Nepleslia, Funky City, Stilwater Apartment Complex, Room 36-72
The Stilwater Apartment Complex was like many others of its ilk. Built to house people, but also to house criminals who were willing to tithe to the right mob boss - who usually commissioned these sorts of properties. The individual apartments themselves were in livable shape, but as Danny and Desmond made it up the stairs and through the elevator, the signs of rot were unmistakable.
Licks of graffiti covering the walls, the occasional junkie off his head on Prime lying against the wall and reality, and for reasons which baffled Danny a metal drum with a fire coming out of it. Why? Why?! Danny groaned internally as he looked out the balcony and into the space that drove through the centre of the building, letting everyone see each other - or possibly shoot at each other if a dispute got hot.
That said, it was a long way down, thirty six floors down would make any Nepleslian, no matter how badass, into a human pancake with extra red sauce and lead. As Danny traced his steps, he found the numbers ticking up. 67, 68, 69 - though apartment 69's door was open and the sound of muffled music could be heard from within, 70, 71, and Danny stopped in front of 72.
The blonde mercenary, dressed today as a gang banger with a suitcase over his back and keys in his hand started fiddling with the door. Behind him, the other bounty hunter carried a large duffel bag on his back, held by its straps over his left shoulder.
Desmond wasn't dressed for the occasion like his partner, but like a civilian. The contents of the duffel bag rattled against the leather jacket he was wearing over the Sytrling Everyday vest. Underneath that, there was simply a white t-shirt, and further down only the cargo pants and boots he always seemed to wear. He had chosen not to wear the full set of armor, not in a place like that, but to wear just enough like every other citizen of funky city, which was a good warning as any that he wasn't completely unable to fight back any attackers.
"You lived here?" The rugged Nepleslian asked, inspecting the graffiti on the walls and the peeling wallpaper with the usual frowning expression.
"Lived." Danny said as he found the right key and jammed it into the lock, twisting left and right until pushing the door open. The interior of the apartment, though it'd received periodic visits, wasn't all that flash. Straight ahead was an open living room with a mattress off to the right corner, and a table propped up on bricks a little to the left with some shaky chairs and a newspaper covered in marker.
To the sharpest left, a kitchenette was there with an electric stove and oven combo that most tenants preferred to defenestrate and/or use for target practice; and a minifridge suited . To the sharp right and through an open door was a bathroom. It had been treated with a lot of respect since the toilet and shower were in good condition, but dust had accumulated due to Danny's departure.
Other items of note around the apartment included a television which used an old-style vacuum bulb, and a large pile of blankets covering the mattress. There wasn't any particularly odius smell about the apartment which Desmond would've expected, but it looked like a fitting mess for the terminally depressed.
"The place is a... fixer-upper."
"This is supposed to be our safehouse while we work here in Funky City," Desmond said as he walked inside the apartment after Danny. The bounty hunter dropped the duffel bag by the door, raising a small plume of dust as the large green mass hit the floor.
"To be fair, I haven't had time to invest in another property," Danny sighed as he closed the door behind them, "and we're a pebble amongst pebbles here." Another of those Lorath sayings, meaning that they were hidden in a crowd. "Besides, I've got all the right tools hidden. Look carefully."
Walking around the apartment, towards the small kitchenette, Desmond stopped to take a look inside the room, then punched the wall besides it. It was a weak blow, but he was surprised to see that his hand had almost fully sunk into the wallpaper and the rotting wood underneath. His fist stopped with a clunk, something metal caught his hand, feeling the hard surface, he grabbed at the hole he had just punched into and pulled out some of the contents to reveal what was underneath.
The walls seemed to be lined with durandium, replacing the insulation and acting as an insulation against bullets. "I see," Desmond said. It would take more than a rifle to go through that, so he didn't have to worry about one of the neighbours shooting at them if a bad situation of home defense developed. Or worse.
"I had the place dollied up a little," Danny said, moving towards the mattress and mess of blankets, flipping it over and pulling a volumetric display out of it and propping it against the wall and giving it a tap, turning the wall into a planning board and computer.
"Lazarus pay for all this?" Desmond asked, stepping into the small kitchenette and inspecting it further, looking for other hidden gadgets.
The planning board was booting up, and soon turned into a white screen that could be interacted with. "I earned my just due," Danny sighed as he drew some circles on the board to test if it it was drawing correctly. Satisfied, he walked over to the table and flipped one of the chairs over, pulling a flat ammunition bag out from a recess, and placing it on the table. No wonder the chairs were so uncomfortable.
"I'm not complaining," The Nepleslian replied, stepping out of the kitchenette and back into the living area.
