Instinct has a habit of taking over as soon as shit hits the fan.

Collin had slammed his body into the floor before Hobbes body even hit the ground. Bullets started cracking through the walls and the now shattered window, peppering the furniture and busting the scattered beer bottles and empty glasses. He heard the cries of Yancy struggling to keep Hobbes alive, though from his prone position Collin could already see the blood pooling under the British mans body.

Fuck man, you better pull yourself together..

Unarmed, and caught flatfooted, Collin knew he was at a disadvantage. They all were, as the only one currently armed at this point was Packard, who was hefting a rifle too large to maneuver easily in the confined space of the apartment. Kennedy dashed off upstairs, and Collin gritted his teeth as more glass cascaded down on his head and back. He needed to do something fast or they were all going to get smoked.

He vaguely heard a feminine voice, and he glanced up and saw Martin pointing at him and Packard and telling them to go upstairs and take out the shooters from the roof. Collin rolled his eyes. Great idea…let me just shoot mind bullets at them…

His green eyes fell on the trunk, and he started crawling on his stomach towards the open box. He dragged himself up slightly, reaching his hand inside and grabbing the first thing that he could wrap his fingers around and hefting it out with the rasp of metal against plastic. Flipping onto his back, Collin laid the weapon across his chest and looked down to inspect his prize.

Oh yeah…this’ll do just fine.

He had grabbed an 8-gauge pump action Avenger shot gun. This one in particular had a barrel shortened to just past the fore-grip, with a birds-head style grip instead of a full stock. As he pulled the weapon out he checked the chamber, and saw Kennedy running back down stairs with…what the fuck was that? It looked like the door of an armored car. Kennedy braced himself in front of the window, the concentrated firepower pausing as the bullets started to impact the metal shield with loud *ping* sounds. Taking advantage of the respite, Collin pushed himself up to his feet and ran up next to Kennedy, bracing his shoulder against the side of the shield, his back to the man holding it. He glanced over at Martin, who now stood over Yancy and Hobbes and gave orders to a few other people.

“Sorry lady, sneaking and peeking isn’t really my style,” he said with a sarcastic smile as he pushed the barrel of his shotgun out around the edge of Kennedys barrier, and pulled the trigger. The gun boomed like a cannon and kicked in his hand like a pissed off mule. Collin fired blindly two more times, not caring if he hit anything. He peeked his eyes around the shield, looking for targets, but the street lights were so dim his eyes were having a hard time adjusting. The sudden pop and wizz of bullets bouncing off the shield near his face made him jerk his head back around and fire again.

“Fuck! I can’t see shit out there. We need to get out of this house now!” He barked, digging into the box at his feet and stuffing handfuls of shells into his jacket pockets.

---

---

Master Helfer, Kennedy and Allen I realise you also use special equipment on top of conventional weapons, the riot shields, Assorted Explosives and Spy/Stealth equipment is in the upstairs bedroom. Also even further up is the attic, which has a lot of junk and a skylight window that peaks out over into the street. There is also the boiler room that has the house's fail safe computer but you can only enter that from outside near the dumpsters, nothing you have to really be concerned about.

Lee perked up at the mention of his name. Noting the location of the Spy and Stealth equipment that came with the title of Martial. In due time though, Lee tuned back out, barely registering the final part about the boiler room, it was nothing to be concerned about right?

Wrong, within seconds everything went to hell. A single, solitary bullet flew through the window, flying in slow motion right in front if his eyes, before exploding inside Craig.

Lee could almost feel the mans pain as he fell to the ground. The incredible, shocking impact of the bullet itself, a force equivalent to having an M-80 going off in the shirt pocket, sent Craig reeling.

Everything seemed to go in slow motion, as undoubtedly, a large amount of adrenaline was released from Lee's adrenal medulla, causing his central nervous system synapses to fire faster–like a high-speed camera, producing a slow motion effect, as he acrobatically jumped over the couch and used the back end as cover. A hailstorm of bullets began to rain down on the apartment, to no avail. Lee felt his lungs begin to squeeze, and his breaths became agonizingly painful and terribly short. Every breath was like a knife turning in his lung. He wasn't nervous, nor scared, but watching someone so innocent slowly die would affect everyone.

He could faintly hear the screaming of those around him, his eyes became glassy as he watched Mack and Lily attend the Craig through the storm of bullets. Fortunately, the screaming of his name snapped him out of his initial shock.

Lee! its too hot with enemies to go outside, but... I think I know of another way to the failsafe console, Tim mentioned having to catch rats in the vents before they got to boiler room...could you crawl through the ventilation to get there?

