The "rag tag gang" of criminals in this sci-fi thriller have let technology overwhelm them to astonishing degrees - from the horse who has become more chrome than flesh to the ferret whose body has remained unmodified to preserve its magical essence. Their game - theft - has been around long since before electrification.
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The alleyway was quiet, even though there were close to fifty people waiting in line hoping to get into the Powerline club. The crowd of people in the queue was all dressed in trendy and expensive clothes, flashy gear that included leather and piercings, and they weren’t talking much. The three of them were getting close to the front of the line now, and so Roland sub-vocalized, “We ready everybody?” The words were barely more than thoughts, but because of the otter’s extensive cybernetic enhancements, they were transferred wirelessly to his crew. There was a slight hiss of static only Roland could hear as the radio transceiver built into the otter’s ears connected with the rest of the team.
“Check,” rumbled the deep voice of Boris, and even though the bull had sub vocalized the word, the big man was standing so close to Roland that the otter’s unnaturally augmented hearing picked it up anyway.
A burst of powerful dance music crossed the line as Gina said “Check Baby,” in a sultry whisper that would be lost in the noise of the club’s interior.
“Check one, two,” Richard quipped, and Roland twitched his thick tail in annoyance. The fool horse said the words in a normal voice, and the words echoed in the quiet alleyway. A couple other people waiting in line glanced at him oddly, but most ignored him before returning to their own personal worlds. Ever since the highly sophisticated internal computer commlinks that Roland, Boris, and Richard sported became so cheap and easy to install that you could get one in a mall like it was an ear piercing, people had gotten used to folks who talked to thin air and seeing things no one else could see. Funny how even brain surgery seems normal when everyone is doing it. Nobody even thought of Richard’s chrome cybernetic arms as weird anymore.
“We’re good Boss, everyone has good signal.” Brian said quietly. “I’m bringing the tactical network feeds online now.” Roland’s vision of the world flickered for a moment, the way an old time video screen would flicker when changing channels.
Across the otter’s vision, four windows opened in the air and after a moment of buffering, they began streaming the live feeds of everyone in his crew. Boris and Richard’s video windows were déjà vu inducing picture in pictures of the alleyway from slightly different angles because they were both standing behind him. Brian’s stream showed the inside of the van as the German Shepherd monitored several computer screens at once, his fingers dancing over keyboards and controls that existed only in the Shepherd’s mind. Gina’s window showed the interior of the club, and in the last hour the ferret had been able to find a very good spot to do surveillance from. You could see most of the dance floor and club interior from where she was positioned, and she was within twenty feet of their target.
Finally, the last person in line ahead of him was let into the club, leaving the three men in front of the stolid grizzly bear bouncer. He waited patiently as the three of them sent him their identity information wirelessly. All of it was fake of course, the complex code and passwords forged by Brian to provide them with clean identities for the night’s work. As the bear was examining their information, Richard leaned forward and in a practiced way slapped Boris on the back. “Here to celebrate my boy’s birthday, big man,” the horse said happily. The bear bouncer took in Boris’ grimace; Richard’s smiling face, and Roland’s slight nod of greeting. With that nod, the otter sent a signal to the big bear’s commlink, a point to point wire transfer that was the modern equivalent of slipping the bear a pair of 20’s without real money having to change hands.
With that, the three of them were in.
Roland made his way through the crowded club, politely pushing his way through the dancing crowd like an icebreaker. Behind the slim otter, Boris lumbered through the gap the otter was making, the big bull careful not to step on the smaller otter in front of him or any other other patrons. Behind them, Richard was glancing around the bar casually, as if he were just checking out the patrons of the Powerline. In fact, the horse was scanning the bar with his cyber eyes, recording every face he could see and sending everything to Brian out in the van. The German Shepherd was running facial recognition as fast as he could, using the high resolution camera’s in the eyes of the three men making their way across the floor to see if anyone the team knew was here. They wanted to leave no traces tonight, and anyone who could identify them later would be a problem.
Brian had already done his best with the surveillance that Gina had done, but the resolution from her glasses was never as good what was could be transmitted by a pair of cyber eyes. The ferret had never altered her body like the rest of them had, but she was the only one of them good looking enough to get into the club on her own merits so they made do with what they had.
While Roland had made himself faster and stronger than any otter had the right to be, Gina had very good reasons for not going under the knife. She was one of the few people in the world gifted with magical power, and that required her to avoid the body modifications that Richard enjoyed so much. The body was your connection to magic, and Gina was not about to risk what made her special. Practically all of the horse was chrome by now, and even though Roland had never gone as far as getting cyber limbs like the horse’s arms there was still enough wiring in the otter’s body to furnish a house.
They pushed and jostled their way through the club, until they came to the back stairs and made their way up to the second floor. There, the three men bellied up to the bar and got a round of drinks. Richard put on a show of ordering something complicated for all of them to celebrate Boris’ “birthday”. It was a good cover, and it made the stolid bull scowl and blush slightly, which Richard loved to do. Roland lingered by the two of them, as Richard talked loudly about the game or some other nonsense as Boris sipped his drink and pretended to listen. That was the routine the two had developed over the years in situations like this. Boris watched as Richard made them look like real club patrons instead of criminals scoping out the place.
Roland meanwhile scanned the crowd for a bit, and then made a show of catching Gina’s eye from across the room. The ferret glanced back at him and after a minute or two of eye contact she smiled demurely, making it look like she was interested in him. The otter grinned and made his way to Gina, as Richard started talking about him scoring with the lady in red. Boris just rolled his eyes, a dizzying motion in the picture in picture in Roland’s head.
The otter sidled up to Gina at the railing of the second floor, whispering about how pretty she looked. They exchanged a few lines, pretending to get to know each other. This was another act, but unlike the one Richard was putting on behind them, it was a reprise of an actual conversation. Eventually the otter glanced at the back of the bar, where a small hallway led past the restrooms, to a locked door that protected their target. “Think we can do this without being noticed?” Roland said calmly, and Gina smiled at the way the otter touched her side.
