She went limp in Frankie’s grasp, her head dropping back and her arms swinging loosely. Taking her whole weight in her left hand, Frankie lay the woman down as she scanned her for data ports. She found a wireless port immediately, meaning she had been wet-wired with a Neural Net. Crouching down, she initiated a quick hack and found the woman’s defences, her firewall, already offline.
One quick dive in and Frankie knew what had happened. The Corp had hacked the woman’s Cyberbrain. They had used her like a puppet.
‘Bugger,’ Frankie swore. She opened the channel to her teammates. ‘Guys, watch who you’re shooting at, the Corp is hacking the hostages with Neural Nets and using them as puppets. Let’s try not to kill these guys, okay?’
‘Thanks for the heads up, we’ll try,’ Gibson answered her. ‘I think we have two of them on us now.’
Frankie cursed again under her breath and moved forward to the end of the row and looked into the open plan area. The boys had found cover behind a collection of sofas and tables near to the smashed window they had entered through and were being fired upon from several positions to Frankie’s right.
She quickly spotted one of the hacked civilians who had no idea that Frankie could see her. The cover the girl had taken hid her from Gibson and the Doc, but not from Frankie.
She wasted no time and took aim, putting a bullet in the girl’s leg. She dropped to the floor in agony.
Being careful to check behind herself to make sure she wasn’t being flanked, she aimed at the next closest Corporation soldier, who also had yet to spot her, and took him out as well. She managed to do this a couple more times before the remaining Psytech forces realised where she was, adjusted their positions and started to fire back at her.
She could see one other civilian for the moment, but he was right on the far side from her and behind cover almost all the time. He stood near the windows, and she could see his reflection in the glass beside him, but she couldn’t hit him.
She ducked back and took a breather. There were so many Corporation soldiers here, she couldn’t believe they were still fighting them, but what got her the most was their tactics, the complete disregard for human life that Psytech had. They didn’t seem to care who they killed to get what they wanted, even if they needed to hack into the minds of innocents and turn them into puppet soldiers.
It seemed that at every turn she found one more reason to hate the Corps. It was just Psytech they were dealing with today, but she knew that it wasn’t just them who could be this callous. She knew of stories that incriminated a whole range of these global firms and the dodgy practices that they indulged in.
She doubted she had seen the worst that a Corporation could do.
Keeping low, Frankie moved from her current position and ducked around some furniture to find a new one to get a new angle on the chaos.
She peeked out, and as the troops didn’t know of her new position, she took the opportunity to survey the area, and suddenly spotted a face she recognised.
Pressed up against the side of a large square pillar and seemingly in control of the forces around her, she saw the Cybernetic Corporation Agent Myasma.
It was the same woman who had taken the Doc captive at his lab, the same Agent who had attacked her apartments and then also the van they had escaped the Psytech building in.
Zooming her vision in, Frankie could see the new Cybernetic legs she had, replacing the ones that Frankie had crushed with the Mech on the highway.
Clearly, this agent had it in for her.
She didn’t waste any time, she needed to take this dangerous woman out as quickly as she could. Frankie raised her gun and took aim.
An ear-splitting boom, accompanied with the smashing of large amounts of glass that exploded into the room and obscured Frankie’s view of the Agent caused her to look up and her heart to sink on seeing a massive Mech crash onto their floor through the windows.
It landed right next to the hacked civilian that Frankie had not been able to fire at, and quickly swatted at him to move him out the way. The man was probably dead after being hit by the ten-foot high battle armour.
Frankie took a step forward to get a better look at the civilian and also the agent, but both were out of sight now. The Mech caught her movement though and pivoted towards her.
Knowing what this meant she shot backwards and dodged behind one of the large support pillars as the Mech opened fire.
The robots cannon roared, firing a couple of hundred shells at her over the course of a few seconds. The column she stood behind lit up light a Christmas tree. Cascading sparks went everywhere as the high-velocity rounds hit the metal within the concrete Frankie hid behind.
It fired again, its ungodly rate of fire chewing through Frankie’s cover in moments.
She needed to move.
Reaching into her tactical vest, she pulled out a grenade, removed the pin, waited a beat, and then threw it blindly, at where she calculated the Mech to be. The grenade itself would do little to the battle armour unless she were really lucky, but that wasn’t the point.
The grenade exploded, and the gunfire from the Mech paused. Frankie ran left and skidded into cover behind a new pillar having caught a glimpse of the Mech reeling from the explosion.
Frankie got to her feet and popped out from behind cover, her gun ready in time to see the Mech aim at her previous position.
She couldn’t resist a tiny smile at the small victory. Her diversion had worked, and she took the opportunity to take careful aim at the Mech’s Cannon before she squeezed the trigger.
Fifteen rounds must have hammered into the vulnerable side of the gun before the Mech managed to pull it away from Frankie’ line of sight.
The Mech’s head, little more than an armoured sensor suite of cameras and more, turned to look at her in a way that Frankie imagined should be accompanied with an accusatory, ‘You!’
The Mech moved again and pointed its cannon at Frankie who ducked back behind cover. But the roar of cannon fire never came. Instead there were some feeble sounding clicks, but that was all.
