Thanks for your patience, I re-wrote this chapter, seeing as how I wasn't satisfied with it. It turned out darker, longer and better in my opinion. Personal experience of a really bad day is one hell of an inspiration. Thanks to my beta Yonsshii. As always, reviews are awesome and they really help in continuing this humble story of mine. Questions perhaps? Ask me anything! NOW READ.
Upper Hengsha is said to be a marvel, a true visual spectacle that artists hail as "liveable art". Luckily for Jensen, it was raining on the one day he would go topside. What little he saw of the buildings was no doubt impressive. Carbon fibre, steel, plexiglass and plastic all joined together like some kind of designer-grade skeleton that blocked the horizon, on other days it reflected the yellow spores of the sun upwards as they bounced off the glossy latex-like black sheen that covered all the gigantic, singular windows. Today, the skeleton seemingly bled ink. It ran in rivulets down the sloping arches and melted in the cold, salty wind. If you lay flat on the ground, it would seem as the buildings themselves were slowly dissolving. Jensen had no time though, he ducked through the howling alleyways, climbed the swaying construction scaffolding and jogged through the smaller streets in the shadier districts whilst the wind lashed at him at any opening it found. His coat flapped and threw off excess rain as he slowed his walk, nearing the small den that he had come here for. A small street with a door built into a wall and designed to look like part of it, if you didn't notice the door handle, you wouldn't notice it at all.
The interior was lit by black-lights and illuminated keyboards. Kids angrily blew each others heads off as they slammed energy drinks down and shouted obscenities at each other in Mandarin. Everyone was wearing a hood or a hat or a face-mask. This wasn't any old internet café, this was a front for some hacking business that went on downstairs, the kids get slipped a dose of cocaine or heroin as long as they act like this is just a gaming den. Adam noticed the lack of interior heating as the chill from his augments and the rain settled in at the intersection points, where the organic met the tech. He made a bee-line for the door next to the desk occupied by some thug. Adam didn't understand what the banger was trying to tell him but he was on the floor soon enough, preventing any further rude remarks. The kids were too angry and loud with each other to notice that the thug had seemingly left his post.
The door led into the basement, some of the black-light bled into the stairwell but other than that, it was pitch-black. He could smell a decomposing heap of garbage bags stacked against the wall, felt a rotting banana peel underneath his boot. Up ahead was door that stood ajar. Bingo. Jensen scanned the wall with his smart-vision. No sign of anyone. He opened the door and started to hack the rig that was hooked up to several monitors, a different program on each one. He could hear dubstep coming out of a pair of discarded headphones on the table, he crushed the speakers in his hand. He needed to concentrate on his hacking.
The download was conducted without fuss. A few countermeasures and blocks, nothing Jensen hadn't seen in Detroit. Just to be sure, Jensen crushed the motherboard and wiped the hard-drive to factory zero. Satisfied, he walked back up the stairs he couldn't see. The banger was still asleep and the kids were all right. Adam dragged the banger into the black room for added security and hastily left.
Faridah had received Adam's call, requesting pick-up near the den. Still in her flightsuit, she drove a car which the company had rented for use in upper Hengsha. Managing to swivel her way through the claustrophobic streets that mixed together like a pile of thrown straws, she got closer and closer to Adam's signal. She was only a minute away from his position before he called her again.
"We need a new plan. The bangers caught on to me!" Jensen summarized in a hurried tone.
"Jensen, I know you can handle a few kids with firecrackers." Malik drove faster.
"By firecrackers you mean auto-shotguns and assault rifles?" Jensen gritted his teeth as he returned with blind fire, trying to incapacitate, not kill.
"Shit." She was barely half a minute away now. The rain seemed to intensify in the cramped and littered alleyways. The wipers doing little to improve visibility as Malik went at dangerous speeds in such close quarters. Soon she heard rapid gunfire over the sound of the water ridding her car with imaginary bullet holes.
"Is that you?" Jensen yelled over the communications link and gunfire.
The burning headlights cut through the grey atmosphere, blinding the assailants.
"You betcha, spy-boy!" Malik stomped the breaks, drifting at high speeds into the group of bangers, scattering them and creating more cover for Jensen. He vaulted over the badly damaged car he had been shielding himself with for the past minute, his feet creating waterfalls into the grey light of the alley as he slid over what remained of the hood. He rolled behind Faridah's car, his coat throwing marbles of water into the the air suffocating from gunpowder. Malik was already stationed behind the car, waiting for Adam to arrive.
"I changed the plan." Faridah offered a half-smile as Jensen merely frowned. He reloaded his Zenith and handed Faridah a key from his pocket.
"Open the trunk." He ordered as he heard the bangers regain their footing. He stood up and fired into the handful of hooded adolescents, giving Faridah time to pop open the trunk. Inside were an assortment of weapons and medical supplies. She spotted a vintage-looking double-barrelled shotgun, a Huntsman Silverback no doubt. Some explosives as well. Malik was under too much pressure to acknowledge how much potential death resided in the trunk of her car.
"Yellow concussion grenade, throw it!" Adam commanded as he started advancing towards the bangers, the shells ejecting from the Zenith being shoved downwards by the rain and gravity. Malik grabbed the yellow cylinder of the felt lining of the compartment, pulled the pin with enough force that would look ridiculous if she wasn't near death. Then, for the first time in her life, Faridah Malik threw a grenade. At people no less. She took cover, covered her ears and clammed her eyes together. She could feel the flashbang exploding in a wave behind her. As it washed over the car and herself, the feeling of nausea was unavoidable, but she had to make sure Adam was alive.
He was taking down the last two dazed thugs with some brutal moves that became absolutely visceral with his augments. She could see some poor schmuck's face ripple as Adam delivered a fistful of carbon-fibre at a truly inhuman speed. She heard bones breaking, the screams of confusion, fear and pure agony all mixed into a smoothie comprised mostly of pain. Adam's augments was immune to the blinding effects of the concussion grenade, his hearing was also resistant to the bleeding, screeching noise that Faridah was experiencing. Jensen was too focused on taking down the final bangers to notice one of the first ones he had taken down was regaining his balance, and pointing a rifle at the back of his head. He had enough rounds to compensate for his inaccuracy, and enough anger to fuel his willpower.
Thinking without any real thought, Faridah ducked back into the trunk, grabbed the Silverback she barely remembered seeing at the moment and hoped, hoped that it was loaded.
"HEY!" Faridah screamed at the hooded banger, surprised for a second that it was her voice that was bouncing off the walls of the alley. Feeding off of the negative energy that Jensen was creating for her, she transformed herself into a doorway for death, from which slugs of buckshot exploded through, tearing through metal, cloth and flesh. She had seen his face, he barely registered the Silverback, she didn't think he had enough time to see her face. She wasn't sure whether that brought her comfort or not. To see who you died to.
The kick made her lower the weapon, smoke swirled up to her face, more bullet holes from the rain permeating the grey cloud, the evidence of her deed dying like the man slumped against the corner of some filthy dead-end. Adam was suddenly there, slowly easing the shotgun out of her hand and leading her to the car. The sound of the blast was still replaying in her mind inside the vacuum of the car. She didn't try to wipe away the rain from her face. Her hands would shake too much if she moved them. As Adam drove, time didn't seem to progress at all. The rain just kept coming, like she'd never left that dead-end. Time was dead like the man in the corner. In her own mind she repeated a phrase like a mantra:
Jensen is safe.
That's all that mattered.
Jensen is safe.