Chapter 21 - Hell Let Loose

Discarded metal

Chapter 21 - Hell Let Loose

"Humans can give hell to each other in the blink of an eye…"

Mark is watching the city from the small window as he is sitting in the hovering vehicle.

The city from above doesn't look much different, only the contrast between the corpo districts and the commons becomes more obvious.

Mark is lost in his thoughts, from counter terrorism to now leading a small recovery team for the corpos, he is wondering if he took the right decision.

The vehicle flies silently over the buildings and slowly the decor under is changing, older buildings are the sign that they are flying over the commons now.

A voice comes out directly to his comm.

"Spencer, we are almost there, we will hover close while we wait for your orders."

The voice of the pilot is pulling him out of his thoughts, but he doesn't answer right away.

He keeps watching through the window until the vehicle stops moving and just hovers.

"Spencer?"

The voice comes again, urging him to take the lead.

Mark shakes his head as to get rid of his thoughts, he tries to regain his focus before addressing the team.

"All right, according to the signal, the implants are in the building we are hovering, scanners show no activity down there, so we will keep observing." He says through his comm to the other team members.

He is leading a team of three agents plus the pilot of the vehicle, heavily modified and geared corpo agents.

They are equipped with military grade implants more advanced than what Mark knows from CTIG, "overkill for a recovery mission." he thinks to himself.

"Hover and stand by!" The pilot confirms Mark's order.

All the members of the team are identified by codenames instead of their real names, corpos always overdo things.

Grinder is a demolition expert, he is pretty tall and looks more machine than human, his whole face is replaced by optics and metal plates. He also has both arms replaced by cybernetic ones and he is wearing similar tactical gears as the others.

Skylark is an assault expert, he is shorter than Grinder but his gear looks more heavy and he is holding a riot shield. One of his arms is a concealed cannon that fires 7.62 caliber rounds.

Nero is a hacking specialist, similar to Mark but with far more body modifications. He is in charge of tracking the signals.

"The implants are moving, they are being transported out." Nero says over the comms.

"Spencer? What's your order?" the pilot of the hovering vehicle asks.

"Make sure they don't see us, we will follow them and see where they bring the implants." Mark says through the comms.

"Roger that." the pilot answers as he slowly moves the vehicle out of sight and engages the silent mode.

The vehicle's noises are heavily reduced and it glides out of sight as two individuals get out of the warehouse carrying boxes to a small van on the ground.

"These are our targets…" Nero says while he scans them. "They are known Scorched members."

Mark keeps silent but he notices the excitement of the other agents, they are clearly not here to recover anything.

It dawns on him that he is leading a bunch of exterminators sent to execute the entire gang.

The two individuals get in the van after loading the boxes and they slowly drive away from the warehouse.

"Spencer? They are on the move! Order?" the pilot shouts through the comms.

"Follow them…" Mark answers as he watches the van through the small window of the hovering vehicle.

The other agents are checking their gears one more time, making sure clips are full, they look like butchers ready to cut through a carcass.

The van drives through the streets of the commons as the hovering vehicle follows it from above.

The sun is slowly setting on the city as they are taken further away and closer to the outskirts of the commons.

Old decrepit buildings are the leftovers of the corporate wars, huge buildings with various corpo logos, tagged and taken over by street gangs.

As the van stops at an old Tanaka building, the hovering vehicle keeps a safe distance so as to not be spotted.

"Oh shit… This is it. It looks like it could be The Scorched HQ." Nero says as he scans the surroundings.

The half destroyed Tanaka building offers a pretty good fortress, the front doors seem to be the only way in.

"Half the building has been destroyed, leaving only one possible entrance." Nero says through the comms.

"Are we really going to assault the front doors?" Mark asks through the comms.

He knows clearly what their answers will be, "The Scorched" aren't prepared for what's coming to them.

No matter what kind of implants the gangs from the commons have, they are no match compared to corpos.

"You are the leader, you tell us if you see a better way to do this." Grinder barks at Mark through the comms.

Mark knows why they are here, recovering the implants is only an excuse to actually eliminate a gang of the commons.

Exec Nova wants to set an example, striking fear in the heart of these gangs, the message is clear, don't mess with corpos stuff.

"Get us down." Mark says.

"Roger that." the pilot answers on the comms.

The hovering vehicle starts to descend and disappears behind higher buildings. They land a few blocks from Tanaka's building.

The doors of the vehicle open sideways and the whole team gets down except the pilot.

"Bring it back up." Mark orders through the comms.

