A Day in the Life Of, pt. 4

4) ...a Street Samurai
Hi, my name's Sergeant. The one over there with the long rifle is my older sister, Lieu. It's short for 'Lieutenant'. Our parents were weird.
  We were called in by Ronan to help with a short-notice all-hands-on-deck situation with a corporate hit squad going after some random schlub who might know too much. Also there was Miho, a tall blonde technomage we've worked with often (she and Lieu are friends from magic school) and Kano, a Miko with mismatched eyes and a friend of Miho's.
  Lieu and I were using the stun setting on our blasters for this. Not all blasters have a stun setting, but Lieu and I prefer those that do, and this kind of job is why. A six-person corporate 'cleaning crew' going into another district to put someone on ice is a very choice opportunity. The people who run the districts surrounding EvoVerysys hate the company, because it's always trying to muscle in on them in every way, but especially in criminal ways. This is probably not the first time these guys have tried to kill someone in this district, so they likely have outstanding warrants and bounties that the government of Lamplighter will be monetarily grateful to have fulfilled.
  More importantly than the blasters, though, was the shield. I have a big, heavy e-frame shield, which is basically a large square slab of aligned-crystal steel with a kinetic dispersion field over the front of it. For jobs like this, I also have a selection of sandwich boards I use to disguise the thing. Today I'd picked one advertising a free antivirus checkup for Embies. This is a service that does not exist. It used to be a common scam, but over time it became an almost universally understood running joke, instead. I say 'almost' because Kano didn't get the joke, and asked Miho about it when the latter laughed at it. But Kano is a special case.
  Daily life? Why? The shootout's the important part, right? ...that much? Wow, your boss must want these details real bad, and you know what, far be it from me to argue with the great Alejandro Angelos.
  Well, hm. My mornings are pretty uniform. I get up at eight, I eat some fish, I lift weights for an hour, then I drink a protein shake the autochef brews up for me, which is a little different each day depending on what the HomeDoc decides my body needs. Lieu does likewise. We share a house with two other people that we routinely adventure with, and it's big enough that we can each have some space to ourselves with no difficulty when we need it. The other people in the house are Miguel and Sarah. Miguel's an exorcist in training with the Order of Saint Sylvester - an 'exorcist' being the Catholic term for a guy who casts spells on behalf of their religion, rather than terms like 'priest' or 'cleric', which are more commonly used to describe preachers and people who do bookwork, respectively. Miguel gets up at the same time as Lieu and I, and does some calisthenics and runs with us. Sarah's a hacker and has a severe allergy to sunshine and exercise, or so she likes to joke. She's usually not up until later in the day, but she does sometimes like to watch me exercise.
  After breakfast, we run, Lieu, Miguel and I, and then I'm off to the range while the other two are off to the Academy for magic school stuff. Miguel's good enough at magic that he doesn't really need classes, but he doesn't really want to let on about that because it might draw attention from nosey types with badges and free time. That whole situation is weird to me, if I'm honest. I'm not even eighteen yet and I'm allowed to carry blasters and even explosives, but being good at magic gets you put on a watch list. As for Lieu, she actually tends to learn a lot in classes. She's also made a lot of friends there, including Miho, but Lieu tends to make friends wherever she goes. There is a reason we let her do all the talking with clients and such.
  Anyway, that's the Academy. The range is a large, multi-floor facility, and honestly calling it a 'range' is sort of an anachronism. There are live-fire ranges for shooting weapons, yes; that takes up one of the four floors, and another houses offices and locker rooms and such; the unimportant parts of a place like this that are needed for it to function but aren't where the interesting things tend to happen. The other two levels of the facility are places where you can be put through your paces in elaborate simulations of common combat situations using a combination of animatronics and virtual reality. This generally involves facing off against opponents made of a bunch of metal pipes and motors with a foam cover over them, using guns that mimic the behavior of weapons commonly seen on the street. The guns shoot digital signals that interact with a suit you wear that hooks into your Embie or ExComp to let you know if you were hit. You have guns that do the same thing to them, and your opponents are run through a scenario with a bunch of different scripts that the controlling computer shifts through based on what you've done so far. There are facilities like this all over M4, and most of them are better than this one, if I'm honest - more realistic-looking opponents made up of hard-light holograms, and often they're smarter, too. The thing is, I've found your average street thug never behaves like the smarter systems do, because your average street thug is either naturally stupid, or desperate enough to make them stupider than they would normally be. Honestly, the same goes for most corporate guards, too. I have very rarely fought with opponents who could read the room in a combat situation, who could anticipate what their opponent might do next and prepare or react accordingly. At this range the enemies always act like they're barely keeping up with what's happening and they have no idea what to do next, so they're desperately trying things and seeing what might save their necks -  and THAT is genuine realism, to me.