“I’d always notice you, Roland,” she said quietly, “but the idiots here? The yakuza should be ashamed of this security. You wouldn’t even need a rhino to just barge into their secure room,” the ferret grinned, her whiskers flaring out as she leaned in close. “Now kiss me, because this is going to be a milk run.”
Roland grinned as Brian’s muttered comment about tempting fate reached his ears via the radio, but he didn’t care. He leaned in and kissed Gina softly all the same. It was a long slow moment of peace, just the two of them, before the run started in earnest. Then the otter stood up, guiding Gina away from the railing and towards the shadowy corridor, and anyone who saw them knew that they weren’t ducking back into the shadows just to use the facilities.
Their act was so convincing that the bartender didn’t even give them a glance as they slipped into the hallway. Roland grinned as he pushed Gina up against the wall at the end of the corridor, their bodies hiding the door’s electronic lock and the little security reader that would open the door for the right badge. Roland pushed a small device against the reader and resumed his not quite an act making out with Gina. In the little window that was Brian’s tactical video feed, he saw the dog eagerly begin cracking the system. It took less then a minute for the German Shepherd to crack the lock’s code, and with a buzz the door unlocked beside them. Gina giggled, and the ferret worked her magic as the kiss broke.
Roland felt a pressure descend around him as the sound and lights of the club dimmed to a muted rumble as the ferret weaved an illusion around them both. It felt like his ears needed to pop, but he ignored the sensation and he opened the door. To anyone looking at the door from the other side, it appeared as if nothing had changed at all. To anyone looking down the hallway from the outside, it would look as though Gina and Roland were still making out calmly in front of the closed door, when the truth was they were now both creeping silently into the darkness beyond.
The hallway beyond the door was dark, and they crept down it slowly. Gina kept her paws up, weaving them through the air, altering the illusion around them as they moved. The darkness affected her more than it did Roland, whose cybernetic eyes switched smoothly to night vision. Roland slipped his paws into the back of his coat and pulled out a pistol and flicked the safety off. The gun’s targeting system connected with his commlink, and when the two had synced a red target reticule appeared in his vision, tracing the spot where the gun was pointed. The otter mentally activated one of his favorite cyberwear devices and ‘pinged’ the room beyond the door, a wave of sonar going right through the door and walls, outlining the room beyond in silvery gray lines for the otter.
The room had only one occupant, a canine sitting in front of a computer terminal. Roland took the last few steps to the door alone, looked back at Gina, who gave him a nod. The otter’s ears went dead as Gina’s spell intensified, silencing him completely. “It’s go time folks.” Roland mentally sent the message to the rest of the team, and with that he activated all his cybernetic enhancements.
The wolf inside the control booth never stood a chance. Roland grabbed the doorknob, hit the door with his shoulder, and broke the door open in one smooth, soundless motion. The man began to turn, just catching a blur of motion as the door opened out of the corner of his eyes, and the last thing he saw was the end of Roland’s gun as the otter pulled the trigger.
The gunshot made no sound, but it overloaded Gina’s spell and the sounds of the club rushed back into the world in a wave. The beat of the club’s music provided enough cover from then on as Roland sat down at the terminal and Gina slipped in behind him, closing the door behind her. The otter pulled a small black box out of his jacket, set it on the keyboard, and plugged the little wireless transmitter into one of the console’s ports. The otter’s fingers danced across the keys as he established a wireless link into the otherwise secure system, giving Brian full access to the machine in front of him. “Brian, we’ve got five minutes max before somebody notices this guy’s gone offline. Make it quick.”
“Will do boss,” the dog said happily, and the computer in front of him began to flicker and dance as Brian controlled it remotely. It only took him a minute to find what they wanted, and in three Roland and Gina were gone, slipping back out onto the club floor, their clothes rumpled and their faces red just like a couple that had had an extended make out session would look. The team was out of the building entirely before the body was found.
“The reservation is under Mr. Johnson.”
Roland smiled slightly at the look the doe gave him. The woman was dressed in a beautiful kimono, her facial fur powdered to appear ghostly white, but it did not mask the way the color drained from her face. She had sneered at him when the short otter in his long, dusty coat had walked right past everyone else up to the podium in the lobby of the Gilded Pearl, Seattle’s premier sushi restaurant. The five of them were not dressed for such a formal establishment. They hadn’t had time to change after the club, and so they were decked out in leather and flash, but she should have known better than to be rude to them here. This wasn’t just Seattle’s best sushi bar, it was also a thriving meeting place for people who did what they did.
When powerful people or megacorps couldn’t achieve their goals via legal means, they went to the shadows to get things done. Men and women like Roland and his crew were fairly common in the shadows of Seattle. They were known by many names. Fixers, guns for hire, terrorists, corporate headhunters, were just a few. Richard always referred to them as “dicks with guns”, but generally they were just called runners. The profession had earned the nickname because they were almost always on the run from someone in the shadowy underworld of corporate espionage and crime for hire.
“Right this way sir,” she simpered demurely, leading the otter and his rag tag group through the curtains that separated the lobby from the rest of the fine building. Roland heard Richard give a snickering whiney at the looks they got from the other patrons.
They followed the doe through the dimly lit hallways. Roland glanced into the various dining rooms as they walked past them. He recognized some of those people in the fancy clothes from before he became a runner. Some of them would have know him too, if they looked closely enough to see past his clothes and the subtle cosmetic surgery he’d had done. It had always fascinated Roland how people ended up in his line of work.
No sane person set out to become a runner, but society had many cracks a person could fall through. If you didn’t have the right connections or didn’t have the right identification, it was impossible to get by legally. Roland was once part of the right crowd, only leaving behind a lucrative job as a corporate security specialist after a rival corporation’s hostile take over had became unusually hostile. The otter knew Brian from back then, and had even been his boss before the German Shepherd had lost his position in the same shake up that left Roland looking for work.
Boris was a gun for hire because it was one of the few jobs an ex-military specialist and illegal immigrant could do, the only way he could hope to make enough money to support the extended family he’d left behind him in the Russian consortium. Richard was just an adrenaline junkie who needed to keep in cash to upgrading himself. Gina, despite being involved with Roland, was still a mystery to him.
