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"Alright, ladies, you ready for a jolt to the brain?"
"We're disconnecting from the optics..."
All three runners said it at the same time. I gave them three more seconds and then flipped on my Sandevistan. No, I didn't just rush forward. A corpo's mines would definitely be designed to react to a Sandevistan. So...
Instead of bolting ahead, I stayed under the Sandevistan's effect, activated my optics, and in every possible mode, I scanned the path I had to take. I checked every inch of the available space, and only when I was done did I turn off the Sandevistan.
"Ladies, catch the images. I need a map of the best route for me."
"Give us a few minutes. Writing a program to find the best route isn't hard, but we're not robots, so we need to double-check it..."
"I'll wait..."
About ten minutes passed, and the girls sent me a map with the best route, one that not only let me get through the minefield with minimal use of daemons to deactivate the mines but also kept me out of the camera's line of sight. They also marked the likely turret locations and how to get around them.
"So why didn't we just do this before?"
"Because before, we weren't up against a corpo, and we got a little lazy. Now I'm back in the game and I know that speed and efficiency have to be at their max if we want to get the biggest payout. Did you prep the daemons for me?"
"Catch."
They sent me the daemons; each one was numbered to match the mines the girls had marked on the map.
"Alright, I'm going in..."
Sandevistan, fifty percent...
One step forward, two to the side, first daemon. Another three steps forward, one diagonally forward and to the right, second daemon...
I was moving extremely slowly. At least, that's how it felt. In reality, I probably vanished from the visible spectrum for anyone without the ability to speed up their perception. But I didn't care about that right now. I was only thinking about how exactly I needed to move...
There was the first camera. I froze, hiding behind a tree, waiting for it to turn just enough to change its field of view. The time stretched on forever, but I wasn't turning off the Sandevistan. Corps aren't like gangs. Here, a fraction of a second could cost me my life, so I waited patiently...
The camera finally turned far enough, and I broke free, or rather, I walked calmly, still deactivating the mines I came across.
Step by step...
Camera by camera...
Past the turrets...
Very carefully, I made my way to the farm itself, and after walking a bit along its fence, I jumped onto it.
Fuck...
I jumped back down and took a deep breath.
Mystic...
Why the hell did it have to be her? Why not some hired Razors? Why not some ex-Nomads whose leader was, like Saul, eager to join this corpo and now they were doing their dirty work? I ran my optics through the different modes again.
Fuck... and why didn't I notice right away that the fence was blocking my view of what was happening on the other side? Well, it's obvious why. Too many mines, turrets, and cameras. And the turrets were hidden, only discoverable because the girls calculated their approximate location. So... I was too focused on that.
With a sigh, I carefully jumped up and grabbed the edge of the fence, pulling myself up. I cranked the Sandevistan up to a hundred percent. My body froze. Only my eyes moved. My optics went from mode to mode, but that was all bullshit. I just hung there and looked around... and only after I was sure I'd recorded everything, I lowered the Sandevistan's acceleration and slowly dropped back to the ground.
Should I risk it or not? From what I saw, Mystic hadn't noticed me. She was still standing with her back to me.
No, I'm not risking it...
Turning off the Sandevistan now would be suicide...
I launched myself upward, and already knowing there was no way to change what I was doing, I saw Mystic looking right at me with a smirk on her face.
Fuck...
She was walking toward me. Slowly enough, but she was moving. But that didn't fool me, and I swung my leg to the side, pushing off the fence with the tip of my toe, sending myself in the opposite direction. I remembered how she'd thrown knives and how fast it had all happened. And I wasn't wrong! Her hands moved at a speed that was just slightly slower than mine, and she threw two knives.
I finally hit the ground and went into a roll, checking my surroundings in all modes again, and didn't find any mines around. At least I got lucky there.
Two knives appeared in my hands. This time, I parried the knives she threw at me, but I didn't show all my skills, moving only slightly faster than Mystic herself. A carnivorous grin spread across the girl's lips, and she pointed to her back, then shook her head.
Did she think I was an idiot?
I could play on that, though, and I nodded slightly, as if thinking about it, confirming that I was ready to turn off the Sandevistan. She immediately showed me her hand with three fingers up, then two fingers... one... and as soon as she put the last finger down, I froze as if I really had turned off the Sandevistan. A second later, another knife came flying toward me, which I calmly batted away.
The smirk on her lips turned into a predatory sneer, and she suddenly sped up, matching me in speed and even slightly surpassing me.
Three strikes, and if it weren't for my training at the Arasaka academy, I wouldn't have been able to calculate them and deflect them, but thankfully they were pretty straightforward.
The fourth strike left a scratch on my cheek, the fifth cut my forearm, the sixth and seventh were more dangerous, but I was able to deflect them, reducing them to just regular, albeit slightly deep, cuts.
And right now, I regretted not having subcutaneous armor, but for now, my synthetic muscles were taking over its function in part, not letting her cut me too deep. Though a direct jab would definitely pierce my muscle armor...
I deflected another jab and, slightly moving aside, I sliced Mystic's face...
Well...
The first blood was drawn... now the main thing was not to screw up. But the look on Mystic's face told me that the cut on her face had really gotten to her...
Her speed didn't increase, but the pressure of her attacks definitely got more intense. The previously almost separate strikes became more complex series that left more and more cuts on me.
With every minute of subjective time, it became clearer. She was playing with me. She could've ended the fight a long time ago, but she wasn't. Time and again, she gave me false openings that only led to cuts on me.
