IC: Origins, It takes two to tango. Options

[Glyph]

Tasha shakes her head. Too soon. She walks determinedly to the door, both weapons drawn, but doesn't enter yet. She comms Zee.

<< In position outside. Might try tossing a grenade in that weapon room of theirs. We gotta distract them, get Peyton out. Be nice to wipe them all out, but we don't have surprise on our side any more. Survive. Run if you have to. We live, we can try again. >>

[krayola red]

Zee:

You dive out of the way and come up on a roll, taking aim one more time and pulling the trigger. The first ganger whimpers as he sucks up another heavy dose of electric goodness, twitches a few times, and stops moving. With two quick steps, you move up to your last remaining opponent and deliver a hammer fist to his temple, dropping him instantly.

The walls of the kitchen are riddled with smoking bullet holes, and the rest of the house has undoubtedly been alerted to your presence. If you have a plan, it's time to put it into action. Keeping a tight grip on your gun, you move towards the stairwell to descend to the second floor.

[BlackHat]

<<Consider it done. If the gunshots don't draw their attention upstairs, this will.>> Zee comms back, as she makes her way towards the weapon-cache en-route to the stairs. She had hoped not to have to destroy the weapons - but wasn't quick enough to take down the first group of 3 guys, and doubted she would deal with the other groups with the same success. She was lucky that she wasn't hit by any of the ganger's wild machine-gun fire, and probably only survived because she managed to take one of them down right away, and cripple the other before the fight even started.

Now, she expected that at least some of those people in position on the floors below were moving upwards to investigate teh gunshots, and arm themselves in the weapon-cache. Again, she wished she had access to her radar, but Tasha's green-light to destroy the weapons made it clear what she needed to do.

[krayola red]

Zee:

As you move past the stairwell to head to the weapon storage room, you hear a voice barking out orders from downstairs.

"You three, that way. You, come with me. Bobby, pull your dick out of her, grab a gun, and follow us."

The room you're seeking is just down the hall. Pulling the pin off the grenade, you toss it in and quickly turn around to move out of there. There's no telling how devastating the ensuing explosion is going to be, and you want to put as much distance as you can between you and that room. You swing around back to the stairs, keeping one hand on your gun. As you begin to descend, three gangers round the stairwell. They stop and stare at you.

"Hey, what the hell?"

All three reach for their guns, but suddenly, the whole world thunders as the grenade you planted just seconds before explodes, triggering a massive chain reaction that shakes the very foundation of the house. The gangers stumble and stare at the ceiling as a very large crack begins to run through it.

"What the fuck was that?!"

Tasha:

You can feel the shockwave raising the hair on your skin as a massive explosion blows out half of the third floor wall. You dive out of the way just in time as an avalanche of brick and steel rains down on the spot where you were standing just a second ago. Everybody on the street seems to have stopped what they're doing, their attention completely fixated on the mutilated top floor of the gang house.

[Glyph]

Tasha's heart threatens to leap out of her throat for a second - and she was expecting the blast. She imagines that for the people indoors, relaxed and unaware, the explosion is even more distracting. Which is what she needs. Quickly regaining her composure, her face set in grim lines of determination and both guns ready, she heads into the house and straight for the stairs to the basement. With any luck, Zee took care of the cuffs while she was down there - barring that, shooting them should do the trick. If only they made shock lock rounds for pistols - but explosive should still be plenty good for the job.

[krayola red]

Tasha:

You head inside the house with all your senses on high alert, and Zee's digital map allows you to navigate the interior with ease. Moving past the outer rooms, you round the corner to see a large group of gangers pouring out of the den with guns in hand, heading straight towards the nearest stairwell. They're blocking your path towards the basement door, but they don't appear to notice you. You can take advantage of the element of surprise and engage them now or wait a few seconds for them to evacuate this floor.

Zee:

With a few well-aimed shots, you easily take down all three gangers in a matter of seconds. One of them managed to fire a wild burst that peppered your torso with lead before he went down, but your armor managed to absorb the brunt of the impact. Unfortunately, some of your non-critical systems were damaged, and sensor suite of your ruthenium armor has been partially destroyed. It's still offering you some camouflage, but you estimate that it has been reduced to half capacity.

You're about to descend down the stairs when a round of flechette flits out of nowhere to stitch a path up your right leg, bringing you to a knee.

"If you don't want to die, throw your gun down the stairs and stand down," comes a voice behind you.

[BlackHat]

Zee's vision flashes red as the bullets tear through her leg.

<<Buying time. Get Peyton to safety. Don't wait for me.>>

After the initial shock wore off, Zee complied - throwing her pistol down the stairs, onto one of the unconscious gangers, and slowly began to turn to face the man who got the drop on her.

[Glyph]

Tasha waits, eyes narrowed, as the gangers stream upstairs. If they come back, while she's still bringing Peyton up, she'll be in a real bad situation, but no risk, no reward. After the last of them heads upstairs, she sprints for the basement door.

[krayola red]

Zee:

You turn around to see a slender elf standing a few meters away from you, holding a sliver gun that's pointed square at your chest. His gaze moves down to your wounds, and you see surprise flicker in his eyes.

