We headed through the undersand tunnels and into our elevator while Elijah dove into the network and hijacked it. We headed up, only for the thing to shudder to a stop just a few floors before our destination.

  “Mara.” His voice came through our radios, strained and staticky. “I can’t. They-” He was cut off by a horrible scream.

  “Useless fucker.” Mara’s only response was mumbling those two words.

  We had a backup plan of course. We were prepared for things to go wrong in any number of ways, we just didn’t expect for it to happen this quickly.

  Every elevator has an emergency hatch on the top. We popped that open and climbed up just as it began to move. We put a bullet through the mechanism on top, causing us to freefall for just a few inches before the brakes kicked in.

  Along the wall of the shaft was a ladder. We headed up as quickly as we could, disabling the other elevators as we passed them.

  We made it to our destination just as the elevator doors began to slide open on every floor. We got through just as the gunfire started from both above and below.

  She took the front, and I the back. People moved through the hallways, both guests and guards. We didn’t have the time to identify which was which. Anything that moved went down, no exceptions.

  It was about that time that the alarms started blaring. Lights and noise filled the hallways, and people tried to get out. I hope most of them did, but I know not all of them survived.

  According to the plans we got our hands on, there was a room that butted up against the vault. We breached the room, and put down everyone inside.

  I put the explosives on the wall while Mara covered my back. Her reaction time with her upgrades was almost perfect, measured in the tens of milliseconds. People tried to take us down, but nobody got through the door.

  “Ready!” I yelled, and we both headed for the nearby wall. I made quick work of the drywall, and we busted our way into the next room, and another, and a third. Only then did I hit the trigger.

  Even with multiple rooms in between us and it, the sound and the shockwave hit me with such force I almost lost my balance. There wasn’t time for that though. We rushed back and into the vault.

  We had two big bags, and I got to work filling them up. I shoved millions into each of our packs, both chips and precious metals.

  “We can’t go back!” Mara yelled. The gunfire into the opening I made was constant.

  “Got it!” From my pack I grabbed thermite. I set it to work, burning a hole in the floor, and joined her at the breach.

  The two of us worked in unison. We’d been in this type of situation enough times to know how to keep each other covered, never letting them capitalize on us needing to reload.

  It only took a few minutes to get through the floor. They kept the metal of the floor less thick than the walls, assuming nobody would be dumb enough to try to enter from that direction. And I guess they were right.

  We jumped through the hole just as they were getting the entrance to the vault open. I can only imagine how many people were waiting there for us. Our body armor wouldn't hold up against more than a few shots from a single rifle, much less multiple.

  We dropped into a security office. The girl who was running the place had a pistol drawn, and put a bullet into Mara’s vest. She didn’t even react to the impact, just fired directly back. Her subdermal shock absorbers and pain dampeners meant she barely felt it.

  “What’s our plan?” I asked.

  “Blow up the room and move.”

  She forced open the only entrance, and I left behind a grenade before following her out.

  Yet another explosion rocked the building. That was most of their infrastructure knocked out. No more cameras, and any networked radios were offline. It wouldn’t be long before they got some sort of backup online, but whatever chaos we’d already caused? That just multiplied, we had an opening. All we had to do was get to the roof. How hard could it be?

  We knew people were coming for us. They could see the hole in the floor, they’d know we hopped through. They could be coming behind us at any minute, or storming down the stairs as we moved.

  We were prepared. We took the ladder in the elevator again. No cover, it didn’t even go all the way up to the roof, but it’d get us most of the way there. The important part, however, was that it’s not the first thought in people’s minds when they try to get downstairs, especially not when their comms were down.

  The elevator doors were already open and waiting for us. Mara went first, and I followed close behind. We could hear people running, it was sheer luck that nobody glanced inside, and the sound of their own panic masked ours.

  We made it. The floor seemed abandoned, and we made for the stairwell. Everyone should have been either downstairs reacting to the explosion, or protecting Five. The stairwell to the roof should have been clear.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  We turned the corner, and the unmistakable blast of a shotgun rang out. Mara stumbled back, clutching at her vest. I saw the agony on her face melt away as the pain dampener kicked in.

  “I should have known you’d want revenge.” Silver’s voice filled the hallway, quiet and even. If it wasn’t for the shotgun I wouldn’t have even been able to place the source.

  “Cover me.” Mara pulled a few plates out of her body armor and replaced them with fresh ones from her backpack.

  Silver didn’t move, didn’t push forward. They didn’t need to. There was one way onto the roof, and we weren’t getting past them. They knew we weren’t getting down past all the guards. We had backup plans, of course, but every decent one relied on getting to the roof.

  “Here’s the deal,” Silver continued. “Drop your loot, call your ride, and get out of my city. You don’t have to die here.”

  “Go fuck yourself!” Mara roared back. “Leave and I won’t gut you like a pig today!” Mara’s eyes glanced around, taking in our situation, remembering the layout. “Get me some cover.”

  “Got it.”

  I broke into the nearest apartment and began to drag out anything of use. Tables, couches, dressers, anything that had a chance of slowing a bullet and would break line of sight.

