Brian Major's Story

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.

Huey moved in closer to the fight one piece of cover at a time. Honestly, it might not have been that necessary to be so careful; the two sides were 100% focused on each other. As he got closer, he could see in far more detail about what was going on. He first saw a woman charge down and kill some of the mobsters like she was just going for a simple stroll. Another person was hiding behind cover-- was he taking notes? Huey supposed he must have been some kind of reporter or something. There was also... wait a minute, was that Guy? What on earth was he doing here, last Huey knew he had a nice job fixing up broken stuff. Why on earth did it look like he was trying to get into this fight with only a wrench?

He suddenly threw himself to the side as a bullets started to spray the area he had been standing. Some of the stray bullets that would have hit him were stopped cold by his kinetic dampening shield, which was good. What was not good was the fact that 2 or 3 people had turned off their current targets to focus him. They had him pinned down pretty well, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

First off, he was able to pick up a lot of the small chunks of road that had been shot off and fire them at the people who had him pinned with his telekinesis. The rocks weren't thrown any faster than he could throw by hand, but that was because these rocks were a mere distraction; one that worked, as it turned out. One of them dodged out of the way of the rocks, but the other two got hit. They staggered for just a second, but that was more than long enough for Huey to put a couple bullets in them. He went with nonlethal takedowns, but they were definitely out of the fight, judging by the way that their knees had been blown out completely. The person who had dived for cover popped out then, but he was taken down instantly. This shot was definitely lethal, but Huey did not have time to admire his work. Guy had charged into a group of men, and while he could take out those in front of him, he didn't see a pair of men coming up behind him. That was not good.

Huey ran flat out toward Guy as he threw out his power. He pulled one of the men away violently, smashing them into a wall. The other turned in surprise just in time for Huey to smash the butt of his gun into his neck. The man collapsed bonelessly as Huey turned to fire off some rounds at the men in front of Guy. One went down to Huey's bullets as the others went down due to a massive swing of his wrench. Huey quickly pulled him down into cover before more people could fire upon them. He teased good-naturedly, "Well, what a place to meet again, eh Guy? Hope this isn't your day job, you need a little but more experience, and you are already looking like an old man."

From cover, Guy waved over to the nearest car. A young man opened the door and immediately burst into the alleyway he had been attempting to secure. Once he had gone from sight Guy made sure to return his shield to himself. Now that that was taken care of, and by now all the civilians left were either dead or gone, he turned to Huey.

"Yeah, well breaking stuff is for the young people. The old people are all the ones who fix everything for you kids to smash again. Do you realize how much paperwork someone's gonna have to fill on those potholes you just made?"

He flicked his cigarette into a pile of burning debris. For the past couple whacks of his wrench he'd been sucking on filter. He took a chance to look over the low wall they were crouched behind. There was still some back and forth fighting going on, but if Huey was here, from what he'd heard, there wouldn't be too much trouble wrapping everything up. Plus there was a woman in dark clothing that seemed to know what she was doing. Lethally, yes, but to each their own. The kid hiding behind a car with a keyboard was other news, however... he mumbled something under his breath about how kids couldn't put down their damn boards for a few minutes, but he didn't think Huey could hear.

"The one with the stabby-stabby-shooty-shooty, she with you? Because I'd hate to be on her bad side." He made sure his armor covered his kidneys for good measure. "And that writer better get out of here before some random guy shoots up that car he's hiding behind. Unless he wants awards. I hear dead writers get the best awards."

He peeked over again to confirm a pattern he'd seen. "Regardless, we need to take the rest out before the fight moves any further up the street. I'd hate for the Stallion to get too shot up." He realized they were moving closer to the orphanage, but didn't want to explicitly bring it up in case these guys were really after Huey. Wouldn't want to give them any tips for where to start shooting.

Stalker had been walking the empty streets for about ten minutes, getting as far away as he could from the ArmuCorp Citadel as he could, when the gunshots started.

They started, along with the screaming, when Stalker was approximately fifty metres away from the source. Railguns, certainly; he could feel the magnetic pulses lightly fondling his exosuit. Something was amiss.

Stalker drew his handgun out of a coat pocket, the trusted Zenith, and looked around for a place to elevate himself to a position where he could view the situation at minimal risk. Failing that, his only choice was to advance forward, slowly cutting through alley and side streets until he could smell the blood. Finally, he was there.

By now the magnetic pulses were like waves breaking against a beach; the sheer amount of firing going on was nearly insurmountable. They were incredibly powerful railguns, too; almost certainly corporate. No one else could afford them, surely.

