The blaring sirens cut through the dark and cold night.
Reaper's lungs burned as he hauled his ass across the slippery rooftop, boots slapping through a number of puddles, throwing back wet water across his back. Raindrops felt like needles on his face as he ran as fast as his knees could physically take him. His earpiece crackled.
"They cut us off; Sector 9 is sealed al-fucking-ready! Reap, where are you?!"
He doesn't answer. He can't.
He's clutching the crystal, wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth so tightly that his fingers have gone numb.
Behind him, red and blue lights slice through the fog like hunting knives.
A spotlight lands on him.
"THIS IS THE METROPOLITAN AUTHORITY. SURRENDER!"
His legs don't slow.
They can't. Not after what they had done to Ramirez. If he gave up at this point it would have been all for nothing.
From below, he hears shouts:
"He has it! The boy has the crystal!"
A drone flies up beside him, metal wings unfolding. Its lens locks onto him. Target confirmed. It zaps centimetres past him, and misses him, not wanting to blow up the crystal in the process. A warning shot.
Reaper took deep calculated breaths and jumped from one building to the next. The LZ was getting close, and he looked to the side to scout, and then it happened.
His foot slipped.
Reaper always used to trip during really tense situations.
But that's all it really took. As his palm reached out to cushion the fall, the crystal glowed faintly. He was expecting a nasty crash, but his finger went into the floor like a knife cutting through butter.
The world folded inwardly and froze almost as if contracting into itself at a very slow pace.
Sound died.
His skin tingled, like his body was made of static
He was inside it.
The five-second Zone. He'd heard from Nova about what the crystal was, yet experiencing it for the first time in person was a pretty exhilarating experience to say the least.
The counter in his vision blinked:
[4.9s]
He launched himself forward, vaulting off a steel pillar like gravity is optional(which it almost felt like it was)
[3.1s]
He phases through a ventilation unit with his body phasing in and out like a ghost.
[1.4s]
The exit rooftop is ahead. He bursts out of The Zone mid air, body jolting back to mass and weight. He lands rough and slides across gravel.
Reaper grins despite the pain.
Still alive.
He lifted his head.
And froze.
A shrill CHRRRRP cut through him. A flash of red. And his shoulder exploded.
It was a shredder round designed to turn his shoulder into pure red mist.
He crashed on the roof, the crystal slicing across his cheek. The impact knocked the breath out of him. Warning texts bled across his vision:
VITALS CRITICAL –
BLOOD LOSS DETECTED
LEFT ARM FUNCTIONALITY: 12%
SEEK MEDIC ASAP
He forced himself to crawl upto a ridge, but the drone was already tracking his heat signature.
"Reaper to crew," he coughed. Blood filled his mouth with each breath. "I'm down."
"...."
The drone locked on. Its barrel rotated, slow, precise like it wasn't killing a man, but eliminating a threat.
Reaper tried to stand, his hand over the edge, the window felt cold and brutal wheezing into the cuts across his body, with a sense of impending doom. Legs shaking. Vision flickering.
> WARNING –
SYNAPSE MISFIRE DETECTED
SLIP-TIME UNAVAILABLE
He smirked through clenched teeth.
"Well…I shouldve predicted that.."
The drone fired again. This time, point blank.
Everything went silent.
2 Hours Earlier.
Neo-Kyoto, 2077
The streets tonight were lit in electric blue, and traffic pulsed through them like blood. The Ultra Rich lived high up in the skyline, drinking cybernetic fluid in glass towers that pierced right through the clouds. Everyone else was packed below, in alleys so narrow you could smell every secret and every sin in the air. Junkies on the outer side of the town were scratching their needle wounds, hoping to rob the next poor soul that would unfortunately come their way.
One such High Value Target(HVT), lived in the Orchid Palace. The Imperial Orchid Palace rose into the gray clouds, jet-black glass shaped eerily similar to a pencil. It was a tribute to Han's Graphite company which provided raw materials needed for manufacturing medicine, to pretty much any cyber-junkie, and normal citizen that needed it. The place, conveniently enough, was the home to the Imperial Vault. The place every thief who wanted to make it out there taking shortcuts, whispered rumours about them.
Some said God itself lied stagnant in a Platinum Chip laying in a cryo-state, only giving Han instructions on how to run his company.
Other's say it was the heart of his first wife.
But the truth, just like in the real world, was far bleaker than the rumours.
Reaper leaned against the rail of his balcony, cigarette between his fingers. Real tobacco, outlawed, taxed, and nearly extinct. A luxury you couldn't buy. He had a steady supply of them because of his underground connections, plus, it wasn't a coincidence his family used to grow Tobacco on their land, far away from the jurisdiction of the Corporate leechs.
He covered his thumb with his other hand, and out popped a cute little flame, a modification which he was always proud of. The smoke numbed his throat. A dash of sweetness seared his lips as he wetted the filter, taking another drag.
A notification disturbed his moment of peace, his view gently flashed red. He opened his eyes to see his holo-screen blinked with alerts:
CREW ASSEMBLED — 03:17 AM
JOB RATING: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
TARGET: IMPERIAL ORCHID PALACE
He took one last drag. Ash drifted down into the dirty air. Reaper exhaled smoke and a thought at the same time.
No turning back.
Not after tonight.
He lifted his feet onto the balcony rail, wind screamed loudly into his ears, almost as if warning him not to take this one up. That he still had time for redemption.
Redemption.
He snickered to himself at that thought.
A message appeared on bottom right HUD:
VITALS STABLE —
PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL: 30.00%
PROCEED?
Reaper cracked a mean smirk, at that number, because he'd expected it to be atleast 10% to give Death, a fair game, but this was almost comical to him.
"That's what I do. I flip the odds."