CD & EA 1.8 - First Heist

First real action - Let me know what you think :)

-Plum

“We’ll drop you at the corner, and you should just sort of wander your way closer to the camera. Just act like you’re lost or waiting for a ride and amble along. I think that’ll arouse less suspicion than you trying to race over while the camera’s angled away,” Vikker said as he slowed the van to a sedate pace, easing it through the poorly lit industrial area.

“Yeah, now that I’ve got eyes on the area, I think it would be weird if I jumped out of the van as we drove by.” Juliet nodded and scooted forward in her seat, ready to get out.

“Just stay cool, girl,” Ghoul said, holding out a fist. It took Juliet a moment to realize she wanted a fist bump, and she smiled quickly, embarrassed at her hesitation, touching her knuckles to Ghoul’s ring-bedecked fist.

“Right, thanks,” Juliet said, and then the van pulled up next to a curb, the door slid open, and Juliet hopped out, walking calmly toward the next corner and the tall fence across the street from it. Her palms were still sweaty, and she knew she was doing a shitty job of looking nonchalant, but she couldn’t get her nerves to settle. While they were en route, they’d all synched up their PAIs to provide communication, and Juliet knew that if she needed help or a bailout, the team would hear her, but she didn’t want that to happen.

It was Ghoul, though, who first contacted her, “You’re doing fine, Juliet. Stay chill—you look like someone who got dumped off after a bad date or party, nice and spooked. Keep it up.” Juliet didn’t respond, but whatever Ghoul’s intent had been, her words calmed her nerves, and when she reached the corner, she made a show of looking both ways before shuffling across the street toward the fence surrounding the garage lot.

“Angel, let me know when you’re close enough to access the camera network,” Juliet said, turning left along the fence and walking toward the camera at the corner.

“I’m already getting a spotty connection. Keep your current pace.” Juliet did as the PAI instructed, and before she’d taken five more steps, Angel spoke again, “It’s done, Juliet. I’ve looped footage for all of the cameras. We were exceedingly lucky with the exploit I used to gain access, and it bodes well for the other security measures on-site; it seems updating firmware is not a priority for Garcia LTD.”

“Cameras are done, guys,” Juliet said, trusting Angel to send the transmission into the team channel.

“Fuck yes! I knew it,” Don said, his excitement drowning out a response from Vikker.

A moment later, Vikker spoke again, “Good, Juliet. Walk around the corner toward the gate. We should be done there by the time you arrive.”

“Right,” Juliet said, maintaining her relaxed pace as she approached the fence corner and then turned right to follow it toward the main entrance of the garage compound. She saw the van come from the other direction, its headlights making it hard for her to distinguish what was going on, but she saw the side door slide open, and then the van slowed more, creeping along as it turned into the entry lane next to the security booth. Juliet cranked the feed volume on her auditory implants, but all she could hear was a muffled conversation.

She strained to listen as she kept walking, but then a staticky crackling sound filled her ears, so loud it caused her implants to dial down their gain automatically, and a flash of white light brightened the shadows around the van.

“We’re in; pick up your pace, Jules,” Ghoul said, cool and calm as ice. Juliet jogged toward the entrance, watching as the van pulled forward into the lot. When she came around the corner of the fence where the guard station sat, overlooking a two-lane entrance and exit with red-striped barricade arms, she saw Don stooping over through the glass, straining to drag something over the floor inside the booth. Juliet imagined it was a guard, hopefully unconscious.

“C’mon,” Ghoul called from just ahead. She held a long black baton and had donned a heavy black vest and helmet that looked a lot like the ones you saw corpo militia units wearing in vids and news stories. She waved Juliet forward and turned to start stalking through the lot toward the side entrance, where the infamous security keypad was waiting for Juliet and Angel to do their thing.

Juliet jogged into the lot, following after Ghoul, and she noticed, on the woman’s back, a wide-barreled rifle with a thick, stubby magazine jutting out from near the trigger. Juliet wasn’t an expert on guns, but it looked like a shotgun, only styled like an assault rifle. “Is that a thing?” she breathed, and, once again, Angel impressed her by not answering or sending her question into the team channel. When she caught up, she was breathing heavily, though mostly from excitement and adrenaline. “What was that flash?” she huffed as she slid up behind Ghoul, back to the wall.

