Mars
Kaiser
RSI - Gun Range
"Hold it tighter Case, else I'm going to be the one picking your nose off the floor," The Slavic voice warned. "This isn't one of your VR games, the Panther has some bite." Having enough of Graham's posture, she hopped off the range bar and took a hold of his arms. She pressed his elbows in, locking them in place, and straightened the limb. Pressing her face against his shoulder, she lined his arm up with the target down range. "There," She said, satisfied, and taking a seat back onto the bar.
"... That was awkward," Graham said, giving Alessa a raised brow for her troubles. She never had a problem touching people, that was for sure. Though the stare only last for a moment, as he returned his gaze back down range, his arms thoroughly locked, and hands interlaced over the pistol's grip
"Shut up and shoot the damn thing-- and no cheating. Augs take all the sport out of the shot," She replied with an almost bored tone.
Graham gave one last sigh before he aimed down the sights. Only a moment passed before a shot range out through the range. Alessa tilted her head and closed her eyes, subtly shaking her head in disappointment. "What? I hit it!" He quickly defended himself.
Silently and without looking, Alessa pressed the button beside her, and summoned the target closer to the pair. Once it had arrived, only then did she venture a look. It was just as she thought-- he hit the thing, but it was wide right from the center. "Barely," She monotoned. "I heard it. You squeezed it off too fast. Took no time to aim, and fired when you were still in the middle of a breath. Augs got you spoiled. They do all the hard work for you." Her voice lined with disappointment.
Once again, Graham let a sigh slip past his lips. He sat the Panther back down on the bar and rubbed his temples, trying to ignore Jenks' chuckling nearby. "Which is why you're the field agent. If we ever get a bounty for a synth-- then I'm your man."
"Yeah, Case the AI guy. I know, we're partners remember?" She said with a quick upturn of lip.
Graham shrugged humble and glanced at the Panther laying on the bar. "Hey 'Lessa. Why that gun? You know there's bigger calibers out there, right? Some can even stop a fully Augged man in his tracks."
"Like Decker's Bulldog?" She inquired, letting her head loll back.
"A bit old fashioned, but yeah."
"Case," Alessa began, a grin forming at her lips. "Hadn't anyone told you it's not the size of your piece, but how you use it."
"You're making this weird again, 'Lessa..." He uttered through a shake of his head.
That managed a chuckle. Once she got the laugh out of her system, she reached down and picked the Panther up and ejected the magazine, ensuring it was empty. No way was she giving Graham a full mag, bullets were expensive. "The point being..." She said, as she began to field strip the pistol. "It doesn't matter how big a weapon is if you can't hit a damn thing with it."
"But I did hit it," He defended himself again.
"Maybe. It's an arm shot at best. But what if that arm was augmented, and not one of those cheap ones like mine?" She paused her work for a moment to tap the black leather glove on her right hand. She never showed the hand under the glove to anyone, not even Case. "Then you've just seriously pissed someone off." Then it was her turn to sigh, procuring a oil rag from along the bar. "You've got to be accurate. You've got to be fast, and you've got to be efficient. The Panther has twelve rounds to the Bulldog's six, not to mention the better fire rate. And with those twelve I'm willing to bet I could wreak double the havoc he could." She paused for a moment before staring through him. "And Case? I better not find out you told him I said that. Else it's your ass I'm going to wreak havoc on."
Graham brushed the threat off like he did all of them, and spoke again, "But that's why we use Augs."
"And that's why they use disruptors," She countered deftly. "And that is why I taught myself to shoot with my left hand."
"Did you really?" He asked, more impressed than anything.
Having finished with her field strip, Alessa sought to show rather than tell. She slid a single round into a magazine, and forced it into the pistol. Never leaving her seat, she wielded it with her left hand, and closed her right eye as she aimed down the range. Her arm was straight as an arrow, her breathing even and on her next inhale she fired. She ejected the magazine as Graham brought the target up to them.
He looked at the piece of paper and studied her handiwork. The shot was to the left-- about a few centimeters to the left to be exact. Far closer than he'd managed with both of his eyes and hands. "Impressive."
"Have your arm and eye blown out-- you'll learn some things." She said with a dark smile. "You owe me a bottle of whiskey for the demonstration. You know the kind I like."
Graham opened his mouth to refuse her before he shut it again. Where was the use? "Phobos Black Label?
"Phobos Black Label. Now how about we do some work?"
"Sure. Got your tablet on you?"
Alessa didn't bother with a yes, instead reaching for her messenger bag nearby. She rifled through the bag, retrieving the black scratched tablet and handed it to Graham.
He looked at the tablet with an raised eyebrow and shake of his head. "It's... Seen better days," He said quite simply.
She responded with a bored look and a shrug. "It was cheap," She explained.
