| From: | Paul J. Adam Shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Hit Hard, Hit Fast (Vegas #2) |
| Date: | Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:37:59 +0000 |
>>>>>[You are correct: I was remiss in failing to contact you.
Snake Woman is dead. Until I procure a replacement, you will deal
directly with me.
+++++include credit transfer
That should settle your account for the moment. Continue sending me
Mitchell's diaries, and keep me as informed of his location as you
can.]<<<<<
-- Nar'moh'ach <13:30:25/02-13-60>
*****PRIVATE Nar'moh'ach
>>>>>[The golden rule. Give me the gold and you make the rules.
This as a teaser while the credit clears. More very soon.
+++++begin diary
I'm tense as hell. Sitting in the back of a van, wearing police uniform,
holding my Alpha, I'm cold and yet I'm sweating. This is either going to
go like clockwork, or it's going to be a bloodbath. Others, also in SWAT
armour, line the bench seats, two more up front.
Radio traffic, increasingly frantic, on the police bands. Up on North
Jones, a slammer-gang with alarmingly good armament is hitting the
loading bay of the Desert Star Hotel, just as the liquor shipment is
arriving. A fortune in top-quality booze, all conveniently loaded up in
a truck, and the Bloodbathers are chewing up the hotel security like
they're hardly there. The first cops to arrive are screaming for backup
and assistance: thirty gang members with decent weapons are a major
crisis anywhere.
Vegas PD are already realising that this is the biggest problem they've
had to face in eighteen months, and I hear the duty SWAT team
scrambling. The Bloodbathers should be an entertaining live-fire
exercise for the SWAT unit: that, at least, is going to plan.
And the LVPD weenies are in for a real shock as to what a "big problem"
really is.
"Harley. Roll out." I say, as the first timer hits zero. SWAT are
committed to a firefight that'll keep them busy for at least ten
minutes, probably more, even if they disengage and reorg as fast as
possible when they get word of what we're doing. They're out of the
picture: we'll be dead, caught or gone before they get involved.
The van's engine snarls: it's supercharged and boosted, but then it
needs to be because the vehicle's carrying half a ton of extra armour. I
can feel the sluggishness as the vehicle begins to move, because we've
traded agility for protection, but then we never had a chance of
outrunning danger. The siren begins to wail and whoop, telling everyone
we're in a hurry.
Between my feet, there's a heavy bundle of gear, that I hope I won't
need. I tap it with my boot, feeling the contents move slightly, as the
van lurches into a turn. I look down at my Alpha, pull the stock out,
check the selector's on 'safe', blink the flashlight above the barrel
once to be sure the battery's okay. I _know_ it's okay, I changed it
thirty minutes ago, but I'm nervous. The move-by-wire won't let me get
the shakes, but it can't stop me being scared.
"Thirty seconds, dudes." Harley calls. I flex my fingers inside their
gloves, reach into my thigh pocket, pull out a clipped pair of
magazines. Lock it in place, pull back the cocking handle and letting it
snap forward to chamber the first round, check the selector again. Turn
on the Aimpoint scope: not that I need it, not with the smartlink, but
it's a handy backup. The red dot glows, too bright, I adjust the
intensity and tune it down to two mils diameter.
The clatter of metal around me, as others go through the same act. We
look exactly like your typical Vegas SWAT team: eight troopers, in
Second Chance raid gear, most of us carrying HK227s. Two shotguns - Mani
and Ronin - Mani because of his size, Van Holde because he doesn't like
the idea of killing cops if he can help it, and I've got the Alpha
because... why? Because I got used to that L7 murder machine in Seattle
and like big guns?
Doesn't matter, now.
We lurch as the van skids to a stop.
Showtime.
+++++end diary
...And your money's good, and so am I.
+++++begin diary
I'm first man out, as custom dictates. Best place to lead is from the
front.
Harley's delivered us right under the huge spangled awning of the
Mistral Hotel & Casino, and there's some guy I vaguely recognise from
the trideo - rock star? Sports hero? - getting out of his limo with a
hooker on his arm, both of them recoiling as a SWAT team burst out in
full raid gear.
I vaguely see relief on his face as I pass him with barely a glance:
whatever wickedness he's up to, he can keep to himself today. I could
care less.
The doors are beginning to close, the lobby security hit the panic
button, but with my reflexes I can beat that clock. I get my back
against the frame and my boots against the door. The servomotors whine
and howl for a moment as I strain against them: but they were never
built to handle this sort of abuse and smoke streams from the jamb.
Easy's already hurdled me, and I'm right behind her, going left as Mani
breaks right, Forged following us in.
Straight in, running with our weapons at high port, the shocked patrons
blurring past us as we cut through the ranks of slot machines.
"FLOOR BOSS!" I bellow. He's got to be on his way anyway. These places
live by fast reactions, but quick reflexes aren't always _correct_
reflexes. A guy in a suit is already stumbling towards us in that slow-
motion stagger of a mundane trying to move fast, as four of us reach a
discreet EMPLOYEES ONLY door that looks just like any other.
"Can I help you-" He cuts off short as I grab him by the throat and
shove my sidearm against his face.