  “We’re hunkering down.” Mara said. “Until they move, we stay right here. Get the hallway blocked off.” She tilted her head behind us.

  “Ok.” Silver couldn’t stay on the roof forever, and we all knew that. The storm would chase them down and lock us in.

  I got to work reinforcing that floor. I blocked off hallways, created killzones, broke through walls to make escape routes. Mara just waited for Silver to make their move.

  I heard occasional fire from the stairwell. Every time I came back, there was a little more blood on the floor, and occasionally a guard that tried to make a move on us.

  People got smart enough to climb up the elevator shaft. My work got them killed though. They had two choices, follow the path I left open into Mara’s sights, or try to either climb over, or deconstruct my barricades. Both of them are loud. I’d just slip into a nearby room where I already had a hole poked through the wall and open fire. Their bodies just added to the barricades.

  We held out. Hours passed, and we just waited for Silver to make their move.

  I checked the windows often as the day passed into night, and it wasn’t long before we saw the storm on the horizon, blotting out the stars. Silver still hadn’t made their move. Their time was ticking down.

  The storm hit, and we still hadn’t heard anything from Silver. The thought crossed our minds that they found another way down, but that didn’t follow the stories we’d heard of them. They didn’t take risks when it meant they might fail. They wouldn’t abandon that staircase and risk us escaping.

  Turns out we were right. They stayed on that roof, under the blazing sun and freezing night, right up to the moment that the sand hit.

  That’s not to say they were idle, however. They worked, slowly, silently. Without so much as a creak, they pried up a section of the roof. When the storm came, they hopped down into the closet of a room I’d already ransacked.

  They were on the floor with us. That’s when the fight really began.

  Mara got suspicious when they didn’t come down the staircase. That suspicion saved us. We caught Silver sneaking up on us and opened fire. We didn’t so much as graze them. They moved so quickly. Gone before we could aim.

  Silver is incredible in the field. They move like nothing else. They had an implant tracking our barrels, letting them see exactly where we were aiming, exactly where it’s safe to exist. And they’re good at exploiting that.

  Silver’s skill against Mara’s reaction time and my planning? None of us were stupid. We wouldn’t take an engagement we weren’t guaranteed to win.

  It was constant jockeying for position. I’d expand the arena, making sure they couldn’t get the drop on us. Mara would keep me covered. And Silver? They moved slowly, silently. A ghost through the hallways.

  I’d never seen Mara enjoy herself more. We were good. Really, really good at what we did. Most missions we undertook didn’t push us. We’d sneak in quietly and do what we were paid to do, or burst in so quickly that nobody could respond. But this? An extended fight against an equal, where any mistake could be our last? She loved that. Lived for it.

  None of us slept for four days. We kept going by taking a little pill every few hours. As a side effect it made my heart pump loudly in my ears, every beat thundering against my chest, almost like war drums if you will. That was alright though. That was a reminder I was still alive.

  I kept working, kept us alive. I pulled down walls, made holes in floors and ceilings. Always made sure we had an out when Silver made their move, and always made sure I had a plan to prevent Silver from following.

  It was rare to see anyone else, any other guards. They didn’t stand a chance. Cybernetics were still rarely seen, almost unheard of, and Mara used that to her advantage.

  We ruined four floors of that skyscraper. It ended up as an ant’s nest. Tunnels and paths interlocking in random and often hidden ways.

  All that’s not to say we were perfect. Far from it, in fact. We took hits on both sides. Ran into traps we barely got out of the way of, barely got full face masks on before tear gas started flooding the floors, caught a few shots to our armor and got skimmed more than a few times.

  When the storm broke, Mara slung her rifle over her shoulder and stepped out of cover. She grabbed a radio off her hip and spoke into it.

  “You still good for pickup?”

  She got nothing back.

  “Looks like we’re walking out of here.” She picked her way through the rubble, not caring about anything else. We were an easy shot, and Silver could have been around any corner.

  They weren’t though. They were leaning against the wall, their shotgun at rest in their hands. I was ready, but let Mara take the lead.

  Silver pushed off the wall and grabbed a knife. With one movement they popped off the cover for the elevator’s call button. They had a jack at the base of their skull, just like me and Ivy. They plugged themself in, and a moment later every floor besides ours had their elevator doors slide shut.

  Mara walked past them wordlessly and began to climb down the elevator shaft. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I followed.

  We went all the way to the basement, and Silver followed closely behind. At the bottom floor Mara drew her rifle once again and nodded towards the door. I pulled it open, and the two of them stepped through.

  It was a short fight. By the time I drew and stepped inside, it was already over. The basement was empty. The three of us walked out of that building and into our new lives.

  “Why did Silver join?” I ask.

  “They felt the same way Mara did.” Vince answers. “If someone was as good as they were? The amount of opportunities that opens up is incredible.”

  Come join the Discord to talk about the chapter!

  Or come join my Patreon to get the next 20 chapters instantly for only 10 bucks, or 10 chapters for 5!

  Book 1 is for sale on Amazon in both paperback and ebook!

  Book 2 is also for sale!

  Book 3 is available here!