Neon District: ALPHA (The Neon District Trilogy, Book 1)

by Chad Campbell

  And with each touch he began to lose himself more and more in the moment. He was slowly forgetting what he had come for, overtaken with the screaming desire to fervidly engage with these two beautiful women before him. His primal instinct superseded any rational thinking. The beautiful twins were pressed against Caiden, their breasts rubbing against his arms; warm and soft. They both stood at about five feet and seven inches, compared to six-foot-tall Caiden. Their hands traversed and studied him slowly, from his chest downward, sensually grabbing, stroking, holding. One of the twins closed in on him and lustfully licked his earlobe.

  “This one’s a pretty boy,” she purred. Carnality oozed from her voice.

  The other twin ran her fingers through Caiden’s hair while edging closer to kiss his neck. Caiden, no longer himself, was becoming the epitome of a man possessed. He was ready to plunge into the red void of lust.

  “Wait! Wait! I’m sorry,” he gasped while he firmly but gently dislodged himself from between the two beautiful women. He put his hand on his chest as if to hold his heart in place as it raced erratically. He took a deep breath.

  “I know this is a mood killer, but I came here to confirm something. Would you happen to be the daughters of a woman who was killed in a murder-suicide around this time last year near Darkside?”

  The moment was gone and was followed by a cold awkward silence. They seemed guarded and unsure of how to answer. They seemed uncomfortable with Caiden’s abrupt question. They began to back away slowly.

  “Wait, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that I was doing some looking around and I came across a post on CWR from a user named 2ofTheSame. It was a coded post, but I deciphered it. And then I came across this secret riddle and a Net Code address that I matched to this location and…”

  “Finally!” Their voices were high pitched, sweet, and surprisingly innocent. The twins looked at each other as if they were thinking the same exact thing.

  “We’ve been waiting for months for someone to decrypt our post! We knew it was a long shot, but finally someone got it! I didn’t think anyone would actually put everything together and actually come here, of all places!” one of the twins exclaimed.

  “Ok look, I know this will sound even crazier, but I have a car waiting outside for us and I’m gonna take you somewhere safe” Caiden said while inspecting the room for an alternate way out.

  “What’s the catch? Are you planning on raping us too?” one of them asked.

  “Of course, not!” Caiden replied as he stopped to look at them.

  “Then why are you so intent on saving us? We don’t even know you,” the other twin asked.

  “Let’s just say, I’m returning a favor to your good ole’ pal, Slavo,” Caiden replied.

  “There’s twelve guards keeping watch of the entire perimeter, two at this door, and the other ten scattered throughout the premises, and at the anti-personnel gates. There are security cameras armed with twelve thousand-volt taser projectiles that are motion censored. The only way out of here is suicide,” said the platinum silver haired twin.

  Caiden chuckled to himself while syncing the holographic display on his watch. “Sounds like you guys are no stranger to this. How exactly do you know all of this?”

  The twins paused, glancing at each other, before turning their attention back to him.

  “We hacked the system.”

  “Yeah, made a break for it a couple times earlier this year” they said.

  “A couple of times? How in the hell are you guys not dead yet?” Caiden asked, rather surprised.

  “It's because we’re really cute!” they replied in unison. “And we bring in a lot of money.”

  “Name’s Caiden, by the way.”

  “I’m Nami,” said the blond.

  “And I’m Hitomi,” replied her silver haired twin.

  “Cool, now that that’s outta the way, we need to get you outta here,” Caiden said abruptly. “As soon as I stepped into this building, I started working on an overhaul code to shut down all of the security systems so that we can pass through them easily.”

  Nami and Hitomi stood back in amazement as they witnessed Caiden fly through countless lines of code in mere seconds. He was getting everything ready for their escape.

  “Get your things. We need to leave,” he said.

  “Are you for real? You would really do all this for us?” Nami asked. Her voice started shaking. Caiden looked up and gave her a reassuring smile.

  “You really are pretty,” Hitomi gushed while gazing at Caiden. She then turned to her sister. “Nami we gotta get our asses moving. We’re finally leaving this place for good!”

