Chapter 13

Megabuilding H2. Floor 24. Just to make sure there weren’t any traps or eyes on the elevator. I went up to the floor above.

Funnily enough it wasn’t hard to see what section of the building below that was claimed by the Scavs. As I circled around. Looking down into the massive open drop that made up the center of the megabuildings. I could see the section that they had taken.

The lights were broken, the walls looked like they had been attacked with a sledgehammer. Then there was the smell.

Blood.

As I walked above the area I scoped it out. Marking the holes in my mind as potential entrances. Or killing fields the scavs had set up. I took note of elevator that was stopped right there next to the claimed section. I would bet 50 eddies that they had hacked into that elevator to keep anyone else from using it. A way to transport their… Goods. Up to their hacksaw clinic.

The elevator would likely be watched. An instinctive thought entered my mind. If they had the tech ability to hack an elevator to keep it locked down, then they definitely had cameras for security.

I found the place I was going to slip in. My knowledge of parkour told me this was an easy jump. I climbed over the barrier. What little it was, and simply dropped. Ten feet and I was grabbing onto the concrete barrier of the floor below with barely a sound.

It was a little tough to hold myself from falling, but Body 5 turned it into a simple trick. I hadn’t felt a lick of fear at potentially messing it up and falling.

I peeked over the railing still hanging over a few hundred feet drop as I glanced onto the floor. The fact a lot of the apartments had their doors busted open told me a lot.

I guess they had made sure no one else lived on this floor. At least in this section. My eyes narrowed looking for any sign of a camera or alert system.

Nothing. I slipped over as quietly as I could and hurried to the first apartment. The door was already open. Broken in fact and I had to force it a bit just to be able to slip through.

The smell of old blood told me everything that happened here. Broken doors and blood stains tell a frightening story. Unfortunately this apartment wasn’t connected to the Scavs ‘clinic’ so I would have to keep going. I slipped back out and started stalking along the apartments fronts. The hallways splitting off leading to deeper sections were checked with a few quick peeks before I slipped past them. Closer and closer to the section that was obviously their main setup. It was closest to the elevator.

It was also barricaded a bit. Made to look like trash build up, but it was obviously done on purpose. A pile of garbage and old equipment blocking off the walkway that went around the interior of the building.

As I approached I heard voices. Ducking down to hide behind the trash barricade.

Russian voices.

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have a translator chip. So I had no idea what they were saying, but they were walking over to the Elevator from down a hall, and in a few moments the elevator rocked to life and started heading down.

The noise was perfect.

I moved. A bit of Parkour allowed me to swing out over the massive drop to get around the trash barricade without a sound. Now on the other side of the barricade I hurriedly slipped up to the interior wall and peeked down the hallway the scavs had just come from.

A camera was looking down the hall.

Damn.

Looks like I had been right. They kept an eye on the elevator. I considered hacking the camera, but I had no angle to start scanning to get its information much less to start the hack. I would have to go around instead.

As I looked around I noticed my entrance. I could see a hole busted into the wall that looked like they might be using it to shoot out at anyone coming up in the elevator that they didn’t welcome.

Like a crew coming to clear them out.

Or the NCPD actually doing something for once.

I needed to get over there.

I looked around before sighing. My Parkour instincts kicking in showing me a path.

A very annoying path.

I walked back along the trash barricade, hit the concrete barrier that would barely keep anyone from falling into the abyss that was the center of the megabuilding and slipped over it. Then I shimmied sideways, until I hit the elevator shaft. The metal had plenty of places to grab, so I climbed on. Down below the barrier the camera couldn’t see me as I shimmied my way around the entire elevator shaft until I was on the other side.

Then just a bit more climbing and I was clear of the hallways vision and I climbed back over.

I took a moment hiding behind some garbage to catch my breath and work out the tension in my arms. Couldn’t have my arms be tired for what came next.

I moved to the hole.

Peeking in I noticed I was right. An HMG was resting against a table looking outwards.

The room was empty, looked like a bathroom they had smashed apart to make space for their little bunker. I had to be quiet. Slipping in since I was more than small enough to slip through the hole. I did my best not to make a sound as the concrete under my belly shifted and crumbled but I made it through.

I looked to the HMG.

Looked to the door.

Looked to the HMG again.

Tempting. But no. Those things are heavy as hell.

“Next time.” I promised it as I shifted up to the doorway. The stupid bead blinds that were popular at least let me see out into the next room.

A Scav was set up on the couch in the next room, a BD wreath around his head.

I slipped through the beads silent as a ghost. Stalking through the apartment, eyes roving every corner just to make sure there wasn’t anyone else here.

There wasn’t.

My knife slipped out of my sheath without a sound.

The man didn’t hear a thing. Didn’t feel a thing. Not until my hand was over his mouth to muffle and my knife slipped into his neck.

His quiet gasp muffled and weak death throes were ignored.

I slipped my knife back into my sheath and settled a pillow against the mans neck. Hiding the blood splatter.

*500 XP Gained.*

I moved on. My hunt had only just begun.

Besides, right now? I was feeling pretty… Cool.

