The bandit gave a little lead to the truck and then clutched at the trigger. With a gout of flame, the rocket-propelled grenade leapt from the front of the tube, speeding across the intervening distance. The truck was travelling faster than it looked, however, the smooth drive of a vehicle being handled by a rigger giving a deceptive appearance. The reactions and control of a rigged driver was not something the bandit had experience with, and his round impacted behind the truck, exploding in a mass of flame. Small fragments peppered the back of the truck, sounding like a thousand bells all being rung as they spattered off the armour.
On the other side of the road, other crouching bandits got ready to leap to their feet, their AK-47s clutched tightly in their hands – still covered by the boulders, but casting shadows from the low-hanging winter sun that betrayed their positions.
The team sprang into action immediately. Aswon thrust the barrel of his hunting rifle out of the firing port, aiming at the man cursing his aim and reaching for another grenade. He accounted for the vehicle's movement, angle, estimated wind speed. For a moment he was still, then he gently squeezed the trigger. The rifle thudded back into his shoulder, but he was braced for the recoil. Watching, he saw the round hit, square between the eyes, and a moment later the back of the man's head just disintegrated as the hollow point round expanded and tore apart. The case leapt out of the receiver, bouncing off the reinforced window before rolling around on the floor. Hunter thrust the barrel of his assault rifle out of the window on his side and let off a burst, stitching three rounds into the padded jacket worn by a bandit as he stood from behind a large boulder, driving him backwards and spinning him like a top. Three more rounds ejected, striking the back of Shimazu's seat before they came to rest on the floor.
Marius reacted by gunning the engine and dropping a gear, simultaneously throwing the truck into a series of sharp 's' curves designed to throw off the attackers' aims. His mind fused with the truck's systems, the wheels hitting the white lines at the side of the road and then pulling back with precision. Shimazu thrust the barrel of his pistol out of his firing port and fanned the trigger, a 10mm round rumbling across the gap between him and a bandit. The round struck the ribs, breaking three and throwing the man back into the scree slope behind him, blood spurting from the wound.
Shimazu waited for a fraction of a second, until another bandit stood, but just as he fired, Marius jinked the truck. The round impacted in the fleshy part of the upper arm, instead of the region around his heart, but still staggered the man and threw off his aim. The loud retort of the revolver added to the din in the cab. Shimazu grabbed the massive hammer, pulling it back into firing position for a second shot.
Another RPG came lancing down from the boulders, and Marius threw the truck to the side, drifting with the six wheel vehicle and getting perilously close to the edge of the road. Turning as he did so, though, presented the flat face of the truck to the blast, and the armour soaked the explosive force and shrapnel with no apparent damage.
Kai turned back in his seat and shouted at Tadibya, "Invisible. Truck. Now!" Tadibya nodded and reached out with her mind, perceiving the astral form of the vehicle and starting to weave the mana into a protective barrier, guiding light around it. A surge of power, a moment when her eyes grew large and nose extended, taking on the visage of her totem… and the truck vanished. Not a shimmer, not a motion blur, not a clue as to where it was. The bandits stared in shock, and then sprayed automatic fire wildly in the general direction of where they thought the truck was.
Marius, meanwhile, was earning his keep and cementing his reputation, as he slammed the truck to one side, the back end flipping around and the last set of wheels scraping down the edge of the road as he performed a J-turn. All the shots from the AK-47s went harmlessly past, into the space he would have been in.
As the back end of the truck swung around, Aswon spied one of the bandits, AK-47 jammed into his hip, spraying fire with wild abandon. The barrel climb was clearly visible, and by this point was more of a danger to birds and passing aircraft than the truck – but still, the intent was there. He lined up on the target, took a breath, and squeezed the trigger.
The back end of the truck struck a rock, and jumped, just a little.
The bullet sped past the bandit, missing him by perhaps a centimetre, before disintegrating as it hit the rock behind him.
Hunter looked over at Aswon. "You missed? You missed a shot?"
