Trace was in the middle of changing and fondling the gradually forming muscles on his chest when Monroe honked the semi’s horn just outside the warehouse’s doors. There was no real reason behind it, he was just being a jerk.

  Trace glanced around guiltily, catching Deckard’s avatar smirking as he finished pulling on a fresh shirt along with his armored vest.

  “Hey, I’m not used to having muscles, okay?” He said defensively. “You should have seen me a while ago. I was nothing but skin and bones. I’m allowed to be happy about actually having something there.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Deckard replied.

  Trace grunted and grabbed a few titanium marbles that Ko had dropped off when they visited her mom. He had already told her they would be gone for a couple of days, so she needed to look after Deckard.

  “Be careful and let me know if anything happens back here and I need to come back.”

  The avatar waved as Trace walked out the door.

  Out in the main area of the warehouse, Monroe was already in the middle of backing up to the trailer.

  Grabbing his gear, he stored it in the semi along with a couple of his tools, just in case. By the time he was done, Monroe had finished hooking up the trailer, and they were ready to go. The fridge and cupboards in the extended sleeper turned RV portion had already been filled with food and various sodas.

  The warehouse doors closed behind them, and Monroe slowly accelerated the large vehicle and trailer toward the city exit.

  Monroe glanced back at Trace as he set about finding a place to put all his stuff. “You managed to finish fixing that thing, then? It looks like you also put a scope on it.”

  “I can’t guarantee that it is fixed just yet, not until I get a chance to try it out. But yeah, it should all be working. The scope is the old one from my scout rifle. The railgun needed something to help me aim over those longer shots.”

  Hopping into the passenger seat, he began removing the scope from the K-10. He had decided to just swap the scope over to the CD-10 while he had time instead of putting it off.

  He still needed to get a new holster for the revolver, but at least this part was done.

  ***

  Monroe had followed nearly the exact same path he had taken to get to the scarpo town of Lonetree the last time around. Only, the town wasn’t their final destination. It was a maintenance and repair shop that was part of an old shopping center near the town.

  The job was supposed to be a simple rescue and recovery operation of some mid-level corpo drone. It sounded like an easy job; however, it was also the type of job where a lot of things could go wrong.

  If it seemed like their payday was about to vanish, there would be nothing to stop them from shooting the corpo. Which meant going in quiet. Not something a large vehicle was very good at, or Monroe, for that matter.

  Trace grabbed the suppressed scout rifle with its new scope and his courier bag. The railgun and assault rifle would stay in the semi for this job. The shotgun had been strapped to the bag.

  Monroe parked the truck and trailer about a half-mile away from the shop, and the two of them began walking.

  They kept their eyes open as they walked, with Trace occasionally running S&R scans. The new NetConnect handled the scans even better than his old one. There was still a limit to how many he could run before it began heating up, but the number was FAR higher than before.

  “Have they even placed out any guards or watchers?” Monroe muttered, the closer they got without seeing anyone.

  “Honestly? I think these gonks are more opportunists than anything else. They probably saw the corpo and thought they were important, not knowing any better. I mean, who kidnaps some rank-and-file employees and then actually expects the corporation to pay for them? I’m not even sure if most corps would pay for their executives. They might send in a recovery or kill squad, but certainly not pay them off.”

  “True, let’s make sure we’re recording everything in case something goes wrong though.”

  Trace agreed and then split off from him. They were close enough to the maintenance and repair shop that the front window of the place was almost in view. He climbed up to the top of a nearby building and looked through the scout rifle’s scope. The glass on the front of the building had been completely destroyed and then replaced with decaying boards.

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  The view he was given wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to tell him that something wasn’t right.

  Navigating the HUD, he rapidly called Monroe, cursing himself for not having done it as soon as they split.

  “Flash-Fry here. What do you have for me, Tune?” They were on a job, so their edger names were in use. Some teams used them religiously for everything, others never used them. It was recommended to at least use them while out on the job, where someone you didn’t want to hear it had the greatest chance of hearing your name.

  “It’s hard to make out. I’m looking through small gaps and holes in rotten pieces of wood. I wanted to make sure you didn’t just go in before I gave the all-clear.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, probably.”

  Trace rolled his eyes; pulled back from the scope and looked around him. There was no one around. Leaning back into the scope, he increased the magnification on it. The image inside the shop slid into focus, as though he were right in front of the rotten wood planks just outside the building.

  He was still only looking through a small gap, but now everything behind it was much larger.

  “That’s what I thought,” He muttered, slowly panning his view through each of the different holes and gaps. “Flash-Fry, there are two corpos in that room with the kidnappers. However, only one of them is tied up. She is pretty banged up as well.”

