Mack didn’t like fire-fights. Some may have found the scent of burning propellent and the light tinge of hanging dust in the air thrilling. Mack just found it to be a long, drawn out bout of playing chicken, especially when he and Weaver were both pinned like rats. Delilah’s voice radiated out from the speakers of his helmet, like an announcer for a reality television show. A truck. An escape vehicle. The only thing big enough to haul off those voting kiosks. Now, Cantos was alone over there. He turned around to level the barrel of his Street-Shredder, lethal package already loaded and waiting to be unleashed, towards the head of a Knight before he got knocked onto his ass. " Well, thanks for the help, Amano. Too bad Matrix surfers such as yourself..." Mack grunted a hiss of pain, looking downwards towards his lower thorax where the bullet had impacted. "...can't manipulate reality as you do the Labyrinth." He examined the wound. It was a straight-shot that had lodged into the armor plating, a slight trickle of blood leaking out. He could hear the sound of him typing in his bank account password already. Mack took the familiar pause of reloading to fire another burst from his Secedo, sounds of annoyance blurting out from the King’s mouths as if they were swatting at errant mosquitoes. He’d like to have thought of them more as sounds of pain. It would have provided some much needed optimism to the dire situation they were currently in.

Especially with Weaver bleeding all over the once spotless (perhaps, not dustless) floor next to him. Her hastily made torniquet was a bright cherry red and without a medi-vac, she would go under in about half a hour without proper medical attention. “ Weav -” Mack’s distress was cut off by another stuttering staccato of heavy fire from the other side of the Rail-Stop. Mack fumbled with the Type-12 revolver in his hands, leaning against the wall and firing it overhead with one hand, trying to desperately think of a way to get out of this situation.

He couldn’t tele-path with the truck and run them over from the back. That was for sure. It was akin to trying to use a hammer on a bolt. Connection probes would be slamming into solid fire-walls. His neural relays couldn't provide enough power for a brute-force attack without overshooting his entire CNS. Nothing Amano couldn’t handle if they weren’t out in the boonies where the Labyrinth was essentially non-existent. Black-market augs came at the cost of modularity and to be able to link with a model as experimental as the Victory, some corners had to be cut. He and Taryn couldn’t get through that blockade without getting shredded. Hell, the only way to get through there was a exo-suited TinHead or a friggin’ tank. Something that he and Weaver didn’t have access to right now. He checked the bottom left hand corner of the chromatic HUD in his Prism before locking onto one message. Maybe, he didn’t have a tank…...

DAEDALUS Velocity Ultra GSX 4000 in Range Of APEX Nodeless Tactile Smart-Link

…...But he had the next best thing to one.

Another fizzling hail of bullets beated a tattoo of craters into a nearby pillar, glancing off his makeshift shelter. Being covert was out of the question now. He and Weaver kicked the metaphorical hornet’s nest, like a yuppie high-stacker venturing into the lower Zone without proper protection. He stared back at one of the gangers retreating to the back of the Rail-Stop. Stealth was out of the question now. There was only one way to get out of this situation, one road. Mack expended the last bullet in his revolver, an empty chamber and a lack of dead bodies on the floor to show for his performance. He crouched downwards, hiding behidn their rapidly dwindling cover as the Knights closed in on them. “ I’ve got a plan," He took out another energy bar this time, sugar-deprivation beginning to set in once more. "This might get a little loud, but you need a little loud to get some quiet.”

Mack closed his eyes, activating the APEX Tele-Path module in his brain and taking a bite of the energy bar. Strawberry. The sensations of the world dulled into a kaleidoscopic shifting jumble of damp light, spicy noises and hard flavour. It was like plunging backwards into a pool of water, bubbles of code and hi-speed frequencies shooting through the air around him, mind burning faster than what was meant to be processed, machine and mind fusing with one another.......

---

---

He relished taking hold of Monica's drive-shaft, her engine, her heart, her body through his phantom finger-tips, making her dance to his tune like a master conductor. The aluminium honey-combed chassis of the Velocity that he'd bargained his soul for crashed through the rusty front of the gates of the Rail-Stop, sending them flying and jostling on the ground. The four-digit horsepower fusion engine roared like a primeval entity of pure speed and momentum that could be heard for blocks wide. He screamed along with Monica in his mind, dust kicking off from his feet/her tires like an caged animal letting loose for the first time. The all-terrain tires hit several bumps, the car jostling up from the force of recoil, spilling over the soda in his cup-holder. With a thought, he shifted the steering wheel towards the right and pressed down on the brakes, sending the car into a drift, rolling clouds of exhaust and dust intermixed together, re-routing its course of destination towards their location. Monica begged him to take her beyond her limits. The turboblazer him needed to quench its thirst. He pushed the gear forward and floored the pedal, acceleration jostling her frame apart.

The fury of his imprisonment by the Reclaimers, the bleeding wound, Monica's condition, the election, all of that faded away into the background.

The feeling of pure speed, the symphony of roaring engines and screeching tires that he'd come to love, the ticks of the speedometer, pedal to the meddle....

He lived for this.

He loved this.

Don't stop! Just GO!



Monica crashed into the scene, swerving across the syn-crete floor and kicking up the loose detritus of yesteryear. Bullets pinged off the chassis, only making the rusted paint-job more ugly than it already was. The headlights were turned on, making night seemingly into day as Monica zoomed past Taryn and Mack's current position, Mack shielding Taryn's downed body with his own, as his car made for break-neck speed towards the Knights. The blurring half-ton machine went on a collision course with the Knight behind the voting kiosk, sending it and the Knight behind it flying off like a cannon. The bulky booth crushed the Knight with a gruesome pulverising snap, his cybernetic limb sticking out from underneath and a slowly forming pool of blood on the floor.

Mack looked back at Taryn, face panting from mental exhaustion.

“ Like I said, loud.”

But that would put me in the middle of the Abandoned Zone, which is a bit of a death sentence in-and-of itself.

During his wait for the debate to resume, Proctor had leaned up against the wall, a small crowd sharing the wall with him, all in their various groups, or some standing alone, same as him. Amongst all the bobbing heads, he could see a few he recognized. They were just small time street enforcers, working on his rather skim dime. It was mostly their respect for Proctor that fueled their decision to be there, rather than the promise of a payday. The potential of hitting it big helped keep them there, too.

Trying to drown out all the bothersome noise, Proctor had taken to trying to plan an escape route ahead of time, should the need arise. There were plenty of roads and alleyways flowing in and out of the Square, but around him, most of them led to dead ends or sometimes, something worse. His options were thin and questionable at best, but Proctor would take having to fight off a few junkies in an alley, rather than whatever disastrous events could take place here.

Before he knew it, the debate was back on, and he listened to it on and off as he stopped paying attention to look around him and observe the now much more quiet crowd. His gaze casted over thousands of people, almost all of them facing the stage or the various screens around the Square with the candidates’ faces on them. The stillness and silence, at least, relative to earlier, made Proctor somewhat anxious. Now that most of the attention was turned to the stage, it’d be easier for some unnoticed crazy to pull off a dangerous stunt. Of course, the place was brimming with security, so the notion was still far fetched, but it still stuck to Proctor’s mind.

Feeling like he had scanned the crowd for long enough, Proctor turned his gaze back to the stage, across the crowd, and up to Campbell’s face, which had burst in a bloody mist and cut his speaking off. Campbell fell limp to the stage, and even more of what Proctor had registered as gunshots rang out. In mere moments, the entire Square was in a state of unadulterated chaos. Multiple security personnel had been cut down in a matter of seconds, Campbell had been assassinated, and all Proctor saw before he turned to run was a large slug of plasma strike Gatch, which surely sealed his fate.

