Month: June 2024

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Cheapdog (part seven)

As the door opened, Dec saw the second man standing in the background, weapon aimed directly at the door. Armed men. Armor. The stakes just went up. Dec thought back to the white van in the parking lot. This was a snatch and grab crew. Their weapons might not even have bullets. At least, not their big guns. Too much noise for a job like this.

 “I dunno, like, 50 credits for the pizza, and then, like, uhmmm, maybe 10 credits for the tip, or like, more if you’re feeling generous,” Dec said. “Hang on,” replied the gruff man, before closing the door and fishing through his pockets for the credits. He came up short, and turned to the other two, showing 40 credits in his outstretched hand for them to chip in. The second man made up the difference, and gruff returned to the door. He unchained the lock, and opened the door further.

As he extended his left hand with the credits, he saw Dec standing there, with no pizza. “What the hell? Who the fuck are you, and why are you soaking wet?”, gruff said. Dec replied, “a neighbor, coming to see what all the noise was. I live downstairs.” “Unlikely,” the gruff man said, “get your ass in here. Hands up, slick.”

Dec obeyed, and placed both hands behind his head as he slowly stepped through the doorway. Three men, all armored, looked to be level 3 soft armor. His sidearm wouldn’t have helped anyway, just pissed them off. Sheep was cuffed and hooded, and Res was laying on the floor with a pretty nasty bruise on one cheek and a bleeding nose. He counted in his head, estimating the time before backup showed up, and he planned to be alive after the cavalry arrived. The gruff man motioned to the second man. “Check him out,” he said, as the second man approached him for a pat down. “Easy big fella,” he said, and after patting him down, finding nothing, he said, “now show me your hands.”

Dec set his jaw, and lowered his hands to his sides, both fists clenched tightly. “I don’t like guns, guys. Especially if they’re pointed at me; really makes me nervous.”, Dec said. “Well, that’s too bad, princess. You came to the wrong place at the wrong time. You’d probably be smart to just, I dunno, turn around and leave. Or, you can stay here and add to the body count. Don’t care either way,” gruff said, “your move.”

“I have a better idea,” Dec replied, “how about you guys put down your guns, and I’ll beat all three of you with my bare hands? Or, I can keep stalling, and more friends will show up, then it’ll be a real party.” Jackson chuckled. A three on one fight? No problem. The second man looked at the gruff man for the next step. It was dawning on the gruff man that this guy wasn’t bluffing. He recognized one of the tattoos, snaking its way up his arm, and he knew only the most elite soldiers were allowed to get that design. Still, they had the advantage. “What could one unarmed vet do against three men?”, he thought, “these guys are usually drunk or pilled up to their eyeballs.”

Gruff motioned to the second man to lay down his weapon, as he grinned and got into a fighting stance. Jackson sat his gun on the couch and looked back at gruff. “One more thing,” gruff said to Dec, “show me your palms.”

Dec extended his left fist, palm up, and opened his hand. Nothing. As Dec extended his right fist, palm down, he squeezed. Hard. A brief, electrostatic crackle filled the air around him as three rare-earth magnets, tucked between his fingers, facing gruff, launched at supersonic speed. Before he could even blink, gruff’s body armor had been pierced on both sides by the magnets, leaving three bleeding vertical slits behind. It was a critical wound, and he knew it. “Kill him,” he coughed, as he clutched at his chest and fell to the floor. Dec dove to the right, spit more magnets into his right hand as he fell, and launched a second barrage at Jackson, blasting him in the right shoulder as Jackson was reaching for the gun on the couch, spinning him around violently. Outside the window, somewhere close, an Archer 1500 small drone platform fired its arrow. Glass from the open window shattered as instantly, the second man caught a 2-inch square railgun slug to the chest which punched straight through his back and chest, dropping him like a bag of potatoes. Dec got up and rushed Jackson, tackling him and knocking him out as he was driven into the wall. Res, dazed from the hit to the face, raised her head a little and said “Dec?”, before falling unconscious.

