Neon Dust [Progression Cyberpunk]

36 – Invasion

"What's going on?" Clementine asked, her wide-eyed face lit like a macabre mask in the red emergency lighting.

"We don't know yet." Addie walked over to the door and looked at the control panel. It had a manual lock lever on the bottom, so she pulled it, engaging a bolt lock. Then she scanned the room. There wasn't much to provide cover in there, but there were two doors—a closet and an en suite. She nodded toward the bathroom door. "Go in there."

"Why?"

"In case someone shoots through the door or wall." It was a thought that Addie might never have had but for the hours and hours of training she'd done with Tony. He loved to talk about cover and concealment and how most walls wouldn't do much to slow down modern bullets. "In fact, get into your tub." As she spoke, she drew her needler from its holster. Her weapon was loaded with botu-rounds—fast-acting paralytics—and they would most definitely not penetrate a wall.

"In the tub?"

Addie glared at her, still sitting in her chair, looking stunned. "Sweetie, please listen to me. Shepherd is guarding the door, but if someone gets past him, we don't want them to shoot you through the wall. Hurry up, now; we don't know how much—" A low whoomph shook the walls and rattled the figurines and jewelry on Clementine's dresser.

Addie focused on Humpty's feed and saw Tony crouched behind the corner where the hallway turned toward the front entry. The foyer was thick with white smoke that hissed in a billowing cloud from a canister just a few meters from Tony's position. She moved Humpty forward, but Tony waved a hand, catching her attention in Humpty's rear cam.

"Don't," he whispered, barely audible, even to Humpty's sensitive mics. "They're waiting outside the door, and they'll be ready to shoot anything that shows itself."

As Addie brought Humpty closer, he whispered, "I'm good here. Can you have Humpty check the rest of the apartment? They could be breaching a wall—the windows." He coughed and reached back to pull the hood from the high collar of his jacket, tugging it over his head and fastening it so it covered almost all of his face. Would that protect him from the smoke? No—not smoke, Addie corrected herself. It was gas.

While she carefully moved back to close the bathroom door behind Clementine, Addie piloted Humpty to the living room. All of the big windows were intact, so she zoomed through the kitchen to the dark hallway leading to the laundry room and utility closets. No sign of a breach presented itself to her, so she zipped the other way, back toward the foyer and Tony.

He was still holding his position, peering with one eye around the corner, staring into the dense gas. He'd told her to check the apartment, so Addie pushed Humpty up near the ceiling and drove him through the gas. He automatically flicked his visual input to infrared and lidar, mapping out the smoke-filled foyer as he went. Addie immediately saw the two humanoid figures, glowing red and orange, that slipped through the door.

She hesitated, wondering if there was some way she could tell Tony what she'd seen, but then she remembered that he had pretty good optics of his own. He's a pro, she mentally chided herself. Let him do his thing. She focused on getting Humpty moving again.

She drove him through the foyer and into the hallway leading to the bedrooms without getting shot, though Addie was pretty sure at least one of the figures crouching by the door noticed him; she'd seen a helmeted head jerk toward the drone's movement, but by then, Humpty was already zooming around the corner.

When she reached the end of the hall and the two locked doors leading to the primary suite, Addie stopped and increased the gain on Humpty's microphones. She didn't hear anything. What was she supposed to do now? Tony told her to check for other intruders, but not what to do if she didn't find any. The only thing she could think of was that he expected her to know what to do. Having found nothing, her priority was the same as earlier; she had to keep her eyes on Clementine. Tony would find a way to let her know if he needed help… Right?

###

Tony inhaled a tiny, shallow breath through his nose, watching the two orange figures crouched inside the doorway. He didn't think they knew he was there; he was only exposing part of his face when he peered around the corner, and his jacket and hood were supposed to mask his heat signature. So, what was it? Were they waiting for security? If they were waiting for someone to attack, they were pretty gutsy presenting themselves as bait. Tony didn't think that was it, though.

They were waiting for two things. One, they were gathering intel. He had a feeling someone was out there in the hallway, measuring vibrations. They'd be able to pinpoint Addie and Clementine, but they'd miss Tony for the same reason the other thing they were waiting for wouldn't work—he'd slowed his metabolism to a near stop so his nanites could deal with the toxic gas. His heart was hardly beating as his nanites took up the bulk of the oxygen delivery burden. The gas would've knocked him out otherwise. Hiding his presence from a vibration scan was just a happy bonus.