“EMP ‘nade. I tossed it into the booth cause the guard was fiddling with a data terminal. Don handled the rest—he’s so goddamned fast. Still, he’s paying a price for that gear . . .” Ghoul trailed off and gestured toward the keypad, raising a white-blonde eyebrow.

“Right,” Juliet said, turning her gaze to the little LCD screen. “Angel?” she subvocalized.

“Working on it, Juliet. I’ve tried eleven of thirty-six possible exploits. I hope we don’t have to try to brute-force this—you don’t have the processing . . .” the panel beeped, and green LEDs lit up as the door lock clicked. “Good news, Juliet!” Angel said, and Juliet could have sworn the humor in her voice was real.

“Goddamn! Nice work, Juliet!” Ghoul said, reaching forward to grab the door handle, pulling it open an inch to keep the lock from re-engaging. “We’re in, boys,” Ghoul said in the team channel. “Stay tuned.” Then she pulled the door open and ghosted into the hallway. She motioned to the spot directly behind her, and Juliet hurried in, crouching so she didn’t loom over the shorter woman.

“Ready,” she said, upping the gain on her specs, so the dark hallway looked almost like daylight.

“Stay exactly that close to me. Don’t step past me for any reason. Clear?”

“Yes.” Juliet nodded in emphasis, and Ghoul grinned, showing off her sharp silvery teeth, then she started stalking down the hallway, and Juliet concentrated on staying exactly two feet behind her. They’d only advanced a few feet when Ghoul hissed, crouching low and motioning for Juliet to do the same. Juliet upped the gain on her auditory implants again, trying to catch what had alerted Ghoul, and after a few heartbeats, she heard it: distant chatter. It sounded like two men talking.

Ghoul turned to her and pointed at the ground, mouthing the word, “Stay.” Juliet nodded, and then Ghoul crept forward, utterly silent, her baton held ready as she slipped around a corner. Juliet could barely breathe, she was so tense all of a sudden, and she squatted there, illegally inside a corporate warehouse, alone, unarmed, fighting to keep the panic from overriding her good senses.

She remembered Ghoul telling her to breathe, and so she did that, inhaling slowly through her nose and then visualizing the air leaving her lips in a cloud. She’d just finished her fifth breath, starting to feel normal again, when she heard a cut-off shout, some loud cracks, and then the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor. More grunting ensued, and Juliet couldn’t take it—she crept up to the corner and looked around.

Ghoul was twenty feet down the hallway near a desk with a chair. A man was laid out on the carpeted floor, something dark pooling around his head, and Ghoul was on the back of another man, her thick arm around his neck, her free hand pushing his head forward so he couldn’t pull away as she choked him. The men wore button-up, collared shirts with the Helios logo—a yellow sun over a bold-faced H.

Ghoul growled and squeezed, and the man bucked backward, trying to slam her into the wall, but she held on, and before Juliet could close the distance, he slid down the wall, slumped on the floor and unconscious. Ghoul wasn’t done, though. She reached into her vest and pulled out an auto-injector, pressing it into both men’s necks with a hiss. “Tranq,” she said, glancing at Juliet. “I told you to stay.”

“Well, I heard the struggle and got worried you’d need a hand.”

“Cute.” Ghoul smirked, then she turned over her first victim and looked at the blood seeping from the crack on his forehead. “Didn’t mean to crack him so hard. Dammit.” She reached into another pocket and pulled out a small spray canister. She turned the nozzle to the guard’s wound and squirted out a thick layer of foam, filling the cut and coating his entire forehead. “That’ll harden and keep him from bleeding more. Hope I didn’t give him brain damage.” She stood up with a shrug and began stalking down the hallway.

Juliet stood over the unconscious men for a moment, looking at their faces, wondering if she could still justify her activities, knowing people were getting hurt. Sure, they worked for Helios, but they were just people. Didn’t a lot of people take jobs with corps because there wasn’t anything else? Look at her—she’d rented an apartment from them simply because it was cheap and convenient.

“Ran into some additional security. Looks like your intel wasn’t perfect,” Ghoul said into the team channel.