Whatever his fate was, though, Proctor did not care, nor did he even notice, as he had quickly scrambled away from the chaos, following a large herd of fleeing Citizens. The Reclaim had come violently alive, and the air vibrated with not only the sounds of what could only be described as war in the streets, but with the shrill screams and death cries from dozens of people all over the streets. Proctor followed a portion of the crowd down an alleyway out of Central Square, but he could already tell it was going to end badly. A large pile of junk and trash lay ahead of the crowd, and Proctor could already see the beginning of a pile of humans being trampled and they fell atop the barrier, failing to get across and falling victim to the herd.

Spotting a sort of alcove ahead of himself, the sprinting cyborg stiffened his feet to a halt and slid into the small doorway, taking a second to breathe, and collect himself. His heart was beating almost out of his chest, and even though he hadn’t run far or fast enough to break a sweat, he was still heaving with inhalations and exhalations, his mind absolutely exploding in a frenzy of fear and flee instincts.

Gazing across the alleyway, through the thick crowd that still surged down the alley, he could see across, and for only moments at a time, make out the contorted, nervous face of a man in a similar predicament as his own. They were both stuck in small alcoves on either side of the alley, watching as the tidal wave of flesh and metal flew past them. Neither of them had an idea what to do next, but both of them knew their lives were nearing the end if they didn’t do anything.

That’s when he saw it. Through the bodies rushing past, in those few fleeting moments in between seconds, Proctor saw, very clearly, the insignia of Rott’s Knights printed on his jacket. Amongst the crashing waves of confusion, fear, anxiety, rose mountainous peaks of rage and violence. Here, was one of Rott’s men, in the middle of what obviously had to be Rott’s big plan, yet, he had fled and ran, same as everyone, with such great trepidation you’d think he was just another of many victims. The gall.

Proctor could feel the servos and gears in his arms and legs tighten up, not in old age or disability, but in a rising surge of anger. Anger that he had let himself believe that joining Campbell’s campaign could lead him anywhere. Anger that he had let himself become entwined once again with an enemy that he had eluded for so long. Anger at this lone Knight, who had run and fled as his comrades tore the Square apart. Anger that he was sure he was about to meet his death. Finally, he launched himself, dashing across the alley, his metal arms and legs helping him pelt people away, and shove himself through the horde of people running by. His short run was ended when his metal shoulder put a sizeable dent in the metal door that stood next to him and the Knight. Before the other could react, Proctor reached his arm out, grabbed the Knight by his neck, tightening his grip as he used his other hand to punch a hole in the door, finally reaching a metallic arm in and releasing the lock from inside, and taking them both in.

Once inside the dark abandoned factory, Proctor slammed the door shut, as to keep any unwanted guests hopefully out. His metal vice grip on the Knight’s neck tightened, and the man, who was now on the floor, yelped and moaned in pain as Proctor could feel his fingers stiffening. Pulling his machine pistol from his jacket, and shoving the barrel forward onto the Knight’s forehead, he took off the safety as he prepared to kill the struggling man in his grip.

”Son of a bitch!” The man rasped as hard as he could with his windpipe being crushed.

Feebly, the man tried to swat at Proctor’s gun, but realized the futility of it and went back to trying to pry Proctor’s hand off his throat.
”Give me one reason why not.” Proctor growled. ”You got ten seconds to give me a reason not to blow your fucking brains out.”

Proctor’s teeth were gritted, not only in his rage and anger, but also because the arm he was using to choke the Knight had locked up on him, sending a deal of pain soaring through his arm up into his shoulder.

The Knights ganger’s own metallic limb clawed against the APEX machinery pinning him back. Even in the face of his fading breath, the man seemed to stare down the barrel of the gun. Rott was always right in teaching his boys to fall honorably and fearlessly, though death was never the only option. With a pistol pressed against his head, however, the ganger was in no fighting mood. He struggled for breath, but proceeded to force forth words despite his pain.

”You don’t know shit… Campbell’s team… Doesn’t know shit. We do…” In his final exhalation of words, one could have sworn the Knights ganger showed a twisted smile, as though he’d played his gambit. He knew he had, but what followed would determine his fate. He knew his odds and played them regardless.

Only one of the fingers wrapped around the Knight’s throat had loosened after Proctor’s struggling, which drew a raspy exhale from him, with the pain in his arm calming slightly. As his suffocating grip loosened, the grip on his weapon tightened. Lifting the barrel up off the Knight’s head, Proctor took a second simply lining the bottom of the pistol grip up with the side of the Knight’s head, then suddenly rearing back and bashing the Knight savagely on the side of his head, leaving sizeable gash, which soon started leaking crimson.

”You Knights aren’t built the same as you used to be. And I’m sure it’d be much more fun to give you back to your own Paladins and let them know that while they were trying to take over the whole Reclaim, one of their very own was running away with his tail between his legs.” Proctor returned the barrel of the pistol to the Knight’s head, pressing the barrel into the bleeding gash on the side of his head, giving a twist to dig it further into the seeping skin. ”Start. Talking. Just what the fuck is going on out here, and why do you seem so scared to join in the fun?”

The eyes of the dazed ganger pierced Proctor despite their emptiness. The blows to his skull had surely stunned the man, but he was by no means ready to fall. In his moments of recovery, the Knights ganger would offer a nearly inaudible chuckle. His reason, however, remained a bit ambiguous. Perhaps he was surprised that a man like Proctor could still bring forth a certain savagery. Perhaps he knew something that Proctor did not.

”I expected more from guys like you… Is this really all Campbell can offer? Psycho old men who’ve got as much information as any one of the street rats their trying to rally…” The nameless ganger lifted his non-metallic limb to wipe the sanguine stains from his cheek as the blood ran down from the base of his skull. ”This one ain’t our battle… As much as you seniors would like to think… We’re busy elsewhere.” A blood-stained set of teeth curled out from the man’s cracked lips.

”There’s bigger players in this game than washed up thugs like you’d like to think…”

Even if more fingers had come loose and relaxed on his hand, Proctor returned them all to their tight curl around the man’s throat. His eyes bore into the Knight’s, as the thought of ending the man’s life entered the forefront of Proctor’s mind. He didn’t seem to recognize Proctor, so it’s not like he could run back and report to Jackson that the Ghost was still alive. Leaving him alive still wasn’t an option, though. Too much of a liability for Proctor to allow. What had to be done had to be done. His trigger finger slowly began to coil and squeeze on the trigger, and the Knight had shut his eyes, as to give Death a warm welcome. Just as Proctor readied his arm for the recoil, thought, something clicked in his head. His finger relaxed, and his grips on both the Knight and his pistol loosened. Just as the confused Knight opened his eyes to examine the change in situation, he received a vicious blow to the side of his head, behind his ear, knocked him unconscious nearly instantly. Just to be sure, Proctor gave another quick and precise hook along the side of the Knight’s head, with the motors and servos whirring with surging energy.

Proctor went to quickly patting him down for weapons and the sort, finding a few items of interest, such as a pocket knife, and a locked personal computer pad. Surely, something, if not the Knight himself, would yield some interesting information one way or another. Perhaps a brain augment, which Knights were known to have, or some sort of other inner computer could be found. He just needed the help of the campaign members he was , ironically, getting ready to abandon just a few minutes ago.

”Della, I’ve got a live one here. I managed to catch one of these Knights escaping with the crowds, and subdued him. He won’t talk to me, but he knows more than he lets on. I figure you could have a little fun digging around in his brain.”

