The Scalpers should be considered more paramilitary death cult than Syndicate–And Vincentine, if you’re watching this, it’s not a fucking complint.
Whatever the hells happened to him when he was down in the dark fighting the Low Masters touched him good and deep. Knew him before he went down. Didn’t know him after he ca back up. Can’t say I bla him. The Low Masters only had primal Heavens, but before we go about forgetting, they’re still shells of dead gods.
And there’s nothing–ain’t nothing–that can prepare you for facing a god on your own.
Best taphor I have is… like emptying your gun into a hurricane. Inevitable. Just inevitable.
-Quail Tavers, New Vultun Sunrise Interview
4-6
The Scalpers
“Shitshitshit,” Shred whimpered, eyes flicking between Avo and the door.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Chambers cursed. “Janand! Scramble the drones! Scramble now. Avo! Get the bioware and get the fuck out of there. Fucking Scalpers–fuck, how the fuck was I supposed to know they were going to be there–”
Avo tuned Chambers out. The enforcer’s panic was unbecoming and unprofessional, but his folly was not one to be shared.
Beyond the door shone the accretion of six minds. Six, and an endless sea more of flowing thoughts suffusing the entirety of the block. Five among them were warded, though poorly. The type of quality Avo saw in Conflux enforcers.
Still, if the Scalpers were properly set up for insertion into the room, the montum would be their advantage. Soft as their minds were, Avo’s phantasmics were going to be hard-pressed to engage six targets, especially if they were shooting at him at the sa ti. Worse yet, he knew nothing of the Scalpers’ equipnt, numbers, or even if they had a Necrojack with them.
To his advantage, he had a working tamind, a functional but outdated exo-rig, and a head start for whatever he wanted to do. Worse cos to worst, he needed to make a kill–get his Liminal Fra up and running again. Get rid of his Rend and keep from staying dead.
The person outside the door hamred against the door again. “Shred? Don’t tell you went and shot up before this?”
Avo leaned down next to Shred. “Tell him to wait.”
Shred nodded, face flush with stale sweat, their body shivering with fear. “I-I’m clean right now.” There was a choking lilt to Shred’s voice, his gulps sending out echoes of guitar twangs through his modulator.
“Sure, Shred,” the ganger said. Their scoffing laugh told Avo that they didn’t believe Shred, but belief wasn’t needed right now. A delay was. “Anyway–”
“Just a second,” Shred choked out. “I’m…I’m getting the shit. I’m trying to get the shit–forgot the combination again, alright?”
A beat followed. An ebbing flow of disappointnt spiked into the Nether. Avo tasted the emotion in the near-waters of thoughtstuff and scowled. He had no idea why their minds were bare, or why they couldn’t be bothered to even get so cheap wards installed. It was like bleeding into the water.
“Jaus, Shred, get your shit together. Two minutes, alright. We need this fuckin’ deal done, consang–you set it up. Don’t glass-jaw on us now.”
“Fuck, man, alright,” Shred shot back. “Just need to–just gotta get it open is all. Just give ti. That’s all I need, okay? Fuck!”
“Hey, hey, fine, relax. Just… get the shit, yeah? We need their imps. Farm's gonna fail otherwise.”
“Yeah,” Shred said, looking down at the ground. “Yeah.”
Through the door, Avo watched as the sphere of thoughtstuff bobbed away. Muted voices were exchanged. Questions regarding if there was a problem. Hurried assurances that the gangers were professionals, and that the bioware was just being screened to ensure there weren’t any issues.
A plan ford in Avo’s head. First thing. Secure the package. He already broke in and committed a transgression against his ethics, no sense in leaving a job half-done as an insult to his professionalism as well.
“Please…” Shred said.
Avo released the ganger. In the corner of the room, the bio-gunner was still groaning in pain, clutching at his neck. The lumbering bruiser continued groping against the tiles of the bathroom, palms smacking hard against the ground. “Don’t beg. Get mods. I leave. You live. Understand?”
Shred nodded. “Okay! Okay!”
“Nice job, ghoulie. So, I scrambled the drones and I’m thinkin’--”
“No,” Avo snarled. “No more thinking. Not from you. I get you the package. I finish delivery. But you have thought enough. Your plan caused this. Your lack of research. Preparation. Sloppy. Unprofessional. Shad the dive. Shad !”
A lull of static-charged silence followed. “I, uh–”
“Get drones over Gorge. Fly high. Need overwatch. Find how many Scalpers. Find where. Need exfiltration route through alleys. Streets open. Rig light. Direct run too dangerous.”
Chambers sighed. “Ghoulie–”
“No. No more talk. Do. No distractions. Action. Fix your mistakes.”
With that, Avo put Chambers out of his mind. He would have his reckoning with the enforcer later if he survived this. Now, he needed to do so preparation of his own.
He manifested his Whisper but held it in reserve. If he cast it out too early and got spotted by soone, the Scalpers would know sothing had gone wrong with the deal. With the gangers bare of any phantasmics, it wouldn't take much for them to deduce that another player was in the field. Probably a rival Syndicate. From there, assumptions of a double-cross would naturally follow.