  They scrambled to get the few possessions that they had while Caiden used his holo-watch display to reconfigure the keycard.

  “Okay, good. This should get us through all the doors and gates now. You guys almost ready? Once I hit the button on my device, we need to be ready to run for it,” Caiden said looking at the twins.

  “Which way are we gonna go? The guards are the other side the door,” Nami asked.

  “That emergency exit on the other side of the suite should unlock with this keycard. We’ll take the emergency stairway from there.” Caiden pointed to the door.

  “Well, don’t they have guns and stuff? How are we gonna deal with that?” Hitomi asked with a concerned expression on her face.

  “When I walked into the building, I saw a sign on the first floor saying that no security personnel shall carry firearms within the building. And from the looks of it, I only saw them armed with shock batons,” Caiden replied.

  Relieved, they both nodded and headed to the emergency exit. As soon as they were ready, Caiden pushed the button and the alarm sounded off. He put the keycard in the slot, and pushed the door open. The girls ran to the stairs and proceeded to head down to the first floor. Caiden had them go first, making sure there was no one else in immediate pursuit, then he locked the emergency door and took off with them. They ran down ten floors of the twenty-floor building completely undeterred. Things were going smoothly until they hit the ninth floor. Caiden felt the rumble of the steps and as he briefly looked over the railing he saw two of the Hybrid guards heading up toward them.

  “Follow me!” Caiden barked to the girls as he used the keycard to get onto the main corridor. The hallway’s emergency doors were all activated, making their escape a bit more difficult. Luckily, Caiden’s rigged keycard was allowing them to pass through each one. “We’re sitting ducks running through these hallways. We gotta take a different route!”

  One of the doors opened ahead of them to reveal another group of guards. This time there was three of them, shock batons in hand, and they were closing in fast. Caiden focused on how he could stall them so that the girls could get away.

  “Look! This way!” Nami shouted. It was a door to the women’s bathroom.

  Confused and looking back at them, Caiden said, “We don’t have time, that’s a dead end.”

  Without warning he felt the violent wind of a massive cybernetic fist whiz by his jaw. Seconds before the punch could connect, Caiden slipped under the guard’s powerful punch. Using his momentum, he swung back with a powerful punch to the kidney that sent the guard reeling over. The second guard bum-rushed Caiden in an attempt to tackle and pin him. With a bone crushing grip, he began to suffocate Caiden using all his weight.

  As Caiden engaged his enemy, he noticed the other guard heading toward the women’s bathroom after the twins. Despite the imminent danger, the adrenaline helped Caiden to possess the presence of mind to grab the shock baton from his assailant’s holster and activate it. He pushed the baton as far as he could into the second guard’s neck. The guard’s grip loosened as he droppeed to the ground.

  Caiden went after the third guard. He caught him from behind ramming twelve thousand volts of electricity into his spine. The guard howled in pain and dropped his hands as he felt the powerful surge of electricity. He began to foam at the mouth and his eyes ro
lled to the back of his head while he violently convulsed. As Caiden removed the baton, the guard stood nearly lifeless, his back smoldering from the attack, and fell hard to the ground. The twins were cowering at the other end of the bathroom, in awe of Caiden’s abilities.

  “You two okay?” Caiden asked, rushing into the bathroom. “We gotta go. We can’t stay here. The two from the stairwell should be here any second now!”

  “There’s an air duct, large enough for us to crawl through. We can take it all the way to the private elevators,” Nami murmured, disturbed from the violent encounter.

  “Okay, I’m gonna get you guys outta here. I promise!” Caiden replied as he pulled down the air duct cover.

  “Nami, we’ll be fine okay? We have each other, and this guy is batshit insane. We will be free!” Hitomi said, encouraging her sister.

  Caiden chuckled then cupped his hands together while motioning to the girls to climb up and in to the air duct. After they were both in, he leaped in. Crawling the constricting air duct was not for the faint of heart; the walls were too close, and the air was incredibly thick. But they had no other choice; they had to push forward. During their crawl Caiden stopped.

