Created G.H.O.S.T. System - A Cyberpunk Story

The kitchen and pantry had a few items they could bring back to sell. The grow room had seeds in abundance, which along with the lights, meant Trace was partially considering creating his own garden in his basement.

The real haul was without a doubt the canned food though. At least, that was the case until Monroe called him back into the main room.

"Hey Trace, can I get your help with these documents?" He called out. "My eyes aren't quite good enough to scan some of the more damaged ones. I keep losing too much information in the process." He explained once Trace joined him in front of the desk.

"Let's see." He examined the pages that had been carefully spread across the top of the desk.

The paper had crinkled and cracked due to age, tearing at the slightest pressure, or simply crumbling entirely. Some of them had also suffered damage from insects, though not as many as he might have thought. It was obvious why Monroe had been having difficulty with the pages. Despite the care he had taken, they were in bad condition.

Trace ran his eyes through several different enhanced spectrums, ensuring that even the faded spots had been properly recorded. "Well, I obviously can't do anything about the sections that are missing entirely, but I think I have everything on these pages. Let's flip them over so I get everything on their reverse sides."

Together with Monroe, he spent the next while recording everything he had managed to find in the desk drawers. It took more time than anything else due to the care they needed to show each page.

They had just finished the process when some visitors arrived. The sound of boots crunching rubble rang through the otherwise silent space, reaching Monroe and Trace's ears instantly.

Sharing an annoyed look, they reached into their back pockets and took out their earbuds. For the explosion, holding their ears had been enough. However, if they were going to have an actual gunfight in the enclosed quarters of the bunker, then they were going to need more ear protection. With a nod, they flicked off the flashlights.

Trace would take the lead this time, for the simple reason that his guns were suppressed. Monroe went for heavy firepower, the kind that tore through armor. He would take care of anything that Trace couldn't.

Given enough time, Trace would have preferred to use the shotgun currently strapped to his bag. It was still pretty quiet, and it packed a mean punch. The method of taking it off the bag wasn't exactly the quietest though, which would alert the enemies of their position. Under the current circumstances, all he could do is stick with his CD-10 pistol.

It wasn't the strongest gun on the market by a long shot, but it was quiet and that was usually enough.

Trace flicked his vision over to blackout mode and moved over to the corner of the room. His movements were whisper silent as he unconsciously used the stealth steps that he had been learning.

Carefully poking his head around the corner, he stared down the corridor and waited for the intruders to come into view. He would have used the scope mod; except he needed his eyes if he wanted to see in the dark.

Whoever these people were, they were being careful. Outside of the first-time making noise, no more had reached his ears. They definitely knew people were still down here. Well, the truck parked up above sort of gave that away.

The earbuds were designed to actively cancel noises above a certain volume, although they could be controlled somewhat depending on your preferences. That meant they weren't interfering with Trace's ability to hear in these circumstances. The people sneaking toward them were actually being that quiet and careful on their own.

Not that it helped them when they eventually stepped into view.

Trace slipped his finger onto the trigger as he prepared to fire. At the back of his mind, he noted that they weren't dressed like normal raiders, but that was as far as the thought got. It didn't matter who they were when they snuck in behind someone else, fully armed and armored. People like that didn't have good intentions.

As he attempted to aim, he discovered the downside of the scope on the pistol. Since it was pitch black in the bunker, he couldn't aim with it at all. It did still have the original targeting reticle that he used in conjunction with the scope. Only now, he had to quickly disable the scope entirely and go back to just using the reticle.

It was a matter of seconds, but in the still darkness, the outline of his gun stood out clearly to their own night vision glasses. In the time it took him to disable the scope, he had lost the element of surprise.

No longer caring, he started firing at them while bullets rained down on his corner, chipping away at the concrete.

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Moments later, Monroe appeared behind him, pushing him down into a crouch so he could shoot over his head. "I thought you were supposed to be the sneaky one?"

"I never said I was any good at it!" Trace shouted back, trying to be heard over the cacophony of bullets and their earbuds, dimming everything. "I'm trying to get better, but without a proper teacher, I keep making stupid mistakes."

Which was more or less what had happened this time. Although, experience was its own teacher. In the future, he would know not to put the barrel of his gun around the corner until he was ready to take the shot. He also now knew to turn off some settings, not only on his gun, but a few others had occurred to him as well that he would make a note of later as well.

The muffled roar of Monroe's assault rifle firing in semi-auto mode began to reverberate through the corridor. The man was mostly firing blind at any muzzle flash he saw.