"Clearly." Nevertheless, Graham's fingers began their dance across the screen, drawing the tablet to life and making it sing in a way that Alessa never could. In a matter of moments, Graham was already tapped into the RSI's network, and pulling up the available jobs. An intrigued coo followed as he sat the tablet onto the bar for Alessa to see. "We've got an official one. From the bossman himself."
"No shit? What's it about?" She said, hovering over the tablet.
"Remember that meeting him and Ms. Hanzo had?"
"The one that went fucked? Yeah?"
"Turns out the boss wants the girl Interceptor caught. 'Moved to our custody' the report says. Basically we're supposed to steal this woman. There's to be no fatalities, violence to SI is to be minimized." As he spoke, Graham crossed his arms and tilted his head a bit.
An exasperated chuckle escaped Alessa's lips as she spoke, "sounds like it needs finesse that we don't have Case. It sounds like an Eckhard or a Rouvelle mission."
"And not a Sikova one?" Graham chuckled. Moving on he read off the next mission. "A casino job? Nabbing a cat burglar."
"The last place I need to be is in a casino Case," She denied.
Nodding, he tapped the tablet, pulling up the next job. Eyebrows rose in unison as both Graham and Alessa read over the mission details. "Well?" Graham asked.
"That sounds like a Sikova job. Take it, I've got to see Jenks about some Jellybeans." She said, hopping off the bar and heading toward the man in question.
Mars
Aeolis Mons
5.08°S 137.85°E
"Rigs, don't you dare drop that crate, or the creds'll come out your goddamned ass." A woman barked. She was wreathed in a hardsuit, gray scratched metal alloy encasing her in a shell. Around her shoulders was an orange mantle. Orange was a stupid color for someone like her to wear to wear, she knew this. But she was outside the Atmo-rings, surrounded by a number of like-minded criminal-- most of which wanted her goods. So she wore the orange to stand out from all the other hardsuits, so if someone wanted to buy from her, they'd have no problem finding her.
"Dammit Carla, get off my ass!" The man carrying the crate barked back. "This shit's heavy!"
"That's the idea. We're selling that shit, so the more we got, the more we get." Through the amber faceplate, an older woman's face sat framed against the backlight. She looked to be in her late thirties, but with technology the way it was, who even knew her real age? Short blonde hair sat perched upon her crown, cut short in a pixy fashion. Electric blue eyes sat in her sockets, which were organic and completely hers. It would be stupid for her to augment herself when she worked so closely with disruptors.
Carla followed Rigs all the way to the booth she had set up at this fair. She let herself smile a little at the whole image of it. The whole thing was very official-like with the booths set up in rows, tables lined with the best hardware found in the underworld. In an hour or so, Various dealers would be extolling the virtues of their goods and trying their best to sell their own weapons to an array of buyers. It almost made her forget that what they were doing was highly illicit. Almost. They came to a stop at a long table, where Rigs sat the crate down and popped the top.
Rigs then left to no doubt retrieve the rest of the crates, leaving the Carla to lay out and organize the weaponry. Was followed next was a whirlwind of activity as she sat about her work, pulling disruptors of all shapes and sizes out of the crate and laying them out on the table. There were small handheld one to be used at close ranges, ones to be used at a longer range. Anything and everything to shut down augments of any kinds soon found their ways to her table-- with many more laying in wait in crates behind her.
"That it?" Rigs asked, watching as Carla put the finishing touches on her booth. Rigs was a large man looming a whole foot over Carla. The augments he had in both arms and legs didn't hurt. His faceplate was a purple color, though the bearded face laying within wasn't obscured in the slightest. A strong jaw culminated in the wide chin and low cheekbones cemented his place as her bodyguard and occasional mule.
"Yeah. Place should start to get busy soon. Street hoods, professional gangs-- the whole works. Time to earn our keep," He said, giving the man a toothy grin before gently punching him in the chest.
Rigs simply smile and shook his head. "Hope I don't have to crush someone like last time."
"Hey. Sticky fingers thought he could get away with it, you showed 'em otherwise. Still impressed you could run that fast," She said turning around and standing behind the table. "Well, don't just stand there. Start hawking."
It wasn't long before customers started to file in from all over. Carla explained the inner workings of her weaponry time and time again, always giving enough information, but never too much. She repeated statistics of the amount of Augs found in both the bounty companies and the MSS. "My weaponry only has a one percent chance of sterility." She explained to one individual, the fact causing Rigs to roll his eyes. At one point, one customer requested a demonstration, and with no hesitation she picked the disruptor up and fired it off at Rigs-- suddenly causing him to fall forward all his limbs went limp. "And look," She pointed out over Rigs' cussing. "No damage to his hardsuit."