  “Caiden! We gotta go! What’re you doin’?” Nami whispered angrily.

  “I’m hacking the configuration of the security doors of the building. I’m blocking all doors from floor twenty through to ten. Hopefully, we’ll eliminate some pursuers that way,” he stated as he worked on his Holo-watch display again.

  Once he was done, he signaled for them to keep moving. After another several minutes of navigating through the dark air ducts, they came to a vent. Hitomi leaned over to look through the vent and check for any movement below.

  “Coast’s clear,” she whispered as she began to open the latch to the vent. All three of them jumped down and landed softly on their feet.

  “You guys really did your homework. I’m impressed,” Caiden said. Both girls beamed, before hearing the commotion coming their way.

  “The private elevators are a few doors down. Let's get outta here!” Nami exclaimed.

  Caiden used the keycard and they successfully entered the private elevator, riding it down to the loading dock of the building.

  Meanwhile, Slavo was in a rage. “Command to security, do you have eyes on the targets yet?”

  “We reached the ninth floor, three guards are down, sir! Doors on floors ten through twenty appear to be completely locked. I think we’re trapped!” the voice crackled through the transmission.

  “You fucking idiots! You better not lose my girls or it's your asses next! Figure it out!” Slavo yelled.

  “Yes, sir!” the voice replied.

  Slavo headed over to the surveillance station in his office to see if he could locate the escapees. He saw that they were nearing the loading dock using the private elevators. “You dumb bitches, I swear, you just wait ’til I get my hands on you! And the Mr. Knowone guy. Motherfucker! You’re dead!” he shouted.

  Slavo attempted to overhaul the elevator function with the emergency stop button, but due to Caiden’s interference, he was unable to. “Any remaining guards! The escapees are heading toward the loading dock! Catch them at all costs!” he yelled over the communication channel.

  He rushed to his drawer and pulled out a vial of Mania, along with his custom-made Winter Falcon Semi-automatic pistol, then ran toward the loading dock. Caiden’s preemptive efforts proved fruitful. By overhauling the security systems protocol, he succeeded in completely locking down the upper floors, stranding seven more guards between those floors. This meant that there were only two remaining guards to worry about.

  The elevator finally reached the loading dock. It was full of boxes, large cargo cases, and a couple of dumpsters. As the doors opened, Caiden cautiously moved forward, checking that the coast was clear. As soon he deemed it safe, he quietly motioned the girls out. He located the exit and they made their way toward it. The scent of applied cleaning solution mixed with the lingering smell of trash lingered in the air of the loading dock. The area was lit by a sizable red light that was flashing on and off overhead.

  The strobe like effect only added to the mounting tension. Limited visuals and utter silence was soul crushing. The trio were several feet away from freedom, when a large cargo case atop a large stack wobbled, and the whole stack toppled to the floor, temporarily blocking their path. From behind it emerged the last two guards, one of them being the one Caiden had worried about earlier; the one with the extra cybernetic arms. He carried one shock baton in each hand, while the other guard with cybernetic legs carried two.

  “Get back!” Caiden commanded to the twins as the guards sprinted toward them.

  He checked his immediate surroundings for something, anything that he could use. He located a nearby fire extinguisher and sprayed its contents in the guards’ direction, hoping to impair their vision and create an opening. The extinguisher fog encompassed the entire area as the guards both cried out in panic. Caiden ran into the cloud. The four-armed guard fell, coughing violently from inhalation, swinging wildly at the air while on one knee. The guard with the cybernetic legs was also on his knees, frantically attempting to catch his breath and regain his composure.

  The further into the smoke he ran, the closer he got to the Hybrid guard with the cyber-legs. Caiden took advantage and viciously struck the guard across the face with the extinguisher, stunning him. He then jammed the shock baton at his cybernetic leg, and activated the voltage. The guard’s leg began to go haywire and malfunction, twisting and contorting unnaturally in agonizing fashion, incapacitating him. Before Caiden could recover, he felt the powerful sting and shocking sensation of another shock baton pressed into his right arm. He dropped the extinguisher and turned to see the four-armed guard with his active shock batons darting away from Caiden.

