled the weapon. She noticed me watching her and adopted a two handed pose with her weapon aimed high.

“Do I look cool with my gun?” she asked.

“You look like a dangerous teenager” I responded. “Put it away until you need it”.

With me in the lead, we crept towards the front of the premises. It was one of a series of joined office and work space buildings. The offices to either side were closed and had “For Lease” signage across the windows.

Each one had a small glass fronted office space with an access door. Beside that was a vehicle sized metal roller door that lead to a larger working space behind the front rooms. They were intended for businesses that needed workshop or storage space along with a reception area for clients.

Pausing against the front wall of the adjacent premises, we looked over the target. Blinds were down on the glass windowed front and the roller door was closed. There were no vehicles parked in front or nearby. In fact most of the street was empty, with only a few electric cars and a single truck parked at the end of the road. There was no-one about that I could see, even though this was the middle of the working day.

I signed to Millie that I was going forward to try the door. She was to stay here and cover me.

I moved quietly up to the office door and tried the handle. It opened inwards noiselessly. Someone had left it unlocked.

“That’s lucky” whispered Millie beside me. I jumped a little and glared back at her.

“Why aren’t you over there?” I hissed back. She looked at me in confusion.

“I thought you signalled me to follow right behind you” she whispered back in an aggrieved tone.

I was forced to accept that this was not the time or place to teach her hand signals. Another job for another day.

“Just keep quiet and stay behind me” I warned her and moved inside, drawing my pistol. The front reception was empty but for a fixed counter and a table and two chairs to one side. Remains of a takeout meal and coffee cups sat there, recently finished.

Then a door that lead to the workspace beyond opened and a man walked in, still drinking from a cup. He was in tactical clothing with a light armour vest over his chest and abdomen. As fast as I raised my pistol towards him, he threw the cup at my face.

I ducked instinctively as the hot coffee splashed me. My gun fired but the distraction had shifted my aim and the shot only grazed his left shoulder. With blinding speed he stepped forward and knocked my gun hand further offline and slammed his right fist towards my exposed throat.

Damn he was fast. He had to be Enhanced and he was at least as fast as me, maybe more so.

I twisted myself in time and his blow jarred my left shoulder. Continuing the rotation to my right, I spun completely around and brought my pistol back on line. Our Guard trainers taught us to never present your back to an opponent, but sometimes you don’t get a choice.

He was waiting and grabbed my right arm with his left, stopping my weapon from lining up. I fired anyway, and the heat and noise from the discharge was close enough to make him flinch back a little. I jerked my arm free and moved sideways to my right, trying to open up some space between us.

I heard Millie shouting at me to stand clear. In my peripheral sight I could see her circling to her left, trying to get a clear shot. It might have worked but a second armed gunman surged through the door. He fired two quick shots and I heard glass shatter behind us.

Fervently I hoped this meant he had missed her completely and taken out the front windows.

The man in front of me moved to his left, mirroring my movements. He was keeping my body between Millie and himself. I fired again, the pistol still off target but forcing him to evade. In that moment I pulled my baton from my pocket and flicked it open.

The other man was moving behind the counter, using it as cover while he lined up on Millie once more. He was an enhanced fighter too, his body movements fast and fluid. Millie and I were in deep trouble here.

Just as he fired at Millie, she shouted a challenge and I felt her Gunsinger rise up from inside her slender body. The noise seemed to be sucked into a single point and then blasted back at the other gunman. His pistol flew out of his hands and I saw blood spray as the force of her attack flung him back against the wall.

My opponent lunged in, chopping aside my extended right arm holding the pistol. His right fist drove into my stomach, pushing past the armour vest and making my lungs expel my breath violently. Dammit he was strong!

As I collapsed, he loomed over me, ready to slam down onto my exposed neck. There are few times I bless my Guard body, but in combat they are formidable. I ignored the pain and my labouring lungs and focussed on my left arm. I lifted the metal tip of my baton and surged upright.

The reinforced tip, a metal ball about two centimeters across, hammered up into the base of his jaw. My body mass, slowed only slightly by my upwards movement, plunged the blunt tip through his soft flesh and up into the mouth cavity. He flipped backwards to the ground, toppling the table with the remains of his lunch.

He was coughing blood and trying to push himself backwards when I methodically shot him twice in the head. At close range, even a Suppression round will kill someone. I was done with playing nice today.

I looked over at Millie. She was white faced and I moved to her side. Despite the pain and my wheezing breath, what hurt the most was seeing her flinch as I went to embrace her.

“Millie” I said as soon as I was able to, “Are you alright?”. She surveyed the carnage we had caused in such a short time.

“I’ll be OK” she said and moved away from me to lean on the counter. Beyond it her victim was bleeding out, slumped against the spattered wall. She was in shock I knew. For all the fights we had been in, she was still just a young woman. This was not a life she had expected to live.

“I’m sorry” I said to her back. She nodded her head and then turned towards me. “When this is done, I think we need to go away somewhere for a while. Out of this shithole. Just you and me”

“That would be nice” I replied. I stood where I was, so close I could reach out and touch her if I just lifted my arm. My arm stayed where it was.

