"Alarm level five. Enforcers deployed. Stay out of their way."
Easier said than done, Alexa. The guard elevator is right in the next room, and as luck would have it, of course this is where the fucking Enforcer decides to beam in.
I can't slow down or wait him out, not with the two behind me breathing down my neck. So I say my prayers and make a dash across the room to the opposite door.
The elevator door slides open as I'm halfway through and the bark of the guard jabs me like a spur in the flanks. I sidestep smoothly into cover to break line of sight, activate my cloak, and keep moving.
The Enforcer curses at losing his target, but where that target went isn't gonna remain a mystery for that much longer as I shove through the door and close it behind me. I might not think highly of their training, but even a braindead, stimmed-up corporate goon can put two and two together and figure out the meaning of an invisible shape manipulating a door.
The angry mob chasing me is getting thicker I'd like, and worse yet, I'm leading them straight to the exit - straight to Xu and Valdes.
I hear a characteristic little ping noise in the room I just left and I thank the heavens - or the Operator, to be precise - for the sound distraction. About damn time we got some mainframe support.
That program's got a cooldown before it can run again, though, and so does my cloak. All out of tricks. Have to get through the rest of this with just my wits, my fists, and my trusty disrupter.
There, the exit room, fucking finally. The telepad to the right is practically beckoning me with open arms, but I bound right past it and make for the locked security door.
"Looking around!" comes the harsh bark. I focus my eyes on tactical view. Hostile on the other side of that door - right on the other side, in fact. And Xu, shrinking back against a wall just behind him, out of sight but not for much longer once he turns around. Gotta think fast.
"Red, the door-"
"I'm ready," comes her reply.
And so am I. Keycard in one hand, disrupter in the other. The guard is standard security, no armour. I can take him.
Just one problem: he's partially facing the door. I'm quick, but I'm not sure I like those chances-
And Xu, his shape bright yellow in tactical view, gives me a fucking 'get ready' hand sign as he moves towards the guard. Without a weapon.
Aw hell no. I dash forward, already knowing what's about to happen.
Xu steps into full view of the guard who just ran right the fuck past him, close enough to tap him on the shoulder, though mercifully he resists the urge to do just that.
The guard jumps a little, yells, and swivels to face him, and Xu dutifully freezes with his hands up. Crucially, the guard is no longer looking at the door.
A visual indicator on the lock gives me the go ahead to move, meaning Valdes just delayed the hostile mainframe bullshit that keeps locking it back up.
I swipe the card and come bursting through the door with a primed disrupter and a knuckle sandwich for the guard. We both tumble to the floor with a grunt, but I'm the only one who gets back up.
"Excellent timing." Xu lowers his arms and beams at me like he wasn't just one man's twitchy trigger finger away from getting ventilated. I glare back at him, because smacking him upside the head is a waste of precious time, and besides, it worked, kind of.
I need to get moving, though, because Valdes is still stuck in that console room without a keycard on her and I am not leaving her behind.
"Hey- What was that?" comes from further in the room, and I spot movement. I shrink into cover and Xu does the same, but the guard I just took out is still out in the open, drawing attention to our position.
Gee, I wonder what the downside of letting an enemy spot you for a stupid gambit could be. Not like they could possibly have friends around.
I peer past the fake plastic plant I'm hiding against and zero in on the source of the voice just long enough to identify him as trouble. Fancier uniform, some kind of decoratve bits clearly meant to evoke shards of ice, and a belt with hey what's that he's reaching for oh FUCK.
The grenade shatters to release a dense cloud of fog, and I get precisely one second to think 'hey, that's not so bad' before the fucking cold of it hits me next. If that pulse thing was bad, this is a couple times worse - but he doesn't seem to mind it, and of course, he's getting closer to have a look now that he's lobbed the damn thing.
I glance at Xu and the still open door to the telepad room past the prone body of the guard. The new arrival can see it, but only just. Xu can make it through if he's quick and doesn't trip and fall on the body. Me? I'll worry about that later.
"Go," I tell him in my 'chain of command' voice.
Xu nods and skips over the body of the guard and through the open door. The approaching frost guard gets him in his sights just long enough to shout and raise his gun and nothing else.
Of course, he's overwatching the door now, and I'm stuck here. With nowhere to go, the fucking frost fog making me even more miserably cold and sluggish than I was already, and another guard about to wake up nearby who I can't get close enough to pin. I'm in cover, for now, but not for much longer once the new guy closes in.
Salvation, as it often does, arrives in the form of a surprising little thwip!, the frost grenade guard toppling over with a baffled look, and Maria 'Internationale' Valdes emerging from behind him, D.A.R.T. gun held high. I have to squash down a surge of unseemly admiration.
"How'd you get out of the-" I start, pinning the hostile closest to me.
"Ambushed a guard with a keycard while still inside. I'm empty now, though." She holsters her now useless D.A.R.T. with a worried look and crosses to meet me in the ice fog. Shivering hard, we shuffle back into the telepad room.
"Incoming. Other side," the Operator speaks up, and a helpful arrow on our interface specifies just which side they mean. We both stare at the door leading that way.