"You're a drone?"

You recognize his voice as the one who was issuing orders before. Your audio sensors pick up footsteps coming from downstairs, and from the sound of it, the rest of the gang is going to be here pretty soon.

Tasha:

You move up to the basement door, hearing a scurry of footsteps on the floor above you. The door is locked, since Zee had re-engaged the padlock when she left the basement.

[Glyph]

Muttering curses, Tasha takes a bead on the lock, hoping that the gangers above are really distracted.

"Come on, Zee, use another grenade," she thinks to herself.

[BlackHat]

Zee's face scowls, beneath her hood. It wasn't the fact that he saw past her outer form - it was because the term 'drone' implied a mindless autonomy that Zee didn't really think applied to her, rather unique, situation. "Not exactly," she said, limping forwards slightly, so that she would not be immediately in the line of fire when the other gangers got to the staircase. Sparks shot from her leg, and it made a sick grinding noise while a small amount of artificial blood shot onto the wall in a surprisingly accurate mimicry of an arterial wound - not that it mattered, the damage was severe enough that the body's usual realism now just looked creepy. The elf raised his gaze back up to his gun and lifted it slightly in a gesture of warning, and she stopped her movement. "... please, don't kill me. I don't want to die." Her leg might be messed up, but her voice emulation software was still working, one-hundred-percent.

Zee was buying time - hoping the elf would stay curious about her long enough for his friends to arrive, which was probably his plan, too. When his back-up arrived, things were going to get violent, and she didn't stand much of a chance against everyone - so she strained her sensors to alert her when the gangers reached the stairs. She doubted she could move fast enough to throw the grenade before the elf got his shot off, but if she was quick enough to make him miss, she might buy Tasha and Peyton a chance to escape.

[krayola red]

The elf raises an eyebrow. "Not exactly?"

He nods at the bullet wounds on your abdomen. "Don't bullshit me, woman. I can see you chopping off your leg and getting it replaced with a metal one, but no one can survive getting their entire torso extracted to that extent. So tell me, who the hell are you and why the hell are you here?"

Suddenly, another ganger rushes up from behind the elf. He sees you and quickly levels his assault rifle at you.

"Hey Loren, what's going on? Who's this broad?"

You hear movement at the bottom of the stairs. You turn your head halfway to look down, and you see two gangers poking their head around to spot you. Their path up the stairs is blocked by the unconscious bodies of the other three gangers you shot just seconds ago.

"Hey, everything okay up there?!" one of them shouts.

"Everything's fine," the elf calls out, his eyes never leaving yours. "The bitch who caused all the ruckus was a drone, which means the rigger has got to be nearby. Two of you, get your ass up here, and the rest of you, split up into groups of three and search the streets. Find the rigger and kill him."

You receive notification from your maintenance program that your radar sensors have just been brought back online.

[BlackHat]

When Zee's radar functions come back online, she becomes glad she spent the time preparing earlier, and is ready to activate them, immediately, and resume the radar-map feed being sent to Tasha[/s]'s contacts. As the map becomes much more well-defined, with little blips moving back towards her location, [b]Zee includes an urgent message that begins blinking and demanding attention in her peripheral vision.

<<A bunch of them heading outside. If you're inside, hide. If you're outside, try to find a chance to sneak in once they leave.>>

<<Four remaining with me. Wait for my signal to go for Peyton.>>

She wasn't sure if Tasha had even gotten inside, yet, but saw a figure near the basement door, in her newly activated sense. In any case, the warning was better than nothing. She returned her attention to the elf and the ganger beside him, scanning their bodies for other weapons and modifications - sizing them up for when the time came to fight her way out. She now had two guns trained on her, soon to be four, and her wounded leg was operating at less than 30%. She needed a distraction - and was fairly certain Tasha would end up providing one. Hopefully, not until after most of the gangers were outside.

"Let me get this straight," Zee began. "You spared me, and want me to talk - but you just gave the order for your friends to find me and kill me, outside?"
She smiled, although her features were still partially obscured by the still-changing coloration of her hood. "That isn't a lot of incentive for me to stick around here and chat."

"...assuming my 'rigger' is anywhere nearby."

She just needed to buy a little more time - to get half of the gangers out on the street, before trying anything crazy.

[Glyph]

Tasha, with the feed of moving red dots to go by, has little problem darting through a doorway and putting a wall between her and the gangers, who seem to be heading straight out of the building. She isn't sure what Zee did to send them on, presumably, a wild goose chase, but she won't question their good fortune. After the last blip has headed out, she goes back to the basement door, waiting for the signal. She'll keep an eye on the vid feed, too. If Zee can't make good use of the distraction, she might need to help her partner. Two against four are much better odds than two against twenty.

[krayola red]

Zee:

The elf shrugs. "Way I see it, it's a win-win situation for us. Either you stick around and we have an interesting chat before we find your body and put a bullet in your head, or you bail out of that robot of yours and we get a really valuable piece of equipment to sell."