The only problem was that his nanites were quickly burning through his Dust. He had maybe five more minutes before he'd have to retreat and find some clean air to breathe. Tony wanted to shift his gun, but he couldn't move or he'd show up on their scan. More than that, it was easier for his nanites to keep his cells topped off if he was still. He watched the Dust counter on his AUI, figuring he'd start shooting when he was down to a minute or so.

Things didn't come to that, in any case. A few seconds later, two more figures slipped into the foyer and pushed the badly damaged door closed. Tony only knew that because it still carried some residual heat from the charge they'd used to breach it. With all four of them in his sights, he decided he wouldn't get a better opportunity. Tony lifted his shotgun, set his sights right in the center of the group, and squeezed the trigger.

His gun was still dialed down so it wouldn't penetrate walls, which would decrease its effectiveness against body armor. The upside was that it would take less than a second to prime the capacitors between shots. Zwap! Zwap! Zwap! Zwap! Each shot delivered a wide spray of polymer-coated, ferrous tungsten pellets, rapidly depleting his ammo cannister, but Tony didn't mind—it was for a good cause.

He couldn't see exactly what was happening in the dense gas that hung in the air like white cotton candy, but he heard the rattle of the rounds bouncing off the steel-reinforced door. He heard the grunts of the invaders, and then he heard their returning fire—the muted stutter of a suppressed SMG, the thwip-thwip of a needler, and then the clank and rattle of something being thrown Tony's way. Apparently, he hadn't killed them all.

Tony turned and dove down the hall, sliding on the polished marble as a tremendous bang sent his low-rent audio implants buzzing. The flash of light that illuminated the entire great room ahead of him told him it had been a concussion grenade, and he'd just barely gotten out of the effective range. Tony used his mechanical arm to propel himself off the ground, and he sprinted toward one of Ross's expensive leather couches, launching himself down into the conversation pit and over the back of the furniture.

When he hit the plush carpet and shattered the coffee table with his mechanical elbow, the furniture around him began to explode in showers of loose foam stuffing. Tony could barely hear the automatic gunfire thanks to the malfunctioning "Giga-ears" he'd installed. "Nora," he hissed, "do something about the feedback!"

Her voice was muted and hard to discern through the buzzing, "I'm trying, Tony, but these micro devices have a very limited interface."

Groaning, Tony crawled to the end of the couch, happy to see that Ross's taste for expensive furnishings was paying off—the couch was holding up against the low-velocity ammo the invaders were pumping into it. "Holding up" might be too generous, he corrected himself; it was getting shredded, but at least the rounds weren't passing through to him. He knew another grenade was imminent; it was what he'd do, so he waited for a lull in the gunfire, then leaped over the far couch, beelining for the kitchen.

Either he was psychic or lucky as hell, because he'd just slid behind the island when another concussion grenade obliterated the expensive vases and sculpted art Ross had placed around his seating arrangement. Tony snatched his pistol out of its holster and scooted to the far side of the island, peering around the corner toward the hallway. Two men stood there in the opening. Their confident posture told him they were wearing body armor and that it had been good enough to withstand his earlier shotgun assault.

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"That's what I get for dialing it down," Tony muttered. Before they decided to move, he slid out a bit more and extended his arm. His pistol was loaded with high-pressure ammo with armor-piercing jackets, so he snapped off two rounds at each figure, aiming for the face. The first one fell, limp as a soggy noodle. The other one was damn quick and reacted to Tony's first two shots, moving just enough so the follow-up rounds hit the side of his helmet as he dove for the dining table.

Tony chased him with more bullets, and he was pretty sure a few connected, but the guy wasn't dead, and soon the rattle of an SMG sent him back into cover, sliding along the marble toward the other side of the island. He heard a crash and poked his head around the corner only to find the heavy dining table had been tilted onto its side. He had no visual on his enemy. Tony took cover again and glanced toward the hallway leading to the foyer. Had more than two survived his initial assault? If so, would the others flank him, or was Addie in trouble?

