The mechanical bugs that Cyan released flew through the streets, mapping the route ahead. Suddenly, several signals sent by the bugs vanished at the exact same moment.
Cyan frowned. "EMP?"
She immediately opened a comm-line.
"This is Cyan. Something is wrong. Enemies here."
—crrrk— zzzz—
Her communication cut off.
And a loud explosion shook the slums.
Both Leo and Cyan whipped their heads in the direction of the blast.
"Things got complicated. Leo, hold tight," Cyan said sharply as she twisted the accelerator.
The bike shot forward, engine screaming as they raced toward the plume of rising smoke. The people in the slums went into hiding after hearing the blast.
Leo held her tightly and looked at the smoke in the sky with concern.
Cyan tried to reconnect her mechanical bugs, to re-map the area using the bike's scanners, but nothing worked. All of them were disconnected. The projection screen in the bike only showed "—>DISCONNECTED<—"
"Someone is jamming us…" she muttered, teeth gritted.
"Leo, how do I get there?" She pointed at the pillar of black smoke.
"Take a left," Leo instructed quickly. "Then go right at the narrow alley."
Cyan followed his directions without hesitation. They passed through a few streets that Leo pointed out. Just a few more turns, they were close to that area.
Then suddenly,
BAM!
Cyan lost balance. The bike jerked violently to the side and crashed into a small closed shop.
Leo hit the ground, rolling before pushing himself up, stunned and confused by the sudden turn of events.
"Sis Cyan! What happened?" Leo scrambled over to her.
Cyan clenched his shirt and pulled him down. Her voice was tight and breathless. "I've been shot… Don't go outside. There's a sniper…"
Leo froze.
Only then did he notice the blood soaking through Cyan's side, right above her hip.
"Take the medical kit from the bike…" Cyan whispered.
Leo pulled out the white box with the red-plus symbol from the bike's storage. He also took her gun. Cyan couldn't stand straight, so he supported her with an arm around her as she leaned on him, and together they moved behind the shop.
A group of men barged into the shop moments later. They only saw the bike on the ground.
"Where are the targets?" one guy asked.
Another, who was holding a slick-looking sniper rifle, used his mechanical eye to look around, but his vision glitched. "The jammer we used is also interfering with my signals. So I can't track them."
"Don't move..." Some local guards arrived and held their guns toward them.
But they simply turned around and shot them dead instantly.
"We should move quickly before the Penta Corps arrives."
They looked around and saw blood at the window.
"They must have escaped through the window. Looks like a target is bleeding." So they jumped off the window and ran toward the street.
After they left,
Leo sighed in relief. He was hiding behind a shelf with Cyan.
"Splashing my blood toward the window, that's smar— ahh." Cyan laughed with difficulty, but groaned in pain as she fell on Leo.
"Don't talk..." Leo shushed her and held her tightly. Then he brought her into a broken basement under the shop.
He opened the first-aid kit. Inside were syringes filled with colored liquids, cotton pads, capsules with strange fluids, a roll of thick bandages, and several tablets.
Cyan's voice trembled slightly. "Tear… tear off my clothes. And feed me that white thing…"
Leo did as she said. He followed her instructions as he peeled her top open enough to expose the wound.
He then wiped away the blood and placed the capsule to her lips.
She swallowed it; that white thing was a painkiller.
"Now take that…"
Next, he picked up a syringe containing metallic-colored liquid.
"Yub, that's the one," Cyan whispered. "Inject it near the wound."
Leo injected it carefully.
Cyan groaned. In a few seconds, tiny metallic particles forced the bullet fragments out of her body. Small shrapnel pieces clattered onto the basement floor.
Leo's eyes widened. "This?"
Cyan smirked weakly. "Nanomeds. They're used to eject objects from the body…"
The bleeding slowed and then completely stopped.
Leo poured the capsule liquid on the wound, applied pressure with cotton, and wrapped the bandage firmly around her waist.
Cyan exhaled softly. "I can't lose consciousness now..."
She tried to stay awake, but Leo gently touched her face. "It's alright... Don't strain yourself."
"Leo, if the situation gets dangerous, leave me and escape..." Exhaustion washed over her and she closed her eyes.