“You good?” Vikker asked.

“We’re good, but I think Juliet is getting ready to puke. Let’s get this shit done.” Ghoul turned and strode back to Juliet, reaching out to grab her shoulder. “Get your shit together, Juliet. Nobody who works security for a fucking corp is innocent. Remember that. These are the same assholes who would come and throw your granny out of her apartment if she missed rent or spoke to the wrong snitch about what she saw at the factory. C’mon!”

Juliet nodded and swiped at her hair, pulling a loose strand back into her ponytail, then she hurried down the corridor behind Ghoul, maintaining her two feet distance. Before long, they came to an end of open hallways, though, and a locked metal door stood between them and the garage bays. “This wasn’t in the briefing,” she said, moving up beside Ghoul.

“Yep, looks newish. Similar security panel as the one outside. Do your magic.” Ghoul moved to the corner, to the right of the door, and slipped her baton into her belt, then she pulled the cannon-like gun off her shoulder and held it cradled in her arms.

“That necessary?” Juliet asked, moving to look at the panel.

“I hope not.”

“Juliet, this is the same security panel as the one outside, but its firmware is several versions newer. None of the fast hacks are working. Bear with me,” Angel said into Juliet’s ear.

“Working on it. This one was patched for the exploit I used outside.” She stole a quick glance at Ghoul, and the woman was staring down the hallway, eyes glimmering faintly in the low light. She spoke subvocally, “Angel, what’s it look like?”

“I found a bypass, but there’s a good chance I’ll trigger an alarm. I can use this or continue trying a workaround.”

“Define ‘good chance,’” Juliet said, slipping and speaking aloud, though softly.

“What?” Ghoul asked.

At the same time, Angel said, “Around fifty percent.”

“Just talking to myself. I was reading an exploit, trying to get past this, and I found a way, but there’s a good chance I’ll tip off an alarm.”

“Find another way,” Ghoul said, eyes still downrange.

“Right,” Juliet said, then to Angel, “You heard her, try to force it or whatever.”

“I’m running my cracking protocol as fast as I can. It’s a good one, Juliet, but your data port isn’t cutting it. We could be here nearly an hour.”

“Anything else we can try?” Juliet asked, and then she noticed a line of fuzzy static on her retinal AUI and became aware of a growing hotspot on the back of her neck.

“I’m doing everything I can. I’m sorry for any discomfort, but I’ve overclocked the data port’s processor. If I go too far and fry it, I won’t be able to communicate with you until you get it replaced.”

“Jesus,” Juliet said aloud, glancing at Ghoul quickly. “This fucking thing is giving me a hard time, sorry,” she said, then subvocalized, “Angel! Do not fry the data port. I repeat, do not fry it!” She reached a hand up to the back of her neck, pulled her collar down, and peeled off the synth skin covering her data port. “Ghoul, this is weird, but I need you to blow on my data port.”

“What . . .”

“No questions, just do it!” Ghoul was a woman of action, and she could hear the seriousness in Juliet’s voice. She lowered her gun and quickly stepped behind Juliet, gently blowing a long, steady stream of cool air onto her exposed port.

“Juliet, that’s helpful! She’s keeping it steady at ninety-three celsius.”

“Great,” Juliet subvocalized, “but you’re cooking my skin around that thing. I can feel the heat going down my spine. Come on!”

“The fuck are you doing?” Ghoul asked. “Your port’s hot as fuck.”

“Just keep blowing, please!” When Ghoul started up with the blowing again, she added, “I overclocked my port to crack this faster. Almost there, I hope!” Juliet braced her hands against the cool metal door and squeezed her eyes shut, the pain from the overheating data port starting to give her a headache. She was about to ask Angel for an update when the door beeped and clicked, and then it was over, and her data port began to cool almost instantly, enough so that Ghoul’s cool, steady breath became a lot more noticeable and the hairs on the nape of her neck stood up with a shiver.

“Good job, Juliet,” the operator said, nudging her aside and depressing the door handle.

“Thanks,” Juliet moved behind Ghoul and said to Angel, “how much did it help to overclock that thing?”

“I’m not sure. We got lucky with our crack, though—even pushing your port like that, we could have spent another twenty-five minutes on this lock.”