"Rifle's in the oven, bottom panel in parts," Danny mentioned offhandedly as he reached behind the television and fiddled with some cables to reconnect something, while Desmond walked towards one of the windows to take a look at the city outside. "Pistols are in the dishwasher, behind a back panel. 'nades in the fridge hiding in the extra-large egg carton."
The staccato sound of automatic fire echoed from somewhere as Desmond stepped away from the window. "It's alright, you have already convinced me," he started to say. "You wondered why I haven't called the rest of the crew here yet?" the Nepleslian asked.
"They probably wouldn't all fit here." Danny said as he turned a dial on the television and got a CCTV feed from outside, grainy and framed by a hole in the ceiling, but providing watch. "They're not contortionists."
"That's not the point," Desmond said. "The first phase is a two-man job (two man job?)" he continued, walking back towards the duffel bag. The bounty hunter kneeled next to it and opened one of the outside pockets, then retrieved a small data-chit inside.
"You ever wondered what we did with those servers from that factory?" Desmond asked.
Danny crossed his arms, then pointed Desmond to the board. He could place his chit on it and it'd get the data out and display it in a mind map. "We passed them to the IPG after combing through it ourselves for anything useful and further leads, logically."
"That's right, and this is us following the breadcrumbs," Desmond said, inserting the chit into the board. He waited until the board recognized the small data storage device and projected the info contained in it on the table in a simple hologram. "That's the place we'll be staking out for the next job," he added.
On the hologram, was the blueprint of another residential building, not onlike the one they were currently in. A couple of rooms, all adjacent to one another, were outlined in red, while the rest was outlined in yellow. "The entire building is owned by a gang that calls themselves the Burnouts, but the red room is the building's safe house, which we'll be hitting," he droned on. It still surprised Desmond the he had found outhe had a previously unknown ability to brief people ever since the raid on Delsauria.
Danny looked at the hologram and saw the layout, nodding. "You suggesting a midnight attack, go in quiet, pull the VIP out and slip out like we did on Delsauria - or tried to?" He asked.
"We can't, not with what we have now," Desmond replied. "They own the entire building, so that's fifty-plus people they got there. Security is just too tight with the info we have now."
"So we crash a truck through this wall, blow the other walls up to cause chaos and confusion, and go in guns blazing like Captain Phoenix while their ears are ringing?" It sounded like a regular Friday night on Funky City. If anything, it kept builders and insurance companies busy.
"That's the plan, but we do that when they are the least ready for it, which is why we will stake out the place first," the bounty hunter replied. He preferred to take the most safe approached whenever possible; only heroes like the captain of the ISC Phoenix could afford to do that, because they didn't die somehow. Desmond wasn't one of them.
"Fair enough." Danny said, tongue clicking on the thought of the captain of Phoenix. When Danny met him, he seemed pleasant and suicidally overconfident. "Shall we figure out a perimeter and do recon for a few," he traced his finger around the perimeter of the area "get Amanozako, maybe the new guy Duncan?"
"Two people are enough," Desmond replied. He really didn't want to pay anyone else for something like that; not being able to do it himself was already a hidndrance as it was.
"Just us, then?"
"We're taking a look at the place, not storming it," the Nepleslian said, as if that would reinforce his point of view.
"Right. Okay." Danny fell in line quickly. "Your call, then."
"Then let's go," Desmond said, turning off the holographic projection and drawing the pistol from its shoulder holster to check it once again. Danny checked the inside of his jacket to see that his own piece and its suppressor were resting in the right holsters, and his SQUID suit was hiding beneath his clothing. His sleeves were long enough to conceal the gloves.
Checking the piece and nodding curtly, he went, leaving his bag there and locking the door behind him.
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Funky City - Southern Shore district - Night
Compared to Maharombi -which was by no means a small city- Funky City far outclassed it in size and scope. The amount of people that could be packed together in the same square meter was staggering, and the signs of a poorly planned urbanization showed in the sulfuric smog that coated the skies a few dozen meters above the air, strong enough to irritate someone who was not used to it and make them go into a sneezing fit. That was the first telltale sign of a tourist to the locals.
But on the crime-controlled Southern Shore district there were no tourists, only those who came looking for trouble or were lost. The latter usually didn't last very long if they didn't find their way back.
The streets were barely lit, making the environment a nightmare to plan a quick escape, and the sky-covering smog blotted out all illumination from the sky that wasn't blocked by the sprawling urban environment. Even though the buildings didn't rise as tall as the Ardent Towers, they were still tall enough so that patches of concrete on the ground level never saw the light -or what was filtered through the light, er, smog of day. The passers-by that went to and fro didn't seem to mind that; for them, that was existence.
Having stayed several times in the planet Nepleslia during his aborted starship engineer career, Desmond was no stranger to that charred atmosphere, so the instant giveaway that he was an outsider did not show. He was, however, slightly on edge, making his expression be a firm scowl as he walked next to a building with both hands in the pockets of his jacket.