They were out of the normal restaurant area and in a hallway with several secluded private rooms for corporate functions. The doe led them to a heavy wooden door which she opened with a security card, and she kept her head bowed as she held the door open for them.
The five runners stepped inside the room and the door closed behind them, shutting out all sound. The room held one large table set for six. Five places held plates of fresh sushi and warm sake, while at the head of the table sat a heavyset panda in a tailored blue suit, quietly eating a plate of bamboo shoots as his claws tapped on a commlink.
“Ah, Roland, sit down my boy,” the panda said, wiping his mouth with a napkin as he set his chopsticks down. “Sorry to have started eating without you but I’m afraid I’m rather busy tonight. Tell me, do you have those family photos you mentioned last time we dined together?”
The team sat down on either side of the table as Roland nodded at their host. “Why, yes Mr. Johnson, I have them right here.” The otter slid a tiny data chip across the table and sat down across the table from him, his crew fanned out along their side of the table. The otter picked up his chopsticks, snagged a piece of fish, and popped it into his mouth as the panda inserted the drive into his handheld commlink and inspected the files. It was all deliberate obfuscation; despite the Gilded Pearl’s reputation for discretion and the white noise generator on the table, it was never wise to presume one had privacy. The panda’s real name was Ryan Clark, and he was a middle manager for the mega-corporation Applied Dynamics. He specialized in handling situations that called for the talents of Roland and his friends, but they maintained the illusion that the team didn’t know who their employer really was or what his motives were.
This verbal dance was an integral part of the business, almost as necessary as successful runs to maintain a reputation as dependable and a steady stream of work. The photos they had pulled out of the yakuza computer in the back of the Powerline that Clark was now viewing were of a priceless Chinese goblet, something from one of the old dynasties, back before magic returned to the world. Gina theorized that the panda was after it in case the goblet had become enchanted again with the return of magic, but they had no proof. The pictures clearly documented when and how the goblet had been quietly shipped to Seattle by the Orion Corporation, a rival of Clark’s employers. The most important piece of information, the part they had been paid a lot of money to get and had been willing to kill for, were the security codes for the case the goblet was being shipped in.
“These are very nice. You’re a good photographer.” The panda pulled the chip out and slid it back to the otter. “You have quite a cute pup there Roland. Perhaps you can bring him next time? I’d love to meet him.” Roland grinned slightly as he plugged the chip into a wireless reader, transferring the files to his own internal commlink. There were new files on the disk now, and he glanced over them inside the privacy of his own head as they ate and chatted idly. The files contained detailed plans for an Orion Corporation warehouse and a simple set of instructions. ‘Retrieve the goblet, kill anyone who sees you doing so, and return it to me here as soon as feasible. Payment is thirty thousand dollars each, with a ten thousand dollar bonus if the team leaves no witnesses behind.’ Another job offer, and this time a lot more money was on the table.
Roland glanced at his team mates as he copied the instructions wirelessly to them. His silent question harvested silent approval, and he smiled at the fat panda bear.
“I think that can be arranged, Mr. Johnson.” the otter said calmly.
Later that night, the team was riding in the large passenger van Brian owned. The Shepherd was in the very back seat though, stretched out across the seats, appearing for the entire world as if he were asleep. He was actually driving the van by remote link, his thoughts jumped into the big vehicle as it turned down twisting, narrow alleyways in the industrial complexes of Seattle’s waterfront. The team was quiet as the van drove them closer and closer to their target.
“So Roland,” Boris said casually as he buckled on a bullet proof vest. “What do you make of this target—San Diego or Rio?”
The otter winced a bit at the thought of the team’s disastrous run down in Rio. “It had better be another San Diego.” Richard said happily. “I’ve got bills to pay.”
“You have a new arm design to buy you mean.” Boris rumbled, and Richard just grinned at him.
“Think those two will ever stop complaining about money?” Gina whispered to Roland as the two men began their familiar argument about how to spend their cash.
“Not until Boris’ family stops calling him for cash.” Roland said as he calmly checked the slide of his pistol and holstered the gun under his jacket. “Or Richard runs out of parts to replace.”
“I can’t imagine there’s much left now.” Gina said with a smirk as she slipped her own bullet resistant jacket on. Roland smiled at her as Gina tied her hair back. Gina smiled back, and for a moment the ferret’s paw touched Roland’s.
‘We’re coming up on your stop, oh fearless leader.’ The message from Brian flashed across the bottom of Roland’s vision, and Roland slung his satchel over his shoulder as the van rumbled along the alleyway, crushing and knocking things out of its path.
Brian had paid a lot of money to reinforce the van; while it wasn’t fully armored, a few trashcans weren’t going to stop it. The otter checked his gear one last time, adjusted the thickly armored coat he wore, and as the van slowed at a T-junction, Gina gave him a kiss on the cheek before he leapt out of the side door.
A short jog down an alleyway brought him to the backside of a tall building. It was a factory, part of the Orion Industries complex, and it was largely automated. The five story building had no windows on this side, and with a grin, Roland took a pair of thick gloves from his bag. He pulled them on, and as he did, another message from Brian scrolled across the bottom of his vision. “Are you ever going to make Gina an honest woman Roland?” The Shepherd’s grinning icon mocked the otter as he began to climb the rough brick surface like a gecko, the gloves sticking to the wall perfectly.
“Are you ever going to stop staring at Boris and tell him?” Roland sent back, and he smiled smugly at the way Brian abruptly closed the conversation window.
An hour and a half later, Roland was laid out on the edge of the factory roof, carefully calibrating the scope sight of his sniper rifle for the third time while keeping his body as still as he could as he settled onto the rooftop ledge. He could feel the dampness of the fog and light rain leeching into his clothes, but it didn’t matter much right now. He had gotten up the wall and across the maze of factory rooftop sensors without incident, and the worm Brian had planted in the security system was showing no alarms had been raised by the otter’s quiet climb or the rest of the team’s approach towards the warehouse.