The way I came from. With an Enforcer and two guards and the orca-looking guy with the draining dart all somewhere on that side, and with Red's gun empty, my cloak out, and Ping still on cooldown. Fuck, we well and truly are out of tricks now, aren't we?
A guard stops short to investigate just short of the door, and by voice print alone our AI magic IDs him as the armoured Elite I evaded earlier. And he's about to come through, and Red and I are still shaking off the cold and are only just now shuffling into the room.
Still shivering, Xu makes it to the door in time to attach his electrical whatchamacallit, peek through, and stumble back.
Right. One last trick, the booby trap. Forgot about that.
True to plan, the armoured Elite slides the door open. There's a crackle and he topples with an anguished groan that brings to mind every single time I've heard Xu insist that these things are 'completely safe, honestly, for the most part'.
The armoured guard is down. Good.
And there's another set of footsteps approaching the open door. Not good.
Valdes is already inside the elevator but Xu is still a step away, too damn slow,. The new hostile is nearly through the door, and I can already tell we're not both gonna make it into the elevator in time. And I-
I'm support.
If one of us is getting shot, it might as well be me, right?
My joints aching from the cold, I use my movement to shove Xu in the rest of the way, and in that split moment, the new guard clears the doorway.
I'm close, but not close enough. I brace myself for a world of pain and keep moving, hoping to keep enough momentum that my sorry carcass will at least make it back to the jet.
And it's... mild, like getting hit with a paintgun pellet.
"You've got to be kidding me," I mutter.
I still topple into the elevator, though, because getting tagged with that draining thing has a new kick to it the second time around and I can't feel my legs all of a sudden.
Xu catches me before I bash my skull open and Valdes hits the button. The orca-looking guy and his silly little TAG pistol are the last thing I see, and we're out.
"You'll be okay," Valdes is telling me in her best bedside manner voice. "It was only a mild sedative, and Incognita removed the tracker on re-entry."
Yeah, I hate it when she does that. She, it, whatever. God only knows what else she's removing or tinkering with every time we're reintegrated.
I didn't even realise I'd passed out, but here I am, stretched out on the tiny cot in what passes for the jet's medbay. The hum of the engines is low but reassuring. We're underway.
I watch Valdes put away the medgel. It still has the factory seal on it. Sometimes bringing it along is the best talisman against actually having to use the damn thing. Funny how that works, sometimes.
I reach for my hat. It's intact.
"Ugh," I say.
She looks back to me. "That was very... heroic, Brian." I can tell she wants to laugh, if only because it's a welcome release after the clusterfuck the past however many minutes have been. I wouldn't blame her for laughing at me, honestly. Bravely facing the bullets except nevermind, it's actually a pathetic nerf gun with a slow-acting sedative and a tracker. Yeah, that's not one I'm gonna live down anytime soon.
I'd tell her to shut up, but she doesn't deserve that, good-natured or not.
"I need a drink," I grumble, instead. Valdes instantly purses her lips but says nothing.
I notice Xu standing behind her, nose deep in his datapad, but there's a restrained quirk in the corner of his mouth. I scowl at him but fail to provoke eye contact.
"Your core temperature is still below normal, though," Valdes says. "We should-"
"Yeah, that's enough," I wave her off as I stand on shaky legs. Xu looks up from his device but thankfully doesn't offer to help, and simply watches me as I wobble only slightly on my way to the door.
Valdes is trailing after me. She hasn't given up yet.
"You're more at risk than the rest of us," she explains urgently, and she's somehow summoned one of those blankets into her hands in the interim. "Poor circulation. Because of the-"
"The drinking, yeah, I get it," I brush her off, but I take the blanket. Bit of déjà vu here, so let's just hope that for the foreseeable future, the number of colleagues to try and swaddle me up like a babe begins and ends at two.
I don't know what she's so worried about. We got out, and the jet's normal temp will kick in as soon as we've put in enough distance for safety. Not like me being cold is gonna get any worse.
And I might have muttered that out loud, because Valdes gives me a pointed look and doesn't say anything.
Ah yeah, right. I keep forgetting. It's because she cares.
It's awkward enough - undeserved enough - that I shuffle away and mutter something derisive under my breath, and wander into the cockpit. I wrap the blanket tighter around myself and sink into the co-pilot chair with a groan. Yeah, not gonna leave this spot for the next six hours, if I can help it. I need to convince Central to cash out for seat warmers.
Valdes follows me and I keep a wary eye on her, anticipating more mothering as she takes her spot next to me and glances in my direction. Without a word, she lowers the arm rest between us so she can scooch closer. Huh, ok then. Suppose I'm not the only one who's cold.
Xu stops in his tracks when he sees us, and he's not quick enough to hide the forlorn look on his face. I'm too tired and cold to care about appearances, so I wordlessly lift the corner of the blanket on his side and gesture with it. He obliges.
The three of us make a snug fit on the double pilot seat, but we make it work, though I haven't felt this squished since the last time I used the subway. They huddle in under the blanket, my blanket, and then it looks like everyone is finally warm and cozy.
I'm support, so I let them.