Lee's eyes roamed around the room in search of a vent, his mind instantly focusing on the instructions he had been given. Within nano-seconds he found his prize, his eyes landing on a vent on the far wall near the bed.

" Wǒ tā mā de!" Lee cursed loudly, uttering his first words since he arrived at the apartment in his native tongue.

Lee crawled over to the vent, making an effort not to look at what he assumed was now Craig's lifeless body.

Wasting no time, Lee removed the covers with an experts touch, and quickly crawled inside, not bothering to look back at the crew that was being fired upon. Lee was greeted with darkness and the fading sounds of gunshots as he crawled ever deeper inside.

As the other hires had quite contented themselves either watching the political garbage the common man called 'news' or helping themselves to Taggart's mini bar, the three individuals Craig had mentioned began to trickle through the door. Two middle-aged men the likes of Jay himself, and then a snappy-looking young lady that looked like she'd just been plucked from under a car. Jamie remained silent, much to the mockery of Kennedy, as he remained within he own thoughts.

Jay only truly came back to the present when their supposed leader, a Mr. Michael Yancy, entered the room. Immediately, Jamie began to dash his expectations for this ragtag little squad- Mack bore every visual sign of a drunkard fresh from the saloon. He struggled to stay upright, dark bags under his squinting eyes (blue on black, oddly enough) and the hints of stubble around his lower face indicated he hadn't shaved properly. Either Taggart had surprisingly low expectations for candidates of leader roles, or Mack wasn't ready for this.

More likely the latter, however, given how painstakingly all these skilled individuals had been gathered here at this very time. But, then, there did appear to be a certain logic to who had been picked, seeing as how Yancy actually recognized some of the faces among the seven.

A couple of brisk reunions were shared, all that stuff. Jamie feigned non-interest, a simple act considering he'd never met any of these people before. However, the certain circumstances surrounding the relations of the people here made the marksman keep an ear on the conversation. It was obvious the outsiders like himself here were just experts offering their talents, but the former police agents all had some history, forced into hiding and begging to be reunited with this new combat operations unit. How convenient.

Everyone snapped to attention as Craig Hobbes stepped up to center stage again, dragging a lock box almost as large as himself all with one skinny arm. Slapping open the latch, the box fell open to reveal what had to be an entire armory's worth of firearms, all loaded up.

Damn if that didn't get everyone's attention, even the ever-stoic sniper. "Wow," Jamie commented in pleasant surprise, breaking his silence. Unlike the Chinese man he was sharing a couch with, the sniper stood up to glance at the stash of weapons from a different angle. As he did, though, Craig quickly held up an index finger to Jay, signaling to give him a moment as he retreated into the kitchen...

Not a few moments later, Taggart's partner returned with something completely different, for Packard himself, apparently.

The stockpile of traditional ballistics was all well and good, tried and true, but the rifle Craig was now hoisting under his arm seemed to come fresh from the future. Taking the thing into his arms, Jay's mouth couldn't help but slack open. The rifle was large, bulky, and weighty- not unmanageable, but still plenty to put any other conventional sniper rifle system to shame. The sheen and trim that shaped the frame of the gun showed a lot of care and money went into making this weapon look as flawless as could be afforded.

As Jay wordlessly tested the heft and design of the advanced weapon, Craig took care to answer the marksman's unspoken questions. The rifle was a custom build, created from schematics stolen from the Japanese; the Longshot Rifle "Shogun". That little tidbit about the design being stolen perked Jay right back up again.

"Stolen?" Jay parroted, somewhat blankly, before redoubling his words with a tad more exasperation. "Who did he steal it from? And more importantly-" the sniper removed the large box magazine, inspecting the dozen or so huge cartridges within, "-what the hell were they planning to do with it? With something this size, you could take down a whole building."

It certainly didn't take a gun nut to figure that the 'Shogun' was built big enough to bust a fat hole in concrete, tank armor, and soldiers alike. The question, then, is why were the Japanese trying to manufacture something like this. No, not Japan in general- more likely a private Japanese firm, Jay thought, Mack's recent words popping into his mind.

The gears in his brain began to turn. Taggart gathering a whole arsenal of weapons, a handful of professional fighters, and even advanced custom gear like this rifle... There had to be something else behind this, and it was itching Jay's mind harder than ever now.

Alone in his musings, still holding the rifle, he looked back across the room, past his new teammates and out the window, into the salient night...

---

---

Within a single moment, the entire house was sent into chaos. Jay tried to move, but the bullet traveled faster than any man could hope to catch up with, entering Craig's chest with little resistance. Glass shattered, the table buckled under the falling body, and Mack screamed uncharacteristically. Synthetics, Taggart's partner hacked out in his fleeting breaths.

