Janis nodded and ducked as the droid fired to eliminate a couple of the drones before it lowered its cannons. Curses and pained cries indicated that it had taken out at least a couple more of his friends.
“If Dudley was still alive, I’d kill him myself for bringing this thing here,” he declared as he set the drones on autopilot and grasped his Tempest. “And Mara too for bringing it back online. Whatever amount of creds we were getting for this was not worth it.”
“It was close to fifty million,” Fitz said and fired at Janis’ side as the leader took aim and continued to fire. “I still say we should salvage the hardware we can and see what we can get on the UGM.”
“We’ll worry about that when it’s in pieces,” Janis told him. “But I’ll comb through every log we have to see who requested this thing, then we’re gonna raid their accounts for every cred they have.”
“We should probably have done that in the beginning,” Fitz said tartly. “This thing isn’t so tough. It’s easy to dodge the beams when it telegraphs them so obviously.”
As if the droid had heard him, the fingers on its right side formed back into a hand. It lurched toward one of the members in the front and grabbed him by the neck to crush him with a sickening crack. The corpse was immediately whipped at a nearby Halo member and the heavy boots knocked against their head to drive them back into a wall. The mechanical then aimed its cannon directly at Janis and Fitz.
“Shit, that thing can move like that?” Fitz balked.
Janis dropped his Tempest and grabbed the other man by his arm. “Everyone, get back!” he ordered as he flung himself, with Fitz, into an alley as the droid fired. Instead of the expected beam, an orb passed by and his eyes widened.
The projectile impacted and exploded, followed by a wave of force. It was an offensive attack, but he guessed that wasn’t the main objective as light enveloped his vision. “Look out, it’s coming!”
His warning came too late. Shouts of confusion and shock mingled with the droid’s rapid movement as he waited for his vision to clear. Fitz grabbed him and hauled him to the side and through a doorway into the building beside them.
“Janis, open your eyes. Are you all right?” he asked.
“Where’s the droid?” he demanded as he blinked rapidly to clear his vision. Fitz dragged him out of the other entrance of the shack. “Where’s the droid?”
“Where do you think, man?” his companion answered through clenched teeth. “Tearing up the rest of the gang. If we don’t—”
“Janis, are you there?” Zeek asked over the comms. “Dobi and I are around the corner. You guys need to get away so we can—”
“When you see it fire,” Janis ordered. “It’s tearing everyone apart anyway. Smoke it.”
“Not a problem.” He signed out.
“Janis! Fitz!” Kit called. They looked up as she skidded behind a desk through a hole in the wall of the building in front of them.
“Get down. Zeek and Dobi are about to…” Janis words were drowned out by the scream of two blasts that roared through the street beside them. The impact was deafening. Fitz and Janis sprawled on the floor and covered their ears. Eruptions of red and blue energy flared up, followed by a static shriek and a swirl of smoke and electricity.
Fitz slowly lowered his hands and opened his eyes. “Did we get it?” he asked Janis, only to turn and see their leader race out into the street.
Zeek and Dobi, in heavy armor and wielding cannons, approached Janis. He looked at the area of the impact, hoping to see the scattered remains of the droid.
Instead, he saw a glinting white light amongst the dark smoke.
“No… No way could it still be alive.”
“It’s what?” Zeek asked.
Janis turned to warn them, but Kit and Fitz tackled him as the droid blasted a beam through the smoke. It tore into Dobi’s armor and panned to the left to bisect Zeek before either could utter a word. The top halves of their bodies and armor dropped clumsily, followed by their stomach and legs.
The three hackers looked up as the droid approached. Its body crackled with blue light, pieces of its armor had fallen off, and electricity sputtered along one of its arms, but it was still moving. Kit’s and Fitz’s eyes wide in horror as Janis seethed in rage. Transfixed by their own helplessness, the three could only await their inevitable fate.
