CyRun - Chapter 9

Gabe held the rifle firmly in his hands as he crept down the grated staircase, which lead down directly to the storage area. He didn’t know how many people were down there, but he could hear plenty of talking and people walking. 

His back still to the wall, he took a quick peek. No one saw him, but he saw more than enough. There were several shipping containers right in front of the stairs. He counted seven guards, all armed as the one outside. Four playing poker in a table right in the middle of the place, one standing near a small room on the corner, and the last two standing near the exit, which was closed with a metallic security door. None of them knew he was there, and were about their normal duties. If they knew something was wrong, they weren’t showing it.

They were all wearing street clothes, and he could tell none were wearing any bullet-proof vests of any kind. He didn’t know if they were arrogant, stupid, or careless.

Gabe closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had to make a plan, after all.

He opened his eyes. He knew what he had to do.

Noticing that none of the guards had noticed him, he took a grenade out of his bag, and went down two steps until he had the whole place in wide-open view. He nodded to himself, took the pin off, and threw the grenade at the table.

By the time they saw it, it was too late. The grenade exploded dead center in the table. The four men were blown away by the explosion. Limbs, sparks, and blood flew into the air.

The men began shouting and running. Gabe didn’t lose any time and fired his rifle at the two guards near the security door. The had barely managed to raise their guns. One was hit in the chest four times and ended with his back against the wall. The second one was hit in both the chest and the legs, falling to the ground. Both died on the spot.

Two more men came out of the small room in the corner, pistols out and ready. The three remaining guards located Gabe and fired at him. Bullets ricocheted behind Gabe. He gritted his teeth and jumped from the stairs to the container in front of him, firing his rifle. He missed all shots.

He dived and rolled, avoiding the guard's bullets. He reached for safety as he fell between the two containers. 

Sparks and bullets flew next to him as he checked his rifle. The bullet chamber had exploded. He grunted, shoved it inside the bag, and pulled the shotgun out as fast as possible. Hearing someone running in his direction, he popped out from cover and fired.

One of the guards was hit right on the chest, sending him flying backwards. Another guard aimed at Gabe and fired. He missed. Gabe didn’t. Half of the guard’s face was blown off as sparks from his aug exploded.

He tried to shoot the third one but the shotgun jammed. He cursed his luck as he hid behind between the containers again. The other man get running towards him, shooting wildly. Gabe put his gun back into the bag and pulled the pistol. 

He ran to the other side of the container and around it. The other man was about to reach it, and didn’t know he had changed positions. He jumped out from his hiding spot and opened fire in mid-air. The guard turned and fired once, but missed. Gabe hit him. 

The guard was hit several times but refused to go down, his shirt stained red. Gabe stood up and kept firing as he walked towards him with haste. It took ten shots from his pistol to finally bring the guard down. 

Gabe didn’t stop walking. He wasn’t one to take unnecessary risks. He reached the room in the corner. He heard voices inside, desperately trying to call for backup. He took a grenade out from his bag and threw it inside. It bounced on the ball and landed deep inside the room. Someone inside the room screamed. Gabe took a step back. The grenade exploded, and took the room with it. 

Without skipping a beat, Gabe made his way back to the security door and kicked a switch next to it. As the door rose, he ran to the truck Medici had pointed out. He checked the cargo. It was the right truck. He tried the door. It was unlocked. He jumped inside and began to work on the wires below the dashboard. Two seconds and a simple bridge later, the truck started.

He floored it and, in the blink of an eye, was out and merging into a horizontal traffic line. Anyone else would’ve exhaled, relaxed, and thought it was over, but he knew better. He reached below the dashboard a second time with one hand, the other one in the wheel. It took him longer to find it compared to the one in Medici’s car. They had cross-wired it.

Gabe grunted. He checked the traffic in front and behind him before pulling it off. Like clockwork, the truck’s engine shut down and began to dive, fast. He took his hand off the wheel and began to work on the wires he had unplugged. A sweat drop formed on the crown of his forehead, but he ignored it. He tried two combinations and bridges, but they didn’t work. The alarm sounds of the tuck’s insta-comp became louder. The truck was now completely vertical and in a nosedive against the concrete of the slums, if he was lucky. He gritted his teeth as he tried a third combination. The truck’s engine coughed like an old man before coming back on. Gabe wrestled with the controls to straighten the truck. It relented on the very last second before it crashed against the incoming traffic on a horizontal lane. He spun the truck around and stopped, hovering between lanes.

Not wanting to call the attention of any dregger, he merged into the lane in haste before lowering his window and throwing the tracking device away. He then shifted his attention to the insta-comp. Being in traffic already, and carrying a spare, he pulled it off, unplugged it, and threw it away before raising the window. He pulled his spare insta-comp from the bag and plugged it with one hand. It turned on automatically, and a soft-reset later, it was all set and ready to go. 

He checked the systems to see if they hadn’t added anything overly-creative to the truck’s cargo, running a software that came pre-installed to detect any nearby signals. He focused his attention in the container the truck was pulling. The data the insta-comp displayed was unreadable to the untrained eye, made out of what seemed to be random numbers and letters, but he could read it just fine. He smiled. They hadn’t bothered to do anything with the container.  

He allowed himself a brief moment of respite. He checked his mirrors several times to make sure he wasn’t being followed, and he wasn’t. All that was left was to enjoy the ride back to Medici’s building and the sound the almost perpetual rain made when it fell on the windshield. For the first time in several months, he accessed an insta-comp not to do some hacking or improvised programming, but to do something rather mundane.

To select a music station.