Pretending to scratch his neck, the bounty hunter reached for his ear, pressing the activator for the communicator hidden under the hood twice to get his partner's attention. The double click was a simple message, 'In position.'
The other hunter in the stakeout clicked back once. It meant a positive reply, an acknowledgement since he had nobody to talk to, and he'd look a bit odd talking to himself. The way he'd communicate was similar motion, an itch to inside of the left armpit, a fidget. A backup signal was placed just under his ear to be flicked.
He was watching the walls of the compound and taking in the graffiti strewn across the walls. Emblazons of burnt tyres and skulls, a general motif of burnining and char throughout the artwork. The smell of the smog wasn't from the regular sulfuric he was used to getting around the apartment. It smelt like a mechanic's shop after a gas leak explosion that was never put out.
From the other side of the compound, Desmond replied, finally being able to speak now that he was comfortably alone in the streets. "All clear here, they have two goons watching the main entrance. "Amateurs," he said. The fact that the two leather-clad gang members from accross the street seemed to be locked in a fight attested to that, he could have just walked up to them and shot the two safely, if he knew who else was inside.
Back on the north side of the complex, two of them, clad in the customary burnt leather and car crash corpse look, they had spray cans with pilot lights stretched outwards, just where it'd meet the wall. They were spraying burning paint at a previously pristine by smog-bleached standards wall. Really putting new meaning into burnt orange.
"Arts students," Danny mumbled back as he watched two members arting out and the blonde as an audience.
"Visible weapons?" His partner asked as the dynamic duo in front of him ended their fight with no clear winner.
The painters were swaggering around, making the fronts of their stiff leather jackets wobble, and the wallet chains swing, catching the light and grime. During their swagger and jag of the linework, their hands would grasp their right hip and twist something between their skin and their pants from becoming uncomfortable. "Pistols in pants."
"Same here," Desmond confirmed. The two ''guards'' on his side seemed to have finally calmed down and were trying to look professional with their arms crossed in front of their chests as they scanned the pedestrians that passed too close. "Get comfortable,we'll be here a while," he added.
♫ Chemical Brothers (ft. Anwar Superstar) - Left, Right ♫
The respective theatres for the hunters seemed to be winding down at about the same time. The burning paint had extinguished at last. Now that the thrill was gone, they had grown bored, cranking some tunes and bobbing with the tune together, trying to look tough and in sync, but to Danny it looked like a pair of insecure Lorath men doing something cute.
A single click back as he watched the gang bangers disappear around a corner. He looked at the lights in the buildings inside the compound, and saw lights go on and off, some of them flickering. He could hear an engine running without a muffler behind the wall somewhere. Sounded like a V8.
From his concealed spot, Desmond watched the more artistically prone duo emerge from around the corner and walk up towards their counterpart and briefly exchange a few words before one of them banged against the corrugated metal door, prompting whoever was inside it to manually slide it open, allowing the two street artists to get inside the compound.
"Door is operated by a single person," Desmond quickly radioed, getting a quick glimpse of a trash-filled main yard before the door closed. A few moments later, another pair of gangers emerged from it, relieving the original two that were there, who moved back around the corner to where the duo that Danny had observed were stationed. It was a symple system to rotate their ''guards'' after all.
These two, as Danny could see, had each gotten themselves new cybernetics, or at least modifications. Their jackets were sleeveless, showing off bulging cyber biceps, now festooned in spikes and with the touchy parts plated with a tacky shade of gold that had too much green in the mix, and not enough warmth.
They both showed them off to an otherwise unassuming pedestrian. The smaller one, who'd gotten their cranium plated with metal and hadn't bothered to dry the blood let out a "YAYUH" at the passer-by to intimidate them.
The hunter meanwhile waited for them to pick on somebody else and their gaze not to cross him before muttering "show offs," for the throat microphone.
"Understood," Desmond replied, watching as the pair he was watching were also replaced by a freshly rested one. Depending on how often they rotated their watchouts, it would tell him how big the ''garrison'' inside the compound was, so he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and kept watching.
His question was answered at roughly two hours later, when both pairs of sentries were replaced for a new one, and the pattern was confirmed when these next two pairs were also replaced -although a couple dozen minutes late- by another round. It was only when the sun was starting to pierce through the layer of smog that they saw the two original pair of gangers emerge from inside the compound again and get in position. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be any vehicles moving in or out, but that could be that if it came, it was less frequent than the sentries changing.
