Spark's contact Ana got at her about an urgent job, a pickup, if the crew was ready and available ASAP. We'd have to go to the dock ward. Of course.
A woman answered the comm pickup at the dockside bar Wolf's Den. "I'm wounded and need discreet transportation to my safe house. Directions on pickup."
Linus, an Ork mechanic who runs a shop near my house, is not answering his comm so I couldn't get us a vehicle conducive for the job. (I only own a dune buggy and a heavy duty motorcycle.)
Great. Blitz went invisible and headed out of Spark's flat looking for a car to swipe. The two of them hacked a car. And it worked. Huh. Guess they're worth keeping around. I pushed Blitz into the back seat and grabbed the wheel.
It was a crowded night at the professional bar. The Human woman we needed to collect was in a back booth shielding an injury and nursing a drink. Her long ponytail spilled out from under her shooter's cap and she was in nondescript clothing. "What took so long?" she said in German. We handled the terms and the plan.
In her attempt to leave she doubled over and grabbed the table, her satchel swinging into view. We left, Spark leading her with me near our guest. I had Blitz hang back and cover our six. "The Johnson I just did a job for, his goon squad," she said when I asked her who I would be trying to avoid on the drive to her place. In the back seat on the way there, Blitz peeled off the woman's jacket, and there was a lot of blood. As we got closer to her place, she said: "Um, the neighborhood we are now is really 'haggard.'" She asked us inside to get paid. Yes, please.
The apartment building was a concrete pre-fab hell hole. Deep in the bowels of the building it seems to transform into a reasonable place to live. Once she got into her unit she sat down at a desk with a lamp on and her laptop open. "What's your fee?" she asked us. Spark said: "Four thousand for quick extraction. Four thousand for the patch up." "Done," she said, adding to Blitz, "Hey, big boy, can you get me a beer from the fridge and get one for yourself?" I sat on my haunches near the unit's front door. The room is stocked with boxes with the logos of high tech armament companies.
She wanted to go get the money for the job she had just done, to be able to pay us. Before we could leave, she shouted: "We've got company!" as she saw people moving in on the building from her laptop security camera feed. We all grabbed some payload, me getting a Remington bolt action rifle.
Two idiots came down the stairs toward us. "I want to get us out of here, through these fools, find that fucker and get our money," she said. "I appreciate the assistance you offer but you are our meal ticket so stay behind me," I said to her. We headed out of her unit into the hallway.
Blitz sent out a blast of stun energy that knocked the first two enemies onto their asses. We head for the vehicle, hugging the walls of the hallway. It was dark.
More foot falls were coming toward us. Spark snuck up to the corner and flipped a grenade (courtesy of our current employer) around the corner. Whoa. I hooked an arm around our employer and pressed her against the wall to protect her from any blast. She urged me up to the two stunned goons, then executed them. Whoa again.
The grenade rolled away from us, and the intended victims panicked and ran, well, right at us! BOOM! Dust, debris, smoke and trash all sandstorm'ed the hallway. Blitz threw a hand out at one bad guy, and flung him at the wall. I flipped my cyber-eyes over to thermographic mode, shot the lone remaining threat and rounded the corner. The hallway area ahead was clouded with debris. An engine (or more than one?) was revving outside and the sound of more footfalls could be heard. I peeked up the stairs to the surface and natural light was poking into the building. There's one bad guy crouched at the top of the stairwell.
My attempt to indicate to Blitz that there was one foe at the top of the stairs was lost in the fog of war. He advanced past me, unlimbering his borrowed shotgun and firing up the stairs. Spark followed, firing her pistol and killing the man at the top of the stairs. Return fire hits Spark from an unseen shooter. Blitz continued running crouched over up the stairs, slinging his weapon, swinging his head in pursuit of the threat to neutralize it. We strode up the stairs and saw that there was a guy in the driver's seat of an Escalade-looking truck in the alley. Another dude was between the truck and us. "Take them out!" I yelled to Blitz, pointing at the two targets. Our employer nudged me aside and gunned down a bad guy who was hiding up the fire escape. Nice.
Blitz blasted the foe standing outside the vehicle but he stayed up. Spark shot him and advanced on the truck. The vehicle lurched backward, trying to flee. "We need to take that truck!" I continued to yell. So Blitz strode up to the truck and sent a stunning concussion at the driver. It slammed him out cold, but the air back went off. Regardless, the four of us hopped in.
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