Turning a corner, the battle was finally visible: a group of corporate security guards, fighting some members of the criminal underworld. A curiosity, but one that required observation; could these criminals hold off the corporates? If so, Stalker was impressed; but not enough to prevent him from killing any survivors at the end anyways. That's what they got for making such a disruption. Stalker remained within the shadows, taking an opportunity to shoot out a nearby neon sign that exposed him somewhat; no one would hear the shot off to the side here.

"The stabby-stabby-shooty-shooty chick? Never seen her before in my life," Huey snarked back, "but I can definitely see where you are coming from with that one." She was certainly cutting down the gangsters pretty efficiently, far more so then they were doing in return. Only 2 or 3 of the corporate troops were down as compared to 15 or 20 of the criminals. So far so good.

But then guy pointed out something he hadn't noticed; they were rather close to the orphanage. "Yeah," he responded once more, "lets try to end this before things really started to get messy. You wanna make sure no one sneaks up on us?" Without waiting for a response, he took his rifle off his lower back. It was still in the compacted mode used to make it take up much less space (not to mention to be less noticeable) but it took only a moment or two for it to flip out into its full glory. And then, it was go time.

Huey braced the gun on the hood of the car that the pair was hiding behind, keeping his profile as low as he could. Through his sunglasses, he could see a basic HUD that told him various information such as distance to the target, wind speed and direction, time, and other useful things. At the moment, he didn't really need any of it; they were at such a close range that he would give up his rifle willingly if he missed. A deep breath later, he was already firing. He was aiming for non-lethal takedowns for now, which involved him taking out peoples knees and legs. Quite honestly, a good number of them would probably never walk again, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. At least they were still alive.

His shooting was smooth and mechanical, almost robotic. It was no surprised that in less than 8 seconds later, ten shots had put ten people on the ground. He pulled out his magazine to reload, but one he did he saw the fighting was over. The woman had taken out the rest of the main group, and looking behind him he could see that Guy had beat a couple more himself. Only one thing left to do then.

He re-compacted his rifle and slung it in its place along his lower back. He stepped out from behind his cover slowly and as smoothly as he could, his halfway up to show he was unarmed. He called out, "You mind not killing the ones that aren't already dead? It would be nice to see what kind of bounties they have."

Brian's predominant thought as the fight went down was how much he detested the taste of bile in his throat. The blood just... everywhere from the gunshots. From experience with the aftermath of shootings he could tell this one was rather surgical for a fight of this scale, but still. The amount of blood spattered in the streets, and the SCREAMS. Oh god the screams of these people... it reminded him of the old adage "war is hell".

But he watched, transfixed on the action, his mind focusing solely on the battle unfolding before him, attempting to drown the combat roars and the screams of bloodlust, death, pain, and fear from bystander and combatant alike. He watched as the uniformed group began methodically destroying their opposition, even though from what he could tell they were attacked first. One thing of note he made as the gangsters (as he was labeling them) began retreating is the addition of a third group into the fray. Seemed to be a two-man team. They weren't uniformed in their combat or tactics like the corp.... WAS THAT A GOD-DAMNED WRENCH!? Some dude was in there hitting people with a WRENCH!?

Brian raised an eyebrow at the curiosity in the fray and immediately began to look more closely at this guy... From what he could tell this man was a civvie, he seemed to have no real combat gear... but he seemed to be by FAR the greatest PET wave emission in this firefight. Even through the railgun blasts Brian could tell that. Guessing by the nature of the wrench (Brian still smirked to himself at the comedy in bringing a wrench to a gunfight)he guessed this guy was specialized in some sort of physical manipulaion PET waves. Either deflecting, or telekenesis, or something like that. Brian made a mental note of this guy as a potential "main character" for his story (sort of an everyman, caught up in the corporate-gangster shootout bullshit) and moved onto his partner.

This one seemed to be better equipped than "the repairman", armed with a pistol and it looked like a shield from what he could tell... He seemed to be a damn cool head too, shooting mechanically during the firefight, while it looked like just chatting with wrenchhead over there (it seemed like he was joking around, possibly friends?). This one also seemed to be using PETs as evidenced by the body throwing stunt he pulled as he went over to his current position. Specialized in Telekenesis most likely, rather strong to pick up multiple people at once as well, he noted. Other than that he didn't seem too specia.... Never mind.