“We’re past the new door, moving in,” Ghoul said in the team channel, and then she nodded to Juliet and turned, nudging through the door, her big gun slung and her baton in her hand once again. Juliet followed her through the door onto a perforated metal gangway that ran along the back wall of the big garage. She could see the rolling doors on the other side of the vaulted room, several delivery vans in various states of repair, and just where they were supposed to be, a mountain of still-in-the-box Li-air batts.

Ghoul glanced back at her, revealing a massive grin, and pumped her fist, then she turned left, following the gangway to the metal stairs that led down to the garage floor. She’d gone two steps when a *crack* rang out, a sizzling whistle ripped through the air, and then Ghoul was lurching forward, her left arm hanging by a thread of sinew and gouts of blood and flesh spraying over the wall.

Juliet stood there, her brain refusing to make the necessary connections to make sense of what had just happened. She opened her mouth, about to say something inane like, “What happened?” when she became aware of red flashing lights in her vision and Angel repeating a command over and over.

“Juliet, get down! Juliet, get down!” Finally, it clicked, and Juliet dropped to the metal grating. “The shot came from ahead and to the right. You weren’t exposed to the shooter, thankfully. That stack of fifty-gallon drums obscured you.”

“What the fuck?” Juliet breathed, too unnerved to focus on subvocalizing.

“Your friend is out of the line of sight now that she’s down. Crawl toward her and spray her wound sealant on her arm. Hurry, Juliet! You have only seconds before she loses too much blood to function.”

“Right,” Juliet said, taking a shaky breath and crawling on her belly toward Ghoul’s downed form.

“What’s going on in there?” Vikker asked in her comms.

“A s-s-shooter,” Juliet said shakily, still having trouble catching her breath and not wanting to make noise. “Ghoul’s hit. I’m trying to administer aid.”

“Don, get the fuck in there,” Vikker hissed.

“Already on it, but the door’s relocked.”

Juliet tuned them out as she crawled up next to Ghoul, sliding through the pool of blood rapidly expanding around her arm. The woman was struggling with her good arm to pull out the aerosol can of wound sealant, and Juliet brushed Ghoul’s pale, shaky fingers aside and yanked the can free. She sprayed at the protruding bone and ragged flesh sticking out below Ghoul’s shoulder, ignoring the flopping, nearly detached portion of her limb.

Ghoul took several steadying breaths, then hissed, “In my belt pack, over my left hip. Get the injector with the red plunger and hit me in the neck with it.” Juliet, hands bloodied and shaking, struggled with the zipper but finally got it after several frantic seconds, and there, nestled atop scissors, a knife, wire cutters, and a dozen other odds and ends were two small autoinjectors. She picked up the one with the red thumb plunger and quickly pressed it against Ghoul’s neck. It hissed, and Ghoul sucked in a huge breath.

“Fuck, that shit’s good,” she said, then she yanked her vibroblade out of her belt sheath and sliced through the remainder of her arm’s dangling flesh. “Wait here,” she hissed through her sharp, shining, blood-flecked teeth, and then she vaulted the railing and dropped like a cat to the cement below. Juliet, still lying in the sticky blood that hadn’t fallen through the grating yet, Ghoul’s pale, severed arm keeping her company, started to crawl forward toward the stairs, making sure the stack of drums was still between her and the corner where the shot had come from.

“Careful, Juliet. Two more feet, and you’ll open yourself up to the shooter’s line of sight.”

“Assuming he hasn’t moved,” Juliet hissed, still moving. Suddenly the *crack* sounded again, followed by the whistling whine of whatever potent projectile was being launched, and then the crash of metal and glass falling and breaking. More sounds erupted from the far corner of the garage, and Juliet hopped to her feet, squatting low, and hurried down the steps, hoping Ghoul had taken the shooter’s attention. Something in her wanted to keep moving—a feeling in her gut that wouldn’t let her helplessly cower while Ghoul did everything. If nothing else, she could get the door open for Vikker and Don.

Juliet had made it over to the Li-air batts and was skirting behind them in the shadows when Ghoul spoke up on comms, “All clear. Shooter’s down. I had to punch his clock. Sorry, all.”