Aswon turned his head like a striking snake and glared over at him, lips pulled back and huge teeth exposed in an angry grimace. For a moment he looked enraged, but then he got himself back under control.
Hunter made a quick decision then. "Missed… mind you, we hit that rock, that's probably what did it. Bad timing. Unlucky." He watched out of the corner of his eye, but Aswon didn't push the issue any further. The truck was moving forward at just above walking pace, and closing on the position of one set of bandits. Shimazu dropped his pistol and then with a swift and fluid motion threw the door open, rolled out of the truck and landed lightly on his feet, springing into a run and drawing his sword with an economical movement. Hunter dropped his assault rifle and bailed out after him, SMG on a friction sling and knife in the scabbard at his hip.
Aswon bent over the rifle again, sighting on a fresh target and fired a round – this one striking true. Entering through the left eye, this one penetrated easily and the entire back of the bandit's head blew out, decorating a large patch of rock behind him.
The bandits up the slope turned, and saw the strange portal in the clear air. Where the door was opened, there was a break in the invisibility spell, and the interior could be clearly seen. The two men on this side of the road turned and started to track round on the strange sight, lowering their AKs into firing position.
On the far side of the road, the last surviving bandit stood from behind the rock he had been using as cover, and lowered the tubular launcher, scanning across the road. He was on the far side of the vehicle though, and could not see the open door – in fact with the force of the invisibility spell, and how much power Tadibya had pumped into it, he could see nothing but rocks, his two comrades – and two men sprinting towards them! He took a deep breath to shout a warning to them.
The open mouth lined up neatly in Aswon's sights, and again he pulled the trigger as the moment felt right. The heavyweight round rumbled across the distance between them, and the hollow point struck the back of his mouth and caused devastating damage. The bandit dropped without a sound to the side, falling behind the rock. In the truck, Kai and Tadibya leant over, grasping at the open door and pulling it shut. Instantly both remaining bandits lost their sight of the interior, and there was now armoured plating in-between any stray rounds they might fire, and the unmoving and defenceless body of the rigger.
The bandits took a fateful moment trying to spot the truck – a task that was doomed to failure. In that moment Shimazu cleared the slope, sword held back behind him, legs pumping hard and propelling him forwards at great speed. The first bandit tried to lower his rifle to guard, but he was no match for Shimazu's reactions. The sword whipped round at a ferocious speed, blade glinting in the pale sunlight and struck with all the power that his body could muster. The steel sang through the air, and cut through the neck with one clean blow, sending the head spinning into the rubble. Shimazu let the swing carry him through, pivoting and swinging his body to the side, pirouetting like a shot putter approaching his mark. The remaining bandit swung his weapon round, trying to track onto the rapidly spinning adept.
It was a race he was destined to lose. Already injured from the earlier shot that had caught his arm, his reactions were slowed to the point where Shimazu was moving twice as fast as he was. It was like watching a novice martial artist set against a black belt with years of practice. That was, in fact, the situation – and the events unfolded predictably. Not even bothering to stop his twisting motion, Shimazu lashed out, and the metre long blade thrust straight through the bandit, emerging out of his back. The twisting motion of his body pulled the blade sideways, opening the wound further. The bandit let out a short scream, his rifle dropping from suddenly numb fingers.
Shimazu pushed the corpse off the blade, and flicked the sword to get rid of most of the blood, then stooped and tore off a strip of clothing from the man, using it to wipe the blade clean, almost tenderly.
Marius stopped the truck and extended his sensors out to maximum, looking for any remaining bandits, or any other signs of life. The mountainside settled into silence, the team watching for further signs of trouble. It was all quiet.
Most of the team descended from the truck, leaving Marius to keep an eye on the sensors and get the vehicle turned around and pulled off the side of the road so no passing vehicle would hit them – it was still invisible after all. Examining the bodies they found almost nothing – some water, the ancient assault rifles, spare ammunition. No cred sticks. No wallets. No shiny loot.
Checking the bodies on the other side of the road revealed much the same, but here Shimazu spotted what appeared to be the entrance to a cave. Cautiously he edged inside, and found a small cache. Whilst he investigated the cave, the others grabbed the guns and ammo, collected the RPG launchers and several of the strangely shaped grenades that fitted them and stashed them in the truck.