With the augments the man carried, he was heavier than he looked, but Proctor’s augments made the difference rather negligible. Getting him tied up was easy enough, as the Knight had enough sleeves and pant legs to make sure he was secure, but dragging him up the stairs of the building was a different task. Half-way up, Proctor finally picked the man up and tossed him over his shoulder, making every step calculated as he slowly scaled the staircase. Around every corner, his pistol went first, as Proctor felt uneasy at the possibility of the upper floors holding unpleasant surprises.

Stopping to take in his surroundings, Proctor found himself near a window facing the square, and, making sure to stick to the wall and out of sight, slowly leaned over to take a look at the chaos ensuing. Wiping some grime and dirt off the glass, he got a clear look at the square below. A lot less time had passed than he thought, as the Square was still alive with people fleeing in every which direction, and more security forces had poured out of the surrounding buildings, creating an even larger firefight between them and the Knights that were dotted around the area. He had lost sight of the monster of an assassin that descended on the debate, but he wasn’t exactly disappointed to not have to face him again.

Dozens, if not at least a hundred, of people lay limp, scattered amongst puddles off pooling blood. Left and right, Knights and Enforcers joined the ranks of their dead brethren littering the ground, but even more yet poured from streets and alleyways to reinforce the ones that remained standing. The debate stage was near collapse, and same as their assassin, Proctor couldn’t quite see either Dexter or Gatch. Spatters and pools of their blood, though, were visible, making the bile in Proctor’s gut stir a bit. Even with how often he’d encountered and dealt Death in his life, it never made the sight of it any less sickening.

Taking a breath, Proctor ducked back down from the window, setting the Knight down next to him, then he himself slid down the wall to sit on the floor. He realized he’d had his earpiece turned off, and turned it back on to listen if the team were communicating, but it was quiet for the moment.

”What the fuck is even going on out there? Is this shit really happening?...”

He spoke dispondantly into his communicator, losing the vigor of his last message. Seeing for himself the mess that everything was in, and having the memory of Dexter’s face being perforated etched in his mind, really set in the dire consequences he and his fellow campaign members faced. A bit of concern finally tricked up in his chest, through the rising feeling of hopelessness.

”Are any of you even left out there?”

𝕊𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕥 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕤

ℕ𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝟠𝕥𝕙, 𝟚𝟘𝟞𝟜 𝟙𝟡:𝟚𝟘

[𝕊𝕚𝕥𝕦𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 ℕ𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕒𝕝], 𝔼𝕩𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘....

As scattered as the crowd had gotten, the mass of bodies seemed to balance out the sea of people that had once conglomerated together. While the isolated nature of the Reclaim Zone prevented Enforcers from responding in their typically advertised '2 minute timeframe to anywhere in America', that didn't stop the Response Squad from arriving almost immediately. The high-tech EMTs jumped through the crowds and skittered across walls with technical gear unlike anything most Reclaim citizens had ever seen in their lives. Why they had shown up before even the Enforcers became evident as the Response Squad Jumpers shot from the sky to land upon the stage. Gatch must have had a deadman switch. There was no end to the endlessly expensive treatment plans the Response Squad offered to the CEOs and corporate seelouts that could afford them. Even in spite of the firefight between the destructive assassin and the Enforcers pulling up in squad cars to combat the crowd and reach their target, the Response Squad remained steadfast in their duties, airlifting the Priority Injured Parties and tending to whatever leftover wounded they could as they continued to extract men and women to hospitals around South City. To many people's surprise, the EMT jumpers seemed entirely unworried about the ongoing hail of bullets, though they seemed to be relying on a mixture of bravery and common decency to not catch bullets in their craniums.

As more and more Enforcers arrived on scene, more fire was focused on the assassin. In spite of his outward invincibility, the man seemed to be on the backfoot. For a moment, he locked eyes with a Response Squad EMT as they passed one another. One had aimed to save Gatch, the other had nearly killed him. More questions arose in the minds of all involved as the cruel figure seemed to leave his business unfinished. It was only after the mystery figure shot past the EMT when he caught sight of S'venia's drone. Assuming it to be an ineffective reporting drone or some recorder for the Response Squad, he was entirely unprepared as the burst of bright light sent him reeling back. It was clear that the receptors in whatever augments were laden in his eye sockets stood momentarily overloaded. In the drone's next burst, however, a set of deployable flashbang protectors covered his lenses. If only he were seconds quicker.

The next shot from the Engitech Drone offered nothing but a blinding white screen, as though the drone itself had been blinded. To any manual onlookers, the impact of a rocket-propelled ballistic weapon could be seen smashing into the assassin. As the explosive plumes of smoke cleared, the cyborg assassin shot sparks from his metallic exoskeleton, now protruding from under his kevlar coat. He only remained in his place for one more shot from the drone, though this picture was distorted. Funnily enough, it was only distorted around the assassin, as static appeared in some sort of circular field around the man. Without a second's hesitation, the assassin shot off towards the back of the stage, immediately beginning to run up the wall as he was propelled by the massively powerful servos grinding in his cybernetic legs. The drone captured a number of shots despite the assassin being aware of its presence. It seemed he had bigger problems to worry about. Very few pursuers even dared to chase him, but those who did found their efforts lost to Futility.

As Proctor ascended to the window of the hollow building he found himself in, the carnage was palpable, viscerally painted throughout the square. Some men had even taken arms against the Enforcers. Of course, that wasn't such an uncommon occurence for the derelicts of the Reclaim Zone. Some supported Rott while others just hated the vile lawmen. Nonetheless, it wasn't long before they realized the Futility of taking on the massive armored soldiers that had responded to the scene. Carefully scattered throughout the crowd, Proctor's keen eyes could locate that some Knights had joined in the firefight. Vendettas ran wild in the Reclaim Zone, but even wilder between its gangs and the Enforcers.

There were a number of peculiar details that the Reclaim's ghost could identify however, or rather, not identify. For starters, each of the men in the crowd that had Knights markings painted across their implants were all unrecognizable. Grunts and lackeys. None of Rott's officers were there, nor were any of his recognizable high-level operators. The Knights that were there were by no means a full force. It seemed clear that they would be slaughtered by the Enforcers should they continue to fight. No matter the outcome, the situation would be dire, though. That much was clear. Blood painted the Reclaim that day.

And not all of it was the blood of Knights and Enforcers. After what felt like hours, a Response Squad jumper kneeled beside Campbell. He brought his tools out and began to inject some foaming solution into the clear wound in Campbell's skull. The results were unclear. Few eyes were caring to look at the fallen politician when the rest of Central Square was filled with rampant carnage. That didn't matter to the Response Squad, though. No matter the danger, the circumstance, the political leanings, anyone paying them was getting the care they needed. A set of two jumpers soon descended on Campbell's location with a gurney in their hands, their jetstream suits lofting them down slowly and preparing to loft Campbell back up into the sky with them. The fate of the candidate was unclear, but he would be getting to a hospital nonetheless.

A day of hope across the Reclaim Zone had changed in an instant. The world was like a game, with so many pawns being thrown left and right. So many chips entering and leaving the pot. There were a thousand leads and a thousand different paths, but a much narrower margin with desirable outcomes. One could wonder if any sort of good could come out of pursuing a cause in this mess, or whether all parties involved would just be swallowed by Futility...

_{@The Bork Lazer@Firecracker_}

𝕊𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕥 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕤

ℕ𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝟠𝕥𝕙, 𝟚𝟘𝟞𝟜 𝟙𝟡:𝟚𝟘

𝕁𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕀𝕟... >
𝕃𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕃𝕒𝕓𝕪𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕙... >

What separates reality from abstraction..?

Subjective power?