  Fucking bastard got me! That shit hurt, Caiden thought. He almost slumped over in excruciating pain, but managed to counter, swing his shock baton in his left hand, damaging one of the guard’s cybernetic arms. The guard responded by punching Caiden in the chest, which sent him flying into a large stack of metal cargo cases. Caiden’s vision blurred temporarily from the stun. There was a massive dent in the cargo case left by the sheer velocity of the impact.

  It was a miracle he was still conscious after that. He managed to look up through the fog and focus his vision just enough to see the menacing guard, airborne and flying toward him with all the shock batons aimed at him. At the last second, he rolled over to his right, avoiding the fatal blow in the nick of time. There was a loud boom and blinding sparks as the shock batons connected with the metal lining of the cargo cases.

  Caiden’s maneuver left him in an advantageous position behind the guard. He got to his feet, grabbed the other cybernetic arm from behind and savagely snapped it backward at an awkward angle, shorting it out. Blood began to trickle from the gurards torso, and he dropped to his knee in agony. Caiden then grabbed the guard in a choke hold from behind and began to strangle him. Despite the debilitating pain, the guard managed to reach behind in a desperate attempt to get a hold of Caiden’s head and began to squeeze. Caiden tightened his chokehold using his entire weight, and using his other arm, he wedged the shock baton between his arm and the guard’s neck. The guard began to struggle immensely but Caiden’s brute strength was beginning to prevail.

  Go down! Go down! Go down! Caiden thought to himself. He activated the voltage on the baton, shocking the guard. He shocked himself a little, due to the chokehold position he had the guard in. After an intense struggle, the guard finally gave way, crumbling to the ground and passing out from excess exposure to the high voltage. Caiden loosened his grip and rolled over, breathing heavily.

  With the fight over for now, Caiden wasted little time and made sure he picked up whatever belongings were dropped during the commotion. As he bent over to pick up his holo-watch, he felt a menacing aura. He turned around and saw the guard with the mangled leg standing over him. The guard le
t out a horrifying battle cry, swinging wildly at Caiden.

  Each swing of the guard’s weapon whizzed past Caiden putting him strictly on the defensive. The mangled leg of the guard forced him to swing his weapon from awkward angles, making it extremely difficult for a fatigued Caiden to evade for much longer. Caiden tripped over a cargo case and crashed to the floor providing the enraged guard with an easy target to hit. Right before the guard could finally land his powerful blow, a loud bone crunching crack ripped through the air. Suddenly, the guard stopped, frozen in place. He let out a loud grunt and gasped as he dropped to the floor. A silhouette was found standing behind the guard with a metal pipe in hand.

  “I’ve been waiting to do that!” Nami screamed, throwing the bloody dripping pipe away. She was shaking. She looked horrified, happy, and vindicated all at once. Caiden, taken aback, stared in awe of the sudden burst of anger from his new friend.

  “Wow, that would’ve been my ass! Thank you,” Caiden said, holding his injured arm

  “No. Thank you,” Hitomi replied as she went to console a clearly shaken up Nami.

  “Let’s get the hell outta here,” Caiden said as he got up.

  As they approached the door they heard a loud gunshot. They all scattered for cover while Caiden peered around the corner to see who it was. Across the loading dock stood an infuriated Slavo with his white pistol.

  “Going somewhere, you fucks?” Slavo asked. He seemed different this time. He was heavily under the influence of Mania.

  Caiden kicked the door open and led the twins away from Slavo, who was in hot pursuit. The trio took cover in the shadows in the alley, hiding. Bullets were ricocheting off the metal fire escapes, causing their ears to ring. The trio turned the corner and disappeared from Slavo’s sight. Despite having the ability to see in complete darkness, his aim was horribly off. He was too high off of Mania to be accurate.