The cave proved to be more of a shallow dent in the mountain, being only a couple of meters deep. Inside was some battered-looking water containers and a small pile of loot – and very little else. There was a low-quality backpack, fraying at the edges and with faded colours, from which poked the edge of a battered-looking laptop computer. Inside was a set of poor-quality clothing, to fit a large man – certainly larger than any of the bandits that had attacked them, though the height would have been right. At the bottom of the bag was a small folding penknife, a toothbrush and a piece of chalk. Next to it was a modern looking suitcase, laid on its side. It had been popped open, and inside were two sets of reasonable-quality clothes – a suit, and a more casual set of slacks and top. Nestled at one end were some smart shoes and a wash-kit.
In a small leather satchel were three IDs, and a pair of certified credsticks. The certified sticks held just over fifteen hundred Nuyen between them, and the three IDs were fed into the computer and checked, one after the other. The first was for Dilshod Atoev, a male of 32 years, apparently an insurance salesman for Tashkent Insurance and Risk Management Co. The persona seemed to match up with the suitcase. The second stick was for Laziza Haydarov, a female aged 64 with a listed profession of "farmworker". The final stick belonged to Sardor Yusupov, a 25 year old male who was shown as a sales clerk for a supermarket chain called "Hyperfood". The menial blue collar job would seem to tie in with the backpack and battered 2nd hand computer. As Shimazu left the cave with his finds, he spotted down the chasm to one side and three burnt-out vehicles, about a hundred feet below.
Marius and Aswon set up a rope and headed down to the wrecks, but soon returned with the news that they were total write-offs, with no salvageable parts – but that they had found one mid-range saloon, a small farm truck and a battered Traban – which seemed to match the IDs they'd found. From their vantage point though, they could see a trail that led to a village a mile or two further up the valley, with tracks that indicated recent use – presumably where the bandits had come from.
The laptop was handed to Marius, who opened it up to run diagnostics on it – but he soon found himself hampered by some tough encryption applied at a very low level. Even the basic systems were heavily encrypted. After much poking around, he determined that the only way he was going to crack this was with a brute force approach and he needed convertor cables and some parts to attach the laptop to their wrist coms to do that. The team started the truck and continued on their way.
They drove down into Jizzakh and found the fuel station and refilled the truck to the brim – making a very happy fuel station attendant as they forked over about three thousand Nuyen for the fill up. They drove around the small town for a while, before finding an electronics and tools shop, the supplies in the window faded and at least three generations behind the current curve. No matter though – the cables and adapters they sold would work just fine, and soon they had a lashed up convertor that allowed the decryption utility on the wrist-comp to run against the laptop input port.
Marius seemed happy with the lash up, so he set a utility running, and monitored for a minute or two, to be sure it was working. When asked how long it would take, he checked against the speed of the utility and gave a grunt, then turned to the team. "Anywhere from a minute to a couple of days – it's just brute-forcing the combination at the minute. We could be lucky, we could not. Worst case I'd say about a hundred hours, based on how fast it's trying new codes." Marius left the utility running on the wrist com, connected to the port on the laptop, and then connected both to the electronics port on the truck to ensure the batteries stayed charged.
Tadibya, meanwhile, had gone to the market stall nearby and had purchased a single item of half a dozen different fruits and vegetables. Slowly she worked through them, feeling them, smelling them, examining them carefully from all angles. She carefully cut them, examining the skin and how thin it was, the seeds and stalks, the pith and internal structure. After each one, she concentrated, gathering mana around her and tried to duplicate the food, using raw mana to fashion a simulation of what she had seen and tasted. Some worked better than others – but at least now it wasn't just a diet of oats, oats and more oats.
