Assassination at Old Del City
By DavidGibbs6
Cadium woke to the comforting alarm of someone standing over him. For most people this would be a nightmare situation and for that reason almost everyone had sleepless programming of some nature. The world was twenty four seven and amped to eleven. The Old Man Prole as he called himself was different. He was all human, a one of a kind and all off grid. It was even rarer that someone with a good deal of enhancements would stay with or sleep with someone like him around. Most people were part of clans or conglomerates. Trust was a rare commodity since the culture wars had gone violent and the world had crumbled from a worldwide collective to partisan cultism. The issues that started the collapse of old society were quickly abandoned as people either found safety in like minded groups or were subjected to violent extremists looking for easy targets. EVen the loose political groups and corporations were no guarantee of safety or stability, whole groups were routinely slaughtered over minor issues or even base hatred. The world was littered with the empty shells of former dwellings and bullets alike
The building the old man inhabited was one such location. This used to be a busy sector with physical shops and apartments. The people now long since gone and the surrounding suburbs had been mostly demolished. Old world houses were never designed to withstand urban war. What the mechs and drones didn't destroy, nature had been quick to reclaim. Even the apartment block Cadium now used as a way station was dilapidated and gave the look of uninhabitable except to critters. There were very few doors in the place, leaves had blown up inside and decayed in piles against walls. The old man's room was small and hidden behind a pile of old furniture, only accessible through a hidden makeshift door. Small animals rustling from cover to cover were a constant background noise as they ran up and down wall cavities and Cadium had to lower the sensitivity on his rig to account for them. The whole place had a deeply organic, earthy smell but it was strangely comforting for the cyborg.
"How were the dreams?" The old man's voice was low and calm.
Cadium had to think for a moment. His brain switched on fast and had been bombarded with so much stimuli that he never had time to linger in that hazy half sleep state.
"Nostalgic" he said, not completely sure he hadn't used that exact reply the last time he had stayed with Prole.
In Cadium's world his dreams were either a strange mix of nostalgia and fantasy or straight up nightmares. The sheer amount of memory he held onboard, but also the files he condensed or erased might have had something to do with it. He was always careful when he was making cognition alterations, he had known people who were less than careful and combined with a lack of sleep, they could be strange, paranoid or twisted. Others who took the hack and slash approach, removed anything not fitting their world view. They were straight up dangerous and far too common.
The Old Man Prole pushed forward a plate of foragings, as he called it. It was an interesting mix of textures and flavours. It was very different to the company foods which were optimised. Cadium took a moment to enjoy it, not worrying too much about the analysis of different chemicals, which was automatic in his system. The old man didn't seem affected by the slight toxicity of some of the ingredients that made up the meal. Previous experiences had informed Cadium that this was a safe place and the Prole could be trusted. Indeed the initial scans, that he had triangulated and overlapped upon awakening, were showing nothing at all of concern for kilometres. Closer in the room though was something of interest and it seemed to have not moved hardly at all since before he went to sleep. He had been very conscious not to let his gaze skip over or even to linger on the hidden hatch. A safe place to sleep and someone to watch over you was valuable, and it was best to not wear out your welcome. So it was with a polite word and the exchange of a shell account with a decent credit for the old man's trouble, that Cadium stood and left, not once mentioning the child concealed in the wall space.
Keeping a brisk pace and scanning constantly Cadium checked the job details again. He had covered a lot of ground from the place he had slept, but the rest had made him feel lighter and refreshed even now still after kilometres of brisk jogging. He wondered if the sleepless company men ever stopped feeling battle weary or if they just didn't stop long enough to think much at all. Some were practically robots already and he was sure that in some cases their thoughts were so manipulated, that they were soulless, any which way you sliced them. This job was a distasteful reminder of that musing, the assassination of a heir. Sometimes cutting off the snake's head was best, and it wasn't personal, it was business. But this employer was happy to hack at the snake wherever they could, it mattered not the age or involvement of the targets. Indeed even loose associates or perceived potential partners were sometimes excised. As much as a clan gave you power and protection they cared for you little and you carried a large target for the honour of pledging allegiance. It was a large part of the reason Cadium freelanced.
This also meant that he could calculate the target's defence. It all came down to the target's value and the risks versus reward. Even family clans would never spend more on defence than any target was worth. A clansmen who put their own blood above the clan were a long gone breed, wiped out by their own people from the inside. No one liked a boss's son who got more than the capable players and could barely hold their own in a fight.
This particular heir was worth four mech suits, possibly a couple of competent cyborgs and most likely two scouts. One scout was a certainty, having already been removed physically while an AI continued his expected digital presence. His mutilated corpse hastily hidden just beyond the sight of the road. Cadium had to rely on more analogue devices going forward, having disabled all tech that could possibly give his position away. His hearing was telling him he was correct in thinking of four mechs, their distinctive whirls overlapping, but not enough to obscure their numbers. Any other defensive measures would remain unknowns for now.. he would have to deal with them on the fly. After all this was living and this was how he made his living. In this very real moment, when he risked his being, he felt truly alive.
