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

Trace took the vibro-blade out from under his back, turned it on, and threw it over his shoulder all in one smooth movement. He had no time to spare and put everything he had into that one attack.

The corpo agent dropped his collar and spun away, as he caught a hint of movement from the corner of his vision.

The knife, which had originally been aimed at the man's back, instead pierced his side. The vibro-blade dug in deep, cutting through the armor he was wearing like it wasn't even there. It promptly began wearing a groove down the man's side, making the injury worse by the second.

With a cry of pain and rage, he tore it out and tossed the knife away, sending it skittering away under one of the many desks.

While he was busy doing that, Trace bit his lip, quickly curled up, and retrieved the foldable stiletto blade from his boot. It was less dangerous, in that it was a normal knife, but it would do in a pinch. It would have to.

The agent stumbled back; one hand pressed against the severe gash in his back that was bleeding freely. The other hand fumbled for his knife, something that he hadn't done in years. The shock of the sudden attack, mixed with the sheer amount of damage it had done, had him off balance.

The man was used to being in control of the situations he found himself in. He prided himself on it and had found no small measure of success due to that. G1gl3Myte even trusted him due to the care he normally took.

Yet, at that moment, something he hadn't expected or been prepared for came about. Trace should have been thoroughly injured. His neck and lower back had been hurt to a point where he couldn't even do anything. He had seen his boss hurt the younger man. Heard the muscles tearing in his neck and watched how he crumpled to the floor after being hit in the back by G1gl3Myte's powerful fist.

Those weren't things that anyone should have been able to simply shake off. Not without a lot more cyberware than this boy had.

His hip bumped into a nearby table, and he growled in pain as it threw him off even more. All of a sudden, it was just one thing after another. The downside to always being in control was that you never learned to handle unexpected situations, which is what he was finding himself in now. So, while he was likely less injured than Trace, mentally he was in such a fragile state that every mistake compounded on the next.

All of the blood he was losing was making the floor slippery and was just one more problem he suddenly found himself unprepared to deal with. His boots were designed to be quiet and provide support for his ankles. They weren't your typical soldier boots with plenty of grip on the bottom. That hadn't been what he wanted at the time. Now he was regretting that choice.

Trace watched the man slip and slide on his own blood, the agent's face quickly growing more flustered and pale, his eyes were frantic and spinning wildly in his head. Trace struggled to get his feet underneath him. The nanites had taken care of the initial pain, but the fracture and weakness that it brought were still there. His legs were shaking as his back protested at the sudden abuse.

The situation was made more difficult by his need to hold his neck completely still. A task that was hard to do with the muscles torn and barely functional. Every time he moved, his neck ached, and pain shot through different portions of his skull.

He had one hand pressed against his neck, while the other held his knife outstretched at the man.

Neither were in the best of conditions at the moment, but there was little doubt in Trace's mind that the corpo agent could still eliminate him with little effort if desired. The only reason that he hadn't so far was because those hadn't been his orders, and now he was thoroughly off balance.

That wouldn't last long, so he needed to take advantage of the opportunity while he could.

With a veritable war cry, he pushed away from the desk that he had used to help get to his feet. The pain was nearly overwhelming as he ran toward the man. Trace wasn't originally a very heavy person, and he still wasn't. However, the introduction of his cyberware arm and all the pieces that had been needed to be reinforced had made him far heavier than normal.

A weight that his damaged spine was now protesting at.

Still, he couldn't exactly stop moving, not now that he had started. He would only have one chance at this and needed to act before the agent regained himself.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out that way.

He was still two steps away from him when the agent finally got himself under control. Every breath was coming fast, and despite the pressure he was putting on his wound, blood was leaking through the gaps in his fingers. Despite that, at least he could now think clearly enough to know that he needed to fight back and move away from Trace.

Stolen story; please report.

None of which Trace could allow him to do. His mind was working furiously, desperate to come up with some method to distract the man. An idea came to him, but it had a low chance of success, in his opinion. Normally, that would be zero. The small chance that did exist only came because of the man's current mental state. Hopefully, he hadn't fully recovered from his earlier episode.

Staring directly into the agent's eyes, he sent him a point-to-point message. It contained nothing but gibberish, but the important thing was to distract the man. All he needed was a chance.

Which he got.

The shadow agent's eyes flickered to the side. It was only for a moment, and it would have been too short of an opportunity for Trace to capitalize on… That is, if he hadn't slipped on the blood constantly dripping from his heel.

