Downtown Dallas. 1600.
Rolling down the street in an appropriated Lincoln Continental, Petyr and Masque surveyed the Gen-Tech building in downtown Dallas. The winding multi-level highway overpasses and the towering skyscrapers made this one of the largest metropolises in the U.S. Air conditioning inside the car protected them from the 100-degree heat outside. “How’s it look Dodger?” asked Masque into his radio.
“Pray thee hold one.” — What the hell was it with that accent… Masque patiently waited as they passed the building and parked streetside just as a limo pulled away from a five-star hotel across the street. As he and Petyr disembarked Dodger’s voice filled their ears from their implant communicators, “Thy falsified identifications have been put in place and are solid as the Cliffs of Dover.” — “Good. Is Kham in position?” Masques asked as he made his way through the throngs of people crowding the streets in the late afternoon.
“Most Verily. The chromed lady of death awaits inside. Our Mistress of Death has an appointment scheduled for fifteen minutes after thy.” Dodger was over two thousand miles away, hacking through Gen-Tech’s computers but he still managed to sound like he was right next to you. He would be their eyes and ears and the little voice-in-their-head this mission.
“Roger, keep me informed of anything interesting.” Then he turned to Petyr and gave the ready-to-go signal. Both of them turned and marched into the building and headed up for the twenty-third floor. Prasch was in room 2313. When they got up there he would be in a meeting with his supervisor that Dodger had scheduled. Masque then set up an appointment for himself by calling the secretary and impersonating Prasch’s voice. He and Petyr would use that time to go in and take his hard drive.
After riding the stainless steel elevator up to the twenty-third, and walking the gray carpeted floors around the seas of cubicles they came to where Prasch’s department was. Petyr stood to Masque’s left flank as Masque took care of the introductions, “Hello miss, I’m Doctor Franklin here to see Mr. Prasch.” The pretty young, if slightly overweight, secretary said, “Yes, he’s in his office. Please go right in.” She smiled up at the mask Masque wore, his dark hair, strong jawline, and black eyes were supremely handsome and she was obviously very taken by him. returning her smile he walked by as Petyr scowled to himself. Both had seen Kham in the small sitting room, she was reading a trade magazine, and neither paid any attention to the other lest they attract attention.
Petyr passed Masque in the hallway and got to the office door first. The floor was divided into quarters, each walled off from the other. Inside each section, there was a central walled-in area that held bathrooms, emergency exits, two conference rooms, and the break rooms. On the perimeter of the section were offices that were walled off and had doors. In between the center building and the outer offices were four rows of pairs of cubicles facing each other in a true corporate hell. They were on the southern end of the section and actually had windows to the outside. Petyr entered the room as Masque stood watch at his back. He might have been surprised for a second but gave no notice of it. Lucas Prasch was seated in his office. “Excuse me, do you have an appointment?” Prasch asked.
“Yes, nice to meet you,” Pteyr said. As he extended his hand and Lucas grasped it, the weak soft grip turned to jelly as Petyr squeezed his nerves. The numbness and pain shot up Lucas’ arm before he could scream, he collapsed to the floor. Masque then stepped in and shut the office door.
“Shit. Did you have to kill him?” — “Do not vorry. I would not kill him,” Petyr answered. “Now find that drive.”
Masque looked around the room and a feeling of FUBAR crept into what remained of his soul. The office was perhaps eleven by thirteen feet, it contained two desks on each wall, with shelving stacked up over the desk, shelves between the desks and cardboard boxes on the floor piled in paper. Besides the paper, manuals, and notes that covered every square inch of desk space there were also components to hard drives strewn all over. From cases, to heads, to swing arms and disc media. Each was in plastic baggies and labeled for this lot or that, with serial numbers and test dates. It appeared that Mr. Prasch was in the hard drive business. But they knew that already from their preliminary searches on him. There were also five computers in the room. Two towers under separate desks, a Sun workstation on a desk, a Cray mini-super in the center of the room, and another mini-tower PC sitting on the window sill. The five monitors and radio keyboard only added to the clutter. As Petyr moved the body against the wall he looked up at Masque, “What are you waiting for?”
Masque wiped the bewildered look off his face and began taking off the covers to the computers with the compact toolbox he carried in the attaché case. Kham interrupted him, “There’s a janitor at the desk out here.” The small powered screw driver made mincemeat out of the screws and within three minutes all the covers were off. But things hadn’t gotten better. There were a total of nine hard drives in the computers. the mission said get his hard drive, singular. But there were nine, NINE! Then I guess I’ll have to take them all, Masque thought to himself. Again things didn’t get better. After a short pause Masque looked up from the hard drive in front of him and responded, “What?, that doesn’t seem right.”
