Disclaimer: I do not own Watch Dogs

Chapter 2: Ballad of Bullets

Laura was exhausted. It had been a long day, and as she entered the carpark she glanced at her watch. 11.48 pm. She had prepared an emergency press conference, firing off emails quicker than lightning and typing up a script. She had grabbed hold of John and instructed him to compile a series of security video footage. She had ensured that the ctOS lockdown on file uploads was maintained until which time she had decided it was safe. Laura had personally supervised the impromptu upload tracking center and ordered teams of Blume fixers and police officers to raid the offending locations. Of 15 locations raided, 4 were confirmed to be Dedsec hideouts and 5 more were suspected of being rerouted IP addresses controlled by Dedsec. The 7 Dedsec affiliates caught were currently in holding cells that Laura had instructed to be disconnected from the ctOS, and were awaiting interrogations.

Despite her weariness, Laura was pleased with herself. She was confident that the press conference she had given had restored the public's confidence in ctOS by using security footage of the stadium attack and pointing out that the masked men had used custom-designed software to gain access instead of exploiting vulnerabilities in the system. She had pointed out that the men had used violence to gain access to the system, and the fact that they needed to gain physical access also pointed to the strength of the system, largely in thanks to measures and firewalls installed after vulnerabilities had been exposed during the Vigilante situation a few years ago.

Even the ctOS upload lock had been lifted, although Laura had instructed the upload tracking crew to remain vigilant and be wary of file uploads larger than 300 megabytes.

Laura climbed into her Adamant S-series and turned on the engine. The throaty roar of the naturally-aspirated V8 was as soothing to her as listening to classical music. As she turned out of the basement carpark, the radio came to life, playing some rock band of some sort. As Laura pulled on to the main road, the music ended and a news report came on.

"Today, we saw quite a turn of events in Chicago. ProviBlue bank was compromised and millions of dollars were siphoned from bank accounts by Dedsec. The once-defunct hacker group claimed to have acquired the relevant information through a ctOS vulnerability, but Blume's security chief Laura Annette Brendan revealed this afternoon at a press conference that Dedsec had actually launched a physical attack at a baseball stadium, killing 7 security guards before using a custom-designed program to take control of the cameras and hack into people's phones to acquire the necessary data. Dedsec's promise of uploading a video showing ctOS's fatal vulnerability was not fulfilled, and police raids have uncovered at least 4 Dedsec hideouts, with 7 alleged members of the hacker group arrested and awaiting questioning."

Laura smiled. Despite the late hour, she was confident that the people's faith in Blume and the ctOS had been restored somewhat. Blume's CEO had texted her to congratulate her on the press conference, and she had kept track of news reports throughout the day, with many other commentators analysing the video footage that she had made available, and with even the professionals saying it was genuine.

The families of the deceased security guards had been a great help too, coming out to speak with reporters and news channels, denouncing the Dedsec attack and pleading for the people to fight back. The most powerful set of images came from a young lady with a newborn cradled in her arms, standing in front of a run-down shack, whose husband had been killed at the baseball stadium, pleading for help.

Laura turned onto a road that would lead onto the expressway and subsequently home, absently noting that it seemed quite deserted.

All of a sudden, an explosion rocked her world, shattering her car's windows and jolting it violently. A plume of thick steam billowed into her car, and she wrenched the steering wheel. Laura felt the car begin to aquaplane, so through the hazy thickness of her mind she straightened the steering wheel and pumped the brakes, but to no avail.

As her battered muscle car cleared the thick cloud of steam, engine whining pathetically, Laura realised she was headed straight for a tree. She pumped the brakes again, but it was too late as the car smashed straight into the thick trunk, and everything was black.

Laura groaned, eyes flitting open. As her senses returned to her, she remembered that there had been an explosion and she had crashed her car. The source of the explosion was clear, even through her blurry eyes. A steam pipe had detonated directly below her car and she had somehow managed to wedge her car against a sturdy tree trunk.

