24991119 | 2047

  Suburbia Hab-Block 76 | Kowloon | Hong Kong Free Port

  22°19′30.00″ N

  114°10′37.00″ E

  Rain struck the window in a relentless rhythm.

  Elemental fingers drumming on a casket.

  Somewhere below, a little girl laughed for the first time in months.

  “You there?” he whispered into his piece.

  Loud and clear, boss.

  “Begin.”

  Acknowledged. 2050 Commence Operation: Clear House.

  Kurt reached beneath his rain-drenched trenchcoat and drew the Manticore H7.

  He cocked it silently as he drew the gaiter around his neck up to mask his face.

  A hollow, metallic click swallowed by the storm.

  He stepped into the stairwell.

  Water cascaded down the concrete steps in thin, snaking streams, carrying bits of rust, detergent foam and the debris of too many forgotten lives.

  He emerged from the stairs and stepped into the first floor of the hab-block.

  The corridor was dark.

  Every luminant strip had been ripped out and pawned-off.

  What little of the neon glow of the signboards and street lights filtered through the windows of the residential cubicles.

  His soaked boots left a smear of rainwater as he padded silently down the corridor.

  Doorways lined each side, numbered plates hanging crooked or missing entirely.

  Cheap plywood walls, curtains instead of doors.

  Some were hollowed out, just a mat upon the rain-soaked floor.

  The storm’s gusts pushed the thin curtains aside in ghostly billows.

  The smell of detergent, sweat, mildew, cooked rice, and rainwater mixed into a sour cocktail.

  He passed families huddled together, watching outdated serials on old cathode-ray tubes.

  Screens flickered in blue and grey, shadows dancing over tired faces.

  They saw him from the corners of their eyes.

  A baby cried, but instantly smothered against a mother’s chest.

  Children whispered, wide-eyed, “I’ve seen him on TV…”

  Women yanked the boldest ones back.

  Men stiffened but made no move.

  The black-clad Enforcers of EVECorp were urban legends.

  The boogeymen in the flesh.

  Never had they thought come face-to-face with one.

  A rusty fan oscillated overhead, clicking upon each pass.

  A countdown to a long-expired warranty.

  Kurt kept moving, gun raised, steps measured.

  His eyes scanned the denizens quickly.

  No sign of hostiles on this floor, boss.

  “Moving up.”

  Raindrop slipped through the concrete.

  A small trail of rainwater pooled at the far end of corridor.

  Footsteps shifted behind curtains as he passed.

  Some residents risked a peek, breath held, eyes tracking the myth in their midst.

  He reached the far stairwell and ascended again.

  “Second floor.” He whispered into the piece.

  Acknowledged, boss.

  He held his gun up as he ascended to the next floor.

  One measured step at a time.

  Watch out for blindspots.

  The air changed the moment he stepped onto the second floor.

  The lights flickered overhead.

  A wave of humid warmth wafted through the corridor.

  It hit him like steam from a boiler.

  Got some windows boarded shut.

  Dryers rattled.

  Pipes groaned.

  The metallic scent of hot metal mixed with bleach and wet fabric.

  I see makeshift chop-shops, scavenger dens. Harmless enough

  He moved forward, slow, deliberate.

  Eyes adjusting.

  Gun ahead of him.

  Breath steady.

  Too much heat signatures boss, switching to visual.

  A lone room at the corridor’s end gleamed bright.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Too bright.

  A fluorescent cube in a world drowning in shadow.

  The sound of churning laundry units.

  Kurt edged closer.

  Voices.

  Careful, boss. I got no eyes there, windows boarded up.

  Kurt inched forward.

  Weighted steps.

  Trigger steady.

  He stepped into the door frame.

  The three men inside snapped toward him in unison.

  Laundry steam curled around them like stage fog.

  No, not men.

  Not street punks.

  Aug-freaks.

  The first had sub-dermal plating bulging beneath his neck and cheek.

  The second with steel grafted into his forearms, fingers ending in blunt chrome knuckles.

  The third, half-machine from the waist down, pneumatic servos whining with each step.

  For a split second, the world held still.

  Then the first one opened his mouth to shout.

  Kurt fired.

  The Manticore H7 kicked once in his grip.

  A thunderclap in the confined space.

  The high-caliber magnum round caught him dead between the eyes.

  The man’s skull exploded backward.

  Bone, brain, and blood splattering across the rows of white bedsheets rotating in a dryer.