  Anyway, an hour at the range and a half hour of drills and I'm about done for the day. It's important not to overdo this sort of thing, you know? I take a shower, get on the subway and head towards home. I'm nearly there when I get a message from Lieu saying there's an all-hands-on-deck job and asking where I am. I tell her I'm near the station, and she says she'll drive by and pick me up. She's there less than a minute later, and then we're off. Miho's already in the front seat, so I'm in back. Miho tells me the situation while we go and I run an inventory on what we've got to deal with it; six-person kill team coming for a guy whose continued existence has been deemed very necessary. I check my and Lieu's gear, and ask Miho about hers. Lieu and I were wearing form-fitting armor concealed under baggy clothes, and we were packing energy weapons. The armor's light and flexible enough to be worn somewhat inconspicuously under clothes as long as you're not wearing skinny-jeans or something like that, and it's tough enough that it'll turn a few shots from blasters and cushion you from light-caliber ballistics fire. Different armors are tailored to different projectile-based problems, and ours were focused more on energy weapons than ballistics because that's what we run into, most of the time. Being able to wear it under clothing is important for Lieu and I, as well; we always wear the armor because we're paranoid, just like our parents wanted us to be. We had stun batons and utility knives as a backup, each of us had gas grenades in case we needed them, and Lieu has a little magic to back her up, now. We're fairly normal for adventurers (or mercenaries, or runners -- whatever you prefer to call our types) that are new but also successful. Lieu and I have previous combat training and so on that, I think, puts us above the norm but whatever.
  Miho's a bit newer at this, and magic is her focus instead of her side hustle so her kit is a bit different; a dual-mode ballistic gun (apparently spellcasters like guns that shoot solid projectiles because you can put magic in those, but you can't do the same with particle streams, and this makes up for energy weapons having greater impact and versatility). She wears reinforced athletics gear that looks like normal street clothes - current fashion, even - which is better than wearing baggy sweatpants and jerseys over armor if you can afford it. She tells me it's enchanted, too, although I'm not sure how much faith I would put in something like that. But all in all, the three of us are fairly typical guns for hire on the physical hardware front, aside from none of us having much in the way of cybernetics (Lieu has an artificial liver, but that's not the sort of thing people think about when they talk cybernetics, at least not in mercenary circles).
  We were the equivalent of locked and loaded on the digital front, too. Miho has a big overdeveloped ExComp that she made herself, and it's clear she can't decide whether she wants it to be cute or intimidating; but she's a hacker (and moreover, a techno-mage) with a good reputation, and if someone tried that avenue of attack on us they'd be making a mistake. Lieu and I have our Embies, and we have some aftermarket additions to make them more difficult to hack; this is about the most you can ask for if you're not a hacker yourself, honestly. However, if you have a friendly hacker around - like Miho, or like Sara in our usual work - they can usually keep people from trying anything. There's other ways, as you'll see in a bit.
  As we park, I catch motion and light out of the corner of my eye and turn to see Kano just walk out of a damn tree like it was the most normal thing in the world. Lieu tells me that seeing the light from that isn't normal, and apparently I have some sort of sixth sense for magic that could be useful if I honed it or whatever. I'm considering it, honestly. I've never thought of myself as anything but a ground-pounding grunt, but I'm also aware that that's just a stupid bit of self-perception put upon me by our parents, so I shouldn't really listen to it. Apparently about one person in seven thousand has a talent like this, so it's rare enough to be a bonus on my resume.
  Anyway, Kano. What to say about Kano. Jesus, uh. So Ronan, you said this whole thing was supposed to give people an idea of what normal is on M4, right? Well it's not Kano. I told you how Lieu, Miho and I prepare for various common adventure-related problems like being shot at or someone trying to hack us. Kano has different responses for these problems. On the digital front she just has nothing to attack, at all. All of her knowledge of technology is second-hand because she lives at a shrine where electronics don't work because of wild magic or something. She heats and lights her house with gas. On the physical front she wears robes and has magic bracers that are supposed to protect her, and for weapons she punches people when she isn't just casting spells. On the one hand this means nobody can hack her, or destabilize her equipment, or ruin her stuff with an EMP grenade, or disarm her by taking things from her, or cut the power to her house. On the other hand she has to go to doctors to get checkups, her house is hot during the summer and cold during the winter, she's got no refrigeration, no entertainment options, and she can't even buy groceries at most stores because major companies refuse to bother with physical currency. I genuinely cannot imagine living her life, like a camping trip that never ends.