Aswon emerged out of a general supplies store, holding a wide roll of chicken wire. Climbing into the back of the truck, and with deft and sure movements, he fashioned a cube of chicken wire from several layers, pinching together corners and folding the thin mesh until it made a self-supporting structure. He placed the cage over the laptop and wrist-comp and looked up at the others. "See, safer now. A Farah Day cage. Makes it harder to track." Hunter and Marius shook their heads a little and smiled, then reassured Aswon that no, it was a good idea and it certainly wouldn't do any harm.
They pulled out of Jizzakh after a thirty minute stop, and got back onto the road, having a clear run to Tashkent through the windswept and desolate landscape, watching the mountains loom up to the east as they got ever closer. As they reached the abandoned and ruined outer suburbs, Shimazu called his contact and got some details – they were to meet his agent Maaraei Odemyod on the northern side of the city in a bar called "The Shepherd's Rest" at 19:00. That gave them about two hours to find the place and get settled in the city before show time…
They drove into the city, seeing the same ravaged houses being consumed by the desert that they had encountered previously. As they drove closer to the city centre, they encountered a wall – two to three metres high and made from old cars, corrugated sheet metal, skips, every imaginable item – piled up and wedged together in an ad-hoc fashion. Inside the barrier the streets were cleaner to be sure, but the houses were still run down and depressed – clearly the homes of the blue collar workers of the city. Great factories dominated sections of the city, belching toxic smoke into the air and spewing forth vile chemicals into the drainage ditches surrounding them.
As they drove around, they spied the central area – surrounded by a five metre wall, just like the first town they had encountered. The smooth surface and angled reflector at the top glimmered in the last rays of sunlight. Beyond it would be the corporate housing and arcologies, the high tech buildings and civil infrastructure of the elite, they guessed.
Hunter was having problems with the navigation – it seemed that his map of the city was woefully out of date. Neither of the two walls were marked on it, and huge areas of several districts had been flattened to make room for the heavy industry that had sprung up. He directed as best he could, frequently checking and cross-referencing the map and their position. As they all looked about to confirm their position and look for landmarks to help guide them, they became aware of a battered and ancient-looking car tailing them as they drove semi-randomly through the streets. The brown rust-bucket trailed them, about three hundred metres back, through the light traffic.
"Let's lose our new friends, Marius," said Kai, "We haven't got time for this."
Marius trundled around a corner, as if nothing had happened, and then the truck accelerated hard, swinging into an alley with sharply executed power-slide. Thirty seconds of hard evasive driving later, and they were half a mile away, heading in a different direction and without the tail, who was probably scratching his head somewhere, wondering where they had gone.
They moved around to the north side of the city, watching the area get more impoverished and desperate around them, the houses becoming more decrepit and run down. People moving around kept their heads down, moving swiftly from work to home, trying to avoid the attention of the prostitutes, drug pushers and gangs that were now found on most street corners.
As they proceeded along a road, the truck suddenly pitched its nose down, as Marius slammed the brakes on hard. Everyone inside was thrown forwards into their seat-belts, wondering what was going on – and a moment later another rust-bucket jalopy came rocketing out of a side street, driving straight through the space in front of the truck. It sailed across the road and drove headlong into a thick telephone pole with a sickening crunch, then stopped. Steam erupted from the front of the car, and grinding noise echoed around the street.
Convinced they were under attack, the team piled out of the truck – Aswon had his rifle raised and ready, Shimazu with his sword, Tadibya standing ready to launch mana at any attacker. Shimazu sprinted across the road to check out the car, finding the front window smashed and shards of glass everywhere. The driver was dead or seriously wounded, obviously not wearing his seat belt. Empty bottles of vodka could be seen rolling around on the floor of the car, and Shimazu started to relax. Heading back to the truck he called out, "Drunk driver, it seems." The others relaxed slightly, and Aswon stared at the people in the street who were watching him fearfully, from cover. He climbed back into the truck without a word or sign, and after a quick check around, they proceeded onwards, looking for the bar.