Concrete chips flew through the air cutting into Trace's cheek and making him wish he had his stealth suit's helmet. These corpo jack-nobs weren't messing around. They were firing armor-piercing rounds. What sort of squad did that? Even the hit squads who had shown up at the warehouse hadn't been using those.

A bullet pinged off the front of his CD-10's suppressor, tearing a groove through the metal even as it ruined the extension. The grip his cyberware arm had on the gun had been absolute, and he would need to perform some maintenance on the gun and his wrist as a result. The jerk on his arm pulled him slightly farther into the corridor, exposing his face and chest. It was an opportunity they didn't miss as several rounds hit his armor, sending him stumbling backward.

Thankfully, not every round was armor-piercing, only one in three or so it seemed, or maybe it was a specific person. He had no idea; all he knew was that most of the shots had failed to penetrate his armored vest. One, however, had led to a new hole right beneath his ribs.

"You alright?" Monroe shouted, continuing to fire at anything that lit up. Unknowingly, he had already taken out several of them through his efforts.

"I'll live for now, but I seem to have sprung a leak," He said through gritted teeth, as he got back into position.

With a growl of annoyance, he leaned against the wall and holstered the damaged gun. He waited for the thundering of his heart to slow before taking hold of the railgun and bumping down its power and switching it to full auto. There was no point in even trying to pretend at being silent at this point. Not now that everyone else was firing unsuppressed cannons in the bunker.

He hoped the other side went deaf if they somehow managed to survive this.

Sticking his finger on the trigger, the capacitors began to softly whine as they rapidly charged. Popping partially back around the corner with the railgun at the ready, he immediately squeezed the trigger, sending a constant stream of bolts down the corridor. It took only a few moments for the last of the enemies to fall dead to the ground. The railgun in full auto, in close quarters like this, was more effective than Trace had initially expected.

You just had to be willing to ignore all the noise it created.

Above him, Monroe groaned and slowly slid down the wall, his assault rifle knocking into Trace's head as he fell.

"Hey, be careful," Trace cried out, rubbing the top of his head. He carefully spun around as the large man fell to the ground behind him. "Monroe? Are you alright?"

He flicked on his flashlight, switching vision modes as he upped the gain to help him see better. The still form of his partner, who had been in black and white, became fully visible and now in color. Blood was pooling underneath his body from two separate holes. He had been hit twice, once in the bicep, and the second time a couple of inches beneath the collarbone. The bulk of the blood was coming from the second hole.

Trace's wound was serious, but the nanites were working to keep him from immediately bleeding out. He would need to plug the hole at some point, but his injury was far less serious than Monroe's.

Working as quickly as he could in his own injured state, he placed the railgun on the ground and took off his backpack. Ever since he had come across them in that first scav den, he had taken to keeping a first aid kit on him whenever possible. There was one in his bag and another larger one in each of his vehicles.

Taking out the kit, he removed the PlugDocs and quickly inserted four of them into the giant of a man. He was so oversized that despite one being the normal amount for holes in most limbs, Trace still had to use two on his bicep. It wasn't supposed to matter if the bullet went all the way through or not, as the sealing and clotting agents were meant to handle most occasions. That was what made them so useful, people could put them in themselves without worrying about the back.

Unless your name was Monroe, apparently, or you were stupid enough to get shot in an area like the ribs. That was, of course, going to be farther apart and require more than one PlugDoc to seal up. Trace's own hole in the chest would require two as well, for the same reason.

After struggling to shove the PlugDoc into the exit hole in his back, Trace collapsed on the floor, breathing like a fatty chasing his last cheeseburger. The blood loss combined with the stress of the situation and adrenaline had left his body in a temporarily weakened state. Then there was the light-headedness that came with his heart beating fast enough to escape orbital velocity inside his chest. Both of them needed to consume a couple of blood-gels to offset what they had lost, quickly.

He groaned weakly and rolled over onto his knees, attempting to stand. He might not be doing too well, but Monroe was definitely doing worse. He needed to find some way to get the big man back outside and into the truck so he could drive them to the nearest mender.

Which was probably back in New Denver. The scarpo towns tended to have slicers, not menders, or they had been sharing Hannah, who was now indisposed as she recovered from a forced surgery.

Using the nearby wall as support, he slowly got to his feet, and after placing the railgun, and Monroe's assault rifle and bag on the man's chest, he grabbed his large cyberware arm and began to pull.

His own chest screamed in protest at the abuse, but the man slid a few inches across the dusty floor. He might make it to where they had blasted the door open, but there was no way he would be able to get the man into the truck.

Oh, well, that was future Trace's problem.