Snapshot 4
[Tuesday June 14th, 2072; Sintec Facility, Downtown Seattle]
Silk spun round as Bale fell and time seemed to dilate. With calm determination she levelled her Scorpion at the drone that had killed him and fired. Normally the tiny calibre rounds would have been deflected but in this case they had been replaced by tungsten penetrators that easily found the ammo drum of the machine gun and cooked off what remained of its supply. Molten shards of weapon went whickering through the overhead ductwork.
Miraculously Bale struggled to his feet and waved a feeble all clear down at them but it was evident that he would now be as much of a hindrance to their escape as the recumbent test subjects around the room.
With precious time slipping away Requiem drew his customised hand cannons, vicious matte black Guardians, and launched himself into the centre of the remaining guards. The gyros on his wrists stabilised the weapons as they danced a brutal weave of fire through the last defenders.
Silence momentarily fell apart from the pinging of hot metal above them and the breathless panting of the two remaining techs who were scrabbling out from behind the pods they had been cowering behind and were making for an adjoining room. With a silent snarl Silk leapt, swung off an overhead duct and with a deflection from a wall mounted cylinder, landed between them and the door. She mentally flipped the ruthenium coating on her armour and she became a figure of darkness, the coating seeming to absorb the light, apart that is from the feral glow of eyes in the faceplate of the helmet she wore.
The techs froze and then began to back away with their arms held clear of their bodies, only to bump into the armoured form of Requiem who had similarly appeared like a spectre behind them. With undignified whimpers they slipped to the floor with their hands cradled protectively around their heads.
With containment temporarily in hand Silk approached one of the workstations and connecting her link, sent Herne into the system to dredge up all the information on their targets. A bleak tally was projected into Silk’s mind’s eye as the agent rifled the corp’s hardline system. It would seem that the test subjects in this room were the only ones here left alive of the original nine who had been taken.
While a meaningless stream of medical data filled the data files Silk gazed sorrowfully into one of the sensory pods at the victim strapped down inside. The face of the young man was set in a ghastly rictus that was painful to look at.
“We can’t just drag them out, who knows what will happen to them…” She pushed her gun into the temple of the older tech kneeling in an expanding pool “Wake them up now, don’t and you die.” The voice mask made her voice deeper, more threatening, but probably nothing compared to the looming barrel.
“I, I can’t…they are deeply immersed, the shock could kill them…”
“You are already killing them! We walk out with them now or you never walk out again.”
In hindsight this would probably sound melodramatic and over the top, but then Silk hadn’t brushed up on intimidation techniques and she didn’t have time for a more subtle argument. The gun was doing most of the talking for the quivering wageslave anyway. With a little bit of rough assistance from Requiem he made it to his feet and approached a central bank of computer equipment. What Silk vaguely recognised as brainwave maps slowly changed as he fiddled with the AR controls. In the pods they began to stir and dimly heard cries of distress filtered into the room.
“And turn the jamming off!”
Another flurry of commands and suddenly the tactical feeds blazed back into being as the severed wifi links re-enabled. Riptide’s voice immediately came across the comm.
<<We have company. Looks like a tactical team arriving at the front. They haven’t flagged this with KE so I guess they intend to deal with us themselves. I estimate we have five more minutes before they begin the assault>>
<<Ok. We knew the chances of making it look like we were never here were slim indeed. Judging by the feeds they don’t have enough people to sweep the building thoroughly yet so we will try and divert around them and still go with exit plan A. Get ready with those distractions. There is still a spider in here with us somewhere, we need to take out his eyes otherwise they will lead them straight to us>>
<<With the jamming off this system is mine! Attach the wifi bridge to a socket and I’ll flash this virus through it, should give us time while they reboot>>
Silk did as she was bid whilst Requiem and the limping Bale began to help the woozy victims out of their pods.
***
They staggered through the corridor on the floor below the lab, Requiem leading and the other three supporting the five test subjects. On cue the air was suddenly sucked backwards towards the impromptu hole in the ceiling they had just descended through. The white phosphorous would be spreading in an incandescent sheet across the lab, the automatic fire suppression systems would only spread the stuff around further. It would burn out any forensic evidence and hopefully destroy any data the corp had gathered so far.
They were hampered by the general condition, or lack of, of their targets who were weak and disorientated. Silk, who was barely able to get Emma to stand, looked worriedly at the girl, her condition was deteriorating rapidly and her breathing was coming in ragged gasps. They had hesitated to subject them to further chemicals but it looked like stims might be their only option.
Opium’s voice sounded in their ears <<The tac team obviously know about the fire, they are proceeding more cautiously and I would say they don’t yet know where you are. I am ready to neutralise their command vehicle when you are ready>>
Riptide’s response was decidedly less reserved <<Suckers are using last year’s encryption. I’ve broken in and I’ll tweak their tacnet to lead them on a wild dance. Once they split up I might even be able to get them to shoot each other!>>
Things were becoming ridiculously tight but Silk was still confident that they would make it out, the trick would be doing it without further harm coming to the innocents with them. Breaching the lift shaft ahead they prepared to descend to the parking garage below. The lifts themselves would have been fried by Riptide’s virus so they provided a handy escape route. Whilst she anticipated that the onsite spider would be trying to regain control of the system the virus was virulent enough to resist attempts to eradicate it, which, coupled with the fire above should buy them some time.
***
Silk eased herself through the impossibly small gap in the lift doors. The car park seemed to be deserted for now with no sign of their hunters. This grace period couldn’t last much longer before they called in significant reinforcements. Bale was struggling even further after using his power to help stabilise their charges down the precarious climb and Silk was concerned that he was hiding the extent of his injuries from them.
The corp motor pool was as expected, and stashed between them were the two Rovers they had arranged to be delivered this morning. They responded to the open commands and the runners gratefully bundled in with their charges in tow.
<<We are set, take out the command vehicle now>>