  So. You've paid me to talk about what's normal in the mercenary business; why am I spending so much time talking about this weirdo who is way, way outside the norm? Because about one in twenty groups of adventurers has someone like her in it, in kind if not necessarily degree. You'll get a fledgling Elven wizard, or a Dwarven cleric, or a Tog ascetic, or a human obsessed with 'The Old Ways' or something, and they don't know what buttons are for, much less how to access the M4Web. Lieu tells me one of her friends from magic school thought that the M4Web had something to do with evil spiders and dark elves. A lot of these people either die or retire after a few runs, but the ones that stick to it and survive can get pretty scary, in terms of the bizarre magical nonsense they can pull off. About one in five groups has someone who's more like Miho; someone who casts spells, maybe even a full blown wizard or spellsword, but not so committed to the bit that they can't order food at a restaurant. Heck, Miguel's kind of like that; he's not an expert at technology, but he knows enough to cook food and watch his dramas. And you know what, it's good to have a magical healer like Kano along. Modern technology has some interesting ways to patch up bullet wounds but magic has fewer side effects. People like Kano seem really weird to me, and honestly to the vast majority of normal people - hell, people in some districts will see someone walking around in religious garb like hers and think they're picking a fight - but it's hard to argue with results in this business.
  We each go in and pick our tables. Lieu and I get a double near poor Bob, who is eating an enormous blob of carbs and just absolutely tuning out the world. Looking at his eyes move, I figure he's probably watching something on his Embie. Kano has a seat on the other side of him, and Miho sits across from her while she works on printing something. Her ExComp has a small, limited 3D printer in it that can produce legal forms when necessary, which is very handy for making quick contracts in our business, among other things. In a pinch she can print other things with it as well, like tools and such.
  As Miho's printing, Kano looks over at Bob and what he's eating. She probably also notices the way his eyes are darting around, like he's wide awake but dreaming, and she doesn't care for it. She asks her friend about the food as well ("Looks like Rocky Road." "Ah. A metaphor for life.") Once she has it ready, Miho heads to the counter to get the owner of the ice cream shop to sign off on the thing she printed out; an insurance form that'll make sure the owner can afford a new house if her current one gets blown up in the upcoming fight. It's not super necessary; we would have to fight Maintenance to keep them from rebuilding the house if it was leveled, and they don't really charge people for things like that. But all of the fixtures, all the food in the counter, all the personal touches, not to mention medical care for everyone who got hurt - someone would have to pay for all that, and Angelos wanted it to be him, not the owner of the place. I like working for people like that. (Noted.--A.A.)
  Miho's just getting wrapped up, and the owner and her adorable little kid are just hurrying back into the non-store portion of the house, when the van pulls up and the cleaning crew gets out. Four of them do, anyway; one stays in to keep the engine running and the last is staying in reserve. I get up first, putting myself - and more importantly, my shield with a joke wrapped around it - between Bob and the oncoming assault. Bob suddenly comes to his senses and gets down on the ground, which makes it easier for me to defend him, frankly; the shield's heavy and if it's resting on the ground I can maneuver it with one hand and use the other for a pistol, which is what I immediately drew from a holster across my abdomen. Lieu and Miho took up defensive positions in the booths, using them as cover. Kano stood near Miho with her arms crossed under her chest, seemingly unconcerned about the prospect of being shot at.
  The four cleaners immediately went loud with heavy blasters set to automatic fire, hosing the area around Bob and I with charged particles. The painted wood sandwichboard over my shield exploded into fiery chunks that were reduced to ashes before they'd had a chance to hit the ground, but the shield itself held firm for now. I say 'for now' because I was watching the power meter sink down pretty quick, and this was not going to hold up to this volume of fire for very long. Miho reported that the goons were all O.L., meaning that they had disabled their Embies so that they couldn't be hacked, and their weapons had similarly been rendered untouchable. This is technically illegal in many areas, including Lamplighter, but these guys weren't letting it stop them... and honestly, neither would I, if it became the only thing keeping someone from hijacking a weapon in my hand. Miho had other things she could try, though, and was working on it. Lieu and I didn't need digital chatter to coordinate, picking a target and focusing stun fire on him until he passed out - later on we'd learn he was suffering from heat stroke, which meant we'd overdone it a little, but better safe (for us) than sorry.
  The remaining three finally took notice of Lieu, and two of them tried to pick her off while the last guy out kept focusing on Bob and I. My shield was glad about this, but the restaurant's upholstery wasn't, and Lieu had to hug the floor to keep from getting caught in the burning upholstery as it fluttered upwards on its own thermal current. I didn't care for that, and I also didn't like that goon number five was getting out of the back of the van with another heavy blaster, ready to add his bit to the chorus of particle streams. Lieu peeked out from the side of her place behind a burning booth seat to take pot shots at them, but her position wasn't very good, and my pistol wasn't enough against their heavy subdermal armor. Should've brought the SMG, in hindsight, although that might not have been enough, either.