"Open the door. I got a warrant, you got ten seconds, then I kill you
and blow it anyway." Mani is already aiming his Benelli at the top
hinge. The floor boss looks at my eyes through the goggles, thinks for
maybe two seconds, realises that I mean it about killing him, and brings
out his cardkey.
The door opens. Twenty-four seconds elapsed, as I drag the floor boss
with me as I follow Easy and Forged into the vault. The annex to the
inner sanctum, and I only need to raise the Guardian to get the guy to
push his hand onto the scanner. There's the whirr-CLICK-<flash> of a DNA
scanner, the vault door opens, and I throw him aside.
Thirty-nine seconds and we're in. I'd allowed a minute. Hopefully a good
sign.
The men in the vault look up. We'd hit fast enough that word hadn't
reached them yet, the 'phone by the door is ringing and one guy halfway
to it. Good. I take the moment to holster my pistol: if it hits the fan
now, I'll need the Alpha's firepower.
"Against the wall! Move!" They pause, hands reflexively half-raised. One
of them - very stupid or very clever - reaches for the Ingram under his
jacket. I don't need to fire a shot, Mani and Easy both hit him and he's
twitching on the floor before the weapon clears its holster. The others
stagger back, shocked by the incredible noise and the stench of cordite
and the splattered blood.
The floor boss, thinking we've forgotten him, is coming in, some cute
little silver-plated Fichetti snubnose in his hand, and I give him a
three-round reminder of why that's a really stupid idea. He goes down
like he was pole-axed.
The vault crew realise they're outgunned and outclassed, and opt for
survival rather than a heroically useless death: Forged guards the
corridor, Easy has the vault crew covered, and I get to stand behind
Mani as he jacks into the mainframe.
This is the biggest unknown so far. How much IC do they have here, on
the innermost sanctum, and can Mani crack it? Is he as good a decker as
he is a killer? Would Haze have been better, or worse, for this phase?
I'll know some of the answers soon.
His deck doesn't have a hitch jack, not that I could risk using it, and
no screen either. If smoke starts coming from his ears I'll pull the
plug. If not... then he knows he's got ninety seconds. I stand here and
sweat, waiting for something to happen.
"You ain't cops." One of the vault crew says, wonderingly. It's taken
him fifteen seconds to figure that out?
It's also an expensive thing to say: it's cost him and his buddies their
lives.
"Too fucking right, Einstein." I say, as I thumb the selector all the
way down and squeeze the trigger. Twenty-six rounds fired, all five of
the vault crew's survivors go down. One moans and I finish him with two
rounds to the head.
"Was that necessary?" Easy asks, moving to back Forged up in the
corridor: she's now got nobody to guard in here, after all.
"Would I have done it, if it wasn't?" I reply, turning back to Mani: who
is still crouched, immobile, his mind and the casino mainframe in a
strange cybernetic symbiosis.
He's been in there for twenty-eight seconds. He told me he'd need sixty.
I gave him ninety.
I keep my hands busy by changing magazines: now I've got a full mag in
the weapon and eleven rounds in the clip beside it. Thirty-six seconds.
I pull that part-used backup magazine out of the spring-loaded clamp,
drop it back in my thigh pocket. Forty-three seconds. Take a full
magazine out of my chest harness, push it past the spring's resistance,
now I've got a fully ready weapon. Fifty-nine seconds.
The mostly-used magazine is ballast. I flick the last eight rounds out,
one after the other, dropping the orange 5.4mm caseless cartridges into
my gloved palm. Sixty-five seconds. Pour them into my pocket, and push
the empty magazine into the vacant pouch on my chest harness. Seventy-
one.
The big Sufi is still crouched over the deck, jacked in, breathing hard,
alive.
I flex my fingers inside the Kevlar gloves. The right hand still whines
softly, not my own flesh. Maybe Janet could help me accept it, but Janet
ditched me, found some other damaged hero to nurture -
"Done!" Mani yanks the jack, almost catapulting away from the access
port. "That was... not easy." Even as he speaks, he's following Forged
and Easy out of the vault. I bring up the rear, leaving a teargas
grenade behind to slow any pursuit.
Ahead of me, Easy's on point and bursting out into the main casino
again: as the soundproofed door opens we hear gunfire.
She fires a short burst and then a longer one, a dozen rounds or so, to
screams and breaking glass: Mani's shotgun booms twice, too, before I
clear the doorway.
Looks like the Mistral's security panicked, or decided that if we were
shooting so should they. Or more likely, they had the vault wired.
Either way, the first wave of gunmen is rapidly losing the firefight,
and we don't have to _win_: we just have to get out alive.
By the door, Blade and Innocenta are shooting up at the balconies, where
the Gomers seem to have burst out most: I weave through the slot
machines in a crouching run, watching everyone's back just in case
anyone behind us gets frisky. The biggest problem is the cluttered
floor, so many patrons crouching and cowering, one of them maybe armed
and willing to be a hero. None of them risk it.
I'm last man out, through the still-jammed doors, as Forged throws CS
and flash grenades into the lobby to cover our retreat.
Total time elapsed, as I run out into the neon-lit darkness, two minutes
forty-six seconds.
Damn, I'm good.
Now I have to live to brag about it.
+++++end diary
More to follow as I decode it. Stay alert.]<<<<<