“Let’s go see what these a-holes were guarding” she said and gave me a crooked smile. Then she reached out and touched me on the arm. I could move again.

She led the way into the space beyond, her pistol held out in front with a two-handed grip. I followed her. For now it was all I could do.

=====

The workspace was a large open area, with a concrete floor and walls. In the centre of this stood a mobile medical unit, the kind deployed in battlefield aid centres or emergency relief hospitals. Lights on stands were arrayed around the room and boxes of medical gear were stacked close by.

Millie moved in and to her left, I stepped across to the right. Both of us were sweeping our weapons side to side, checking for any more guards.

“Uh, please don’t shoot” said a man’s voice. He stepped into sight around the side of the medical unit, his hands held in the air. He was wearing a long white coat and had a surgical shield slid up over his head. In the gleam of the floodlights his artificial eyes shone like a cats.

“Who are you?” growled Millie. She pointed her pistol directly at his head. I think she was done playing nice as well.

“Ah, I am Doctor Argos” he responded nervously. His gaze kept flicking between the two of us. “Are you with the Guard?”

“No, we are looking for someone. We thought he might be here” answered Millie.

“No-one else here but me” Dr Argos said. I noticed his guilty glance at the medical unit.

I walked closer and he shifted to face me.

“Please don’t touch that” he asked, “It is a very sensitive piece of equipment”.

“They use these for black market implant labs” I said to Millie, looking over the unit. “Illegal installation of cyberware, combat enhancements, that kind of thing”.

I fixed a cold stare on Dr Argos. “Who is in the unit?”

“Nobody I swear” he implored, looking from me to Millie. “Please, this is just a simple lab. We do some work for the gangs, freelancers, those kinds of people”

“Watch him” I warned Millie and hit the release button on the side of the unit. With a hiss of pneumatics the top section lifted up, exposing a young man strapped into the operating bed. It was Jacob Tan.

Tan looked at me groggily. He had an oxygen mask fitted and his skull had been shaved by the limited AI in control, preparing him for an implant. Surgical tools on arms folded back neatly into their recesses.

“We need to take Nobody with us” I said to the Doctor. “How about you get him out of there”

I stood back so Millie and I could both cover the doctor with our pistols. He went over and activated the bed mechanism to slide Tan out onto the ground.

“Pick him up” Millie said angrily and the doctor hastily grabbed Tan and helped him to his feet.

Dr Argos suddenly stiffened and Tan staggered back from him to lean against the unit.

“I am afraid there has been a change of plans” said the doctor, but his voice sounded totally different from before. He looked boldly at Millie and myself.

“My apologies, children, but my attention was focussed elsewhere. It took me some moments to register what Dr Argos was trying to tell me” The voice from the doctor’s mouth sounded so cold and impersonal. With a shock I realised the truth.

“Millie, he is being ridden by an AI” I shouted “We need to get out of here now!”

“Not without Tan” she said and ran to grab him. She was dragging him past the doctor when the man’s arm shot out locked onto Millie.

“I’m sorry child, I can’t let you have Tan” said the inhuman voice. His grip was like iron and I saw Millie grimace with pain.

I stepped forward and put my gun to the doctor’s head.

“Let her go” I warned it.

“B-Twenty, you really are becoming a troublesome child” it said to me. I fired my pistol into its head and blood and brains flew outwards. Inside the shattered skull, metal components glittered amongst the gore.

Millie pulled free of the arm and I helped her rush Tan out of there. We ran through the blood soaked reception and into the street. The first explosion blew out the remaining windows and flattened us onto the paving.

Millie howled like a banshee and the air rippled and solidified around us. The following blasts rocked the ground and shifted us sideways, but her Gunsinger deflected the flying debris and heat.

In moments the detonations ended. As hearing returned the sounds of distant car alarms and falling objects came to us. The building was burning, with thick black smoke starting to billow up into the sky.

I checked Millie and Tan. They were both stunned so I left them there and went to the scooter. It was undamaged so I rode it the short distance back to them both, swerving around the debris scattered across the roadway.

Millie was coming to her senses so she helped me get Tan behind me on the scooter. She pushed up against us both and reached her arms around as far as she could. Perched precariously as we were, I rode as quickly as I dared. We needed to get at least a couple of blocks clear before the emergency services and the Guard arrived.

I managed three blocks before I felt Tan slipping behind me on the seat. Pulling into an alley I stopped the engine and lowered the stand. Millie and I manhandled him to a comfortable position seated against the alley wall. She put her jacket around him first as he was in just a surgical gown.

Millie slumped down next to Tan. I stood there looking awkward until she smiled at me and reached up her hand. I took it and sat down on the ground next to her. She laid her head against my shoulder.

“What a crappy day this has turned into” she said softly.

“I’m sorry” I said back. “I never wanted you to have fight and kill like that”

“It’s not your fault, Twenty” Millie replied and squeezed my hand. “That is just what it is like in this city”.

“I have some things I need to tell you” I said, my voice shaking.

“Later, my love, later” she said to me. We sat there alongside Jacob Tan and just rested for a moment.