Information manifested as waves like Delilah Amano was nothing more than an extra current amongst the jolts of electricity courses through lines of transmitting data. As more and more nodes were picked up by her scanning pulses, the Labyrinth that surrounded Delilah only became more elaborate. She has a thousand choices of what leads to pursue and sift through. The titanic nature of the digital maze often struck her with awe, but Delilah didn't have time to waste now. In the masses of useless informational nodes that she found, Delilah could only hope to continue to expand her search across the zone, looking for any manner to help Mackwell, Cass, and Taryn as they dealt with whatever impending threats were imminent at the Old Rail Stop. Every so often, the trance-like focus of dancing through the cyberscape shattered from Delilah's mind, her attention instead drawn to an echoic voice booming in her surroundings.

"Well, thanks for the help, Amano. Too bad Matrix surfers such as yourself can't manipulate reality as you do the Labyrinth." Mackwell's words seemed to shake the very fabric of Delilah's simulated landscape. She didn't stop gliding through the virtual streams of information as she pondered his words, but she felt herself hesitate in responding. Of course, this hesitation was likely undetectable outside of Labyrinth, but eventually she offered a short comment in response. The static in Mackwell's helmet parted, but only for a moment to deliver one line in that resonant and mechanical voice that did its best to mimic Delilah's own voice through multiple conversions.

"Oh, what's the difference..." Just as her voice cut off the line once again, a new wave of nodes appeared on the horizon of the sea of white data contrasting the static sky of the cyberscape. Finally, some color offered respite to the netrunner's blinded sight. Delilah raced towards them, her formless shape gliding effortlessly along the Labyrinth's coordinates. It took only nanoseconds for her to reach and beginning scanning the vulnerable information that her spider scripts grasped throughout the city, but even in the minute time, Delilah realized something was off. A normally unnoticeable variable had changed in the time she arrived at the nodes. Their location was moving. More specifically, she noticed the three nodes that had appeared throughout the city at the same time had all been moving along the roads. They were vehicles of some kind, and Delilah's cyberdeck predicted that they all had the same destination.

"I— uh... There's a set of three vehicles in transit, predicted to be following a tracking chip inside whatever vehicle is nearest to Monica... That's—" This time, the static that usurped Delilah's voice was abrupt and clearly not meant to occur. The line between her and Mackwell had been severed entirely as Delilah's attention was redirected altogether. The Labyrinth that surrounded her began to quake as dozens of new alerts erupted around the city, most around or heading towards Central Square. "Oh shit," was all Delilah managed as she surfed through the nodes, first looking into the cameras around the venue and taking in the scenario.

Delilah had no idea how to react, but her her brain seemed to work autonomously in Labyrinth. That was why she was here and not back in the real world. Before she could even recognize what she was doing, Delilah was surfing Response Squad databases and triggering a false VIP-life support request. Help was on the way for her fallen boss, but Delilah couldn't help but feel dread in her stomach. Was that really all she could do? An alert crossed her vision that covered the cyberscape entirely. A danger warning prompted from her cyberdeck, alerting Delilah to a missile of some sort that impacted the suites as the assassin made his escape. Again, her attention was split away from the urgent scenario.

”Della, I’ve got a live one here. I managed to catch one of these Knights escaping with the crowds, and subdued him. He won’t talk to me, but he knows more than he lets on. I figure you could have a little fun digging around in his brain.” This time it was Richter Gamble's voice that boomed in the cyberscape.”What the fuck is even going on out there? Is this shit really happening?...”

"Campbell should have a jumper on him soon. I'm tracing the wireless signals in his cyberware now. Hopefully that'll tell us where he's headed..." Delilah paused, realizing that was not what Richter was worried about. Campbell had just stood out in her mind as a first priority. This job really was getting to her.

"The Knights? The Knights are assaulting the Rail Stop. Did Rott show up?" A mechanically distorted sigh escaped Richter's communicator. "Wait, you took a hostage? Yeah... Uh—... I'll see what I can do." Those final words that escape the communicator seemed distant. The campaign's Labyrinth overseer was beyond frazzled as she extended herself between the number of tasks at hand, but then a moment of calm seemed to rush over her. There was a certain decisiveness that any successful netrunner needed. It separated the strong from the weak in the Labyrinth. In fractions of fractions of seconds, one's mind needed to be able to completely shift from one idea to the next. Delilah had become quite adept at acting as such a conduit of the flowing mind.

Her perspective began to change. Well, it was really more of a ripping or shattering of the conventional idea of perspective. Even in the hyperspeed that governed the cyberscape, one conscious wasn't enough. But could there even be something more than that? Delilah tried desperately to pull herself into more than one place in the Labyrinth's data mazes. Sweat poured from her limp body still trapped in reality.

Then, everything went dark.

𝕆𝕝𝕕 ℝ𝕒𝕚𝕝 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕡, ℙ𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟

ℕ𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝟠𝕥𝕙, 𝟚𝟘𝟞𝟜 𝟙𝟡:𝟚𝟘

[𝔻𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕔𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕪 & 𝔻𝕦𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪], 𝔼𝕩𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘....

The echoic concrete walls seemed only to compound the sounds of delirium running rampant from the firefight behind the Old Rail Stop. Between screams, gunfire, and the banging of steel against steel as the kiosks were desperately forced towards the truck's compartment, it was hard to hear one's own thoughts. The sounds, however, were all drown out soon enough by the screech of tires skidding across the smooth and greasy floor of the once occupied station. Mackwell's supercar flew into view just fast enough for it to register in the Knight grunt's head before he found himself smashed by both the vehicle and the voting machine that separated them. It was clear he wouldn't be getting up anytime soon— or ever for that matter. Another point to Mackwell, Cass, and Taryn.

This was the last thing the remaining Knights and worker goons needed, though. With no more working machines outside of the truck, nothing stopped the driver from clambering into the vehicle while the rest of the survivors remained distracted by the gruesome scene that just unfolded before their eyes in real time. "In the truck, now!"

Those few words emanating from the truck was all it took to launch the last remaining grunt into action. The horror on his face from watching his colleague crushed by the weight of the voting machine melted into determination and he abandoned his goal to fight off their attackers. Instead, the man soon joined one of his last living friends in the truck. As Cass combatted the original driver, he took the time in her moment's respite after reaching their luxury car to launch himself into the back of the truck. The sound of its massive engine revving to life was quite the opposite of Monica's smooth thrumming of electrical energy. The machines cylinders huffed and fired sporadically as the truck shifted gears. The wheels grinded to life as the truck jolted backwards in a three point turn.

As the Knight in the back clung to the truck's walls for dear life, he threw his other arm up to grasp at the hatch that kept him in sight of Campbell's campaign team. Their goal was becoming clear. The campaign team had to act quickly, but before they knew it the truck was speeding off. Cass jumped out from behind her cover to respond, but it was clear that she was too late. "Delilah, catch a signal off of it!" Cass's words were drowned out in the physical world by the roaring of the truck's engine as the vehicle shot towards its back alley escape route. Soon enough, though, she realized the Futility of her comment altogether. Her communicator was destroyed, and all lines to Delilah from each of the team members seemed silent. Had something gone wrong?

That was a less urgent question in the grand scheme of things. The crew could do little but watch as the truck began to peel away. They'd have to decide how important the voting machines were, and if they could catch the fleeing vehicle in the roads of the Reclaim...

Twin-linked hybrid engines extracted every ounce of horsepower that they could at maximum efficiency, guzzling up both ethyl and electricity in a gluttonous roar of fury and passion, the need for more. Monica was simply an extension of his mind now. His teeth was the front grill, his mind the steering wheel, his heart the engine, his drive the gear stick and his soul the rapid heart-beat ticking of the speedometer. He inhaled the aroma of fresh oxygen in, feeling it being devoured within the internal combustion chambers of his lungs and breathed back out.