From the support beam he had taken cover behind, Jay cursed the tides of fate. "Knew it," he muttered once, then again louder, "I fucking knew it!"

Everything happened so quickly. Mack desperately begged Craig for words, and he spat them out. The Chinese man heeded the instructions about the failsafe in the boiler room, and scrambled for the vents. The temporary squad captain began to bark out orders as one of the men headed upstairs in a panic. She pointed at Jay and the worn street-sweeper, ordering them both to take up arms at the roof and pick off their assailants.

The sniper spared a single glance at the other man, sneered, and called back to the lady, "What, you think I need help?"

With a certain cool bravado about him, Packard slipped out from behind the column and between cover. Leaving the Shogun at rest behind the couch, he ducked over and pilfered an EBR from the pile of weapons Craig had dispensed earlier. As Kennedy came barreling back into the room with a door-sized riot shield and a fresh scar of battle, Jay took his place and dashed out, eager to escape the line of fire. He scrambled up the stairs to the next floor, and up further then, to the attic space Craig had mentioned.

Bashing open the door, Packard crawled along the dusty flooring, past the piles of assorted crap, and up to the edge of the skylight. This experience was one that the marksman hadn't been through in years, his time in urban warfare having spoiled him to being in a true, heated conflict. Placing the stock to his shoulder and his eye to the scope, he zeroed in on the first of eight targets he could count - which meant the rest were surrounding the complex or preparing to breach. He quietly hoped his other operatives were as good as Taggart advertised, or he might actually be in serious trouble.

Jay's eagle eyes quickly adjusted to the lack of light, and he aligned the crosshairs of the EBR to his first victim of the night. Humans, androids, they all fell the same to a solid bullet through the head. Compensating for the soldier's next movement, he squeezed the trigger, a cacophony of ballistic power and shattering glass accompanying the shot.

For every operation, Krauss likes to put himself in a certain frame of mind. He's seen enough that often he will relate the current situation to one of his past operations, so that he better predict the enemy and know what to expect. Now for this particular job, Krauss hadn't really decided what it could be like to his past operations. Operation Hauptmann was so far the closest candidate, but as he sighed, crouching and once again wiped the blood of a good man off his face, bullets shredding the room, he knew what this was like.

"Fucking Warsaw all over again." he muttered, taking cover on the floor. Before Mr. Hobbes had been hit, he had mentioned Krauss's equipment upstairs. He was about to make a run for it, as he wanted to start suppressing those drones out their A-sap, but he was stopped before he could make the trip.

"You, come with me. We're gonna go out into the hallway and take out any sons of bitches who try to come in." Scheiße! His beloved Kerbos Panzer Armor was going to have to wait. Grabbing the PKM he had been just previously admiring, he made his way towards the acting squad leader, also quickly grabbing a few belts of ammo, as they made their way towards the door. Krauss immediately positioned his weapon on a side table in the hallway facing the front door. The door which was already about to be broken down.

"Miss Polizistin, I didn't think the enemy would be so desperate to test this team's skills. Shall I answer in kind?" Krauss said, focusing on the door.

Lily Martin

It was obvious the bots were out in the hall as from the sounds of it, they didn't care too much for stealth. Lily could have sworn she saw some of their projectiles making dents in the door, and she reacted by knocking a table down to the ground and positioning it so that it acted as a barrier between her and the killer bots whenever they happened to force their way inside.

"Do what you must," she replied. Looking down at the rifle, she made herself comfortable in the prone position and let out a slow breath as she looked down the sight of the weapon and aligned it to the center of the door. With whatever delicacy she could manage, she placed her left pointer finger on the trigger, but she didn't dare pull, not just yet. Past training had taught her to never forcibly pull the trigger. In fact, every properly-trained person should know that all it takes is one gentle pull and the weapon will do the rest. This leads to better accuracy, and it could mean the difference between life or death in a firefight.

"Any second now..."

---

---

Lee crawled deeper into the ventilation shaft, ignoring the slowly fading sounds of gunshots as he crawled farther into the darkness. The darkness was thick, wrapping around his body like a blanket, but thankfully, his eyes slowly began to adjust. Ever so often he would pass by and crawl over the bodies of dead rats or feces, whichever came first. As he forced his body through the narrow shafts, his mind wandered. He questioned about the state of the rest back in the apartment, how were they faring? The last thing he saw was Lily and Mack knelling over the body of Craig. He was pretty sure that the shot was fatal, Craig was in the kitchen, he was in the living room, and the shot produced enough of a blood spatter to land on his former pristine white sneakers.