"Goddammit Carla! Fuckin' warn me next time!" He barked as the paralysis wore off, and the customer went happily along his way with his new Excelsior model Disruptor. It was nearing the end of the day, where most of the buyers were tapering off and even some of the vendors were beginning to pack up.
"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" She teased. "Hush and help me pack this shit up-- it shouldn't be near as heavy now you big baby." That's when she felt something on her chest. Something slammed into her with enough force to push her backward and cause her to stumble. "What the fuck?" She asked as she put placed a hand where whatever it was had struck her. When she pulled it back she saw it to be some sort of blue gelatinous fluid, with metallic flakes sprinkled inside for good measure. "Oh shit-- Rigs!" She managed before the electric shock kicked in. It had enough voltage to immediately lock her body up and force her to the ground in a crumpled mess of pain.
The last thing she heard before she was forced into the dull lullaby of unconsciousness was the shot ripping through the hostile Martian air.
Earlier...
2,051 Meters Away...
"Got eyes yet Case?"
The communicator embedded in her ear came alive with the sound of Graham's voice, tinged with a hint of frustration. "No, are you sure you didn't drop the thing?"
Alessa simply sighed and responded, "No Case, I think I would remember dropping a camera." She said, tapping the instrument beside her. The instrument she referred to was something of Graham's own make. A lightweight camera connected to a mechanical tripod, with wires connecting to an external battery. Another wire connected to Alessa's tablet nearby, to enable connectivity to net. "I'm going to need a spotter today." She said, giving a slight rap to the camera. Percussive patience always worked.
Case was silent on the other side, and Alessa didn't press him for anymore. He did his best techno-wizardry when she wasn't chatting into his ear. And that silent payed off moments later as the camera whirred to life beside her. "I've got a feed. Wind speed, gravity, distance, everything's green."
"And you sure the lens won't give away our position?"
Nonreflective materials, same as your scope. We are effectively invisible. Anything happened?"
"No, not much. It's still early, they're still setting up stalls and putting out their goods. Our target's not made her appearance yet," Alessa said, sightinig down the scope of her rifle. The charcoal face plate of her hardsuit lit up with a myriad of information-- namely of Carla Reynolds' image. Though she missed the feeling of the scope to her naked eye, the hardsuit more than made up for it with it's ability to relay information to her.
Alessa had set up in the foothills of Aeolis Mons, giving her a good vantage point on the arms fair. She'd been lifted in via VTOL a few kilometers out and hiked her way to her overwatch position. Her hardsuit was colored and patterned in the same way that the Martian ground was, as well as having a tarp thrown over both her and Graham's camera. She was still roughly two kilometers away from the fair, a decent distance even for her rifle. "When we get ready to take the shot Case, I'm relying on your information," she said. He had the tools on his end to calculate the bullet drop on his end-- this wasn't Earth she was shooting on, everything was different. Gravity's effect on the bullet, the shifting winds, even the Coriolis effect, that would be all on him.
"I've got the program up and running. Whenever we're set, the shot won't miss. Programmed it myself," He said, his voice lined with an edge of pride.
Alessa chuckled in response and nodded, "Sound's good. If we do miss, it's coming out of your paycheck."
"It won't," he said confidently
"That's what I like to hear. Now eyes open, we've got work to do."
Time slowly slipped away as both Alessa and Graham kept watch on the arm's fair awaiting their target. An hour later, Graham was the one to speak first. "There she is," He said, sending a live feed to Alessa's face plate. Sure enough, as soon as she turned to give Alessa a better look into her helmet, the face that sat there matched the image she'd seen. "Gunmetal suit, orange mantle-- makes our job easier," He said as her range popped up on screen along with the feed.
"I've got her sighted. See that fellow behind her? Willing to be the crate he's carrying has her toys in it?"
"I'd rather not. I'll get the program up and--" Before he could finish his sentence, Alessa spoke up and cut him off.
"Case. Patience, if we take the shot now, the entire arms fair will be firing everything they got in this general direction. I'd rather not take that chance on getting nicked. We wait until the fair starts to wind down," She said, the experience in her voice overuling any objections Graham may have had.
"Okay, I'll keep it running in the background. Whenever you need it, it's ready," He said, and at that moment a red dot appeared in her helmet. As she looked down the scope, she lined the red dot up with the center of the crosshair-- lighting the dot green as she did.
"Thanks," She said, taking the scope off the dot and returned back to Carla.
Hours passed with Alessa intently watching their target. She was the model of calm patience, she never stirred, never moved, and never even yawned. Graham could do nothing but marvel at the level of patience and discipline she was displaying. Already he had to stand up and walk a few laps around his desk.
"Case, you there?" She suddenly asked.
"Always. Is it time?"
"Mhm, looks like they're getting ready to head out. On my count," She said, lining the sights up with the red dot again.