Dec breathed a sigh of relief. They would have killed her.

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Cheapdog (part six)

As Dec approached the dilapidated building, he was honestly surprised that anyone lived there. All those windows, but not many lights on inside. It was halfway abandoned, or looked that way. He slowed his pace to a jog, briefly examining the parking lot for anything suspicious. Nobody was out milling around in this weather, and the most suspicious vehicle he saw was a windowless, white van. It looked new. He checked his comms again and the single-eyed pyramid icon had a number floating above it. 37. The estimated time for backup was 37 more seconds. He couldn’t wait.

He kicked open the lobby doors, and one fell off its hinges and crashed to the floor as he kept moving. “So much for stealth, but this storm is good cover,” Dec thought, checking the coordinates on the comms again to see if anything had changed. He slapped the elevator button, and to his surprise, the doors snapped open. Nobody was inside the waiting car as he charged in and literally punched the number 5. The doors closed just as quickly as they had opened, with a snap, and he was heading up, fast.

The gruff man retrieved two more items from the bag, then turned to Sheep first. “Say ahh,” he said, before shoving a gag into Sheep’s mouth, securing it with duct tape, and pulling the fabric bag over his head. “Comfy? Good.” Next, he approached Res. “Your turn, darlin’,” he said, but Res, stinging from the backhand, spat in his eye instead. “Fuck you. FUCK YOU!”, she yelled at the gruff man, who was grimacing and wiping the spit from his eye. “Jackson, you got any hard feelings left about this one?”, he said, as he turned to face Jackson. Res felt her heart was going to explode now, it was all fight and no flight, and she had no business provoking them further. She just wanted to be out of this whole mess, yet her body seemed to have a mind of its own. “HELP MEEEE!”, she screamed, before Jackson flipped his rifle around and smashed her in the face with the butt stock. She felt her knees buckle from the impact and collapsed to the floor. This was it.

As Dec exited the elevator, he heard a scream, then a thump. “Goddamn it, am I too late?”, he thought, as he walked quickly but quietly to the source of the sound. Glancing at the comms, he saw a number 23 over the triangle icon. He would have to act alone, and he would have to stall. As he approached the door, the comms flashed, indicating this was the place. He knocked gently. No response. He knocked a little harder, and the men inside all pivoted to face the door. They looked at each other briefly, silently deciding who would answer, before the gruff man called out, “Who’s there?”. Dec replied flatly, “pizza”. Gruff slowly approached the door, which had no peep hole, and put an ear to the door, before saying, “You got the wrong place. We didn’t order pizza.” Jackson and the second man trained their guns on the door, anticipating the next move. “Uhhm, the box says 5223 Skyline Drive, unit 512? I’m pretty sure this is yours,” Dec said, “because it’s…like…the only address like this.”

The gruff man was starting to get annoyed. If it was a pizza man, he wasn’t going away. At least, not without a tip. He removed his ballistic mask, laid his weapon behind the door, and unlocked the door, except for a little, weak safety chain. He turned to the others, making a shhh motion with one finger over his lips. He cracked the door open a few inches, the length of the chain, and looked through the gap. “Listen, buddy, I’m telling ya, we didn’t order a pizza. What do you want, money? If it’ll make you go away, I’ll give you a few credits. What’s the total?”, he said.

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Cheapdog (part five)

There was plenty of tension in the air, and Sheep had never been so nervous in his life. They were buying the ruse, but for how long? He had to double-down. “I’ll consider disarming it when I can relax again, and I can’t relax with you goons here. Who the hell are you, and what do you want?”, barked Sheepdog. The gruff man spoke up again; he must have been the leader. “Hey, hey… no reason to be nervous here. We’re all disarmed. A client just needed some answers, and it was suggested that you may not want to give those answers so easily to strangers. We have our own questions. Let’s be civilized here. No. Rash. Moves.”.

