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

The sound of gunfire erupted to life outside the doors of the warehouse, while Trace ran back to his apartment. He needed better guns, and fast. Luckily, his scout rifle and shotgun were still strapped to his backpack. All he actually needed to grab was the assault rifle and railgun.

The cameras had shown a lot of enemies, which is what the assault rifle was designed for. The railgun could do it as well, except there was one little problem, a lack of ammunition for it. The bolts it used while common looking at first glance were anything but. They needed to have high conductivity, while also maintaining their rigidity and high melting point, otherwise he would be firing little more than plasma.

The stock of bolts he had originally gotten with the gun was about to run out. He and Deckard had designed new bolts for it, but they were meant to be constructed on the CNC machine, not one of the 3D printers. They had even ordered a stock of metal for it.

In other words, both were likely one of the packages that was currently waiting outside the door. Not something he had access to at the moment, which meant he needed to be somewhat circumspect with his shots.

There was a reason you maintained different weapons for different occasions and specialties. Even if the railgun could be used for nearly every occasion, that didn't mean it was the best gun for each of those. Using it in that manner would be lazy, and downright harmful to his skills, among other things.

After getting snatched the last time, Trace had added the border alarms and cameras everywhere outside the warehouse. He had wanted to always know who was there and when. However, now he was realizing a flaw in that plan. It did him little good to know someone was there if he couldn't shoot back at them.

He needed to add portholes that could be opened and closed, through which he could shoot at will.

Currently, there were still only four methods of getting in or out of the warehouse, and as such, for him to shoot through. The massive warehouse doors, the smaller main door, the hatch on the roof, and then the door in the basement. All of which were locked, and in the case of the two doors on the main floor and roof hatch, had been upgraded since he moved in.

Still, that meant if he wanted to shoot at someone, he needed to crack open the main door, releasing all the bars that kept him safe. The warehouse wasn't exactly a bunker. The warehouse walls weren't thick enough for that, but it would keep him safe enough. Unless he did something stupid, like open the door and let them in.

Trace ran back to the door, keeping one eye on the camera feeds and the sound of gunfire.

Two of the men who had been carrying his packages were down. A mixture of blood and fluid from their cyberware parts pooled on the concrete around them. Near the bodies, their companions used his various packages as a cover behind which to fire.

The agent he had originally been speaking with, Hobin-Jin, was crouched behind a rusty container, blood seeping from a hole in his side. One of his arms had transformed into some kind of miniature grenade launcher. After each shot, he manually fed a new explosive round from the pouch on his hip into a newly opened hole in his bicep.

A dull thump resounded with each shot he fired, his body jerking violently from the force of the feedback. The grenades arced through the air for a moment before hitting the wall of a building. It exploded in a burst of flames and pressurized rubble.

Unfortunately, with the damage Hobin-Jin had previously suffered, he wasn't able to properly brace himself. As a result, each shot he fired was further damaging his body. You couldn't pass those sorts of forces through something that wasn't braced for it without suffering the consequences. In this case, the damage was being done to a large portion of the custom cyberware that had been installed on that side of his body.

If he survived this, he would be spending a lot of time in the surgery room. Vinna-Kwoi had spent a ridiculous amount of money to ensure that the process had been as seamless as possible for him the first time around. With the extent of the work done, they had needed to minimize the dangers of rejection and cyberpsychosis as much as possible. He wasn't sure they would be willing to go through that sort of expense a second time. His years of service to the corporation wouldn't even be considered.

Still, he continued to fire, his body shaking and twisting each time. The wound in his side quickly growing worse as the skin tore, and the original hole grew in size.

From inside the warehouse, Trace watched all of this with a furrowed brow. The damage from all the grenades flying through the air was beyond excessive, but it was definitely effective.

Deciding it was time to open the door, he unbolted the bars and opened it enough to squeeze the barrel of the scout rifle through.

He avoided aiming anywhere that the corpo man was firing and instead used the attached sniper scope to zoom in and pick his shots carefully. He was waiting for them to come closer before switching to the other weapons. However, for the moment, they all seemed content to wait, and simply fire from a distance.

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Trace found the situation odd and made sure to keep an eye on all of his cameras. There were people on the roof, though none were in the sewer. Regardless, for the moment, the other group simply seemed intent on taking out the corpos instead of breaking inside.

Opening the door a little wider, Trace tossed a couple of PlugDocs to Hobin-Jin. "Hey, you! What sort of trouble did you bring to my place? Why is a rival group of corpo agents shooting at you? If you want to get shot at, have the decency to do it somewhere else and not at someone's home!" He shouted in extreme annoyance.

The man took a moment from shooting his modified cyberware arm to plug up the large hole in his side. It took both PlugDocs to fill the gaping hole. Due to its size, the seal mixed with a clotting agent was weaker than normal and would only hold for as long as he didn't move violently about.

