Boss King and the Blade

Wednesday, October 2046

Violent Surrender Gang base, The Hole, Spitfield City

Chalky Hammer

The sun had set at last, the growing shadows engulfing the entire street in darkness. There were no working streetlights in this neighbourhood, with the only illumination provided by an early moon riding low in the sky. A few nearby buildings showed flickering glows within as their residents hunkered down for the hours of darkness. Nobody with any sense wandered the streets of the Hole after sundown.

Hammer smiled to himself, laying on the rusted roof of an old warehouse that sat opposite his home. He was well aware he had no sense at all, at least no good sense. Sunset was beside him, using a pair of night vision goggles to spy on their base, shivering a little as the warmth of the day faded from the air.

“I told you to grab your jacket” he chided her quietly. “Once the sun is down, it gets damned cold outside”

“You hardly gave me much warning” she muttered in reply. She swept the goggles back and forth, hunting the sides of their home with her eyes. “Grim is taking too long to get clear” she added.

“He’ll be fine, Sunset” Hammer assured her. “This isn’t his first time setting up an ambush”

On cue, Grim appeared from the dark alley that ran alongside their base. He was crouched low, cradling his long rifle in his arms as he crossed the street. Halfway across, he paused then started doing some kind of complicated leg movements. Grim turned and twisted, his metal feet pointing like a ballerinas as he kicked and pirouetted.

“What the hell is he doing?” Hammer snarled in anger.

“Looks like Swan Lake to me” Sunset said in disbelief. “His legs must be switching into dance mode again”

“I thought he was kidding about that!” Hammer breathed out. They both watched as Grim did a final leaping kick then landed with a clang of metal shod feet. The Freelancer angrily rapped his left leg with the rifle butt then ran quickly into the lower floor of the warehouse.

“We really need to get those legs fixed!” Sunset said in an even tone, but Hammer could see the smile on her face.

“Yeah” he agreed. “Right after we sort out this mess”

A few moments later, Grim slid into place at Hammer’s left elbow.

“Are we all set down there?” he asked the old Freelancer.

“Yep” Grim grunted. “I moved those tracking devices we found on our bikes into the ground floor. The other team will think we have parked the bikes and are settled in for the night”

“Good work” Hammer told him. “I made the call to our Mister, told him we have the girl at our base but we want to get a bigger bonus”

“Do you really think they’ll fall for it?” Sunset challenged him. “If they have their own eyes on the girl, they’ll know we are lying”

“Either way, the Mister will send the second team after us” Hammer responded calmly. “Let’s just hope it’s not a better team than we are”

“No chance of that” Grim scoffed from where he lay. “We’re the best in the Hole!”

“Uh-huh” Sunset agreed from his other side. “Nobody in the Hole shoots or dances better than the Violent Surrender gang”

“Damn right!” Grim replied and all three of them laughed softly.

Hammer settled himself, his Enhanced eye scanning easily the empty streets and rooftops that surrounded their base. Soon enough, he knew they would find out how good their opposition was. He fervently hoped his little team would prevail in the fight that was coming.

=====

It was barely an hour after dusk when the scout drone buzzed along the street edge, keeping close to the walls as it flew towards their base. Hammer had spotted it first, pointing it out to Grim and Sunset.

“Activate the thermal decoys” Hammer whispered to Grim. “Sunset, starting sending out noise from the kitchen”

His companions focussed on their tasks while Hammer sighted on the hovering drone with his own long barrelled rifle. His eye was linked to the Smart Scope mounted on the weapon, giving him a perfect view of the unaware scout.

It took the bait, aligning itself to the bloom of heat signatures and sounds coming from within the building. Hammer reckoned they had about a minute, maybe more, before the drone discovered the building was actually empty.

“Come on you slackers, where are you?” he asked no-one in particular. “The party is ready, we just need the guests to arrive”

“Four people coming in from the west” Grim said quietly, his rifle fitted with a night vision scope. “Two leading, two more about twenty meters back, all armed”

Hammer moved his rifle to observe the advancing figures, their details unclear at this range. He was certain one of the first pair was a woman from the way she moved. Both the second figures appeared to be male, one taller than all the rest and at least six and a half feet in height.

“Let the first pair enter the trap” he told his partners, reminding them of the plan. “Their leader will be one of the two men at the rear”

“Copy that” Grim breathed out slowly, his rifle tracking the rearmost pair. “Just give me the word”

On the street below, the leading pair had reached the side alley that ran beside their base. The woman slipped down there, effectively out of sight. The male crept to the front doorway and peered cautiously inside. Hammer could see a bulky pair of Night Vision goggles strapped to his head, much the same as Sunset was currently wearing.

