“Thanks.” I opened the folder and began to flip through the pages. Each of the eight had their own printout report with various photos. The information seemed more than complete, I even saw the target’s food preferences, lists of favorite restaurants, and pastime preferences. One of the lines in the report caught my eye, and I set my finger on it.
“Uwuwto Alwin spends this much at a strip club every week?”
“Ha. I was kind of hoping you’d see that one. His favorite joint is actually down the street from here. I checked their records and confirmed his habit. He’s got a bunch of favorites over there and gets them all into the room for the kind of activity his wife probably wouldn't appreciate. I’ve got video footage of some of them on the data stick I provided. If you are interested in watching them.”
“Sounds like it could be useful,” I said with a nod.
“Heh. I thought that would at least get a smile out of you. You’re quite the stoic, huh?” she asked.
“Just working. These two live on company property?” I asked as I pointed to the only two presidents on Eve’s list.
“Yep. They do travel between the two principle megatowers Elaka Nota has in the city and the facilities they have on the west side. I didn’t have enough time to find a pattern though. I think you are better off putting the hurt on the other six first.”
“You seem sure of my plans,” I said to her as I rolled up the folder. I had a spare ammo case on my belt that was empty, and I managed to fit the printed info into it with only a bit of paper crumpling.
“Not my business, but I hope you get what you needed from my work. If you require anything else, there is a drop box data mail server I use. Don’t try to call me back on that number I contacted you with. I already burnt the phone.”
She held out her hand, and I grasped it with my much larger one.
Then I saw the armed security.
They were wearing medium weight armor. It only had two plates on the chest, stomach, thighs, and shins. The rest of their armor was the soft stuff that would stop most low-caliber pistol bullets or shrapnel. There were four of them and I only saw them because the mirrored window of one of the storefronts at the mall was bouncing the image of an adjacent hallway into my line of sight.
I didn’t know for sure if they were here for me, but I couldn’t think of any other reason why men with rifles and body armor would be in strike team formation in a chic looking mall.
“You were found out,” I growled to the hacker as I stood from the chair.
“What do you mean? I didn’t get traced--”
The men rounded the corner about eighty meters ahead of me. They turned toward me, and I saw the red targets of the sights on top of their weapons. The mall wasn’t that busy, but a few other shoppers saw the men and shrieked as they fell to the ground.
I pulled the blonde woman away from the bench and then lifted her into my arms when the bullets started spraying. Her boyfriend had been between us and the gunmen, and I saw his body seize with the wrath of their first rounds.
The hacker screamed, and I sprinted into the closest shop. The glass behind us shattered a half second after we passed over the threshold, and I felt one of the rifle slugs tap me on the right shoulder. I wasn’t wearing any of my armor, and the bullet passed through my lungs before exiting out of my back behind my left shoulder.
“Shit!” she screamed as I twisted with the bullet’s passing.
My body almost instantly began to heal, and I was able to keep running through the pain in my chest. It was hard to breathe, though, and I coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the blonde woman’s tight tee shirt. She shouted again when my blood splashed her, but I thought it was because she was more worried that the bullet actually hit her in the chest.
I had run into a women’s clothing shop, and I pushed over stands of garments, displays of jewelry, and dozens of neon advertisement screens. There were no shoppers inside the store, but the salesgirls all screeched when the glass broke, and they scurried out of my charging path.
I ran into the dressing room area and slammed my right shoulder into the wall to help myself take the sharp left turn. The adrenaline running through my blood had made me forget about the bullet hole in my shoulder, and I fought against the wave of dizziness that bounced through my bones a split second after I impacted.
“You’re shot!” Z said as I stumbled around the corner. There had to be a back door to the place, I just needed to find it before the armored guys with the guns found me. Fuck. I should have brought my armor.
“It’s fine,” I hissed through the pain, but I could tell from the hacker’s panicked face that she didn’t believe me.
I saw a metal door at the end of the last straight hallway, and I leapt over a pile of cardboard boxes to reach it. The thing was locked from this side, and I had to throw the hacker over my right shoulder so I could twist open the metal locks.
“Wait. Put me down!” Z pummeled her hands against my back.
“No,” I said as I pushed open the door and stepped through. “They will either kill you or torture you to find out what you gave me before killing you.”
We were in the back alleyway of the mall. It was a dark metal and brick hallway with old fashioned thermal lights sporadically arranged for only the bare minimum of needs. I made a right turn and sprinted in the direction the men were coming from. If my plan worked as I thought, I would be able to get out behind them, sprint across the mall, and make it to the maglev station before they could get to me. Fighting really wasn’t much of an option. They wore body armor that would probably deal with my pistol bullets with little problem, they carried rifles that would be more accurate at longer ranges, and there were four of them. I might have stood a chance if I had my gear, but I didn’t, so it was time to get the fuck out of here.
“I didn’t mess up. I left no trace. How did they find us? Oh shit. Blake is dead. Fuck.” I couldn’t see her face because of the way I carried her over my left shoulder, but her words were filled with anguish.