Your sensors sweep over him and return a digital rendition of his body on an AR window. He appears to have undergone extensive augmentation, and his spine has almost been entirely replaced by metal and electrical wiring. You have a feeling that this one is going to be much tougher to take down than the others you've engaged. The ganger next to him has similar implants running up his spine, though to a much smaller extent. Neither of them appear to have any other weapons.

Footsteps behind you. Two of the gangers from downstairs had finally made their way up, falling into step on either side of you with rifles in hand.

"Strip it of its weapons," the elf says.

He looks at you. "So, I ask again. Why the hell did you blow the fuck out of our house? Did the Bloodhounds send you?"

Tasha:

Footsteps thunder down as the gangers return from the upper floors to pour out the front door en masse, shouting with glee at the prospect of violence. After a few moments, the front door slams shut as the last of the gangers leave the house, and you're alone once more on the first floor.

[BlackHat]

Seeing the last of the ganger's blips exit the building and seeing one blip duck to the side and return to the basement door, Zee also sees that her situation is getting a lot worse. If the gangers get the grenade from her - and her other weapons - she will stand pretty much no chance of taking them all out. With four guns trained on her, she doesn't see this ending well, in any case - but she has to act now if she is going to.

"One problem with your logic," Zee says, "If you're planning to get my equipment, either way, there is no incentive for me to play nice."

<<Now. Do it now.>>

The shot rings out downstairs, but could be heard clearly through the tension, and unlike the gangers, Zee was expecting it. The two flunkies at her flanks glance downwards - shock registering in their faces as they realize Zee must not have been alone - and she takes the momentary distraction to make her move. She leaps backwards, sailing away from her attackers as she tucks into a backflip, going over the edge of the staircase - as several weapons explode to life behind her.

[Glyph]

Tasha immediately shoots the lock, then goes down the basement stairs, where she repeats the process with Peyton's cuffs.

"Can you move?" she asks him. Depending on the answer, she will either get out of the building with him, or run upstairs to help out Zee.

[krayola red]

Tasha:

The ork stands up on shaky legs, slides the cuffs off his wrists, and nods at you. "Got another gun?"

[Glyph]

Tasha nods, switching the clip on her Manhunter to regular rounds before handing it to Peyton.

"Here, let me change the clip out - don't think you want to use gel on these guys, and Shelly's cousin shouldn't be inside any more - and you can use the Manhunter. Our number one priority is getting my partner and getting out of here, first. We can always come back with reinforcements to finish off the rest."

[krayola red]

Peyton grabs the gun, pulls back the slide to chamber the first round, and nods at you. "Well, then let's go. You don't know how long I've been itching for a chance to kill some of these punks."

[Glyph]

"All right."

Tasha takes point heading up the stairs, then turns, gun ready, at the landing, where Zee should wind up, along with any pursuit.

[BlackHat]

Hydroulic fluid sprayed on the wall beside her as Zee lands on the second-floor landing, already pulling her grenade from her belt, leaving the pin behind. She spent just long enough to regret not being able to pick up her pistol, before tossing the grenade at the base of the steps, where her mapsoft calculated the effects of structural damage would be most devastating to both staircases. Her objective wasn't to time it to kill her pursuers - although it just might do that if they were careless. Her objective was to trap them upstairs. Her footsteps didn't miss a beat, taking her forward a few steps before she vaulted over the next edge, falling another few meters to the first floor - similarly unharmed - where she tucked and rolled out from beneath the staircase. She completed the roll getting back up to her feet, running down the hallway toward the basement where she saw Tasha emerging, limping noticeably.

<<Still a dozen gangers out front looking for us.>>

Zee had no idea how they were going to safely get Peyton to the alley across the street - but if her plan worked, they might have a couple more seconds to figure it out. She watched the movements of the men upstairs with her radar, hoping to get a good assessment of her plan's success.

[krayola red]

"Son of a bitch, she has a grenade!"

You leap over the railing of the stairs to land on the first floor a second before the grenade explodes, reducing the stairwell to a storm of splinters. There is now a giant hole between the first and third floors, and the gangers look down on you with disbelief on their faces.

"Shit, come on, let's go!"

The faces disappear. You reach the first floor hallway at the same time Tasha emerges from the basement, with Peyton following close behind.

[Glyph]

A feral grin flicks across Tasha's face as she hears the second explosion. If nothing else, they've really done a number on the place. She heaves an inward sigh of relief as she spots Zee. Everyone is accounted for, now.

"All right, good job, Zee. Now we just have to get to the bikes."

[BlackHat]

Zee grips the wall for a second as her sprint comes to a stop. Her cyberleg appears badly damaged, and Zee must be red-lining with the pain-simulators off, because her face isn't registering the damage. Her torso seems shot up as well, but she seems to be trying, intentionally, to keep those wounds obscured with her arms.

"Three more, incoming." Her voice falters, as a spark shoots from her leg, which has stopped pretending to bleed. "Then its clear, to the bikes."

She unslings her rifle, drawing it up and aiming it around the corner at the front door, taking a moment to load up her longarms programming.

<<I'll make a path. Move, on my signal.>>