But he did, sending him toppling over backward, his head narrowly missing the edge of a nearby desk. Determined not to miss this chance, Trace pulled his arm back and threw the knife.

A folding stiletto knife is not a great throwing knife. They are typically ill-weighted, and this one was no different. All the practice Trace had been performing in the learning modules came into play here. Though, admittedly, the incredibly short distance involved helped as well.

In this case, it wasn't the blade that hit the target, but the heavier blunt handle end of the knife. The base of the folding knife hit the agent's cyberware eye with a clink, pressing it into the back of his socket painfully.

He cried out and grabbed his damaged eye with both hands, momentarily forgetting the need to keep pressure on his wounded side.

Not letting the chance pass, he had worked so hard to orchestrate go to waste, Trace took several more steps. As soon as he was above him, he collapsed on the man's chest, knees pointing downward and letting them dig into his sternum.

There was a great huff of air, along with the sound of ribs cracking as they broke underneath his weight.

With a pained groan of his own, Trace found it hard to breathe for a moment as he slowly rolled off the now unconscious agent. That had hurt so much more than he had been expecting. His neck was on fire from the jostling, but it was the impact on his already damaged spine that was bringing tears to his eyes and making it hard to breathe.

It hurt so bad!

After a minute of laying there, struggling for breath, he finally had enough thought to search the man's pockets and regain his weapons. He had never even learned the agent's name, and perhaps it was better that way.

A few moments later, he had his revolver back in its holster, and the suppressed pistol was in its own designated holster. The foldable stiletto had been recovered as well and stuffed back into its hiding place in his boot. Now he just needed to retrieve his vibro-blade.

At least he was feeling more secure now, with his normal weapons back in hand.

He doubted they would be useful against G1gl3Myte, but the illusion of safety was there.

The android hadn't mentioned when he would be down to torture him. That meant he could already be on his way, or Trace could have anywhere from minutes to hours to prepare or even escape.

From his place on the floor, Trace started looking around the area, trying to come up with some sort of plan. He spotted his vibro-blade quickly enough and began scooting over to it, leaving the slowly cooling body of the agent behind. Trace had used the man's own knives to put a few extra holes in him while frisking his body for weapons and other items.

There were dozens of small knives strapped to the man, but no gun. He was wearing a dual-bandolier full of blades underneath his coat, while the inside of the coat was layered with more knives. The man had definitely had a favorite weapon and from how easily he had handled them before; he had been good with them. Given the chance, he would have made Trace into a pincushion.

He took the bandolier but left all the extra knives inside the man's coat.

With the vibro-blade in its sheath, Trace worked to get himself into a chair at one of the desks. It had been impossible to get a proper view of the floor layout while laying on the floor. There were too many desks, tables, and other items cluttering the area that obstructed his view.

Now that he was sitting down on a chair that could move, things were a little easier. It still hurt to sit, but at least now he could move around.

Quickly pushing off the nearby desk, he scooted over to the elevator and pushed the button. It lit up red, and a cross appeared over it. Angrily, he punched the button with his cyberware fist, forcing it an inch into the wall, and sending cracks all across the ruined still red screen.

Calling for the elevator was apparently not an option. Either it was locked to the people who worked there, or after sending everyone away, the agent had done something. It didn't really matter which, as it meant he was stuck in any case.

Giving up on leaving the floor for the moment, Trace began scooting from desk to desk, going through each of their drawers. Some of the computers were still unlocked, and any time he saw one of those, he would begin copying all the files on it over to one of the data prisms he had found in the drawers.

It was a potentially pointless endeavor, but it helped to keep his mind from focusing on G1gl3Myte coming to murder him. It also didn't take that much time. Stick the prism in place, type a few quick commands, and then move on to the next desk.

The drawers at each desk all seemed to contain data prisms, and roughly half of them were unformatted and unused. The rest already had some form of data on them. He didn't do anything more than throw them in a bag one of the scientists had left behind and move on.

He was looking for something useful, but so far all he had found were items that, while he would have loved to find normally, were less than useful in the current circumstances.

There were no blood-gels, PlugDocs, or other infinitely useful items. No, it was all technical research and tools! Somehow, a few still made it into the scientist's bag, but the longer he spent down there, the more desperate and paranoid he grew.

Surely, G1gl3Myte had to know something was up by that point, right? There were cameras everywhere. There was no way he was just going to exit the elevator, completely unaware that his agent had already died at Trace's lucky hands.

All of which begged the point. Where was he, and what was taking him so long?