###

Considering some of the invaders might come her way, Addie found herself concerned about Humpty. He was a sitting duck out there in the hallway. So, using his cameras to ensure nobody was coming, she hurried to the bedroom door, disengaged the manual lock, and then called him to her. Once he'd slipped into the room, she hastily pushed the door shut and reengaged the lock. Door secured, she crossed the room to the bathroom and sent Humpty in.

"What's happening?" Clementine asked, peering out from the big soaker tub. It was some kind of plastic, so probably not bulletproof, but it was better than nothing.

"Some people are breaking into the apartment."

Clementine's breaths grew shallow and rapid at her words, and she started climbing out of the tub. "We have to run! This bathroom isn't going to protect us! Doesn't my dad have a safe room? My mom would never—"

Addie hurried over to her and put a hand on her shoulder, trying to keep her from getting out of the tub. "The power's out, and so is Inez. Even if your dad has a safe room, we couldn't get in. I know this seems dumb, but that tub will stop shrapnel and needler rounds or anything like that. It's better than nothing. Besides, if those creeps want to take you, they have to get past Shepherd and me."

"T-take me? You think they—"

The unmistakable sound of Tony's electro-shotgun echoed strangely through the apartment. It wasn't just the buzzing, zapping sound of the gun, but the cacophonous pings of its payload hitting metal and marble that cut Clementine's words off.

"What's that?" she asked, grabbing Addie's wrist and squeezing to the point that her pretty, manicured nails dug into her flesh.

"That's Shepherd." Addie reached down with her free hand, gently tugging the girl's fingers, one by one, unpeeling them from her wrist. She hadn't noticed the tiny painted cat faces on her thumbnails before, and their incongruity with the situation made her smile. "I like your nails," she said. "Now, let me go into the other room. I'll close that door and—"

More gunfire erupted, and it was definitely not any gun Tony had brought along. It sounded like a lot. "Is that Shepherd, too?" Clementine asked, her voice strained.

Addie had to concentrate to keep her face from showing her own burgeoning panic. She nodded. "As long as we hear stuff like that, it means he's still fighting." She gently pushed Clementine's shoulder. "Come on now. Get down. Something could come through a wall." That got the girl's attention and, with wide, tear-filled eyes, she slid down into the tub, curling into a fetal position at the bottom. "Good girl. Now just stay there and think about something nice—something you're looking forward to. This will all be over soon."

Addie wished she could believe her own words as she slipped back out of the bathroom. She'd only just closed the door when a concussive boom shook the walls, then everything was quiet. In the void of noise, she heard Clementine's shuddering, panicked breaths coming from the bathroom. Addie pressed her left hand to her chest; it felt like her heart was going to pound its way out of her.

Her palms were sweating, but the needler grip was coated in some kind of high-tech material that wicked it away. Licking her lips, Addie looked around the pretty little bedroom, trying to think of a plan. Over and over, though, a single thought kept asserting itself: was Tony dead?

She shook her head. "No way. It would take more—" More gunfire erupted, and this time the sound brought a smile to her lips. "There we go. Keep giving 'em hell, T." Her spirits bolstered, Addie moved over to a dresser, put her gun on top, and then shoved it away from the wall. She pushed it over the rug until it was in front of the bathroom door, leaving just enough space to open it if she had to. Then, she picked up her pistol, stood behind the dresser, and aimed it at the door. "Come on, creeps."

Another boom rattled the walls, but this time, Addie only had a few seconds to wonder if Tony was okay before the bedroom door shook and rattled. Someone was trying to force it open. Her heart was racing so much that she swore she could feel her blood rushing through her ears. Another thud and the door, some kind of plastic or fiberglass composite, bowed away from the frame, but held.

Addie tried to will herself to stop shaking, to stop breathing so rapidly and shallowly, but the dam had burst, and her body was chock-full of adrenaline. She realized her targeting reticle was bouncing all over her AUI, and she saw her hands were shaking. What had Tony said about gunfights when they'd been training? She could almost hear his voice echoing in her head:

Ads, the worst thing about a gunfight is knowing it's coming—and having to wait. Your mind does all kinds of shit to try to psyche you out. For me, though? Once it starts, everything slows down. I feel like icy water washes over me. That's how I picture myself—like a glacier sliding through the scene. Calm, steady, unstoppable. The trick, though, even if you're not made of ice? Just breathe. Just breathe and let your body do what you trained it to do.

