Raven moved deeper into the store, her perfect body carved from the shadows that surrounded her, every step silent and deadly. Her shadow assult combat suit blending into the surrounding darkness, the weave of the flexible metal-thread fabric designed to both shield her body and erase her silhouette. Her advanced combat helmet obscured every feature of her face, offering full head protection while feeding live audio of her surroundings along with advanced air filtration to protect against airborne assult or just the raiders powerful body odor.
Her two drones moved with her, one on the left, one on the right, staying within the shadowed ceiling supports. Their path through the air was completely silent. Raven moved straight down the central aisle of the former clothing store, surrounded by half-destroyed racks of cheap imitation fashion brand clothing. Two men stood near her, their backs facing her, half-surounded by a fallen clothing display, smoking cigarettes oblivious to the death of the store entrance guards.
She crouched behind a shelf of jeans and listened in on their conversation.
"Rick, man, I don't know what happened," James said, his tone uncertain. "Our regular gun supplier, William Salvatore he couldn't get us the gear the boss wanted after everything went to hell on the 10th. No ammo, no guns, not even the backup generators we need. And on top of that, he doesn't have his hot little daughter Raven following him around anymore. The boss was really into her."
Rick snorted. "Sounds like William pissed off the wrong guy and got robbed blind."
James shook his head. "It's worse. William says his daughter Raven stole everything. Cleaned out Salvatore Procurement LLC. Groceries. Guns. Doomsday supplies everything. His whole goddamn subway station full of guns. She even bankrupted him. Thank god that little bitch left the drugs behind or we would be in serious trouble without them."
Rick barked a laugh. "Get the hell out of here, James. A teenage girl robbed William? Please. She's probably got new backers who helped her rob us. Maby the government, a private militia, or some corporation who knows. We could have killed William for this. However, the boss told us not to touch that family for a reason. My guess? They've got friends in high places. Maybe even a slot in the new government-run survival base they're building in the suburbs of New York.
The moment Rick's mouth closed, a red mist blew out from the side of his skull. A second later, James blinked and then stiffened as his own head snapped back, a neat hole between his eyes. Raven rose slowly from her crouch, rifle still hot from the two silent shots. She moved forward without hesitation and collected the ammunition off their belts, slipping it into her system space with a thought.
"So, my family found shelter with the government," she whispered. Her voice was barely audible beneath the helmet. "I'll pay them a visit soon enough."
She paused, then thought about the strange moment that had occurred the day everything collapsed—the way nuclear weapons across the globe simply ceased functioning. No blast. No mushroom clouds. Something had stopped the planet from annihilating itself. A hidden hand behind the apocalypse. Without those weapons, governments have been reduced to sophisticated gangs—orderly, but no longer invincible.
A quiet ping alerted her that one of her drones found a target.
In her HUD feed, a Red Blood Raider emerged lazily from a restroom at the far corner of the store, adjusting his belt. Before he could finish zipping his pants, Raven's drone fired.
'Pew'
'Thud'
The man's head snapped back, the rest of his body collapsing in a quiet heap as he hit the floor.
No one heard it no one cared.
The drones continued circling the store's outer edge, scanning for thermal images and signs of movement to identify isolated targets for a clean kill. Raven advanced down the main aisle.
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