Slowly the doors close and the vehicle starts gaining altitude as the team advances closer to the building.

Mark switches his vision through different spectrums as he looks toward the front doors of the building.

The doors aren't even guarded, he notices the two people from the van carrying boxes inside, one armed guard checks them out before letting them in.

"Nero, can you scan for another entrance… I see none." Mark says through the comms.

"Already scanned from the sky, boss. That's the only way in and out of what's left of this building." Nero confirms.

Mark tries to think about a better way to do this but slowly comes to realize that there are no other ways.

He turns to face Skylark and Grinder, who both look like they can't wait to assault the place.

"OK, then… You have green light." He says to them.

Without waiting a second more, Skylark holds his shield in front of him and starts to advance toward the front doors, followed behind by Grinder.

Mark and Nero stay behind the cover of another building as they look at the two advancing quickly.

As they reach the front doors, the guard aims his gun at them and starts shooting.

All the shots are reflected by Skylark's shield and they continue to advance like nothing is happening.

"Now, watch, boss." Skylark says over the comms.

Skylark aims his arm toward the front doors and the concealed cannon pops out of his opened forearm.

A blast of 7.62mm echoes through the whole area as Skylark fires at the guard. The power of the shots sends some pieces of the guard's body everywhere and it falls lifeless on the ground.

There's a moment of silence, a surreal silence as if something more terrible was about to wake up.

Skylark and Grinder proceed toward the front door, passing the lifeless body of the guard when the silence is broken.

Several shots are coming from inside the building, through the front doors and land on Skylark's shield.

As they both take cover behind Skylark's shield, Grinder grabs a grenade and throws it through the doors.

A loud bang!

And silence again.

The two enter the building through the front doors and a few more shots can be heard from inside the building.

"Clear!" Skylark's voice comes out through the comms.

Nero and Mark rush toward the building to join them, as they enter, 4 bodies lay on the ground in a similar state as the guard.

Blood and pieces of body parts are scattered all around the room, at the back of the room there's a huge reinforced door.

"The signals keep moving fast behind this door." Nero says as he points at the reinforced door.

"I'm on it." Grinder says while he kneels in front of the door and grabs a satchel from his backpack.

He sticks it to the door and flips a switch on the satchel, then quickly goes back behind Skylark's shield.

Mark and Nero take cover behind the shield too.

A loud bang followed by screams and smoke.

The group starts to advance toward the smoking smashed door, it leads to a corridor with several empty rooms on the side and they spot the two people carrying boxes at the end.

They are trying to open another reinforced door, banging on it.

"Let us in! Fuck!" They are shouting to whoever is behind the door, but the door isn't moving.

The group keeps advancing in the corridor when one of the guys drops his box, takes out his gun and starts blasting toward Skylark's shield.

The shots are deflected and Skylark takes aim with his arm cannon.

Blam, Blam, Blam.

The shots hit their targets multiple times, sending body pieces and blood splatter against the door.

The corridor turns silent.

They get closer to the door and notice a speaker on it.

"Who the fuck are you?" A voice comes out of the speaker.

"Do you know who you are fucking with?" It keeps blasting through the speaker.

"What about you? Do you know who did you fuck with?" Skylark shouts to the speaker on the door.

"You aren't from any gangs… Nobody is that stupid in the commons…" The voice replies.

"You stole from corpos, what did you expect?" Skylark says toward the speaker.

"Corpos… No… wait… Let's make a deal… " The voice continues.

Without a word, Grinder grabs another satchel and sticks it to the door.

The whole group disperses in the empty rooms along the corridor to wait for the blast.

A loud explosion resonates through the corridor, making the walls shake.

"Kill them all!" A voice shouts from behind the broken door and shots are fired.

In the chaos, Skylark opens fire toward the door with his arm cannon, the walls around are splattered with bullet holes and concrete dust flies all over.

"What the fuck… They seem unaware they messed with corpos… " Mark thinks to himself as bullets keep flying in the corridor.

The chaos of the situation is bringing him back to reality, he grabs his gun and scans through the walls with his eye implants.

6 targets in the first room, 4 in the room behind.

"There's a second room, their boss must be inside." Mark says over the comms.

"Roger that!" Skylark replies as he rushes out of the empty room with his shield in front of him and blasting his way with his arm cannon.

As he kicks the broken door open, he enters the first room, shooting everywhere.

Mark follows the situation on his eye implants and notices that Skylark took down 5 of the 6 targets, quickly he rushes to the room with his gun in smart targeting mode.