The apartment wall had been broken out. Connecting the apartments. Into one massive ‘hive’ of rooms. I slipped over to the hole and started making my way through a dark hole that looked like it had once been a storage area for the apartment.

The next apartment was brighter lit, and the smell of blood hit me.

It also wasn’t empty. Bodies stacked up and Ripper doc chair with a corpse. Her chest ripped open like she was in an aliens movie.

And a man walking around the body with some weird device in his hands that looks like an ancient torture device.

The lights were out in the storage room I was slipping through giving me the perfect opportunity to move closer. As the man couldn’t see his death.

He looked into the hole in her chest and reached in. Obviously trying to pull something loose.

My hand gripped my knife again.

He was tall. I would have trouble reaching his neck for a strike. I glanced around. My Ninjutsu instinct told me to check every corner. Every angle before striking.

Even as my eyes kept him in sight.

I stalked closer.

He was bent over. Looking into the girls chest. I stalked right up beside him. I could tell the exact moment he would see me.

Ninjutsu had taught me a lot about assasination.

He glanced over at the exact moment my knife slipped into his neck. I had walked right up beside him. So I could deliver my blow. I kept with the blow helping him drop to the floor dragging him away from everything a bit so his death flailing wouldn’t knock anything over. After a few moments his movements stilled.

*500 XP Gained.*

I looked around. This was definitely part of their main shop. I couldn’t leave his body on the floor.

I blinked when I saw it.

Well if it worked for video game protagonists everywhere… I dragged him over to a cold storage fridge. I had a feeling what I would find inside and I was right.

Bodies. I grimaced as I hefted him up. Definitely struggling with his weight.

I really needed more Body. But after a bit of back and forth I dumped him inside. Shutting the fridge.

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I took a moment to back off. Back into the dark storage room to rest up against the wall and regain control of my breathing.

A minute.

That’s all I needed. Then I was good to go. I moved on. The Ripper room led to a much larger area. It had once been a living room, but everything had been torn out. It looked like… It was a storage room. Full of crates that I bet if I checked inside would be full of Cyberware. I guess I found their stock.

Three people were hanging around the room. One was putting stuff into one of the crates. One was just looking out the window smoking

The third? He was the most dangerous. He looked borged out. I grimaced at the realization they did have some serious muscle to back up their operation.

I looked around. There was no way I could take out all three of them without noise, but as I looked around I realized I could get around them. I smiled as I stalked into the room using the crates as cover to walk to my right towards where the entrance to the apartment would have been.

These apartments had been absolutely broken apart. Obviously the scavs wanted their own path through things, and the large crates wouldn’t even fit through the old apartment doors. So, walls, doors, and huge sections of each apartment had been ripped apart.

Which also meant lights were down. I slipped into a dark section near the old entrance where the wall had been ripped apart. Noticing that I could continue on through a hole they had battered through the concrete. I slipped through moving right past the massive room without a sound.

The room connected was another bunker room. No HMG though, shame.

This one was occupied instead. A BD wreath clad Scav again.

These scavs were making it easy.

He died just as quickly as the last one.

*500 XP Gained.*

With that I slipped out the exit to the bathroom bunker and looked around. The next room was full of computers and other equipment. Probably the place they set up their sales and buys. I glanced around no one was in the room, but I could hear cutting from next door. As I walked through something caught my eye and I snatched it up. A Max Doc.

Didn’t have any of those. Healing item get.

The computer system was nice. A multi monitor setup attached to a wall with a desk and chair under it. I could try to breach in, but I shook my head. Focus on the job of killing scavs. I could do that later if I really wanted.

I moved past. Following the noise of people sawing at something. As I poked my head into the next room I grimaced.

This time the ripper wasn’t alone.

A man and a woman working together to rip off the legs off a dead man.

I really fucking hated these people. My brain was still cool. So my mind swiftly found a path through them.

I drew my knife. And as I stalked into the room. I grabbed an object from a table. A bigger cutting tool, more like a pair of industrial shears than scissors, but it would do.

I attacked. The knife in my right hand sliding right into the mans throat before I left it and swiped at the woman.

*500 XP Gained.*

I was off. No. I realized she had dodged too fast to be natural. She had jerked her head back moving almost blurring fast for half a second before she realized what had just happened.

She cursed loudly. Yelling something in russian.

I threw my knife. She wasn’t fast anymore. It whistled for half a moment before appearing in her chest with a dull thunk.

She gasped, her legs failing her suddenly.

*100 Reflex XP Gained.*

*500 XP Gained.*

Okay. Ninja mode disengaged.

I moved. To the next room. A guy was already grabbing a rifle off a desk when I slipped in.

He was scrambling for a rifle on a table across from him when I raised my pistol.

The retort echoed through the apartments as I fired again and again, until the man fell to the floor.

*500 XP Gained.*

*Level up achieved!*

*One Stat Point Gained.*

*One Skill Point Gained.*

I dropped the magazine, and reloaded quickly. Well since this Scav was kind enough to pull out something a bit heavier than my pistol. I rushed across the room grabbing the rifle.

Instantly my head knew what it was. Nokota D5 Copperhead.