Had her gamble worked? Frankie peeked round the other side of the pillar in time to see the Mech look down at its gun in apparent puzzlement.
‘Yes,’ Frankie hissed to herself as more gunfire sounded from the other side of the Mech. Frankie shifted her position to get a view and saw Gibson and the Doc firing at the Mech from their cover.
The huge armoured beast flinched and looked at the pair of them, before whipping its arm out and flinging its gun at them. The gun missed. As she watched, though, it turned and walked towards the guy’s position.
‘No,’ she yelled and stepped out from cover raising her gun as the thing reached down.
She fired from her position, her bullets finding only armour and doing little to it as the Mech lifted something off the floor and turned to face her.
Frankie whipped her gun sideways and stopped firing as the Mech lifted Gibson into the air before it, facing Frankie. One giant hand held Gibson’s torso, the other one his arm.
‘Surrender, or I pull him apart, starting with this arm,’ said the digitised male voice from the Mech.
Frankie picked up the distant gunshot a fraction of a second after the Mech’s head exploded. Sparks and bits of metal flew everywhere causing the Mech to stumble.
‘Cover me,’ Frankie barked into her comms and ran forward at a sprint. As she broke cover, gunfire from the Corporate troops erupted, only to be answered by Gunfire from the Doctor as he sprayed the other side of the room with random covering fire.
Her steps, even though they were taken at a sprint, seemed to take forever, as if she were running in slow motion towards the reeling Mech.
Another sniper hit slammed into the Mech, the round from Veronica’s Carran CM7 .60 Cal rifle walloping the Armour and making it flinch again. Gibson screamed as the Mech pulled his arm clean off in a shower of blood before both Gibson and his severed arm were dropped. The Mech looked in the direction of the
sniper but quickly turned away as another round hit it hard in the chest.
Frankie closed the gap just as the Mech turned to face her, and leapt. She landed on the machines shoulders and gripped the armoured collar that helped to protect the head. She jammed her gun barrel into the hole on its head made by Veronica’s first shot and pulled the trigger.
The sensor suite in the head sparked as it started to fall to pieces. Her gunfire opening up a breach into the Mech’s neck, allowing her to fire in there as well, into the inner workings of the powered battle armour. Another Sniper round slammed into the chest armour as the Mech spun and flailed about trying to dislodge Frankie causing it to spark and judder before it lost power and dropped on its back.
Frankie jumped off as it fell, before returning quickly to its side. The hulking Mech lay still and silent, but Frankie knew that the operator would still be inside, and might still be a threat.
There were two large holes in the chest plates, so she reached into one, took hold of the armour and pulled. It didn’t take much effort, and within moments she’d started to force open the chest cavity. With a clunk, the Mech’s automated systems took over, and the rest of the chest opened up by itself to reveal the pilot inside, leaking blood and taking his last gasps of air as his life ebbed away.
Automatic gunfire from the Corporation forces struck the Mech, killing the pilot and whizzing past her, forcing her to drop into cover. More bullets pinged into the Mech’s armour as she looked over at the Doctor nearby. He kept firing at the attackers, rising from his cover here and there, always moving to keep the enemy guessing where he would appear next. Close by, she could see Gibson on the floor, his good hand clamped onto the bleeding stump of his missing arm. They needed to help him, but they were limited in what they could do.
Frankie readied her gun and moved slightly before she popped up to take in the scene. There were only a few Corporation troops left, and they had lost much of their control over the scene. Through hacking, they had thinned the number of hostages so that only four were left kneeling in the group across the way. Two troopers used these civilians as cover. There were maybe half a dozen other troops in here, and they were in a couple of groups, hiding behind cover and taking pot shots at herself and the Doctor.
With just four hostages left, and only three that she knew of that had been hacked, there were at least six that seemed to be missing. Movement to her far left caught her eye, and she glanced over before ducking down again as more gunfire erupted towards her.
There were maybe three hostages in a group over there. They’d apparently broken free from the Psytech troopers and were hiding from the gunfire. Frankie stayed low and moved around the downed Mech to give herself a better view of these civilians. They saw her, and one of them waved in acknowledgement.
Frankie pointed at her head, and then at the man.
He nodded, so she scanned the area, and flagged his wireless data point in her vision. She sent him a message request which he quickly accepted.
‘You okay?’ Frankie asked him.
‘We’re fine, we managed to get away from the main group during the chaos and hide out here.’
‘Excellent, stay there,’ she said and went to move back into cover when she saw Gibson rocking about on the floor in pain. She looked back at the civilians. ‘Any of you have medical training? Gibson has lost his arm and needs help.’
‘Yes, Georgia does, hold on,’ the man said and turned to talk to the girl behind him. After a moment, he messaged back. ‘Yes, she can help.’
‘Great, I’m going to give her some covering fire, when I do, she needs to run over here, got it?’
The man nodded and said something to the girl who now crouched next to him. Two seconds later they both nodded to her and looked ready.
Frankie prepared herself, waited for a gap in the gunfire, then raised herself up and opened fire. Both the man and the girl, Georgia, ran over to them and skidded into cover next to Frankie.