They were buying the act. Especially the team lead. His voice had the crust of war and Sheep imagined that he had actually seen explosions like the one he was threatening, and didn’t want to repeat that, ever. He replied, “Vague lies. I want a name.” “Let’s just call him, T-Rex. That’s all we know. You see, you don’t exactly hire a team like this with a listed name. The order goes in, the target is loaded, credits transfer, we show up,” said the gruff man, in a matter-of-fact way. “This ain’t personal, man.”

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” Sheep said, “and I’m getting tired of holding this button down.” A few drops of sweat were forming on his brow, and his hand was getting visibly fatigued, shaking a little while he held the joystick button. The gruff man replied again. “Listen, we’re tired of being here too. We were paid to get some info about some kind of video footage. They said you saw something that you weren’t supposed to see. I guess the guy hiding in that footage didn’t appreciate you snooping around. We weren’t gonna hurt you. Not much. Just enough to extract that information, and discourage you from snooping around.”

Res was still balled up behind the couch, desperately thinking of a way out of this. She could take out one, maybe two of these guys, but only if they were off-guard and slower than her. They had the advantage of seeing the room; she could only imagine who was where; there wasn’t even a mirror she could look at from her location. Sheep couldn’t keep this up all night. The longer this went on, the less they would believe him, even though right now, he had them singing like birds.

Dec believed in himself. He never doubted for a second that he could outrun his own estimate. The device estimated he was 60 seconds from the target, and closing fast. Definitely a setback, but not enough time to think about what he was running into. The target looked like a multi-residential unit, and the coordinates suggested she was on the 5th floor. Elevator or stairs? It was a coin-toss, he would decide on arrival. He was also mostly disarmed, which might be a problem, although how big of a problem would be determined on site. As he chugged along, he only seemed to run faster; he felt exhilarated going all out, despite getting soaked from the relentless downpour. Memories of running towards danger during the war mingled in his head. He was born for situations like this; charging headlong into danger, not knowing the odds. Hang in there, Res. I’m coming.

The sweating wasn’t isolated to Sheep’s brow. His palms and everything else were getting involved. Nervous response, nothing he could do to stop it. The gruff man said, “I think we’ve played fair here. You know who sent us and what we want. How about you relax a little. We can all relax now. Nobody has to die.” As the word DIE hung in the air, suddenly, Sheep lost his grip on the joystick. It plummeted to the floor, along with the rest of the cord attached to it, including the end that plugged in to the Atari. Two of the men immediately squatted and covered their ears, bracing for the massive explosion, convinced that the dead man’s switch was real. The gruff man didn’t move an inch. “I fuckin knew it. You were bluffing the whole time. Boys, arm up!”, he yelled, and you could hear the vengeance in his voice. However this was going to go, things had escalated now. The other two men grabbed their guns by the door and drew a bead on Sheep. “Jackson, check the other rooms,” he ordered, and Jackson began searching the rest of the place. Sheep looked defeated and threw both hands in the air as he was ordered to his knees.

The gruff man stepped around behind him and forcefully grabbed one arm before zipping half of a plastic cuff around his wrist, yanking his other arm down to apply the second. “Now we’re gonna find out how much you know, after we take a little trip together,” he said. Jackson announced the other rooms were clear, but upon returning to the living room, he spotted Res crouched behind the couch. “Well ain’t that sweet, he’s got company. Stand up and identify yourself,” Jackson commanded her. More out of panic than anything else, Res howled, drew her firearm and got one shot off on Jackson as she stood up. It hit him square in the chest, and Jackson let out a quiet oof as the bullet hit his armor, flattened out, and fell to the floor. “She’s a spicy one,” said the second man, “now drop your little toy there, lady.”