EexP dropped his digital defenses all at once, partly because if any part of it failed then it all failed but mostly because he needed the processing power to launch his offensive. The defence program had been complex to set up and costly, but it had served his purpose and gotten him in range undetected. Timing was critical, he had precious few seconds to infiltrate the mechs and execute his specially designed freeze program. One by one each mech glitched and froze in various response poses, none able to finalise any form of manoeuvre fast enough. The beauty of this attack protocol was that it had been specially designed, by himself, to lock the cyborgs inside the frames turning the military grade equipment into personal prisons for the occupants. It would take some high level skill to hack through and it wouldn't be a quick process, giving him the time he needed to complete the assassination.
The fifty calibre ready, he bought it to bear on the only defensive target left, a single cyborg who was still getting her wits about her. Something else suddenly drew his attention and he was forced to overclock in order to process the new data fast enough. His shot was off and he barely had time to process that thought before the secondary issue was taking up too much space to ignore. The shot had destroyed the cyborg's thigh, completely removing the right leg in an explosion that sent shrapnel of metal and human organics spraying, it was enough to incapacitate her for his immediate needs. The situation in front of him had gone almost to plan but this new feed from nowhere had the potential to become an issue. Someone was live feeding the whole scene into the network. His entire attack was being played from a secondary position and from the look of it, the person was moving in a way that would suggest a planned attack from behind.
EexP was careful not to change his behaviour. Like a chess game, each player had their moves and the art of looking like one thing while doing another was his speciality. While keeping his exterior calm and focused he diverted more resources to tracking and unravelling this new threat. They were sloppy, the live stream was a sure sign of a wannabe solo trying to make a mark and gain some notoriety, possibly get a clan initiation or a company offer. The stream had picked up only a few viewers, most likely the person's closest allies who were curious about what he was doing. From the visuals it was clear that he had powerful legs but the arms were still clearly flesh models, incapable of inflicting serious damage by themselves. Still the way they moved showed they were no slouch whoever they were and had they not been dying here shortly, they might have had some potential, given the right work. A superficial hack was all that was needed to confirm enough details that EexP felt a light weight lift. This was going to be some short lived fun, for him at least.
Unsheathing his knife making sure to keep his perceived focus on the downed cyborg, EexP moved into position. Watching himself do so through the feed was a different experience but it had the advantage of being able to keep his identifying features off-line. The last thing he needed was evidence out there of his assassination. Already this stranger had caused enough trouble. Still keeping his outward focus forwards on what should be his intended target he moved, giving the would-be assassin the window they needed, and sure enough they took the bait. With a few short strides they were upon him and he spun to meet them, expecting to feel the garotte wire across the back of his plated neck. His blade sliced the air and nothing more, even as he turned EexP picked up, too late, the discrepancy in the feed and reality and then BLANK.
Cadium's plan had gone just the way he hoped. He had taken a small risk to sabotage the shot from the fifty calibre but saving an asset would work in his favour. And the feed had been picked up fast. He gave EexP time to process and pull at the threads Cadium had left dangling for him. Stalking almost theatrically he positioned himself and leapt high coming down from above. By the time his target had swung to counter his attack it was all over. The force of his strike had torn the fingers back and peeled his flesh up his forearm. It made for a grizzly image on his feed, but he had turned off pain reception for the arm so it just felt like an uncomfortable pressure. The metal rods installed in his forearm were all mechanical and activated by pressure. They had extended downward violently, crashing through Cadium's palm and deeply into EexP's skull. It had enough force to cave the brain box and disrupt all functions, causing EexP's body to crumple under his attacker. Cadium doubted anyone would bother to try to save what was left of EexP. He had been getting looser for years and was definitely starting to lose it. The mech attack program was probably his last good work, but now that he was incapacitated and unable to do a clean up, it was basically open source.
Cadium was fast to send his request for reward, it was twice what he expected to haul and purposely over the top. Last thing he needed was company people taking an interest in his skills and one way to deter that was to overprice. He had kept it polite and non threatening, even though he had them over a barrel. If they refused, it was short work, even with one arm out of commission, to eliminate EexP's target and finish the job to collect on the contract. He waited short minutes in silence, knowing that behind the scenes some maths was being crunched before their counter offer flitted back. Slightly less than half his original request. It was also worded appreciably suggesting a good faith payment was in order if he was willing to remain while the mechs were debugged. This suited Cadium to a capital T, he had some minor salvage of his own to do on EexP, the lunk had some bits that would come in handy.
After he was clear of this situation he would have to spend the next few weeks carefully erasing traces of his involvement in this incident from the world. Even internally Cadium would clear the vast amounts of the data he'd accumulated. Some he would keep but many of the smaller details would go. Then he would possibly stay with Old Man Prole again and sleep on it. Maybe he would write it down as a story document. And delete all traceable, verifiable data so it could live on as just another story in his collection. Sometimes a simple narrative was better than great swarths of data. After all, humans were still a story telling species.