Lee pushed the thoughts of how to clean blood off white shoes out of his mind and refocused on the task at hand. He crawled, and soon ended up at the end of the shaft, the hot air and the smell of metal grinding on metal that wafted through the steel grate clued him in.

"How can he live here" Lee said to himself despondently as he peered into the room. The boiler room housed boilers, a/c equipment, pumps—all kinds of devices that generated noise, heat and vibrations. Sleeping had to have been a hassle for Craig.

Lee, pushed the grate open, taking a blast of steam to the face, which he did not enjoy. He quickly pulled himself out, using his hands as leverage to pull the rest of his body out onto the cold concrete floor, before lazily standing up, the weight of the days events setting in on his shoulders.

The boiler room was filled with the normal stuff, air handlers, boilers Chillers, heat exchangers, water heaters, tanks, water pumps, main distribution piping and valves, sprinkler distribution piping and pumps, back-up electrical generators, elevator machinery, and other heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment. Lee's eyes quickly locked onto the failsafe console though, it was mounted onto the far wall, a large 35 inch screen with the keyboard jutting out from under it.

He wasted no time, literally lunging towards it before he began to type away, quickly realizing that this would be no easy task.

"Wǒ tǎoyàn hēikè!" he mutter distastefully as he hacked into the failsafe.


Failsafe mode cannot be accessed in the usual ways because of a problem with configuration such as locked out users, locked out network connections, broken startup scripts, broken packages or configurations. I cannot fix more fundamental problems such as 'hard bricking' or issues with the hardware, kernel.

Failsafe mode has to be triggered using three special procedures while the consul boots - waiting for a flashing LED and pressing a button, wait for a special broadcast packet and pressing a button, or watching for a boot message (on the serial port) and pressing a key ("f") on the serial keyboard.

Once failsafe mode is triggered, the consul will boot with a passcode, and activate.

Lee went over instructions in his brain, biting his lip as he typed away furiously. Soon, Lee was able to breach the failsafe, but not without inadvertently activating the it.

Shit Shit ...SHIT...this is happening way too fast!

Mack was panicking but he wasn't wrong, it only took under a minuite for this entire room of dangerous experts to be scrambling to mount a defense against this unexpected attack, Mack was still cradling Craig Hobbes in his arms but Hobbes was no longer speaking, only shaking and heaving coughs from the mouth, he was dying, and Mack was terrified. The Scottish Riot officer had ran upstairs to grab a shield and was now near the window, Colin had managed to grab a shotgun from the box and was laying down some blind-fire. Mack felt slightly more at ease covering the windows with two people he knew even a little bit. Mack's comfort dropped again when he saw blood dripping from Greg's shoulder.

Sgt Kennedy...Greg you've been hit! Are you okay? These Synthetics aren't playing around, whoever's controlling them really wants us dead, I just hope Lee can get to that fail-safe, if this house goes into lockdown mode then we will be trapped.... Ah shit? Lee is unarmed isnt he? I should have thrown him weapon before he went in that vent alone....Ah fuck it...I'm sorry Craig I'll be right back.



Mack took a deep breath, and while keeping his head low was like a dart, he shot towards the gun box with blistering speed, giving up his position and drawing spats of gun fire but luckily were partially blocked by Greg's riot shield. Bullets flew past his ears as hunched over the gun box and grabbed a combat knife, a pistol, a grenade, and finally a very familiar assault rifle which he recognised from his SWAT days, it was the same model he used on the force, it was called the The KillSwitch , but Mack threw it to Greg instead as he could see he was unarmed apart from the shield, a few more bullets pinged against the wall and ceiling and the broken glass and blood were now everywhere.

Hey Greg, take my rifle, and lay down some fire with Colin, I'm gonna be right back, I'm gonna follow after Lee into the fail-safe room, so I cant carry to much with me anyway....if I don't come back...Lily is in charge, let get this done.

Mack sprinted to the wall of where the small-ish vent was and drunkenly heaved himself into the passageway and began to crawl towards the failsafe, he was hoping he wasn't too late.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ARCHIE 'HORNET' SMITH

The situation outside was getting hot, 8 of the 12 Synthetics were all in position firing upon the window of the townhouse, all the neighboring houses had already gone into lockdown mode,with metal plates now covering all windows and exits, but Archie knew that he would have to manually interfere with the fail-safe himself, if he wanted the desired effect. "Breaching team, knock down that front door, kill who ever is inside." 4 of the Synthetics who had already been shooting at the now weakened door had now switched to battering ram mode, and and started slamming them selves against the the metal grate protecting it, the door would not hold up for long.