Roland pressed his eye to the scope of his rifle and used the scopes vision magnification to survey the grounds around their target. The warehouse was a large square building, with twenty feet of open weed covered ground between the building and the outer security wall. The outer wall was fifteen feet tall and made of solid brick with iron reinforcing, but there were several doors built into the wall at regular intervals around the building as fire escapes. From here, Roland could see along two sides of the building and through the long row of windows on the warehouse’s third story. That offered him a comprehensive view of the warehouse floor.
The warehouse was fully automated, and even in the dead of night the machines inside were shifting heavy loads back and forth, loading delivery trucks that rumbled in and out of the front gate. Roland could see all the way down the long shelves, past the automated fork lifts, and right into the windows of the empty control booth. There were a dozen or so security guards patrolling the grounds in pairs, and Roland could see most of them easily from here. It was the perfect sniper’s nest.
At the moment, the otter was tracking a pair of guards as they casually strolled down the length of the open space on the building’s left hand side, checking the doors along the side of the building and the outer wall. Roland had seen this pair do the same routine twice already, and he was tracking their progress to make sure that they kept to the same schedule as before. If they did, then there would be a three minute gap between when these two guards rounded the far corner of the building and when the next two would move into position to see the west side of the building, and that was exactly the opening the team needed to get inside.
Roland whispered, “Alright folks. Our window is going to be coming up here in five. Everybody ready?” There was a crackle of static, as the radio in the otter’s ears connected with the rest of the team.
“Check,” rumbled the deep voice of Boris.
Gina sent the words “Check Baby,” via her commlink, unable to speak because she was casting a spell at the moment.
“Check, one, two,” Richard mumbled, his voice muffled this time by the lock pick he held in his mouth.
“Signal strength is strong, everyone is ready.” Brian said calmly. “I’m accessing the warehouse security cameras now and bringing the tactical network feeds online.” Brian said quietly, and Roland smiled. The German Shepherd was always the most professional of the crew. He was sitting in the van parked two blocks away from the warehouse, and yet still he had whispered those words.
Once again, the familiar video windows opened and began streaming the live feeds of everyone in his crew, but that’s not all that happened this time. Along the bottom of each window was a vital sign readout for each of them. His commlink also began processing the new tactical and spatial info provided by the hundreds of security cameras all across the warehouse complex, and in a slightly dizzying way the otter was suddenly able to see the entire building from almost every direction, inside and out.
Roland looked out across the warehouse complex as walls and obstacles grew semi transparent as the visual feeds integrated into something not unlike x-ray vision. Using his cyber eyes this way, Roland could see every guard and checkpoint, every piece of moving machinery and storage bin. It was a sniper’s dream come true. He could calculate firing arcs and trajectories on any target on the grounds without ever having to change his position. He focused for the moment on the individual feeds from his team.
Boris’ feed showed Richard and Gina crouched alongside the outer wall of the factory compound in a shadowy alleyway, but in the bull’s night vision the place was as bright as day. The bulky horse was on one knee in front of the door, his chrome arms gleaming as he rewired the security panel. Beside him, Gina’s paws moved in a snake-like dance, shrouding the three of them from view to everyone outside their little bubble.
Roland could see the horse’s metallic hands working the lock, deftly rewiring the electronics with a skill and finesse the otter knew Richard didn’t possess. Brian was the one doing the actual work, guiding the horse’s robotic fingers remotely via their commlinks. It was one of Brian’s favorite tricks, since the dog hated to go in guns blazing.
The otter tensed slightly as Boris checked the magazine of his huge gun calmly. The click, clack of the bull checking and readying the weapon sounded loud in the otter’s ears, and he could see the whole team’s pulses spike. “Hey Boris, be careful with that thing.” Richard said, his confident voice betrayed by his rising heartbeat. “I don’t want this ending up like Lagos.”
“What do you care?” the big bull snorted. “You’re replacing those arms anyway.”
“So,” the horse said frowning. “It’s still no fun having them torn off first.” There was a soft click and buzz, as Brian finished using the horse’s hands to rewire the door and the magnetic lock disengaged.
Boris went back to checking his gun. The bull refused to go anywhere without that gun, and the sleek, compact lines of the matte black Omega series assault rifle belied the power it held. A combination assault rifle and grenade launcher, it had an advanced targeting computer, the ability to detonate a grenade mid arc, and was so finely engineered that it could be fired on full auto with only the barest hint of recoil. It was the gold standard in big damn guns and dwarfed the weapons the rest of them had brought, even Roland’s own sniper rifle. Roland should have complained that it was the wrong kind of weapon for an infiltration mission and made him leave it in the van, but the bull’s superior firepower had come in handy one too many times when a run went bad for the otter to say anything about it. Roland just wished that the assault rifle was a quieter weapon.
Roland watched as Richard’s heartbeat climbed as the big gun was readied, and the horse’s bio-monitor indicated he was starting to sweat. The horse knew exactly what having the bull fire that thing would mean. One shot from that monster and the warehouse security alarms would be blaring, bringing the on site security teams running. Or if they were smart, they’d be running the other way, since Boris would probably mow the rent-a-cops down like weeds. After that, the team would have less than ten minutes to get out before the local Orion tactical response team came raining down on this place like a ton of bricks, and they would have a hell of a fight on their hands then. It would be another fifteen minutes after that before the state police arrived, and if that happened then no one would be able to get out of that building alive.
“Alright people, let’s do this.” Roland said quietly. “You will have one minute, two tops to cross the green space and enter the factory side door. Richard, you’re on point. Once inside, head directly for the control room. I’ll be watching the guard’s patrols and warn you when to stop. If you stumble on someone I can’t see, try to take them out quietly. We should be out of here in less than twenty minutes. Brian, you ready with the door?”
The radio crackled as everyone’s adrenalin began to pump. “Yes sir, ready and waiting,” Brian said, his fingers hovering over the button.