Only to discover that he couldn’t. His sight was beginning to splinter. His throat was cast iron, his arteries numb with His vision was beginning to contort into a frenzing blur of colours. Red, white, blue, drowning in the outer mazes of the Labyrinth, wheels squealing, engine running -

>://DEACTIVATING NEURAL LINK CLIENT

>://DAEDALUS MOTOWORKS VICTORY ULTRA RESUMING FACTORY SETTINGS

The euphoric high from the out-of-body experience sublimated into a burning forehead as Mack disabled the wireless connection. It took him a good minute or two to stumble up on his two feet, his dizzying motions betraying the nausea hidden by his faceless Prismo. The razor-docs said to take it easy lest he permanently mutate his hypothalmussy or something along those lines. Augs usually left irreversible scars on a person’s psyche - neuralware being the worst offender of all. The sound of sugar cravings pounded in his head as the nestled Tele-Path in his skull slowly deactivated its subroutines and shut down. He hadn’t gotten the need to become addicted to Neurosynth. Yet. It was lucky that his body had decided to manifest the consequences of cyberware abuse through such delicious addiction.
There was currently a distant echo in his helmet, his mind struggling to piece his senses back together like a broken vase. His trembling fingers, remnants of neural shock still bouncing around within his body, unpeeled away the food bar - apple flavoured. Amano’s voice seemed world’s away now as he bit into and gorged on his self-destructive cycle.

"I— uh... There's a set of three vehicles in transit, predicted to be following a tracking chip inside whatever vehicle is nearest to Monica... That's—"

After a few hearty swallows, Mack looked around to process the scene, making sure that there were no guns pointing at him. His face immediately blanched at the gruesome sight. Years of effort of perfecting his car’s paint job had been ruined by the dings and scratches. Magnetized dye didn’t come cheap on the Under-Zone. He strode past the crushed form of Rott’s knight without a second glance, his baby’s blood-slicked hood becoming an eyesore the longer he stared at it. Nothing the pressure guns and a little sealant couldn’t handle.

The rumble of an large engine caught his attention as he looked up. The rest of the Knight, or rather, a single one, was climbing onto the back of a eight-wheeler. Mack tried to quiet the fervent autophile in him, ignoring the ramshackle condition and focusing on what the driver was doing. The shock of Monica’s entry still pervaded the atmosphere, some of the remaining Knights slowly retreating their way back to the truck. The worn wheels screeched, the bulk of the truck’s weight scraping against the walls of the time-tested train station as it reversed out, halted and then, drove out towards an unseen passage. An escape route. Mack swore as he jogged towards his car in a sweaty gimp, dialing up Amano’s while he was at it.

" Hey, Amano. Can I get a bead on where that vehicle’s going while I’m driving?”

He leapt into the driver’s seat, door already to welcome him into the helm. Automatic seat-belt shooting out to secure his chest, Mack pressed his palms onto the steering wheel, biometric scanners within the grip confirming access. He adjusted the rear view mirror as he did a fast check on Monica’s sub-systems. The truck was perhaps slower than Monica, a turtle to his hare, but anything with wheels and a working engine was fast enough to gain a distance on them. How far away was it now? Hundreds of meters? Kilometers? He didn’t have time to waste or wait for Amano to respond. It didn’t matter. The truck was perhaps lost from sight but not lost from speed.

“ Matrix surfers. Can’t rely on them when you want to.” He murmured as his door window slowly lowered down. He looked out at Weaver's prone form, motioning for her to get inside Monica whilst slapping the outside of her door for emphasis. He would have immediately proceeded to leaving the engineer behind, given that she had her own vehicle that was more or less capable of barely keeping up with Monica, but her wounded leg reminded him that a hospital was only a detour in the chase ahead.

Once Weaver entered the car, Mack’s left hand shifted the lever forward into high gear, Monica jostling herself forwards under his control. The dart pills flew out of his front boot, death rattles that enticed him. He caught it in mid-air and stared at it, thinking of the chances. The possibilities that lay ahead. His grasp grew tighter on his last resort, closing into a fist that might have bent the carbo-polymer casing before it threw it outside of Monica's open window. Like hell he was going to sink and die like that. If he was going to go out, he was going to go out in a blaze of glory on the transits of the Reclaim Zone. The OverDriver took command over the piddling form of Mackwell Fordwell, taxi driver, adrenaline-honed concentration as sharp as a mono-blade's edge surging him and Monica forward toward victory.

Mack would have been able to get out of the station a second earlier if he didn’t manage to see Cantos’s lick of neon pink hair in the headlights. Right. Guess leaving Campbell’s campaign operator in the middle of the Outer Zone with no transport would give him an awful ear-nagging later on. If Campbell won the election, that was. Mack pressed down on the brake, wheels screeching pitifully as the flow of velocity was stopped. He turned the steering wheel to the right and flicked the gear low, nearing the edge of tumbling onto his side. Instead, in one fluid motion, Monica’s front twirled to the back in a 180 degree turn, braking to a stop one meter away from Cantos The window rolled down to reveal Mack’s helmeted face peering forward, passenger door clicking open and unfolding like a pair of angel wings. He didn’t look at Cantos as he spoke. The invitation was clear in his electronically distorted voice.

" C’mon. Let’s ride.”

_{@The Bork Lazer}

𝕆𝕝𝕕 ℝ𝕒𝕚𝕝 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕡, ℙ𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟

ℕ𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝟠𝕥𝕙, 𝟚𝟘𝟞𝟜 𝟙𝟡:1𝟘

But maybe Futility didn't last forever, though...
Was that right?

Cass was ready to leap from her position, cut down whatever stood before her, die in the firestorm. She was always ready for that. At the very least, she liked to think that was how things were. Was she right? She didn't know. She couldn't think. Everything was always too loud. The ground always tremoring, the footsteps always echoing, the world always buzzing with sensory inputs; it was like the city was screaming at her. She couldn't take it. Cass shot forward from behind the luxury car only to halt herself as immediately as possible. Had she not grinded to halt, she would have smashed right into the screeching chassis of Mackwell's car as he skidded to a halt in the perfect position.

Their opposition was escaping. There wasn't time to think. There was only time to feel, to experience, to intake the sensory world. There was time to—
"—ride," was all Cass had caught from the distorted voice of her driver. She didn't hesitate, taking to the backseat in some sort of half-dive half-collapse. Cass did her best to settle in the seat from there before their speed started exponentially accelerating. She looped the strap of her monoblade around her shoulder and collected herself long enough to bring her machine pistols into her hands so they wouldn't roll back and forth in the seat. The blood that ran down the side of her face, staining her hair had Cass cursing aloud, though she felt much better as she noticed that her two colleagues were doing much worse numbers on Monica's seats.

"This one's you, Mackwell." The sound of her weapons' ceramics clicking together and hitting one another could be barely heard over the rev of the engine as Cass reloaded her Osuzumebachi. "I'm on standby. Get me close and I'll see what I can do." With that, Cass braced her leg against Mackwell's seat and pulled the seat belt across her body. She shifted her body to view their quarry as best as she could through the window. Then, a final question hit her.

"Anyone heard from Amano? My comms are dead..."

Della’s words flowed in one ear and out the other, as Proctor’s eyes were nearly bugging out of his skull, watching the ensuing mayhem taking place in the Square below him. Enforcers had dropped into the middle of the fray, not to mention the EMT Teams that rushed the stage to find the injured Gatch and Campbell, with complete disregard for the fact that the mysterious assassin responsible for this mess was still standing right next to them. Disregard, though, did not mean they were ignoring him, as the bulk of the men were focusing their fire on whatever the assassin was, be it man or machine or something in between.