It seemed like a switch had just been flipped. Suddenly the telekenesis guy whipped out a rifle and mounted it on the front of the cover he was behind. Brian immediately made note in his head about this guy. I mean, who carries a rifle with them on a daily basis? He wasn't corporate and CERTAINLY wasn't gangster (considering he was shooting them up) so... didn't leave many options in his head... perhaps bounty hunter he reflected on his initial thought of the shooting... He could dwell upon it later. But as he was thinking this he was transfixed as the guy launched ten rapid shots from the rifle with terrifying accuracy. Short story, this guy was DAMN scary.

And just like that, the fighting was over. He scanned over the battlefield and the carnage, bile once again rising to his throat, almost forgotten before in his focus on the fight and possible payday. It didn't seem like anyone was escaping from the side of the gangsters he noted as well, scanning with his own PET waves. It seemed a complete rout. Taking a glance over at the victorious groups he quickly identified the leader of the corporate force as she flicked away blood from her knife and shot a couple words at the other pair.

Scary. Maybe he could avoid interviewing her.

At this point he was nearly fully standing, leaning against what he now noted to be a VERY nice car he had used for cover. Oh well, at least he hadn't puked on it. He decided to let the cheering crowds and the adreneline die down a bit as he took a deep breath and sat on the car's hood determining he REALLY needed that drink later. Maybe it could get this shitty taste out of his throat.

With the corporates victorious and the last dregs of the gangsters' forces in flight, the situation was clear. A small number of militarily-equipped corporates, the leader being the almost disturbingly efficient woman who had almost singlehandedly butchered the gangsters. Not a threat, assuming Stalker could get the jump on her, and the corporate soldiers themselves would be easy; he had survived hundreds of them in the past. Two heavily-armed men who seemed somewhat unaligned, crouching behind a car. They were slightly more unpredictable; one of them with a rifle was looking in the other direction and would take a while to turn it around, but he appeared to have telekinetic PET powers which presented a danger. His companion was armed only with a wrench, but the fact that he had charged into such a crossfire with it and survived guaranteed that he had some form of PET powers. Some distance away, an unarmed man with a notebook was behind a car, but he would be no threat at all.

Stalker shook his head; why was he considering butchering these anyways? What would he do with them at all? The corporates would most likely kill him should they recognize him, and as for the others, he had no vendetta against them.

Further observation was a must; Stalker had already bloodied his hands tonight and there was no reason to bloody them yet again.

Guy tried to avoid watching the battle as the both the woman in the black coat and Huey methodically took out the remaining gangsters in the street. He could stomach seeing the violence during a fight, that was normal enough... but this was a massacre. People dying left and right- Huey could try to go nonlethal if he wanted, but nothing was stopping the girl- and he could barely stand it. It wasn't so much the fact that it was chilling to see a grown man's head explode like a piñata at a 12 year old's birthday party, but the fact that he was becoming more accustomed to that brand of violence as time went on. He made sure to remind himself that he should move to a better neighborhood when he could afford it.

To keep his mind off the battle he focused on keeping a shield around the people who needed it. Protecting a corporate guy here, trying to lessen a fatal shot to only a debilitating injury there... that type of good guy stuff. He found himself mostly watching over the one other person who wasn't knee deep in a pile of some guy's blood, and that was that writer. He probably didn't notice all the shrapnel and other nonsense flying his way as he stuffed his face into that projected screen he was constantly writing in. Not that any of it made it within a meter of the kid with the invisible net surrounding him. He saw the kid's eyes darting everywhere on the battlefield, even himself for a few moments, and it made him kind of uneasy. If he turned up on some random blog somewhere it would be nothing but hell from his coworkers.

Soon enough the battle was over... or he at least guessed so from the uneasy silence that fell over everyone. He tilted his head back and took a massive swig from his flask of mystery drink before standing up next to Huey. Huey put his weapon aside when he spoke to the gunwoman, but Guy shouldered his 'weapon' casually and tossed another cigarette into his mouth. "You mind not killing the ones that aren't already dead? It would be nice to see what kind of bounties they have." Guy had to hand it to him; the kid had balls. Not that he probably couldn't handle himself, it was just a hell of a way to talk to a woman. Kids had no respect these days.

"Shoulda known the gunshots would have the rats scurrying. Afraid someone's going to screw over your claims? Look, I don't have anything against saving a few bullets. If you wanna get to scavenging, you're more than welcome to. Just try not to do anything overly stupid, would you? Gonna have enough paperwork to file, as it is."