The girl didn’t waste any time and quickly moved over to Gibson while the man shuffled up next to her.
‘What are you doing?’ Frankie asked, feeling slightly surprised that he had run over here as well.
‘Helping. You got a gun spare?’
‘Gibson’s is just over there,’ she nodded, indicating the assault rifle nearby on the floor. She couldn’t deny that they did need help, especially with Gibson down. She guessed he was a police officer of some kind, so he could probably handle himself.
The man reached over and picked up Gibson’s Rifle, ejecting the magazine to check the remaining bullets before replacing it and then pulling on the slide to make sure one was loaded in the breach. Frankie fired another quick burst at the enemy before glancing at the man next to her again. He’d been looking over at Georgia who had dragged Gibson into cover and was now throwing him the spare magazines that Gibson had been carrying.
The noise in here was crazy with all the gunfire, but the neural links they had with each other meant they didn’t need to shout over it to make themselves heard.
Frankie moved slightly and popped up again. She took a moment to aim before movement to the right caught her eye. She looked over to see the Agent, Myasma, holding a hostage in a headlock and backing out of the open plan area.
Myasma looked up as she backed away and saw Frankie looking at her. Myasma smiled, but it wasn’t a happy grin. Instead, it suggested only pain and suffering for the hostage.
Frankie ducked back down with a curse.
‘Whats up?’ the man beside her said.
‘I’ve gotta get over there, an Agent is going to hurt more of the hostages. What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Ulric ma’am,’ he answered her before popping up and firing a quick burst and ducking back into cover. He looked at the weapon and nodded in approval.
‘Ulric…’ she began.
‘I get it, you got to get over there and take out that Agent. Go for it, I’ll cover you and hold the fort here,’ he said.
Frankie nodded and without another word, moved around the Mech and into the area behind the Sofa’s that the Doc hid behind.
‘She went that way,’ she suddenly heard in her head. She looked up at the Doc, he’d sent her a Neural message, obviously knowing what she was going to do. She smiled in thanks and moved forward to the edge of cover. She had to run maybe twenty meters, but with some covering fire, she hoped she could make it without too much trouble. Frankie raised her gun and opened a channel to the Doc and Ulric.
‘OK, I’m ready, cover me in 3, 2, 1, now,’ she said as she jogged from behind the pillar, her rifle raised and aiming over at where she knew the enemy was.
Gunfire erupted from her teammates as she ran and apart from a couple of desperate shots that went well wide of her, she made it across without issue, ducking back out of view as quickly as she could.
She sensed rather than saw the movement, but it was enough to make her move. Along the row that she had ducked into, someone had been waiting for her and shot at her the moment they saw her.
Frankie dodged back stepped back out into the open space and back into the field of view of the Corporation forces as a couple of the shots from this new enemy clipped her armoured vest.
She kept low and looked over towards the enemy she had just re-exposed herself to and waited.
She was hidden from the person down the row now but had no cover against the corporate forces to her left. A couple of the guys there spotted her and moved to aim at her. She had a better chance against just one enemy, so she raised her gun and ran back down the row, firing the whole time. The person up the row shot back, with little care for their own safety, and it was then that Frankie got a better look at the man and realised it was another civilian, a hacked hostage, just as a couple of her rounds hit him.
He fell backwards and rolled about in pain, dropping his gun.
Frankie rushed forward and kicked the gun away from him. ‘God damn it,’ she cursed. ‘I’m sorry man, just hold on,
we’re trying to end this as quick as we can,’ she said to him as she crouched down and put a hand to the man’s head.
The man just moaned in pain. She had no idea if he’d heard her, but she couldn’t wait around here to find out. She stood back up and moved along the row towards the back of the room. Passing a few intersections, she just followed her gut instinct and found herself at the end of a row, next to a small open area with a few circular pillars close to the rooms back wall.
Frankie stepped out cautiously, her gun raised, scanning the area looking for any hint of where Myasma might have gone.
Catching a hint of movement towards her left up ahead, she snapped her aim to it and fired a three round burst before ducking behind cover as whoever it was fired back.
Frankie paused for a moment. She didn’t get the feeling that this was Myasma though, so she readied herself again and inched around the pillar.
Spotting the shooter before she saw her, and once again it was a hacked hostage. Frankie had the woman clearly in her sights but hesitated. The shooter didn’t see her and Frankie wasn’t about to kill a victim like this in cold blood.
Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention a fraction of a second before the Agent slammed into the side of her and knocked her cleanly off her feet and straight through the nearby wall. Plaster and brickwork crashed about them as they fell onto the floor in the next room in a tangled heap.
In the mess and chaos, the Agent managed to get on top of her and pinned Frankie’s left arm with her knee, then grabbed her right arm in her hand as she punched Frankie hard across the face. The hit registered as pain, but it was nowhere near as debilitating as it would have been against an entirely organic body. The Agent punched again and again. Each time she hit, Frankie’s vision glitched briefly as she damaged the skin on Frankie’s cheek. But Myasma didn’t seem to be able to hurt her much like this, much to Frankie’s relief.
Promethean Files 1: The New Prometheus Page 16