A/N: Hey there guys and gals, Archimedies here with the third chapter of S(uper)BURB. Hopefully this one pulls a little more traction then the others, as three chapters and no reviews is somewhat disconcerting. But pointless grousing aside, I hope you enjoy this new chapter. If you do, please be sure to drop a review on what you liked and what you thought could be better, as it is the best way of expressing how you feel about a story. Enjoy.
Chapter 3: The Ronin.
Dave slid down the rooftop, pouncing noiselessly atop an air conditioning unit, and looked down on the warehouse. From his high perch, he watched the Midnight crew work. He gave a quick scan of the area, but could see none of the major players, only underlings and lackeys. Even they were dressed in expensive suits, presumably tailored. Pompous bastards. But their overly exquisite clothing was not what interested him most. He was more focused on the trucks that had parked in the shipping yard just a few minutes ago. He watched silently as the gangsters began removing cases and boxes from the back of each truck, and ferrying them into the large warehouse.
There was some shouting, and Hearts Boxcar came lumbering out, stopping one of the workers. Dave peered down at them, pulling a set of binoculars from his belt. He zoomed in on the case, as Hearts indicated to the mobster to open it. He gave a quiet hum as his target did so. The case contained an assault rifle, seemingly military grade, along with several clips of ammunition. Hearts picked it up and inspected it, before slipping a magazine into the well and racking the chamber, sighting up on the warehouse wall. He nodded, and handed it back to his underling, who unloaded it carefully and repackaged it, clicking shut the casing and carrying it away. Dave leant back on his haunches, as Boxcar repeated the process with several others, revealing them to be full of rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, and lightweight body armor. The crew were gearing up for something big, it seemed. But he was unsure as to what yet. Time to get his ninja on.
He slipped off of the conditioning unit, and padded his way across the roof, leaping the gap between that building and the next, and finding himself just above the wall of the compound. He gave a final glance, and leapt down, landing with barely a whisper behind a shipping container. He edged his way around it, and appeared behind one of the few guards that wasn't busy moving crates. His hand went to his blades. A shortsword known as a wakazashi was strapped to his lower back, and his katana was slung across his shoulders very carefully to avoid it shifting as he walked. After a careful moment of deliberation, he let the swords be.
Blood was always so hard to explain to his brother.
Instead, he simply crept past the mobster, passing by him, no more out of place then the man's own shadow. He made his way around the outskirts of the yard, passing by guards and creeping behind containers. He made it to the warehouse proper, and debated how to get inside. Eventually he settled on a window, which seemed to be on the second floor of the warehouse. He took a step back to get some run up, and sprinted at the wall, scrambling up it, and once his momentum was spent, flash stepping up to the window, disappearing and reappearing just close enough to grab hold of the window sill. He fumbled his lockpicks out of his pocket, and got to work. Within a minute, he had the window unlocked, and he pulled himself up just enough to look through. Within the room was a single guard, watching a camera monitor. Dave lowered himself back down, and waited. He could stay like this for quite some time, and the guard has seemed fairly restless.
His patience paid off, as he heard a conversation start. A second guard had walked into the room.
"Hey, you good?"
"Yeah, yeah, bored as shit though. No-one would even think of breaking in here"
"Well, that may have been true previously. But with those bastard Felt on the rise, we need to take precautions"
Felt? He'd never heard the name before. But if they gave the Midnight Crew the heebie jeebies, they couldn't have been good news.
"True, true. Hey, you wanna head up the roof and grab a smoke?"
"Yeah, sure. The having the head shed around is really rattelling my cage, you know? Makes me nervous"
"You're not the only one"
Dave waited until he heard a door creak closed, and reached up, opening the window and pulling himself through. The head shed, huh? So it seemed Boxcar wasn't the only higher up in attendance. He felt a trill of ice in his veins, but pushed it down. It'd do him no good to freeze up now, all he had to do was make sure he wasn't found. He didn't relish a fight, and taking on the full leadership of the Midnight Crew was not his idea of a good time. He stepped up to the moniter, and started flipping through views. Some showed rooms in the warehouse, others views of the courtyard. And a few gave an audience to the large inner space of the warehouse, were the boxes were being off-loaded. He grimaced. There they were.
Hearts Boxcar, Diamond Droog, and Clubs Deuce were sat around a table that had been set up in the middle of the space. Spades Slick stood at the head, hands splayed on its sheet metal surface. The camera didn't seem to have audio, so he decided he'd have to get closer if he wanted to find out what they were saying. Cue him sneaking his way through the inside of the warehouse, and finding his way to a set of pipes that traversed the ceiling of the warehouse. He jumped up to the pipes, and wrapped his arms and legs around them, shimmying across until he was directly above them, within earshot. He clutched onto the pipes with a grip of steel, listening intently to the conversation beneath him. Spades slammed his fist hard against the table, startling him.