Leo sighed , but he couldn't help but get worried of others.
---
Meanwhile, at the Thunder Hauler V019
The armored vehicle lay upside-down, smoke and dust rising from its torn frame.
A squad of armed men in dark suits approached the wreckage. Several drones hovered beside them.
One guy, wearing a full face-covered helmet and bodysuit, raised his hand and the others stopped. He stepped forward toward the car door.
"Suprisingly, this car handled the impact."
He crouched down while lowering the gun, and the helmet automatically began to scan the car; some outlines of what was inside the car displayed on the helmet.
He saw an outline of a shoe moving toward the door.
Then—
BOOM!!!
The hauler's side door blasted outward, hitting him and knocking him several meters away.
Then the gunshots echoed. Some enemies and drones got shot. They quickly ran away to take cover, as the drones flew even higher.
"Fucking, they used an RPG?" Jake growled as he crawled out of the hauler with his gun.
A bullet struck him from the side. It ricocheted off his huge arm with a metallic ping. His arms were cybernetics after all.
Jake turned and shot the attacker without blinking. It was a drone and it crashed to the ground.
Tosh and Yash kicked open their door and fired at the drones; each shot was clean and precise.
"Check the kids! I will take care of these surveillance drones," Jake barked, already sprinting.
Tosh threw some cylindrical grenade to Jake and went to check the kids as Yash covered him.
The girls stumbled out of the hauler first. They were bruised, bleeding from small cuts on their heads and arms.
Vince followed, with only some scratches on his side.
Nick cradled his arm, obviously broken.
Levi dragged his leg, limping heavily.
Tosh helped them up one by one and made them crouch beside the vehicle.
"How the hell are enemies here?" Tosh's mouth twitched.
"Now's not the time for that. Let's focus on escaping here," Yash replied.
Tosh nodded and took the gun.
"Can we escape?" Anya asked worriedly.
"Don't worry…" Tosh smiled and said, "That guy over there is our leader… and he was once an extremely good Ranger."
Jake threw the grenade. Its RGB lights lit up and smoke burst out instantly. The smoke clearly had jamming effects and also blocked the enemies' vision.
The drones' visuals glitched; they couldn't see through the smoke.
The enemies began to shoot toward the smoke blindly. After shooting a barrage of bullets, they stopped.
They looked toward the smoke.
The smoke cleared. They saw Jake standing there with the broken door, using it as a shield from bullets. The door was now battered and full of bullet dents. It was a reinforced vehicle door, after all.
He threw it toward the sky. Some drones got caught and were destroyed mid-air. While the enemies looked up, he shot some of them with the gun.
Then he rolled over and took cover behind debris. A bullet shot his hand, piercing through the debris, but it bounced off.
"How did they shoot me correctly behind the debris? Lucky shot? Thank goodness it's not armour-piercing bullets." Jake looked up, saw the drone, and shot it quickly.
As the drones cleared out, he saw something. Ahead, one enemy was setting up a massive shoulder-mounted launcher on a distant building.
"RPG!" Jake shouted.
He tossed his gun aside, grabbed the giant slab of debris he was hiding behind with his enhanced strength, and hurled it as the enemy pulled the trigger.
The debris met the RPG mid-air.
BOOOOOOM!
A mid-air explosion shook the street, throwing dust everywhere. The kids who had just crawled out of the overturned car almost fell from the impact.
"Let's get out of here!" Jake yelled.
"Aahhhh…" He flipped the entire vehicle upright with brute force. His two huge cybernetic palm prints could be seen on the vehicle.
Soon the hauler sped away from the scene and headed toward a narrow passage.
Several drones and men in black suits immediately gave chase.
Another RPG came, and the whole vehicle got blasted this time. The vehicle couldn't handle the impact anymore.
The enemies surrounded it and peered inside the hauler from a distance to make sure they wouldn't get any surprise attack again.
They didn't get attacked, but they did get surprised, because there was no one there.
"The autopilot will give us only a few seconds before those fools figure it out. We need to move before the authorities arrive. They must already be on the way. We don't have much time," Jake said.
He and the others took a different route on foot, while the vehicle distracted the enemies on autopilot.