###

While the guy behind the table sporadically showered the kitchen with rounds, hoping to get lucky, Tony holstered his pistol and picked up his shotgun. He focused on the gun's UI elements, dialing up the power to a hundred percent and then narrowing the shot pattern by about half. The readout said he had three more shots with those settings.

"Good enough," he growled, waiting for the asshole to finish his latest volley. If he'd had his old audio implants and his old PAI, he could have pinpointed his position from the sounds of that gun. As it was, he'd have to make a quick decision. When the gun fell silent, he counted to one, then stood, pointed his gun at the table, and said, "Now, Nora."

The table was a solid piece of engineered wood made to look like cherry, and when Nora fired Tony's "Widowhook," it burst from his forearm in a shower of sparks, then smashed into the table, punching through the wood, spraying splinters out the backside. Tony braced his feet, and then Nora activated the retraction gears, and the impossibly thin, nano-fiber cable reeled into his arm with a buzzing whir. The hook caught in the wood, but it hardly slowed the retraction, and the table flipped over, flying over the marble floor toward the kitchen.

Nora stopped the retraction just in time for Tony to take aim and blast the armored figure lying prone, no longer covered by the table. The crackling zwap was much louder this time as the magnets propelled the heavy tungsten-core rounds down the barrel, and the home invader screamed as his armor failed to save his legs from getting perforated. Tony adjusted the barrel slightly and squeezed again. After a quarter of a second's delay, the magnets engaged, and the shotgun bucked as another deadly payload blasted out and turned the poor bastard's midriff to a semi-liquid paste.

Tony slid overtop the kitchen island, charging to the fallen table—he had to unhook himself. "Nora, are we still jammed? Any word from Addie?"

"I'm sorry, we're still jammed."

Tony knelt, grunting as he wriggled the hook out of the table. He didn't watch as Nora finished retracting it; he was already running for the hallway. He had to get to Addie.

###

The door shuddered again, and this time it gave—the bolt splintering the doorframe as it burst from its housing. Addie hadn't fully mastered her nerves, but her intentional breathing had brought her gun under control, and she was ready. As soon as the door flopped open, she focused on the dark opening and saw not one, but two heavily armored figures standing in the opening.

Tony had trained her to look for soft spots on people—You've got a needler, Ads, not a hand cannon—but she didn't see any soft spots. She'd never seen armor like these guys were wearing… Actually, that wasn't true! Despite the urgency of the situation, she couldn't help taking a fraction of a second to freak out, realizing they were dressed like Black Talons—Boxer corpo-sec elite. Her mind might have been spinning, but her fingers knew what to do. She thumbed the full-auto setting and held the trigger down.

The high-end flechette pistol hummed like an angry wasp in her hand as it rapidly dispersed its payload. Addie watched her counter drop from 45/45 to 23/45 in just a pair of heartbeats as she carefully shifted her aiming reticle around the two figures' faces and necks, praying her needles might find a gap in that dense, black armor. When the gun spat its last poisoned dart, though, both figures were still standing—and one of them even laughed as he pushed into the room.

He lifted his bulky, mean-looking gun to his shoulder, but the other held out a hand. "Hold on. Is that the target? One of the pics had red hair."

"Uh…"

Addie watched him lower his gun, tilting his armored head. He was trying to decide if he should execute her. They were going to kill her and take Clementine. For what? A ransom? Something worse?

What about Tony?

Hot tears filled her eyes, and she stood up, dropping her empty pistol. Fury and terror warred for control of her thoughts, and fury won. She lifted her left hand, pointed it at the man in front—the one who'd been about to shoot her—and let her consciousness drift into the Dust that swirled like an ocean of warm, sun-drenched potential in her chest.

"The hell is she doing? Surrendering?"

"Why are her eyes—"

With a tremendous crack, a bolt of blinding, purple-tinted lightning erupted from Addie's palm and poleaxed the man in the chest. The lightning persisted, arcing from her to the gunman in a sustained current that melted his dense polymer armor and turned his flesh to ash. It jumped, exploding from his smoking corpse to transfix his partner—doing the same to him.

When the lightning faded, Addie felt a wave of vertigo. Then dark tunnel walls closed in on her vision, and she could do nothing but welcome the blackness, happy to put off facing whatever grim, lonely reality awaited her.