Along with violence and bloodshed.
Avo needed to engage them at his leisure. Or better yet, avert combat entirely, despite the beast excitedly screaming for violence in his veins. High as the thrill was burning inside him, greater still was the numbness of his prior disappointnts.
Let himself be made a fool. Milk-run? Nothing was a milk-run in this city, in his current condition. His assumption that Mirrorhead would have prevented Chambers or anyone from making a mistake with his life was unfounded. He had forgotten to include the variable of rank incompetence landing him in a desperate situation.
Dragging a case out from under the bed, Shred half-pulled, half-punched in a series of icons on the case's holopad. His shaking hands resulted in two failures and a flow of unending curses.
Thirty seconds. More chattering from the outside. Scalpers sounded impatient.
A hissing series of clicks sounded from the case as Shred stepped back, pointing down.
“It’s all here, consang,” the ganger said, backing up against the wall, palms raised. “Fuckin’, take it and go.”
Inside the case was a small sealed tube with a translucent window. Picking it up, Avo watched as a cluster set of eyes floated by. His hunger quavered. A most appealing thought rose, one that had him eating the bioware right in front of Chambers out of spite. Hells, he might just do it for the taste. Carefully, he magnetized its backside to the armor on his thigh.
Turning to look at Shred, Avo let out a slow breath of displeasure. “Sorry. Didn’t want this. Will clear blemish with favor down the line. If you’re still alive.”
Confusion spread across Shred’s face. “What?”
Avo continued. “Get down on the ground. Shooting might start. Gauss will shred through plascrete. Got no armor. Shrapnel might kill you. Recomnd hiding under grav-bed.”
The beast wailed. It wanted Avo to kill the man, to sate both violence and thaumic demands. He ignored the urge. Instant gratification and lack of forethought got him into this. Just reacting was, at best, going to compromise the values of his father, and see him damned regardless if he didn’t correct his hubris.
As the ganger dove beneath the bed, Avo cast out his Whisper–thrusting it through the ground beneath him instead of directly through the door. The Scalpers were outside, but if he took a different angle, he could perhaps mask his presence amidst the thoughtstuff of the gangers in this building. Scry at the Scalpers from an angle.
Or he would have if he didn’t feel the awareness of a Specter splash up at him from a floor below. Awkwardly, their minds greeted each other, both unprepared, both sharing the sa plan to peer at their enemies from an angle.
Avo was the first to break free from the trance.
Driving his Whisper like a cleaver down upon the strands of phantasmal matter connecting the Scalper to his Specter, Avo felt his wards roar as he impacted and tore into the ntal shielding of another. Yet, Necrojack though the Scalper was, their defenses were static and their sequencing laughable. They used wards that were constructs sequenced to battlents of stone, starved of ghosts. Avo brought the hurricane that was his m-Guard down upon them.
COG-CAPACITY: 44%
Like churning wheat, Avo felt the walls protecting his enemy co apart in pieces, their surface thoughts dissolving over into his mind through a mutually blooming headache. Roiling pain and trauma exploded through his enemy as Avo watched them retreat, their thoughtstuff bleeding loose from their minds, spewing naked mories into the Nether. mories that ended up splashing over Avo’s Whisper.
Insight spiked inside Avo. Suddenly, he knew more than he did a mont ago–chaotic flashes of mories flooding through his tamind. There weren’t just five Scalpers, but twelve. They had other mbers on standby scattered across the building, guns already locked to the room.
Outside the door, Avo heard the whines of gauss weapons powering up. The ganger outside gasped in dismay.
“Whoa, whoa, hey, consangs, what’s the big–” the ganger began.
The sound of a blade slicing clean through flesh greeted Avo’s ears. A body fell. Servos sounded. The Scalpers were moving. He turned to run, making for the walls of the bathroom. With a thought, he activated his Phys-Sim.
Just in ti for the shooting to start.
Around him, walls exploded, and the ground shredded. Lancing shots tore through the room and carved gouges from the floor to the ceiling, the sheer force behind the projectiles tugging stumbles into Avo’s gait. Launching himself hard, he smashed out from the way he entered, walls crumbling before his mass as he dove into the open air before one of the Scalpers got lucky.
Crackling flechettes filled the air. A stray shot chipped across his shoulder. For the first ti, a light flash of yellow ignited through his rig integrity nu. The screaming wind cupped his guts as he fell, leaving him at the rcy of gravity and the utility bioform that Janand planted on him earlier.
He hoped the thing worked.
From this high, the stretch of Burner’s Way straightened out like the trunk of a tallic tree coated with cancer sores made from waste and debris. Flickers of thoughtstuff lined stray buildings, but looking down, Avo could see more pockets of emptiness than there was life.
Ten feet he fell. Twenty. His Phys-Sim was rapidly running calculations, trying to give him an estimation to impact. His rig would probably survive the landing, but he would splatter inside if the bioform didn’t open soon.
Inertia, again, was a cruel ruler.
Snapping fragnts of plascrete sheared out from behind him, pluming dust clouds tracing the trajectories of flechettes gone off target. Benefits of having decently maintained wards: Prevented you from getting m-locked.