I didn’t feel much empathy. She must have made a mistake, and now I was going to have to claw my way out of a cage of armored men. We were probably both going to die, and Eve would be on her own. The woman would likely be captured if she tried to go outside to get food, so my death would result in her being captured again.
The idea made me angry, and I felt the beast in my stomach threaten to rip free.
A door some forty meters ahead of me opened with the loud slam of a boot, and I yanked the chrome revolver from its holster on my belt. The thing felt a little too large in my human hand, but it would have been a perfect fit in my tigerpaw. The hand cannon didn’t even have highlighted sights; it was just a plain black rear with a plain black front sight that would have been completely useless if my eyes couldn’t see in low light condition.
An armored head emerged from behind the door, and I lined up the shitty sight as best I could before I pulled the trigger. The massive cylinder spun as the hammer cranked back. A tenth of a second later the hammer sped forward, and the thumb-sized bullet shot out of the heavy barrel. It caught the man in his armored head, and the metal folded around the slug as if it was made of inexpensive foil. His brains shot out across the dark hallway behind him, and his lifeless body began to fall to the ground.
Z screamed when my revolver barked, and I heard the other men curse behind the door. I had made the shot while running toward them, and they probably didn’t expect me to jump through the opening and fire more bullets at them.
But that was exactly what I did.
There were all lined up in the back of the store hallway like ducklings following their mother. My shot went through two of the men's armored chest plates with a single red flavored explosion. My next shot took the man in the back of his helmet, and most of his head disappeared in a cloud of skull matter. The three of them fell in unison, and I put a final bullet through the second man’s head because it looked as if my slug had gone through the right side of hi
s chest and hadn’t killed him instantly.
“What the fuck!” Z yelled. Her head was facing behind me, and she had no idea what I did.
“I took care of them.” I reached into my belt and grabbed one of the speed loaders for the revolver while I pressed open the cylinder with my right thumb. Two seconds later I loaded the new rounds into their homes and pushed the spare unfired bullet into one of my pockets.
I turned to poke my head back out into the hallway. I didn’t see any gunmen, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more. I didn’t think this group of men were the same ones I originally spotted. It meant that there were at least eight of them in total.
“Holy shit. You killed all of them,” she gasped when I turned my body so Z could see the carnage.
“They must have figured out who you were when you broke into their system,” I growled to the hacker. Each of the men carried a rifle, and I squatted down with her still on me so I could scoop one up.
“No. That is impossible. I’m telling you. They didn’t see me. It has to be because of you. Who the fuck are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. They don’t know who I am. We need to get out of here. Stop wiggling!” I smacked her ass with my hand, and the woman let out a gasp. “I’m going to give you two options,” I growled as I holstered my heavy revolver. Then I grabbed three of the rifle magazines from a body and stuffed them in my ammo belt. “Option one is that you cooperate with me, and we get the fuck out of here. Option two is that I put a bullet in your head so you can’t talk when they get you. Which do you prefer?” I hated to threaten the woman, but the last option was doing her a bit of a favor. If these people caught the hacker alive, she’d probably wish she was dead thousands of times before they were done raping her mind.
“Well, that isn’t much of choice, but I doubt you are going to esca--” a spray of bullets ricocheted off of the wall of the dark hallway, and I stepped back to avoid any of them accidentally hitting us.
“Can you shoot?” I asked.
“No,” she whined.
“You are going to have to learn real fast.” I set her down and then motioned for her to pick up the rifle.
“How are you still walking? You’ve got a fucking bloody hole the size of my palm on your back,” she asked as she bent to grab one of the long guns.
“I’m hard to kill.” I poked my head out from behind the door and then jumped back as another burst of bullets sprayed around me. There was a pair of them leaning out from behind the doorway of the women’s clothing shop where we exited, and I guessed they were about thirty meters away. I readied my rifle and took a deep breath. I’d probably get hit when I popped out, but as long as it wasn’t in my skull, I would be okay. I had super healing, and they didn’t.
The muzzle of a rifle touched my back, and I froze.
“Let me go, fucker,” the blonde hacker pressed her new rifle to my back. Her hands were shaking, and tears descended her cheeks.
“Or you’ll shoot me?” I asked with a smirk.
“Don’t even question it. These assholes are looking for you. I’m not who--”
“How are you going to shoot me?” I interrupted her.
“With the fucking gun you dumb--”
“The safety is on.”
“Huh?” she looked down at the rifle where the trigger was, and I brought my left hand around to yank the gun out of her hands.
“Do you want to die? Stop fucking around and I’ll get you out of here!” I shouted at her as I dropped the gun. “Just stay out of my way, and you’ll probably live. You try something like that again I won’t feel bad about ending you.”
“Fine!” she shouted back at me as she crossed her arms. As soon as she did, another spray of bullets slammed into the opened door and the brick of the hallway. Her face turned white again, and I could see the terror in her eyes.