The assailant finally decided it was time to leave the Square, the servos in his legs tightening up in preparation for a hasty escape, but his concentration was but short by some small drone that entered his view, a drone Proctor quickly identified as S’venia’s News drone. A flash burst from the drone’s camera, visibly blinding the man, stunning him long enough for an Enforcer to land a sickeningly critical strike with an explosive, violently ripping away and charring the man’s clothing and skin, exposing his electronic innards. Through the smoke a dust, Proctor could see that the killer was still standing, although perhaps a bit staggered. Above him, the drone flashed a few more shots, but they seemed to have little effects on the man, After a few more seconds, recovering from the blast that shredded parts of his torso, the man entered his stance once again, with one powerful blast from his legs propelling him up and away from the Square.

The Medical Team had begun to attend to the fallen candidates, but Proctor, breaking his gaze from the fleeing assassin, couldn’t quite make out what they were doing with Campbell. Even if his heart was still pounding from his encounter with the Knight, somewhere in the back of his head, he was worried about Campbell too. After seeing his head turn partially into red mist earlier didn’t exactly bode well, but if the medics were still working and attending to him, Proctor hoped it meant he was still able to be saved. Breaking his concentration on the stage, a whole new chaos began to break out from the edges of the square.

Stumbling over scattered corpses and splashing through accumulated puddles of mud and blood, some Knights began to take the fight into their own hands, opening fire on the Enforcers, reigniting confusion that had just begun to die down from earlier. Amongst them, no commanding element could be identified, and no special markings were apparent, either. In fact, these men lacked any markings of importance, and seemed to be conscripts or lowly street thugs, not the kind of men Rott would typically send to fight Enforcers. With no leadership, the disorganized and outgunned Knights quickly lost any semblance of organization they had, and resorted to blind firing over cover and screaming and shouting at one another, as they each gradually made their contribution to the corpse piles, one by one.

His head was spinning, and after a few stray bullets struck the wall of the building he found himself in, Proctor quickly hit the floor, considering his next moves.

Campbell was either dead or nearly there, and with the Medical Teams extracting him from the Square weren’t exactly informing everyone of where they were taking the candidate. As their personal jets revved up and they carried, Proctor simply watched in growing disbelief, his whole head raising his gaze as they lifted off and flew away.

Picking his jaw up off the floor, Proctor took a deep breath, his eyes darting around as he quickly raced to come up with a new game plan. Whatever happened next, he urgently needed to get back across the Square and reunite with the rest of campaign staff. Only, the task entailed moving across the breadth of the Square amongst a firefight between Enforcers and Knights, which showed little signs of slowing down, despite the Knights’ lack of leadership. What they lacked in organization they made up for in numbers, it appeared. They were still hopelessly outgunned, though, and Proctor didn’t particularly feel like staying in that shell of a building long enough to see if a reinforcement of Knights arrived.

Grabbing the still comatose Knight by his collar, Proctor started his way fumbling down the stairs, his free hand maintaining a white knuckle grip on his pistol, anxious of what awaited him outside the door.



Bursting through the door, Proctor swung his pistol back and forth over a wide arc across the area, scanning each end of the alleyway quickly, finally leaving the small doorway after seeing it was clear. As he carefully dragged his captive towards the edge of the alley, the sound of gunfire and bellowing became closer and more clear, until he finally entered the Square actual.

Even if the Square was vast and the firefight was relatively small in comparison, it still felt like the whole place was on fire, and Proctor was quick to slide into cover behind a food cart that had been abandoned near the edge of the Square. Flinching from a few nearby impacts, some dust and glass shards rained down near him as large, high velocity rounds went high and struck the building close by. After taking another solid breath, Proctor poked his head out and made a quick scan of the fight. The Enforcers had pulled back to the stage, the Knights forming a sort of half-circle around it, hiding behind piles of bodies and other various pieces of debris left behind from the stage collapse. The Enforcers had taken a few casualties, but the Knights were taking an absolute beating, some of them having to pile up and hide behind the freshly dead bodies of their comrades to avoid being shot themselves.

Glancing to his left, Proctor saw a parked car, covered in a mixture of paint that was used for grand political messages, and blood which had been splattered against it in the initial mayhem. The way to the car would keep him behind the fight, and in cover, but moved him closer towards the dangerous center of the square. Another glance showed the fight had entered a lull as the combatants reloaded and repositioned, and Proctor seized his chance, heaving the Knight nearly off the ground as his legs pounded the pavement.

Just a few moments before Proctor made it to his cover, the fighting erupted once again, and this time, someone has spotted him. Unable to identify him, they decided to take a few shots at him, causing him to make a panicked dive into cover, tossing the Knight aside, not quite completely concealed, but mostly behind the car. Proctor, clearly shaken, braced himself against the engine block section of the car, casting a wide-eyed glance at the holes in the wall, made by the bullets that narrowly missed him. He exhaled shakily, hoping to whatever higher powers were overseeing him that it was just an Enforcer taking potshots, and not a Knight that could’ve recognized the man Proctor had in tow. As he glanced up at the sky, however, he noticed that S’venia’s drone was still high in the sky, observing the battle. Currently, though, it’s camera was pointed towards him, as if she’d finally spotted him. He simply raised two metal fingers in a peace sign, reached over to his limp companion, and readied himself to move to the next closest piece of cover.

Peering across the front of the car, Proctor could see the front of the building that S’venia and anyone else part of the campaign could still be hiding in. Taking a moment to think, Proctor turned on his communicator to make sure everything was still alright in the hotel, but noticed no response whenever he tried to open his mic. Not even the usual static.

”The fuck?” Proctor rasped to himself. Either the comms were down, they’d kicked him off the network, or, somehow, his communicator had taken damage in the prior scuffle. No matter what the issue was, Proctor still needed to get inside, and the fact that S’venia was still operating her drone told him that it was probably still safe enough in the building that he need not worry.

The servomotors in Proctor’s leg’s sprang to life as he heaved his limp companion over his shoulder, making a last dead sprint for the front of the hotel. Without turning his head, Proctor could tell the fighting to his right had entered another fervor, as the air was perforated and hot with slugs of lead, flying all over the square. One burst of gunfire seemed to crack even louder than most, as an Enforcer, thinking Proctor was a Knight carrying a wounded comrade, started taking errant sprays at him. As the door got closer, as did the pursuing bullets, kicking up dirt and dust as they struck the walls past him and the ground around his feet. His vision tunneled as his urge to flee grew, his animalistic fear driving his machine legs to their limit, as they pounded along the cement.

Finally, as he neared the door, a burst found its mark, and loud metal Pangs! could be heard as it struck his right leg, ruining his balance and sending him stumbling into the front door, the door splintering from the impact of Proctor’s outstretched arms, and breaking away from its hinges. Crashing hard against the tile floor and landing rather uncomfortably on top on the limp Knight, Proctor could feel a dull, hot pain in his legs and a stinging in the rest of his body that found itself smashing into either the floor, or chucks of the door that hadn’t exactly gotten away from him in the fall. Proctor’s veins coursed with adrenaline as he ignored the pain waving across his body, and his arms shrugged off the Knight and the bits of door, freeing themselves so that he could rapidly sink his fingers into the floor tiles, cracking and crunching as he dragged himself rapidly forward away from the door. He wasn’t sure if the damage in his leg was serious or not, but he’d rather not chance further messing it up, and let his arms pull and yank on the floor as he grabbed onto a coffee table and slid behind it, near the center of the lobby.