The mechanical brought its claws out as it came closer and snapped them together dramatically. As it raised one of its arms, a blast of green energy struck it from behind and forced it to its knees. Janis looked up to see where that blast had come from, hoping to see some other Halos alive. Instead, he saw a figure in dark armor venting a rifle.
Before he could ask either one of them if they knew who it was, they grasped him under the arms and hauled him away as the droid spun and fired a blast at the stranger. The armored figured ducked into the alley they had been in and avoided the blast as the droid lurched after him.
Kaiden nearly stumbled from the blast behind him but managed to right himself before he fell and continued his sprint. The now familiar rush of air warned him that the droid was preparing to leap and confirmed that he had its full attention.
“Are you ready, Chief?”
“I am,” the EI stated calmly. “But you know that for this to work, it’s all on you, right? I simply have to press a button. You have to avoid about ten different ways to die.”
“That’s usually the average.” Kaiden chuckled and glanced back as the mechanical landed on the top of the shack. He almost laughed as it crashed through the roof while he readied another shot, back peddled as he aimed, and fired. It crashed through the wall and into the blast. A shield flared up, but it was still knocked onto its back. It seemed the cannon shots from the Halo members had finally caused some real damage. His plan looked less foolhardy and more like overkill.
Assuming it worked.
He made his way to the shoddy building he’d seen before, ran through it, and primed a shot that he fired at the wall in front of him to create an opening. The building shifted around him.
“Come on, you piece of junk,” he muttered as he turned to the entrance and waited for the droid. “Get in here.”
Kaiden saw nothing and wondered if it was trying to bait him instead. Chief flared in the HUD. “Kaiden—energy spike above!”
“What?” he barked and glanced up at the ceiling.
“Move anywhere.”
He jumped back as a beam melted through the ceiling above and scorched the ground. It began to sweep along the floor, and he backed away as it drew closer. When it stopped, he heard loud thuds and a crash above. “Sneaky bastard.”
“Either way, it’s in the building. Time to do the thing.”
Kaiden nodded, turned, and ran out of his makeshift exit as the droid continued to descend into the building. “Blow it, Chief!”
“Get some more distance. We don’t know which way—”
“I’ll keep going. Blow it!” he demanded. Chief dimmed as activated flashed across his screen. The thermals he had scattered around the pillars in the building exploded behind him. He didn’t look back to see if the droid was caught in the blast. That would have simply been insurance. He focused instead on the unmistakable sounds as the building began to topple and collapse in on itself when it’s supports disintegrated.
The implosion of stone, glass, and metal kicked up a wall of dust that enveloped Kaiden. He peered back to make sure the building wasn’t falling towards him. It looked like it was being swallowed whole by the earth and collapsed into itself. He slid to a halt as many tons of rubble shifted and thundered—hopefully, onto the droid.
The ace scanned the surroundings for readings of power amongst the dust and debris. He found a reading, and grasping his rifle, he went back in.
“What’s it doing, Chief?”
“It’s in there somewhere, but I don’t read anything that resembles a shield or laser fire. It looks like it’s focusing its energy.”
He raised his rifle when h
e identified the outline of the droid in his visor. It was stuck under literally tons of rock and metal and somehow, held the top half of its body up. The arms shook under the weight, and although he couldn’t see it, the silhouette of its energy reading showed it looking up at him as the energy began to condense in its chest.
“Kaiden, it's trying to—”
“I know,” he stated, charged a full shot, and fired directly toward the massive chest. The blast evaporated the droid’s armor and power source and the head popped off and rolled down the pile of the buildings remains as the debris the droid had held up collapsed. The thud generated a gust of wind that scattered the dust around Kaiden and cleared his vision. The head rolled along the ground and he caught it with the bottom of his foot.
“I’ve seen Genos do that plenty—trying to overcharge its core to self-destruct.” He rested his foot on the droid’s head. “A malicious, sneaky, and dirty bastard.” Kaiden holstered Sire as he bent and picked up the mechanical’s dusty skull. “Good riddance.”