Not long afterwards, they found the bar – in a seedy-looking side street. The map showed this as a through route, but it was clearly a dead end road now. The inner wall around the central area ran straight across the road, stopping any traffic from proceeding. The bar they were after was in a building on the east side of the street, appearing to be down in the basement level. A human and ork bouncer stood outside the half flight of stairs leading down into the building, wearing loose-fitting trench coats. Marius drove around the corner and parked up, and the team broke out the comms and spent a few moments setting up the frequencies and jamming ear buds into place.
Hunter exited the vehicle first to go and scope out the place. Armed only with a knife, he received a quick pat down from the bouncers – noting that the human had a set of discreet brass knuckles on - and then was waved into the bar. Entering the low-ceilinged room, his eyes switched automatically to low-light mode, with an overlaid ultra-sound mapping. His spatial recogniser mapped out the dimensions of the room, and orientated the map with true north using his built in compass. As he walked across to the bar, conscious of the sticky sensation as his feet moved over the floor and last night's vomit and blood, his enhanced nose sampled the air – reporting back a mix of cheap ethanol derivatives, poor quality perfume, sweat, trace remains of several toxic compounds impregnating the clothes of some of the workers – but no sedatives or gas. A battered jukebox played some synth-pop trash from the 20s over an awful sound system.
He ordered a vodka at the bar, being charged an outrageous ten Nuyen for it, and then found a seat in the corner that he could observe the bar from.
After a minute, a haggard and tired-looking harridan approached him, makeup plastered on a wrinkled face that would charitably be called "well lived in". She propositioned him, promising a night of pleasure for very reasonable prices. Apparently she catered for "all tastes". Hunter firmly declined and sent her away, making it clear that he didn't want any company. With a scowl, she tottered off to the other end of the bar on her high heels, trying her luck with some of the factory workers. As she did, Hunter sent the all clear over the comms to the rest of the team.
Shimazu, Kai and Tadibya got out of the truck and headed to the bar, the bouncers watching them with bored expressions as they closed on their positions. As they headed for the entrance and the steps down, the ork raised a swarthy hand and stopped them, subjecting them to a casual search for weapons. He pointed at Tads, demanding that she hand over her staff.
"It's a walking aid," she tried in English.
"Stick". Beckoning gesture.
"But I'll fall over!"
"Stick!" Again he gestured, this time with impatience.
"But I'll not be able to sta…" The ork reached forward and snatched the staff from her grasp. Tads promptly collapsed to the floor – but neither of the bouncers seemed to care one jot. The ork checked both ends and twisted the staff in several place – then satisfied that there was nothing concealed inside it, offered it back.
Tads grasped the staff, and used it to lever herself back upright, fixing the ork with a glower. He returned the look with disinterest, and waved them inside. The three runners descended down into the bar, pushing open the door and entering the gloomy room. Approaching the bar, they were hailed by the barman, asking what they wanted to drink. He wasn't ready for the response…
Shimazu asked for water, Kai for a Coke and Tads wanted a coffee. The barman blinked at them, then asked "Vodka?" With a sigh Kai nodded – at least the spirit would probably kill any bacteria in the glass, but Shimazu leant forward again and repeated his request – "water". The barman shrugged and got three filthy glasses, adding a shot of Vodka to two, and filling the third with water from his sink. "Thirty," he said, and Kai slid over a credstick, wincing slightly as the Nuyen was deducted. Shimazu peered at the glass, which would have been cleaner if he'd dipped it into the average pond, watching the sediment swirl and bits of… something… floating on the surface. He stared at the barman for a moment, but there was no reaction forthcoming.
Kai lowered his voice and pitched his voice for just the barman's ears. "We're looking for Maaraei Odemyod." The barman grabbed the credstick and ran another ten Nuyen off, then leaned over and subjected Kai to a blast of halitosis, "Go, sit, I arrange for him to come – ten minutes."
Kai and the team retreated and waited, enduring the bad music, sticky floor and stares from the locals. They occasionally looked down at their drinks, moved them a little on the table, and decided collectively that they had enough medical knowledge to say, "Hell no!" to the concept of drinking in this flea pit.