Well, that was that then. Guy realized he'd been holding his breath and let it out. He wasn't sure how the kids would interact; it could have easily ended in another gunfight as far as he knew. He lit his cigarette and took a long drag. "Well then, if you need me I'll be at the Stallion." The bar was not one to shut down because of a little gunfight, even if the streets were emptied. Likely the barkeep had made drinks half priced so people were more likely to spend all their cash for that one last drink before they were potentially blown away. The bar was fun on a quiet night, but the best stories were told (or made) when everyone there was borderline blackout. That was something he could hardly pass up. He started over to the bar, focusing on the swinging doors instead of the pools of blood gathering in the street.

"Shoulda known the gunshots would have the rats scurrying. Afraid someone's going to screw over your claims? Look, I don't have anything against saving a few bullets. If you wanna get to scavenging, you're more than welcome to. Just try not to do anything overly stupid, would you? Gonna have enough paperwork to file, as it is."

"Well, I like to think of myself as a better scavenger than a rat... maybe a hyena, or a vulture." Huey took the jab with good humor as he walked over to the people he downed. As he heard Guy's comment, he responded, "Save me a seat old man, I will be right there after I am done with this."

Looking down at one of the people he took out, he pressed a finger to the side of his glasses. His shades were custom designed and state of the art, but it was only thanks to Eva that he could do this. A box formed around the face of one of the men at his feet and, after a brief pause, displayed connected to it his name, bounty, rapsheet, and all sorts of other things about his life. Really, it was amazing what you could get when you crossed cutting edge facial recognition software with the power of the internet.

In the end though, they were all pretty much small-fry. None of them was worth the trouble of waiting around for, so he went over to take a look at the ones that had been killed next. He glanced at a few of them, til he glanced at the one missing part of his skull.

It took a moment for the software to identify him, but when it did, he let out a whistle of appreciation. "Damn, this guy was worth quite a bit. Also says there is a reward for turning in something he stole." Patted the guy down, found what he was looking for in a pants pocket, and turned around to the women. He threw something small at her in a soft arc. "Well, your kill, your spoils. Don't spend it all in one place, Miss Amada Rubi. Man, I can't believe people still use jump drives in this day and age."

He turned and started to walk away. He went to flip of his facial recognition (it was funny what you could do with that), then, out of habit, flickered his infrared vision for a second. While he didn't make any obvious signs of surprise, he did raise a deliberate eyebrow at shady spot he passed, before he walked by the writer. He called out in passing to the poor guy, "You might want to get a drink too man, you are as pale as a ghost." And with that last comment, he slipped by him and straight down to the Stallion.

He took a seat next to his old acquaintance at the bar. He flicked his hand up to look at what he had stashed up his sleeve. It was a small electronic device, one that had been designed to do one specific task; copy the contents of an electronic device. He stored it back up his sleeve as quickly as he had taken it out, then turned to the scruffy mechanic. "Well, what a way to meet up again, huh?"

Amada snorted, the corner of her lips quirking into a minute smirk at the bounty hunter's remark. He had guts, and she wasn't one to fault somebody for that. That depended on how exactly they used their nerve. Her eyes rolled to the other guy, the one with the.. wrench. He was quick to excuse himself from the proceedings, something she was a little envious of. Until they got an all clear, she wasn't going anywhere just yet.

"Cleaners are on the way, and the PR lackeys are going with them. Preliminary reports will be coming in soon after." Mercer relayed, sounding more worn out every time he opened his mouth. Now that all the action had passed, they were starting to feel the weight of the night bearing down on them, along with the rest of the day before it.

"Real glad they're the ones handling it. Shooting people's simple, easing their minds isn't really my forte." She watched the gunman check out the downed hostiles, living and deceased. He did not seem particularly excited about any of them, which was not a surprise. Most thugs on the street had little more than pocket change to their name, if that. Going out of your way to hunt down the big names just felt like too much work; especially annoying when everyone else would be targeting them, too. She preferred having a steady source of income, as opposed to the occasional big payday.

"Damn, this guy was worth quite a bit. Also says there is a reward for turning in something he stole." Her interrupted her thoughts, and started patting down the corpse. She was about to comment on the matter, when he suddenly tossed her something. She snatched it out of the air, and furrowed her brow. "Well, your kill, your spoils. Don't spend it all in one place, Miss Amada Rubi. Man, I can't believe people still use jump drives in this day and age." According to her history class, privacy had used to be a thing. Then the internet happened. Still, she was marginally piqued at how casual he was about spouting her identity.

"How altruistic of you." Amada kept a steady eye on him as he headed over to a nearby bar, where his buddy had trundled off to before.