“We are go on my mark. I have the security team rounding the far corner in three, two, and one... mark.” Roland watched as the picture in picture views of his three companions in crime shook and bounced. Through his expanded sight, he saw them sprint across the open field, their passage leaving a trail in the weeds only he could see. They reached the far side of the green space, and with a click one of the emergency exit doors disengaged as Brian cut the power to its circuit. Fire code demanded that such a door fail open, not closed; with little trouble Richard pulled the thing open, and they were inside.
Boris was through the door first, his huge gun leading the way into the dark warehouse. The bull shifted his stance, sweeping the gun across the row they were in, searching for anyone who might have spotted them entering the building. Gina and Richard scrambled through the door behind him, the horse pulling the fire door closed just in time as the second squad of security rounded the building. Richard pulled his handguns as the door resealed with a soft magnetic chunk as the door’s power was restored.
Boris nodded at Richard and Gina, whispering, “We’re clear. Let’s get to the control room and do this.” Boris walked down the row of boxes and containers, keeping one eye on the view with Brian’s video feed. The bull could see the dog frantically checking the alarm systems and interior controls, but there were no flashing lights on the dog’s monitors. “We’re clean Roland,” Brian said with a grin, and the team collectively breathed out. Boris sent the dog a silent message, “Good job,” and then he accessed the layout map Mr. Johnson had given them.
Gina kept up the illusion around them, preventing anyone from noticing them visually as the three began to move cautiously down the row. Boris kept himself tensed and ready to spring as Roland did another visual sweep of the warehouse floor. The otter guided them around one security team, and then told them to pause for a minute behind a storage rack as a heavy automated forklift moved past them.
They reached the control room without incident, and everything looked good. No guards were breaking from their routines. The only unexpected movement at all was a van passing the building on the street outside. Everything was going smoothly for once. Boris grinned as Richard accessed the controls, and initiated a retrieval request for the crate they wanted.
The machines spun to life and brought the team the storage container. Boris shouldered his big gun and pulled out a crow bar as the crate reached the loading platform. With a grunt he pried open the wooden crate, lifting the heavy lid off it. Inside, padded by a foot of foam, lay a black bullet proof carrying case. The bull grinned and lifted it out, setting it on a table nearby before replacing the crate’s lid. Boris’ video feed showed Roland and Brian what was happening as the bull punched in the unlock code, and with an electronic click the latch opened. Gina came round on the bull’s left side as Boris opened the case. The stylized golden goblet glittered in front of him, just where they knew it would be. Boris stepped back as Gina examined the thing to make sure it was genuine, and she nodded with a grin. Mr. Clark was going to be very happy with this. Richard tapped a few keys to send the crate back where it was supposed to be.
Just as the wooden crate was lifted away, the door on the other side of the control room from where they had entered opened. Boris looked up, shifted his shoulder to swing his gun into position, but he could tell it was too late. Things had just gone very wrong.
Roland watched through Boris’ video feed as the door opened, and a big rhino in camouflage gear and carrying a Russian assault rifle came rushing into the room. The otter’s body tensed as several other people, all heavily armed, came in quickly behind him. There was a whole separate runner team in the warehouse.
There was a breathless moment of stillness as the two groups of criminals stared at each other. Roland sighted on the rhino’s face, and he could see the look of shock on the man’s face when he spotted the goblet’s open case. Then, the rhino’s mouth twisted into a sneer, and he pulled the trigger bare seconds after Roland.
Gunfire echoed over the commlink and Roland heard Gina scream as the rhino’s head jerked back. A huge pane of window glass on the south side of the building shattered as Roland’s bullet went through it. The rhino’s rifle rattled gunfire across the warehouse as he fell, and the other team stood there in shock as they were showered in blood.
Roland released the trigger and cocked the rifle as he counted out the other team into his commlink. “Four left! Two punk foxes, a zebra, and a panther! Cover is blown, open fire!” For a moment the range finder of Roland’s scope was filled with muzzle flashes as the other team opened fire, and the glass windows of the control room exploded outward.
Everyone was screaming now, all pretense of stealth gone as Roland sought desperately for another shot to take. The voices of his team and the other runners were muffled screeches over the otter’s commlink as the other team laid down a hail of gunfire. In seconds, the first security patrol was inside the building and rushing to the control area, and all hell broke loose as the rent-a-cops began shooting at everyone not wearing an Orion security uniform.
Roland checked the vital signs of his friends. Boris was hit, his blood pressure dropping fast but Richard was unhurt. Judging from his video feed the horse had ducked behind the console for cover. Gina… his heart skipped a beat.
Gina was flat lined, her feed showing nothing but the exposed steel ceiling of the warehouse. Roland shifted his scope frantically to find her, and he saw her lying in a pool of blood, her lifeless eyes open to the sky.
Cold rage filled the otter, and Roland sighted through his scope at the other team. They were all going to die for this. He chose one of the foxes, a female red fox with feathered green hair and a lip piercing. She was firing a pair of pistols at Boris, and she fell screaming when Roland pulled the trigger, a bloody stain covering her side. The zebra threw his hands up and magic leapt out at the security team that had rushed behind the other team’s position, and the Orion men died screaming. Roland waited, watching the zebra’s determined look as he charred the men, and when the sparks coming from his hands died the otter put a bullet in his skull.
That’s when Boris began to fire. The bull walked out of the control room into the warehouse proper, his huge gun blazing as he cut down Orion security like wheat before a scythe. The bull was bleeding from a shoulder wound he was ignoring, and with a heavy boom he launched a grenade that forced the panther to dive for cover and took out a whole squad of Orion security as Roland sighted on and killed a guard trying to circle behind the bull.
Richard meanwhile squared his shoulders and faced down the fennec ganger who rushed at him and the goblet. The fennec was a hardcore punk in a leather jacket with fur tattoos all over him. The fennec was also seriously juiced or seriously cybered up, either way he was apparently new at being a runner. The biggest clue was the fact that he was swinging a sword at the horse instead of using a gun. The katana he held had become the favorite weapon of the young go-gangers who raced through the urban sprawl on crotch rockets and fancied themselves as modern samurai. Many of them tried to take up running to pay for their cyber or drug habit, and they were usually very bad at using the swords they carried.