Target acquired, can be seen on his enhanced vision, he jumps in the room and blasts two shots randomly.

The bullets change trajectory and take down the last target who was behind the wall, ready to shoot Skylark.

Mark lands on the ground at the same time as the body of the last target, Skylark turns his head to look at him.

"Are you OK, boss?" He asks.

"Yeah… You missed one… " Mark answers as he quickly gets back on his feet.

"Nah, I left it for you, can't have all the fun without sharing!" Skylark answers while laughing.

The others follow him laughing, Mark isn't sure what he should understand from that, they sound like cyberpsychos on the loose.

"Let's finish this!" Grinder says as he places his last satchel on the final door.

"Take cover!" He shouts as he quickly goes behind Skylark's shield.

The blast shakes the walls and concrete dust falls from the roof.

Coughing can be heard from the last room as they all rush in.

Few shots can be heard before a voice shouts.

"Stop! Stop! I'm unarmed!" a guy with a hoodie shouts as he is kneeling on the ground.

The whole group stands next to him, Skylark's cannon pointed at his head.

"Are you the leader of The Scorched?" He asks coldly.

"Yes! I want to negotiate!" The guy with the hoodie says as he puts his hands behind his head and lays on the ground in a sign of surrender.

A loud bang resonates in the room as Mark watches in silence the execution.

"What the fuck, Skylark?" Mark shouts at him. "He surrendered!"

"No prisoners, Exec Nova was very clear." Skylark answers as he retracts his cannon back into his cybernetic arm.

Mark wants to fight back but he knows clearly what this mission was about, instead of arguing with Skylark, he turns his attention to the desk in the middle of the room.

There's a holoscreen on the desk, Mark pulls a chord from behind his ear and plugs into the screen.

"Anything good, boss?" Nero asks as he walks closer to Mark.

"Yeah, the warehouse is their main storing area, grab the implants and we will make a stop there, bring back what belongs to Psysoft." Mark says as he unplugs from the screen.

On the way out, Nero finds the eye implants in one of the boxes the guys from the van carried in.

Mark walks faster, wanting to leave the chaos behind, execution jobs are not his specialty and he is clearly frustrated with the way Exec Nova is playing him.

They all get back to the vehicle, Mark orders the pilot to head back to the first warehouse and the vehicle slowly takes off.

Upon arrival at the warehouse, it's clear that nothing has moved, the vehicle lands near the back door with the old camera on top of it.

The whole group quickly gets out of the vehicle and enters the warehouse, when they reach the room with the shelves everybody disperse and start looking for stolen corporate implants.

Everybody is busy when suddenly a notice appears on Mark's eye implants, a call from an unknown contact.

"What the hell is that… A trick from PTL maybe…" He thinks to himself before accepting the call.

"Never thought you would answer so easily…" A robotic voice speaks out.

"Who are you?" Mark asks.

The conversation is happening through Mark's agent, the other team members aren't aware of it and he makes sure that they don't see him.

"I'm a friend, you can call me Syntex." The robotic voice answers.

"Syntex, are you friend with PTL?" Mark asks.

"Yes, me and her go way back. I'm here to help you, Mark." Syntex says through Mark's agent.

"Help me? How?" Mark asks, he gets suspicious but tries to brush it off, PTL has been a good help for him.

"You know that exec Nova is playing you, I can give you a clear advantage, I will send you a file, just accept it." Syntex says in a monotonous robotic voice.

A notice appears on Mark's eye implant, request for sending file, accept, reject.

"I have to get an edge on exec Nova, that corpo bitch is playing me…" He thinks to himself as he hesitate to accept the file.

"PTL is risking a lot with this, for you." Syntex says calmly.

Mark's hesitation dissipates, he accepts the file transfer and a loading bar appears.

50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%

Transfer complete… deploying file…

"Deploying file? What is it?" Mark asks through his agent.

Call closed.

"Call closed… What the hell? What's happening?" Mark says out loud.

The others are alerted by his voice and start gathering around him.

"Boss?" Nero asks with concern as he sees Mark holding his head with his hand.

"What the fuck? Aaaaah!" Mark starts screaming.

The pain shoots through his head, as if his synthetic brain was rejected by the rest of his body, he drops to his knees in front of the others.

"It will be fine." Syntex's robotic voice resonates through his head.

A strong jolt of pain runs through his head.

The shock is so violent that he falls on the ground unconscious.

Pitch black, darkness, but a robotic voice echoes in the abyss.

"It will be fine."

…