Save Scumming

Interlude - Jim

The van came to a stop, and he stood. Already, he had his hands on his rifle and his mind on the job.

The sergeant opened the van's door, and in moments he was out and scanning the night for threats, though as per protocol, he kept his firearm lowered.

This wasn't the nicest part of Fortress ENE. There was graffiti on the walls, and ghetto music thumping off in the distance. A few streetlights were flickering, and when his cyberware connected to their primary servers, it returned a lagspike warning before shifting to a higher band.

Jim took all of that in passively as he moved to his position in the group and kept his focus up.

This was an easy mission. The brief had been short on 'whys' but decently informative about their target.

She was a twenty-six year old woman. D-ranked, but new to the rank. Her known repertoire of spells amounted to four. She had a Nature affinity. Otherwise, the file had been on the sparser side. She lived in an apartment on one of the upper floors of the building he was now standing before, there was a plausible chance that she was armed, and she had pissed off someone up the chain of command something fierce.

Or maybe this was another sort of OP? He didn't know, and he didn't ask questions. His job tonight was to secure the target, Miss... ah, he'd forgotten her name already. Not that it mattered. For all that a D-ranker posed a certain level of danger, she wasn't noted as having too many close friends and was new to the rank.

He wouldn't underestimate her. That would be stupid and shortsighted, but he wasn't exactly expecting much of a fight here either.

"Ready to move out?" their C-ranker asked.

Jim straightened his back a little. The new guy was... well, he was a bit of an ass, but Jim had known him for a while. Glover had been a bit of an ass even when he was a D-ranker like the rest of the squad. Becoming a C-ranker just meant that he could get away with it a little easier.

"Yes, sir," their sergeant said. "We're locked and loaded. Are you staying here?"

"I don't think you need me to fetch one girl," Glover said.

Jim licked his lips, tasting the inside of his balaclava. Did the man have to be such a pissant? "Yes sir!" the sergeant snapped before gesturing them forwards. "Let's go. Tight formation. Ewar up."

Jim nodded, then checked that his bodycam was on, that his connection was stable, and that his ICE was sync'd up with the rest of the squad. There were some serious perks of working for Seraph. They weren't one of the strongest corporate factions and best delvers in the fortress city for nothing, and the gear and implants he got were top-shelf.

He'd be working for the company for another five years to pay them all off, but that was fine. Better than being an office drone, and while he didn't get to dive into as many portals as he may have liked, he still got one or so a month. He'd maybe even his C-rank in the next decade, then that Glover guy would only be his senior instead of his superior.

He hoped.

"Alright, let's move out," the sergeant said, and they did just that, shouldering rifles and moving with some alacrity.

They pushed into the apartment building, the front doors unlocking to a very slight nudge from the squad's techie. These weren't exactly luxury apartments with armed guards and top-tier security.

The lobby space had an elevator and a set of stairs to one side. He scanned the space while they moved for the elevators.

"Are these good?" the sergeant asked.

"Checking," their techie said. He started off into space for a while, then shrugged. "Security for the building is offline. Looks like this place is a shithole, serge."

"We'll take the elevator up," the sergeant decided and Jim was happy for it. Sure, he was in fantastic shape, being a D-ranker that did physical work for a living helped, but climbing a dozen flights of stairs in full gear wasn't tempting at all.

They barely fit into the elevator. One member of the squad had a riot shield, and while that took up a lot of room, they still placed it against the door. When it opened, they filed out and started down the corridor.

The sergeant pointed to a door ahead, one of a dozen just in this passage. The apartments here were crammed in damned close, and he couldn't imagine living in a place like this. There was a bike with a missing wheel in the passage, a bin half-full of trash, a few discarded plastic bags. It wasn't a good look. The smell wasn't great either. "Kind of a shithole," a squadmate said.

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"Reminds me of college," another replied.

"Stow it," the sergeant said, but there was laughter in his voice.

They made it to the door, then moved around and into position.

The order came, and the door was kicked in, then they moved, guns sweeping left and right, eyes scanning, cyberware on full power to pick out any threats... only there was nothing, just a small, rather shitty apartment. Some women's clothes on the floor, a few knick-knacks on shelves.

Lots of energy drink cans, some wrappers. It wasn't a great sight, but he had seen worse. Notably, however, there was no sign of the target.

"No one's home," someone said.

"Tech, check our info again?" the sergeant asked.

"Checking... looks like we confirmed her coming in last night. No signs of her leaving. Nothing on the net. No pings off of her cyberware."

"She could be on another floor," one of the boys said. He snickered as he pulled something off the floor, then whistled. "Or someone's getting lucky in another apartment? Boyfriend, maybe?"

"Drop the thong, soldier," the sergeant said. "And wash your hands."

The sergeant stepped out, and Jim followed. "So, this is a clusterfuck, isn't it ser--" he started to say.

Then the lights went off on the entire floor.

His heart froze.

A split second later the ceiling started to hiss, and he ducked as lukewarm, foul-smelling water came pouring down from a few sprinklers along the ceiling. The spray was anemic, the water rank.

"Fuck," the sergent said. He raised a hand and touched his coms. "I think our target knew we were coming, sir. Yes? We'll come back down in a mom--"

Jim saw it from the corner of his vision. The elevator doors open, and there was a person there. A woman, on one knee, a gun pressed up to her shoulder and... a cat carrier next to her. "Sir!" he shouted.

A booming roar exploded from the far end of the corridor and the sergeant went down with a grunt.

Two more shots, and Jim winced, ducking down and then scrambling back into the room.

Then nothing.

He poked his head out. gun shouldered, but the elevator door was closed already and the old timer at the top showed it going down.

"Dammit!" the sergeant screamed. He was clutching his leg. There was a decent amount of blood there.

"I got you, Sarge," their medic said as he ran up. "Anyone else hit?"

"My backpack's out!" the techie shouted, and Jim winced again. That was a lot of their communication gear gone.

The sergeant was... not fine but he'd live. The round had hit his knee and ripped through it, leaving a mess behind that would definitely need surgery. The tech's backpack was categorically fucked.

"We need a medivac," the medic said. "But I've got you stable, boss, you'll make it."

"I know," the sergeant said. "Get me to my feet... foot, fuck. C'mon, we're going down."

That turned out to not be so simple. The sprinklers were still pissing water all over, and when they arrived at the elevators, it was to find them down. The second elevator bank as well.

The barged into the staircase and started down, only ten steps down, the soldier at the front slid and landed on his back, hard.

"Soap," he grunted as he turned around and checked the stairs. "Some asshole put soak on the stairs. What the hell?"

That wasn't all. As they moved down, they discovered marbles on the first landing, just scattered around.

"What kind of Home Alone bullshit is this?" one of them asked.

For all that it was stupid, it was working. Jim wouldn't admit it so casually, but he was a little unnerved by it all. They were just fighting one woman, she wasn't even that strong, or important. So how come he felt like they'd all just stepped into a trap?

Then his comms blurted out, and it was Glover.

"No, no, please, stop," the man cried.

The entire squad paused, uncertain as to what to do. Was... the C-ranker begging?

"Double time it," the sergeant said.

***