The man disappeared into the building, pushing open the rusty metal door with a squeak they could hear clear across the street. He moved fast after that, as if aware he had alerted the inhabitants. Outside, the remaining two men stopped at the corner of the building, one checking a compact datapad strapped to his forearm.

Hammer didn’t need the voices that Sunset relayed to him to know they had been busted.

“It’s a decoy!” shouted the big man, looking around at the surrounding rooftops in sudden alarm. His partner dropped into a firing stance, a short barrelled Machine Pistol sweeping around them as he sought out the enemy.

“Trigger the grenades!” Hammer shouted, his words barely leaving his mouth before dull booms and a scream echoed from their base. Down on the street, the two men zeroed in on their hiding spot, the tall man pointing directly at Hammer.

Hammer fired, his big rifle bucking as the heavy rubber Suppression round zipped at supersonic speed across the intervening space. It should have knocked even a big guy like his target onto his butt, yet his Enhanced eye tracked the bullet bouncing off without effect.

Grim fired too, his own Suppression round slamming into the chest of the second man. That guy reacted like he was supposed to, flung sideways by the impact on his armour vest. He was out of the fight for a few precious seconds, allowing time for Grim and Hammer to aim at the standing man.

He could have dived for cover, or shot back at them. Instead he laughed like a maniac and seemed to dare them to take a shot. Hammer and Grim complied, each sending a heavy rubber bullet into his chest. Once more the bullets bounced away without effect and Hammer knew then who their opponent was.

“That’s gotta be Savage Adam” he snapped. “He runs the Left 4 Dead crew and I know he is a Blocker”

“Crap!” Grim responded. “Guns are no good against a Blocker! What do we do now?”

“Close quarters with the Stun Batons” Hammer declared. “We knew we might have to use them! I’ll keep Savage busy while you get down there”

“Copy that!” Grim acknowledged and surged to his feet, leaving the heavy rifle behind. The Freelancer’s mechanical legs compressed then expanded rapidly, propelling the man in a long arc over the edge of the warehouse and into open space.

Even as he fell, Grim drew a long metal sheathed baton from his belt, charging up the internal capacitors. His legs telescoped out to nearly half again their usual length, the metal feet slamming down hard on the cracked tarmac of the road. Hammer heard his “Oof” as he landed, the legs compressing inwards to absorb most of the impact.

Savage Adam was swinging his own gun into line with Grim, a deadly smile on his face visible to Hammer’s Enhanced sight. That changed to anger as Hammer sent another heavy rubber bullet into his head, forcing Savage to focus his Ability and block the shot.

Meanwhile the second man had recovered from his own Suppression shot and was getting back to his knees. His Machine Pistol was also swinging towards the charging Irongrim, so Hammer called to his other partner.

“Sunset, Soundblast the second guy!” he yelled, triggering another shot at the reeling Savage.

Sunset’s only reply was a loud, high pitched scream of fury. She channelled power into her Aeromancy and sent a ball of solidified air right into the face of the second Freelancer. It hit with visible force, driving him onto his back as the air blasted like a stun grenade into his eardrums.

On the street below, Grim had reached Savage but the bigger man had already recovered, drawing a long bladed knife from a sheath. Hammer cursed as his partner stepped into close combat with the rival Freelancer, blocking his own shot. The two men began cutting and swinging at each other, spinning and turning in a dangerous dance of combat.

“I need to get down there!” Hammer said to Sunset. “Cover us from up here and watch out for those other two. They may not be out of the fight yet”

“O-Okay” Sunset stammered and took aim with her own pistol. It was hardly a weapon to use at this kind of range, but she relied on her Ability more than any gun. “Be careful, Boss” she added.

“Aren’t I always?” Hammer joked and stepped off the edge of the warehouse, turning to curl his artificial hand into the corrugated sheeting. With a tortured scream of metal, he dropped the two storeys to the ground as his reinforced hand ripped and tore through the wall sheeting.

His booted feet slammed into the pavement hard, sending a spike of pain up through his heels right into his skull. With another choice round of swearing he pulled his undamaged hand out of the long furrow he had gouged and faced towards the street. Grim was already bleeding from a couple of long, shallow cuts where Savage had gotten past his defence.

Hammer roared a battlecry, making the two brawlers pause for a moment, then he drew his own Stun Baton and charged.