"Program's running, distance 2,052 meters. Wind speed, drop, everything's accounted for. When you're ready."
"Three, two, one... Firing," Alessa gentle squeezed the trigger, causing the rifle to exploded to life. In a single fluid movement, Alessa worked the bolt, ejecting the spent cartridge and loading another from the magazine. She watched through the scope and waited for the hit.
"Target struck. You sure your Jellybean'll work for this distance?"
Alessa didn't respond at first, opting instead to watch the round take effect. The round was a conductive-gelatin based projectile she had nicknamed the Jellybean, encapsulated by a skin of plastic that explodes on impact. Inside the gelatin were hundreds of of flakes of shaved metal to aid in the conduction of electricity, amplifying the volts running through the material. It had enough shock to pacify any ordinary humans, but unfortunately had less of an impact on augged individuals. Fortunately Carla was completely unaugmented. She watched as he target collapsed into a heap.
"There's your answer," she said, sounding rushed. "Case, paint me targets.
"On it, just rinse and repeat," He said. The first target was the man who had carried Carla's crates. Alessa squeezed the trigger again, sending another round the two-thousand and something meters down range. He was moving to assist Carla, and to ensure that their target stayed there he too was pacified-- far more violently. The rounds she were using now were lethal-- the only one she really needed alive was Carla, and thus only the first round had been a Jellybean. Alessa's scope had already switched targets by the time the man was struck in spout of crimson nor did she watch him slump over the table and throwing the disruptors into the Martian dirt.
By then, confusion and panic had set in on what remained of the arms fair. Those who sought to grab a weapon and fire in the direction of the gunshot were put down, but those who decided to escape instead were left to do so. Though far less than what it was, there still remained more people than she had bullets. Still, her rifle spat bullet after bullet in a savage symphony. In the end she only had to waste a magazine and some rounds before the arms dealers got the picture, grabbing what they could of their merchandise and escaping into the Martian wilderness as they could. Still, she was patient. She didn't immediately rise to her feet, nor did she congratulate Case on a job well done. She scanned the the remnants of the fair for half-an-hour just to be sure.
Once she was satisfied, she called out to Case, "Targets neutralized. Everything seems quiet. Give the MSS the Coordinates for target pick up, I'll start heading that way," She said, as she began to police her casing, and pack up Graham's camera. She stood like a ghost rising up from the dirt, her burlap cloak whipping in the Martian wind. Her rifle was slung around her chest, tight in her grip. She wasn't going to let her guard down until after she returned to the RSI offices. She was worried there might have still be stragglers. So she began her slow decent down the foothills of Aeolis Mons.
"MSS are en route 'Lessa, you should meet them there. Patching into your suit camera," He said, killing the feed and power to the camera and reviving the one on her suit. "What's the damage?" He asked.
"Aside from the target, twelve casualties, and seven warning shots. The rest grabbed their shit and scattered."
Graham was quiet for a time before speaking again, "A lot of people for just one woman."
"Maybe... But sooner or later they would have bit it too, either by us, another bounty group, or a gang raid. You don't get into that business with a great life expectancy."
"Fair enough."
They were quiet for the rest of Alessa's trek, and by the time she descended the rest of the way down the mountain, the tell-tale sounds of a VTOL descended into the valley. She looked up just in time to see the VTOL pass overhead and head toward the former arms fair. Another twenty minutes saw Alessa meeting with the MSS. One of the officers spoke up, "Red Sands?"
"Mhm. Alessa Sikova-- Case?"
"Sending credentials."
The officer looked away for a moment before returning gaze, apparently getting what he needed. "You check out. Good work here, maybe this'll get some of the guns off the streets," The officer said. "And good job nailing that bitch," Another one spoke up, "Thompson was a good man. He deserved this much."
Alessa nodded absent-mindly, as something in the Martian dust garnered her attention. She knelt and brushed the dirt off it and was greeted by a weapon of some sort. She picked it up in her hand and turned it over, noting the make. It wasn't a conventional weapon-- a disruptor. It was a small version, with a pistol like shape. She tucked it into her hardsuit as the Officer watched and asked, "A souvenir?"
"Something like that," She replied. She knew a person who would like it. Whatever her reasoning was for not killing, Sami could use a better disruptor for the bounties with augments.
"We're finishing up here, you can wait in the VTOL until exfil," The officer said, hooking a thumb backward.
Alessa nodded in agreement and headed toward it, "Case, send a report to Hassan. Mission complete, and I'm on my way home."
"On it. You enjoy the view now," Graham said, chuckling as he spoke.
Alessa paused and threw a glance around her at the Martian landscape. She lingered on it for a moment before shaking her head, "Red isn't my favorite of colors," She said, hopping into the VTOL.