"You might want to get a drink too man, you are as pale as a ghost." The gunman called out to somebody hiding behind a car. Who in their right mind would be stupid enough to hang around who was not some bounty hunter or corporate security?

Tucking the unexpected reward into an interior pocket, she strolled slowly over and cocked an eyebrow at the kid. She had the answer the moment her eyes fell on his pad. "You know, using freedom of the press as an excuse to sensationalize this shit is pretty low. You about done, or am I gonna have to find someone to escort you out of the area?" Amada gestured around with her pistol. Never aiming it at him, but showing it off to let him get her meaning. If there was one thing she had learned from the bureaucratic dropouts responsible for the company's image, it was that subtlety and suggestion were preferable when dealing with someone not pointing a firearm at you. Mostly because it permitted deniability. No, officer, I was only asking if he wanted protection while leaving a potentially dangerous district.

Glancing around reflexively, she noticed a busted sign. Earlier it had been casting an ugly neon light over the immediate surroundings, but it looked like a bullet had punched through it. Gaze drifting, she spied what looked almost like a figure standing cloaked in darkness. Blinking rapidly, she readjusted her position, and turned her attention back to the reporter.

As the woman's gaze passed over him, Stalker tensed up instinctively, his hand twitching towards the holster he kept within his jacket. He scanned her facial expression; she was obviously suspicious, but without anything to reinforce it, she had obviously decided to leave him alone. All good.

The issue was escaping without notice; Miss Rubi, as Stalker had learned her name was, had no lack of good eyesight. One small untoward motion at this range and not even a repolarization of her weapon's firing rails would stop the bullet. Kevlar was only so effective as a lifesaver.

But then, was escape even necessary? If he was fast enough on the draw, he would easily be able to disable her long before anyone else could get him within his sights.

But first, a distraction.

Stalker's suit, so blessedly equipped with the ability to modify magnetic fields, had come in useful so often; from repolarizing the firing rails of railguns, changing their bullet's trajectory completely, to the movement of small and simple metallic objects, it had saved his life more often than not; and now, the tiny shake of a small object conveniently located within a garbage bin near Miss Rubi, would serve as the perfect distraction.

Hopefully.

Brian looked over his initial notes as he dimly spectated the aftermath movement with his PET waves. To be honest, there was not much, just his hunches about gangster vs paramilitary and the basic rundown of the firefight. The most important notes he deemed were the ones on the oddball pair that had showed up. For sure they were his angle in this story he thought to himself as he mulled over the situation. And regaining his composure. That too. That was important.

That was also apparently obvious to the others around as he broke from his deep thought to an offhanded "You might want to get a drink too man, you are as pale as a ghost.". Brian inwardly cured as he noticed one of the three people he was trying to track go sauntering by him, and one of the others was missing. Great. Great job you are doing there Bry, way to step it up. He sighed as he watched the guy walk over and into some bar-type-thing or another. Seemed to be styled after the old west cowboy crap. Eh, good enough for him he pondered as he looked over and considered making his way over there.

That is, until he was rudely interrupted AGAIN by one of the three people he was trying to keep track of... AGAIN.

They say two out of three ain't bad? Well he just hit three for three in not being able to keep track of them. Way to go champ.

"You know, using freedom of the press as an excuse to sensationalize this shit is pretty low. You about done, or am I gonna have to find someone to escort you out of the area?" Ms. Scary herself grumbled at him as he stood up free of the car, and finally put away his pad that she was eyeing. Last thing he needed was her to try to confiscate that. His entire notes from his meeting earlier were on there too right now. Of course, the thing was armed to the teeth with internal security (can never be too careful) but depending on her resources... he'd rather not risk it. Whelp, looked like it was time to take his leave.

"Ah, sorry about that." He smiled sheepishly at her "Sensationalize may be the wrong way to put it from where I am standing though. Someone is gonna talk, I may as well make a living out of it and get the facts straight. Leave it to the big news guys to 'sensationalize'" He smirked out of the corner of his mouth at his unintended rhyme, though admittedly, that may be the wrong decision with how she was waving that gun around. It seemed she clearly didn't want him around any longer, and wise-cracks might not be the way to go. "But I hear ya." He continued, "My work here is done so I'll get outta here so you can do yours. I think I'll be fine finding my way out of here though. I'm just gonna head over there to get a drink first. Maybe it can stop my throat from tasting like shit. Have a good one." He said that last line as he started to back away and turn from her and let out another breath, hoping not to get shot in the back. He didn't have a really good read on her yet, but she didn't seem the type to just shoot a reporter like him being an innocent and all, but.... well he did say he hadn't gotten a good read on her yet.