Laura pushed open the crumpled passenger side door, still groggy from the crash. She climbed out, crawling on all fours as her broken Adamant ticked over, steam issuing from under the wrecked bonnet. She thought she heard voices, but Laura dismissed it as an illusion as she slumped against the tree.

Then she heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.

Laura was instantly alert. There is nothing like realising that one is about to be shot to sober oneself up.

Laura peeked through the smashed windows of her car. Through the now-subsiding plume of steam, she could make out several shadowy figures, holding the outlines of what were undoubtedly guns to their shoulders. She slipped her hand into her torn jacket, and pulled out her P-9mm standard issue Blume security handgun. She had never had occasion to use it, but Chicago's crime situation was bad enough that she kept it in a shoulder holster under her formal dress jacket all the time.

She pulled back the slide, chambering a round. She had been trained in its use, as had all Blume security workers, but now her hand trembled like never before.

She rested the butt of the pistol on the crumpled window frame to steady her hand. Laura looked down the iron sights, putting the nearest human silhouette within the inverted triangle that formed the sights. But she couldn't pull the trigger, despite knowing that she could be killed any instant, and she was in no condition to run.

Suddenly, a sharp burst of automatic gunfire rang out from somewhere beside her, and one silhouette convulsed and collapsed. The other silhouettes could be seen hurriedly ducking for cover. Laura turned. There, crouched behind a low wall, was a man in a cap, wearing a long trench coat, with a camo-painted assault rifle gripped in his hands.

As she watched, he tossed a strange-looking device over towards where the hidden men were. Then he pulled out a smartphone of some kind and tapped the screen. Almost instantaneously there was a loud explosion, followed by the pained cries of men.

Laura jumped as another man suddenly gripped her arm. He was grizzled, with a healthy beard growing, dreadlocks drenched in sweat. In his hand he clutched an SMG-11 machine pistol. A pair of sunglasses was perched on his baseball cap.

The man with the assault rifle shouted to the other man, "T-bone! Get her out of here! I'll hold them off!"

The man gripping Laura's arm, whom she assumed to be T-bone, shouted back, "You can't hold them off forever! Reinforcements are coming!"

The other man shook his head. "I don't plan on holding them off forever! Just get her to the car!" He then pulled a grenade launcher off his back and fired a round towards where most of the bullets were coming from. Another explosion ensued.

T-bone grunted. "Come on, missy. Let's get going." He dragged Laura by the arm, firing measured bursts back towards the fight with his SMG-11.

Laura raised her weapon arm and blindly fired a few rounds, yet she hoped she hadn't killed or seriously hurt anyone. She noticed the other man run over to her wreck of a car and attach a strange looking device to it, before running after her, also firing measured bursts back.

Once the trio were a safe distance away, the other man tapped his phone again, and the Chicago night was rocked with a much bigger explosion. Laura realised that her car had just been blown up by a stranger, albeit one who had just saved her life.

T-bone and the other man ushered her towards a low-profile Japanese sedan and pushed her into the back seat.

The other man got in the driver's seat, telling T-bone, "Get a comm jammer up. They're bound to try and track us down. Let's get back to the Bunker before we do anything else. "

Laura was starting to see stars again, but she managed enough strength to ask, "Who are you guys?"

T-bone, who had gotten into the passenger seat, turned back towards her and said, "My name is Raymond, Raymond Kenney. This here is Aiden Pearce. You know him as the Vigilante."

A/N hey guys, heres the second chapter of this little watch dogs fic, hope you all enjoyed it. Laura is about to be thrown into a world she knew existed, but had no idea how complex it was. anyway, this fic will be quite an interesting write, and i'll be focusing more on this fic and my star wars fic cos i've hit a major writers block on my pokemon fic.

anyways, feel free to leave a review commenting on my writing, and don't forget to enjoy the story!

stay awesome, and happy reading

peace, Darkrai