Chapter Eleven
Gloomily, he examined the head and contemplated how much of a bounty this would qualify him for considering that he would, at best, bring in about a tenth of the mechanical. Kaiden’s thoughts were distracted by someone running up the street. He placed his hand on his belt, ready to engage, when he turned as a trio of Azure Halo members approached him.
“Who are— Wait is that the droid?” the one in front asked, a tall man with tanned skin and dyed blue hair in a short mohawk style. His voice was hoarse but still quite loud. He was flanked by a pale girl with a brunette bob hidden under what appeared to be an ancient aviator style cap and a lanky blond man with sunglasses whose lenses had cracked in all the commotion.
Kaiden looked from them to the droid’s head. “What’s left of it.” He balanced the head in the palm of his hand for a moment before he tucked it under his arm. “The rest is under there somewhere.” He pointed to the mound of what had once been a building.
“Man…I know this town ain’t much to look at, but do you really think we can simply destroy buildings when they become an eyesore?” the lanky one asked as he scowled at the pile of rubble.
“I am neither in construction or décor,” Kaiden said easily. “The damn thing wouldn’t die, and I don’t have a nuke or EMP to detonate on a whim. This seemed to be the best option to make damn sure it stayed down.” His grip tightened around the head. “It did try to blow itself up before going down. Would any of you nerds like to guess how much damage that would do?”
The one with the blue mohawk frowned, but the girl spoke quickly. “Considering the core we used was an Axiom model and the amount of power that the droid could have condensed, it could probably have been at least a couple of blocks.”
Kaiden sighed at the sound of the corporation’s name. “Even when I’m not on a mission for them, they somehow find a way to screw me over,” he mumbled heatedly under his breath, “So which one of you thought it would be a good idea to activate an unfinished assault-slash-battle-slash-serial-killer droid?”
The blue mohawk man stepped forward. “None of us. The one who stole it and the one who turned it on are both dead.”
“Well, I’m sorry they lived long enough to make a such a monumentally stupid decision,” Kaiden retorted sarcastically. “What exactly was ya’ll’s endgame here?”
“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded. “Why are you here? Are you some sort of WC operative?”
“No, but they were next,” Kaiden admitted. He moved the head out from under his arm and spun it around in his hand. “I’m here on a gig to retrieve this thing and turn it in. In a weird way, I guess it’s a different kind of luck for you. Otherwise, I would probably have had to mow you guys down to get it instead.”
“So you’re another merc, huh?” the lanky one interjected as the leader tried to speak. “We’ve had to deal with you assholes ever since we took that thing.”
“Yeah. If you steal a piece of equipment from a corporation that really likes it, that is the usual outcome,” he pointed out.
“We’ve stolen plenty of things before and hacked into some big-time databases too,” the girl stated. “We never had to deal with as many problems as that droid gave us.”
“Take it as a lesson to keep to your lane,” he advised and tossed the droid’s head into the air. The trio watched it move up and then down before Kaiden caught it. “You’re a hacker gang. Why branch out when you have a good thing going?”
“What do you know about being a part of something like this?” the leader asked as he drew a pistol and aimed it at Kaiden. “Do you know how many of my friends I’ve lost in only the last two days?”
Kaiden held a finger up and then pointed at the ground. The leader didn’t bite, but the other two looked down. They tried to jump back, but the three were caught in a discharge of electricity from one of his shocks and were hurled to the ground where their bodies contorted in pain.
“I threw that down when I tossed the droid’s head into the air,” he stated as he placed the head back under his arm and walked up to them. “Neat trick, huh?”
The three were too busy spasming to reply.
“Anyway, I’d go ahead and get out of here, but I’m in something of a tough spot. I have no transport outside of my own two legs.” He looked at the three and waited for their motor functions to return to something resembling normal. “Would any of you be willing to help me out?”
