Stuck in the Middle (with you - mini story) "The Shooter"
16 Sep 2021Isabella Levine
Continued on from my previous log. This is just from the perspective of an NPC. I just wanted to have fun with this as I continue with what's planned.
"Hey yo, Vincent. You ever feel odd doing this? Robbing from the dead? I feel like it brings on bad karma and bad things will happen to us in the future, you know? Like paying for our sins or something. I know it's dumb for me to say that but it's in the back of my mind, ya know? You know, man?"
Vincent, leader of his team of scavengers, looked at the man who spoke. The guy was new to this kind of job. A young desperate kid looking for work when he went through hell and was still thrown to the "streets". Typical Fed systems, Vincent thought. There's no such thing as being middle class and living comfortably. It was rich or being the working poor. The poor bastards, if they were lucky like himself, picked off the scraps of better society and ate from the bottom of the barrel. His boss, the organizer of this small running gang of scavengers, put together this gang to raid and scavenge this Industry Plant just after it went down, and luckily for the new kid, he didn't have to spill much blood today on his first job. Usually, it goes relatively peacefully. Sometimes it goes violently if someone's feeling like a hero. It always depends on the workers. Guards almost always try to put up a fight but they usually lose their morale if dealt with swiftly and forcefully. Vincent didn't figure this place was worth much but, 'bottom of the barrel.'
"Consider yourself lucky. You didn't have to down any brave souls today. This place was hit before we got here and nothing's been touched. This is anything but bad luck for us. The only resistance was that woman but she fled once our men pushed up on her. Unfortunately, she critically wounded 2 of our guys and killed Sadie. God damn, I liked her."
Vincent pointed to 3 men struggling to lift a cluster of cylindrical red gas canisters. How? He didn't know, but he didn't need them to damage it and cause a leakage or something.
"Hey. Help them out with that. We need those canisters inside the Keelback and then we're nearly done with this place. Just that manufacturing building to break into and-"
A defending explosion rocked the whole area. It was violent enough to throw Vincent to the ground in the full 1.34 gravity. The shock from the explosion made him temporarily weak and disoriented. His strength to stand back up was nill so all he was able to manage was getting to a knee and looking at where the explosion came from.
"Goddammit!"
It was the pressurized canisters the 3 men were carrying. They weren't careful enough, he first thought. The hell would he tell his boss now? That 3 idiots just blew themselves up because they carried something explosive wrong? His thoughts were pushed away when the young new kid spoke out just next to him. Poor bastard was shaken up too.
"Vincent! Sir, are you okay? What the hell happ-"
A purple plasma round slammed into his upper right chest before he could finish his sentence. He dropped instantly but writhed around in pain still alive screaming out in agony. Vincent activated his shields and dove behind a disabled SRV for cover as he watched the man he just talked to now reach out in desperation. Vincent couldn't do anything without being shot himself so he cursed out loud watching the poor kid helplessly. Either his suit was breached beyond self-repair or internal hemorrhaging caused him to slowly die. Either way, he watched his vitals flatline in his HUD.
"Shit! I'm sorry kid. Damnit!"
Vincent shuffled slowly to the other end of the SRV to see if he could get a look at the shooter but instead, a plasma bolt nearly found its mark in his face. He ducked further behind cover. He needed more men to properly flank and destroy this shooter. Originally there were two teams, 12 men when they came. Half left after little resistance leaving one team, six men. 3 just got taken out from an explosion as well as the new kid who was just shot. That left one guy including himself left. He couldn't believe that in a matter of seconds he nearly lost his whole team. If he could make it to the Keelback he could call for backup. Vincent initiated team-wide comms.
"Keith, thank god you're left. It's Vince, what in the damn hell happened? Is that one or two shooters?"
The response was too slow and he was about to try again before Keith's voice came through.
"Yeah. I'm at their last position. They were on the HAB building rooftop. They're not here-"
Vincent heard the Plasma Rifle go off this time further to his right and saw the shooter on the Industrial Plant rooftop now. He could also tell the sound of the weapon. An Executioner Marksmen Rifle. It went off once more and that's when he found his moment to move seeing the figure on the rooftop reload.
"Keith, you still with me? Need you to suppress that shooter!"
"….."
He was mid dash and couldn't stop now when he expected the worst. He was the last one standing. He successfully made it to the sides of the Industrial Plant and was now within range to see a red blip on his sensors. Whoever this was knew he was there and wanted to keep the high ground. A better fighting position.
"Alright. Fine. Let's do it the hard way then."
He reached into his pouch and grabbed a Shield Disrupter Grenade. He activated it, waited a few seconds to "cook" it, then stepped off from the wall and tossed it up at the shooter. As soon as the EMP blast went off he initiated his pack thrusters and landed on the roof, AR-50 rifle drawn, directly in front of the shooter. Before he could get an actual look into the helmet of his assistant, Vincent saw and felt the purple flash of boiling plasma evaporate his shields giving him a sense of sudden panic from the spike in temperature he felt from just one shot. In that panic he frantically tried squeezing off a shot from his own kinetic rifle but to no avail. The slender figure moved fast in this small moment of reprieve and gave a high swipe kick knocking the gun out of his hand. Stunned by this sudden predicament, he reached for his sidearm and began to draw it up to fire but the now clearly identifiable female figure closed the little distance they had from each other in seconds and grasped the P-15 pistol he had tried to point at her. With her momentum, she forced his gun upwards as he felt the quick twist with pressure in his wrist that caused a second of pain getting him to instinctively let go of his weapon.
From that point on the world moved much slower as his only leverage he had left in defending himself was taken from his hand and brought back with the muzzle now pushed into his upper thoracic cavity. Next came what felt like a hot piercing spear punching through his lower throat. It hurt for a second before, what Vincent could tell, shock kicked in. He tried to take a breath but couldn't, causing another moment of panic in his brain. He instinctively coughed and out came blood that splattered in the inside of his helmet. He grasped the area where it began to hurt again and fell to his knees. He tried looking up to get one last look at his assailant but the blood-covered half his inner visor. He couldn't see. He choked on what could only be his own blood at this point. If he could talk he'd asked to be finished off and thankfully his wish was nearly granted as the muzzle of the P-15 faced him once more. He smirked slightly. What a helluva way to die, he thought before there was a flash and everything went black.
Next Episode: Ep. 2