  The fabrics, splashed crimson with vitae and grey brain matter, keep swirling.

  The second augment lunged.

  He was fast.

  His chrome-plated knuckles balled into a fist.

  A servomotor humming under his skin.

  But Kurt sidestepped.

  He grasped the arm of the man and with a deft move, turned the freak’s momentum against him.

  Kurt slammed the man sideways into the wall with enough force to cave the drywall inward.

  The augment snarled, metal grinding under flesh.

  Kurt drove an elbow into his throat.

  The Enforcer pressed his Manticore against man’s guts and pumped three rounds.

  The recoil thudded up Kurt’s arm.

  The rounds tore through synth-muscles, wiring and cheap plating.

  Shredding the man’s insides into slurry.

  He then crushed the freak’s windpipe, driving his elbow in.

  Once.

  Twice.

  A wet crunch.

  The man slid down, painting the wall in arcs of red.

  Dead.

  But the third was on him.

  He tackled Kurt in a blur of chrome and bulk, hydraulics whining.

  Boring him to the ground.

  The impact knocked the Manticore out of Kurt’s grasp.

  They crashed onto the tile floor, sliding past baskets of laundry and collapsing into a tangle of limbs, steel and rain-soaked cloth.

  The freak tried to pin him, he raised one steel arm, its end a sledgehammer.

  He brought his hammer-arm down.

  One hit and it would pulp the Enforcer’s skull.

  Kurt rolled his head out of way at the last second.

  The hammer missing his skull by an inch.

  It smashed into the floor, cracking the ceramic tile and sending fractures spidering outward.

  But Kurt was faster.

  His hand slipped behind him to find the combat knife he concealed.

  Six inches of cold, military tungsten.

  Unforgiving and absolute.

  The aug-freak roared, raising his hammer-arm for another killing blow.

  Kurt reversed his grip and stabbed him through the neck.

  The blade cleaved clean through the man’s throat.

  Kurt buried the knife up to the hilt, until its edge protruded through the other end.

  Metal met meat.

  Servos sheared.

  Blood and hydraulic fluid sprayed across Kurt’s face in a hot, violent rush.

  The freak gurgled.

  Shock widening his eyes as the knife lodged against his spinal strut.

  Kurt twisted the blade and wrenched the aug-freak’s head clean off.

  The decapitated head sailed a few feet to land with a wet thud upon the floor.

  The body collapsed instantly.

  Steam hissed from a ruptured neck-piston.

  Silence fell.

  Boss. Talk to me.

  Kurt rolled the dead weight off him.

  Except for the soft churn of washing machines turning their endless circles.

  Water.

  Blood.

  Detergent foam.

  Intermixing upon the tile floor in a grotesque swirling pool.

  Kurt rose, flicking the blood off the blade with one sharp motion.

  Boss. You there?

  “I’m fine.” He replied, “I got jumped.”

  Cultists?

  “Chop shop aug-freaks.” Kurt spat, “Junkies. Metalheads.”

  Hired-muscles?

  Kurt stepped over the bodies without looking back.

  “Seems that way,” he said quietly, retrieving his piece.

  He reloaded the Manticore, chambered the next round.

  They know we are coming now.

  Suggest you move, boss.

  Kurt did not argue.

  24991119 | 2101

  Suburbia Hab-Block 77 | Kowloon | Hong Kong Free Port

  22°19′30.00″ N

  114°10′38.00″ E

  Rain sheeted sideways, wind tearing at her coat.

  Illeana sat one knee raised, the other leg stretched out along the slick rooftop.

  Her back against the rusted AC vent,

  Her Hyperion-rail sniper rifle rested upon the dormant steel HVAC supply duct, a steel carcass humming faint echoes of a building that no longer breathed.

  Rain trailing off the muzzle of her barrel.

  She exhaled once.

  Steady.

  Cold.

  Locked in.

  Her scope steady despite the storm pelting her face.

  Her thermal overlay flickered in hues of spectrums of red, yellow and green.

  She watched the last aug-freak charged him.

  She saw him go down.

  She watched as the aug-freak raised his hammer-hand.

  A hand flashed, a blade splattering the wall with gore.

  She saw the aug-freak’s head came off.

  “Boss, you there?” she whispered into her piece.

  She saw him stand up a moment later.

  I’m fine. I got jumped.

  “No briefs on hostiles?” she asked.

  Chop-shop aug-freaks. Junkies. Metalheads.

  “Hired-muscles?”

  Seems that way.