By then, the Nepleslian's eyes were bloodshot, and it didn't matter how inventive he got, both of his feet were sore to the point that it became almost excruciating. Similarly, the other Nepleslian was taking ragged breaths. Having not stayed in such horrible conditions for so long had softened his lungs from the Nepleslian skyline. His whole body was hurting from having to put so much effort into looking relaxed.
He sent three clicks to Desmond, asking silently with some nervous fidgeting of his left elbow. Danny was soon answered with a single click from the other bounty hunter's communicator.
Soon after sending his reply, Desmond stepped out of the shady alley he had positioned himself in, ambling in a exhausted manner as someone would when going to another day of droning, repetitive work. It seemed to have worked, since the two gangers watching the main entrance of the compound only spared him a brief glance as he ambled back to the rendezvous point.
Danny meanwhile was making sure Demond got there before he did. It was assured because, one, Desmond was closer to the point than Danny, and two, Danny didn't want to draw attention to two people entering together. So close together would be suspicious. Three, he was doing his best not to put too much reality into his staggering impersonation. He'd been drinking iced tea all day pretending it was alcohol and playing the part.
As he went around the corner, he saw the entrance to the place and the two burly sorts out front didn't seem to give much mind to Danny, just another drunk staggering through what was technically a park, on a gloomy Funky City day. Or so it seemed.
Behind him, one of the two artistically inclined gangers nudged the other with an elbow, then motioned towards Danny with a nod of his head. After a brief discussion, of which the two didn't seem to reach a consensus, the single ganger from the pair broke off and started to walk on the same direction of the bounty hunter.
It wasn't difficult to hear the lone 'artisan' coming, as the sound of jangling fake jewellery and clattering spray cans was getting closer and closer. The blonde hunter had quietly mused if he'd been spotted as some sort of intruder or watcher, or if he looked vulnerable with how much he was moving around.
Still, he pretended not to notice, and kept on moving across the yellow grass and dirt. Some patches of it in low enough lighting glowed an odd, unnatural cyan colour with radioactivity. Click click click click.
The bounty hunter continued to move through the park, with his careless pursuer in tow. The ganger seemed to be making a point of having himself be heard, walking at a brisker pace than Danny, and objectively looking straight at the blonde. By the time Danny had reached the middle of the park, his pursuer was only a dozen or so feet away from him.
Closing in, the bounty hunter - currently hunted - started to straighten his posture. Did Desmond get the message? Maybe he did, maybe not. There was what sounded like a drunken retch as Danny put his hand against a gnarled tree, pretending to heave while his other hand was tucked under his arm and under a jacket.
In his hands was something sharp, and he quietly hoped that he wasn't being watched as the anticipation put some rigidity back into his legs. "Fuaaaaark... I'm never eating... Azoreans again..." Danny faked another heave, as though he was talking to himself.
The small respite was all his pursuer needed to close the remaining distance until he was standing right behind the bounty hunter. The smile of finding an easy prey to rob on the ganger's face was soon replaced with an expression of puzzlement, as if he wasn't quite understanding what was happening.
The Nepleslian punk staggered on his feet for a moment, as if he had mysteriously become drunk, and when he was about to collapse the reason for the change in behaviour appeared from behind him, slinging one of the ganger's arms around his shoulders to keep him from falling.
"Danny, help me carry this asshole," Desmond said, walking towards the other bounty hunter. Their easily-turned-into-prey quarry still too puzzled to understand what was going on.
Danny turned around and righted, looking back at the compound from the middle of the park. They had gained quite some distance from it, and from the increasing amount of foot traffic it would be hard for anyone there to notice the subtle altercation. "Down on a bench, newspapers. Fit right in." Danny said, clipped as he bent down and grabbed the legs. "Oof," between the weight of the art equipment in his bag and all the fake metal and Maker knows what else, Danny was eager to place the thug on a park bench.
As the two moved, the distinct sound of something dripping followed them, and once they set him down, Danny reached into a rubbish bin and placed some newspaper on him, which was soon blotted with red stains A couple more were placed on to hide them, before Danny determined that it was too much effort.
As Danny worked on concealing the ganger, Desmond did a quick patting down of the deceased man's pockets, retrieving his sidearm - an overly lubricated .45, a Nepleslian favorite- and a personal communicator, which he quickly pocketed.
"Let's go," He said, looking around to see if any of the pedestrian had spotted that little event. They either didn't see or didn't care, it was Funky City after all. Quickly detaching the silencer from his sidearm as he walked, Desmond stopped the process to wipe a fresh bloodstain from the sleeve of his jacket against his pants.
The other hunter cricked their neck and walked back with Desmond through the park, breathing in and out as they went down the sidewalk together, before Danny clipped his pace to let Desmond walk ahead to the rendezvous point. "Good click system, isn't it?" He whispered into the microphone, "old Lorath one, according to Lazarus."