Finally having a moment to think, he leaned his shoulder over onto the floor to get a look, focusing on the bloodied, still motionless man he had landed right on top of as they crashed through the door. The blood seemed to be seeping from a few cringe inducing gashes in his head caused not only by crashing through the door, but also the weight of Proctor falling on top of him.

Grimacing, Proctor turned his head and lifted his shoulder off the floor, ever aware of the cracking gunfire in the square, to look over the leg that had taken the impact of three bullets. His metallic hands slid over the metal in his legs, feeling the deep dents the bullets left, and found that one bullet was still, in fact, lodged in the side of his knee. With the adrenaline in his blood slowly leveling out, the searing pain waving up and down Proctor’s leg become more and more perceptible, and he gritted his teeth as he turned his leg to find that not only was it completely stiff, but one of the three bullets was still lodged cleanly in his leg, jutting in the side of his knee, rubbing against the motorized joint. Two lustrous dents were left in place of the other two impacts, so the damage overall was thankfully minimal, but the bullet in his knee seemed to be a little too much shock for the leg to handle.

”Ugh, fuck…”

Instantly leaning over the side of the table, Proctor’s face was one of complete astonishment as the Knight appeared to have finally woken up, shaky hands patting the bloody wounds on his head as he slowly struggled to wake up. As the gunfire and pain all over his body slowly became more and more perceptible, the Knight slowly sat up, and began crawling on his stomach over to the door, seeming to want to get a look.

”Shit!” Proctor rasped.

He pulled himself up using the coffee table as a brace, and gritted his teeth as he took a few stiff and painful lumbering steps, increasing in speed as he grew closer to the Knight. Locked at the joints, Proctor’s stiff leg gave away from under him, and his thudding impact on the tile floor alerted the Knight.

”Oh fuck! Not you again!”

The Knight turned over onto his back, and brought his legs up in an attempt to start throwing kicks at Proctor, who had begun grunting and growling as he pushed and pulled himself across the floor towards the Knight. After taking a rather irritating blow to the face, Proctor stuck his hands out to grab the Knight’s wildly flailing feet, grabbing one and pressing down with excruciating force. A cry of pain escaped the Knight’s lips as he began wilding kicked Proctor in the arms and face, to little result, besides bloodying his nose quite a bit. Through the kicks, however, Proctor grabbed both the man’s feet, and used his grip to leverage himself up onto one knee, the other stiff leg jutting behind him, hindering his balance. Now that he had the advantage, Proctor’s shoulders and elbows whirred sharply as he began to deliver savage blows to the Knight’s face and head, only needing a few to return him to his heavy, painful sleep.

Proctor panted heavily, each breath pushing more and more red blood down his face and over his mouth.

”S’venia! Anyone! Help me the fuck out!”

He gave a good, echoing yell, and fell down into his back, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he panted and spat blood out of his mouth, trying to wipe it away with his suit sleeve, which had become tattered and spattered with blood in the whole ordeal.

”Goddamn.

ℂ𝕒𝕕𝕦𝕔𝕖𝕦𝕤 𝕏𝕀𝕍

ℕ𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝟙𝟘𝕥𝕙, 𝟚𝟘𝟞𝟜 𝟙𝟟:𝟘𝟛

[𝔻𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕃𝕠𝕤𝕖 𝕐𝕠𝕦𝕣 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤], 𝕀𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘....

Awakening in a persistent vegetative state, unable to communicate...

His world, a black void. He couldn't move; he couldn't talk; he couldn't blink. He could think, and slowly the world seemed to start existing around him. It started with a mindless drone of indiscernible chatter. Then, the voices of surgeons.

"Dexter Campbell... Are you conscious? Can you hear us?" And those words were all it took. Campbell inherited the frenzied panic that the surgeons seemed to undertake in hushed voices in the foggiest moments of his thoughts. He remembered who he was, what he was doing, and even a little bit of what happened. There was an... event at the debate. He was assailed... And that was it. Everything else was lost to haze. Strange bits of memory seemed fragmented throughout his recollection of the past. Some details lost were important, others so ordinary and mundane that they would never be recovered. Only one detail was really certain about the mayoral candidate's state.

"No man sustains an injury like this and keeps all of himself..."

Caduceus XIV wasn't the largest hospital of South City, but backed by the Response Squad, there were few medical issues that couldn't be solved in the massive trauma center. The string of Caduceus hospitals seemed to be ever expanding as they multiplied out around America, but Caduceus XIV had a very particular hold in the west. Perhaps it was the rich clientele that kept the business afloat. Perhaps it was a different sort of business operating in the pristine labyrinth of white unseen that granted the complex so much capital. The public would certainly come with questions, but would never find answers. As much as the Caduceus hospitals of the Response Squad were bastions of public health, safety, and miracles, they were shadowy strongholds all the same. One could only wonder how a man like this found himself receiving such premium care.

Of course, the high price margin of the Caduceus hospitals didn't stop the unsavory from making their way inside one way or another. Eerily metallic and glowing mercenaries would camp in the cafeterias, whispering amongst themselves as they went about their business in the complex. Labcoats and security passes exchanged hands from one seemingly official doctor to one much more seedy-looking individual dressed in fatigues in transit through the halls. If one had a careful enough eye, they might even see strange shimmers appearing in the empty halls. There was always things going on beyond the surface of a Caduceus complex...

---

Dexter Campbell's breaths felt like bursts of lightning surging into his lungs. One moment, there was nothing, and the next, the sparks filling his body was all he could think about. He struggled in the tangle of medical cords and tubes that surrounded him until the doctors had finally restrained him. The rest of his awakening was no less hectic as he was forced back onto life support. It took a great while to calm him down. It took even longer for him to get used to the new sensory input around his skull and in his eye socket, but those things were the least of Campbell's worries.

"Did I—... Am I... Disqualified?" That was the first detail Campbell could manage as his reality seemed to fade back into his head, usurping the slew of drugs that overtook his mind in favor of a painless and thoughtless haze. Campbell seemed to recognize the fallacies of returning to the realm of reality as he cringed from the flaring pain. Above all else, though, it was the estrangement in his vision that tripped him up. One eye blurred with the faculties of biotic life and the other still calibrating after its implantation. Campbell could only muse on the fate of man as he lay prone in the stark white bed. Slowly, they'd all find mechanical components interlaced in their flesh. This was just a step... In the right direction? He wasn't sure.

"The election results have been postponed as a scandal has arisen regarding a late arrival on a shipment of voting kiosks. The results should be in within the day, Mr. Campbell. Until then, it's best you not worry. Just rest." The doctor's reassuring words helped the pained man very little. He couldn't help but try to discern the details of the past few days. For more answers, he could only turn to the array of visitors that seemed to be awaiting his awakening. Without much forethought, Campbell offered little more on the matter than "Send them in..."

The doors were opened, and while some physicians remained on standby, the enigmatic surgeon said to have treated Campbell seemed quick to start off down the halls. She was as unassuming as they came, but the secrets held by a Caduceus doctor were anything but ordinary.

@Firecracker_@The Bork Lazer@Opposition@MagratheanWhale@AdobeFlash@Prizrak@BurningCold

Phineas lounged in the back of the sleek campaign car. He took off his top hat, delicately setting it down beside him. South City sped by in a blur, a mixture of swanky high rises and dilapidated husks. The young man was on his way to the debates, the traffic in the city had made navigating a nightmare and living on the other side of town hadn't helped. The driver thought so too, an older man with a cranky attitude and little patience who was currently wishing plagues on people's families as they cut him off. Phineas couldn't help but smile.

Phineas logged into the net using his cybernetic eyes, hopping through data feeds and news sites with a mere thought. Some people might find the concept hard to grasp but it was just like walking at this point. Just another aspect of his body.