Ten minutes later, the door opened and a man entered – about 1.8m tall, and physically unremarkable. Medium brown eyes, brown closely-cropped hair starting to silver at the temples. He wore casual clothes, not anything flashy, and had a short-brimmed hat on. Above his right eye was a mark – a crescent or some something like it, apparently tattooed there. He approached the table and sat, nodding at the three team members. A few moments later one of the prostitutes tottered over from the bar, delivering a double vodka to Maaraei.
"You have the goods?" Maaraei asked in heavily accented English.
Kai nodded agreement, and asked "You have the payment?"
Maaraei nodded in return. "Ok, we make trade here. Bring goods, I pay now." Kai's eyes flitted up to Hunter, and saw the almost imperceptible nod – all clear.
Then he called out over the open mic comms, "Bring in the goods, please." Outside, Aswon climbed down from the truck and carried the box down the street to the bouncers. They waved for him to open the box, and he lifted the lid, angling the box towards them so they could see the scrolls inside. One of the bouncers started to reach in, but Aswon moved back an inch and said "I don't think Mr. Odymod wants his goods damaged, do you?" The two bouncers exchanged a glance, and then waved him down the stairs. As he opened the door, Hunter came and took possession of the box, and Aswon returned to the vehicle, recovering his rifle and waiting with Marius in case things went south.
Hunter walked the box over to the table, nodded at the fixer and then passed the box to Kai, before returning to his seat in the corner. Kai, in turn, swung the box around and showed the case to Maaraei. Maaraei glanced in the box, and then reached into his inside pocket, withdrawing a pair of white cotton gloves. He carefully pulled them on, and then delicately lifted out the scroll. After thirty seconds of careful examination, he rolled up the scroll delicately and laid it back into the box, and took off the gloves.
"Is good. Nice. I pay you one hundred." With that he pulled out a pair of credsticks, unlocked one with his thumbprint and inserted it into a small cred-reader. The second stick went to the transfer port and he keyed in the amount – transferring one hundred thousand Nuyen onto the certified stick. He spun the reader around so they could all see the display, hit the green "transfer" button, and then slid the stick out and over to Kai.
Kai took the stick casually, nodded to Maaraei. "Thanks, nice to work with a professional."
Odymod looked at the box and pointed at them. "Other scrolls, you have buyer?" Kai shook his head, no. Odymod pulled on the gloves again, and reached into the box, examining the other scrolls for a few seconds each. "Hmm, they, they ok. I can sell." He looked over at Kai, still holding a scroll in one hand. Their eyes met, locked for a second as each regarded the other, fixer and smuggler. "I give you five for rest." Kai searched the expression, looking for ticks in the corner of his eyes, micro movements or tells that would betray his thoughts. The seconds stretched out, then he nodded. "Ok, another five grand for the rest. Deal." Maaraei took the credstick back and went through the ritual again, spinning the reader to the team so they could see the balance transfer over.
"Good, all done now. Ready for work?" Kai glanced at Shimazu and Tadibya, then returned his gaze to Maaraei. "Sure, what do you have on offer?"
Maaraei said he had two jobs at the moment – a delivery of equipment, to take to Kabul. Kai heard the hisses over his commlink as people realised what that meant – crossing the border into Afghanistan, back into another fundamentalist country, but this one torn by war and strife. Kai asked what the other was.
"There is old temple, very old - ancient - east Angren, up past lake. Strangers come explore, set up tents, stay there. Go, discover what find, report. Pay is two each, and bonus if you have good story." Kai glanced at Tadibya and Shimazu to get a read on their thoughts, and listened in as the rest of the team spoke quietly over the comms.
"Can you help us out with a safe house for a night, Mr Odymod, somewhere to rest from our journey?" Maaraei nodded yes, and then smiled as Kai extended a hand across the table.
"Deal."
Maaraei jotted down an address and beamed it over to their commlink. "You go here, is safe place, my friends look after you. Then go find story at temple, yes?"
Kai nodded, then stood up, a small grimace crossing his face as he felt his trousers peel off the chair reluctantly. Assembling the team, they headed out of the bar and back to the truck, then headed to the safe house for a night of rest before the next job.