His comm-bead buzzed with a single click in reply.
The Stilwater Apartment Complex was like many others of its ilk. Built to house people, but also to house criminals who were willing to tithe to the right mob boss - who usually commissioned these sorts of properties. The individual apartments themselves were in livable shape, but as Danny and Desmond made it up the stairs and through the elevator, the signs of rot were unmistakable.
Licks of graffiti covering the walls, the occasional junkie off his head on Prime lying against the wall and reality, and for reasons which baffled Danny a metal drum with a fire coming out of it. Why? Why?! Danny groaned internally as he looked out the balcony and into the space that drove through the centre of the building, letting everyone see each other - or possibly shoot at each other if a dispute got hot.
That said, it was a long way down, thirty six floors down would make any Nepleslian, no matter how badass, into a human pancake with extra red sauce and lead. As Danny traced his steps, he found the numbers ticking up. 67, 68, 69 - though apartment 69's door was open and the sound of muffled music could be heard from within, 70, 71, and Danny stopped in front of 72.
The blonde mercenary, dressed today as a gang banger with a suitcase over his back and keys in his hand started fiddling with the door. Behind him, the other bounty hunter carried a large duffel bag on his back, held by its straps over his left shoulder.
Desmond wasn't dressed for the occasion like his partner, but like a civilian. The contents of the duffel bag rattled against the leather jacket he was wearing over the Sytrling Everyday vest. Underneath that, there was simply a white t-shirt, and further down only the cargo pants and boots he always seemed to wear. He had chosen not to wear the full set of armor, not in a place like that, but to wear just enough like every other citizen of funky city, which was a good warning as any that he wasn't completely unable to fight back any attackers.
"You lived here?" The rugged Nepleslian asked, inspecting the graffiti on the walls and the peeling wallpaper with the usual frowning expression.
"Lived." Danny said as he found the right key and jammed it into the lock, twisting left and right until pushing the door open. The interior of the apartment, though it'd received periodic visits, wasn't all that flash. Straight ahead was an open living room with a mattress off to the right corner, and a table propped up on bricks a little to the left with some shaky chairs and a newspaper covered in marker.
To the sharpest left, a kitchenette was there with an electric stove and oven combo that most tenants preferred to defenestrate and/or use for target practice; and a minifridge suited . To the sharp right and through an open door was a bathroom. It had been treated with a lot of respect since the toilet and shower were in good condition, but dust had accumulated due to Danny's departure.
Other items of note around the apartment included a television which used an old-style vacuum bulb, and a large pile of blankets covering the mattress. There wasn't any particularly odius smell about the apartment which Desmond would've expected, but it looked like a fitting mess for the terminally depressed.
"The place is a... fixer-upper."
"This is supposed to be our safehouse while we work here in Funky City," Desmond said as he walked inside the apartment after Danny. The bounty hunter dropped the duffel bag by the door, raising a small plume of dust as the large green mass hit the floor.
"To be fair, I haven't had time to invest in another property," Danny sighed as he closed the door behind them, "and we're a pebble amongst pebbles here." Another of those Lorath sayings, meaning that they were hidden in a crowd. "Besides, I've got all the right tools hidden. Look carefully."
Walking around the apartment, towards the small kitchenette, Desmond stopped to take a look inside the room, then punched the wall besides it. It was a weak blow, but he was surprised to see that his hand had almost fully sunk into the wallpaper and the rotting wood underneath. His fist stopped with a clunk, something metal caught his hand, feeling the hard surface, he grabbed at the hole he had just punched into and pulled out some of the contents to reveal what was underneath.
The walls seemed to be lined with durandium, replacing the insulation and acting as an insulation against bullets. "I see," Desmond said. It would take more than a rifle to go through that, so he didn't have to worry about one of the neighbours shooting at them if a bad situation of home defense developed. Or worse.
"I had the place dollied up a little," Danny said, moving towards the mattress and mess of blankets, flipping it over and pulling a volumetric display out of it and propping it against the wall and giving it a tap, turning the wall into a planning board and computer.
"Lazarus pay for all this?" Desmond asked, stepping into the small kitchenette and inspecting it further, looking for other hidden gadgets.
The planning board was booting up, and soon turned into a white screen that could be interacted with. "I earned my just due," Danny sighed as he drew some circles on the board to test if it it was drawing correctly. Satisfied, he walked over to the table and flipped one of the chairs over, pulling a flat ammunition bag out from a recess, and placing it on the table. No wonder the chairs were so uncomfortable.
"I'm not complaining," The Nepleslian replied, stepping out of the kitchenette and back into the living area.
