There was only two of them that followed me; a human and an elf, I thought, as I splashed through a large puddle and stood right behind a building to catch my breath. The rain had picked up quite a bit since I jumped through that window of the Everett Community College administration building, three stories up onto the dark campus below. It was mixing with my blood in the water on the grass and forming a trail those security goons could follow right to me. If only I could get into one of these buildings and get something to cover my bleeding. There. A window left open in the lower floor of the science building. I may be able to squeeze my troll body through it, and it might be my only solution. With two bullets left for my pistol, I had to be careful. And these goons weren't the normal untrained morons. They knew about the 'run and knew it was happening tonight. You don't hire these well trained guards unless you have something worth hiding or you're expecting something. But that's for later thinking.
Outside of twisting my neck because of my fragging horns, getting in was easy. I closed the window and locked it. The light was still on. Didn't think of getting out of sight or hiding for some odd reason - which I'll blame on the loss of blood; because why I didn't think of the goons seeing my blood trail in the building is beyond me. The room had a squeaky clean and chemical smell to it. There were long tables with a dozen or so chairs spread out across the room with various science type of stuff: microscopes in an open cabinet, sinks, various charts and posters adorning the walls, and God, what is that? A dissected cat with various pins in it showing muscle and organ locations? Some drek never changes. A long white coat was on a coat hanger. Great, something to wrap my bleeding carcass in. I sliced a section off with a nearby scalpel, carefully removed the piece of glass wedged in me, and wrapped the coat section around me. Taping it shut with tape from the first aid kit on the counter to stop the bleeding was one of the first things done right tonight......
About six hours earlier: Canon called at about 9 PM. I was up in my pad punching the drek out of a punching bag and had barely worked up a sweat.
Canon: "Sandy?" His deep voice sounded curious.
Me: "Yeah its me, chummer," I replied. "What's up?"
Canon: "We gotta meet Jade and Mouse at the office in half an hour. DiDi can't make it; she's out of town."
Me: "Ah. We got a job man?"
Canon: "You bet, Ork-breath. I'll fill you in at the meet."
Me: "Fine. And it's troll-breath idiot."
I hung up the phone on the cocky jackass, heard him say his classic, "whatever," as I put my armor on, threw my trenchcoat over me, donned my thick boots, and jumped in my van to the office. It's supposed to rain tonight in Seattle. Awesome.
The office; a rented out old garage that we used to meet and discuss plans and runs. We'd had a few Johnsons here, but mostly it was to talk about things a bit privately. Pretty costly, but with all five of us chipping in, it wasn't that bad when you needed to get away from prying ears. Mouse was already there in her always shiny suit. The elf chic is our face and a really good hacker, but sucked balls on anything combat related. I heard the white noise generator in the background. Jade walked in a bit after me; looked like she hurried on cleaning herself from being under a car for hours. She missed a couple of spots. Jade is our human technomancer/rigger, and really drekkin good behind the wheel. Canon, the human cocky jackass physical adept, or whatever the drek he calls himself, is ten minutes late as normal. He calls the meet and is late to it. Go figure. This dude would be late to his own fragging funeral. Hmmph. He starts in, telling us about this super-easy run, paying 10k Y each, and all we gots to do is break in to the third floor of the administration building, steal some data, and give it to this Johnson he met. Oh, and we got to do it in the next 8 hours. Sounded like a milk run, but don't they all? Lotta money for a snatch n grab, but whatever; we do our checking and looking and we go from there. After an hour, Mouse didn't find any red flags. So, maybe it is a milk-run. Yeah, right. And maybe I'm a Yak drug lord selling Tempo.....
Back to the painful present: The bleeding stopped; thankfully. I staggered my way over to the stairwell when I heard the voices outside the window area I came through. That's when I realized that waltzing around in a lit room with a trail of blood wasn't such a good idea. Should've turned the fragging lights off. I dive for cover the second I see them and flip over the table to hide myself from view. Bullets came raining down from what ever SMG guns they had outside of the building. The elf was the smart-ass of the two. That drek-faced dandelion eater was cracking stupid jokes like, "Why'd the troll go down into the science lab? To die there, of course." He was going to die first. I heard 'em kick the glass out, and one land on the lab floor; crunching the glass beneath him with his boots. i wasted no time. Standing on a knee, using the edge of the table as my guide, I pulled the trigger and buried a bullet between the eyes of the quick tonged elf. "Told ya so," I said under my breath, as I dove for cover once again. The human let out another burst as I heard the elf body hit the floor. I wasn't going to have that element of surprise with this guy. I ran for the stairs, jumped, and turned around and fired my last shot at the bastard that killed Mouse. It went wide. Drek. I hit the stairs hard, right into my side where the glass had been embedded. I rolled out a groan and knew I had to move, as I shuffled up the stairs as fast as I could to the first floor of the building. An older human man was standing there in a uniform, pushing a wheeled bucket with a long stick out of it, whistling to himself. The old dude turned around and looked at me, shocked, and started to run. I held up my gun and squeezed the trigger. Click. "Drek." I shouted, as I hurled the gun down the hallway. The old man ran out the door as fast as he's probably run in a while. More drek. Backup. I needed to get out of here fast, but I had to take care of the bullet chucker following. I kicked the mop bucket over and ripped the mop head off of the handle. I hit the lights this time, and decided to hide in the open janitor's closet while I waited for him. I cracked the door slightly to hear him coming....
(more later folks)