That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous as hell. Thanks to modern technology, even the most foolish looking sword could cut through two feet of steel like it was butter. Even Richard’s augmented arms wouldn’t stand up to more than a couple of blows from the thing, so it was bad luck for the fennec that he didn’t know how to use it worth a damn. He swung high at Richard’s head, going for a quick kill. Richard ducked under the blade, and tackled the punk like the horse was a linebacker making a sack. The horse’s metal arms gleamed as he pounded the smaller fox into the ground mercilessly.
“Richard! Boris, you have to get out of there now!” Brian shouted over the comm, and Roland felt the pit of his stomach open up as he glanced at the dog’s video feed. Every security system on the dog’s screens had begun to blink an angry red as the whole site started to go into lock down. “Go out the front gate! Everything else is locking down!” The dog said frantically as he gunned the van to life, driving it quickly into the main road. “I’m bringing the van to open the gate… Shit!”
Roland jerked his head away from his scope and watched the crash happen with just his cyber eyes, and he wanted to throw up at the violent way Brian’s video feed shook. The other van had rammed Brian’s hard, and it sent the Shepherd’s van rolling down the street like a thrown toy. The second van screeched to a halt, crippled from the collision, and Roland could see the façade of the van had been torn away to reveal a heavily armored vehicle underneath. It had to be the other runners’ transport.
Brian’s vital signs were wavering wildly, and Roland cursed as he adjusting his angle to get a bead on the second van’s driver before whoever it was could overpower Brian. Then suddenly the tactical feeds froze, and the tacnet went dead as the van’s communications server gave out, taking their personal wireless network with it and cutting Roland off from the security system camera feeds. Roland cursed loudly as he put his eye back to his scope and searched for Brian the manual way.
On the street below, he spotted Brian as the dog came crawling out of the van. Roland could see the dog was hurt badly. He had a bone sticking out of his leg, and blood was running down his face. The German Shepherd looked up at someone Roland couldn’t see, and the otter shifted his aim smoothly to follow Brian’s gaze.
The otter saw a battered lion holding a pistol, pulled the trigger of his sniper rifle instinctively, shooting the man in the leg rather then the chest. The shot still saved Brian’s life, as the lion staggered backward, but it took Roland three frantic shots to finish the man. “Thanks,” was all Roland caught in the crackle and pop of the radio transmissions before he lost contact with the Shepherd completely, but at least Brian was alive. Unfortunately, it meant Roland only had two rounds left before he had to reload.
Roland shifted his aim back to the warehouse, and back to the firestorm taking place inside. Boris was still unleashing hell in the rows of storage containers, and the Orion security teams were powerless to stop the bull’s superior firepower. Most of them were probably dead by now, because the bull seemed to be focusing his fire on the panther. Roland tried to get a bead on the panther as he ducked and dodged Boris’ fire, hoping to take him down with the bull’s help.
The panther was bleeding from a shoulder wound where one of Boris’ bullets had gotten lucky, and he was heading towards the bull in a dead run. Roland fired, placing his shot in front of the panther to prevent the cat from reaching Boris, and then he cursed as the shot went wide. The lithe cat had changed directions and was charging Richard instead, leaping through the broken windows into the control room once more. The fool horse was scrambling to get the case with the goblet closed, when he should have been trying to get out alive. Roland’s final shot barely missed the leaping panther as he bore down on Richard, but the horse got the case closed and locked before the panther got to it.
Roland frantically reloaded his rifle as he watched the two men fight. The horse loved hitting people, and thanks to his metal arms Richard had a punch that could go through a concrete wall. That only mattered if he could land a punch though, and this panther was fast. Too fast, and too smart for Richard, it turned out. They ducked and weaved around each other, blocking and punching at each other as Boris finished gunning down the last of the warehouse security team. Just before Roland could finish reloading his sniper rifle, he saw the panther use a blade of his own, and it was much more impressive then the fennec’s had been.
Richard dodged a wild roundhouse punch by jerking his head back as the cat’s arm came around in a wide sweep. There was a flash of light as a foot long blade sprang out of the cat’s forearm, and the blade threw Richard’s blood across the wall in a wide arc. It was a nasty trick. The panther had hidden a foot long razor sharp blade inside a cyber arm made to look like real flesh and fur, and Richard hadn’t pulled back far enough to avoid the blade as well. Roland watched as the horse felt to the ground in silence, as the panther grabbed the case and leapt over Richard’s body. Roland cursed and spat as he tried to sight on him, but the cat was too fast and the otter was too upset to aim properly anymore.
The panther dashed through the rows, passing behind Boris’ position as the bull finished off the security teams. The cat buried his blade in the bull’s side as a parting shot, and Roland felt sick as he watched the bull fall to his knees as the panther ran on past him. Roland fired again and again at the cat, tracking the panther across the warehouse, but it was almost pointless now. The cat knew he was there, and he ducked and wove as he ran, using cover and making it almost impossible for the otter to hit him. Roland managed a single good shot, putting a bullet through the man’s shoulder, but it didn’t stop the panther before he left Roland’s field of vision for good and disappeared into the back end of the warehouse.
Roland screamed as he threw his rifle down, grabbed his escape line, and slid down it in a rush. The rope tore his gloves off and burned his paws, but there was no way in hell that cat was getting away, not after killing Richard and Boris. Not after Gina. The ground rushed up to meet the otter’s paws and he grunted in pain as he landed on the pavement. Feet protesting, Roland raced towards the back of the warehouse as fast as his enhanced body could go. He rounded the corner just in time to see the panther come flying over the top of the back wall. Like an acrobat, the panther was tumbling smoothly through the air in a high arc, his body clearing the razor wire topped wall by several feet. Roland’s paws flew to his sides as his tactical software began computing the panther’s trajectory, telling him exactly the spot the graceful cat would land.