  “Can you take them out?”

  “Not without risking her safety. There are too many blind spots.”

  “I found a back door. Why don’t you take that entrance, and I’ll come in through the front. Try not to hit me.”

  “Same goes for you.” He strapped the rifle to his bag and climbed back down to the road. For now, he would go with his CD-10 instead of the shotgun.

  Once he was right next to the shop, he ran an S&R scan. The old, rotted wood did little to impede the scan, and he was able to get a clear image of the people inside.

  “Looks like there are nine people inside this place, two of which are the corpos. Definitely a small group,” Trace informed his partner as he found the rear entrance.

  “Amateurs then, without a doubt. I’ve never heard of anyone getting involved in a corporation with a lot more than this.”

  “We did.”

  “We had no choice at the time, and we both have death wishes.”

  “Speak for yourself. Alright, I have the door unlocked and am entering the building. Feel free to enter when you hear people begin yelling.”

  The door had been an old-fashioned style lock that required a lock-pick to work with. Thankfully, Trace had a set as part of his standard kit. It wasn’t useful very often, but he had needed it often enough that he had never even thought of not carrying it around.

  Crouching down low, he unholstered the CD-10 and brought it into position as he walked quietly forward. Trace had already begun the ‘Enhanced Basic Stealth Steps’ modules. He had thought it would be all about where to place your feet, and it was that, but it also included a lot of information about how to balance your body as well. Walking silently, if you wanted to do it properly, it involved a certain amount of body swaying with the movement. It helped to keep each step light and flexible.

  Not that he had truly learned how to do any of that. He had only barely started the module. The most he had learned was that the toe needed to touch the floor first and that moving in a crouch would help to better distribute his weight.

  Walking on mostly clean floors did the rest. There was some dust and dirt on the floor, but not enough to worry about.

  He ran another scan, making sure there was no one nearby. Instead, he found them all in the same room as before, neatly bunched together. Just ripe for the picking.

  A couple of them were even lying down and looked to be sleeping.

  Creeping closer to the room, he hesitated outside the door, listening to them talk for a few seconds.

  “I don’t know how I feel about getting involved in Jerry’s revenge, Troy.” One of them was saying in a whiny voice. “I mean, sure she was his boss, but you’re trying to extort a corporation! How do you expect this to turn out?”

  “Would you just shut up already, Beaner? No one liked Phyllis, but the corporation found her useful. Besides, you need the money, same as the rest of us. I heard one of the gangs in your scarpo town decided to move somewhere else a while ago.” Another said angrily.

  “You heard right. Some edger came in and got lucky.” There was a dry, nasty-sounding chuckle. “Though, from what I hear, a lot of the gangs in the city are now on the lookout for that same edger.”

  “Is that why they’ve been causing so much trouble lately?”

  Trace had originally been thinking he might play nice with these fellows. After all, the one named Jerry was just trying to get back at his evil boss. That was something he could mostly get behind. Troy at least was from the Lonetree scarpo town, the others likely were as well. They had fallen on hard times because of him.

  All the admittedly at least somewhat forced sympathy vanished in an instant, however, once they talked about what was going on in Denver. It seemed as though the fellow behind the android he had eliminated in Lonetree, the same man who the woman he had met with Revlock had a particular dislike for, had begun to make his move. She had said he would, and now he was.

  Staying low, Trace leaned around the corner, aimed for Jerry’s knee, and fired. The shot sent the corpo slime ball to the floor, his leg now in two pieces.

  Shifting his aim, Trace aimed at the man he had been talking to, Troy, and blinked. The man was reacting far faster than expected. His hands almost seemed to blur as the shotgun he was holding swung into position.

  He felt his perk ‘Overdrive 1’ activate and instantly threw himself to the back behind the wall, not even trying to shoot. The area of the wall where he had just been shattered and broke apart with a blast of the steel shot. The room beyond rang with the sound of the loud shotgun going off, waking the two who had been sleeping.

  A panic set in as no one but Troy understood what was happening. He was too busy to explain anything to them at the moment.

  Trace scrambled back down the hall, desperate to get away before the perk ended. Behind him, he saw Troy’s shadow appear in the door of the hallway, somehow managing to keep up or even exceed the speed of his perk.

  The ability ended without warning, sending him sprawling to the floor. A lucky break, as hundreds of miniature steel balls roared just inches above his head. If he had still been standing, he would have taken that shot directly in the back, and something told him his light armor vest wouldn’t stand up well against that barrage.

  He twisted onto his back and raised his gun at the manically grinning Troy.

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