"For fuck sake. What's taking so long?" Droog spread his hands in a placating gesture, a picture of calm, skinny frame held in a posture that was both relaxed and formal. A difficult combination to accomplish, but he pulled it off well. While Spades ran the gang overall, each of his underlings held a specific function. Diamond ran the financial and planning side of things, a natural fit for his analytical mindset.
"Well Spades, you'll be happy to know the only reason for the delay is that we have received even more weapons and ammunition then we hoped for. Our contact has even come through with a large amount of high quality, easily concealable body armor. A bountiful haul, if I may say so"
Spades nodded, obviously still disgruntled.
"Boxcar?"
"Yeah boss?" The burly Boxcar was in charge of arming and armouring the Crew's soldiers.
"What kinda weapons we lookin' at? And what's this about body armor?" Spades glared at his assistant as he extracted a chared dog end from behind his ear, put it to his mouth and lit it. Boxcar smiled.
"Well boss, we got a big shipment o' rifles, CAR-4 model, real good stuff. No flashy extras, just decent rifles all round. We got some shotguns too, dunno where they came from, but they're real nice. M1014's, semi auto, turn people to mince meat real quick"
"And the armor?"
"What we like to call "Second Chance" vests. Things'll stop a pretty decent sized bullet. Not too great, you'll probably end up with a couple broken ribs blocking anything bigger then a nine millimetre, but they're real cozy, easily hidden" Dave frowned as Spades flashed a shark tooth grin.
"Nice. Droog, you've really out done yourself this time, with this contact of yours" The smile was gone as quick as it came, and he grimaced. "Say, how much are all these extras gonna cost us, anyway?" A new voice rang out, certainly female, and decidedly sinister.
"Not a blessed penny, Slick"
Dave craned his neck to find the newcomer, but she seemed to be hidden in the darkness by the edges of the strage space. All the gangsters moving boxs stopped, and Dave watched as Spades' face darkened, before splitting into a snarl. He took an angry drag of his cigarette, and whipped around to face the voice, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
"You! Why are you here?"
"Why, didn't your Droog tell you? I'm just here to supply you in your little...Enterprise" Spades bore down on Droog, jamming an angry finger against his chest.
"The fuck are you doing Diamond!?"
Droog raised his hands, looking shocked.
"Boss? What do you mean? The two of you know each other or something?" A chuckle came from the darkness.
"I think you'll find it's...Or something"
Spades stepped back from his underling, clenching his fist, before releasing it and turning to her.
"What's your game, dame? Why?"
"Oh Slick. Can't an old flame do you a favour?"
Old flame. Hmm. This little trip was getting more eventfull by the second. The head of the midnight crew seemed to be having trouble holding himself together.
"We both know that's not it"
"Oh, come off it Slick. You're smarter than this. I hate English just as much as you do. So if I can help your little band of bandits to undermine him in anyway, I will" Spades seemed unhappy, but satisfied with the answer. Dave let out a low breath, and began crawling across the pipes. He wanted to be out of here with plenty of time before it got light.
"Oh, and the one watching us. He one of yours?" Dave took in a sharp breath as he heard various weapons being cocked beneath him.
"No"
"Oh, well that is unfortunate. For him at least" He'd made it three quarters of the way across, when he hit a loose section of pipe. A bearing snapped with a metallic crack, and he sped up as a bullet whizzed past him. And then another. he was scrambling madly now as shots thundered around him, pinging off the pipes, or punching through them and eliciting gouts of steam.
"Well, fucking hit him then!" he looked downwards just long enough to see Spades reloading his revolver, and his cronies running to the various cases around the warehouse, presumably for weapons. The rest of the Crew were milling about nervously, seemingly unsure what to do. He didn't give them a chance to figure it out, as he jammed his feet against a brace for the pipes, and kicked off, launching himself through the warehouse window and landing with a thump on the concrete. He looked around to see he'd landed in the yard, several mobsters looking around, locking on to him and the broken glass around him. One sprinted towards him, and Dave leapt into action, dashing forward and flash stepping towards the hapless goon, slamming his knee into his chin and rolling to his feet as the man crumpled. He kept running, heading for the compound wall, and a hired gun toting a sniper rifle. He was completely oblivious to what was going on around him, wrapped up in a phone call. Dave set his sights, and sped up.
"Look dad, I'm not a crazed gunman, I'm an assassin! Yes, there is a differance-" He turned to see a Dave rushing him at high speed. Dave ran up him, feet slamming into his chest, and he jumped off, heading for the compound wall. The same moment he realized he wasn't going to make it, was the same moment a second Dave appeared out thin air and ran up the compound wall, jumping up to meet him at the height of his leap. The other Dave linked his fingers, and the primary Dave stepped down onto his hands, and was proppelled over the wall. He just had time to the clone give a salute, before disappearing as quickly as he came, in a flash of red light. Dave landed in a crouch, before sprinting for the safety of the alleyways and side streets. His thoughts buzzed with what he'd learnt, all the way back to his apartment.