True to the instincts he’d honed over almost a decade in the company things got worse again. Almost at the same time Kham’s voice and Dodger’s broke onto the implant communicator lines. “The janitor has drawn a gun and is shooting the secretary,” Kham reported cooly as Masque and Petyr heard the report of a 9mm sub-machinegun, probably a MAC10, firing one shot.
1609
“Good sirs, intruders in the northeast emergency stairwell. Without doubt, they have hard-disconnected the cameras in the well. I see them coming out and making haste down towards the offices on the south building wall.” Dodger let them know what was going on. That stairwell was in the upper corner of the section of office they were in. The corner that served both the section they were in and the section north of them, where they met at the corner.
“Copy that,” Masque reported as he made a snap decision and drew his vibro-knife. Four of the hard drives were already out, and he used the knife to cut out the remaining five hard drives in under a minute. Petyr meanwhile coordinated with Kham.
“Where are they Kham?” he sub-vocalized.
“The four janitors here have split in half. Two heading down the aisle toward you two. They’re going slow, cautious. I’ll take care of the two here.”
“Good vork,” replied Petyr as he hopped up out of the office onto the metal braces in the ceiling above the ceiling panels. A step or two later he was above the aisle the two janitors were coming down. He cracked the panel in front of himself and watched them as they moved towards the office with Masque in it. Twenty yards. Ten yards. Five yards. Now. From the squat, he jumped off the brace and crashed through the panel that had served as his peephole. Landing nimbly on both feet he triggered three rounds from the fifty-cal. Morningstar pistol. The caseless action cycled cleanly through three repetitions and launched the 400 gr. projectiles toward Petyr’s point of aim. His aim was true and each round did exactly what he wanted. The first round shattered the lead gunman’s leading forearm that was gripping the front-pistol grip on his MP5 and then lodged into his chest since he was facing Petyr. With a scream he started to topple over backwards as the second round passed through his chest, just where the collar bones come together below the neck. The third round hit the second gunman in the forehead and exploded his face outwards at Petyr as the hydrostatic pressure on his skull caused a whiplash effect. The bullet then passed out the back of his skull rather unspectacularly. Quickly taking in what was going on around him, Petry called to Dodger on the comm, “Kill the lights on the floor. Do it Now.” Instantly the floor was cloaked in darkness. Then Petyr heard three short screams and a dazzling light come from the receptionist’s desk.
The muzzle blast from Khams special purse micro-sub gun lit up the front office. The dying screams of the janitors could barely be heard over the bedlam rising as the office workers scattered in the cordite confusion and flying bullets. “Beware Czar sir, eight nasties coming at your rear quarter.” Petyr turned and crouched against the wall, loosing three more of the big slugs. One plastered an assailant in the chest as he came around the corner. His companions chose the remain around the corner. One held his MAC10 and squeezed the trigger while he chose to remain behind cover. Petyr could tell that none of the bullets would hit him so he remained still. “Lady Kham, the other eight are moving west then would be most likely to come south in a pincer movement..” — “Gothca,” was all she said.
Masque had heard all this over the radio as he removed the last hard drive and swung in the door of Prash’s office. Petyr was crouched across from him in the bullet-scarred hallway. Masque gave him a smile and then stuck his left arm around the door jam, using it to shield his body as he squeezed the trigger on his machine pistol. Petyr recognized a covering action when he saw it and began to move quickly down the cubicle walls. His body was pressed flat, with his back against the wall. His left arm too held his weapon as he presented the smallest possible target to the enemy. Making his way away from the reception desk, one assailant stuck his head out around the corner. He promptly received a slug impacting at high velocity with his skull as a reward for his stupidity. Masque had a second to look left down the hall away from Petyr as he reloaded to see Kham jumping the cubicle walls and making her way towards the other group. Jumping over the last wall she landed in their midst, Masque lost sight of her as she went below the far cubicle.