Suddenly, a loud pop sounded along the back of the rig. Avo felt the balloon expand before he heard the low note of the bioform drawing in wind. Across his shoulders, a flesh lattice expanded out like tattered strands, slowly filling as the bioform respired. Air began to flow and the lattice expanded, unfurling wide to beco akin to a flesh-made sail held together by links of cartilage.
Avo felt his descent lurch as his new parasail caught its first draft of wind. Within the rig, he growled with satisfaction as he felt himself catch a gale of wind, riding upon its currents. His Phys-Sims falling numbers stabilized.
Good. At least Janand did good work. All he needed to do now was–
A flashing mote of light tore out from a distant alley and struck Avo in the chest. An impact trajectory manifested, but before Avo even saw the redness that was its color, the micro-missile detonated against his chest.
The rig scread, integrity exploding in a tide of orange, armor warping before the blooming shockwave. Inside, Avo felt his muscles absorb the impact the inner rig lining couldn't. Tendons snapped. He felt sothing inside him fracture. The bio-sail he was gliding on disintegrated, torn from his back as he was blasted back into the Gouge.
Spinning, tumbling, limbs twisting, and armor hissing, Avo crashed through two walls and scrambled on hands and knees into a room. People were screaming around him. Blurring feet and fleeing shadows shot past him. Children were sobbing.
Looking up, he found himself in a cramped living room, the haggard faces of a family staring back at him.
Avo drooled blood over himself and groaned, trying to shake off the dizziness. Chambers was cutting in and out. The HUD was flickering. Cracking with glitching errors. Half the optics were gone. “Sorry. About the room.”
Dazed, he pulled himself up using the walls and a stump-like holovision stand.
Another flechette crackled down through the ceiling, and the holovision burst apart. The family scread. More shots followed from above, the room was coming apart. Stumbling, Avo moved for the doors, smashing through as the family kept screaming.
Growling, he stumbled deeper into the structure, skull throbbing, flesh aching. External air was whistling into the rig. The armor had prevented the missile from punching through, but at a cost. Petals of twisted tal dangled free from his chest, the glow of a sparking power grid exposed. System errors rang through his mind as he pushed further down the hall turning.
Behind him, he heard whistling. Two dagger-sized drones swooped around the corner. They scanned and marked him. He, in turn, used his still functional Phys-Sim to make up for his rig’s failing systems and fired his precision cannon.
The shot threaded through both targets. The recoil-balancer pulsing from the back of his cannon cut a clean slice through the wall behind him. A good shot, though still a waste, obliterating two drones with a precision cannon made to kill light vehicle platforms. Of course, it would have been a bigger waste if he ended up dead.
More voices rose into screams. n. Won. Children. Animals. He was trapped in a gunfight among the choiceless. He didn’t want this. He didn’t–
Soone burst down through the ceiling above him, blades flashing.
On instinct, Avo fired his reflexes, and hellfire exploded through his nerves. He ducked back, barely evading the first slashes. The armor didn’t work well with his Celerostylus during the best of tis, and now it was like trying to keep focused while molten tal licked pain through his veins.
The Scalper that assailed him had two vibrating frequency blades extended like scythes across their shoulders. Their rig was the shape of a skeletal grasshopper, legs bent, arms jagged with autocannon barrels. With how fast they were moving still, they must’ve had so kind of reflex booster as well.
Probably one that worked with the rig, and didn't make them feel like they were coming apart from the inside.
The Scalper drove forward, barrels raised, blades rearing.
Avo, too consud by agony to play fisticuffs, slamd his Whisper into their wards again–this ti bearing a thought-shiv as a spear tip. His phantasmal dagger sank past their wards before they could bury their frequency blades into him.
GHOSTS - [41]
The Scalper cried out, toppling as their thoughtstuff shattered free like a dish breaking against a wall. Avo released his Celerostylus. He tried to right himself but ended up vomiting inside his rig instead. His limbs were twitching despite his struggle to control them. At his feet, the Scalper began to whine, a low keening of madness signaling the death of their personhood, their descent past the jaws of madness.
Lining a firing trajectory with his Phys-Sim, Avo put the Scalper out of their misery. The shot bifurcated clean through their head in a spraying mist of brain matter and titanium. Avo made it three more steps past the body before he toppled over himself.
Faintly, he could hear the whining servos of more rigs approaching along with the low hum of gauss guns spinning tungsten along their barrels. He tried to stand. His nerve clusters scread. His skull scread. His insides stung.
He was going to die here.
He was going to–
THAUMIC CYCLER: 30 thaum/c
SOUL ONLINE
ENGAGING THAUMIC CYCLER: 30 thaum/c
HEAVEN [SANGEIST] ONLINE
MANIFESTING HELL [FIRST CIRCLE]
HELLVENTS ACTIVATING: EJECTING REND
And, like an entropic fla tearing free from an alloyed cocoon, a gusting shroud of darkness poured loose from Avo’s very being as matter around him began to decay and dissolve. The floor flaked and crumbled away beneath him, peeling out of existence along with pieces of the Nightmantis.
Avo fell.
REND CAPACITY: 81% AND DROPPING…
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