Chapter 14: Shootouts!

"Sam, what are we going to do?"

Back in the hotel room pacing Sam and the busy Ben, who was working on a nuclear powered sniper rifle, with no visible progress.

Sam on the other hand was thinking up several scenarios for the retrieval of the nanosuits they were tasked with stealing. The only thing he could come up with about this Clint Goodwin, was the fact that he was more of a thief than a merc.

Add to the fact that all of the crimes he has done have been known to the public through his actions of stealing important experiments, for whatever reason.

"Ugh! This bastard is just an adrenaline junkie using jobs as a fix. He's basically the same as you, Ben."

"I'm not the same. I've got a goal, Clint does not. Simple." Ben argued back as he refocused his efforts on the sniper he was trying to build.

Sam shook his head and looked up any members of higher society that came into contact with higher amounts of money or lower amounts through various sources. Eventually after combing through the net for about an hour, Sam found one potential suspect and presented them to Ben.

"Grey Vat, a member of the company, controlled parliament. He is known for flashy campaigns for his elections into parliament but several months ago he started pulling back for 'financial' reasons. Even if he isn't the guy we need, he will have an extensive network thanks to being a politician, so we will just need to interrogate for the details of the artifacts."

Ben was silently thinking of the politician when he had a 'Eureka' moment and turned to Sam. "Sam, what artifacts did Clint steal again?"

Sam's brow raised at where Ben was trying to go with this. "Most of the items are from the reaped rewards in the battles on mars with the African Confederation and Russia, and a good portion of those rewards are experimental weaponry info that they have been developing. Even those nanosuits were state of the art prototypes."

Ben nodded to himself. "The experimental weaponry, if Grey can get them developed and show it to parliament, he can get a trade deal going and make massive profit off of the government. Then we have a starting point on what to ask Grey when we get him."

"That's a large leap you know? He could be bringing that info to the company sponsoring him or give it to parliament for free to build up his influence. What if you end up being wrong?"

Ben shrugged. "Human beings are inherently greedy and will do anything for any kind of power. As the saying goes money makes the world go round and that in of itself is a power. Same applies to everything else, such as knowledge, physical, and mental strength."

Sam seems to be somewhat convinced but still hesitant. "Ben, if parliament finds out that Grey was with holding potential information that could brake the corpos hold over them then he would be lynched by the entirety of England. If your wrong then we will have done this for nothing...."

Ben shrugged. "As long as we don't lose our lives over this assumption then it'll be a lesson learned I guess. That's how humans grow beyond their imperfections, we look into the said imperfections and stop making them imperfect."

…

Three days later Ben and Sam were standing Infront of the Scottish parliament building in a pair of cheap suits.

"Sam I just want to say that what we are doing is technically terrorism. You know that right? You are committing terrorism against your own country."

"I don't righty care when the country I live in isn't even run by the government anymore, bribed officials and the corrupt corporation trying to make an even bigger buck...."

Ben was silent for a bit before adding. "If it makes you feel any better America is a shit storm right now since the current president is a puppet for the supreme court and legislative branch."

"....What makes you think that he's being controlled by the other branches?"

"A hunch." Then he walked into the building unperturbed by what he was about to do. You don't live in a world that eats the weak and survives weak, you grow up surviving and defining what your meaning of 'strong' is. And Ben's strength right now is finding his family, everything comes before, except the lives of children and innocents. His mother would never forgive him if he caused mass genocide to people that didn't even harm him.

An hour later the building rocked with explosions and the crowd of people rushing out of the building panicked. While Ben and Sam were escorting their prisoner in a stolen mini cooper.

"Now then Mr. Vat. I have some questions I would like you to answer honestly and get out of your way." Ben blurred out his face in Grey's optics and distorted his voice so that he couldn't be tracked, he didn't want anyone coming for him to throw him in the slammer now did he?

Grey nodded calmly, aware of what to do in this situation. "Good, now do you know Clint Goodwin?"

…

Several hours later the duo was standing Infront of a brothel on Newton ST. After they went in they were greeted by a myriad of men and women, getting a lap dance right out in the open one of these people was Clint Goodwin.

"Yeah move those hips darling! You're the best-" Clint stopped as he saw Ben and Sam approach unheeded toward him.

When the stripper was sandwiched between Ben and Sam, she immediately fled the scene not wanting to get caught up in Clint's mess. "Boys! How about we talk about this like good natured citizens, huh?"

The duo dragged Clint into one of the VIP rooms for some good ole natured 'talking'!

"Where are the suits Goodwin? Who did you give them too?" Sam handled Clint while Ben kept a look out for any altercations.