"Rifle's in the oven, bottom panel in parts," Danny mentioned offhandedly as he reached behind the television and fiddled with some cables to reconnect something, while Desmond walked towards one of the windows to take a look at the city outside. "Pistols are in the dishwasher, behind a back panel. 'nades in the fridge hiding in the extra-large egg carton."
The staccato sound of automatic fire echoed from somewhere as Desmond stepped away from the window. "It's alright, you have already convinced me," he started to say. "You wondered why I haven't called the rest of the crew here yet?" the Nepleslian asked.
"They probably wouldn't all fit here." Danny said as he turned a dial on the television and got a CCTV feed from outside, grainy and framed by a hole in the ceiling, but providing watch. "They're not contortionists."
"That's not the point," Desmond said. "The first phase is a two-man job (two man job?)" he continued, walking back towards the duffel bag. The bounty hunter kneeled next to it and opened one of the outside pockets, then retrieved a small data-chit inside.
"You ever wondered what we did with those servers from that factory?" Desmond asked.
Danny crossed his arms, then pointed Desmond to the board. He could place his chit on it and it'd get the data out and display it in a mind map. "We passed them to the IPG after combing through it ourselves for anything useful and further leads, logically."
"That's right, and this is us following the breadcrumbs," Desmond said, inserting the chit into the board. He waited until the board recognized the small data storage device and projected the info contained in it on the table in a simple hologram. "That's the place we'll be staking out for the next job," he added.
On the hologram, was the blueprint of another residential building, not onlike the one they were currently in. A couple of rooms, all adjacent to one another, were outlined in red, while the rest was outlined in yellow. "The entire building is owned by a gang that calls themselves the Burnouts, but the red room is the building's safe house, which we'll be hitting," he droned on. It still surprised Desmond the he had found outhe had a previously unknown ability to brief people ever since the raid on Delsauria.
Danny looked at the hologram and saw the layout, nodding. "You suggesting a midnight attack, go in quiet, pull the VIP out and slip out like we did on Delsauria - or tried to?" He asked.
"We can't, not with what we have now," Desmond replied. "They own the entire building, so that's fifty-plus people they got there. Security is just too tight with the info we have now."
"So we crash a truck through this wall, blow the other walls up to cause chaos and confusion, and go in guns blazing like Captain Phoenix while their ears are ringing?" It sounded like a regular Friday night on Funky City. If anything, it kept builders and insurance companies busy.
"That's the plan, but we do that when they are the least ready for it, which is why we will stake out the place first," the bounty hunter replied. He preferred to take the most safe approached whenever possible; only heroes like the captain of the ISC Phoenix could afford to do that, because they didn't die somehow. Desmond wasn't one of them.
"Fair enough." Danny said, tongue clicking on the thought of the captain of Phoenix. When Danny met him, he seemed pleasant and suicidally overconfident. "Shall we figure out a perimeter and do recon for a few," he traced his finger around the perimeter of the area "get Amanozako, maybe the new guy Duncan?"
"Two people are enough," Desmond replied. He really didn't want to pay anyone else for something like that; not being able to do it himself was already a hidndrance as it was.
"Just us, then?"
"We're taking a look at the place, not storming it," the Nepleslian said, as if that would reinforce his point of view.
"Right. Okay." Danny fell in line quickly. "Your call, then."
"Then let's go," Desmond said, turning off the holographic projection and drawing the pistol from its shoulder holster to check it once again. Danny checked the inside of his jacket to see that his own piece and its suppressor were resting in the right holsters, and his SQUID suit was hiding beneath his clothing. His sleeves were long enough to conceal the gloves.
Checking the piece and nodding curtly, he went, leaving his bag there and locking the door behind him.
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Funky City - Southern Shore district - Night
Compared to Maharombi -which was by no means a small city- Funky City far outclassed it in size and scope. The amount of people that could be packed together in the same square meter was staggering, and the signs of a poorly planned urbanization showed in the sulfuric smog that coated the skies a few dozen meters above the air, strong enough to irritate someone who was not used to it and make them go into a sneezing fit. That was the first telltale sign of a tourist to the locals.
But on the crime-controlled Southern Shore district there were no tourists, only those who came looking for trouble or were lost. The latter usually didn't last very long if they didn't find their way back.
The streets were barely lit, making the environment a nightmare to plan a quick escape, and the sky-covering smog blotted out all illumination from the sky that wasn't blocked by the sprawling urban environment. Even though the buildings didn't rise as tall as the Ardent Towers, they were still tall enough so that patches of concrete on the ground level never saw the light -or what was filtered through the light, er, smog of day. The passers-by that went to and fro didn't seem to mind that; for them, that was existence.
Having stayed several times in the planet Nepleslia during his aborted starship engineer career, Desmond was no stranger to that charred atmosphere, so the instant giveaway that he was an outsider did not show. He was, however, slightly on edge, making his expression be a firm scowl as he walked next to a building with both hands in the pockets of his jacket.