The otter drew both his pistols as the panther came down in a perfect gymnastic pose. Roland’s eyes met the panthers as the cat finished his landing, yellow eyes widening as the cat registered his presence. The otter emptied the guns into him, walking forward as the gunshots knocked the panther over backwards; the shots followed him down to the ground until the augmented cat lay still.
A flash of light made the otter look up, and fear gripped Roland as a large armored van swung round the corner and into the alley. The van’s headlights flooded the area with hard white light. The Orion tactical response team was here. The otter looked at the vital sign readouts of his friends arranged around the edges of his vision, and saw nothing but static and white noise. The warehouse was being jammed. He had no way of contacting them or finding them—if they were even alive. Roland dropped the guns on the cat’s chest, grabbed the case, and ran.
Boris gasped, staggering as he hustled out the front door of the warehouse, his gun trailing along the ground as he tried to hold his guts in. He cursed the bastard black cat with what little breath he had and tried desperately to make it off Orion corporate property. If he could do that, then the security team should in theory leave him alone—but considering how many had died in the warehouse he doubted that would save him if they caught him in some dark alleyway.
He could hear the sound of helicopters as the Orion security forces began to arrive, and he stumbled as he reached the wall of the compound. He tried to open one of the emergency doors, and he grunted in pain as his side burned. The door creaked as he put all his weight on it, but it refused to open. “No, no, no, no!” the bull pounded on the door, and he felt his augmented muscles twinge as they failed to break the door down. The bull looked up at the high brick wall, and Boris knew he would never get over the wall, much less past the mono-filament razor wire on top.
“Brian?” The bull grunted, activating his commlink and trying to raise the dog. He was close enough, he should be able to get a signal to the dog, but there was no response. “Brian I need an out, buddy I can’t open the door.” The bull felt the world tilting, and he looked down at all the blood trailing behind him. “Please Brian, you got to get me out,” the bull muttered, but all his commlink was receiving was static. He was being jammed; the whole complex was probably being jammed. Boris hung his head, and that’s when he noticed the second blood trail. Boris looked up and across the field, and saw where a trail of blood led to another security door, which was half open.
The bull staggered to the door as fast as he could, and realized why it was still open when all the others had been sealed. The vixen with green hair was there, her body holding the door open as she lay bleeding, half in, half out of the alleyway beyond the door. Boris tried to step over her and fell against the door instead, tumbling over her and onto the pavement beyond. He panted, shaking as he leaned against the wall.
Boris’ guts were on fire, and he looked up as a van screeched to a halt at the end of the alleyway and a search light swept over them both. The bull’s heart sunk. The Orion tactical response teams were here. There was nothing he could do now, he was basically dead. There was the crunch of boots on gravel, the cock of a gun, and when the first lion came sprinting into view, Boris laughed a bright booming laugh. The man, dressed in bright red and white swat gear and armed to the teeth, wasn’t an Orion security guard but a damned EMT.
The man rushed up to him, his gun focused on the bull’s face for a moment. Boris grinned, looked into the light, and held as still as he could. Boris knew he was being scanned and his identity checked, and he knew damn well how bad an idea it would be to move too quickly as the lion did it. Cross Emergency Services were very particular about this sort of thing, and the lion would shoot him without any hesitation if he threatened the man. The lion shouted, “Uninsured! Leave him!” to the other two paramedics who came stomping down the alleyway.
“What about her sir?” One of them yelled over the sound of the real Orion tactical response team’s helicopter landing on the roof of the warehouse. “She’s got a contract!”
“She’s still on Orion Property!” The lion yelled back. “We’re not pulling her out with a damn tactical response team hovering overhead!”
Boris looked down at the vixen who whimpered as the EMT passed them by. He watched the vixen’s face as she reached out to red and white clad figure as they passed her by, her paw groping feebly. She had to have been the one to call them, and they had left her behind because of three feet of damned extraterritoriality.
With a grunt of effort, Boris reached down and pulled the woman through the door. It shut with a magnetic click and sealed, and she screamed in pain at being dragged like that on her wounded side. She whispered something as she passed out, and Boris shifted, trying to put pressure on his wounded side by leaning against the wall.
The three paramedics disappeared around the far corner of the security wall, guns at the ready as they headed towards the crashed vans. Brian had a contract with them; they’d get the Shepherd out safely and pick the vixen up on their way back. Boris grinned slightly as fresh gunfire rattled out of the night. The Orion team must have taken umbrage to the paramedic’s presence. Oh well, it was their funeral, the Cross High Threat response teams were not the kind of people you wanted to mess with. Pay enough in this day and age and even ambulance drivers will carry guns when they come to get you.
A few minutes of pain passed, filled with the sound of Boris’ heart beating and gunfire echoing down the alleyway before the paramedics came back around the corner carrying Brian on a backboard. The Shepherd started to struggle when he saw Boris lying there, but his movements were hampered by the paramedics. “No!” Brian shouted at the Cross EMT, “You can’t just leave him here; he’s going to bleed out!”
“He doesn’t have a contract!” The lion shouted back, “Stay still sir, we’ll get you to the hospital soon!” The lion ignored the dog’s shouts from the ambulance as he and the other paramedic ran back to get the vixen.
Boris lay against the wall, his breathing getting ragged as he watched the paramedics work. The bull had no illusions about begging for their help. That’s not how it worked anymore; the men in the white flak jackets were not charity givers. If he’d had the money to pay them off, he would already have a contract with them. The lion was half way through strapping the vixen onto the board when he stopped, cursed something Boris couldn’t hear, and then turned to the bull as his partner continued strapping in the woman.
The bull blinked in surprise as the lion pulled him away from the wall and slapped a heavy self adhesive bandage over the knife wound on Boris’ side. Boris bellowed in pain from the fire in his side as the lion applied smaller patches to the bullet holes on his arms and chest. The lion pulled a syringe from his bag, jammed it into the bull’s leg, and depressed the plunger. Boris howled in pain again, and he watched as the silvery liquid shot into his veins. The commlink displays in his head lit up as his bio-monitors detected the invasive liquid, but it showed as some kind of nanotech blood replacement and his cybernetics didn’t react to the stuff. Boris could feel the icy cold flow up his leg as they mixed with his blood and began to stabilize his condition.