Before her new "friend" could respond, something caught her ear. Her head whipped around, eyes narrowing warily. It had sounded metallic; hollow, even. A brief, dull echo. Nothing stood out in the least. It was just an empty, spottily lit street. Willing herself to relax a little, Amada focused again on the journalist.

"Ah, sorry about that." The kid said, obviously trying to act chastened. A good way to not get a bullet in you, that. Depending on who you were dealing with. As she stood, Amada was feeling somewhat humanitarian. The corners of her mouth quirked. "Sensationalize may be the wrong way to put it from where I am standing though. Someone is gonna talk, I may as well make a living out of it and get the facts straight. Leave it to the big news guys to 'sensationalize'" He smirked, maybe in an attempt at looking endearing. He was not about to win any awards with that route, however. "But I hear ya. My work here is done so I'll get outta here so you can do yours. I think I'll be fine finding my way out of here though. I'm just gonna head over there to get a drink first. Maybe it can stop my throat from tasting like shit. Have a good one." He started moving away cautiously, and she took slow steps to match his trajectory, but in the opposite direction. She was on the lookout for anything sudden, but it never came.

Nearly holstering her gun, Amada thought better of it and decided to keep the weapon at her side. The unexpected had the potential to do far more damage than a threat you already knew about. With the proper intel, you could raise your defenses, draw up contingencies and plan your defenses accordingly. The unknown - oldest of human fears, as it were - offered a game of chance and instinct. Right then, her gut was saying to keep the pistol firmly in her fist for as long as she was in the area.

After making sure the kid followed up on his word, she started on her way back toward the bulk of the security personnel. Some of them were performing sweeps, hunting for any tucked away pockets of their enemy. So far everything had been quiet in the wake, so the general assumption was they had all been cleared out.

"ETA on when we'll all be going home?" Amada queried, fishing for a cigarette case concealed in her coat. She hated staying on the job late. She preferred to keep a very strict divider between her work and personal life, and had long realized the necessity of balancing exposure to either. Too much work would make her angry, conversely enough down time was debilitating. Already the night had veered well into what were typically her hours. She really did not enjoy having her schedule tampered with, especially when there would not be any extra incentive to go along with nothing but a vapid smile.

"Nope," Parker immediately relayed.

"If I'd wanted the bush league bullshit, I would have specifically requested it. Mercer." Her request came out as a flat, but firm order.

"The first detail's set to arrive in a few minutes. A couple of birds, and one car. No telling how they're feeling. We might be off in ten minutes, or three hours." He was disgruntled, and it sounded like he was sinking deeper into his chair. Settling in for the long haul.

She made an exasperated noise in the back of her throat. "I swear to Christ, if I hear the words 'exorbitant' and 'force' in the same sentence tonight, I'm putting someone through a wall." Amada lit her cigarette, taking a deep drag immediately. Through a combination of psychological and physiological stimuli, it was already working. Her tightened nerves began to slacken, her head started to clear. She was walking along the sidewalk, eyeing the buildings, battered pavement, and ruined bodies scattered haphazardly. Her shoulders were loosened, gait fluid, eyes drifting aimlessly. Any sense of urgency had sufficiently faded, and nothing about her surroundings was of any real interest. "Let's just get this over with, already," she sighed.

It was obvious the corporates wouldn't clear away for quite a while.

Stalker stood, concrete-still, and observed his surroundings. Miss Rubi had let her guard down, but not sufficiently to subside in her manner of posing a serious threat. She would have to be the first one dealt with.

Secondly, the corporates. Many of them, as noted before, were fresh and survived only because of their fancy gear and the skill of their leadership, but said fancy gear were major cause for concern. Thus, they were threats as well. Stalker had heard chatter about reinforcements, but that was the crowning issue: if more men came, then Stalker's chances of escape would be made miniscule. Unacceptably so.

Thus, the only concievable plan was the one which involved a loud and potentially bloody escape. Something Stalker specialized in.

Stalker waited for one of the corporates to walk within a few metres of his position until acting, reaching out and seizing the poor man by the neck, broken by a swift twist. Holding him up as a shield, Stalker unholstered his handgun and began firing somewhat wildly; he had little control over the weapon when employing it with one hand while using the other to carry a dead man with heavy armour.

Slowly, he began backing himself into the alley even as the shots came flying.