Pretending to scratch his neck, the bounty hunter reached for his ear, pressing the activator for the communicator hidden under the hood twice to get his partner's attention. The double click was a simple message, 'In position.'
The other hunter in the stakeout clicked back once. It meant a positive reply, an acknowledgement since he had nobody to talk to, and he'd look a bit odd talking to himself. The way he'd communicate was similar motion, an itch to inside of the left armpit, a fidget. A backup signal was placed just under his ear to be flicked.
He was watching the walls of the compound and taking in the graffiti strewn across the walls. Emblazons of burnt tyres and skulls, a general motif of burnining and char throughout the artwork. The smell of the smog wasn't from the regular sulfuric he was used to getting around the apartment. It smelt like a mechanic's shop after a gas leak explosion that was never put out.
From the other side of the compound, Desmond replied, finally being able to speak now that he was comfortably alone in the streets. "All clear here, they have two goons watching the main entrance. "Amateurs," he said. The fact that the two leather-clad gang members from accross the street seemed to be locked in a fight attested to that, he could have just walked up to them and shot the two safely, if he knew who else was inside.
Back on the north side of the complex, two of them, clad in the customary burnt leather and car crash corpse look, they had spray cans with pilot lights stretched outwards, just where it'd meet the wall. They were spraying burning paint at a previously pristine by smog-bleached standards wall. Really putting new meaning into burnt orange.
"Arts students," Danny mumbled back as he watched two members arting out and the blonde as an audience.
"Visible weapons?" His partner asked as the dynamic duo in front of him ended their fight with no clear winner.
The painters were swaggering around, making the fronts of their stiff leather jackets wobble, and the wallet chains swing, catching the light and grime. During their swagger and jag of the linework, their hands would grasp their right hip and twist something between their skin and their pants from becoming uncomfortable. "Pistols in pants."
"Same here," Desmond confirmed. The two ''guards'' on his side seemed to have finally calmed down and were trying to look professional with their arms crossed in front of their chests as they scanned the pedestrians that passed too close. "Get comfortable,we'll be here a while," he added.
♫ Chemical Brothers (ft. Anwar Superstar) - Left, Right ♫
The respective theatres for the hunters seemed to be winding down at about the same time. The burning paint had extinguished at last. Now that the thrill was gone, they had grown bored, cranking some tunes and bobbing with the tune together, trying to look tough and in sync, but to Danny it looked like a pair of insecure Lorath men doing something cute.
A single click back as he watched the gang bangers disappear around a corner. He looked at the lights in the buildings inside the compound, and saw lights go on and off, some of them flickering. He could hear an engine running without a muffler behind the wall somewhere. Sounded like a V8.
From his concealed spot, Desmond watched the more artistically prone duo emerge from around the corner and walk up towards their counterpart and briefly exchange a few words before one of them banged against the corrugated metal door, prompting whoever was inside it to manually slide it open, allowing the two street artists to get inside the compound.
"Door is operated by a single person," Desmond quickly radioed, getting a quick glimpse of a trash-filled main yard before the door closed. A few moments later, another pair of gangers emerged from it, relieving the original two that were there, who moved back around the corner to where the duo that Danny had observed were stationed. It was a symple system to rotate their ''guards'' after all.
These two, as Danny could see, had each gotten themselves new cybernetics, or at least modifications. Their jackets were sleeveless, showing off bulging cyber biceps, now festooned in spikes and with the touchy parts plated with a tacky shade of gold that had too much green in the mix, and not enough warmth.
They both showed them off to an otherwise unassuming pedestrian. The smaller one, who'd gotten their cranium plated with metal and hadn't bothered to dry the blood let out a "YAYUH" at the passer-by to intimidate them.
The hunter meanwhile waited for them to pick on somebody else and their gaze not to cross him before muttering "show offs," for the throat microphone.
"Understood," Desmond replied, watching as the pair he was watching were also replaced by a freshly rested one. Depending on how often they rotated their watchouts, it would tell him how big the ''garrison'' inside the compound was, so he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and kept watching.
His question was answered at roughly two hours later, when both pairs of sentries were replaced for a new one, and the pattern was confirmed when these next two pairs were also replaced -although a couple dozen minutes late- by another round. It was only when the sun was starting to pierce through the layer of smog that they saw the two original pair of gangers emerge from inside the compound again and get in position. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be any vehicles moving in or out, but that could be that if it came, it was less frequent than the sentries changing.
By then, the Nepleslian's eyes were bloodshot, and it didn't matter how inventive he got, both of his feet were sore to the point that it became almost excruciating. Similarly, the other Nepleslian was taking ragged breaths. Having not stayed in such horrible conditions for so long had softened his lungs from the Nepleslian skyline. His whole body was hurting from having to put so much effort into looking relaxed.