  And then their car died, its engine making a noise that would make any car owner panic; it sounded like it would never run again. While in truth it would probably be fine with a little fixing, it wasn't going anywhere right now and that definitely got their attention. The speed with which they went from composed and confident to panicking was breathtaking; they all started firing wildly into the restaurant, given that they couldn't see where Miho was (and figuring that Kano was probably not behind the hacking attack). Honestly I couldn't blame them for panicking; this had gone from a very simple shoot-and-scoot mission to a situation where they would have to first survive dealing with us, and then manage to get back to corporate headquarters on foot while dodging district police the entire way.
  Which might make their next decision seem more logical; one of them pulled out a fusion grenade, pulling the pin and throwing it in an arc that would carry it over my shield to land behind Bob and I. Fusion grenades are in the 'actually illegal' category; the logic seems to be that while people can have disagreements that they settle with guns or swords or whatever, any weapon that is indiscriminate enough to make their fight everyone else's problem is out of the question. The fusion grenade would probably be enough to bring the house down - literally - and would also kill the cleaning crew, but they apparently figured they were dead either way, so they might as well take us with them. Time slowed as I watched the thing arc through the air; I tried to calculate where it would land, and figure out if it would be worth it to get my shield onto it and maybe save us, as long as the other guys didn't keep shooting at Bob in the meantime. In fact, my perceptions were so sped up that I actually saw Kano step out of thin air in front of the grenade and grab it before vanishing again.
  I wasn't facing the right way to see it, but later on I would learn that she'd reappeared in the middle of the cleaning crew, whereupon she punted the grenade into the sky. I saw the light of the explosion before I heard the roar of its detonation wash over the building, rattling the windows and knocking some wooden shingles free, but it was far enough away that it did no more damage than that. She then turned to the guy who'd thrown the grenade and punched him in the chest, a gout of blue foxfire erupting out of her fist and right through him. As the target of her ire collapsed to the ground, Kano looked at the other guys and told them that they might get leniency if they surrendered, and they all dropped their weapons and held their hands out. I don't think they believed her so much as they wanted it to be true. For her part, she wasn't lying; she really thought they still had a chance. She was wrong, though.
  Anyway, the police came swooping in on the place after that, surprising exactly nobody. Ronan arrived at about the same time to wave his badge and warrant around at people and clear up who was on what side of the law, here. I tried to pay attention to the argument that went on there, but I was too busy thinking about how to deal with a fusion grenade the next time some desperate idiot pulled one out. I don't have answers yet, but I've signed up for a class in demolition disposal, so I'll let you know what I learn from that if you want.
  Short version of that is, Lieu and Ronan handled it, and Miho, Kano and I weren't much help. After that we piled into our car - Kano and I flanked Bob in the back seat, Miho rode shotgun, Lieu drove, and Ronan had his own vehicle that he drove ahead of us in. We had a police car come along as escort, too, which is too bad, because he was the first one targeted by the next wave of cleaners.
  Three vans this time, apparently coming in on a double-or-nothing mentality as we got onto the elevated freeway heading north under the Hat. I don't know what kind of engines those things had, because Lieu's car is pretty damn fast and they had no problem catching up to us. One of them came up alongside the cop car and steered into them, knocking them into a spin towards the ferrocrete guardrail of the freeway, which blessedly held intact. The other two kept after us while that one took its time getting back up to speed. I popped up through the moonroof with a blaster rifle and started spraying shots at one of them; Miho rolled down her window and then chanted over her gun for a bit before leaning out the window and firing the underslung caster-shell launcher at one of the van's grills. The shell exploded in a harmless cloud of silvery motes, like chaff, but the vehicle stalled immediately, rolling to an ungraceful stop as the driver struggled to steer it out of traffic. Then Lieu was swerving wildly to try to avoid the return fire from the two vans. Ronan was trying to slow down to keep from losing us, but he couldn't really do anything here, since he didn't have any friends with guns riding in his car with him. Kano was looking out the back window with a contemplative expression like she was trying to figure out how she could help here, and then she looked at Bob. Bob looked at her and said, "The Queen says help's here" right before someone in power armor fell out of the sky and landed on one of the vans, crushing its engine into the pavement. They then turned and shot at the other van with a piece of field artillery they were holding like a pistol before taking to the air with the thrusters mounted on the back of their suit. Yeah, I guess that qualifies as help.
  Meanwhile in front of us, a very large, very shiny VTOL emblazoned with the Guardian Angel logo was descending onto the freeway and lowering a ramp. All of us with M4Web connectivity got a message at the same time; "Buenas tardes, amigos! This is Alejandro Angelos; please proceed up the ramp and I will take you very far from the reach of EvoVersys and their unfortunate matónes."
  continued in part 5