Snippet #2559303

In a word, Brian was done. He sighed to himself as he shuffled down the street, not really a rarity in the times, but a remnant of his father’s teachings and walks in the city. Brian generally liked just getting up and walking somewhere in the city, but right now he fumbled with his phone as he instructed it to call Darren. He sighed heavily into the air one time, relishing the sweet release as he waited for the writer at the other end to pick up.

“What’s up Bry?” came the cheery response. Or rather, smug. “Shut up Darren, do you realize that guy could talk the ears off of an elephant? Dude is a WINDBAG. A ROYAL windbag. I mean I get that the new T89 prototype has more efficient PET propulsion in it, and that can could cruise the entire length of the city faster than any other civvie car around, but JESUS you’d think he’s stop bullshitting me those same two lines over and over again for three hours.” “Hey, you asked for the work Brian. I just obliged.” Brian could hear the smirk over the phone and sighed again.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Didn’t tell me I was interviewing a thesaurus. You still game to meet at the bar later?” Brian asked, changing the topic to something a bit more light-hearted, because while his meeting had been… painful, he HAD asked for the work. Couldn’t argue that. “Sure, I’ll meet you aro---“

BANG

As Darren began to hash out the details of their friendly gathering a shot fired off. A SHOT. HERE.

Jesus, Bounty hunting was a real thing, but in the MIDDLE OF THE CITY? Seemed bad taste.

BANG

BANG
BANGBANGBANGBANG

Brian’s head swiveled towards the sounds of gunfire and he quickly sized up the situation.

It was not hard to analyze.

Two… gangs Brian temporarily labeled them were shooting at each other in the middle of the street. Great.

Brian cursed as people fled and he dove behind the nearest vehicle. Son of a…. Why did he have to get involved in THIS? He lifted his phone to his ear once again as his mind raced furiously.

“Bry..?Bry? You there? What was that!?” Came Darren’s voice from the phone, which Brian promptly ignored. “Get Yak on the phone.” He barked into the comm, repeating himself as Darren began to question him. Finally, a gruff voice came over the phone as Darren handed the phone over to Kevin Rudolph, AKA: Yak.
“This better be good Major.” Brian heard him barking into the phone “Oh trust me, this is going to be a FIELD day, big man. Coming back from the interview and now I’m in the middle of a firefight. About… I don’t know, 80 people firing at the start, didn’t get a good look. Don’t see any news crews yet, shit just went down.” Brian replied calmly.

There was silence for a second… Then… “JESUS, BRIAN, THEN TAKE SOME DAMN NOTES! DAMN THINGS WILL BE WORTH A FORTUNE IN A DAY OR TWO.”

Click.

Brian chuckled in spite of himself. Yak was always the same. Dude was the only reason the little company he worked for was still a head above water. He may be a little rough around the edges, but he sure knew how to make his people work.

Speaking of work, Brian pulled out and activated his pad, a blank screen popping up in front of him, and after a few keystrokes, Brian entered his notes program and had made a new entry, aptly titled: shootout.

Then he closed his eyes and focused. Focused on that little annoying part in the back of his brain he ignored 98% of the day, when he wasn’t playing hide-and-seek. He started to read the environment. He started to focus on his PET waves, expanding their radius slowly, searching for the two large sources of the railgun blasts, and with the amount of firepower going down, it wasn’t hard to find. Consciously isolating these two groups Brian began trying to glean what info he could. Seemed to be about 20 people left on one side…. Make that 21 with the one hiding behind the car a bit away from the group to the 17 on the other side. Neither side had any ridiculous PET users it seemed like, or at least, nobody was using PETs as far as he could tell with all the railgun blasts flying around. Speaking of, it was odd, one side’s railgun blasts seemed to be near universal in energy, meaning the same firearms, vs the mishmash on the other side. Seemed to indicate corporation or paramilitary on the side of order vs some sort of organized crime on the other. Interesting.

Brian opened his eyes, letting go of the small details in his head, but keeping the basic map of the battlefield in the back of his head (in case someone started heading at him, so he could book it). Then he began to write. He began to write all the notes he could think of, until he finally started to draw blanks. Now came the tricky part. Brian poked his head up and peeked over the hood of the thankfully still in-tact car he was hiding behind to get a look at these fighters with his own eyes.

At least he wasn’t bored of pompous windbags anymore, Brian mused.