“F-ff-f-fuck y-you,” the leader hissed through clattering teeth.
Kaiden sighed as he drew Debonair and aimed it at him. “I have to admit, it’s impressive that you still have your pride after all this, but now would be a good time to have a little humility.” He looked off to the side for a moment. “To extend an olive branch, it’s something I’ve only started learning myself.”
“You c-can h-h-have my j-jet bike,” the girl stammered. Kaiden turned his attention to her after a last look at the leader before he holstered his gun.
He stepped over the man and knelt beside her. “And where would that be?”
“Go down the s-street. Take a l-l-left and go down three blocks and i-it’ll be in a rack with f-five others,” she explained. Her mouth still trembled from the shocks but seemed to have calmed a little. “Take my sensor—o-on my hat. It’ll activate it. The bike is black and w-white. It’s fully charged.”
Kaiden nodded and took a small circular device from her cap. “Much obliged.” He nodded his thanks, stood, and walked away from the downed trio but stopped after a few steps. “For what it’s worth, I do know what it’s like to call a rag tag group of misfits friends and family. I can be a little cynical, and yeah, your friends made some stupid decisions that cost all of you, but I mean this.” He looked back for a moment and the leader rolled his head to look at him as Kaiden opened his helmet’s visor to reveal his downcast eyes. “I am sorry you lost so many.” He closed his visor and turned away. “Mourn them and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
With that, he left them to recover as he went to get the jet bike and leave this town to become a another job completed.
Gin sat on a rather plush couch and glanced around the abode provided for him by his benefactor. He had been rather busy over the last couple of months and hadn’t really had the time to appreciate his current place of residence.
It was certainly a few steps up from the derelict ships and abandoned labs where he usually laid his head, but it lacked their sense of ambiance.
He stood and the silk robe he wore dragged along the floor as he walked up to Macha and took the blade into his hands. It occurred to him, as his gaze examined it keenly, that he needed to take the time to have a night with her. The event in the underground was the last time she had received any use and he realized that he’d allowed other distractions to render him a little idle when it came to his preferred pastimes.
Tracing his finger lightly along the blade, he recalled one event about a year or so ago when a soldier had dema
nded to know why he was a killer—why he felt the need to kill. To him, it was hypocrisy that a soldier of all things had admonished him for his occupation, hobby, passion, whatever one would title his actions. If this soldier could kill under the belief that he did this in defense of his loved ones and the ideologies of his home world, why could he not do the same for his own philosophies? Along with having a bit of fun, of course.
Granted, he also remembered being too enraged by the question to engage in civil reasoning. If he recalled correctly, his reply was, “If you were better at it I would be dead, not a killer.” Which was true enough, but it wasn’t usually like him to be so flat when a chance at conversation presented itself. He hadn’t even given the soldier a chance to retort before he’d thrust Macha into his eye.
Gin set the blade down and tapped a finger on his chin as he thought. Perhaps he should use the opportunity to add another branch to his legacy. After all, he was good with many more things than only a blade. That was how he got his current job—an honest one that required almost all of his unique talents and probably the first “honest” piece of work he’d had in about a decade.
His thought were interrupted by a ringing sound. His communicator blinked and considering that the only one with the number to it was his current benefactor, he decided he should probably answer it.
He sauntered over to the screen and accepted the call, folded his arms, and adopted a lazy smile. “Good evening, Zubanz, how are—”
“What do you think you are doing?” the businessman snapped. A vein throbbed visibly on his forehead as his wrathful eyes stared from the screen.
Gin’s smile fell, replaced by a quizzical frown “I would ask if this is a bad time, but you called me.”
“Two nights ago, one of my partner’s labs were broken into and a device was stolen,” Zubanz growled and eyes continued to bore into Gin. “A device being worked on for another one of my partners. No one talked until we injected serums into the lead technician. One for anxiety, one for mental clarity, and one for stimulation. Through his drug-addled haze, he said you were the one to take it.”
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