Clint shook his head, eerily calm for the position he was in right now. "Don't know, they just called themselves Mr. J. All I know is that I'm to meet them tonight at the edge of the city, that will supposedly be where Mr. J is physically."

Sam turned to Ben and told him to contact Annabel. [Annabel, we have a problem.]

[What's wrong?]

[Someone named Mr. J took the suits. Got any idea who this bastard could be?]

[….]

[Annabel? Who is this guy?]

[Are you positive that they called themselves Mr. J?]

Ben turned to Clint and hooked into his nervous system port. He may be able to access records, but Ben didn't want to risk Clint ending his life because of privacy invasion, but he could use his nervous system as a lie detector. "We will ask one more time. Are you sure that this someone was called Mr. J and that you were going to meet them tonight?"

"Yes."

The singles transmitted to Ben through the port said that Clint was truthful, but he couldn't pinpoint the feeling that something was wrong.

[It's confirmed. They called themselves Mr. J.]

[Fuck. Where are you right now?!]

[Were at the gentlemen's club on George Avenue in Glasgow.]

[Ok stay there, I'll send someone to pick you two up.]

Then she hung up and Ben was left with a petrifying atmosphere. He knew something was wrong, and it revolved around this Mr. J fellow, or the organization they represented.

"Sam, Annabel told us to stay here and she will send someone to pick us up."

Sam paled as the feeling of dread hung in the air, thickened at a rapid pace.

BOOM!

The entrance to the strip club blew open and bullets riddled the place, killing everyone in their way. Ben and Sam shot up at the shootout happening in the club that was mostly likely caused by them.

Ben turned to Clint. "How much?"

"My life." Clint said astutely.

"Sam I got the shooters, you handle Clint." Then Ben jumped out into the open room breaching as many people as possible. Once he was sure he had most of them he made their internal cyberware organs explode into a gory mess.

BOOM! BAM! BLOOSH!

The grey matter of the intruders drenched the survivors of the group, terrifying the rest. Though they wouldn't be alive for long. Ben popped out of his cover and shot the rest with his hand cannon, then he ran out of the building catching the sight of an armored truck driving away.

[Sam, I got an eye on the proprietors of the shooting. I'm going after them.]

Ben launched himself onto the roof of the building with his thrusters vaulting and parkouring his way to the truck across several buildings. Once he intercepted them he jumped into the open air above, Infront of them, and shot his new gauss cannons at the front of the truck.

The truck flipped and cartwheeled under Ben and when he landed the burning husk was all that was left until one of the doors flew off its hinges revealing an ethereal beauty.

"OH! The cliché seductress type antagonist huh? Alright, show me what you got!"

Then she reached behind her back and pulled out two folded katanas that snapped together into a full size black tachi katana. The bladed side started to glow as they heated themselves making Ben break out into cold-sweat.

'Can I win?'

The feeling of an expert drenched the open air as Ben and beauty stared down one another. The first one to act was Ben as he pulled out his hand cannons and let loose on the wench. She just dashed forward repelling all of the bullets with her heated katanas, her super agility on full force.

Ben threw his guns to the side as he engaged his blades and utilized his thrusters and heightened perception to keep up with her, all the while trying to breach her ICE and having no such luck. She simply continued her onslaught on Ben as he repelled her to the best of what his robotic body was capable of.

Her slashes were pinpoint and accurate. Her deathly silence makes the atmosphere all the more despairing and cold. Ben swung his mantic blades as fast as he could, trying to redirect the blades from cutting through him.

Alas his body's inbuilt combat shard and programming weren't enough as the woman swung her blade through the link of the blades and Ben's arms.

'Shit! Her specs are too high! The artificial programs that were inbuilt into the Ilya model can't keep up!'

Ben started to lose his cool. His dance with death nearing its finale, with him being the tired one. And just when all hope seemed to be lost, a car barreled through the duo crushing the woman into the concrete.

"Ben you really got to listen to the more experienced folk, what would have happened if I hadn't shown up huh?"

From out of the car came out Sam with a heavy machine gun on his shoulder. Ben for once didn't say anything. His time in the void didn't help him in any aspect so the experience he has is the same as ten years ago. He just has a good head on his shoulders, allowing him to take on regular mercs.

The more experienced ones though? They were a completely different ballgame. Sam was one of these people, the only reason he lost that day with Ben was because of his degradation of his brain messing with his choices.

"Kid I know you got a powerful robo body and all but you were born like a week ago. You don't just poof into existence and expect to be a killing machine. Now come here and help me stash her body in the car, I got a place we can lay low for a while."

Ben looked around, not finding the person he was looking for. "Hey Sam where's Clint?"

Sam looked back at Ben and simply opened the trunk. In it was a tide up Clint laying there motionlessly. Then he was joined by the broken woman, who was disarmed by Ben.