Phineas shook the grim thought away. Finally he accessed a live feed of the debate. He frowned as he saw they were already a quarter of the way through them. At this rate he'll only get to see the tail end of the first debate. Phineas minimized the net to see their progress through the city. They were stuck in wall to wall, bumper to bumper traffic. He groaned and mentally sent a message to the other communications personnel. He was gonna be here a while.



They had finally cleared the traffic jam and were rolling through town at an expeditious pace. The first debate had been something in the area of a disaster, but Phineas made a mental note to keep that to himself.

"Twenty minutes to the debates, Mr. Reggingston." said the driver in a surly voice. Phineas flashed a smile at him.

"Thank you, Mr. Kladov." replied Phineas. Ten minutes crawled by. Phineas had never been particularly fond of travelling by car. He preferred planes for speed and boats for the ocean view, but car was slow and restrictive. Especially when you have a middle aged Slavic insurgent. Well, former insurgent driving you around. A silent notification popped up in Phineas' field of view, a message from S'venia, the communications director. A rather extravagant name for a somewhat small position in this somewhat small campaign, Phineas thought to himself as he opened the message. Phineas felt his stomach drop at the text.

Dexter Campbell in the hospital, shooting in debates.

An address for the hospital was under the brief but concise message. Phineas took a minute to keep his breathing under control.

"Mr. Kladov, I've just been informed there was a shooting at the debates. Mr. Campbell was injured, Miss Skor has sent me the address of the hospital."

He rattled off the address to the driver.

"Please drive with haste." Phineas finished and felt an odd satisfaction at the burnout of the tires as the man changed course and put the pedal to the medal, no words needed. His mind reeled with the weight of the message followed by a confused anger. Which one of those spineless bastards had the gall to pull something like this? His first instinct went to Rott but Gatch was just as, if not more capable of doing something like this. Rott had the stomach but Gatch had the ability to get away with it. Phineas' had curled into a fist on his lap.

"Damn them."



While Phineas was sure that CXIV was a grand hospital with top of the line equipment and personnel, he was too worried to care. As soon as the car stopped he leaped out and raced inside. The urge to demand to see Dexter Campbell loudly was overwhelming but again, Phineas calmed himself and politely asked to see him. He was certain his eyebrow twitched when they asked him for some kind of ID. After about 10 minutes of vetting he was finally let through, only to see that he was in surgery. Phineas' nerves settled at the knowledge that he was in a room full of healthcare professionals and finally turned his attention to the waiting room. He recognized most of the people there as his campaign team. Who he had never actually properly met. Until now. Phineas sighed to himself.



Phineas took his hat in both hands, unconsciously spinning it.

"I suppose now is a good as time as any. My name is Phineas Reggingston, your new Press Secretary. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances..." He let the sentence trail off. It had been a long time since he felt awkward around people. He didn't like it. 30 minutes passed. An hour. Two hours. Each second was excruciating. Finally, the doctors emerged and wheeled a resting Dexter Campbell into his room. Phineas could practically feel the sigh of relief throughout the room. After some time of waiting, they were told Mr. Campbell could receive visitors now. Thinking it improper to greet him first as the person who probably knew him the least, he stepped aside with a small flourish and said to the nearest person.

"After you."

---

time : November 10th, 2064, 17:30

“ This one’s on you, Mackwell.”

Since when did he ever need permission? He closes his eyes and considers Amano's blank tone, as the Prismo HUD locks a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow through the maze-like sprawl. He thinks about what Amano is possibly trying to convey? Some semblance of trust? Laying the responsibility on him if he loses the voting machine? Settling already into the throes of defeat?

Heh, he couldn't care less. He grasps the steering wheel like a set of reigns.

His heart was beating.

No.



His heart was racing

He gunned it, tires spraying dust as Monica’s chassis lifted off from its double-digit acceleration into a steady triple-digit cruise. Twisting the steering wheel to the right, Monica blazed out of the train-yard like a bat out of hell, battering through the rusting poly-steel fencing and out into the open damp streets of the Reclaim Zone. Mackwell maneuvered the experimental muscle car through the labyrinthine Outer Zone, splitting puddles of water into mist and blitzing through derelict intersections. There was something to admire about the Outer Zone, despite the feeling that it was tortuously collapsing onto itself. The lack of order. No cops, no meter droids and best of all, no traffic lights. He burnt asphalt and broke every rule in the South City Municipal Road Code, shifting into the left of a forked road. Mack hoped that Cantos wouldn't end up barfing all over his backseat by the time they were done with this job.

The Reclaimer's was currently four kilometers away from them, trucking along at a slug's pace on an gargantuan flyover that resembled a ball of yarn. Most zoners knew it as the Knot. It was the nexus of roads that branched out to every highway that led out from South City. It would have been a violation of some obscure infrastructure legislation but in South City, zoners just learnt to deal and navigate through the tangle of bridges and roads. Another bureaucratic symptom of the screwed up government that ruled South City. 2,000 nitro-boosted horsepower engines, even if they were top of the line CHOO guzzlers, couldn't outpace his Monica forever. Mack was going to make sure that this wouldn't end up like the story of the tortoise and the hare.

" Nothing from Amano yet, samurai. I'd advise you to hang on, though." Mack hit the car into high gear, ignoring the DANGER signals popping up from his helmet's internal speedometer, coaxing Monica's to a hair breadth inch away from a roadside incident. He ignored the horns and shouts of anger from the other drivers on the road as both he and Cantos jolted up onto the overpass. For a moment, Mack was momentarily lost within the maze, the stack interchange reminding him of a ant's nest. It was impossible for human eyes to find the Reclaimer's truck. Fortunately, he had Fury chrome by his side. Being in the city right now, his Prismo notified him of reports on the Labyrinth about a suspicious truck smashing its way through I-830. The highway right below his pass right now.

Babe, what you're doing right now. It's crazy.

So, stop me.

Fortunately for the both of us, I like crazy.

Building up enough speed, Mack drove Monica off the side of the overpass at a 45 degree angle. The collision with the syn-crete divider may have impacted Monica's hood but he was relying on that. Too much speed and he would sail overhead the truck into oblivion. Too little and he'd be learning why cars weren’t meant to fly. The Prismo’s inertial dampeners prevented him from blacking out as he landed onto the underpass. He pressed on the accelerator and shifted Monica to high gear, preventing the Velocity from tumbling onto its side.

Just right behind the Reclaimer’s truck. Mack could see the truck driver’s eyes widen in the side view mirror.

“ Oh shit. It’s those same fuckers from before!” The driver barked out. Mack pulled it down to a low gear, still riding on the dizzying speeds of the short flight. He pulled out the Shredder, opened the window and leveled it towards one of the tires. He wasn’t a good shot but if he could just land one for once…...

As if on cue, the trailer door opened, skidding on the ground. The voting machine was visible but that wasn’t what caught his attention. The gatling gun was mounted on an articulated hydraulic arm mounted to the roof of the trailer. It was mean-looking, black chrome shining in the headlights, with meter-long barrels ready to make things look ugly as it was. The Reclaimer behind it locked the ammo drum into position before grinning at them mercilessly.

“ Say sayonara, bitches!”

The barrels began revving up before spitting out a volley of high-calibre rounds. Mack shifted the car into reverse, hiding behind a conga-line of vehicles in the right lane. The Reclaimer scythed through the traffic, blasting holes in them like swiss cheese until they were no more than perforated scrap metal. Mack’s hold on his Street-Shredder was wavering. They only had a minute before they would flatline.

“ This is gonna be a long night…..”