  Kurt retrieved his gun.

  He reloaded the Manticore, chambered the next round.

  Silhouettes moved across the third, fourth, and fifth floors.

  Shouting.

  Her acoustics pinged.

  Movement erupted like a kicked hornet’s nest.

  Heat ghosts upon her thermals.

  Blobs and ripples.

  She ripped off her preysight goggles.

  The world came back into focus, visuals coalesced.

  Colors reasserted.

  Neon bled through broken windows.

  She cursed softly.

  “They know we are coming now.” Illeana said. “Suggest you move, boss.”

  Kurt moved.

  Sixth floor.

  Five men in blood-splattered white-overalls burst forth from the last room in the furthest end.

  Church cultists.

  “I got visual on targets. Five guys in white overall.”

  Intel checks out.

  “You mind telling me where you came by this intel?” she whispered.

  Silence.

  Illeana smirked.

  Residents cowered in their cubicles while cultists barked orders at their hired muscle.

  She exhaled, slow, controlled, and sighted down her rifle.

  Five cultists.

  Ten aug-freaks.

  Chrome glinting in flashes of broken neon.

  “I count fifteen hostiles,” she murmured into comms. “Ten augmented. Five Church.”

  Weapons free.

  Finally.

  Three aug-freaks occupying the sixth floor sprang to their feet.

  They knocked over their table, sending the poker cards scattering like leaves in the storm.

  Illeana fired.

  A hum and a rippling discharge.

  The hypersonic round clipped the middle aug-freak dead center.

  His chest shattered backward, body thrown into the wall.

  The other two flinched.

  They turned to their comrade.

  Hesitation. Shock.

  A heartbeat.

  Illeana’s thundered two rounds into them.

  One each.

  Shredding one and piercing the other.

  The cultists yelped in surprise, they dived for cover.

  “Twelve now, three freaks down.” she said as she slid the last spent casing out.

  A crisp click in her ear.

  Kurt.

  Acknowledged. Good kill.

  He had abandoned stealth.

  He vaulted up the stairs, leaps and bounds.

  She watched him hit the third-floor landing.

  Kurt sprinted across the corridor.

  A dash.

  A blur.

  Gun forward.

  Blade tucked under his off-hand forearm.

  Edge outward, ready to draw blood the moment range closed.

  He was halfway across in 2 heartbeats.

  Illeana rotated her shoulders, re-sighted down her scope.

  Fifth floor.

  “Seven Metalheads coming your way, boss.” She whispered.

  The aug-freaks moving to the stairs.

  Lightning flashed.

  Her next round cracked.

  “Six now.”

  First one dashed down the stairs.

  Bloodlust.

  “Amateurs.” Illeana chirped.

  Works for me.

  Kurt met him head-on.

  He met the first chrome-junkie as he stepped off the stairwell.

  His Manticore spoke.

  Three flashes.

  The rounds punched straight into the chest of the aug-freak, his chainsaw blade arm drooped.

  Kurt slammed into the dying freak, his knife opening him up.

  He met the second freak mid-way.

  On the stairs.

  Amateur. Illeana watched as she licked her lips.

  Kurt kneed the freak, a brutal strike to flesh, doubling him over.

  His knife plunged into the nape of the freak neck.

  He twisted his wrist.

  Tore the junkie’s head off.

  Brutal.

  Good kill, boss.

  He shot the third freak in the legs, his pistons broke, augments gave way.

  As the aug-freak tumbled down the stairs, Kurt doubled-tapped him in the skull.

  The fourth backed-off.

  He knew he was outmatched.

  Illeana punched three rounds through the concrete wall.

  Shredding the hesitant fifth as Kurt jumped the cowardly fourth.

  He straddled the freak.

  The Metalhead had his hands up.

  Pleading. Begging.

  Kurt’s knife came down.

  “Quite a mess.” Illeana whistled.

  Bullet-ridden corpses.

  Shattered chrome.

  Butchered meat.

  Blood-drenched stairs.

  “Sector clear, boss.” Illeana declared.

  Kurt stood, his trenchcoat dragging rainwater and red behind him.

  He whipped out his phone.

  Illeana saw he typed something.

  Acknowledged. Moving to mission objective.

  He moved.

  Four floors below.

  Under a vendor’s sagging awning, the two children sat, quietly eating noodles.

  Steam curling around their small bodies like warmth they hadn’t felt in months.

  Illeana blinked rain from her lashes.

  The storm subsided on.