He sent three clicks to Desmond, asking silently with some nervous fidgeting of his left elbow. Danny was soon answered with a single click from the other bounty hunter's communicator.
Soon after sending his reply, Desmond stepped out of the shady alley he had positioned himself in, ambling in a exhausted manner as someone would when going to another day of droning, repetitive work. It seemed to have worked, since the two gangers watching the main entrance of the compound only spared him a brief glance as he ambled back to the rendezvous point.
Danny meanwhile was making sure Demond got there before he did. It was assured because, one, Desmond was closer to the point than Danny, and two, Danny didn't want to draw attention to two people entering together. So close together would be suspicious. Three, he was doing his best not to put too much reality into his staggering impersonation. He'd been drinking iced tea all day pretending it was alcohol and playing the part.
As he went around the corner, he saw the entrance to the place and the two burly sorts out front didn't seem to give much mind to Danny, just another drunk staggering through what was technically a park, on a gloomy Funky City day. Or so it seemed.
Behind him, one of the two artistically inclined gangers nudged the other with an elbow, then motioned towards Danny with a nod of his head. After a brief discussion, of which the two didn't seem to reach a consensus, the single ganger from the pair broke off and started to walk on the same direction of the bounty hunter.
It wasn't difficult to hear the lone 'artisan' coming, as the sound of jangling fake jewellery and clattering spray cans was getting closer and closer. The blonde hunter had quietly mused if he'd been spotted as some sort of intruder or watcher, or if he looked vulnerable with how much he was moving around.
Still, he pretended not to notice, and kept on moving across the yellow grass and dirt. Some patches of it in low enough lighting glowed an odd, unnatural cyan colour with radioactivity. Click click click click.
The bounty hunter continued to move through the park, with his careless pursuer in tow. The ganger seemed to be making a point of having himself be heard, walking at a brisker pace than Danny, and objectively looking straight at the blonde. By the time Danny had reached the middle of the park, his pursuer was only a dozen or so feet away from him.
Closing in, the bounty hunter - currently hunted - started to straighten his posture. Did Desmond get the message? Maybe he did, maybe not. There was what sounded like a drunken retch as Danny put his hand against a gnarled tree, pretending to heave while his other hand was tucked under his arm and under a jacket.
In his hands was something sharp, and he quietly hoped that he wasn't being watched as the anticipation put some rigidity back into his legs. "Fuaaaaark... I'm never eating... Azoreans again..." Danny faked another heave, as though he was talking to himself.
The small respite was all his pursuer needed to close the remaining distance until he was standing right behind the bounty hunter. The smile of finding an easy prey to rob on the ganger's face was soon replaced with an expression of puzzlement, as if he wasn't quite understanding what was happening.
The Nepleslian punk staggered on his feet for a moment, as if he had mysteriously become drunk, and when he was about to collapse the reason for the change in behaviour appeared from behind him, slinging one of the ganger's arms around his shoulders to keep him from falling.
"Danny, help me carry this asshole," Desmond said, walking towards the other bounty hunter. Their easily-turned-into-prey quarry still too puzzled to understand what was going on.
Danny turned around and righted, looking back at the compound from the middle of the park. They had gained quite some distance from it, and from the increasing amount of foot traffic it would be hard for anyone there to notice the subtle altercation. "Down on a bench, newspapers. Fit right in." Danny said, clipped as he bent down and grabbed the legs. "Oof," between the weight of the art equipment in his bag and all the fake metal and Maker knows what else, Danny was eager to place the thug on a park bench.
As the two moved, the distinct sound of something dripping followed them, and once they set him down, Danny reached into a rubbish bin and placed some newspaper on him, which was soon blotted with red stains A couple more were placed on to hide them, before Danny determined that it was too much effort.
As Danny worked on concealing the ganger, Desmond did a quick patting down of the deceased man's pockets, retrieving his sidearm - an overly lubricated .45, a Nepleslian favorite- and a personal communicator, which he quickly pocketed.
"Let's go," He said, looking around to see if any of the pedestrian had spotted that little event. They either didn't see or didn't care, it was Funky City after all. Quickly detaching the silencer from his sidearm as he walked, Desmond stopped the process to wipe a fresh bloodstain from the sleeve of his jacket against his pants.
The other hunter cricked their neck and walked back with Desmond through the park, breathing in and out as they went down the sidewalk together, before Danny clipped his pace to let Desmond walk ahead to the rendezvous point. "Good click system, isn't it?" He whispered into the microphone, "old Lorath one, according to Lazarus."
His comm-bead buzzed with a single click in reply.