I jumped to the edge of the door and squeezed off a burst toward the men shooting at us. One of the men was crouching, and the other was leaning out over him. My bullets tore into the armor of the man at the top, and he let out a scream. The sound made me think he wasn’t dead, but he did squeeze the trigger of his rifle when his body fell into the shop, and the hose spray of bullets destroyed most of the lights on the ceiling.
The misfire also distracted the man crouched below, and my second burst of bullets tore into his unarmored throat. Blood sprayed into the hallway behind him, and he collapsed onto the floor of the corridor. I figured this was the original group I saw in the main part of the mall, and I guessed there were two more of the riflemen left in the back section of the store.
I gestured for the hacker to come out of the hallway behind me with my left hand. She nodded and followed my command. I aimed the sight of my rifle at the far door, but the other two men hadn’t risked peeking out to see my position.
“Let’s go,” I whispered to her as I started to step backwards. She was already running, and I waited until I was a good fifty meters away from my old location before I turned to sprint after her.
“These places sometimes have service eleva--here!” she shouted. There was an intersection in the corridor, and I followed her to an elevator alcove.
“I’ll watch. Hit the button,” I ordered as I checked both directions of the hallway. We were sitting ducks here until the elevator arrived. All it would take is one grenade to end us, or a group on either side to pin us down.
I counted the seconds, but no more armed men came from either side. Fuck, this was too easy. They wouldn’t have just sent eight after me. They must have known I’d torn through twice as many guards in their building to escape.
The elevator dinged behind me, and I turned my rifle toward the lift. The green doors were more grate than solid door, and I could see there were no enemies inside the lift before the door opened.
“Down?” Z asked as we stepped inside.
“Confirmed,” I said as I looked up. There was a service door on the ceiling, and I pointed to it after the blonde woman hit the button.
“We are going to go up there,” I told her as I motioned for her to step into my hands.
“Why?” she asked as she put her shoe in my grip.
“Because I said so. Push off the door and climb up.”
“Fuck, it’s stuck. Got it!” she hissed as the hatch came loose. I pushed up with my arms to press her through the hole, and she wiggled through.
“I don’t think I’m strong enough to pull you up here,” she said as she reached down to me. The movement was honest, and her blue eyes actually looked concerned that I couldn’t follow her up.
Z was a good person.
“Move aside. I can get up myself.”
“It’s four meters-- what the fu--” she fell away from the door when I leapt to the ceiling. My vertical jump didn’t take me all the way through. I would have needed to be in my changed form for that, but I got the upper half of my body through the hole. Then I grabbed onto the lip and pulled myself the rest of the way up.
I slid the door closed three seconds before the elevator stopped moving. There was a ding before the door opened, and then bullets sprayed into the main part of the lift space below us. The sound of the bullet storm down below echoed through the elevator shaft, and Z pushed her fingers over her ears to help protect herself from the screech.
“They aren’t here!” one of the voices down below hollered.
“Still on the fourth floor, or they got off at the third or second. Team Six and Seven. Take the stairs up to the fourth floor and third floor. Team Four and Five, take the elevator up to the third and second. Three, move to the second elevator and hold the position.”
A staccato of boot steps echoed through the room on the other end of the elevator door, and I guessed from the timbre of the echo that it was some sort of high ceiling concrete parking garage. I couldn’t exactly see the details of the men who ran into the elevator, but I could catch a bit of them through the small sliver on the edge of the door where Z and I crouched.
The
doors closed with a ding, and the metal cables that connected the elevator up through the shaft began their slow reel. I gestured to the hacker with a lifting motion and then pointed at the door at our feet. Z’s blue eyes got larger, and she shook her head. I stood from my crouch, set the rifle in my hands to full-auto, and then pointed to the door. Her shoulders slumped a little, and then she grabbed onto the handle.
Z pulled it off with a jerk, and I squeezed the trigger on my weapon. Bullets sprayed out of the muzzle like water and poured into the elevator with a scream of thankful release. The men below me were all wearing armor, but they hadn’t expected death from above. The ones I didn’t instantly kill when the bullets went through their helmets were critically injured when the rounds passed through their shoulders.
I emptied my clip, reloaded with a bit of a fumbled gesture since I wasn’t familiar with this rifle, and then checked the room below. The walls were painted red, and the bodies of the eight men formed an armored carpet. None of them moved, and I gestured for the blonde woman to come closer to me.
“I’ll lower you down. Hit the button for the ground floor.”
“What? No. Ewww. There are bodies--”
“I thought you wanted to live?”
“Yeah. Fine.” I held out my left hand, and she grabbed it. Then I swung her down into the elevator.
Z tip-toed over the corpses as if she was afraid that they were still alive. The door dinged as soon as she reached the control panel, and she hammered at the buttons to change the direction.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the doors closed, and then the woman looked up at me when the elevator began to descend. I leaned down to the hole, and she latched onto my left arm. It was easy enough to yank her back up, and I gestured for her to stand to the side of the roof closest to the door so she would be safe from potential bullet fire that might arch up to me.
There was probably going to be a lot of shit in this parking garage.
Eye of the Tiger: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 1) Page 9