For Kham the fun was just starting. With the last wall behind her now and the eight former assailants totally surrounding her, she had them just where she wanted them. No matter where she struck out she would hit one. Her machine pistol in one hand and the extended razor claws on the other she was ready for battle. She stepped at the one showing the most fire. All were dressed much like the janitors out front. Wearing normal coveralls and utility belts they carried MAC10’s and assorted tools. After her short step the claws on her hand were buried up to her knuckles as she plunged it through his chest. She stepped around him while sweeping two others with her machine pistol on her right. Once behind him she withdrew the knuckle blades messily and brought the blades down through the shoulder, chest, and abdomen of the man in front of her. She proceeded to roll up their flank and chase them to her center as they opened fire on full auto. No bullets touched her, but they did obliterate the walls behind her and thoroughly ventilated their companions. One by one she finished them off.
Petyr was at the corner now as Masque reloaded again. He reached in his pocket and withdrew a smoke grenade and tossed it around the corner. “Fire in the hole,” he said through the mic. The light pop and pressure wave threw the fine dust of the ‘cold’ smoke grenade around the office hallway. Petyr stepped around the corner low and fired off a whole magazine at the men around the corner. Seriously injuring and killing all of them he stood up and reloaded.
Masque opened his comm channel, “Kham join up on us now. At the southeastern corner by the emergency stairs. Meet us here.” Then he radioed the chopper, “Blue Duck come in.” — “Chhhk! Blue Duck here. What’s up, over? Chhhk!”
“Meet us on the roof for an immediate extract. Copy.” — “Chhhk! On the roof for an immediate extract. Out. Chhhk!!”
Masque ran up to Petyr as Dodger’s voice again came over the radio. “Gentle men. The Dallas PD has gotten a call and is routing the SWAT team to your location. Be advised that exiting stage left would be advised. Similar vile janitor teams are one floor below you. They just entered the stair well I don’t have camera coverage on.”
“Very good Dodger,” Petyr said. Masque came up beside him and Kham crashed through on of the cubicle walls behind them. Her chests were heaving and a fine beaded sweat marked her brow. Masque was covered in the chalky white dust from the blasted gypsum board and cubicle walls. Petyr looked over both of them in a quick visual inspection for injuries that their adrenaline could be masking from them. Masque looked ok. Kham looked ok, except for the piece of white bloody intestine sitting just above her right breast on the rose red pattern blouse she was wearing underneath the tailored suit coat. Petyr reached out and brushed it off her breast with his left hand as she looked like he was going to kill him. He then caught it before it fell to the ground, looked her in the eye and said, “Very messy Kham. Veery messy.” Holding the intestine up he flung it at the wall over his shoulder and it stuck.
Masque spoke up, “Ok people, we head for the stairs and the helo on the top floor. It is eight stories up. Kham you cover here. Petyr you go first and then cover us on our way out.” Masque looked at both of them and nodded. Petyr bolted off at a Olympic pace towards the door and lowered his should into, knocking it clean off its hinges. He planted on his lead foot hard and did a one-eighty. Crouching he covered them with a clean field of fire on the far side of the hallway as them. Masque was only five steps behind him and ran by him in a flash as Petyr went into a covering position. Just as Masque headed up the stairs, on the far end of the hall the group of janitors came up out of the stairwell. Kham emptied her sub-gun, knocking three to the ground and then dashed down the hallway as Petyr continued the barrage. His slugs claimed another four, and sent the others for cover. Two seconds later Kham was at his side and headed up the stairs. Standing as he dropped another smoke grenade Petyr joined them in a race for the roof.
Once outside they boarded the helicopter hovering just above the gravel rooftop. The agile Native American at the controls was Blue Duck and upon seeing him they all again wondered why he had deer antlers fixed on top of his flight helmet. He looked over at them while maintaining perfect control of the helicopter even in the heavy gusting winds on top of the sky scraper. He beamed at them a huge smile from underneath his heavy black Mirror-LED virtual cockpit helmet. Flipping up the goggles/viewscreen he waved them on franticly while traversing the 15mm chaingun under the nose towards the door in case of trouble. Only thirty yards from the door, they still broke sweats running in the over one hundred degree Texas weather. As they ran towards the helicopter they could barely see it the LCD camouflage was so good, just dust kicked up from the gravel was all that gave away the helicopter. As Petyr slid the side door closed, Blue Duck was already lifting off at a blind rate of climb. “Chhhk! Glad to have you aboard. Where too? Chhhk!” The best helicopter pilot in the company had a bad habit of inserting the static breaks in his radio conversation even though the Company used crystal clear high-power digital communication.
“Take us out to the suburbs and put us down. We need to get back in there to clean up our mess,” Masque said in an authoritative voice.