Chapter 50: You're Late, You Gonks!
"Jackie, you, Rebecca, and Lucy—get your ass up to the third floor, fast!"
"But what about you guys?! There are dozens of them down here!"
"Don't worry about us! Get to Rhys! He's my responsibility; I won't let anything happen to him!"
On the ground floor of the abandoned factory, Maine gripped Jackie's arm, shouting over the roar of heavy gunfire. Even at this volume, the chaos of the bullets muffled his voice.
Jackie grit his teeth, dual pistols blazing, and looked at Rebecca.
"Stop staring, you gonk!" Dorio had a death-grip around Rebecca's waist; otherwise, the loli would have already charged the stairs to the third floor. Rebecca was afraid of a lot of things, but death wasn't one of them. People called her naïve, a dummy, but she thought she was the smart one. You zero a lot of people, then one day someone zeroes you? That's not a tragedy, that's just the natural end. That's the life of an edgerunner!
Lucy, however, was hesitating. She'd done her part, pushed her luck to the limit. Another risk? No. She needed a good reason for a suicide run, and she didn't have that kind of bond with Maine's crew. As for Rhys, she barely knew him. At first, she thought he was a tool she could easily manipulate, but now she knew his strength was beyond anything she could control.
And I ended up getting played... The thought made Lucy pause.
"I'll add another fifty thousand eddies!" Maine roared.
"..." Lucy looked at Jackie, and her gaze hardened. Alright. She had a reason now. She didn't know if her life was worth fifty K, but she was sick of running. Sick of being a vagabond. Maybe dying in an explosion of glory wouldn't be so bad. This world belongs to 'them' no matter what I do. I'll never truly escape their reach.
"Fuck, Maine, you stay alive!" Jackie yelled back.
"Keep your shorts on, I've seen worse on a battlefield!" Maine roared with laughter. He exploded from behind his cover and charged the nearest dense cluster of Wraiths, his arm cannon deployed. BOOM! He slammed his chrome arm up just as bullets rained down on him. CLANG! He roared and lunged forward, refusing to be stopped.
Jackie followed instantly, flipping over the industrial equipment that served as their cover. As he cleared the obstacle, he fired a quick, precise shot toward a gunner on the second-floor railing. Hit. He landed, rolling, and came up instantly. Jackie was fast, a surprising contrast to his massive build.
"Go!"
Jackie took the lead, Rebecca and Lucy close behind. "This is insane! This is fucking intense! If I'd met you guys two years ago, I can't even imagine where I'd be now!" Jackie yelled over the gunfire. Despite the danger, he wasn't afraid. The adrenaline made him feel alive.
"We weren't even together two years ago, you gonk!" Rebecca shouted back, her small legs pumping furiously as she fired her SMG.
Lucy lagged slightly behind, a golden wire slipping from her wrist. She was hyper-focused on the surrounding area. She didn't want a quick, ignoble death from a stray bullet. Her optics glowed. She remotely hacked two Wraiths who were focusing on the floor below.
"This way!" Jackie yelled, charging up the stairs to the second floor.
Maine, Pilar, and Dorio were holding their own, surrounded by the enemy. Maine was a one-man wall; short of heavy artillery, his chrome could deflect most of the incoming fire.
"Hurry! Get to the third floor and back up Rhys!"
...
At the far end of the third-floor office, the climax of a battle between chrome and flesh was underway. Full-power Sandevistan versus a life burning at maximum velocity.
AAAH!
Crispin screamed as the hated katana bit deep into his side, nearly severing his torso. If he hadn't worn thick, reinforced cyber-armor, the blow would have cut him in half. But the blade didn't stop. It became a red-black blur, striking him a dozen more times in the space of a heartbeat.
Rhys delivered a powerful kick, knocking Bort, the assassin, away. Bort was a blur of Sandevistan and Mantis Blades, but Rhys's hyper-boosted reflexes and speed allowed him to keep up with both of them. In the eyes of the two Wraith leaders, Rhys wasn't just running in their slowed world—he was teleporting. One second by the desk, the next, flashing before their eyes.
Another few seconds passed. Fear began to show in Bort's eyes. The suppressants kept him lucid, but he wished he wasn't. What the hell? Why? This shouldn't be happening! How can an organic have this kind of combat power?
No! It's impossible! The legends about Morgan Blackhand, the number one Solo, who supposedly fought Adam Smasher with only his meat body... nobody believed it. Meat versus chrome? A joke! Yet, the longer he fought Rhys, the more Bort's faith in the superiority of chrome shattered. Monster! He's a monster!
Fear became a tangible thing. In the next moment, seeing the organic kid absorb Crispin's punch and then cleave his massive body from head to groin, Bort broke. He turned and ran.
CLICK—
A faint noise. Bort froze. My chrome... malfunctioning?! "Fuck you! Fuck you! How could you fail me now—"
"Looks like my luck is holding up," a cold voice said behind him.
Stripped of his Sandevistan, Bort couldn't even turn his head in time. He only saw a small, heavily-chromed, decapitated body tumbling past him. And next to it, the blood-red eyes of the organic kid, staring at him with chilling indifference.
"You motherfucker..." Bort gurgled, his last words a curse.
Shick!
The half-broken katana pierced the center of his skull as his head flew free.
It was over.
The moment the fight ended, Rhys stumbled, collapsing backward onto the floor. He grabbed a spilled airhypo, slammed it into his neck, and inhaled sharply. His body tingled with relief, the pain subsiding, replaced by a strange, itching warmth as the wound on his side began to close.
He looked at the thermal katana. It was bent, its monomolecular edge ruined. He felt a pang of loss. He loved that weapon. It was perfect.
He fought the exhaustion, weakly reaching for his pistol as footsteps approached. But then he relaxed, holstering the Omaha.
"Rhys! Rhys!"
Jackie burst into the room, dual pistols drawn. His face was a mess of minor cuts, and blood soaked his favorite black jacket from a graze on his arm. Rebecca followed, clutching her stomach where she'd taken a couple of hits, but her face lit up when she saw Rhys. Lucy entered last, completely unscathed, her eyes wide as she took in the scene.
They all stared, stunned. What the hell happened here? The room was a disaster zone, worse than the ground floor firefight.
Rhys, sitting between two corpses—one headless, the other cleaved down the middle—leaned back on his hands, breathing heavily. He was laughing, a joyous, almost manic sound in the carnage.
With a laugh that held a note of genuine resentment, he looked at his friends.
"You gonks are late, you know that?!"