Silvio thrashed, shouting muffled curses around the gag. The man in the suit, the one in this room, leaned forward on the throne, eyes glinting with excitement. I realized he was enjoying this. He wanted me to watch.
The figure on screen pulled the trigger. A gunshot cracked through the speakers a split-second after the muzzle flash lit the dingy room. Silvio's body jolted, head snapping to the side as a mist of blood splattered the camera lens...
I didn't realize I'd started moving. One moment I was rooted to the concrete, the next I had lurched toward the screen, a roar tearing from my throat. Two rifles immediately trained on me. "Sit. Down," barked one of the mercs behind the new boss.
His voice barely registered. I felt something hot boiling inside me. As messed up as Silvio was, I hadn't wanted him dead. At least not until I got answers.
Snake-Oil chuckled from the throne. "You wanted to see Silvio, Bale? There he is and now..."
He never finished. I'm not sure I even consciously decided to do it. Maybe it was the way he said my name, like a curse and a joke all rolled into one. Or maybe seeing Silvio executed like a dog flipped a switch in my brain that said guess what, you're next. Fight or flight? Ha, as if there's even a choice.
My hands were already balled into fists. I spat the cigarette out and lunged sideways towards the oak table, toward one of those flickering LED candle-lamps. A burst of gunfire shredded the air where I'd been a millisecond before. The muzzle flash stung my retinas; the roar deafened. Pain seared along my left arm, but adrenaline buried it deep.
I grabbed the heavy lamp in both hands and hurled it at the nearest shooter. It cracked against his skull with a sound like a dropped melon. He dropped too, twitching. The room exploded into action then: shouting, bullets, the strobe of muzzle flashes painting everything in nightmare light.
The smart move would've been to dive for the floor, find cover. I did the opposite. I charged straight at the second rifleman by the throne as he was bringing his muzzle down to track me.
My shoulder slammed into his gut, driving him back. We crashed into the dais in a heap. His rifle clattered away. I heard the suited man snarl, "Get him, you idiots!" as he backed away up the crates.
The guard I'd tackled was grappling with me now, a beefy forearm crushing against my throat. His augmetic grip whirred with servo strength, and black spots swam in my vision. I snarled, driving an elbow into his face.
He loosened just enough for me to twist free. I snatched the pistol from his hip holster and fired blind over my shoulder. Two shots. Luck smiled: behind me another gunman who had been lining up a shot on me caught a bullet in the throat. He gurgled and dropped.
I scrambled to my feet. The pistol in my hand was a sleek corporate model, nice balance, probably smart-linked. I didn't have time to interface; I just pointed and squeezed at anything moving that wasn't me. The scar-armed woman from the hallway burst in through the door with a shotgun. I put two rounds in her chest before she could level it. She spun back through the doorway, howling in pain.
I'd taken maybe five seconds to reduce the headcount in the throne room by half. But that still left plenty, and more were certainly on their way. The suited bastard had vanished, coward probably ducked out a back exit as soon as the shooting began.
That's fine, I thought, chest heaving with ragged breaths. I'll find him later.
I vaulted onto the dais, grabbing the rifle dropped by the guy I tackled. It was an AKR-20, old model but reliable. The weight felt comforting against my shoulder. Blood dripped from the graze on my arm, but I barely registered the sting. I had more pressing concerns. Through the open doors, I could hear shouts of alarm, the pounding of boots on concrete. They knew exactly where I was.
Surrounded, deep inside a fortress with nothing but guns and grit. A smarter man might have looked for a way out, some vent or back door. But me? I was done being smart tonight.
They wanted to bury me here with Silvio? Fine. I'd happily make this building my tomb, as long as I took every last one of these bastards with me.
I slammed a fresh mag into the AKR-20 from a chest rig of one of the corpses. The first of Silvio's mercs rounded the corner into the throne room, a flashbang in hand. I shot him in the face. The grenade dropped, went off with a blinding white blast. I was far enough to avoid the worst of it but he wasn't.
Using the flash as cover, I moved. One thing about being a cybernetic sonofabitch: when adrenaline and combat drugs flood your system, time dilates. I felt like I had all the time in the world as I bolted from the dais, slid behind that giant oak table, and popped up on the other side.
Three mercenaries spilled into the room, firing blindly. Bullets chewed the table, sending wood chips and sparks flying past my cheeks.
I responded with short, controlled bursts. Head, chest, chest, head, chest, chest. Two went down, the third dove for cover behind a toppled shelf. I heard him screaming into a comm, "He's in the throne room! He's pinned down, he..."
I lobbed a loose stun grenade over the table in the direction of his voice. It went off with a sharp crackle and a flash of electricity. His screams cut off.
I rolled out from behind the table and sprinted toward the door, over bodies and blood-slick concrete. Another guard appeared in the doorway, firing a submachine gun.
Rounds stitched the air around me. I felt a punch in my side, armor taking a hit or maybe a flesh wound, nothing immediate. I didn't slow. Before he could correct his aim, I was on him. I swung the rifle stock like a club. His jaw caved with a satisfying crunch, and he went limp.
The hallway beyond was chaos: shadows, flickering lights, men shouting plans that fell apart as soon as they formed. I caught fragments: "—back exit—," "—call reinforcements—," "—netrunner's on him—". Netrunner? That gave me a half-second pause, and in that half-second a hail of gunfire spat down the corridor, forcing me to dive behind a thick concrete pillar. Chips of pulverized wall stung the side of my face.
A netrunner in their crew meant trouble. They could try to blind my optics, scramble my aim assist, even fry my brain if they were good enough and got a lock on my neural implants. I needed to shut that down quick, or this party would end with my brains dribbling out my nose.
I took a breath, letting the stimulants in my bloodstream steady my hammering heart. Reaching to my belt, I thumbed the activator of a little toy I picked up courtesy of an old friend Roger: a signal scrambler. It wouldn't block a determined netrunner forever, but it could buy me some minutes. I clicked it on. A soft chime in my HUD confirmed an encrypted local field was up.
Try to hack me now, assholes.
The gunfire paused, likely they were regrouping for a more coordinated push. Fine by me. I wasn't keen on staying in this killzone corridor either. Memory flashed the layout glimpsed earlier: to my left, somewhere past the surveillance room, was an armory. To my right, the path toward the main exit, which would be crawling with who-knows-how-many mercs by now.
Option C: I noticed a stairwell door slightly ajar on the opposite side of the hall, probably leading up to the catwalks or down to maintenance. Up could be good if I wanted high ground. Down might get me lost or flanked. Up it was.
I popped out from the pillar long enough to lay down suppressive fire, strafing the far end of the corridor where I saw muzzle flashes. A couple of yells told me I hit flesh or at least made them think twice. Then I bolted for the stairwell. Bullets sparked off the metal door as I slammed into it shoulder-first and stumbled into the stairwell. I dashed up the steps, three at a time.