“Get out of the way, Grim!” he bellowed. “This guy is mine!”

=====

Bloody Sunset

The ambush had turned into a knife fight, or more accurately knives versus Stun Batons, in the street below Sunset. Her boss was slugging it out with Savage Adam while Irongrim was now tangled up with the second Freelancer. The two pairs of combatants were twisting and grappling with their opponents, oblivious to whatever else was going on around them.

This was bad, Sunset knew that even with her limited combat experience. When you are fighting hand to hand, you dared not take your eyes away from your foe for even a second. One look into the distance, or at your allies, could give the opponent that moment they needed to deliver a deadly wound.

She needed to keep watch on the perimeter, that was what Hammer ordered her to do. Her job was to be the eyes on their surroundings since Hammer and Grim were too busy to do it themselves. Yet the fierce battle kept drawing her eyes, heart beating in terror as Hammer took a deep cut from Savage’s blade.

Sunset watched as her boss staggered back, clutching at the bloody wound her goggles showed all too clearly on his side. Savage Adam roared in triumph and stepped in to deliver the finishing strike. She screamed as the blade arced down, yet suddenly Hammer was not there. He twisted sideways with a swift push of his boots on the ground, almost gently laying the Stun Baton against Savage’s chest.

The enemy Freelancer was a Blocker, meaning he could negate the impact of any bullet, blade or baton using his Power. But he couldn’t stop the massive charge of electricity that Hammer now pulsed through the baton. Savage Adam let out one short almost girlish scream of agony then collapsed to the pavement.

He was out cold before his head banged into the cracked concrete.

Her momentary feeling of relief turned to horror when she saw the female Freelancer creep from the alley, her gun lined up on the unsuspecting back of her boss. The woman looked like she had been hit by a truck, although Sunset knew it had been a brace of Stun Grenades that Grim had hidden in their base.

Despite the damage, the Freelancer was lining up her weapon to shoot Hammer in the back. So Sunset did the only thing she could. She screamed, long and loud and ferociously.

Every person on the street heard her, even those hunkered in their own homes a block away. Sunset was slender but she could scream like a Banshee when she needed to. Her Aeromancy surged out from her, feeding on the cosmic energy that she drew into herself and channelled into the blast.

The woman was hit by a thunderclap of sound and pummelled by a hurricane of solidified air. She was lifted off her feet and thrown into the nearest building, hitting the concrete wall with a wet crunch and hanging suspended for a few seconds by the raging wind. Then the sound died away and she slid to the ground, slumping like a broken doll.

All sound seemed to cease, the street falling silent. Sunset looked towards the battle and saw Hammer tying up Savage Adam, while Grim was zapping his opponent with a Stun Baton until the charge ran out.

“Did we win?” she finally managed to ask, barely having strength in her voice to reach her partners.

“Yeah, we did!” Hammer called up to her. “Thanks for watching our backs, Sunset!”

“You’re welcome, Boss” she replied with a tired sigh. Her legs collapsed under her and she lay down on the rooftop, the adrenalin that had surged inside of her now almost gone.

“Hey, stop lying down!” Grim yelled angrily. “Get down here and help us tie these guys up”

“What? Right now?” she mumbled, thinking no-one could hear her.

“Yes, right now” Hammer’s voice came to her through her earpiece. She had forgotten she was wearing it to be honest.

“Okay, Boss” she answered. “Is it alright if I come down using the stairs?”

“Sure, why not” he replied. “Not all of us are crazy enough to jump”

=====

Sunset found the fourth Freelancer from Left 4 Dead still unconscious in the main living space of their home. He had taken most of the blast from the four Stun Grenades that Grim had set up around the interior, so she doubted he was going to recover any time soon.

Regardless she tied his hands and feet securely with plastic zip ties and laid him in the recovery position. Once he was bound, she checked him over and removed his gun, a spare pistol, two knives and a Fragmentation Grenade from his harness and pockets. The phone and Ident card went into the same pile, waiting for Hammer to check them over.

Then she sat back on her haunches and examined the smoky interior of their lair. A couple of the interior lights still worked, showing her the results of their booby trap. The grenades mostly put out a wall of compressed air, the shockwave rendering anyone caught in the blast either unconscious or temporarily deaf. However, Grim had remotely detonated four at once, all of them focussed on the same area.

Their furniture, as old and tattered as it had been, now looked like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to it. Her favourite chair had a broken leg and the reading lamp beside it was a pile of shattered glass and bent metal. The coffee table, a real wooden one she had found cheap in a recycling centre, had a long scratch across the top where a piece of grenade casing had scraped along it.