Archie took this opportunity, to now run for the boiler room, he was like a ghost, almost drifting past his own synthetics with a liquid like speed and grace. But just as he got to the boiler room door he saw one of the bots head explode...

BZZZZZZZTTTKRRSH

Circuits and oil sprayed in every direction from the stump of the bot's smooth shoulders, and the body collapsed on the floor with a heavy clang, sound. But it wasn't a malfunction, Jaime 'Jay' Packard had just scored an incredible headshot.

"I'm entering the building, fire team, find that sniper"

The now 7 Synthetics were now in scanning mode trying to track the trajectory of the expertly placed bullet. Unluckily for them, the 'Shogun' rifle is almost completely silent and the rounds disintegrate on impact which make them extremely hard to trace even for A.I.

Archie had now kicked down the boiler room door and began to speed his way up the old staircase that lead to the main area of the failsaife consle, the metal staircase creaked against the weight of his heavy cybernetic frame and he tucked his sub-machine gun and drew his blade as he felt the room get smaller and more suited close combat as apposed to a firefight. The Hornet was now hearing the faint sound of tapping in the room at the top of the staircase, there was no option for stealth, and firing bullets would be too dangerous around all the explosive boilers so Archie kicked open the door and menacingly paced towards the sound. The room was just big enough were Archie couldn't immediately see Marial Zao Allen but his scanners picked him up as he walked towards the console, which was tucked near the corner behind a large water heater tank.

"My scanners are pulling up your profile now, Mr Lee Zao. It looks like you've been doing this sort of thing for a while now. But this isn't Shanghai, you are now out of your depth, Martial."

Hornet's blade glistened in the low light of the Boiler Room, and he took a combat stance as he turned the corner to face Lee Zao, who was nearly finished on the console, the two Martials were now alone.

Back outside on the street the 4 Synthetics were tirelessly and mechanically hurling themselves at the door until finally....

BOOOSSSHHHTT...

The door came flying of the hinge and the synthetics had pointed their guns on the people inside, Lily and Krauss who were waiting for them...

Dammit! I was just starting to relax! She exclaimed mentally. Craig had just been shot in front of everyone. Was a damn shocker for everyone. And the acting squad lead was already giving orders. At least she's on point. Though Valeryia wasn't the biggest fan of the order she had been given. Defend the second story, by herself. This wouldn't be a problem if she had knowledge on how to handle something bigger than a sub-machine gun. A partner would've helped too. But she didn't argue. In a moment like this, arguing would be pointless, and probably get more people killed.

She quickly ran over to the opened case that the others were either eyeballing, or nearly drooling into and grabbed a familiar weapon. A P-90. Her usual weapon of choice when being a hired driver. Along with snatching some magazines for it. No telling how many bots would come up her way. She just hoped it wouldn't be all of them.

After she did a few quick checks of the gun, Valeryia ran to her objective. It seemed she'd be doing a bit of a patrol of the second floor. Though it would look out of place, someone patrolling while the sounds of a firefight went on nearby. But nothing would distract her from a thought that entered her mind. I hope nothing happens to my baby. Valeryia seemingly more concerned with her car than the lives of the others.

Lily Martin

As soon as the bots were able to beat down the front door, Lily fired a couple of burst rounds in their direction. The leader, or so she presumed it to be, went down rather unceremoniously. Unfortunately for Lily, her exact location was now a dead giveaway. With her back against the table, she had no choice but to hope for a miracle as a few bullets blazed past her. She took a second to gauge the situation her partner was in, although her time was cut short when she felt a hard tug pull her from behind.

Lily couldn't fight back. Instead, she found herself dangling off the ground as she struggled to get on her feet again. The bitter thought of this robo-freak treating her as if she were some sort of animal made her blood boil. She threw a punch to where she assumed one of its joints would be, but the hit wasn't all that solid. Lily felt its robotic hand tighten around her neck, and she increased her efforts to release herself from the tight grip. In response, the droid turned her around so that they were facing one another. She took the opportunity to throw a punch, but the droid was quicker than she had anticipated. Definitely a mistake on her behalf. Mirroring her move, almost as if it was mocking her, the droid's fist was able to flawlessly make contact with Lily's jaw. The pain was instantaneous, and for a moment, she went limp as whatever energy she had left her body. Blood gushed from her mouth, but she didn't care. Instead, Lily attempted to figure out what her next course of action should be before this thing decided it was time to end the torture and kill her once and for all.