I took a step back, trying to dodge, and realized my foot was unstable, and I started to fall back. Mystic took a few steps and, seemingly completely relaxed, decided to finish me off.
Time!
A hundred percent!
The world froze, and so did I. And now... now was the moment of truth. Would my bones be strong enough to make a single move at this acceleration? Would my skin be strong enough not to burn from the friction?
We'll find out...
My foot, whose instability had caused me to lose my balance, shifted slightly... I felt the bones and joints grind, and my muscles literally tore my leg apart as they did their job. A lesson on anatomy came to mind...
A leg has thirty bones... the femur, kneecap, tibia, fibula, heel bone, talus bone, navicular bone, medial cuneiform bone, intermediate cuneiform bone, lateral cuneiform bone, cuboid bone, five metatarsals, five proximal phalanges, four intermediate phalanges, and five distal phalanges... and it seemed like I'd broken at least half of them just by starting to move.
My hand slowly started to change its position...
And at the same time as the feeling of breaking bones, memories of the bones in my arm came to mind...
Why the hell did I need this info?!
No, during my training, it was just information from one of the advanced first-aid lessons... I think it was even mentioned in passing. But right at this moment, it all had to come back to me...
My hand slowly moved, and my leg let me correct my body's position slightly...
Only my jacket on my arm couldn't handle it and was literally flaking away into smoldering scraps behind me. Well, not flaking away, but suspended behind my moving arm, whose skin was starting to turn black...
I think I'm gonna be in for a shock soon...
Slowly, very slowly, the knife I was still holding approached the tip of Mystic's chest, and it gradually started to go in.
It was halfway into her body, and I was about to start moving the knife down, gutting her and spilling her insides onto the ground, but my vision caught sight of the knife that was coming toward me before I even hit a hundred percent on my Sandevistan.
I exerted some effort, twisting the knife in the wound, finally burying it all the way in Mystic's body and yanking it to the side, so it came out of the girl's side and, in the process, cut off her arm with the knife.
That's it...
The Sandevistan turned off, and we fell to the ground.
"You fucking bitch, that hurts so much!!!"
I couldn't help but scream.
"Aaaah! Fuck!"
My opponent wasn't holding back either and screamed as she lay on the ground. With my good hand, I pulled an injector from a special pocket on my belt and jammed it into my neck.
"Ha..."
"Hey... you don't happen to have another injector?"
There was a rasp in Mystic's voice, which made sense; she'd been screaming pretty loudly. I looked at my completely burned arm, where only the muscles and part of the joints were left. Everything else was dust... then I propped myself up and looked at my leg, which was in slightly better condition because it hadn't been burned by the speed of my movement...
I slowly looked over at Mystic and, with a sigh, fell back to the ground.
"I do..."
I took out the injector and tossed it to the girl.
"Ha... thanks."
"No problem... I hope you're not going to finish me off..."
"Huh? I can't even stand up right now! You sliced my heart in half! I mean, with my chrome and bio-implants, I can live a few hours without it, but there's no way I'm making any sudden moves!"
"Hmm... I thought you were a full borg..."
As I said that, I propped myself up again and, with some effort, sat up, watching the girl carefully.
"Yeah... I was... until I realized there was absolutely nothing appealing about that kind of existence. And since then, I've been working to get my humanity back. But it's expensive, when all you have left is the brain in your head and your spinal cord. At least turning myself into a borg was cheaper..."
"I see, that's why you're working for Biotechnica?"
"Yeah... you want some advice?"
"You kidding? Advice from a Legend? Gladly!"
"Don't turn into a borg... try to stick to bio-implants and rely on your skills."
"Well, I wasn't planning on it..."
With some effort, I finally got to my feet, though I could barely keep my balance. Still... I was standing.
"Good call... you know, I could pull out a pistol right now, but after a fight like that... and after you gave me an injector... you need those kids, right? They're all in there... some of them are still alive..."
"Yeah... and do you happen to know where the control panel is to turn off the turrets, mines, and cameras?"
"It's all in there... the password is three zeros, zero, three zeros."
"Thanks..."
"Thank you. Not many people would share an injector with their opponent..."
"Well..."
I shrugged with my good shoulder.
"...I guess you could say I haven't gone bad yet..."
"What's your name?"
"Ghost..."
"Mm-hmm... a rising star, huh? I've heard of you... And one more piece of advice..."
"Yeah?"
"Don't trust others... you got lucky with me, but others would definitely decide to finish you off."
I sighed.
"Well... I did check your file... so I knew you wouldn't stab me in the back..."
"So that was you, at Night-Road?"
"Yeah..."
I turned around and slowly hopped toward the building.
"Hey, how did you get out? I was stuck in there for about eight hours on the floor above..."
"There's an old sewer tunnel under the building... I used my knife to make an opening and then..."
"Ugh..."
"You have no idea how much shower gel I used on myself..."
With a grin, I slowly hopped to the building, where I got to the control panel and turned off all the systems.
"Uh... Ghost, did you do something?"
"Yeah... but it's all you from here on out... I'm stuck in the control room, so drive up to the farm, just watch out, Mystic is lying on the ground, half-dead, don't run her over, and keep an eye on her so she doesn't try anything..."
"You didn't finish her off?"
"No... we came to a draw... though I had injectors and she didn't, so she decided not to finish me off..."
"What the hell happened in there?!"
"Hundred percent on the Sandevistan..."
"Fuck..."
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