Then the lion grunted with effort and forced Boris to stand. The bull’s vision swam as he was hustled down the alley to the running ambulance. The lion was cursing constantly and holding him upright as the ambulance came more clearly into view. Boris squinted, trying to see inside, but all he could make out was Brian secured near the front of the van.
The lion shoved him into the armored vehicle and strapped him into a seat. Boris looked over at Brian, and he grinned when he saw that the slim German Shepherd had his arm snaked behind the driver’s seat. He was holding a gun to the driver’s head.
“This isn’t going to work kid!” The Dalmatian behind the wheel yelled over the sound of the helicopters outside and the gunfire. “He still doesn’t have a contract! You’ll never get him treated at the hospital and the guards will gun you both down the moment they get back if you still have that gun!”
Brian laughed at the man, blood flecking his lips. “Then look at this!” Boris could see the German Shepherd was fiddling with the air like he was typing. The dog was doing something with his commlink, and Boris connected to his network so he could see the information that Brian and the copilot were exchanging. The little screens wavered to life in Boris’ fading vision, and he saw a picture of himself on one of the screens.
It was a Cross Emergency Services Insurance Contract for him, under his real name. Alongside it was a bank terminal window, and he could see Brian sending payments to the paramedics and Cross alike. Boris couldn’t tell how much, but a lot of money had just changed hands. “He’s got a contract now, dip shits! So shove it up your ass and do your jobs!” Brian laughed at the look of disgust on the lion’s face and the angry snarl he gave as he climbed into a seat beside Boris as the other EMT reached the van carrying the vixen. Boris felt himself slipping, and the last thing he saw was the dog grunting in pain as he holstered his weapon while smiling brightly at him.
Roland padded through the stark white Cross Applied Sciences hospital, his paw pads making soft leathery sounds on the linoleum floor. He glanced at the digital readouts of names and room numbers as he walked, and eventually he stopped in front of a door with the name Emily Pritchard on it.
The otter opened the door, and inside a vixen looked up at him, her eyes narrowing as she realized Roland wasn’t hospital staff. “Who are you?” she said sharply, her shoulder length green hair falling over her eyes as she struggled to sit up. “What are you doing in here?”
“My name’s Roland, Seraph—” the otter said calmly as he stood at the end of the bed. The vixen paused at the use of her codename, finger hovering over the call nurse button. She looked at him, as if judging distances, but Roland had been careful to remain out of reach of the vixen. It only took a moment to scan the woman, and while she had several cyberware enhancements she wasn’t hiding a weapon under the sheets that could reach him at this range. Using the professional alias told Seraph she was looking at another runner.
“—and I’m the one who shot you,” the otter finished, to make sure she fully understood the situation she was in.
The vixen sat very still for a moment, but she knew she was trapped. Roland could see it in the way she looked at his long, concealing coat and the way he had one paw in the pocket of the coat. “What do you want?” she said shortly.
Roland took out a data chip drive from his pocket and tossed it to her as she flinched. “I’m here to show you this. We share certain business partners and I thought you might like to know why both our runs went so horribly wrong.”
The vixen stared at the thing suspiciously, and then she plugged it into a little port hidden in the crook of her arm. It was a popular place for datajacks these days, better than the ones behind your ears. Her eyes went unfocused for a second as she watched something only she could see. Then she screamed in rage and threw the little chip at the otter; who didn’t flinch as it hit his chest and landed on the floor. “No! No, I do not fucking believe it!” Seraph screamed at him.
“Sorry honey, but it’s true.” Roland said quietly as he picked up the drive. It had contained only one file, a video recording made by Roland’s own cyber eyes during their meeting with Mr. Clark earlier that evening. Her reaction was pretty much the same one Roland had had when Brian had shown him what he had hacked out of the vixen’s cyber eyes—the galling recording of the panda’s fat, smiling face. The otter felt sorry for her as tears ran down her face. She had lost just as much as he had tonight. “Clark sent both our teams after the goblet.”
The vixen wiped her eyes and composed herself, and now instead of sad she looked mad as hell. “Why the hell would he do something like that? He gave us orders to kill anyone who saw us! He was even paying extra for it!” Green hair covered her face as she cried.
“He’s liquidating his assets.” The otter said quietly. “We checked with a few of our sources, and it looks like Clark’s trying to pull a fast one on Applied Dynamics and make off with a lot of cash. We probably couldn’t sell him the damn goblet now, even if we wanted to. It was just a tail chaser to get us killed.”
She stared at him for a while, the anger darkening her face. “Right,” she growled, “so we’re just loose ends to him. How did you know he was our Johnson? We could have been after anything in the warehouse, not just the goblet.”
“Two of my team hitched a ride in your ambulance,” Roland said evenly. “One of them hacked into your commlink on the ride here and compared notes. I have to thank you for calling Cross; those two wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t.” That earned him a hard glare from the vixen. After all, he was the one who had shot her and triggered the arrival of the paramedics.
Roland didn’t feel bad about that. It was true what Richard used to call him, he was a dick with a gun, and he made his living by using it. The otter had no pity for the vixen and her friends. They had known the rules of running the shadows as well as he and his team had, and Brian and Boris really wouldn’t have survived the night if the paramedics hadn’t arrived so quickly. The bull was having a long talk with the German Shepherd about why Brian had been willing to spend so much money on a contract for him. The probability that the two would hook up finally didn’t at all assuage his emptiness at the loss of Gina and Richard on a fool’s errand.
“So what do we do now?” The vixen said quietly. Her face had a calculating look to it, and Roland knew he had misjudged her back in the warehouse when he’d put her down as just another punk. She was a professional runner, just like him.
“Depends,” Roland said, his tail tapping the ground. “You really want to run with the crew that iced your friends?”
“If you let me cut that panda’s lying tongue out and feed it to him before he dies,” Seraph said with cold fury. “Then I’m all yours.” Roland smiled at her, and they shook on it.
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