Res did as he said, there was no point in resisting any further. She was lucky to be alive at that point, and unlike Sheep, she didn’t plan to gamble anymore. Her comms buzzed again, pointlessly. It was a hopeless situation for her and Sheep. The second man approached her and did a quick pat down, making sure she didn’t have any more surprises for them. Jackson grunted, “I think you might have left a bruise. Here, let’s trade.” He backhanded her across the cheek, the reinforced Kevlar knuckles of his gloves making contact with her cheekbone. She winced in pain. The gruff man strolled over to Res with another set of plastic cuffs. “You know the drill. Let’s go easy.” Res relented and slowly placed her wrists together behind her back. It was over. She and Sheep were leaving with these guys whether they liked it or not. The gruff man retrieved his gun and two head covers from his duffle bag. He was taking them away hostage-style. Jackson and the second man had their weapons aimed at Sheep and Res.

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Cheapdog (part four)

Sheep quickly searched the room for anything that looked even remotely like a dead-man’s switch. He didn’t have any old-fashioned remote controls anywhere; everything was voice command now. But he did have something his grandfather once owned that should fool them. He dashed to his bedroom closet and yanked out his gambit. An artifact from a simpler time. An Atari 2600 joystick, with a cord and a single red button. This could work. He quickly stuffed the excess wire up his sleeve and zipped his jacket shut before shuffling back to the front door.

“Ok, this is it. Nobody shoots. We’re going to talk,” Sheep announced, before unlocking the door and slowly turning the handle. Res ducked down and made herself as small as possible, clasping her mouth with one hand, in case any sound tried to escape. She was armed, but outnumbered, and scared out of her mind. Staying hidden was her best defense.

The men in the hallway trained their guns on the center of the door as the handle turned and it swung open very slowly. The lights were on inside, and before them stood Sheepdog, with the detonator in his right hand. It was black and compact, with an obvious trigger, which his thumb was covering. “Easy now, nobody has to get hurt, Sheep,” said the gruff man, who sounded like he smoked cigars for a living. “Everyone, drop your weapons, and
step in, single-file. If anyone is left in the hall, come in NOW or get merked with all your buddies here,” Sheep ordered. “Holy shit, he just might pull this off,” Res thought, after hearing the situation change. Exchanging glances, the men sat their guns down just inside the doorway and stepped back slowly before forming a line and marching in, closing the door behind them.

“Is that everyone? Don’t fuck with me!“, Sheep said. He could see their eyes darting around behind the black ballistic masks they were wearing to cover their faces. The tough guy act was working, the men were scared shitless. This was supposed to be a snatch and snitch mission, intel-gathering; nobody was prepared to deal with a suicide bomber. “Yep, just
us three,” said the gruff voice. He was a little taller than the other two. “So what’s say you, I dunno, disarm that thing and we can talk? You seem awful tense.”



The quad was losing speed. No amount of pounding on the dash would fix anything right now, but out of frustration, Dec pounded on the dash anyway. Rotor 4 had stopped smoking, and it was nearly white hot now. The rest of the oil must have cooked out of the bearing. At any moment, it was giving up. He did some quick math in his head. At the best velocity, he was ten seconds out. At this velocity, with rotor 4 ready to seize, he’d be on
foot, running full speed through the mud towards the destination. This would cost him a few minutes, although the beer in his gut was telling him he could do better, and his adrenaline agreed.


Ffffffffiiiiizzzzzt. CLONK. Alarms sounded and lights flashed in the quad. “Warning, rotor 4, offline. Emergency landing sequence commencing. Remain seated for your safety,” the onboard computer blared over the sound system. Well, shit. He was about to land, and at this point, he didn’t care if the rest of the quad burst into flames. It could burn behind him as he ran. He had to keep making forward progress. The lasers beneath the quad measured out a safe landing zone, then all 3 rotors froze, forcing an instant descent arc. About 3 meters from the ground, they fired back up at full speed, creating a cushion of air to break the fall, before spinning to a complete stop. The canopy ejected, and Dec was out, sprinting to the destination. “This might be a one-man job,” Dec thought, “but just in case, I’m calling in support”. He pulled out his communicator, tapped the destination, and dragged an icon of an eye floating above a pyramid to the location, without breaking stride. Lightning branched across the clouds overhead, and a hard rain pelted him in the face ceaselessly. He felt the thunder in his chest.