Killing Time OST – 1b – Strike

<< 1a – Strike

The guards under me remained oblivious to my presence and so did the light crowd they contained. Technologically powered hearing could only take you so far: give it to bored or distracted guards and it won’t keep me from slipping past your defenses. I landed smoothly on top of my objective.
Reaching Mister Fancy Pants’ building: check.
There should be security on this roof. Nothing I couldn’t handle. I bobbed my head to the music and matched my steps to it, taking my handheld Taser out of its holster. I loved that baby. It was based on beginning of the millennium’s models with a few added perks, namely an extra powerful battery that delivered a few hundred shots before requiring a refill.
Toys like this were completely banned from the public use and thus extremely rare. Mine was contraband and cost me a pretty penny, which didn’t really matter when you were on the Top Wanted list and daughter of a millionaire to boot. Electroshock weapons were taken out of citizens hands because they made it fairly easy to turn a million dollars’ worth of implant enhanced soldier into a wimp. ‘Fairly easy’: you still had to stick the thing into the guy but once that was done, the odds turned in your favor. Half the time, the artificial circuit coursing across his body paralyzed him until he was rebooted. A quarter of the time, the implants and nanobots were short-circuited and you only had to deal with a human, usually an under-trained human who relied too much on his now dead power-ups. The remaining quarter had too few implants to really be affected. They still received a muscle-crimpling jolt. I fell into that category but the guards on this roof didn’t.
The roof was cradled between two taller buildings. I rounded the corner of the chimney and saw a guard walking alongside the wall formed by the closest building.
The music in my head was bold and beautiful. I decided to follow its lead. Besides, I was running out of time. I sprinted toward the guard when he turned his back on me. He heard me and turned around to shoot his plasma gun. I was too close. I stepped on the wall and vaulted above his head, sticking my Taser in his neck as I passed over him. His body hit the ground at the same time as mine.
He wasn’t dead. I was a good assassin: only the target got killed when I worked.
The second guard most likely patrolled along the other wall. His enhanced hearing would lead him right here to check on his partner before ringing the alarm.
I headed back toward the chimney to hide and wait. Right on time, the street became really noisy. The parade slowly advanced in the street below and would camouflage the rest of the noise I made, provided I kept it under a reasonable threshold and was out of here in about fifteen minutes.
Impeccable timing: check.
Seconds later, the guard arrived jogging. If he had received a standard enhancement, his communication device would be behind his right ear. I had to get him before he activated it.
I broke into another sprint to repeat the earlier process. This guard was quicker on his feet and turned around earlier than I anticipated.
Change of plans.
No time to become vulnerable to prep a pirouette. I grabbed his gun and held on to it. I stepped on his bent knee and swung my feet at the back of his right ear. A satisfying crunch resounded. I completed my move with his gun in hand, a few feet back. The pain had released his grasp. In a few maneuvers, I disabled the weapon. I hated plasma guns. Bullets were more romantic.
“You wouldn’t want to ruin your master’s surprise birthday present now, would you?” Taunting guards was my third favorite sport. The second was tracking a target. The first was R-rated.
“Smart ass.” He yelled.
“Sue me.” I countered.
He charged. I sidestepped and pressed the Taser against his arm. He collapsed.
“That works too.” I sighed. If only brain implants weren’t that pricey, these guys might pose a real challenge.
One minute left to the song, I ran to the side of the building opposite to the parade and found the window I had chosen as my point of entry. I lowered myself to the protruding windowsill. A shot of Taser in each corner disabled the security. I sprayed the rest of my acid to melt the window frame and slipped inside.
The master’s bedroom was empty. I cocked my hip, my turn of the millennium pistol and my head. In that order. As the song ended, I tapped the last bars on my hip with my gun. I filled my lungs with all the air they could hold and yelled.
“Honey, I’m home!” I stretched the “o” for good measure. Time to switch the song.
“I thought you were kidding when I read the plan!” A masculine voice rang within my skull.
“Vexx!” I yelled. “Get oughta my brain!” He snickered. “I mean it! You’re messing my momentum and…”
“…pissing off an assassin may cause waking up to a dagger through the jugular. I read the fine print.” His sarcasm drove an angry sigh to growl in my throat before escaping into the now stirring house. Army boots stumped up the stairs at the end of the corridor leading to this bedroom. It would funnel the soldiers to my door.
I swung my pistol up in the air and caught it by the canon. I pushed the security in place; until my target was here the gun merely served as a club. I flipped a tranquilizer gun in my free hand. The first dummies would go to sleep and the rest would be Tasered. A jolt of pain fired in my brain and the first guard entered at the same time. Despite the suffering, I straightened and jabbed a tranqu. dart under his jaw.
“Vexx, your stupid hack causes backfires. It hurts like hell.”
The next guard walked in. I dodged a punch and extended to put him down. He barely winced when the drug hit him. He backhanded me forcefully and I rolled back, allowing another soldier to step in. Damn it! I hated when they were boosted with nanoroids!
“You’re such a wuss.” Vexx replied to my previous comment, completely oblivious of the fact he’d be unconscious by now, was he standing at my place. I spun and hit my attacker with the handle of my gun. A split eyebrow seemed proper reciprocation for bruising my face. Assassins didn’t really need nasty scars to prove their worth and I didn’t take kindly to people trying to ruin my figure.  After a second blunt assault, the man finally collapsed.
“You’re such a geek.” I yelled as the remaining guard closed his huge arms around my body. To be fair, Vexx didn’t have the physic of a geek at all but I didn’t have the time to go there with two more goons coming my way. Another one, further down the corridor, cocked a gun and triggered the alarm. Swell.
“Seriously, it can’t backfire.”
“It does. Now gimme my music before I’m dead.” Luckily, extendable Kevlar was quite slippery. I writhed out of the constricting bear hug, drugging another guy in the momentum. That one went down and a plasma ray flew by my ear. The gunman in the hall was apparently the daring type.
“The one you chose seems a bit slow.”
The three bulks of muscles on the Persian carpet complicated my navigation. I was losing ground. If they surrounded me, I was a goner.

1c – Strike >>