Hobin-Jin leaned against the rusted container and panted weakly. "Why are you blaming this on us? They could be here for you."

Trace gave the man a disbelieving look. "They're shooting at you, not me. Besides, I don't even know why YOU are here!"

He took a brief break from trying to get information from the man to shoot a few idiots who had popped into view.

"What do they look like?" The injured man demanded.

"Really? They're all wearing black getups! Are you some sort of idiot? What kind of kill squad would go around wearing their corporation's colors and logo? They have no identifying marks that I can tell."

The man weakly loaded a shell into his bicep, grunting at the pain each movement caused. "Can you tell how many there are left? Our reinforcements are still several minutes out by air."

Trace quickly scrolled through each of the cameras. "There are ten visible and I'm assuming even more that aren't. How many people did you bring?" He squeezed off a shot, tearing one of the shooter's fleshware arms off right below the shoulder. It hadn't been what he was aiming for, but it was undeniably effective as the man dropped beneath the edge of the roof with a pained scream.

Hobin-Jin grimaced, his face pale from blood loss and pain. "I brought a team of five. This was supposed to be a peaceful discussion, not… this!" He paused, breathing heavily. "Listen, I know you have no reason to trust me or even believe me – but we need to work together if we are going to survive this. Vinna-Kwoi won't let you just walk away if all of us die out here and you survive."

Trace's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he growled in annoyance. "What do you mean? What is going on here? Did you bring some of your stupid corpo nonsense to my door?"

Suddenly, the people on his roof began shooting at the Vinna-Kwoi agents who had been hiding behind his packages. Within moments, the remaining members of Hobin-Jin's team were dead, and he was sprinting for the door Trace was shooting from.

As soon as the man burst through it, narrowly missing the suppressor of the scout rifle with his eyes, Trace slammed the door shut and put the bolts into place.

"Great, now we're stuck. As soon as they breach the hatch above or cut their way through, we are dead." He grumbled pessimistically while grabbing his guns and bag. The other man could pick himself up from off the floor for all he cared.

Trace continued monitoring the cameras as he walked back to his apartment. He needed some time to think and something to drink. His mouth was dry, and currently the fridge with his water was in there, along with a desk and chair.

Getting out of this mess without Hobin-Jin would have been a piece of cake. He could have just gone through the sewers. Now, things weren't quite so simple. He finally remembered where he had heard the man's name before. His mentioning Vinna-Kwoi had been the key that did it. Stick-Point had mentioned the man a while back, saying he got a visit from him in relation to Trace's arm.

The matter had pretty much been settled due to how much his arm had been upgraded and changed, so he had forgotten all about it.

Now, it was looking as though he was the only one who had forgotten about the issue. Because here the man was, while his basement still contained a lot of questionable items in a freezer and a very visible personnel carrier. If he took the man down there, questions would be the least of his worries.

Behind him, the man in question stiffly rolled over with a groan. He held a hand to the wound in his side while his cyberware arm transformed back into a normal arm, ejecting the unused shell in the process.

"Are you going to get up or just lie there all day like a lump?" Trace called over his shoulder without looking back.

Inside the apartment, he dropped his guns and backpack on the desk and sat on the chair with a sigh of relief. Wheeling over to the fridge, he opened a bottle of cool water and drank heavily from it. He honestly didn't know how he would go back to constant cans of soda after this. After experiencing what true clean water was like, he had accidentally ruined everything else for himself.

He could probably still do it. After all, he could still eat literal trash if he needed to. But he was pretty sure his throat might rebel a bit more against this than his tongue did on the trash.

"I don't suppose you have a blood-gel I could take, do you?" Hobin-Jin asked when he eventually reached the door of the apartment a minute later. He had blood leaking between the fingers he had pressed tight against his wound. His slam against the door, and subsequent roll, had loosened the seal the PlugDocs had created.

Trace turned on the screen he had in the room and set it to display a scrolling view of the outside cameras. Afterward, he pulled his backpack into his lap and pulled out the first aid kit, retrieving the blood-gel as requested. The kit had seen a bit more use than normal in the last few days. He would need to restock it soon, or better yet, swap it out for one of the others he had just picked up.

He handed over the gel tablet along with a bottle of water while they watched the screen.

"Why didn't you warn us about the people on the roof?" The man asked after swallowing the tablet with a liberal dose of water.

"It was hectic, and the other people on your team couldn't hear us anyway. Besides, they weren't doing anything but sitting there for a long time. For all I know, they could belong to a third group." He turned to the Vinna-Kwoi corpo, and in plain sight of the man, put his hand on the desk near the assault rifle. "Now, why did you come here? What was this peaceful talk that had some other corporation's hit squad interfering before it even happened?"

The man sighed and reached out as though he was going to touch the screen. "Not some rival corporation's kill squad, I'm afraid. They might be covered, but I recognize them." He snorted. "I trained most of them. They work for Vinna-Kwoi, same as me."