“Hey, there’s hardly any damage at all!” Irongrim declared happily as he stomped into the living room, the second male Freelancer draped over one shoulder. He dumped the semi-coherent man onto their sofa, which groaned once then collapsed to the floor.

“Did you have to use four grenades?” Sunset snapped angrily. “Look at what you did to our stuff!”

“We needed to take out as many as we could as fast as we could” Hammer interjected, carrying the female Freelancer on his left shoulder and dragging Savage Adam by his legs. “If you aren’t sure of how tough the bad guys are or how many you’ll be facing, assume the worst” he reminded her.

“Yeah, well, these a-holes better give us what we need to know” Sunset answered sulkily. “So far this job has cost us plenty and we haven’t earned a single Panda”

“Not yet” Hammer agreed with her. “But the salvage on their weapons and armour will cover all our costs, once we sell the gear”

“You think so, Chalky?” a deep voice spoke from behind Hammer. Sunset peered past her boss at the prone form of Savage Adam, glaring at his captors with unveiled hostility. “Your team are dead meat, you know that right? You won’t live long enough to sell anything, I’ll make sure of that!”

Hammer regarded the man silently, then laid the woman gently on one of their padded chairs. He straightened to his full height and Sunset marvelled at the calm strength he radiated. She adored her boss for many reasons, considering him not her replacement father but rather her guardian and guide. His confidence became her confidence, his certainty instilled the same in her own heart.

“You are your crew are done working in Spitfield, Adam” he said quietly but clearly. “I had a feeling the clean-up crew would be your team and now I know for sure. Once the Guild hears about this mission, you’ll be lucky if they don’t exile your team to Port August”

Savage Adam laughed in contempt and spat a gob of phlegm at his captor. It would have been a good gesture but he was flat on his back so the chunky glob only made it as far as his own right kneecap.

“The mission was Unsanctioned by the Guild” continued Adam. “Your crew won’t win any awards for squealing on us to Zeke Tao. You and this bunch of losers will be exiled too!”

“Maybe” Hammer admitted. “But if that is what happens, I’ll take all of the blame. I’m the gang leader and Sunset and Grim weren’t responsible. They’ll be able to hook up with another team if I give them a recommendation”

“No way, Boss!” Sunset shouted and her Ability kicked in for a moment, sending a small shockwave of air that pushed against her partners. She gasped in surprise and apologised immediately, reining in her Aeromancy. “I won’t ever leave you, no matter what happens!”

“Same here, Hammer” Grim added to her admission. “This gang has the stupidest name ever, but I won’t leave it. At least, not while I can walk and breathe, so you are stuck with the pair of us”

“Thanks guys, I appreciate that” Hammer answered with a grin at his team. “And what’s wrong with Violent Surrender as the gang name?”

Sunset exchanged a look with Grim, who shrugged his shoulders and seemed unwilling to answer.

“What does it mean?” she asked. “I’ve never been brave enough to find out”

“It’s a crappy song some loser wrote about fifteen years ago I heard” Savage Adam answered before Hammer could, his words dripping with malice. “It hit the local music charts for about two weeks then vanished back into the crap hole it came from”

“A song?” Sunset wondered aloud. “You named the team after a song?”

“Yeah, I did” Hammer admitted. “A real good friend of mine wrote it, in between working as a Freelancer. He never wanted to live the kind of life we did and he hoped to make it as a musician”

“Who was this friend?” her voice trembled aloud.

“It was your father, Sunset” Hammer confirmed her suspicion. “You were still a cute little girl and he wanted to give you a better life than the daughter of a Freelancer. His band never had any success other than that one song though”

Sunset regarded her boss with eyes that suddenly blurred, forcing her to dash a hand across them.

“You’ll have to play me the whole song one day” she requested, her voice only a little choked up. “I’d love to hear what my father wrote”

“Sure, we can do that” Hammer replied. “He would be happy to have you hear it”

“Yeah, it was a good song” Grim added. “Your dad was a talented guy, just like his daughter. But the name still sucks for our gang. I always said we should be called Grim Hammer”

Sunset had to laugh, which brought a smile to her partner’s faces. Despite the desperate fight they had been in and the dangers they still faced, she was glad she had team mates like Hammer and Grim.

“Okay, enough dwelling on the past” Hammer reminded them. “We need to get some answers from these clowns”

All three members of the Violent Surrender gang glared down at Savage Adam, who gulped and tried to look brave. It didn’t fool anyone.