“Fuck,” Vikker said. “You all right?”

“Yeah. Juliet, sound off,” Ghoul replied.

“I’m here. Near the batts. I was going to get the door open.”

“Good girl!” Ghoul chuckled into the comms. “Meet you by the door.”

Juliet hurried toward the rolling door, utterly amazed that Ghoul was making light-hearted banter after just having her arm blown off. Whatever had been in that injector had to have been good shit, indeed. A thought occurred to her, and she asked, “Guys, did that shooter get word out? Are we blown?”

“Nah, we had a jammer up. That’s what Vikker’s doing in the van, running his jammer and watching porn,” Don replied.

“Cut the horseshit and get the door open,” Vikker replied.

“How do you jam comms and not cut ours?” Juliet asked.

“Juliet, our PAIs are linked. Vikker’s B23 excludes us from the scramble,” Ghoul replied, walking out of the shadows along a row of tool cabinets.

“B23?”

“His ugly but very versatile data deck. That cube he was displaying all the schematics on. C’mon get this door open; I’m gonna fall out when that boost wears off.”

“Right,” Juliet said, and then she walked up to the automatic rolling garage bay door and punched the green button. Easy as that, the motor started to whir, and then the enormous door lifted toward the ceiling, rolling into its housing. Before it was halfway up, Vikker’s blue van was backing through the opening, and Don popped open the rear doors, exposing the cargo section of the rig.

The cargo space wasn’t huge, but Juliet figured they could get twelve of the packaged batts into it. “Angel, can you price-check those batts?”

“Retail is twenty-eight k and some change.”

“Nice score,” Juliet said, watching as Don hoisted the first of batt packs and, grunting and straining, carried it over to the van.

“Help out, Jules,” Ghoul said, leaning against the van, her face even more pale than usual, huge black circles under her eyes.

“Shit, sorry,” Juliet said and hurried over to pick up one of the batts. It was heavy, probably eighty pounds or so, but Juliet was used to lifting heavy shit all day at the scrapyard, so she just rolled her shoulders back, hugged it in close to her hips, and waddled it over to the van.

Between the three of them, they had the van loaded in just a few minutes, and then they piled in. Vikker dropped it into gear and started it rolling. “Wait!” Ghoul said suddenly. “My arm. My blood. My DNA’s all over that shit.”

“Nah, I sprayed it down,” Don said.

“When?” Ghoul eyed him suspiciously.

“When I first came in! I grabbed the can of beeb and sprayed the arm, the blood. I fucking doused the whole walkway and the cement underneath.”

“Beeb?” Juliet looked from Ghoul’s wan face to Don’s leering skull of a face.

“Nasty shit,” Don replied. “Biomass editing and eradicating bacteria. It’s genned, though—doesn’t live long without food and has to have contact with blood to activate. I mean, if you drank some of it, you’d probably be fucked, but it’s safe enough if you’re careful.”

“Gross.” Juliet couldn’t help picturing the people she’d seen turned into blackened, withered corpses by a less “safe” bacteria the other night. She looked out the windscreen, past Ghoul and Don, and saw a green traffic light ahead—they’d done it; they were out of the lot and leaving the crime scene behind. All it had cost was a woman’s arm and one man’s life. “Maybe two,” Juliet said, remembering the guard with the cracked skull.

“Hey, wipe that frown off your face,” Don said. “We fucking did it! Don’t worry about Ghoul; she’s been wanting some new hardware. Ain’t that right, gorgeous?” Don winked at Ghoul, and the stocky woman grunted, shifting her shoulder with the wound sealant foam.

“I tried to punch you just now, but my arm’s gone,” she said in her low, scratchy voice. Then she began to wheeze, and the wheeze turned into a chuckle, and then Don was laughing and slapping his hands on his knees. Vikker turned and looked at them all, making eye contact with Juliet, and he lifted his head and howled.

“We fucking did it! Great score, boys and girls!”

Juliet found their laughter contagious, and she blocked the dark thoughts from her mind, trying to relish the sensation of victory—they’d scored big, and yeah, some people got hurt, but they were corpo-sec, and didn’t they know what they were signing up for, what they agreed to every time they cashed their corpo paychecks?